Tu You

When the first light from the morning sun hit the small mountain, the entire mine was quiet living beings could be seen inside the place. The only thing that was walking about was a pitch-black skeleton that kept on murmuring the same thing.

"I am Wu Yi."

These simple but unclear words filled the shafts.

The skeleton was dragging around dead bodies. I was pilling them into a single heap in an opening inside the mine. The skeleton felt a strange sense of belonging when inside the mine. It was as if this were its birthplace. When it was done piling up the thousands of dead bodies, the heap reached over ten feet tall.

The skeleton still felt a pull telling it to move deeper into the mountain but it could not resist first absorbing the strange qi and the blood from all the dead bodies. The skeleton climbed up on the heap of dead bodies. At the top, it sat cross-legged and the red glow in its 'eyes' disappeared leaving nothing but two holes.

Immediately, the blood that covered the ground began moving toward the skeleton. It moved like water over land. The blood that was still in the dead bodies moved up and was absorbed by the pitch-black bones.

 As all this was going on, Prince Jie Shui was walking out of a forest. He was covered in blood and his black hair was wild.

His eyes were blood red from exhaustion and his bare feet were bleeding leaving a bloody path in his wake. He had tied a piece of cloth around his waist to prevent his innards from spilling out.

He walked with a small branch holding him up. He had reached his limit but due to honor, duty, and for his dead men, he had continued walking as fast as he could. It had been over two weeks since the battle where his men were slaughtered by the undead skeleton that he had come to call an 'Enemy of Humanity.'

He believed that if this creature were to be allowed to continue 'living', it would bring death to the world.

The prince walked a few more steps out of the forest before collapsing on a narrow dirt road.

He had surpassed his limits to reach this point but he was still human and a human body had limits that could never be surpassed by mere Qi Gathering cultivators.

The prince lay on the road dying for two whole days before another human being came across him.

He was lucky that he was found by a human and not one of the many wild animals in the forest.

The young man who came across the dying prince was about fourteen years old. He was in the fifth stage of martial cultivation.

He wore torn clothes showing that he was a very poor individual.

He carried the prince over his shoulder and ran back to his village.

The young man had come from a nearby village. When the other villagers saw him coming back with a human on his shoulders instead of an animal, they surrounded him and began asking all sorts of questions.

"Tu You, are we going to eat this man for this week /He looks skinny. Are you sure that he will be enough? I can eat him all on my own." said a fat woman who kept on following the young man even until he reached his small house.

Tu You was a muscular young boy. He was an orphan who lived in the village by himself.

He did not know where he had come from. His earliest memory was of waking up in this village. He was ten years old by then. He was now fourteen. He was used to the weird behaviors of these villagers.

He placed the prince on a straw bed and immediately ran out to get some help.

A few minutes later, he came back with an old woman. The woman put her small sack on the floor and brought out many different herbs that she put to the side.

She opened the prince's mouth and poured a brown liquid down his throat.

She then began undressing him.

Tu You looked on in silence.

He knew that he would have to pay the old woman but he felt that this was the right thing to do. Soon, all the robes were removed from the prince's body.

When Tu You saw the wound on the prince's abdomen, he felt sick. He quickly ran out and vomited his guts out.

The wound had festered and maggots could be seen moving inside the wound.

Some of the flesh had already become rotten.

When the young man returned, he was surprised since he could not smell anything dead.

"Why is there no smell?" he asked the old woman.

She did not answer him. He thought that she would not reply but she did.

"This young man was knowledgeable enough to put some turmeric on his wounds before binding them. This along with his powerful cultivation are the reasons he is not yet dead. He also added some other useless herbs that masked the smell of his rotting flesh Too bad that the extra things he put reduced the medicinal value of the turmeric. Still, he will survive now that he is in my hands ." said the old woman.

Tu You watched as the old woman brought out a sharp knife and began cutting off the rotten pieces of flesh from the wound. She threw them on a small tray by the side.

When she was done, the wound looked fresh. She had also managed to somehow remove all the maggots and other foreign objects.

The woman then poured a thick grey liquid on the wound. It let out a hissing sound. Tu You left the room and left the woman to her work. He had reached his limit.

He sat outside the door and waited patiently.

The old woman came out of the house the following day. She looked exhausted.

Tu You went on with his life as though nothing had changed.

He hunted in the forest and lived happily with the weird villagers. He took care of the prince every day but the prince was still unconscious.

He opened his eyes after two weeks of deep sleep. The first thing he saw was darkness.