Yan Li felt the whole hill shudder and almost tripped from the ground moving under him unexpectedly. Brushing off the dirt that the ceiling had dumped on his head, he hoped Shan Hui kept control of himself. If his Older Bro got too aggressive it might cause the entire underground structure to cave in on them. That was fine for later, but right now he had a search to complete.

There were ten rooms and a single, large bathroom. The place was like some strange underground fortress, with a kitchen and food storage area. You’d never know such a big place existed from the outside. Unfortunately it was empty, not even the kitchen containing a single morsel.

Except for one room.

The one that wasn’t empty… He thought the shock of seeing his Mother had been bad enough, but these disgusting kidnappers somehow managed to top themselves.

In the center of a room was another circle, but it looked very different from the others. The others had the Five Elements written on them, with some kind of incantation linking each Element together. But this circle had no Nature Elements, but instead had a giant X with the incantations along the four straight lines. And each of the four lines lead outside the circle, with the ends having another circle attached. Sitting within each of these circles was a body.

More precisely, a corpse. Four of them.

The nearest one was shriveled, as if it’d been drained of blood. On the face of the corpse was an expression of agony. The room reeked of evil and death, so much so he almost vomited. He took a step back to leave, deciding that this room was better dealt with by his smarter siblings, when a movement caught his eye.

He watched for a moment and saw slight signs of breathing from one of the corpses. Or what he’d thought had been a corpse. Someone was still alive in this death filled room.

Using his sleeve to cover his nose and mouth, he took cautious steps forward. He poked the body with his foot and heard a gasp, as if someone was in pain.

He knelt down to get a better look.

It was a little girl.

If Auntie’s daughter was any standard to judge by, this girl couldn’t be more than seven or eight years old. She was so emaciated she was almost as bad as the blood-drained corpses. How she had the strength to move or make any kind of sound, he didn’t know.

Even if he was a little slower than the other two, he understood well enough: This circle had been taking the lives of these people. Based on the size of the other corpses, at least one other had been a child too. Two adults, two children. These were human sacrifices.

His heart cried out in despair. Why would anyone do this? What great power could this circle give that was worth murdering, much less murdering innocent children? How could anyone be this evil?

Without any care to what might happen, he impulsively scooped the little girl out of the circle. Even if she was doomed to die, he couldn’t leave her in this kind of place. He just couldn’t.

The moment her body was separated from the floor, the circle gave a strange glowing pulse of blood red. The other bodies, the truly dead corpses, began to stir. Arms and legs began to stiffly move. Dried shrunken faces lifted up to stare at him with dead, unseeing eyes. They moaned as their bones creaked and they struggled to rise, shriveled hands reaching out to him.

Yan Li froze for half a second and then screamed in a high pitched voice, which surprisingly did not wake up the girl he was carrying, and ran out of the room at top speed. No one had ever told him he’d have to fight dead people! He could tolerate a lot of things, but re-animated corpses turned out not to be one of them.

——

Shan Hui had just finished breaking another bone of his Mother’s harasser when he heard Yan Li’s scream. He’d turned to see what had happened when his younger brother came screaming into the room, colliding into him, smelling of death.

“Wha—?”

“Scaryscaryscaryscaryscaryscary!”

“Calm down! What is—”

“They’re moving! They’re moving—!!!!!”

“What’s moving?”

“The corpses!”

Shan Hui paused, unsure of how to take such news.

“Corpses…?”

Groans sounded from the hallway and Yan Li squealed like a frightened girl, trying to fold his needlessly large body so it was small enough to hide behind his much smaller Older Brother.

Shan Hui didn’t bother asking what was going on, he just marched forward to see for himself.

The smell of death grew stronger and he was forced to cover his nose and mouth with his sleeve.

Three… things… were shuffling around in the hallway somewhat aimlessly. Since Yan Li called them corpses, he assumed that’s what they were. When the corpses ‘saw’ Shan Hui, they sprinted forward and made to attack him.

He gave a mighty shudder, as their nearness also carried a strong taint of evil. His hands and feet lashed out, kicking and hitting the corpses without any mercy. They were easily pushed back and fell onto the floor like ugly rag-dolls.

Shan Hui turned to ask his younger sibling exactly what these were when he felt something hit him. Looking down he was surprised to see the smallest corpse he’d just finished hitting had stood back up and made a run at him. Even as he dealt with this one, another came up to take it’s place.

After dealing with this several times, he realized these things were really dead. No matter how much he hit them, they just kept coming back. Worse, even if he broke off an arm, it didn’t make any difference. They’d either keep attacking or just re-attach the limb. Even lopping off their head didn’t slow them down, and the bigger ones actually used their decapitated heads as weapons.

It was not that they were very strong, but they were persistent. Even though he wasn’t afraid of being seriously injured by their attacks, he also wasn’t able to do anything with their constant interference. He got progressively more frustrated as he fought them. He wasn’t on the mountain, he couldn’t just call power to himself instantly to dispose of them. He needed time to prepare!

Between arms and heads getting tossed at him, bodies slammed against him and attempts to gnaw off his flesh, he concluded that fleeing was the best option. If he could get away from them for just a few moments, he could use fire to incinerate them. If Yan Li could fight them off a bit or start the process…

But no. His younger brother wasn’t going to be any help. Besides being absolutely terrified of these dead bodies, his elemental manipulation was still weak. Having him around just meant he’d get in the way and possibly be hurt. Shan Hui couldn’t afford having another family member seriously wounded.

“Take the kidnapper and leave.” Shan Hui finally ordered Yan Li, vexed at the whole situation.

“B-but you—!”

“Are you going to fight these corpses instead? If not, get out of here, you’re just in my way!”

Yan Li stiffened, his face twisting bitterly because he knew his Older Brother was right.

“I’m going then!” The younger man announced, roughly grabbing the kidnapper while still holding the barely living little girl in his other arm. As he left through the rough-made hole in the wall, the shame of his cowardliness and uselessness piercing him so deeply tears pricked his eyes.

This was the last time, Yan Li vowed to himself, he would run away in fear.

Once his younger brother was truly gone and safe, Shan Hui gave the corpses a good toss and fled through the same route as Yan Li. He was ten times faster than the corpses when running in a straight line, and was out before they even got to the entrance.

As he ran through the whole, he smacked the sides. Each smack caused a cave-in behind him, until the entire hole had collapsed completely. Once outside he placed both hands on the hill, he expanded his qi until he “felt” the corpses within.

Another shudder ran through his body. The partially buried corpses were trying to move, to get to him.

What were these things? If the elements were bright lights, these things were filled with… nothing. They were a black hole, a blight, on the world around them. But if that were really the case, they shouldn’t have been able to move. Nothing can’t create movement. Nothing is nothing. Their very existence was unnatural and made his skin crawl.

With the help of the elements, he used the dirt and rocks to push the corpses back into the rooms within the hill. Once they were there, he concentrated. He did not have great affinity with Fire as his Old Man did, and without being near his power source, it was far more difficult to manipulate.

But he just needed a spark. That was all. After a full minute, he managed to create one.

There was plenty of things that could catch fire, so spreading the fire after the initial spark was much easier to do. He kept feeding the fire, pushing it here and there, making it burn hotter and hotter, until it was white. Smoke could be seen coming out of the other entrance he’d made earlier.

In no time at all, the fire was on the corpses. Eating and burning through cloth, hair, skin, muscle… until there was just bones. And then the bones were brittle and falling apart, and then… ash. When the bones turned to ash, the strange blackness seemed to… implode. The entire hill collapsed in on itself, the lair completely destroyed.

Shan Hui stumbled and sat down with a thud on the ground, sweating profusely. While fire manipulation was easier than fire creation, it was still difficult to do with the limitations he was under.

“Older Bro…” Yan Li spoke up near him, feeling both awed and worried.

“The Old Man will be disappointed.”

“Huh?”

“There’s only one kidnapper to bring back. And that won’t be enough for him, it’s certainly not enough for me.”

“O-oh.”

“Did you find evidence that there were more?”

Yan Li thought for a moment, remembering the size of the hideout and the human bundle he was carrying.

“I think there must have been more than one. That place was too big for just one person. And.. I can’t say for sure… but I think there were at least four, including this one.” Yan Li shook the unconscious man he was holding in one arm.

“Three others?”

“Well.. It’s just a guess, but those corpses…”

“Hm? Do you mean the corpses were the other people or…?” Shan Hui asked in slight confusion, tilting his head.

“No, no. I found a magical circle that was… it looks like it was feeding off four people. Three had died already, those corpses you fought, but one was alive. This one.” He motioned with a nod to the bundle he was carrying, “I don’t know what the circle was for exactly but it can’t be a coincidence one person was left alive and one kidnapper was left behind.”

“I see… I suppose it could be four at minimum, with the possibility of more. It’d be good to know the exact size of the group we’re dealing with…” Shan Hui glanced at the tattered, starved human in his brother’s arms. “It must have seen whether there were more and by how many. Wake it up and ask.”

Yan Li frowned unhappily. “’It’ is a little girl. And she might know, but how will she talk? Look at the shape she’s in… even if I wake her, would she even have the strength to say anything?”

Even without a closer look, Shan Hui knew Yan Li was correct and that he was being too impatient. It.. The little girl… was skin and bones. Even if she could speak, it was doubtful she’d be able to string two words together in her condition. He grunted in frustration.

“Older Bro, if there are more, surely they can’t have gone that far? If we fan out and look…”

Shan Hui rubbed the wrinkle forming between his brows. “No, I think they’ve gone quite far. I mean, look what they were able to accomplish and it hasn’t even been one shíchén* yet. But if we don’t check, the Old Man will be furious, and I wouldn’t blame him. I want you to take the kidnapper and the witness back to the mountain for me in the meantime.”

[Author’s Note: shíchén = roughly two hours]

“You mean you’re staying?”

“I’ll try to find the other three or however many…. Even if I can’t find them, there might be a human settlement near by and I can ask them if they know of these kidnappers. To have such powers and skills… they must have some kind of reputation? Even if it’s just hearsay and gossip, that’s better than knowing nothing at all.”

“En, I’ll bring these two to the mountains then. Shi Ji and I will come back to help you once we’re done.”

“No. You stay there to watch over the Old Man, make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid, and keep Mother and Lu Shao company. The fewer off the mountain, the better.”

“But—”

“Yan Li.” Shan Hui gave him a hard stare. “We grow weaker the farther we are from the mountains. The fact that you can’t sense it even now, means that you’d be in serious danger going any further. Go home, do what you can there.”

Yan Li grit his teeth. “You can’t do everything on your own!”

“Give your Older Brother some face, will you?” Shan Hui stood up and patted Yan Li’s arm affectionately. “I know how I look, but I’m capable. My job right now is to get to the bottom of this. Your job is to protect our home while I’m away. Today has proven that even if the Old Man is stupidly powerful, he’s still only one person. He can’t be every where at once. So help him out.”

After hearing this, Yan Li’s face dropped and he nodded, lips trembling slightly. Even though they’d fought all this time, trying to one up each other constantly, in the end Shan Hui was giving him an honorable way out. He really hadn’t expected that level of caring from his usually cold and snobbish Older Bro.