Where Immortals Once Walked

He Lingchuan followed her inside, then felt something was off.

Wait, how did she get here so quickly?

He and the creature had been sprinting like hares, vaulting over one obstacle after another. That was not a pace a normal person could match. During the fight, he had kept his ears open. The smoke was still thick then, yet he had heard nothing of her approach. If he had missed it, surely those two creatures would have noticed and adjusted. Instead, both were caught by surprise.

Once suspicion took root, he looked her over again. There was not a single drop of hot water that stained her clothes, and none of the green corrosive spit had spattered her. The fight had been fierce enough to eat holes in his own shirt, yet she was spotless.

Is she really nothing more than a teacher at Shumin State Academy?

Sun Fuling ignored whatever was in his head. She pointed at the floor and said, “Look.”

A woman in her sixties lay there. Terror still froze her features, but her body had shriveled to skin and bone.

A gaping hole marred her neck.

He crouched for a closer look. “Her blood and flesh have been drained. It seems to feed on humans.”

Sun Fuling nodded and said, “That other house you rushed to first, the young mother looked the same.”

So there had been two intruders, each slipping into a home to feed. Once he discovered one, it ran to link up with its partner and launch a counterattack.

“How could creatures like this appear inside Panlong City?” The city was one of the few peaceful places on this trouble-riddled continent. The rules were strict, and the streets were safer than most. Only then could people live and work in relative calm.

Sun Fuling asked, “What will you do now?”

Before he could answer, the outer door creaked open, and four or five men hurried in.

He stepped out to meet them and nearly collided with a squad of patrolmen.

“What happened here?” Their eyes fell to the thing on the floor and widened at once. The commotion had drawn neighbors, who had fetched a patrol on their rounds. The men had expected a domestic quarrel. Instead, they walked in on this.

He Lingchuan was off duty and not in uniform, so he held up the divine bone necklace for them to see. “About forty breaths ago, we heard a child scream while we were walking home. We found two creatures attacking people. We caught this one, but the other escaped.”

In Panlong City, the divine bone necklace served as a form of identification or credential. The patrolmen straightened up and asked, “Which way did it run?”

“East. It was very quick.” He pointed, and three of the men ran off in that direction.

The two who remained stepped inside. One glance at the desiccated corpse was enough. After listening to He Lingchuan’s brief account and hearing that there were two more victims nearby, their faces turned grim.

They questioned him carefully and twice over. Then one said, “We need to report this at once. Please leave the scene for now. If we need more information, we will find you.”

He had just nodded when Sun Fuling gave a small cry. “Look!”

The creature’s ragged breathing had slowed. All of them stared as its body began to shrink rapidly. A moment ago, it had stood nearly as tall as He Lingchuan. Now, right before their eyes, it collapsed in on itself until it was only the size of a fist.

Now, it was no larger than a newborn kitten.

Miniature, it looked less frightening yet somehow even stranger.

The patrolmen gaped. “W-what do we even do with that?” One of them pinched it up by the scruff to take it in as evidence.

Sun Fuling prodded it with a twig. “It’s still breathing, so it should still be alive. I think it’s a juvenile.”

“Juvenile...” He Lingchuan’s face darkened. He had nearly been beaten by two that had not even reached adulthood. Say that out loud, and the shame would never wash off. If the young were this deadly, what would an adult be like?

“How did things like this slip into the city at all?” Panlong City’s gate checks were no ordinary formality.

Sun Fuling sighed. “For now, we should just go. Let the constables do their work.”

They stepped out. A crowd jammed the lane, whispering and pointing. As soon as people saw the pair emerge, the questions came in a rush. Sun Fuling answered in a few crisp phrases and left it at that.

Then, they walked home in silence.

The way those creatures had appeared felt wrong. Both of them carried the same bad taste on the tongue.

At his courtyard, she did not immediately push open her door. Instead, she looked at his back. “You’re hurt. Shouldn’t you have your wounds treated?”

“Uh...” He had not thought much of it. If he died in the dream, he would wake whole again. Even so, now that she had mentioned it, the pain made itself known. “I’ll have A’Luo take a look.”

She hesitated, then said, “I can dress your wounds, if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind.” He Lingchuan scratched his neck. “Please do.”

They went into his little courtyard. The room was so cramped that the two of them could hardly turn, so they shifted into the kitchen. Sun Fuling dragged a low stool to the window where the light was best. “Sit.”

Before he had taken a proper look around, she had the brazier going. Two small charcoal bricks and a handful of kindling later, the cold room had begun to warm.

He Lingchuan asked, “Do I need to take my shirt off?”

“No.” She eyed his back. “The scab has glued to the cloth. Tearing it free will do more harm.”

She fetched scissors and a jar of external salve, then moved behind him. “Tell me if it stings too much.”

Metal touched skin. He felt the careful snipping of scissors as she cut away the fabric that stuck to the wound.

The creature’s claws had opened long gashes across his back. Two tracks ran nearly parallel, the edges peeled back. The blood that beaded out was pale green and foamed.

“You’re poisoned.” She finished cleaning the wound and held a pill in her palm before his eyes. “You need at least two antidotes. Swallow one, and I will grind the other as a poultice.”

He looked at her hand but did not speak.

“What is it?”

“That’s not from my kit, right?”

“No, it’s from mine... no, my brother’s.” She crushed the second pill and spread the powder over the wound. A blast of cold sank into his back, so sharp that he shivered. The chill turned to heat at once.

He Lingchuan hissed through his teeth. It felt hot enough to cook meat. He was sure none of his own medicines hit with that kind of force.

Her fingers pressed his shoulders to keep him still. “It’s effective. Bear it for a moment.”

She was right. The burn receded, and coolness crept in, soothing as a summer stream. Soon, the pain dulled. She wiped away the froth. The blood that oozed now was a healthy red.

Next came a thin layer of wound salve, followed by clean bandage wraps.

Her fingertips pressed lightly near the cuts. They were cool, yet her breath at his nape was warm. From fire to ice to a calm center, the sensations see-sawed and settled.

From entry to dressing, she moved with speed and order. That alone was unexpected.

He made small talk while she worked. “How did those two end up inside the walls?”

Sun Fuling said, “They shouldn’t have been able to get in on their own.”

“Exactly. If they were juveniles, nine times out of ten someone smuggled them in.” He Lingchuan kept his voice low. “They fought by instinct and were already a match for me. I don’t want to meet an adult.”

“I worry there’s more of them than just that pair.” She sighed. “We found two by pure chance while walking home. What about the rest of the city?”

Worse, the creatures could shrink. In a place as large as Panlong City, that was almost the same as turning invisible. How could anyone flush them out?

“At least the one we caught has been handed over,” she said softly. “Let’s just hope that the authorities move quickly. Alright, I’ve finished applying medicine. Don’t get it wet and don’t sleep on your back for the next day or two. Understood?”

“Understood, Physician Sun,” He Lingchuan said with a grin. “The way you moved your hands isn’t any worse than A’Luo.”

Actually, A’Luo was far rougher.

Something like a light laugh sounded behind him.

She tidied the bloodied cloth and waste and washed her hands. A yawn slipped out and left her face drawn with fatigue. “Well, that’s that. I’ll be heading back to rest.”

“Be careful. Call me if anything happens.”

“I will.” She picked up the books she had brought, paused, then turned and placed them in his hands. “You can have these for now. When you finish reading them, just toss them over my wall.” She waved and slipped through her gate.

He listened to the soft creak of wood next door, then opened his right palm and studied it.

Her hands were spindle-shaped, fingers long and graceful. In the dim room, they had seemed almost luminous. Yet when she had passed him the pill, he had noticed a thin callus across the pads and at the base of the fingers on her right hand.

He had the same. In his case, the skin had toughened from years of training. As for Sun Fuling, was it chopping wood, cooking, and doing housework?

That can’t be it.

He strung the thoughts together. In that clash with two monsters, her help had been timely and precise. Without it, he would have been in a true life-or-death fight. He had not sensed her approach at all. What sort of young woman would not bolt at seeing such a thing? Her calm hinted at skill, and skill often breeds a steadier heart.

The more he considered it, the more riddles he found.

The two books she had lent him lay by his elbow.

He picked one up. The title read, Strange Tales of the Middle Era. The two books were actually just two separate volumes of the same title, and both were written by the same author.

He flipped it open. The pages collected reports of oddities and marvels from the Middle Era. The author himself warned that these stories were compiled, not verified, and should be read for interest rather than proof.

According to the scholars’ reckoning, the world-shattering catastrophe marks the division. Everything before it belongs to the Ancient Era. Everything that follows falls into the Middle Era, which lasted until eight hundred years ago. After that, the human states truly matured and flourished, while the Daoist sects declined in equal measure and no longer steered the age.

This then meant that the Middle Era spanned more than two thousand years. What had happened across such a stretch was already hard to trace with certainty.

He had not expected the upright academy teacher to favor such leisure reading.

Whatever.

With nothing urgent pressing, he settled in to pass the time with the two books.

Unknowingly, when he started reading, he was unable to stop. During this time, he forgot even to take a sip of water.