Chapter 56: Chapter 54: Dinner with the Raven

Lang Lang did not like frowning, in fact he tried his best to avoid doing so in front of other people. But he could not help it as the corners of his lips turned downwards. Zhu Er slept bundled up in the raven’s outer robe near the wall, having eaten an alarming amount of fish and root vegetables that Lang Lang haphazardly tried to turn into stew before giving up and letting her eat the hot almost-mush. “You’ve got a bad sense of humor.”

“It’s not a joke, Lang Lang,” the raven’s talons clung to the pecked clean bones of a fish while the man himself sat with his knees tucked under his chin and his hands wrapped around his legs. “The Black River hasn’t flooded in four hundred years but then suddenly it swallows its banks with no warning, there were no storms or ice falls from mountains and the ocean had been still. Face eater nests have popped up far from the cursed parts of the North, and then shortly after a Free City in the West Kingdom burns down almost overnight with monsters pouring out from it and requiring Lady Gu to send half of her students to ensure at least some people survive? No, this isn’t reasonable. Worse yet, the pilgrim paths through the Silent Mountains have been closed off, nobody knows what’s going on past them. I haven’t dared fly close myself.”

“Is that just what your flock tells you?” Lang Lang said as he picked up his cup of water with one hand and a skewered fish with the other. He bit into the crispy fish but found his taste soured by the news the raven was giving him.

“No, I was talking to the Lady of Seven Caves, the Devourer of Tree Light, several of the Old Red Ghosts, some of the Grave Clans, jiaoren, and even a wanderer of the White Ash Desert.” he paused and the bird’s head cocked to the side. “All of them have been reporting strange events. In fact the wanderer’s words were most concerning.”

“What did the wanderer say? Are the gods themselves descending back to the mortal world to cleanse it in fire, water, and earth again?” Lang Lang laughed emptily.

“There was a strange flow of White Flame. Not diffused as it usually was. Like something was pulling most of it towards a singular location.Which makes some sense, the Lady of Seven Caves told me there had been more stillborns lately.”

“Oh so she must be eating well.”

The raven, both the man and the bird, narrowed his eyes, “be serious Lang Lang!”

Lang Lang did not want to be serious and wanted to laugh off his friend’s gloomy rambling. But he had known the raven for a long time. The raven had already known the speech of men by the time Lang Lang had died and had helped guide Lang Lang from the shaky steps of ravenous revenge to a self-sustaining self hatred that would no longer lash out at others. Something itched in the back of his mind and he slowly sat down his fish as he remembered the encounter earlier with the ‘fortune teller’. “...Actually…” he began slowly.

“Actually?”

He felt uncomfortable remembering the incident. Despite his best efforts he found himself connecting it to the events the raven told him about. “This morning a fortune teller approached me.”

The raven blinked, “not someone you know I guess.”

“Yes. She was sitting in the millet fields and disguised herself as an old woman. But she didn’t smell like a mortal human at all. Got through my maze curse without me even knowing, which should be impossible unless she flew, swam, or just sprouted out from the ground like a weed.”

“What did she smell like? Did she do anything?” The raven asked, leaning in towards him.

“She smelled… like good water,” Lang Lang folded his hands in his lap as he dug around the memory he had wanted to discard. “And she addressed me as the Lord of Hounds, Devourer of Five Hundred Immortals.”

“I think you’ve only eaten four hundred sixty two of them,” the bird hopped off the bones of the fish and into the hand of the man who set it upon his shoulder.

“She told me the gods like even numbers, also it’s sixty three now,” Lang Lang leaned back slightly to stare at the ceiling. “She said she had an offer for me, something about an association she was part of.”

The raven’s hands disappeared into his sleeves as he leaned against the wall behind him. “Did you ask for a name?”

“No, why would I? I didn’t have any interest in what she was offering.” He snorted.

“What were they offering?”

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Lang Lang shrugged, “to get the heavens to stop sending their lackeys after me. I can handle that on my own perfectly we-” he paused as he noticed the raven’s face darkening as though some clue had slipped into place.

“The only people who could do that would be an exceptionally powerful immortal in good standing or one of the gods themselves,” the raven’s voice was a dim thing now. “You said she smelled like good water, right?”

“Yes?”

“And the banks of the Black River overflowed without any warning,” the raven continued. “I think it may be a water god or an immortal well versed in the jade flame.”

“It’s annoying because this means I need to move the village again right before harvest,” Lang Lang complained. He looked over at Zhu Er, who was still and quiet in the bundle of robes next to the wall. All of the villagers had already experienced him moving the town at least once before and he worried how she would take to it.

The raven looked at Lang Lang in sympathy, “if your people need aid for food, I will help.”

That made Lang Lang feel a little bit better before something else ticked in his brain. “Also, remember when I said I found Zhu Er in a forest?”

“Yes?”

“Well, the forest was by a free city. The place was stuffed with poisoned white flame. I wonder if that’s connected too.” Lang Lang mused.

“Did the city burn down?”

Lang Lang shrugged, “no idea. But if there was such a pull in the White Ash Desert that a wanderer felt it then I think that’d be a likely location. I actually went to it in the first place because it was so full of white flame. They had been sacrificing women to appease a demon, apparently a fortune… teller...”

“Lang Lang?”

He realized he was baring his teeth so he quickly picked up his roasted fish and bit into it viciously enough his teeth nearly sheared through his own lip. He chewed thoughtfully before setting it down again. “I honestly don’t want to connect that to the lady I found in the millet fields but… but I don’t believe in coincidences. Fate, yes. But coincidences like that? No.”

“Then that’s it,” the raven began standing up. “I’m going to inform a friend-”

“Hey wait,” Lang Lang was grateful for a chance to change the subject. “You said you’d stay the night!”

“This is serious!”

“So is your health! Stay the night!” Lang Lang got up to grab his friend’s arm and make him sit down. “Besides, I still haven’t given back your thing yet and I’m going to need your help deciding where to move my people. So that’s it. You’re staying the night. Besides, Zhu Er seems to like you, and if you left in the middle of the ni-”

The raven threw his hands up in exasperation, the bird squawked grumpily. “Yes, yes, fine, but I leave first thing in the morning.”

“Agreed, you leave after breakfast.”

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