“Junior Brother, how much longer will it be? Senior Sister Yao said there are more beasts like this one up ahead.”

  Hao ignored the words from behind. Spinning the knife in his hand, he found a soft spot in the hardened flesh of whatever kind of creature this was. Shelled, but not a tortoise. It was as gray as the stone environment it lived in, with claws longer than its fingers, and a nose twice that length.

  It wasn’t an intimidating beast, still, it gave them quite a surprise. Breaking the stone of the mountain and barreling towards them, its face sweeping the ground as it sniffed around. They did have some warning. The scraping on the stone as its claws shredded stone, and its stomach dragging, making a sound like a knife’s edge on a flint to spark a fire.

  Hao was quick to action, landing a blow on the creature’s back, but its body curled tight, and the skin made his hand bounce. Using a Water Breaking Fist, a style that enabled him to target inside, to organs beneath skin and muscle. He was able to do some damage, only enough to slow it down. It was the style of the five he was most familiar with, knowing its name since the first night in the mine, the second day on the mountain.

  Eventually, Hao could have whittled down the beast on his own, he had done it many times before. It was not stronger than the snake in terms of cultivation, but it had its own advantages in nature.

  Bao was the one to land a finishing blow. She had a long, sharp blade, nearly edgeless. Sturdy without a single shake from tip to hand. The gray beast fell as she drove that spike into its head, seemingly ignoring its armored hide and skull completely. It was rather surprising to see that Lang often played more of a support role. Creating openings for his wife, Bao.

  As for Yao, it was hard to pinpoint how she fought. She had a blade too, one wicked sharp single-edge longer than her arm and curved. She swung it like she was chopping wood, but pulling back before her strike landed. It reminded Hao of Li Tuzai, the leader of the food hall, when he butchered a Demonic Beast. He was dissecting, in a sense, so was she; easily, she could have hewn limbs.

  The whole group had been together for a while. How long was hard to tell, there was no light but the one that gave a constant glow stretching on the ceiling in the taller rooms?

  Yao was the one leading them. More suggested a path, and when they took it, something came out to surprise them. Not every large room connected to the tunnels had a beast; some just a carcass or a skeleton, some people, only bones. Others were empty, but that was not the common case.

  After they ran into their first beast as a group, Hao took the job of butchering it for a fair trade. Not that he loved the task. But it helped clear his mind, up his value as a part of the group, in case he needed to leverage that, and allowed him to start using the Spirit-Holding bag like a normal holding bag without drawing too much attention to it. He held an actual holding bag he had taken from another as cover.

  Lang, his voice was easily recognizable, took a step behind Hao. “Leave him be, let him work, we’ve seen him do it once already. I’m more curious if we will ever find this group of people fight a shelled beast you were talking about, Senior Sister Yao?”

  The fact that he was stepping near meant the person who asked the first question was Bao. A man’s wife could be fierce, and Bao would fall over and die before she let Yao and Lang get two steps close, unless swords were drawn.

  Lang walked to the side, shuttling his wife with him, the two sets of footsteps at his back told Hao where they went. He wasn’t sure if Lang could pick up on it. Each time someone got close to his back, he got slower with the knife, as his mind started spinning through scenarios and the Spirit-Holding bag for weapons.

  Hao was getting more used to the Spirit-Holding bag, it was where he went now when he rested. There was at least an illusion of fresh air, which was better than the stagnant air of the mountain halls. There was a draft every once in a while, but it only carried more mountain air and dust.

  Still, Yao seemed to revel in the wind. Whenever it came, she leapt so fast you would think the gust was carrying golden coins. Yao stood in one now. Her shawl lifted, floating back far too much for the term modesty to be applied.

  She stood in one now, waiting for it to end before she spoke. “Junior Lang, I told you that was before I ran into you two. Way before we found Little Brother. I don’t know how long or how far I have walked since then. This might not be the exact same path. Not if pangolin-like beasts like that are digging out the inside of this mountain. But you can hear the noise of fighting as well as I. Don’t blame me for things I can’t control.”

  Lang grunted, truly like a wolf trapped in the mountain. The longer he had the stone above him, the more agitated he got. Only serving to put the rest of the group on edge as much as he was.

  Bao tried to calm him, but encouraging words and smooches only went so far when every other day the dried blood on your fingers gained another layer, and you had nothing to wash it off.

  Not every conversation was so tense. But the news that there were more of these ahead brought a dozen questions to the woman, Yao. Mostly, Lang just shouted how this, how that. Only the first one was a valid question. Hao was curious about how Yao had passed these creatures before. But it could be explained away as they dug through the mountain, so they were never there before.

  Hao was just removing the large plate from its back and the lower parts of its limbs, including the claws, when Yao came over.

  “Little brother, I’ll let you use this for the back plates if you save the stomach for me, on all the other ones too?” She said, her smell overwhelming the scent coming off the beast. But no one trapped in a mountain with no chance to wash carried a great scent around with them.

  “Senior sister seems familiar with this?” Hao stood, a little out of breath, his shoulder wound that was reopened by Swordface was starting to sting more by the day. It was hard enough to act like it was normal when fighting. But it was starting to take his breath away when he was just sitting down.

  “Not this kind of beast itself, Demonic Beasts are unique to the environment. There are similar small animals like this where I grew up.” She handed over her sword, sheathless.

  Hao felt a little exasperated at the request, getting the stomach, “Is that the pangolin thing you mentioned?”

  He tried not to make his curiosity obvious. Not only did she have a silver-jade wing necklace, a symbol he only found in writings about the desert. But she also knew of something similar to this creature. Hao couldn’t believe the thing was real, even while dismantling it. The concept of a horse was still foreign to him.

  Yao laughed, no one was sure why. Her hand was holding her shawl to hide her mouth while she peered at Hao, “My favorite dish as a child was made with the whole pangolin. The best part was the stomach cooked crispy. It’s been a while since I had it. I’m curious if I can make it with this.” She struck the dead beast with a slap on its oversized hind leg. Her eyes seemed far off, like they were looking for a place that didn’t exist. There was nostalgia, but there was nothing fond about it.

  She turned to walk away but continued, “I’ll try it first, then little brother can have a taste if he is feeling bold.”

  The large blade sped up the process more than his shoulder slowed him. The curved spine of the blade allowed him to slide down in and sharpen enough to get multiple plates off at once.

  Hao got Lang to hold up the beast by its hind legs. It was better than listening to him whine to his wife like she was also his mother. The stomach had quite a surprise when he spilled it open, a mountain of worms and bugs pouring out. Even Lang dashed to the side.

  “Do you still want this?” Hao asked, expecting a visceral response from the woman.

  “Would you waste it otherwise? Just clean it,” Yao said, surprising the three as she helped Hao get it to the fire.

  Yao cooked away, with a fire blazing, all of them contributing wood when they needed a fire.

  Hao thought he would be the only one with wood, but it seemed each of them had prepared for the nights of the Secret Realm outside the mountain. He had to go through a long process of moving a few things over to the temporary holding bag he used. But always emptied stuff like blood, meat, and bones into the Spirit-Holding Bag in secret, inside there nothing would rot. He maintained his secrets as well, if not better than the other three, while contributing to the group.

  The beast was divided among the four. The couple, Lang and Bao, took slightly less overall since they shared what they took. But all of them ate together. If that were to happen today, it would be a different question.

  It didn’t smell bad and there was other stuff on the flame, but it was hard to ignore the cut of stomach shriveling and cracking on the flame.

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  Bao and Lang retreated, or so Hao thought they would, but standing at the side, they mouthed words to each other. No air passes through their throats.

  Yao watched them as she pulled a piece of the stomach off the fire, most of it cracking away like glass. “If little brother tries it, I will help him treat his shoulder.”

  Hao turned his head fast, looking beyond the piece of stomach at the woman, “There is nothing wrong with my shoulder.”

  Bao was the one in the group with sensory skills, yet it seemed that Yao had abilities with observation. It was bothersome trying to dance around these two women. If one didn’t pick up on something, the other did. Not that they shared what they knew with each other. So if both noticed something, it would be asked or called out twice.

  “Those two are talking about it. You’re slouching and sweating, and shivering all at the same time. You’re getting tired faster. Maybe you are stronger than you let on? But we will need you for the next room. We will need you more if we make it to the shelled demonic beast and it is still alive. You won’t want to run into a big, weakened group, would you?”

  Hao ignored most of it, but she hit a nail on its head with the last words. She couldn’t know the extent of his strength, even if he was weakened right now. He was just out of breath; he felt fine, it was already treated twice over. The last issue it could have been was infection, which Zhengqi had explained to him before, long before he could circulate World Energy as well as he did now.

  Just as he was about to disregard her concerns, he saw Lang touch his sword handle. Nothing unusual for the fidgety man, but the step he took towards Hao made his guard sharp.

  “Don’t worry, I just want to check the arm Bao treated the other day. You’re sweating a lot, Junior Brother.” The voice came from Lang, but it was Bao who was standing at the man’s side who directed the blade. Each tug on his sleeve altered his expression.

  Again? Hao thought. He didn’t notice before, but he felt a shiver in his arm. When he was inside the Spirit-Holding bag, he didn’t notice any of it, not even the sweat. He let the man approach, but he knocked the sword aside; if it touched him or his skin, he would respond. If he had to, now cornered like this, he could roll up the sleeve on his own.

  Bao covered her mouth, stepping out from behind Lang for the first time since she landed the killing blow on the beast. It couldn’t have been that bad. Yet her wide eyes and voiceless gasp spoke loud enough.

  Hao didn’t sigh but looked at Lang and Yao, one exasperatedly staring at his wife, but that was the extent of the emotional range he could express on his face. The other wiggling a crispy piece of stomach in his face with a smirk of triumph, rarely did that expression leave her face either.

  “You can wash it, nothing more,” Hao said, being unable to see it didn’t help much. But if they were reacting this way, something must have been wrong.

  Bao grabbed two bunches of her robe in her hands, pulling up the hem as she walked around Hao’s side. “Junior Brother, most of it has healed, but some of it will need to be restitched… and probably a lot more. It’s better if Junior Brother can recover before the fire dims, and we go to the next room. It could slow you down…” Lang stalked behind her.

  “I will cut away the bad and cauterize it. It’s the best you’ve got in this mountain, little brother.” Yao’s eyes deepened with her grin.

  Hao gritted his teeth. He looked between the women and the man, but Lang wasn’t giving any indication of what to do. How did I compare this man to Grandpa He? His leash is tighter, and his scowl is more like a carving than a painting.

  “Fine, but nothing more,” Hao relented.

  Yao jumped at the chance. Her long blade was given back to her, but she didn’t store it like a swordsman would; it was resting across her lap. With a flash, as her feet touched the ground, it vanished, her hand going out, “knife?” she spoke, placing the pangolin stomach in his hand.

  Hao gave her the butcher knife he had and found one of the smallest of the teeth of the snake he had fought the day he ran into this group of three. The largest fangs, even the medium-sized ones, were far too large, better as weapons than needles. He was going to let them start, but he was the one on the line; he took out a jar of liquor. They knew he had wine, they thought he was drunk when they first met him, as it was the only thing he had to wash with back then.

  “Wash it well, don’t do anything funny.” Hao stared at the fire, focusing on his hearing.

  He could hear Lang’s lips before any words came out. “It would be a good time to drink some of that.”

  “I’ve never drunk alcohol before. I know a bad example, though he is fun.” Hao’s own words sounded like drums underwater, deafeningly loud but muffled. Everything got much louder when he closed his eyes. He let half of it come in, but didn’t let it distract him.

  The sound of the knife creaking in the fire was clear in his ears, and so was the threading of the needle, whatever Bao was planning to use. He cycled that musty, red Qi into his stomach. Feeling it bubble as it had before, he let it build while they butchered and tied him. The alcohol burned, but it was nothing compared to the knife. Hao felt it remove bits of his flesh. Being carved made him want to squeal as fresh blood spilled.

  Then there was the pinching of the stitches as the feeling of the fang-needle poking through. The thread pulling through his flesh was stranger than the first time, perhaps because another person was doing it. It made his skin crawl, he wanted to kick his feet and run.

  He could have let his body rot and kept his mind in the Spirit-Holding bag. Forgotten about the outside world, how tempting it was, how freeing the very thought of existing without a body in that space. But he had to get that blackened blood out of his body, whatever it was. He knew it was detrimental.

  Hao didn’t spit out that blood in front of everyone. He brought his hand up to his mouth, letting the palm spray onto his palm. The red liquid vanished on contact, going into the space of the Spirit-Holding bag. The Drinking-Stone devoured it like it would any other blood, leaving a tiny golden bead in its place.

  “Junior Brother Hao. Senior Sister is going to do the last step.”

  Hao pretended not to hear Bao’s voice, but his eyes opened, and he thought of the ocean and storm clouds as the radiating heat of the knife passed him. He thought he heard a giggle in Yao’s throat as his skin began to melt. His eyes shot open, but the pain was not as bad as he thought it would be. It was nothing compared to the heat inside the Yang pillar with the Tiger carving. Or the heat of the Sun during noon outside. The longer it was there, the more it hurt, but he didn’t want to wail.

  Together, the two of them wrapped the bandage. Yao was using Hao himself as leverage, her soft fingers and long, cracked fingernails brushing his neck and collarbone.

  Bao stepped away, her footsteps trailing back to where Lang was walking around. He could hear her lips parting and a grumble in her throat, but no words came to his ear.

  Before he got the chance to open his eyes, he felt Yao rolling her fingers down his arm. She was moving Hao’s sleeve for him.

  Hao was about to shake her off when he heard a breath like a dragon’s roar in his ear, “I’m surprised little brother didn’t shout a little at least. No tears.”

  If the sound wasn’t so loud as to make him forget what silence was, he would have thought she sounded disappointed. It took all his restraint to avoid instantly knocking her away. His eardrum bounced like a tanning hide in the open wind.

  He shook his arm loose and moved to push her away. He was quick to his feet, faster to his fist, but he hid the tense hand by checking his shoulder and rolling down his sleeve the rest of the way.

  But he could shake that feeling. That smile on her face, like she was winning game after game, made his blood hot with anger. Hao could see it on her face before his eyes readjusted to the dark of the cave with the faint campfire glow. You’re worse than Meiqi woman. His half-caretaker, half-servant and mentor popped into his head. He was ready to shout, but Yao’s finger came close to his face.

  “Little Brother, you crushed it in your fist, but you already made a promise. You’ll have to eat it as it is.” The prim tone she spoke with made his eyes pop from his head. She dropped the hot knife to him, which he caught and, without thinking, sent into the Spirit-Holding bag. The warm steel vanished.

  Hao felt an instant cold, and all his anger vanished just as fast, realizing what he had done. He just hoped no one had noticed. It was harder and harder to control his emotions and himself since Grandpa He died. Not just his emotions, but his actions. They were getting affected by them directly. That was the first lesson he learned when he landed on the Drifting Stream Sect’s mountain. Control yourself outside if you want to live.

  Yao reached out for the fire, using a stick to pull another blanket of the crispy stomach to her hand. She tossed it around, the heat getting to her. She broke off a shard and turned to Hao, just as he was sitting down next to her at the fire. “Little Brother…” She stopped speaking. That smile on her face was gone as Hao looked at her with empty eyes. Her voice seemed flat to his ear, “... You should eat, it’s good for getting blood back…”

  Hao ate the crumbs of the crushed stomach. It tasted of vomit, and burned on the tongue, it was awfully sour. He swallowed it. It was better than the snake meat. But left a numb feeling and a metallic taste on his tongue. It faded as it came, but the lingering taste made him want to rinse his mouth.

  Yao retched, she spat, bouncing her tongue rapidly on the bottom lip, little bits of stomach turning to ash in the fire. Her hand lifted, and all the dirt and blood she had on it was gone. She began swiping away at her tongue with her finger.

  “Ah, not as good, not as good.” She repeated, “Little brother should eat the rest if he wants it. You can cook as a thank you.” That smile of triumph was almost back. But his growling stomach, being denied the food in front of her, stopped her.

  Hao took what bits it was not in the fire, using a temporary holding bag to store them. Using the same bag, he took out four berries. Purple and the size of a fist. He gave one to Yao, the surprise on her face was clear, and she spoke, but Hao blocked out her words entirely. Two more went to the other side of the room after he tapped on the ground for the attention of the whispering couple. They caught it just as surprised.

  “A thank you, let’s not have debts building up between us,” Hao said, keeping a decent smile on his face. He got up and walked in the direction they were going.

  “I would prefer some of that Wine,” Lang said, tossing the fruit in the air and catching it with one hand. The other was tapping away on his pommel.

  Hao chuckled, “Then Senior should learn how to stitch.”

  When Bao laughed, Hao had never seen a smile disappear so fast from a man’s face, Lang almost missed his second catch.

  “Are you sure Junior Brother doesn’t want to rest a while longer?” Despite the dirt on her face and her body, the gods modeled after a willow tree, when she smiled, Bao was quite attractive. It was just a shame the term spider rather than willow applied to her with the way she controlled Lang.

  Hao smiled back at her, curious if it was the first time since they met he looked any of them in the eye, “We can eat while we go forward. Everything will be fine before we make it to the Pangolins, was it?”

  Yao was walking over, each step swallowing time, a light draft keeping her shawl on her shoulder. “Little brother can even say it right.” She smiled, but Hao got the urge to check his neck for snake bites.