The Nine-tailed Fox sees a terrible thing

tw: gore and death

"What would this something be?" Lan Tian asks.

"I have no idea, but it can't be anything good. You have to understand, there's no reason for a god to kill her own worshipers, they're the source of our powers. A God's power increases the more humans pray to them. My belief is that, because Xie Xiu is acting so outside the scope of the natural cosmic laws, the universe tries to right itself by rejecting the existence of the humans whose prayers she answers, however, this must change them monstrously, or threaten to expose her in some way she can't risk."

"You lied to us about the temple, right?" Wu Yun says.

Bai Xiaoli nods. "Most gods don't answer prayers in person, but we know she's doing that, because she keeps an eye on the worshipers, and did so for the Prince. I only needed to use my human appearance and make an offering to her with some false request, of course she found out right away who I was. I lied to you to protect you, she won't kill another god, but she might very well do that to a beast."

Wu Yun scoffs. "I'd like to see her try."

"Because you're so strong? You don't have a single divine weapon between the three of you! I can tell right away that yours and his cultivation is only strong enough to allow you to keep an human form, you're probably too weak to even change back into your original forms at will. She might be stronger than you, but right now she's so drained she wouldn't be able to set fire to a twig let alone fight anyone."

Wan Mi opens her mouth as if she's about to protest, but closes it just as quickly, recognizing the truth of Bai Xiaoli's words.

"The best you can do is stay out of my way and let me handle Xie Xiu," Bai Xiaoli says, walking out of the house through the ruined doorway.

Wu Yun follows after her. "Oh, because you've done such a great job up until now? You've been unconscious since yesterday!"

Bai Xiaoli ignores him and keeps walking forward.

"Did you know who we were from the beginning?" Lan Tian asks.

Bai Xiaoli knows where he's going with that questions and smirks despite herself.

"Then why did you ask us all those questions?" Lan Tian asks, exasperated by her self-satisfied smirk.

"I wanted to see you squirm, besides, I thought you and him might need a little help."

"Help with what?" Wu Yun asks. How would those terrible questions help them in anyway?

"Knowing what you're supposed to do when the urge comes."

Wu Yun mouths the words 'urge comes' until it downs on him, and his ears steam red in embarrassment. "You don't know what you're talking about!"

"Oh no, it's the two of you who are absolutely clueless."

They keep following Bai Xiaoli through the gravel road crossing Liucun like three ducklings following a mother duck. She walks ahead in an unknown direction, while they all shout questions at her that she ignores with put-upon sighs.

Bai Xiaoli stops in her tracks all of a sudden and Wu Yun almost collides with her back. He's about to tell her off for it when he hears the frantic pleas of a familiar voice.

"Young heroes! Young heroes, please I need your help" Old Ou is running towards them, drawing the curious eyes of every passerby.

"What happened?" Lan Tian asks, stilling the old man with a comforting hand on his shoulder.

Old Ou is panting heavily and drenched in sweat. He takes in big lungfuls of air to get his breathing under control. His eyes are wide and manic when he manages to explain himself.

"My wife, it's my wife."

"What happened to Madam Ou," asks Wan Mi, touching the careful pony tail Madam Ou bound her hair in just that morning.

"She, she's always wanted a daughter, but the gods only saw fit to bless us with one son. Ever since she met little Wan Mi, she can't stop talking about how wonderful it would be if we had a daughter of our own, to spoil and pamper. Of course in our age that wouldn't be possible."

Wu Yun fears where this conversation is leading. He grips old Ou by the shoulders, and shakes him, trying to clear the dazed look from his eyes. "What did she do? Tell us, what did she do?"

"She must have been talking with the neighbours. One of them told her there is a goddess who answers all mortal payers. She told me just after you left that she would be praying to her, today. I left to market, and when I arrived at home just now, I saw a flash of bright light and heard my sweet Miao scream. I never heard her scream like that, please help her!"

Wu Yun is already running towards the Ou household, followed by Bai Xiaoli screaming at him to stay back.

Lan Tian places a gentle hand on Old Ou's shoulder. "Please stay here, we're going to help her, everything will be fine."

He runs after Wu Yun wishing he could believe his own words.

---

The house is in shambles when they get there. Wu Yun steps through the front door and almost gets hit with a heavy copper pot. Everything is overturned and broken, the kitchen Madam Ou so meticulously kept is in total disarray, a large crack runs through the stone oven, and the table is broken in half. It looks like the aftermath of an earthquake. Wu Yun walks over the debris with cautious steps.

He can hear Wan Mi's gasp just behind him when she sees the total destruction of the house they left in pristine condition just a few short hours before. Lan Tian curses under his breath and walks towards Wu Yun.

"I can hear her voice," Bai Xiaoli says, walking past them towards the Ou couple's bedroom.

None of the destruction of the house could prepare Wu Yun for the ghastly sight inside the bedroom.

There's a half formed creature squirming on the floor, its limbs are attached to a pulsing red body, and its bones crack with every movement. He can see an exposed heart pumping away frantically in the middle of the bloody mass. Entrails and organs cover the fleshy pulp like a macabre flag. Suddenly he knows what this is. A human body turned inside out.

A limpid dark eyeball is hanging by its connective tissue around one of the bone stripped arms, it rolls around until it sees him. The creature let's out an inhuman shriek from an unseen mouth.

The scene is bloodcurdling, and the contents of Wu Yun's stomach turn to stone with the knowledge this mass of pulsating viscera used to be the sweet, gentle Madam Ou.

Wan Mi lets out an agonizing scream once she sees what remains of Madam Ou. Lan Tian comes up behind her and covers her eyes with his palm.

Wan Mi's scream alerts a figure who was standing in the corner, with her back to the door. Wu Yun was so preoccupied with the horror that he didn't even notice her.

She turns around, and looks at them with wide, innocent eyes. She's beautiful as a painting, the same kind of flawless jade-like beauty Wu Yun recognizes from Ling Yan and Shu Luan in his dreams.

Her dark hair falls in loose waves to her waist, and her blue long-sleeved silk robes are open at the elbow, showing her milky forearms where she's cradling swaddled baby. Despite the horror of the room the baby sleeps peacefully in Xie Xiu's arms, her little chest raising and falling in the gentle rhythm of unperturbed sleep.

"It happened again," Xie Xiu tells an aghast Bai Xiaoli, her wide eyes filled with confusion and worry. "I don't know how to make it stop, I just want to answer their prayers."

"You know you need to stop this," Bai Xiaoli says, uncurling a whip that seems to be made of pure light from her waist.

Bai Xiaoli steps around the squirming mass on the floor, and tries to reach Xie Xiu.

Xie Xiu shakes her head, like she's trying to wake up from a bad dream. "I can't do that, I need to bring back my baby." She whispers the word baby several times, and then looks down at the baby in her arms. "My baby was just like this one, so small..."

Bai Xiaoli raises her hand to Xie Xiu. "Give me the child, and come back to me to the upper realm, we can solve this."

Xie Xiu startles at her words and clutches the baby closer to her chest. "I can't do that. I'll be punished, punished, punished."

She repeats the words like a litany, her eyes are at once filled with a childlike innocence, and brimming with an overwhelming sorrow.

Xie Xiu is focused on Bai Xiaoli in front of her, and doesn't notice Wu Yun approaching from her blindside until he grabs the baby from her arms and turns away.

He runs with the baby back to Lan Tian's side, who still has his palm over Wan Mi's eyes. Wan Mi is gripping his hand with white-knuckled strength. Tears run down her cheek in a silent stream.

Xie Xiu screams as soon as she notices the baby is out of her arms, and calls a gleaming black onyx sword onto her hand. The sword gives off a faint silver glow, and hums like the air before a storm.

The haunted look is gone from Xie Xiu's eyes and now she screams in fury as she swings the sword around the room. Everything the sword touches crumples into dust.

Wu Yun tries to leave the room, holding the baby in one arm, and pulling Lan Tian back by the sleeve. Lan Tian picks up Wan Mi by the shoulder and throws her out of the room.

Xie Xiu advances on them with a screech, cutting down the squirming mass with a vicious slash before jumping in the air and landing next to the doorway.

The broken body that used to be Madam Ou gives out one last agonizing howl before crumpling into itself and turning into an unmoving pile of bones, skin, and blood.

Xie Xiu barely notices, and instead raises her sword at Lan Tian's back, still turned to push Wan Mi out of the room.

Wu Yun won't let that dark blade make contact and erase Lan Tian from existence. Without even realizing he's doing it, he jumps in front of Lan Tian's back and between the path of the blade.

His last thought before the world goes dark is that maybe he and Jiang Tanmei are not so different after all.