Sitting up, I looked at the old man. He seemed to be much more fazed by Kohana than anyone else here. Looking around the temple, the holes in the walls and the rooftopwere all patched up and fixed. There was even a door in place of the curtain that was there last night. A foul smell sifted from the man. It wasn't body odour, and it wasn't as bad as a decaying body, but it was just as bad. His clothes were covered in torn bits and dirt, some sand all through the fabric. The odd part was that there was no blood anywhere. I looked at Honger. He had this glare aimed at the old man. He and I both knew something was odd with this man.
"What happened there?" Brother asked. The man looked down to his left side before turning back to Xie Lian.
"Have you not heard of it?" The old man asked, clearly something was wrong. It may have been about a century or two ago, but it was still there in my mind, waiting to come out.
"If I'm not mistaken, it's an oasis, right? I hear the view of the moon is lovely," brother said, his soft voice pleasing to anyone's ears.
"'Lovely'?" The man mimicked something bad that happened while I was away. "Perhaps it was two hundred years ago, but these days it should be called the death pass."
The man looked away from the Flower sword. This man is hiding something. Wait a minute. He fled from the desert to here. why-
"It's true that half the people who journey through there never return." The man spoke with a hushed, almost torn-sounding voice.
"And why's that?" My brother asked as I got up and stood beside Honger.
"I've seen it with my own eyes. I was a part of a caravan passing through when I met a gruesome fate!" They spoke in a panicked tone, too panicked. He's faking it. He isn't a victim. "However, something odd happened, and the sixty people I was with were nowhere to be found! No one was left but me."
I glared at this man. Kiyoshi hid behind me while Kohana had her fan clenched in her hand. I could feel Honger had the same idea that this person was hiding something. Flower sword had a curious expression on his face. This man is here for something, and I don't like it.
"Mother, what's going on?" Kiyoshi whispered to me, looking up at me. I could only shrug my shoulders with a faint, distrustful look on my face.
"How long would you say the crescent pass has been happening?" My brother asked the man, and my attention was pulled to them again. My mind is still foggy after yesterday, but I can still see how fake his body language is.
"Honestly, I'm not sure how true it is. But rumour has it, it started one hundred fifty years ago when an evil Daoist seized control."
"Hang on," Honger said as the man finished. "You claimed you fled all the way from Crescent Pass?"
"I did. I barely made it out alive!"
"Ah." Honger and I looked at Xie Lian, who gave a smile while closing his eyes. Turning to a bowl beside him, he picked it up and held it out for the man.
"You must be thirsty from your travels here." My brother spoke as I shifted Kiyoshi to remain hidden behind Kohana so I could stand with Xie Lian. "Have some water."
I stood with Xie Lian while Kohana stood in front of Kiyoshi in case of anything. My hand on my sword's hilt, I prepared to take it out and fight if needed. The sound from the man as he drank the water wasn't like a person swallowing. It was like filling a water bag.
"Enough!" the brother shouted, snagging the puppet's wrist as the bowl crashed to the floor, sloshing the water across the floor. "You can't drink it, I see."