MO RAN FELL silent.
Until this dream, not even he knew the scale of the terrors that lurked in his heart. His fears of Chu Wanning dying, of being questioned about his feelings for Shi Mei; his fear that this entire lifetime was no more than an ephemeral dream.
He lowered his head. For some reason—because of the dreamwake frost, or something else—he was so cold he was shaking.
Chu Wanning got to his feet. There were too many eyes upon them.
He and Mo Ran couldn't do anything to betray how close they were, especially considering how Mo Ran had clung to him and cried his name in the dream. If he hadn't fought back, Mo Ran might've shoved him to the ground right here in public. It hadn't gotten quite to that point, but Mo Ran's reaction had been so intense Chu Wanning wasn't sure what these bystanders had picked up on.
He slowly straightened his spine. He'd been sitting so long his legs were a mass of pins and needles.
Xue Meng instinctively reached out, but for some reason, he didn't go to help Chu Wanning up. It was Shi Mei who extended an arm and softly said, "Shizun, rest for a while."
Chu Wanning lowered his lashes. Without a word of excuse or explanation, he shrugged off his loosened outer robe. It fell around Mo Ran's shoulders with a flutter of fabric. "Wear this. You can give it back after the cold has faded."
Mo Ran didn't dare look at him too long either. "Yes, Shizun."
Everyone else had scattered to investigate the hall or search for triggers for hidden traps. Xue Zhengyong asked Mo Ran a few questions and, after being reassured of his nephew's health, patted his shoulder and walked toward the other sect leaders.
Only Xue Meng stayed where he was. Once everyone was far enough away, he bent down, glancing around, and whispered in tones of suppressed wrath, "What the hell did you dream about?"
Mo Ran said nothing.
"Answer me," Xue Meng ground out. "It was just a dream, that's all."
"Whatever it was, it's all stuff that's in your heart!" The light in Xue Meng's eyes was as scattered as his wits. "What were you thinking about? Are you… Are you…"
"I dreamt I killed people." The bone-deep cold made Mo Ran shiver.
Even his lips were white. "I dreamt I killed Shizun." "You—!"
"That's all, nothing else…"
Xue Meng's lips quivered as if he wanted to ask more, yet Mo Ran didn't sound like he was lying. But he said he dreamed about killing Shizun… Leaving aside the question of why Mo Ran feared this when he cared so deeply for his teacher… That expression on his face earlier, when he'd been clutching at Chu Wanning. Was that an emotion a disciple would display? Was there not something else there, too? Something like…
He dared not finish the thought. It felt as if he were steps away from the edge of an endless abyss.
The effects of the medicine gradually faded. Mo Ran moved to stand.
After hesitating a moment, Xue Meng helped him to his feet.
"Thank you," said Mo Ran. He looked over the other cultivators. "Was anyone else affected by the incense?"
"Just you. You ran too fast." Xue Meng, although still glum, was less volatile now. "Jiang Xi recognized the eighteen-demon-something incense the minute we entered."
"…Not eighteen demons. Nineteen hells."
"Whatever, the name doesn't matter. He concocted an antidote before we came in, so it was fine." Xue Meng paused, suddenly remembering something. "But we were lucky. If the timing had been different, it would've been bad."
"What happened?"
"You ran ahead too quickly, so you didn't see it. When we were on the way up the temple, a whole bunch of venomous snakes slithered out of Nangong Liu's basket. A ton of people were bitten, and they all had to stay behind and rest. The venom was really strong. Jiang Xi told us to go on ahead while he stayed behind to help… If that had happened, all these people would have fallen prey to the incense as soon as they reached the temple," Xue Meng said. "He only has one bottle of dreamwake frost. It wouldn't have been enough to treat everyone."
Mo Ran felt a prickle of unease. "Then why didn't he stay?"
"One of his disciples said he knew how to neutralize the toxin, so Jiang Xi left him there and came up with us."
Mo Ran furrowed his brow. His eyes roved over the Guyueye group one by one, but he didn't see the silhouette he sought. If Jiang Xi's disciple hadn't known a cure for that type of venom, there were only two people who could've stayed behind. One was Jiang Xi, and the other was Hua Binan.
"Where's Hua Binan?"
Xue Meng blinked. "You suspect Hanlin the Sage?" "It's just a question."
"There's nothing suspicious about his absence. Hua Binan got bitten too, so he stayed behind to meditate. But he's already got a lot of toxins in him; they said he just needs to rebalance himself before joining us."
Mo Ran's expression darkened. If Hanlin the Sage was so injured he couldn't move, then only Jiang Xi could have stayed behind to help. How lucky Jiang Xi had a disciple who knew this particular venom. Otherwise, Jiang Xi might've had to stay behind to treat the wounded. By the time he came up, what kind of scene would he have encountered? Would one bottle of dreamwake frost have been enough to fix things?
"Xue Meng." "Hm?"
"Be careful around Hua Binan."
The words hung in the air. Suddenly the ground shifted—a sound like a distant dragon's cry broke through the skies outside the hall.
One of the more skittish cultivators exclaimed, "What's happening?
What was that?"
One of the brave ones replied, "I'll go take a look."
The brave man rushed outside and looked up and down. "Don't worry," he said when he turned back around. "The mountain probably just makes that sound from time to time. It used to be the spirit of a demon dragon, after all."
As he lifted his foot to head back inside, he found it was stuck—a bone-white hand wrapped around his ankle. Stupefied, he stared down in silence.
Xue Zhengyong's sharp eyes saw it at once. "Look out!" he shouted, but it was too late. A corpse leapt out of the darkness, garbed in the crane robes of Rufeng. A ribbon bound its eyes, and the blade of its sword had cut straight through the cultivator's chest.
"I…" The man's eyes were wide and confused. He reached out, numbly touching the blade, then spat up a stomachful of blood and collapsed to the ground, unmoving.
The earth began quaking once more. Everyone looked out the hall doors to see thick bands of dragon sinew bursting out of the ground and whipping into the air, each bloody length wrapped around the body of a dead Rufeng disciple. From a distance, it looked like a swarm of wasps that had congregated in the sky above them—one ready to smash the hall's current inhabitants to a bloody pulp.
Master Ma covered his eyes with a cry. "Oh no no no, we're all gonna die!"
Listening to this infuriating merchant's wailing, Xue Zhengyong could have spit blood. He shut Master Ma's mouth with a smack to the back of his head, then shouted at the assembled crowd, "Close the doors! Seal the fucking doors! Don't let them in!"
Xue Zhengyong rushed at the first revenant, swaying with its bloodied sword in hand. With a flick of his fan, he pushed it away from the building, then kicked it down the long steps. Taking hold of one of the great doors of spiritual stone, he strained to close it with a grunt.
But for some reason, those doors were easy to push open but impossible to pull shut. Xue Zhengyong pulled them so hard veins protruded on his forearms, but all his might had as much effect as a drop of water in the ocean.
The dragon sinews were puppeteering the corpses ever closer. "What's going on?" Xue Zhengyong roared. "Didn't Nangong Changying just seal them all? This asshole dragon is fighting its own master!"
Mo Ran and Xue Meng had both run over to help Xue Zhengyong. "It's no use!" Nangong Si shouted. "The spiritual stones for the doors were hauled here by four thousand porters at my great-grandfather's command! You can't close them by yourselves."
Smoke seemed to puff from Huang Xiaoyue's ears. "Your great- grandfather sounds like a real piece of work!"
Nangong Si ignored him entirely. He turned to the group fending off Rufeng Sect's revenants and cried, "There's a mechanism inside that triggers the hall doors! Keep them off a while; I'll activate it."
Xue Zhengyong's fan moved so fast it looked like black smoke in his hand as he wielded it. With one flick, it flung more corpses away, leaving black blood splattered across the words Xue Is Beautiful. But these bodies were those of mighty warriors. They stood up again as soon as they fell to the bottom of the stairs and continued their assault.
"Hurry up!" Xue Zhengyong turned to yell. "There's more of them!
Fuck me… What the hell is happening?"
Mo Ran summoned Jiangui. The doors were their last line of defense; he rushed out to engage directly with the revenants on the stairs. But right away he ran into difficulty—he couldn't use all his strength on the narrow steps, and he had to be careful not to step off into thin air and tumble from the sky.
One lash of his whip knocked down a line of crawling corpses, only for the stinking dragon sinew to bring up more and more monsters around him. He was soon surrounded, lost in a sea of corpses with no way out. But Mo Ran wasn't intent on escape just yet. The revenants sought out the smell of humans, and he presented the closest target. Nearly all the corpses ran mindlessly toward him.
"Aiya," Master Ma sighed as he cowered, trembling, behind Jiang Xi. "How impressive Mo-zongshi is. How powerful, how powerful indeed."
Jiang Xi turned, annoyed. "Are you of no use beyond selling things?" "The things I'm good at take time to develop—arrays, techniques, weapon modifications… I'm no good at hand-to-hand combat." Master Ma met Jiang Xi's freezing gaze and choked. Squirming, he tentatively said, "I could maybe…cheer you guys on?"
Jiang Xi stared. To be fair, Master Ma wasn't wrong. Each sect had their strengths and weaknesses; when facing bloody conflict, not everyone could charge into the fray and walk out alive. Some would merely be rushing to their own deaths. Even Jiang Xi himself hung back this time: poison powders were useless on the dead.
Xue Meng stood before the doors with Longcheng unsheathed, eyes fixed on the black-garbed silhouette rising and falling amidst the sea of crane-garbed shadows. One bloody vine flew into the air, carrying a strong Rufeng disciple directly toward Mo Ran. Unable to stand by any longer, Xue Meng rushed over with sword in hand and hacked off the corpse's arm. He pressed his back against Mo Ran's, slashing another twisting vine apart. Blood sprayed into the air.
"Meng-er!" Xue Zhengyong howled. "Come back!" "It's fine! We've got this!"
It was clear whom he meant by we. Mo Ran turned his face slightly to Xue Meng. "Hurry back, I can handle this alone. You be the second line of defense; once I'm tired you can—"
"Shut up!" Longcheng sang in Xue Meng's hand as he grouched, "Who took first place at the Spiritual Mountain Competition—you or me? Who's the young master of Sisheng Peak—you or me? Who's stronger— you or me?"
Mo Ran said nothing. Chest blazing with warmth, he fell silent and turned all his attention to fighting back-to-back with Xue Meng, fending off the corpses pressing in on all sides.
They heard the rumble of the stone doors slowly closing inward. Overjoyed, Xue Zhengyong whooped, "They're moving! The doors are closing—hurry up, you two! Come back! Get over here!"
Mo Ran and Xue Meng were fighting in perfect concert, the red glow of Jiangui dancing alongside Longcheng's scarlet gleam. Metal clashed as they knocked a wave of corpses down through the clouds, bands of dragon sinew spurting blood as they were cut. They backed toward the temple as the doors groaned shut.
"You go in first," Xue Meng said.
"We'll go together," said Mo Ran. Met with Xue Meng's blank stare, he cried, "Hurry up! What are you waiting for?!"
"Hurry!" Xue Zhengyong bellowed from inside. "Get inside!"
Mo Ran grabbed Xue Meng by the lapels. "Let go!" Xue Meng raged. "Don't act the hero here, you—"
"Who's acting the hero? Time to go!"
Mo Ran yanked Xue Meng back and leapt up the steps, snapping Jiangui in a backhand lash and sending a last cluster of corpses flying. With Xue Meng in tow, he leapt toward the doors, still only half closed—they had plenty of time to spare. Mo Ran threw Xue Meng toward Xue Zhengyong and turned to face the horde outside. He took slow steps back toward the doors, eyes and willow vine alike sparking flame.
Suddenly, the massive stone doors ground to a halt. "Why did they stop?" Xue Meng exclaimed.
He turned and saw Nangong Si walking out from behind one of the massive stone pillars, ashen-faced. "The winch of the mechanism has been destroyed," he said, voice hollow. "The chain snapped. Ican't reattach it."
He raised his hand. Gripped in his wounded fist was a segment of bronze chain, clanking in the air.