Bai Fenfeng’s branch had none of the sheen of the main family’s campus. Tiles hung haphazardly from roofs. Weeds sprung up in the corners of yards and gardens. Paint cracked and peeled, none of the care of the main family’s campus given to appearance. The stark contrast left her branch looking derelict, though it would be more correct to call it in need of small repairs.

Hui looked around. Unlike the main campus, the streets stood empty. No one practiced in the fields. No cultivators swept along the paths. In the distance, bamboo chimes sounded on the wind, hauntingly hollow.

“Now I’m certain: there’s something going on,” Bai Xue declared.

A blur caught the corner of Hui’s eyes and darted down one of the side paths. He started for it, but Bai Xue strode dead ahead. Hui hesitated. “Er, Xue, I—”

She lifted a hand. Hui fell silent.

The center of town spread before them. An empty square surrounded by simple buildings, it, too, was empty. Nothing stirred but the wind in the grass. The breeze clattered through a nearby bamboo stand.

Li Xiang drew her sword. Xue tossed a fan idly in one hand, tense. Hui clutched a talisman. This isn’t right.

“Where is everyone?” Hui muttered.

Bai Xue swept her fans at the floor. Frost spread out from her, stretching over the entire complex. Hoarfrost bristled from the buildings. Icicles formed under the eaves. Ice encased each blade of grass and stalk of bamboo.

Hui hugged his arms, shivering in the sudden cold. His breath clouded on the air before him. “Elder sister Xue, are you trying to freeze us to death?”

She clicked her tongue. “I can sense body heat with my frost. The village is empty, aside from us.”

Hui’s brows furrowed. Wait. If there’s no one left in the village, where did that blur of a person go?

He glanced down, then jumped back. Backing up to a nearby building, he grabbed onto a pillar and scooted up to the roof.

“What is it?” Bai Xue asked, frowning at him.

“Look down!” Hui said.

Under their feet, the ice melted more rapidly than anywhere else in the village. Already, the white frost gave way to clear, delicate melting ice. Everywhere else, frost laid thick, still whitening the ground.

“What is that?” Li Xiang asked, curious.

“There’s got to be a heat source under the town square,” Hui deduced. A heat source… and maybe the source of our troubles?

Bai Xue’s eyes widened. “How do we get down there?”

Li Xiang leaped into the air. “Let me try!”

Bai Xue bolted out of her way.

She sliced at the ground. A rift opened up where she slashed, a good six inches into the path, but only revealed dirt. Li Xiang frowned and leaped, slicing again.

Hui drew a talisman out of his robes, flinching all the while. Argh, my precious money! Oh well, it’s for a good cause. “Boulder-Splitting Wind!”

Another gash opened up in the ground. It intersected with one of Li Xiang’s slashes and cut another few inches deep. Where they intersected, the soil cracked, crumbling into darkness, and revealed a gap about a forearm in length into shadow.

Bai Xue darted in, curious.

Movement from the building below Hui. A dark shape dashed at Bai Xue. He jumped down and shoved Bai Xue out of the way, narrowly ducking it himself. “Bai Xue, watch out!”

A figure shambled toward them from the building Hui had stood on. Limbs heavy with frost, skin gray, the ghoul reached out for them. Another stepped out of another building, and then another. Li Xiang landed beside them, sword at the ready. The three of them backed toward one another until their shoulders touched.

“Ghouls?” Bai Xue snapped, raising her fans.

“Looks like it,” Hui replied.

Bai Xue frowned, leaning in toward the ghoul. “Wait, I recognize these. These… I brought them back to the clan when they were alive. They were infected with lotus pills!”

“Eh? Who made them ghouls?” Hui asked.

Bai Xue threw up her hands. “I thought they were being put in isolation! This is the last time I trust anything to a side family.”

“Bai Fenfeng’s family is the one who handled the isolation of the lotus pill-infected cultivators?” Hui murmured to himself. If they’re also involved in distributing the lotus pills… suddenly, everything falls into place! Bai Xue and her side go out and capture the infected, then bring them back, where Bai Fenfeng ‘isolates’ them—or, in other words, protects them until they produce more lotus pills! The lotus pills Bai Xue recovered, too… I bet they mysteriously found their way back to the streets, as well.

Dangerous, this is dangerous! What have I gotten myself into? Master, what is this mess?

“We need to notify your clan!” Li Xiang said.

“What on earth is Bai Fenfeng doing?” Bai Xue grumbled.

Hui raised a fire talisman. “Let’s survive this first!”

A shadowy, blurry figure appeared atop one of the nearest buildings. They crossed their arms and tipped their head back. “Leave. Now,” a familiar voice demanded.

“Jingwen?” Hui asked. He put a hand to his robes. The jade buzzed persistently. Eh? Her?

“Who is Jingwen? I’m a mysterious demonic cultivator,” the figure replied.

“Jingwen, we grew up together. You’re a thousand years too early to fool me,” Bai Xue said, shaking her head.

“Ah, it’s Jingwen? I thought I knew the voice!” Li Xiang said, nodding.

The figure fell silent. They coughed. “No, I’m—”

“Jingwen, please. What do you want? Is this all to kill me?” Hui asked, stepping forward. Surely it’s not that. I’m just a small second-stage cultivator. She doesn’t need a grand plot to end my little life.

With a sigh, Jingwen dismissed the blur. Her braid frazzled a bit at the end, and her sleepy eyes looked more tired than ever. “Please, you have to leave.”

“What? Why?” Hui asked.

Jingwen gave him a disgusted look. “I don’t care about you. Xue, please leave. I don’t want you to get caught up in this.”

If you don’t care about me, why’d you call me here? Hui thought, frustrated.

No, wait. She called Master here. Maybe she doesn’t know I’m here because she called me--er, Master. And... to be honest, it makes a lot of sense. If Master came here, a peerless genius like him would probably fix everything in a day.

Instead, she got me. And then, on top of that, Bai Xue decided to pretend she was going to marry me. How troublesome! How am I going to convince her that I’m here to help?

Oh well. At this point, I’m too deep in it. It doesn’t matter.

“Caught up in… what?” Xue asked.

Jingwen hesitated. She glanced around. “I can’t—”

“Does it have to do with the lotus pills?” Hui asked.

She jolted, then shook her head. “Go, just go, please. If you run now, you can still—”

“Oh, what’s this? Jingwen, are you betraying us?”

All heads turned. Erlan hovered high above, still dangling Gu Tian by the belt.

“No! I—” Jingwen protested, then fell silent.

“Ah, well. It’s almost done. A few more hours, and none of this will matter.”

“What’s going on?” Bai Xue demanded, flourishing her blades threateningly.

Erlan tipped his head, then smiled. “Why don’t I show you?”

He raised his hand up high, held out like a blade. Dark energy condensed around his hand. An immense pressure exuded from his hand, heavy and sharp.

“Run!” Hui shouted.

The three of them scattered. Jingwen crouched down on the rooftop. Hui ducked behind his trusty pillar, huddling tight to its surface.

Erlan sliced at the ground. Black energy rushed from his hand and blasted the street open. The ghouls fell aside, destroyed in the blast.

A wave of energy blew past Hui. He huddled behind the pillar, squeezed up against it. Wind rushed by, mixed with bits of brick and earth. When it settled, Hui peered out at the street.

Where the central square had been, now only a gash remained. The first few feet cut through stone and earth. Below that, a cave opened, gaping wide beneath the earth. Leaving the protection of the pillar, Hui crept closer to get a better look.

Black petals, slowly unfurling. A bud stretching up toward the sky, half-bloomed. Hui gasped. Is that—

“Ah, now it’s much more interesting! Good, good. This will make a much more beautiful image,” Erlan said, nodding. He held his hand out toward the three of them. “This bud will bloom in six hours, at midnight. I don’t need to tell you what will happen when it fully blooms.”

“Why?” Bai Xue snarled, glaring at him.

“Why? I thought it would be boring if it all went according to—oh, you mean, why. Why the lotus pills. Why do any of this. Mmm, I can’t rightfully say. I understand a member of our sect cast a curse on—on you,” Erlan realized. His eyes widened, and he giggled, covering his mouth with a hand.

“This is about my curse?” Bai Xue asked, baffled.

“Oh, no, no. That’s why we’re here. Not me, but—anyways, that’s not what you asked. Why is your Bai Fenfeng attacking her own clan, that’s what you wanted to know, yes? You’ll have to ask her yourself. I personally have no interest in such trite intrigues. They aren’t very beautiful.”

Hui nodded to himself. Yep, as I thought. This fine expert is insane.

Li Xiang bolted for the gash, sword drawn.

“Oh, tch, tch, tch, not yet,” Erlan said. He waved his hand. Li Xiang went flying back in a mess of skirts and sword and landed in a crumpled pile on the far side of the hole in the ground.

“Li Xiang!” Hui shouted. He ran for her, sprinting around the edge of the gash.

“Now, we can’t make it too easy for you. Gu Tian,” he requested, turning to the boy in his grasp.

Gu Tian raised his flute to his lips.

“No!” From ahead of Hui, Bai Xue burst out from behind a boulder and slashed with her fans. Ice rocketed at Gu Tian.

He flinched, lowering the flute.

Erlan clicked his tongue again and flicked his hand, effortlessly deflecting the ice.

She raced for Hui, her hand out. “Energy! Now!”

He reached out for her. Their hands met. Black crawled over Bai Xue.

“Eh? Oh! Oh, how beautiful! What lovely desperation! No, no, no, but it’s not time for that yet. No worries, pretties. Gu Tian isn’t going to bloom the bud. No, it’s something much more interesting.”

The high, reedy sound of a flute sounded over the clan’s complex. Dark clouds condensed around them. Sprouting up between Hui and Xue, the clouds forcibly separated them. Spun around, bounced and shifted by the cloud, Hui stumbled. “Xue!”

Distantly, he heard a reply, now deep and gruff. “Hui?”

Dark mist settled around them, completely obscuring the complex. He turned blindly, searching. “Li Xiang!”

“Hui, I’m here!” she shouted, equally distant to his other side.

“Gu Tian’s flute is an ancient ghost-gathering artifact built by an honored demonic ancestor. That ancestor built this trial array into the flute to test new entrants to his sect. Don’t judge it by Gu Tian’s cultivation level: the array powers itself and has its own cultivation.

“If you navigate this array in six hours, the bud is yours to take, as far as I’m concerned. I will remove myself from the equation entirely. If you can’t…” Erlan chuckled. “Well, if the array doesn’t take you, then I will.”

“Phrasing,” Hui muttered.

“Oh? Did I speak wrongly?” Erlan asked.

Hui shivered. Elder, please! You don’t understand what your words imply!

Er, I hope you don’t understand what your words imply…

Erlan giggled. “Please show me your beautiful faces of despair!”