The Nine-tailed Fox does something nice

It seems impossible that he slept for an entire month and didn't die, but the sorrow in Lan Tian's eyes tells him it's the truth.

"I brought his medicine," Wan Mi announces as she walks inside the room. She gasps when she sees Wu Yun sitting up on the bed and almost drops the tray carrying a steaming bowl of foul medicine.

Lan Tian takes the bowl from her, and sits down on the bed next to Wu Yun. He takes a spoonful of medicine and blows on it before extending it to Wu Yun. "It's best to drink while it's hot."

Wu Yun takes an uncertain sip and cringes at the sour taste. "It's bitter."

Lan Tian smiles. "Good medicine tastes bitter."

Wu Yun downs another spoonful and grimaces again. "You drink it, then."

Wan Mi sighs. "He was much nicer when he was sleeping."

Wu Yun takes the bowl from Lan Tian's hands and drinks it all at once, almost scalding his tongue. "I can see the featherless chicken didn't miss me."

Wan Mi opens her mouth to retort, but Lan Tian answers before she can, "She did turns with me, whenever I was sleeping she watched over you. And she's the one who brews your medicine, because I always burn it."

"Why did you say that? His head will get even bigger now!" She flushes in embarrassment, in the typical attitude of a child who can't be seen caring about anyone other than herself, and leaves the room in a huff.

Wu Yun chuckles at her antics, and turns to Lan Tian, cocking his head to the side. "And you? Did you miss me?"

He watches as the apple of Lan Tian's throat bobs and he turns his eyes away. There's the barest hint of red on his pale earlobes. "Everyday. I missed you everyday."

His quiet admission makes Wu Yun warm up from the inside more than any medicine ever could.

Wu Yun takes Lan Tian's hand, still resting on the sheets, in his and runs the pad of his thumb over his stark knuckles. "I'm sorry I made you worry."

"Did you dream, while you slept?"

It feels to Wu Yun as if he did nothing else. He still remembers the panic running through Ling Yan at being taken away from all he ever knew by Xue Jin. It explains his words to Shu Luan in the previous dream. He must have felt like Xue Jin approached him under false pretenses.

He doesn't know if he's ready to talk about the dreams yet, especially since he understands so little about them. He looks down to avoid Lan Tian's searching gaze and notices a white raised scar on his arm, wrapping just below his wrist like a coiled snake.

He raises his arm to inspect it, and asks Lan Tian, "What is this?"

Lan Tian runs his fingers over the raised skin with a complicated expression. "It's a scar from when Bai Xiaoli's whip accidentally wrapped around you. She struck it at Xie Xiu to pull her away from you, but the tip of the whip caught you because you had your arm raised in front of your face."

"So Xie Xiu's sword never touched me?" That would explain why we woke up at all.

"If it did you wouldn't be here," Lan Tian answers, his eyes are haunted by what could have been. He touches the scar on Wu Yun's arm to reassure himself that he's really there. "Bai Xiaoli's whip saved you, but it also made you fall unconscious. It's not meant to be used on a human body, so your body needed time to heal itself from the trauma."

"Bai Xiaoli had a human body as well, how could she hold the whip then?" Wu Yun asks.

"She explained that her human form is only an illusion, she still retains her godly essence, just as Wan Mi is still a beast despite being in a human form. The two of us are different, by losing access to our real beast forms we can draw no power from them, we become like real humans."

Wu Yun falls back down on the pillow with a frown. "Being a human is terrible."

He's reminded of poor Madam Ou, such a gentle woman didn't deserve that cruel death. "How is Old Ou?"

Lan Tian flinches. "Not well, thankfully he never saw Madam Ou as we did, but he went into the house later and found her remains, a hungry ghost had already appeared, attracted by the site of a hideous death, and attacked him. We took you to Bai Xiaoli's house, so we weren't there to help him. He's alive but still recovering at the village doctor's house."

"What about Bai Xiaoli? And the baby?"

"She took Xie Xiu with her to the Heavens, and then came back to help watch over you, but she was called back about a week ago and had to return. She took the baby with her, she's apparently not fully human, Bai Xiaoli isn't sure what exactly she is, but she thought it wasn't a good idea to leave her in Liucun."

At least Xie Xiu won't be causing more deaths to unsuspecting humans, Wu Yun only wishes that her last casualties hadn't been the same people who asked them for help and welcomed them into their home. Some of Lan Tian's tenderhearted nature must be rubbing off on him.

He looks around the room and realizes he doesn't recognize it. "Where are we?"

"Bai Xiaoli's house, we've been staying here the entire month."

"That must have been an experience, I'm surprised Wan Mi didn't kill you."

Lan Tian smiles, "She's not too bad."

As if summoned, she shows up at the door wearing an apron and with a white streak on her cheek. "Now that you're up you can help me cook. Lan Tian is useless. Everything he touches ends up soggy or burnt."

---

Wu Yun proves a much more adept cook than Lan Tian. At least he's able to gut the fishes Wan Mi bought from the market and season them in a way that's not entirely unpalatable. He helps Wan Mi cook the rice, and steam pork dumplings.

Lan Tian carries the bowls to the table.

"He never shuts up, but he's more help than you," Wan Mi says, pointing at Lan Tian with her chopsticks.

"Don't use your chopsticks to point, that's rude," Lan Tian says, taking a bite of the fish.

Wu Yun expects him to compliment him on its crispy skin, and is disappointed when he doesn't.

He notices that Lan Tian's and Wan Mi's relationship changed a lot while he slept. She's still the terrible little brat he remembers, but she actually listens to what Lan Tian says. They seem to have settled into a companionable rhythm, it makes Wu Yun realize how much he has missed this past month.

"Well, we've already lost a month and a few days on our journey to the Kunlun Mountains," Wu Yun says, setting down his bowl once he's done eating.

Wan Mi shrugs, and rests her face on her open palm. "There's no rush."

"If you don't want to go, by all means, let us know," Wu Yun says.

"I want to go! You said you'd take me there. Remember you owe me." There's the temper Wu Yun remembers.

"As if you'd let me forget. I just wanted to check, because if you don't want to go, there's a thousand other places me and Lan Tian could go to."

She crosses her arms and smirks at him. "Oh, really? Like where?"

So maybe there are so many places he doesn't even know where to start, but they definitely wouldn't be going to the place that produces the same kind of brats as Wan Mi.

"I actually think it's for the best that we go there, it might be our best chance of learning how to return to our original shapes," Lan Tian says.

On one hand, Wu Yun recognizes he has a point, on the other, he refuses to give Wan Mi the satisfaction.

"Did Bai Xiaoli say anything before she left? How do you even know she'll handle Xie Xiu properly?" Wu Yun asks, changing the subject.

"We don't, but what are you going to do about it? Storm the Heavens?" Wan Mi says with a derisive snort.

"She said, she would be able to find us later, and if we needed help we could pray to her and she would come," Lan Tian says.

"Who would we even be praying to? The goddess of invasive questions?" Wu Yun says, trying to imagine himself lighting incense and offering food to a statue of Bai Xiaoli, and failing.

"We should leave either way, now that Wu Yun is awake, there's nothing else keeping us here." Lan Tian's words remind Wu Yun of the Ou couple's tragic fate, and of the role they played in it.

"I wish I could have warned Madam Ou not to pray to anyone until we solved the case," he says, voicing the errant thought running through his mind like a wild horse.

"Why would you? You thought she was an annoying old lady who gossiped too much," Wan Mi says stonily, and leaves the table without sparing them a look.

"What's gotten into her?" Wu Yun asks, he can still hear Wan Mi's loud footfalls in the next room.

"She was really upset about Madam Ou's death. Madam Ou was nice to her, said she was a bright young girl, a good girl, gave her candies... She said that even her Master never said such nice things about her." Lan Tian looks out at the wall separating the living room from the bedroom where Wan Mi is making a racket.

"With the way she spoke I didn't think she liked humans," Wu Yun says, following Lan Tian's line of sight. Children are complicated.

"Can you blame her? The first human she met stuck her in a cage." Lan Tian says his eyes downcast. "Besides, you always went on about how much trouble humans were, yet you cried when Jiang Tanmei died."

Wu Yun shoots him a glare. "Speaking of, he must have woken up a few days ago."

He wonders if he's still the same overbearing young master, after dying and coming back.

"If everything went well, he must be, yes." Lan Tian says, Wu Yun doesn't miss the note of apprehension in his voice, but he doesn't remark on it. Too much has gone wrong already, he'd rather not think about it.

---

They pack all their things into the chests, and are ready to leave Liucun by that afternoon, but decide to pay Old Ou one last visit before leaving.

Wu Yun notices as he walks down the street that the people give them a wide berth and suspicious looks. Unlike the friendliness they were received with, now everyone seems suspicious of them. Wu Yun reckons that is to be expected since the Ou couple opened their doors to them and were met with misfortune.

The doctor lets them inside the room where Old Ou is resting. A large scar bisects his face, and his arm is on a sling. He still tries to sketch a smile when he sees Wan Mi.

Wu Yun can't bear to look at his ruined face without feeling guilty. It was because of him that the others left the house in a hurry, leaving Old Ou to find the hungry ghost.

"Thank you, young heroes, for all your help. I know that if my dear Miao was still here she would thank you too." Tears overfill his eyes when he mentions Madam Ou's name.

Wu Yun can't bear to look at him in his current state. He leaves the doctor's house and goes outside to the cart to rummage for something in the chests.

When he comes back he hands Old Ou a string bag filled with gold taels. "This won't bring back your wife, but it can help you rebuild your house. We're going now."

Old Ou looks at the dozens of gold ingots in shock, and Wu Yun takes the opportunity to leave, followed by Lan Tian.

They're already underway, riding north, when Lan Tian turns to him and says, "That was a nice thing you did for Old Ou."

Wu Yun looks resolutely ahead. "I just didn't want to feel like I owed him something for his wife's death, and his injuries."

"It was still a nice thing, regardless of how you want to reason it."

Why can he just leave well enough alone? "You're very annoying, did you know that?" He tells him with a frown.

Lan Tian smiles and it lights up his whole face. "You like it."