Hui rubbed a hand over his face. Taking a deep breath, he centered himself, forcing the panic out. He glanced at the door. It remained sealed, Xue’s spell still holding. Trapped in a room with a fourth-stage cultivator who’s about to turn into a fourth-stage ghoul… Master, of all the ways this poor disciple could die in this secret realm, I didn’t expect to go like this.

What do I have? I still remember how to create the wind talisman… dammit, but I wasted the fire talisman! And wind isn’t effective on undead cultivators. There’s the complex talisman… He reached under his robes and touched it. No, I don’t know what it does. Unless I have nothing else, I don’t want to resort to that.

Something cold and rubbery brushed against his wrist. Hui glanced down.

The ghoul skin stared back at him, mouth a slack ‘O’ without any bones to hold it.

His eyes widened. I almost forgot!

“Xiao Hui, I’m truly sorry. I’ll restrain the curse as long as I can, but… I don’t know what your odds of survival are. If you don’t make it, I pledge to repay your sect or clan for your death,” Xue vowed.

“You can’t afford me,” Hui replied.

“Eh—huh?” Xue asked.

Hui glanced at him. “I’ve deceived you as well. My real… my daoist name is Weiheng Hui. I’m the only inheriting disciple of Starbound Sect’s Weiheng Wu.”

Bai Xue’s eyes widened. “That Weiheng Wu? The unparalleled, once-in-a-thousand-generations Weiheng Wu?”

Hui nodded.

“Fuck,” Xue muttered.

“Which is why I won’t die.” He grabbed the ghoul skin and pulled at the mouth.

“I—I thought you failed to forge that,” Xue said, startled.

“I did.” Hui fed qi into it and stretched the mouth wide, then stepped through.

“Then…”

“I failed to forge it, but I comprehended most of the spell circuits in the pig-skin mask. As long as I’m wearing it, in contact with it, I can power the spells from the inside. It’s not efficient, but it should allow me to disguise myself as an undead.”

For a second, Xue smiled, hopeful, but then the hope fled. “It… it won’t work. I’m not very conscious as an undead, but I… I know I can see qi. I’ll see your qi, your life force, and attack you anyways.”

“That’s where the gamble comes in,” Hui said, pulling the skin up over his waist. It felt strange, not unlike putting on a full-body latex glove, or a particularly thin, tight wetsuit.

“The gamble?” Xue asked.

Hui nodded, trying to hide his shaking hands by pulling the skin up further. “I’m going to study your death qi and replicate it.”

Xue shook his head. “In—in one night, that’s—”

I knew it! It was death qi I saw! Probably built into the curse. Or the source of the curse’s power? I don’t know much about death qi yet, but if it works the same way as ordinary qi, either is possible.

“Hey. You’re talking to the genius who invented a magical technique at fifteen, right?” Hui grinned with a confidence he didn’t feel.

Taking a deep breath, Xue nodded. He put a hand on Hui’s shoulder. “I’m counting on you.”

Hui looked into Xue’s eyes and nodded, once, then yanked the skin up over his face. The mouth closed around his. Hui fed qi into the skin, casting the spells, and the skin shifted, twitching to fit him perfectly.

Xue flinched. “That… looked uncomfortable.”

“Felt fine to me,” Hui replied. His voice sounded slightly muffled to his ears. He touched his mouth and felt cold, slimy lips, touched his ears and felt rigid, icy flesh.

He looked down at his hands. Bloodless, almost bluish skin stained a bruised purple-black at his fingertips, his fingernails blackened and razor sharp. Ragged robes clung to his forearms, filthy with old blood and dirt. His bones stood out on his chest, itself equally bloodless. He felt the urge to look into a mirror, but suppressed it. After the pig-skin mask, I’ve learned my lesson about that.

“Hui…” Xue warned him.

Hui held his hand out to Xue. “Shall we?”

Xue took a breath. He hesitated. His hand shook, skin almost pale enough to match Hui’s disguise. Veins twisted, paling to blues and purples. “If—if this fails, Hui, I—”

“I forgive you. So?” Hui tipped his head and smiled. If it fails, I die. Dammit, this disciple wanted to live a long and happy life, but—well, it’s better than getting harassed by loan sharks for the next few decades!

No. Don’t think like that. It won’t fail. I won’t die. We’ll do this!

A grin broke over Xue’s face. He clasped Hui’s hand tight. “Then, let’s go down together!”

Nodding, Hui sent his qi into Xue. He sank into darkness, maintaining the spells with the back of his mind while his consciousness plunged into Xue’s qi.

Two types of qi met his probe. Dominant yang, fiery and bright, and painfully-white illusory yin, shimmering under it, no longer dominant but waiting on the flipside of a mirror. The energies shone with a startling brilliance. Staring at it too long made Hui’s mind hurt, so he turned his eyes away.

So beautiful. Is this a fourth-stage cultivator?

A thread of smoke trailed past. Hui focused on it. It reached out, trying to draw his qi in. Hui retreated, watching from a distance. The smoke grew stronger as he traced it deeper into Xue, boiling off Xue’s yang energy. Hideous black symbols crawled like ants over Xue's yang, suppressing the fire. As he watched, more and more smoke billowed out. Even from afar, the smoke's pressure threatened to quench Hui’s qi.

Darting in, he coiled his qi around a bit of the smoke and drew it away. The smoke turned on his qi immediately, burning away at it.

His probe withered. Blackness crawled up the blue energy. Hui hurriedly cut off the end of his probe. It danced, a bright blue light in the darkness. Black ate away the light, and the qi shuddered and died. A faint trace of black smoke spiraled away.

Hui furrowed his brows. That—I need that qi! But how do I get it, without it getting all my qi?

A hand gripped his wrist tight. He felt it distantly, the real world miles away.

“Hui,” Xue groaned.

I don’t have much time. Hui bit his lip, thinking. Gesturing, he split his qi into two. Two snake-like strands split off from his main probe of qi. Alright, they’re separated… wait, are they? He turned back on his own probe and followed the strands back. Both traced through the darkness and landed in his dantian, a distant point of blue light.

Hui frowned. He yanked, freeing one of the strands from his dantian.

Instantly, the qi began to fade.

No, come on! Hui pushed qi at the strand.

Qi reached out from his dantian, and the two reconnected. His qi stopped fading, but the strand connected to his dantian again, firmly rooted in the source of his qi.

Come on. There’s got to be a way to connect it without connecting it. Like… like a cell phone. Wireless data, right?

He cut off a piece of his qi again. This time, he hovered the cut end of the thread near the qi. The piece fluttered, then went still and faded. Bright blue darkened to royal blue, to navy, energy dissipating.

Frustrated, Hui furrowed his brows and focused, reaching out more intently while holding his qi back from touching. Something? Anything? It’s not like cultivators have to touch their swords to call them out! Don’t tell me they’re all manually reaching them with their qi? That’d take way too long! No way!

Little more than a smudge of deep blue in the darkness, his qi suddenly brightened just a hair, from deep blue to navy.

Hui’s eyes lit up. There!

Xue’s grip on his wrist grew painful. Claws bit at the undead’s skin he wore, pushing indents into his skin beneath. “Hu… Hui…”

“Almost!” Hui replied. He drew the second strand further away from the piece. More than an inch, and his head pounded, separated qi shriveling in response. Okay. Okay. I can’t go very far. But I can do this!

“Hui, I can’t…” Xue murmured.

“You can!” Hui snapped back.

Rough motions jolted him back. He slammed into the wall. His head hit hard, the blow muffled by the undead’s scalp. Xue leaned his forehead against Hui’s shoulder. “I want, want… meat…”

Damn, why couldn’t he still be in yin form? I wouldn’t mind so much if she took a little nibble! “Hold on, hold on, alright? A little longer!”

Hui dove back inside. Moving quickly, he separated a piece of his qi from the main stream. Manipulating the piece and the probe together, he reached out toward the smoke bleeding off Xue’s yang energy.

Hungrily, the smoke jumped to his piece of qi. It devoured the qi, almost desperate.

Before the qi fully extinguished, Hui fed it more energy from a distance. The smoke wavered, searching. He snatched the main probe away. The smoke fell back, but the qi faded at the same time.

No, no. Hui inched his probe closer, feeding the piece of qi again. On its last legs, the smoke puffed back into existence. He drew the probe back, toward himself, trailing the smoke after. From Xue, across into himself, then toward his dantian.

Careful. Careful, now. All his mental energy focused on the task except for the scrap maintaining his skin’s spells, Hui drew out more of his qi. Like the first piece, he cut it off, then quickly pushed it toward the first separated piece. Fed by the additional qi, the smoke grew stronger and billowed more thickly. He guided it around his dantian, masking his qi and life energy with a thin film of the smoke.

Did it work? Breaking out of his intense focus, Hui drew a sharp breath and looked around. Xue leaned against him, still gripping onto his wrist.

Firmly, Hui pushed Xue away from him.

White skin, wound through with blue veins. White eyes. A gaping mouth, dripping thick strands of saliva. Ragged clumps of hair hung in uneven strands, already falling forward into his face.

Xue’s eyes flashed. He dashed at Hui.

Hui froze, eyes wide. Oh shit!