[Vol. 1] Chapter 36 - The Guiding Candles' Effect
Xiaolan cleared her throat. It was just a small action, but a sword was already at her throat.
Chen Mingyuan's sword. Clearly, every move was being watched—and treated with suspicion.
"Calm down! I just want to ask, why was I dragged here... aside from accidentally seeing what I shouldn't have?" Xiaolan felt wronged, aggrieved, but she couldn't voice it.
Her neck tingled. She could practically see herself now, headless, everything spinning as her body stood there without it.
"Hmph. Don't forget, I haven't settled scores with you yet," Mingyuan said before swishing her sword back into its sheath. She shot, "Oh, and I've heard you've been given a debt of honor?"
"Where did you hear that from?" Xiaolan asked, still checking that her neck was intact. Her nerves had been taut for so long. Was she really that popular that every action spread far and wide?
"The maids." Mingyuan chuckled lightly, casting a long glance at Xiaolan as they continued moving.
"I'm not that interesting," Xiaolan teased.
"You're alive." Mingyuan said it simply, like a fact. "That's more than most people expected."
Xiaolan's step faltered. "Expected?"
Rustle.
The fog muffled everything, even the sound of their footsteps. For a moment, there was only the soft rustle of robes and the steady rhythm of their pace.
"You have so many enemies, I've started bonding with others over that," Mingyuan laughed.
"You know what I think?" Mingyuan's voice was soft now, almost thoughtful.
"I'm afraid to ask."
"You should be. You do things that don't make sense. Unless..." She let the word hang.
"Unless what?"
Mingyuan stopped. Turned. Her apricot eyes were sharp, cutting through the fog like a blade.
Rustle.
"Unless you're hiding something."
The silence stretched between them, thick as the mist.
Xiaolan's fingers clenched into a fist. Her heart was pounding, but she forced her face still, forced her voice steady.
"Aren't we all?"
Mingyuan studied her for a long moment. Then, slowly, the edge in her gaze softened. She laughed again, but this time it was lighter.
"I suppose that's true."
She turned and kept walking, leaving Xiaolan standing in the fog with her heart still racing.
"Coming?" Mingyuan called back.
Xiaolan exhaled. Her legs felt like water, but she moved, forcing one foot in front of the other until she caught up.
They walked in silence for a while. The fog pressed in, the candle flickered, and Xiaolan's pulse slowly returned to normal.
"You never answered my question," she said finally.
"Which one?"
"About the debt of honor. Where did you hear it?"
Mingyuan smiled, but it was different this time. "Wouldn't you like to know."
Xiaolan groaned. "You're impossible."
"So I've been told."
Rustle.
A pair of cunning red eyes glowed in the dark, watching the two figures, until a loud whistling whoosh cut through the air.
It was nimble, dodging just in time.
"Hmph. I've been feeling stuffy since the start. So you were the one watching." Mingyuan huffed, the weapon she had thrown was a kunai adapted from Wenhui.
Xiaolan wasn't slow. In fact, she had already considered it. Those rustling sounds from earlier had definitely been made by this spirit beast.
What the two saw was a wolf with white fur and striking red eyes, one that could easily be mistaken for a white fox.
Mingyuan reacted strongly, dragging Xiaolan immediately as she yelled, "Move!"
But it was too late.
The wolf's spiritual qi had long since leaked, attracting other spirit beasts and insects. Hearing the sound of a stampede approaching, Mingyuan's expression turned grim. "That wolf again!"
Xiaolan grunted, running fast. She hadn't slacked off at all and immediately sped away.
Mingyuan used qinggong to escape further. She was familiar with that wolf. She had analyzed her own situation in the trials before... when she was helpless and nearly mauled, the cause had been a spirit beast leaking spiritual qi.
Mingyuan took the lead as the pursuing spirit beasts closed in, scanning the foggy area.
Xiaolan's eyes constantly scanned the terrain. Following her strong intuition and fragmented memories from when her future self had loaded, she ran in another direction.
Mingyuan's gaze sharpened. She quickly went after Xiaolan. The best chance of survival was having a teammate.
They arrived at a ruined area, similar in design to what both of them had seen back in the trials, Lu family ruins.
When the two entered the area's range, a kind of shield seemed to have activated, though there were no fluctuations in the air. The pursuing spirit beasts came to a halt... eerily so.
"Why did they stop?" Xiaolan was panting, looking at all kinds of terrifying spirit beasts, each one different in size, shape, and race.
"There's no protective array around here," Mingyuan observed, then added, "Whatever the reason, as long as we aren't dead."
Xiaolan's whole worldview had just been shattered, seeing real spirit beasts up close, hearing Mingyuan's words. She couldn't take it.
She yanked the other's collar and yelled, "What's wrong with you?! You dragged me here, into your mess, and you're acting all calm—"
Smack.
Time stood still. Xiaolan's whole act had now slipped. She wasn't the original Xiaolan. She couldn't be.
Mingyuan had slapped Xiaolan's hand away from her collar. She scoffed, "How did you last this long with such a weak mentality?"
In truth, Xiaolan was aware. Very much so.
These past few days, she had spent them carefree like an idiot. She hadn't been in immediate danger, so she had almost forgotten where she was.
She had tried to build genuine friendships rather than scheme. She had always been passive. She had gotten impulsive.
It was like a coping mechanism she had built around herself. She had never yet adapted fully to this cruel world.
Like a fishbone stuck in her throat, she was aggrieved. She had once believed that being transported here, to the Crimson Dynasty, would be amazing.
But that was only if you had God's eye view, an omniscient perspective of a player and a reader. She could only rely on herself to move around. Everything had been pushing her nerves taut.
Tears welled up in her eyes. Mingyuan's apricot eyes saw them, and she stiffened.
"..."
Mingyuan already had the answer she had been probing for. The person in front of her was not Lin Xiaolan. She had wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt, but she had already confirmed it the moment she saw Xiaolan.
The tears burned, hot and humiliating. Xiaolan opened her mouth to snap back, to deny, to deflect... but the words died in her throat.
What am I doing?
She had been so careful. Every word, every action, measured against what the original Xiaolan would do. But somewhere between the sword at her throat and the stampede and the ruins, she had stopped measuring.
She had just... been.
Her stomach dropped.
Mingyuan's stare was like ice water down her spine.
She knows.
Swish.
Mingyuan's sword had long since been unsheathed. With successive slashes, all the nearby ghosts had been slain...but their severed parts connected back together.
Xiaolan flinched. Only then did she realize there were ghosts, but it was too late. Her tears had dried. Looking around the dilapidated village ruins, more ghosts were appearing.
"So that's why they didn't chase us all the way here. It reeks too much of death aura." Mingyuan nodded and used qinggong to move back, dragging Xiaolan to her side.
"What do we do? If we go out, we'll be chased by spirit beasts. If we stay, we'll deal with ghosts." Xiaolan's legs were trembling, but she still took a firm step back. She muttered sharply, "This must be the candles' effect."
Mingyuan's grip on her sword tightened. Her eyes swept the ruins, calculating.
"It's like a cage made of death auras, keeping the ghosts from leaving," she said, voice low. "If we break it, the ghosts might disperse, but so will our only shield from beasts."
"So we're trapped."
"No." Mingyuan's gaze sharpened. "We make a path."
She moved before Xiaolan could ask what that meant. Her hand shot out, palm open, and a cold blue light began to gather in her palm. Frost crept along her fingers, crystallizing in the air around her.
"Azure mist," she murmured, "ice condense."
The temperature plummeted. Xiaolan's breath fogged in front of her face as a wave of frozen mist exploded outward from Mingyuan's hand.
It didn't target the ghosts. It swept across the ground, coating the ruins in a layer of glittering frost that spread like veins of ice toward the village's edge.
The ghosts recoiled, hissing, their forms flickering as the cold bit into their already unstable bodies. Some shattered into fragments of shadow, only to reform moments later, but slower. Weaker.
"That won't hold them forever," Mingyuan snapped. "Move."
She grabbed Xiaolan's wrist and ran, pulling her across the frozen ground. The ice cracked beneath their feet. Behind them, the ghosts were recovering, their hollow forms writhing as they gave chase.
A spirit beast howled somewhere beyond the village boundary, answering the commotion.
Xiaolan's lungs burned. Her legs screamed. But Mingyuan's grip was iron, her pace relentless, and together they burst through the edge of the ruins just as the first ghost lunged for them.
It collided with an invisible barrier, the array's edge, and shattered.
Mingyuan didn't stop. She pulled Xiaolan past the boundary, past the frost line, past the howling beasts that had started circling again, until they reached the cover of a crumbling wall.
She released Xiaolan's wrist and dropped into a crouch, chest heaving. Frost still clung to her fingers, melting slowly in the warmth of her own qi.
Xiaolan leaned against the wall, her legs finally giving out. She slid down until she was sitting on the cold ground, staring at Mingyuan with wide eyes.
Mingyuan didn't respond. Her eyes were fixed on the ruins in the distance, watching the shadows writhe.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke.
Then Mingyuan asked, "So, what's your name?"
"It's Xiaolan. Did you forget already?"
"No." Mingyuan's eyes didn't move from hers. "Your real name."
Xiaolan's blood ran cold.