Chapter 58: Chapter 56: Past the Ashes of a Free City

He still felt tired but with enough strength to open his eyes and sit up. His limbs ached and his back creaked like old wood leaving him to grumble about the ridiculousness of human bodies.

“Oh! Rui!”

He turned his head to see Li Baobao sitting next to him in some large abandoned shack of some sort. Bo was curled up in a corner loudly snoring, and several pretty young women in pale well made traveling clothes were also inside the building talking quietly to each other. In another corner of the shack was Song, tied up and sobbing.

“What happened?” Rui Yifu asked, rubbing his head and yawning.

Li Baobao clasped his hands together. “Well, uhm, after you collapsed Liu Xie killed one of the monsters. But then more came, and then these nice ladies came down to help us! Most of them are still in the city right now, but a few have volunteered to take us over to Lady Gu!”

Rui Yifu groaned. More immortals.

Li Baobao, misunderstanding his despair, held out a damaged cup of cold tea. “Here! It’s good for head injuries!” He smiled faintly. “I made it myself.”

“That’s nice,” Rui Yifu took the cup and immediately set it to his other side. Someone was missing, he realized. Not just Zhu Er. “Where is Liu?”

The young man went both pale and green somehow. “He, well, Master Liu he…”

The poorly made door of the shack suddenly opened and one of the girls immediately leapt to her feet with a war cry, the rasp of a sword being pulled free like a needle being dragged through his brain. Rui Yifu at least was able to appreciate the girl's prompt reaction to the intruder. In the door way stood a tall thing made of wood. It had been roughly hewn into the shape of a human, with its blank head swiveling around on a wood jointed neck.

There was a rattling noise nearby, and Bo yelled in shock, "THE SWORD!!" He lunged forward as something flew away from his grip and into the poorly made 'hand' of the creature in front of them. Bo hit the ground with a heavy thud.

Brilliant white flame erupted from where the hand gripped the shoddy looking sword, wood splintering and crackling with grey embers that pulsated as the flames ripped through the entire body. Rui Yifu's eyes stung from the brightness and he closed them until the sound of burning wood died down. When he opened them, Liu Xie stood in the doorway, staring back at everyone.

The girl who had leapt to her feet was still holding her sword, utterly still with shock, "...that's a p-"

"Agh! Don't look, ladies! Don't look!" Li Baobao threw himself forward with a scrounged up piece of cloth. "Protect your eyes! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"

Rui Yifu’s headache had blossomed into a full painful flower so he stood up on uneven feet. “I’m going to get some fresh air,” he announced. It seemed nobody noticed, being preoccupied with the naked man in their midst. He walked slowly, bare feet on dusty ground, squeezing past the group to walk into the sunlight outside.

Or at least there should have been sunlight.

An overgrown weed choked farm was laid out in front of him while above the sky was a swirling grey. The sun was a small red blot above that stared balefully down. Curiosity carried his feet away from the shack to look behind it.

The Free City was a pile of tumbled stone and blackened wood that poured grey smoke into the sky, ash twirling like tainted snowflakes. The air had the odd scent of burnt flesh and medicine. Occasionally the small figure of a person with a wagon, or just bent down with a large pack, emerged from within its walls to walk away.

Rui Yifu sucked in a deep breath at the sparse scene of desolation. It reminded him of something long ago, something that itched the back of his mind. A memory from a prior life. Something soft hit his head, wrapping around his face and he quickly ripped it off in alarm.

“I got your stuff, or most of it.” Bo’s voice came quietly. "Where Boss' sword was, it wasn't too far from the inn."

Rui Yifu blinked and held out the object that hit him. It was, in fact, a bundle of different pieces of his traveling outfit, the sleeves dangling, a pouch tied to a belt hanging awkwardly. The pouch’s string slipped open, and one of his spare fans tumbled out along with a few coins and small ink sticks. Rui Yifu bent down to retrieve them and turned his head to see Bo crouched beside him and gazing off towards the Free City. “Thank you,” he said.

“Don’t complain, the room was a mess and there was blood and ash all over the hall!” Bo snapped. His facial expression changed from irritation to confusion then surprise. “Did you say ‘thank you’?”

“Yes.”

Bo’s eyes were fixed on Rui Yifu’s face for a long moment before his mouth opened, then closed, then opened again. “Oh. Sorry.”

“'Sorry'? I’m surprised you learned that word, I think we’re finally teaching you how to be civilized!”

Bo’s face wrinkled in anger but he said nothing and continued to squat and stare at the city. “I couldn’t find the pig.”

Rui Yifu made a soft noise. He had forgotten all about Baozi. The little porcine companion of Idony was smarter than most pigs and yet as he looked at the devastation he felt his heart sink at the thought of Baozi’s fate. “I hope he escaped.”

“Maybe someone’s eating some delicious pork belly right now,” Bo laughed dryly. “Or maybe he went to go find the bitey sister himself.”

“I can’t believe the city is still burning,” Rui Yifu said, wanting to change the conversation as quickly as he could.

“It’s not,” Bo said. “Or at least, not most of the buildings. A lot of people didn’t escape to safety in time, and those disciple girls said that a lot of the bodies were tainted as well as that… that place we were in.”

Rui Yifu chewed on his tongue. They had surely found the bodies of the women then, and the vats. His own hastily cast spell had not been enough to burn it down completely. He wondered if that had something to do with the aggression of the creatures. “What an ugly sight,” he opened his fan and swished it through the air as though it might dispel the terrible view before him. He wondered then about the blooming softly scented white flowers.

The flowers.

He had seen them when he was being carried, that he was sure of. But where did they come from?

“What were those things anyway? The monsters?”

“Flesh puppets, or flesh soldiers. Meat-warriors,” Rui Yifu fanned himself slowly. “There’s a lot of different names for them, but they all refer to the same thing. They’re made by creating fake bodies and filling them with a condensed white flame to trick a spirit or a soul into inhabiting it,” just talking about it made him feel nauseous. Or perhaps it was just the headache. “In the North, it’s common to make something similar using stone and amber flame. But it does not force a spirit back into it, no…” Rui Yifu took a deep breath. As far as he had believed, his old master had only stuck to living on the outskirts of towns, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible so neither Rui nor any local heroic idiots would bother him. But he had been there, in a well organized and funded operation, helping… doing what?

He turned back around as his thoughts traveled to various unpleasant possibilities. It had not been one, or two, or three monsters. It had been dozens, perhaps more, enough to destroy a city.

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“Rui!”

He paused, foot half raised to look at Bo. “Yes?”

“We need to talk.” Bo stood firm, having raised himself up to his full height. His eyes were weary but piercing. Rui Yifu avoided looking into them. “About… about what I saw.”

“We do,” Rui Yifu agreed while turning his head away. “But not now.”

“Why not!?” Bo demanded.

Rui Yifu gestured with his fan behind him towards the city as he walked with his spare clothes tucked under his arm. “Because we have other things to worry about at the moment, stupid dog. Think of something else besides yourself.”

“Says you!”

Rui Yifu made a great show of ignoring the increasingly irate Bo on his brief walk back into the shack and much to his utter lack of surprise found that Liu Xie was still nude and seemed somewhat distressed. Li Baobao and the young women were trying to calm him still while Song, still tied up, stared intently at Liu Xie’s back. As surreptitiously as he could did Rui Yifu move to stand behind Liu Xie’s back as well. It was a well muscled back, something that Rui would admire if it were on someone he did not find frustrating but that was not what had his attention. There were scars on it, numerous finely placed little scars. After a moment, Rui Yifu realized they were not scars. They were too regularly spaced and in such strange shapes.

They were seals.

"I can't believe I lost the hair tie," Liu Xie sighed. He ran his fingers through his long hair, as though unused to the feeling of something not tying the bottom ends together.

“Why is the hair tie important anyway?” Song finally asked.

“It’s something from Eona,” Liu Xie said. “I keep losing the gifts she’s given to me…”

“Oh no, here we go,” Rui Yifu’s headache returned.

“What a weird name!” Song declared, having either forgotten his manners or having grown tired of Liu Xie’s complaining. “Was she a foreigner?”

Liu Xie got up slowly, the cloth sliding off him. Li Baobao held it up as though it were a curtain to shield the eyes of the young ladies within the room as Liu Xie advanced on Song. Rui Yifu held out his fan in front of Liu Xie. “Please, before you go beating up Song, put something on.”

“I’m not going to beat him up, I’m going to throw him into the hole I just crawled out of after I get something.”

“Just put something on please.” He held out his own spare clothing, half-expecting Liu Xie to knock it from his hands or stomp away.

Instead Liu Xie moved over to Song and started untying him. Rui Yifu watched as Song started to try wiggling free only for Liu Xie to pin him by his head to the wall.

“H-help?” Song called out, looking at everyone.

Rui Yifu shrugged and looked over at the others. Li Baobao and the women peeked out briefly from around the cloth that Li was holding up still.

“Those are my clothes!” Song yelled.

“I need them.”

By the time Bo came in, Song was already tied up again, nude, and rolled into a corner. Rui Yifu waved idly at Bo as Liu Xie finished putting on Song’s boots. Despite the fine material of the robe, Rui Yifu could have sworn the edges had decayed and frayed away in the minutes it had taken Liu Xie to put it on.

Bo looked over the scene, then at Rui Yifu.

“We’re apparently going to bury Song alive,” Rui Yifu said.

“Why?”

“Liu Xie is angry.”

“Boss, are you angry?”

Liu Xie looked back at Bo, “I am furious.” His voice was flat and monotone as he walked over to the young women and Li Baobao. Then he suddenly smiled and it was as if the divine Jade Prince himself had arrived to bring good fortune to everyone with his aura of prosperity. “You must be Lady Gu’s disciples, aren’t you?” He asked in a voice so different Rui Yifu suddenly questioned whether it had been Liu Xie who crawled out of the grave or some sort of copycat demon.

“...Eh, uh, yes?” One answered timidly.

“You wouldn’t mind finding a shovel for me, would you?” Liu Xie asked, sunny faced. As Song started screaming, Liu Xie shoved his heel into Song’s mouth to muffle the noise. “Don’t worry, it won’t kill him, and Lady Gu will thank us.”

“Well,” the timid one mumbled, getting to her feet. “I can go look!”

“Thank you.”

Rui Yifu tsked lightly, then shrugged and sat back down to lean against the wall. “Tell me when you’ve finished. I’ve done enough physical labor to last me the next thirty years.”

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