'Oh Lord. What if they chase us? I might not even receive the permission to go back to my own land!'
"MŌ QĪN!" Lìngxiāo called while his voice was low, tight with panic, his face turning pale. "Someone spotted us! Could you not be more careful?!"
"I was careful." Mō Qīn bit back. "Just they are being what they are. Even curses complain about their piercing gaze." Then he smirked, "and that is why we live in Yínglòu lands the most. It is peaceful."
Lìngxiāo couldn't believe how unserious this curse was.
"If I die," He whispered darkly, all final, "Then I would die with you here. You have no escape from me either. And I am not leaving until I have found a clue of my shù fù."
"The fuck, kid.." Mō Qīn muttered with amazement and disbelief. But still overconfident, "Then I am not Mō Qīn either if I get caught by those human puppets."
With that he dived down as fast as they had risen up into the sky, still never stopping following the moth—even when some of them had turned against their waves and came to attack them.
The same moths didn't waste time on them repeatedly. They would switch places by going back to their flock after lunging with lightning speed to brush their wings against their skin for two or three times, then another small group would do the same. That way they kept moving forward but also attacking whomever followed them.
"Keep your skin covered." Mō Qīn said, then reminded more clearly—in case this young boy had missed things. "Those moths burn human skin. And if one lands on your head, your soul would be taken. So be careful."
Lìngxiāo immediately wrapped his hood tighter against his body, tightening the rope of his hat so his head was secured too, not only like saving his dear hat which seemed to have grown up with him too.
"Do not think.. I did not notice. I just have not found full information about moth-type curses." Lìngxiāo reminded too.
His one eye shut which had caught some dust, yet no pause to clean it. He watched ahead with only one eye. Sometimes looking behind where the footsteps were coming without any voice.
"Good then. Falcon seemed to have taught you well." Mō Qīn hummed.
"He did." Lìngxiāo said with almost pride.
It also felt terrible with the cocktail of fear, urgency, and something close to excitement for exploring something which had never been explored after the liberation.
Mō Qīn, on the other hand, moved like he knew every inch of this place. He dodged an attack from both sides, spun right after coming close to a thick tree trunk and dodged at the last second which made a fair few numbers of moths hit it and fade into dark fogs.
A series of powerful spiritual energy, weapons were thrown from behind—making them dodge in every seconds.
The gusu cultivators didn't take too long to catch up with them. Their skilled legs catching up quickly but still far enough behind the deep bushes that nobody was able to fully see who Lìngxiāo was.
And since he wasn't officially registered in his career but still at the middle practice stage and professional—his name wasn't written in the textbook of 'Raising Legends of Yínglòu: Our Pride'
He was just an outsider who had broken in with a curse—for now.
A few of them actually died by the moth's touch that Lìngxiāo couldn't believe how—because they were known for being ten times more skilled and spotless, while here he hadn't received more than a harmless cut on his cheek—which had stopped bleeding right after he had gotten it.
It was almost suspicious. But perhaps luck came here too.
'Maybe..the Lord of Earth decided to let something better happen in my life after a long suffering.'
Lìngxiāo clung to Mō Qīn more. Not only because of the speed but like trying to make himself shorter so nothing poisonous could brush against his body.
While moving ahead with urgency, Lìngxiāo couldn't help but notice how people affect nature not just by destroying it but keeping it shut away.
This side of Fukaki felt just as hollow as the Gusu cultivators. Birds sang less. Insects tangled around the trees—bigger, darker in pigments that reflected light like rainbows and lastly—more poisonous looking.
'The more beauty the more dangerous:' this quote could be felt in bones by now.
After going much further, Mō Qīn stopped at the edge of a tree branch, making Lìngxiāo blink in confusion.
Mō Qīn looked behind from where the cultivators were launching even now. Then looked at him. "From here you have to go alone." He said.
"Why?" Lìngxiāo asked immediately, his gaze narrowed to the cultivators in every second.
"Two reasons: there would be a shrine you probably heard of where special-grade middle-class curses like me cannot enter without losing some of our abilities." Mō Qīn explained quickly, almost bitter.
"And second is—I need to stop the cultivators so you can make it there, because the curse you are following would probably fade away by their presence." He added.
But the first point only earned him a strange look from Lìngxiāo like he was hearing something alien.
'Is he for real?'
'Another story?'
Mō Qīn exhaled, smoke coming out from his breath as he said a little in detail. "I am not totally a pure special-grade first class. There is some lack—even if I am mostly marked as pure one."
When the cultivators were close again, Mō Qīn drew his tail hard over the ground, sending them flying backwards much further—yet like cockroaches with thirteen hearts, a few barely got injured.
The moths seemed more powerful than the slashes of Mō Qīn's tail. He did it repeatedly every time they came closer.
"Do you understand?" Mō Qīn asked impatiently, more likely ego-crushed by how those tiny moths could do more than his loud attacks couldn't. "Oh yeah, better if you do not add it up to legendary lore books. We curses are already done—how psychologically and biologically you all postmodernize not only special-grade yàos—but us too."
Lìngxiāo looked at him who had been watching them fall behind but also listened, faintly panting like he had ran—but still it felt a lot.
A thin sheet of sweat covering his neck, a drop sliding down from his forehead which even he didn't know was from fear of the future or from the heat here because the wind seemed to have stopped here too.
First, he really almost couldn't believe a single space between pure first class and middle-class first class could create this much difference.
The fact he had learned felt just worth it to write down—which he could take credit for inventing. Respect was more needed than money, and reasons for his existence were all on top.
He was never respected before, never known as the way he had imagined himself—that the rest of his reality felt like a play. But now since his uncle had brought him this far, he would go further as he could go without turning arrogant as most clan members—especially heirs—become.
So he kept this fact in his mind but didn't speak about it. The concern he managed once he knew things for what he had come for.
And about that shrine, he could tell what shrine it might be—it was that one built by the lost cultivators from Nihon from years ago which was named as 'Kamisama Onegai' which meant: Lord, please.
They kept it as a presentation of respect, but it was used as a power tool.
"Are you telling me that then this moth made it through there while you cannot?" Lìngxiāo asked carefully, almost starting to lightly measure up his next words.
"Am I speaking in my curse language that you cannot understand?" Mō Qīn groaned. "Or are you scared already?"
"Of course I am not scared. Your logic is just..unbelievable." Lìngxiāo tried to justify himself though his smile twitched at the edges with awkwardness and nervousness—the sharpness of him still trying to figure itself out.
"Because every. Single. Thing is not captured into your damn books of humans." Mō Qīn facepalmed with his tail. "You think I am joking now?"
"You always just joke that I cannot understand what is serious or not. Besides I was trying to understand if I had learned enough about the curses under that category you are in." Lìngxiāo said before jumping down from the tree.
"I can do it." He added with determination, not looking behind as one cultivator raised his sword over his head.
"See you if you are alive." Mō Qīn muttered flatly.
He punched away that cultivator who was about to attack him—by turning the edge of his tail into a round shape so that the sword ended up pierced into that same cultivator's stomach.
"And do not forget your promise. I need your hands—alive—to draw those freaking symbols to unlock myself fully." Mō Qīn reminded.
"Fine. Just do not kill them in real for no reason. It would only be problematic." With that, Lìngxiāo ran behind the moths, fading from Mō Qīn's sight.
Mō Qīn huffed in half-amazement, watching him for a second. "Strange kid. They are after us. After me—and expects me to keep them alive? They are just parasites with pretty faces."
His expression darkened with something more than he showed. "They should have been those 'humans' before killing her."
His dark gaze on the stabbed one which was trembling with blood loss.
Then his full attention turned to the cultivators, smirking. "Long time no see~ missed me perhaps!"
He lunged towards them, tangling around and squeezing them like his personal toys—shaking, throwing, burning, breaking—anything he wants.