After the thunder faded, only the sound of fire remained beneath Mount Daoyuan.
Wind blew from the north, sweeping over scorched earth, collapsed houses, and bodies that had not yet grown cold. For a long time, the villagers on the high ground did not move. They looked like people shoved awake from a nightmare, unable to believe they had survived even though no demons stood before them anymore.
Then, in the distance, a broken roof beam collapsed.
Boom.
Someone trembled violently, as if finally returning to themselves, then rushed down from the high ground crying.
"Mother!"
With that cry, the dead silence was torn open.
More and more villagers stumbled back toward the village. Some called for parents, some for wives and children, some for brothers and sisters. Their voices echoed through the burned ruins, each one more urgent, each one hoarser than the last.
But often, the only answer was the crackle of wood burning in the fire.
Yuan Qingshan ran too.
At the edge of the high ground, he saw his father.
The broad-shouldered blacksmith was sitting beside a scorched stone, still holding his iron hammer. The hammerhead had been battered out of shape, covered in black blood and scraps of flesh. His shoulder had been torn open by a deep gash, half his clothes were burned, and his face was smeared with ash.
"Father!"
Yuan Qingshan threw himself forward and hugged him.
"Father, are you all right? Are you all right?"
The blacksmith froze for a moment, as if only then recognizing his son. Trembling, he put down the iron hammer and wrapped Yuan Qingshan tightly in his bloodstained arms.
"I'm all right… I'm all right…"
His voice was terribly hoarse.
Yuan Qingshan shook in his embrace, sobbing in broken gasps.
"Where's Mother? Where's my mother?"
The blacksmith's body stiffened.
He lowered his head and looked at Yuan Qingshan in his arms. His lips trembled several times, but no words came out.
Yuan Qingshan seemed to understand.
Slowly, he raised his head, and the hope in his eyes shattered little by little.
"Father…"
The blacksmith could no longer hold himself together. He hugged the boy and wept.
"I'm all right… but your mother…"
He did not finish.
Yuan Qingshan had already understood.
His body seemed to lose all strength. He knelt on the ground, clutching his father's clothes. Even when he had been seized by the demon, he had not cried like this. Now the sound forced its way from deep in his throat, broken, no longer like the voice of a boy.
Wu Chensi stood not far away, watching.
The wounds on his body still hurt.
The place on his chest where the demon soldier had kicked him throbbed with dull pain every time he breathed. His shoulder and arms were also covered in bites and claw marks from the demon hound. Some of the blood had already clotted. Some still dripped from his fingertips.
But he did not tend to it.
He dragged his injured body slowly toward the village.
The village no longer looked like itself.
The muddy road where children had run during the day was now a ruin. The old woman who sold salt lay by her threshold, half her body blocked by a fallen beam. In front of the wine shop, shattered jars lay everywhere, their contents mixed with blood and ash into a pungent sludge. Several chickens had burned to death beside a fence, their blackened feathers trembling faintly in the wind.
Wu Chensi walked past these places step by step.
He had thought he was already used to death.
There was death in the mountains every day.
Beasts died in traps. Hunters died in ravines. Wolves ate deer. Bears tore men apart. But this was different. This was not the deep mountain, not a hunting ground. This was the village where he sometimes came to trade pelts for grain and salt.
People here had once stuffed half a flatbread into his hand.
Some had wrinkled their noses at the smell of blood on him and told him to stand farther away.
Some had secretly said he was unlucky.
Some had added an extra pinch of salt to his sack in winter.
Now some of those people were crying.
And some would never speak again.
Wu Chensi stopped before a broken thatched house.
Half of it had burned down. Only a few blackened beams remained, leaning crookedly against the air. Two boys stood in front of the house.
One was tall and slender, his clothes scorched by fire, his face covered in ash and tear tracks. He knelt beside two bodies, hands gripping the edges of his clothes tightly, shoulders shaking.
The other boy stood beside him. He was a little younger, his face pale, but he did not cry. He only clenched his fists so tightly that his nails almost dug into his palms. His eyes were terrifyingly red.
Wu Chensi knew them.
"Brother Yunchuan…"
The kneeling boy jerked his head up.
When he saw Wu Chensi, it was as if he had finally found something to hold onto. He stumbled forward and embraced him tightly.
"Ah Si…"
Ling Yunchuan's voice was so choked it was almost impossible to hear.
"Ah Si, you're alive… you're still alive…"
The embrace made Wu Chensi's chest hurt, but he did not push him away.
He lifted a hand, hesitated, then gently patted Ling Yunchuan's back.
"Brother Yunchuan."
Then he looked toward the boy who had remained standing.
"Yunzhuang."
Nie Yunzhuang did not answer.
He stood where he was, fists clenching even tighter.
Wu Chensi looked at the two bodies behind them, and something seemed to block his throat.
They were Ling Yunchuan and Nie Yunzhuang's kin.
On ordinary days, Ling Yunchuan's mother often dried herbs outside the door. When she saw Wu Chensi come down the mountain, she would ask him to take some herbs back with him to keep insects away. Nie Yunzhuang's father was always stern and did not speak much, but once, when Wu Chensi traded pelts for grain, he had quietly slipped two extra steamed buns into the sack.
Now they lay there.
Half their bodies covered by burned black mats.
Wu Chensi said in a low voice,
"I thought… I would never see you again."
The moment he spoke, Nie Yunzhuang suddenly raised his head.
His eyes were bloodshot.
"You thought?"
His voice trembled, but there was a stabbing coldness in it.
"What does an orphan like you understand?"
Ling Yunchuan snapped his head back.
"Yunzhuang!"
Nie Yunzhuang seemed not to hear.
He stared hard at Wu Chensi, tears turning in his eyes, yet stubbornly refusing to fall.
"Do you understand the pain of losing family?"
Wu Chensi froze.
Ling Yunchuan let go of him and hurried to Nie Yunzhuang, grabbing his shoulders.
"Yunzhuang, don't say that!"
Nie Yunzhuang threw off his hands.
"Am I wrong?"
His voice suddenly rose.
"He never had parents! He never had them! How could he understand?"
The words fell, and the area around them went still.
Wu Chensi stood in place without speaking.
Blood and ash still clung to his face, but his eyes looked as though something had lightly pierced them.
He truly had no parents.
At least, none in his memory.
He only remembered the old hunter, the ruined temple, and the broken knife standing in the snow before the door. Whether that counted as family, he had never seriously thought about before. Because after the old hunter died, there was no one left for him to ask.
Ling Yunchuan's eyes were red as he shouted in a low voice,
"Nie Yunzhuang!"
Nie Yunzhuang's chest rose and fell violently.
It seemed he knew his words had gone too far, but he refused to lower his head. He only turned away and stared hard at the bodies beneath the mats.
"Why…"
His voice suddenly went hoarse.
"Why was it them who died…"
Ling Yunchuan could no longer hold back and collapsed to his knees, weeping.
Wu Chensi stood behind them, the hand around his short knife slowly loosening, then tightening again.
He did not know what to say.
The mountain had taught him to hunt, endure pain, make fire, and survive.
But no one had taught him what to say when facing another person's grief.
Just then, light footsteps sounded behind him.
The white-haired old Daoist walked over.
He did not disturb the two grieving boys at once. Instead, he first looked at the bodies before the thatched house and let out a soft sigh.
Wu Chensi turned and hurriedly bowed.
The movement was not proper.
It looked like something he had learned from watching villagers worship clay statues, stiff and clumsy.
"Thank you, immortal, for saving us."
The old Daoist looked at him.
"I am not an immortal."
Wu Chensi was taken aback.
Before he could speak, Nie Yunzhuang suddenly turned around.
His eyes were still red, and his voice was full of resentment he could no longer suppress.
"What immortal?"
He stared at the old Daoist.
"There isn't a good immortal in the heavens!"
Ling Yunchuan's expression changed.
"Yunzhuang!"
But Nie Yunzhuang seemed to have finally found somewhere to pour out his pain.
He stepped forward and pointed at the ruins and bodies all around them.
"You're so powerful. Why didn't you come earlier?"
"If you'd come earlier, my parents wouldn't be dead! Brother Yunchuan's family wouldn't be dead! So many people in the village wouldn't be dead!"
His voice grew hoarser and hoarser.
"Now that they're all dead, you come here pretending to be a savior immortal?"
Several villagers nearby heard him, and their expressions changed.
Some wanted to scold Nie Yunzhuang, but no words came out.
Because perhaps they had the same thought in their hearts.
Why not a little earlier?
Why did it have to be after the houses had burned, after people had died, after blood had flowed across the ground, that someone came to save them?
The old Daoist did not grow angry.
He only looked quietly at Nie Yunzhuang.
After a long while, he slowly said,
"The movements of the demons are not something I can control."
Nie Yunzhuang sneered.
"Then what kind of immortal are you?"
The old Daoist's tone remained calm.
"I told you, I am not an immortal."
He looked toward the village still burning in the distance.
"I am only a wandering Daoist. I was passing through Mount Daoyuan when I saw demonic energy rising to the sky, so I hurried here."
He paused.
"I came late."
Those four words fell, and the anger on Nie Yunzhuang's face stiffened.
The old Daoist did not defend himself.
Nor did he assume a lofty posture.
He only admitted that he had come late.
But the dead would not return because of that.
The ruins would not become homes again.
Nie Yunzhuang gritted his teeth and turned away, no longer looking at him.
The old Daoist took a small porcelain bottle from his sleeve and handed it to Wu Chensi.
"These are healing pills."
Wu Chensi accepted it.
The bottle was small and cool in his hand.
"Distribute them to the injured. Those with heavy wounds should take a whole pill first. Those lightly injured can take half. For external wounds, crush the pill and apply it to the injury. It can stop bleeding."
Wu Chensi nodded.
"All right."
The old Daoist glanced at his chest and shoulders.
"You are badly wounded too."
Wu Chensi shook his head.
"I can still move."
The old Daoist did not urge him further. He only said,
"Then save those who can still be saved first."
The words were light.
But Wu Chensi's heart sank.
Those who could still be saved.
What about those who could not?
He did not ask.
Because the answer lay all around them.
For the next stretch of time, the surviving villagers began searching through the ruins.
Some dragged the bodies of loved ones from beneath collapsed beams.
Some found missing children near the well.
Some held elders who no longer breathed, kneeling on the ground and refusing to let go.
Wu Chensi carried the porcelain bottle and moved back and forth among the villagers. He gave the pills to the heavily wounded, then did as the old Daoist instructed, crushing half-pills and mixing them with clean water before applying them to wounds.
The pills truly worked.
Some wounds that had been bleeding without end quickly stopped. Several villagers clawed by demons and barely breathing slowly regained a thread of life.
Yuan Qingshan helped support people.
His eyes were still red, but he no longer cried aloud.
Ling Yunchuan helped too.
He wiped his tears while bandaging injured children. Nie Yunzhuang, however, remained silent. He sat before the thatched house, guarding the bodies of his family. No matter who called him, he did not move.
The fires burned until the latter half of the night.
By the time a hint of gray-white appeared at the edge of the sky, the village was nothing but a broken, blackened skeleton.
The losses from this battle were devastating.
More people had died than survived.
Those who remained gathered on the high ground and looked silently at one another. Every face was smeared with ash and blood. In their eyes there was no joy at surviving, only bewilderment.
The village chief was dead.
Several elders discussed in low voices for a long time, and finally made a decision.
They could not stay here any longer.
If the demons could come once, they could come again.
The village was destroyed. The granary had burned. The well was fouled with blood. Even without demons, the remaining people would not last long.
"Go to Mirrorcloud City," an old man said hoarsely.
"There are walls there. Cultivators too. At least… at least we may live."
No one objected.
Because they had nowhere else to go.
Mirrorcloud City.
Wu Chensi had heard Yuan Qingshan mention it before.
It was a very distant place, said to have towering stone walls, cultivators who could fly on swords, and markets a hundred times larger than the village below the mountain. Those words had once sounded like stories. Now they had become the only road the survivors could hold onto.
The villagers began packing whatever they could still carry.
A few bags of grain that had not burned through.
Some smoke-blackened clothes.
A few usable farming tools.
And the ashes of loved ones.
Wu Chensi had nothing to pack.
His home was the ruined temple halfway up Mount Daoyuan.
Yet for some reason, he still walked back into the village.
Dawn was nearly here.
Gray-white morning light fell over the ruins, colder than the firelight of night.
Wu Chensi stood before a patch of ash, looking at the collapsed thatched houses, the blackened wall roots, and the burnt dust stirred by the wind.
Suddenly, the scene felt familiar.
Not this village.
Not these corpses.
But the fire.
A long time ago, there seemed to have been a fire like this too.
Larger.
Brighter.
Hotter.
Within the flames, people ran and cried. There was also a blurred figure holding something tightly in their arms.
Wu Chensi frowned.
His head suddenly began to hurt.
The pain came without warning, like a red-hot iron nail driven into his skull. He staggered and reached out to brace himself against a half-burned wooden post.
The ashes before his eyes began to twist.
He seemed to see a pair of bloodstained hands.
A figure swallowed by firelight.
Someone lowering their head to look at him, lips moving as if saying something.
But he could not hear.
The more he tried to hear, the more his head hurt.
"Wu Chensi?"
Someone called from far away.
Maybe Yuan Qingshan.
Maybe Ling Yunchuan.
Wu Chensi wanted to turn around, only to find that his body no longer obeyed him.
His vision darkened little by little.
In the end, he saw only the morning wind lifting a piece of ash, carrying it gently over the ruins.
The next moment.
Everything went black, and Wu Chensi collapsed heavily to the ground.