Zhanzhan was running as fast as she could…and with every step, she could feel herself become soberer and soberer. It was obvious that the effects of whatever drug she was fed at the cemetery were wearing off.

Yet, at the same time, she was feeling progressively weaker. Her cough didn’t stop, and her vision got blurry. There was a ringing sensation in her ears that progressively got stronger, and breathing was becoming difficult.

Suddenly, just as she reached the burning front door of the mansion, she collapsed. Her legs were shaking and couldn’t carry her anymore and she now noticed that there was some blood mixed with foam and phlegm for every cough she made.

More importantly, these dolls….they were the same ones that guarded this mansion the other day. What is the meaning of this? Quickly, she had to hide, survive, and report this to her employer….

Just as she thought that a shadow emerged from the collapsing building. Zhanzhan didn’t know if she’s seeing right, but it seemed to be Bai Lianfei herself. Utter confusion and disbelief filled her cat mind, and for a moment she was speechless….until another violent fit overcame her, and she screamed in pain.

As she was trying to get herself together, her limbs and fingers randomly going numb and her muscles contracting in various places, Bai Lianfei kneeled next to her, and patted her head gently.

“Zhanzhan.”

“Y-yes?”

“You did great. I am proud of you.”

Her voice was calm but warm. Zhanzhan felt tears of joy and gratitude come to her eyes, for she knew she was safe now. Bai Lianfei certainly knew everything about what was going on with her and would endeavor to save her life.

After all, she was her personal assistant, right? And now that the estate was burning, she had to do everything in her power to be of even more help to the new master of Shuangshan sect in this trying time.

“What…is happening to me?”

“Your nervous system experienced a shock of some sort. With proper treatment, you will be back to usually in a couple of weeks.” The catgirl sighed with relief, though it was a shallow one, careful not to invite another violent spasm. “Now tell me, my good servant, what exactly happened to you? I can’t help you if I don’t know the details…”

Zhanzhan nodded and quickly narrated everything that transpired from the moment she met the Wuyun operative, to now. She didn’t fail to mention the dolls, and she quoted every little thing she heard from the enemy as well as she could remember it.

“This kind of medication, huh…” Bai Lianfei nodded sadly, and looked up to the sky “The red star is shining brightly today. Don’t you think that the stars there, are actually heavens, and they look upon us mortals, judging us and toying with our fates?”

“…? Umm no, not really madam….”

“Well, that makes the two of us” a grim smile graced her face. Even though her lips were lifted up, her eyes remained as cold as always, and Zhanzhan felt that somewhere within them, there was some longing for something…but what could it be? “The light of the stars that reached us belongs to celestial bodies that are already dead. They can only be perceived by us from this location, an illusion of something that once was….”

Zhanzhan didn’t understand what she meant by any of that philosophical dialog. It wasn’t time for that! She could feel her physical state get worse and worse with every passing second….more importantly….

“Madam…do you have the antidote?”

“Unfortunately, there is no cure for what is happening to you now. Your body will violently turn on itself over and over again until your vital organs fail and you die.”

“B-but you said tha….!” shouted Zhanzhan in panic, then felt nauseous and had to stop mid-sentence. Tears were pricking her eyes, and her heart was racing chaotically.

It was beating fast…faster than it ever had. Was this also the work of the medicine? What exactly was that thing!?

“But…” continued Bai Lianfei, unphased by this spectacle “That doesn’t mean a way to save your life doesn’t exist. For example, I knew a crazy doctor who would transplant undead body parts into living beings, replacing their missing limbs, organs and even nerves, at the price of minor dependency on the life energy of living beings…”

She pointed to the burning house behind them, and continued, her voice tinted by melancholia and loneliness.

“This estate belonged to him. He developed this forbidden, necromantic technique in desperation in order to preserve his daughter’s life, and then just continued researching forbidden things…many people and yaren died in the secret basement hidden in this cursed place…”

“So….you’re going to do that? To save me??”

Bai Lianfei gave her a scornful look and shook her head, like a teacher scolding their pupil for giving a wrong answer to a relatively easy question.

“Can’t you see? The mansion is burning. Even if the crazy doctor still lived, and the tools of his trade were still there, there is nothing I or anyone else could have done there anymore. Your life is collapsing just like the wooden walls that I once called home.”

As if to underline that point, a section of the wall collapsed, and the clay tiles that constituted the roof soon followed. The sound was deafening, but Zhanzhan could no longer hear it. Her eyes were cloudy, and her consciousness was slowly fading away.

“You don’t want to die? You want to live?”

“Yes…”

“I once had a servant. She was a cat-type, just like you. And just like you, she had black and white hair. I took you in because you resembled her….but you are actually nothing like her.” a short pause, then another sentence, spoken in uncharacteristically sharp tone “She wanted to live too.”

And then, everything went dark.

……………………………………..

A wagon was making its way through the narrow road running on the edge of the cliff.

It’s places like these that caravan master Banbao hated the most. One misstep, and the entire thing went down….

This was also the reason trade in the winter season was frozen- just like the mountains and roads of the north. It was just too dangerous to travel in that season!

October was merely coming to an end now, and nights were already freezing cold. Sometimes the night frost would persist until the afternoon. That’s why his caravan operated only in the period of April-November, spending the coldest months in the warm safety of their headquarters in Yafan.

Trading by the river wasn’t an option either. While extremely popular in the lowlands, the highland streams were too strong and too steep to safely transport goods or people by them, and most of these froze around January anyway. Of course, he was sort of happy that this was the case- at his age, he felt he was too old to learn how to operate a boat, and a rise of cargoship competition would certainly put his caravan out of business.

“Your move” said the young cultivator with uncharacteristically short black and white hair.

“Pff, moved already?” Banbao glanced at the xiangqi board, and smirked “I’m sorry to inform you, but you are already dead!”

He quickly moved the pieces exactly where they planned them to be, and now his opponent was in quite a pickle.

Wang Shunji bit his lower lip, frustrated, but didn’t give up and was now trying to somehow get out of the rather troublesome situation he found himself in. Banbao took this as a perfect opportunity to give the youth a sermon.

“In this game, merely having a good plan….or even a perfect plan, if such a thing was possible!….is not enough” he leaned over, and winked. “You can’t defeat this old wolf like that. Unless your opponent is a complete novice like yourself, you must have several backup plans just in case. Your first plan will fail, your second plan will probably fail too. You must expect the enemy to forsee your moves, and also try to forsee their moves as well. Turn the board over, and think about it from their perspective…”

Suddenly, a piece moved on its own. Wang Shunji made the next move.

Banbao could never get used to these pieces moving without their owner’s physical touch. But he guessed that cultivators simply can do such things. They are magical superhumans, after all. So he didn’t question that.

He also didn’t question why this boy was on a wheelchair, nor why its wheel move on their own. He didn’t inquire why the boy wasn’t wearing any sectarian uniform, nor did he bother mentioning the incident from two years ago that he could remember this young man vaguely participating in.

No….all he cared about was that he finally found someone to play the good old board game of xiangqi. It was really falling out of fashion, in this day and age, and many of his guardsmen and fellow traders either didn’t know how to play it or completely sucked at it.

Wang Shunji….was being absolutely obliterated round after round, but he showed incredible resilience, and was improving rapidly with every subsequent game. At this rate, he would certainly defeat Banbao in a couple of months’ time.

However, that’s partly because he was slowly but steadily learning the way Banbao thought. That’s what playing against one opponent did to you- you learned their habits, which in itself could be a bad habit if you tried to apply this experience to other people afterwards. In order to become a true master, this boy had to leave the caravan, and face different foes.

“By the way, what made you drop out of your sect. Weren’t you a prodigy or something?”

“Sects, cultivation, heavens, realms….I don’t care about any of that. I want to enjoy my life, and have fun, while I still live…more importantly, your move, old man!”

“So you’re going rogue….” mumbled Banbao, carefully studying the pieces and pondering his next move.

“Perhaps I’ll make a career as a professional xiangqi player!” joked the youngster, but his eyes didn’t laugh.

Banbao knew he was concealing some information. He also knew none of that was any of his business.

And if this youth with dead eyes planned to do something criminal, it was even more so none of this pragmatic old wolves business. But…

“Once you’re done with your job, do think about pursuing such career a little bit more seriously” advised Banbao in a friendly manner, then swiftly achieved a checkmate.