'Could this be..that curse..?'
'But I could..feel..'
'Is he..talking to those moths..?'
'Or me?'
Lìngxiāo's feet took him where that unique moth went. The place was full of those same moths, so the different one could be seen properly. He couldn't help but cover his body again.
"Show yourself already!" The firm but trembling voice broke out of his throat without caring for the risk again.
No answer came.
Just a mocking hum of question belonging to the same voice. "Hm?~"
The moths sat over the trees without leaves, filling a few branches of the lonely garden, their wings opening and closing before silencing completely.
"What have you done..to my shù fù? I know it is you..behind all of this mess." Lìngxiāo firmly called again, his desperation and suspicion boiling over.
The different moth didn't settle anywhere yet.
It flew towards a bone-white pale hand with long black nails which had nothing but a thin piece of black sleeve—too loose and dark like the smoke itself.
The curse was..almost half naked.
Or this thin layer of robe was the only thing over her body. Full of sudictive energy. Most of her pale back was covered by those poisonous moths which left no effects on him at all.
They belonged to him.
They were just sitting over him like they painted black flowers over his back with their wings.
"So..you are that tiny needle on my path, hm..?" The curse's head fell back carelessly, as if a bone had broken. A faint, knowing smirk played at his lips.
Her eyes were pitch black with crimson red under a silver mask carved like the moths themselves. "He..seemed to remember you until his useless last breath."
Her lips dark between deepest red and black—making them glow even more by licking his lips slowly as if she had just had something great at lunch, not even fully turned at him like she was holding something close over her half-covered chest
"You really did come stubbornly, kid. He was not lying. An honest insect, indeed, is he not?" She took the moth close to her nose in an almost chillingly tender way. It opened and closed its wings while turning fully white, the crimson red parts staying.
Then it stopped moving like it had gotten frozen.
The curse only put it over her hair like a decoration. The white moth was vibrant against her pitch-black straight long hair which seemed to fall from her head like a waterfall of ink.
"Then the next soul would be you, boy~" She purred, his smile dry and creepy—not because his teeth must look like flesh-eating fishes, but because of how he twisted his head.
They didn't have bones. Not real ones to feel pain if cracked.
He knows it. But it still sent a shiver so sharp that all of Lìngxiāo's hair stood up.
Lìngxiāo froze a few steps away, staring. Every word this guy said just made his hands go cold, not only trembling. His eyes narrowed towards whatever..the curse was handling with his other hand.
It felt like someone's head—the neck broken. The hands lay aside, but one still wore a ring he remembered. And those black hair, the way the pale mouth parted—as much as he can see—it kept scaring him, making his mouth bitter in reality.
'Does he mean..what it sounds like or..?'
'Is he..talking about shù fù..?'
'He calls him an insect?'
'I am a needle at his path..?'
He raised his talisman and needle at the same hand, between two fingers—though he felt really small in front of this curse.
Even Mō Qīn was nothing in front of her.
The curse's everything said how dangerous she was, and now Lìngxiāo was standing in front of him with no full skill to guarantee that he could make it out of here.
But for the sake of his uncle—he kept his feet firm on the ground, his eyes sharp.
"W-who are you?" Lìngxiāo pointed the needle at him, his eyes already feeling like they were burning. "What do you have to do..with my shù fù..?"
"I have no name." The curse mockingly yet sadly pouted, a little thoughtful. Not even violent as most curses are for being high-ranked. She was taking her time carefully. "Would you like to give me one?~"
"Shut up. I asked..you something." Lìngxiāo muttered. His voice fading at the edge. "Do not change the topic."
He threw one of his most powerful needles towards him out of desperation. Not just one but Mmultiple times. But—it just brushed against one of her moths' wings when it was about to hit his back, and got lifeless, falling over the ground.
It made the curse chuckle, staring down at the niddles like a toy. "Nice try. I would wish to see you grow up..more. Just as he wished.."
She finally turned to him fully, eyes on him, faintly pushing back the body's hair from its face. "I have heard him saying..that your smile with tears..is the most beautiful thing."
She tilted his head, pressing over the dead body's head like her own doll. "Would you show me?~"
She was handling nobody else but Lìngxiāo's beloved uncle.
'No..not shù fù too..'
'Why..?'
'What crime..have I committed..?'
Lìngxiāo forgot how to speak. Or stand.
His legs gave out just as they had at his father's death, ending up heavily on his back so that all of his bones shook as if the hurt was so physical and heavy that his whole body could feel it at every nerve.
It did too. Why wouldn't it?
His uncle's ordinary but lovingly beautiful black eyes—now sockets were empty, no eyes, just dark. No teeth in his mouth. His neck seemed cut a few times and then sewed like a doll. It reminded him of his father.
But at the end, his father had nothing left that made him 'him' which was even cruel.
But..he also couldn't tell what was worse and what was mercy.
Lìngxiāo didn't realize how freely those tears started to break out from his eyes—which he had been filling up with pain bit by bit with each hour of waiting.
His unremovable smile twitched once. Then again. Not like any other days when he missed his father at late nights or when his uncle just..teasingly said he would leave when he was capable of everything because he never needed him—he almost never wanted to grow up so that his uncle would remain with him forever.
But now..he really left. Just like this.
The silence was heavy and cold. Lìngxiāo lowered his head, his brown hair covering his face like the only curtain that never betrayed him or exposed him. More tears fell—on his golden robe, on the grass which was being covered by the firm touch of his hand over the soil.
"You know why he died so pathetically?" The curse spoke again. Her smirk chillingly softened as if pitying Lìngxiāo. "Though I liked him well~"
She didn't even pause to let Lìngxiāo digest what a big wound she had opened—more than the first one. "He was actually more then a hundred years old. Stayed youthful all by the miracle of my darkness."
Lìngxiāo's eyes were hollow as he listened.
The frozen fire just hardened under his grip. He couldn't think nor move. The truth that he was..this old. Yet still looked young, wearing an image like a person who just enjoyed life..it was the biggest mask removal he had ever thought of experiencing.
"In every twenty years, He was supposed to raise some orphanage children who were broken already, innocent but tangled around sin..it can be common insects. Better if some kind of golden boy who could be an exorcist or any cultivator." The curse continued, pausing like letting the words dig deeper than the last.
Lìngxiāo was trying to catch the patterns while his mind was freezing up. He was that type of child—the one who didn't know how he got tangled into this mess..but he did know he was something like that. Kidnapped. Raised beautifully like his own son. Was this the reason he was made..an exorcist? Because it was 'even better' to offer?
But for what? For just youth..?
"And then when they make a deep bonding with him, reached at the age of nineteen's last month..he would cut their throat by his own hands, tear out their beautiful hearts.." The curse gripped his uncle's hair to tilt it back while her other hand performed like she was already holding hearts.
"And lastly..their golden cores if they have..then bring to me so I can eat those tasty energies and emotions. The more deep bonding..the more powerful and alive I feel.." The curse added, clenching her fist, rubbing her fingers against each other carelessly so that some dark ashes actually fell from there too.
"And in return..I gave him a long life, a healthy youthful body which he never had. A cultivation core to the demonic path. All you have seen was his charming mask.." The curse grinned, shaking her head in pity, clicking tongue delabrately.
"You would not believe how. Disabled. He was to even breathe. Like a worm. Yaak!" She disgustingly gaged, pushing back her hair too gently which came to the front, biting her lower lip with his sharp fangs.
Lìngxiāo still didn't move. His hand was locked into his own made frozen fire. He didn't even look at his uncle's lifeless face again. He couldn't handle this much all at once.
He was everything which was included into the requirements of the cursed contract.
His time..to be sacrificed came much more early.
"But yeah. He was tasty—spiritually. Did not think about eating that long rotten body just yet. Might need to sew a bit to use at any other work" The curse made faces of disgust as she then carelessly dropped the body on the ground like her interest was gone.
Just with the soul.