Yingyue stumbled around aimlessly, calling in vain for Xue Yang. Disregarding her a-niangs instructions, she called anxiously for him.When realising that he had left for good, she collapsed on the ground. 'Guess I shouldn't have judged him huh?' She thought sarcastically to herself. She sat there sadly, staring at her lap.

A small nose gently nudged against her hand. It was a cute fluffy rabbit! She sniffled slightly and lifted the rabbit into her lap. It nuzzled into her, as if sensing her distress. She held it right to her chest, burying her nose in its fur.

After a while, feeling slightly better she got to her feet and gently set the rabbit down. The rabbit immediately scarpered back to the vegetation. She dusted off her robes and quickly rushed back to her a-niang.

'I shouldn't have left him! That was very reckless of me!' She scolded herself as she quickened her pace. She rushed into the cave, to find her a-niang fast asleep, curled up like a cat. Yingyue sighed in relief. She then pulled some food out her pouch and had a tiny bit.

The sun set, and she carefully sat herself down beside her a-niang.

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The next day:

Yingyue lightly shook Wangji awake as the sun hit his eyes, momentarily blinding him. After a light breakfast, they set off again further south to the goddess of love's home. They took the main dusty, grimy road leaving sand in their wake. Yingyue occupied him by telling him stories of her youth,and discoveries she had made with her a-die.

It felt rather weird without Xue Yang's reassuring presence though, and Wangji tried to distract himself from that.

The afternoon came, the sun cruelly scorching them. They took shelter provided by the trees beside the road. Wangji collapsed and fell back into the tree.

Yingyue however, felt very restless. Her instincts were working in overdrive as her senses were being overwhelmed with warning signs. There was too much resentment coming from within the trees, she realised.

"A-niang!" She said urgently, shaking his arm.

Wangji, sensing something was wrong, pulled out Bichen from its sheath.

A loud groaning sound was heard as tree branch splintered apart under a heavy weight. "It's corpses!" Wangji yelped, prompting Yingyue to pull out her daggers with a flourish.

Corpses appeared from the trees, moving sickeningly with their blank eyes and outstretched arms. The amount of them was never-ending though, they surrounded the duo menacingly.

Wangji lunged forward, his sword slicing through the corpses. Yingyue became a twirling figure of silver, her daggers dicing any corpse that came near her.

The corpses were fierce though, their weapons were anything they had, their hands, their teeth, but they were lethal.

A female corpse slashed at Wangji's arms, where he had been injured by the bandit before. The wound reopened, sloshing out blood.

Yingyue wasn't faring too well either, her face now had a bloody gash which was dripping on the left side of her face. She wiped away the blood viciously and tried to keep off the onslaught of corpses.

Wangji gasped in pain as hand came into contact with his stomach. He let out a pained scream, and the corpse went for his throat with its cruel claws.

"A-NIANG!!" Yingyue screamed.

But just as the hand was going to close around his throat, the corpse dissolved into ash. Wangji quickly sat up, protecting his stomach as he did so.

The corpses turned slowly around to face their saviour.

Xue Yang stood there, his face clenched in determination.

"Xue Yang" Yingyue breathed in shock. He had come back!!! Xue Yang grimly reared back his hand and brought a black smoky orb into a corpse exploding it. He lept into action destroying every corpse in the vicinity.

When every single corpse was gone Yingyue ran over to Wangji, quickly checking him over.

"Yingyue the child-" he gasped. "They're fine, don't worry!" Yingyue replied. Wangji let out a sigh of relief and turned to Xue Yang who just stood there giving them a sad smile.

Yingyue kept to her feet and ran over to him, nearly knocking him over with a hug. Xue Yang hesitantly hugged her back and Wangji gave him a relieved smile.

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"Why did you come back Xue Yang?" Yingyue asked, "I thought you had left us for good," she continued.

They say around a fire, the night sky filled with stars, after a very eventful day. Xue Yang sighed, "I came to terms with my anger, which was unrightly projected onto you two. I realised that, in your situation, I would have thought the same".

"Well I'm glad you are," Wangji said relieved.

❤️🧡💛💚💙💜