They spend the night at the inn as well. While the locals weren’t happy that they weren’t getting the stipend, they were still happy that at least a boy of their valley might win the competition. The next morning it snowed. People began to say what a shame it was that they hadn’t been able to collect the rice yet another year. But rumor had it that everyone, including the guests, had spent the night in passion. Everyone but the Wei family. But no one knew the last part for sure.

Nikola had sent a pulse of magic bright and early and had found out that all of the women in the village were pregnant. These angels sure didn’t beat around the bush, did they? The Wei family got into their wagons and a crowd of locals send them off, some of them asking Han Shanyuan for last minute tips on how to save money. On the road to Danyang they followed the Yangtze river.

Nikola held Penemue and Wei Caihong close to him in the wagon. He had always hated the cold. He heated his own body but it wasn’t enough. He could still feel the cold air and the snowflakes falling down on his face. Wei Caihong sighed when he felt the furnace like body of Nikola.

“Are you planning on baking yourself into a roast?” He asked and then send a look towards the driver to make sure he wasn’t listening in.

“I’m just trying to keep warm. I swear, your body is colder than the air around us.” He spoke. But he did move to the side so that he was spooning Wei Caihong and Wei Caihong let out another sigh.

“Pen is going to feel excluded. Roll over.” Demanded Wei Caihong but Nikola just snuggled into him and his hand moved lower so that he could gently pet Wei Caihong’s stomach.

“How are you feeling? Do you have morning sickness? Pen wasn’t feeling so good this morning.” Nikola kissed Wei Caihong’s hair and the man turned woman brought the blanket further up. They each had one, but Nikola has been trying to steal theirs for the entire morning. He had wormed his way under Wei Caihong’s and would have done the same with Penemue’s had the angel not wrapped herself in her blanket tightly and showed her back to him.

Wei Caihong should have done the same. But there was something endearing about Nikola choosing to pester him for warmth and comfort instead of Penemue. Like he was finally beginning to think more of him. Wei Caihong smiled and pretended not to notice as Nikola stole more of his blanket. Wei Caihong couldn’t feel the cold, but he didn’t mind the muted warmth of Nikola’s body either. Just as he was about to say something, they heard growling coming from the river.

“Oh, this is not good.” Said the driver as he ushered the horses to move faster.

“What is inside the river?” Asked Nikola, standing up a little to look. There were water lilies in the river and then a lily pad moved. He saw eyes staring at him from there and then a splash was heard and whatever was in the river disappeared.

“Water ghouls, that is what! The Samjin cultivation sect used to deal with them. They had this festival where they hunted them for points and rewards. But now that they are wiped out the ghouls keep growing their population, dragging people foolish enough to enter the river and drowning them. If the body is strong it ends up a ghoul, if it’s weak, it gets eaten. Danyang has a sect too, but there are so many ghouls that they are afraid to come and fight them. And they call themselves cultivators, pah!” The driver spat on the ground and Nikola was tugged back into the wagon.

“They won’t leave the river and you can’t do anything about it.” Said Penemue from behind him, her voice sleepy.

“The Maggot nearly killed you, my Emerald. Think of your children. What do I and Pen tell them when they get born and you are not there? That they are doomed to be half-orphans for the rest of their lives?” Said Wei Caihong. Since when did those two began to side with one another?

“I won’t die.” Nikola said stubbornly. There were a couple of ways to deal with water ghouls but the most effective one was to destroy their flesh. His magic was at full capacity. He can make this stretch of the river a protective spirit that would periodically eat the ghouls. He wondered what could it be. It had to be intelligent enough so that it could tell a villager from a ghoul. And semi aquatic, at the very least. Something big and strong so that the ghouls wouldn’t eat it.

He picked a sheet of paper and began to fold it. His fingers worked as the image of a manticore appeared in his mind. Granted there were no manticores in this land. However, Danyang wasn’t that far from the border with India and there were still some there. Or at least had been a hundred years ago.

He finished the scorpion tail and began to soak the paper with his magic. When he was left with nothing, he threw the figurine in the river and watched it sink. The ghouls began to swim towards it. Which was a big mistake on their part, because the figurine soaked up the water around it. A lion’s roar was heard and a giant ten-meter tall manticore came to life. It began to fight and eat the ghouls, who were trying to drag it under.

“Now what is this monster?” Said the driver as he hit the horses with the whip to get them to move faster. Penemue pinched Nikola and Wei Caihong bit his neck. Nikola just sighed as he felt his blood being drunk from. He had done a good service and he was rewarded with violence. Oh, his dark faith.

They reached Danyang as the sun was setting. Word had spread that a new monster has appeared in the Yangtze river and people were trying to reach out to the single cultivator of the area. Nikola had left the manticore with instructions not to fight humans. It was to talk to them, instead. There were rumors circulating the village that it had attempted to do just that, but the villagers who had approached it had run away in fear.

Nikola was sure he had made the human face of the manticore into a kindly old man. But he supposed the lion’s head, scorpion tail and lizard feet didn’t exactly paint a trustworthy picture to the locals. Once the manticore found itself a cave and the river became clean of river ghouls the locals will warm up to it. He was sure of it.

The next morning, they had a free day as they have arrived one day in front of schedule. There will be just two contestants for tomorrow. Their Han Shanyuan and a boy from a village to the west. Nikola took out his support Han Shanyuan sign and placed it over his chest for everyone to see as they walked the market district.

The children stopped at every candy stall they could see. Penemue had them waiting outside of a seamstress’ shop for an hour but came out with a lovely outer robe. A thick ivory one with silver clasps. There were cranes stitched into the fabric with blue thread which led Nikola to believe that the robe was made for someone else who never came to pick it up.

Seeing the robe Wei Caihong admired it for some time and then another hour passed in front of the shop. Wei Caihong got out with a silk red outer robe with golden flowers that had a veil like scarf around his shoulder. The children had long since eaten their candy during the long wait and they ran off to the next stall, a candied apple one, to buy some more.

The adults too took an apple each and they bought some for the drivers too, who had come with them and were carrying their purchases. One of the drivers looked at a silver pendant longingly. It had a half moon at it’s end that had some stones on it that made it sparkle. Wei Caihong saw this and bought it for the man. He received many thanks and the other two drivers too pointed at gifts for their wives which Wei Caihong purchased for them. These people had to go though monster infested lands to get them to Chang’an. And they also had to put up with Nikola’s dangerous stunts. They deserved a reward.

Wei Caihong looked around himself. People were whispering at the sight of their large group. Nikola was pegged as a noble, what with two beautiful women at his arms and a pack of children. Many people, some that had been guests at the essay presenting back at Samjin, approached the group and made small talk. The now larger group made it’s way to the town squire where there was a troupe of performing acrobats. Wei Caihong winced as he watched them, remembering his own days of having to be flung in the air for the amusement of the crowds.

The children were openly gawking at the acrobats and when a woman with some mountain flowers passed them by they bought up her entire stock to throw at the acrobats. Which exhausted the last of their combined allowance. But the acrobats got the children on the stage and involved them in their act, so it had been worth it.

When they came back at the inn they were exhausted but Wei Caihong was restless. He wanted to learn something new tonight. So, he turned to Nikola and hit him with his best puppy dog eyes.

“Yes?” Said Nikola suspiciously. Wei Caihong moved to sit by him and leaned over to wrap an arm around him.

“Teach me something.” He demanded and Nikola nodded.

“How would you like to learn how I created the manticore?” He asked and Wei Caihong’s face lit up. “You can’t create humans with it.” And then Wei Caihong’s hopes of having loyal servants catering to him were dashed.

“Is it permanent?” Asked Wei Caihong. Surely Nikola wouldn’t be so cruel as to create a protector for Danyang only for it to disappear into thin air as they left.

“Depends. In the manticore’s case it will be around for as long as there are water ghouls in the river or signs that more can appear. Or until it gets beheaded. Normally it takes a lot of magic to get a paper slave to stick around for that long, so few try it. I used up all of my magic for the manticore. We can start you with things that last for about five minutes so you can make more of them. Small animals, mostly. Now we need to fold the paper first.”

Nikola pulled out a couple of sheets of paper and handed some to Wei Caihong. Penemue moved towards them and snatched one for herself. They began folding and Wei Caihong made a dragon. He was going to have it wrap around his shoulders and he was going to go see the children with it. They were going to be thrilled.

“The thing has to have existed.” Said Penemue next to him and he turned to her to stare at her in confusion.

“Azazel told me he used to kill dragons. So, they existed at one point.” He said and Penemue pointed at his figurine.

“But they didn’t look like this. You will end up with black paper. Come on and try it if you don’t believe me. The word you have to say is change in Atlantean.” Wei Caihong did so. The paper twitched and then blackened. He now had a black paper figurine that was useless to him. He sighed, maybe he would go for a bird next.

Making a crane turned out to be a bad idea. It grew to it’s real size and begun to run around the room. The commotion got the inn owner to come to their room and she gawked at the crane which ran pass her and down the corridor.

“We, uhm, left the window open.” Said Wei Caihong sheepishly.

The inn’s owner stared at the closed, tiny, window and raised an eyebrow.

“No pets!” She said and then began to murmur how she was going to be serving crane stew for dinner. But she couldn’t find the live crane no matter how much she searched. Instead she found a small paper crane. She pocketed it, her children could play with it and one of them probably let the crane escape.

Back in the room Wei Caihong was folding a butterfly. They were mostly silent and wouldn’t grow too big. He cleared his throat once he was done and whispered change at it. A beautiful butterfly sprang into life and landed in his hair. It was crimson with white dots. Wei Caihong petted it and smiled at the other two occupants of the room.

“There is nothing wrong with it, is it? It’s just a butterfly?” He asked unsure. Penemue smiled at him and showed him her figurine of a frog, grinning. Just as he was about to tell her to not do this the evil woman whispered the magic word and a frog was staring at Wei Caihong. It showed him it’s tongue. He backed away, hand held protectively over his creation. The frog let out a ribbit and charged, Wei Caihong grabbed the butterfly from his head and ran out the door.

He was by the reception when the inn’s owner snatched the frog from the ground.

“No pets!” She repeated and then carried her catch to the kitchen where she promptly cut it’s head and dumped it into the stew pot before her children let it escape as well.

The butterfly turned into paper in Wei Caihong’s hands and he looked at it. It’s wings were a little crumbled from him holding it. He wondered what else he could make. A pack of wolves to protect him? A bear, which pelt he could sell? A songbird to help him get the children to sleep instead of demanding he told them stories? He ran up the stairs and begun folding paper figurines, not giving life to any of them. When he made a mermaid he reached out towards Nikola to get another sheet of paper when Nikola shook his head.

“I don’t have any more. We should buy more after the competition. Now, who wants to cuddle?” He said but Penemue moved to Wei Caihong’s side and wrapped her hands around him.

“I can teach you how to bend already living beings to your will. You can practice on Nikola.” Wei Caihong grinned and Nikola backed away, only to find out that the door was locked and that he didn’t have a key.