Shu Mingye galloped like a madman, his horse kicking up dust as it thundering down the narrow mountain path. His robe flapped wildly behind him, and his neat hair was halfway out of its tie, but he didn't care. The only thing on his mind was the report he had just gotten from his shadow guard.
"They fell," his shadow guard had said. "Deep into the cave."
That was all it took. Before his brain could even process the full meaning of those words, his feet had already taken off. He barely remembered mounting the horse, or leaving the palace. He definitely hadn't checked whether his boots matched. (They didn't.) The suspicious tea she had given him. Poison? Soup? A stomach cleanse scheduled to explode at the most inconvenient moment? His stomach still wasn't sure. And now this.
"What am I even doing," he muttered as the wind slapped him in the face, stinging his eyes. "What am I supposed to do when I get there? Do I rescue them? Do I scold them? Do I… yell about tea?"
But he didn't slow down. His jaw clenched as the mountain loomed higher in front of him. Would she be okay? Would they all be okay? The shadow guard's words had been clear—the fall was deep, so deep they hadn't seen the bottom. Not a comforting update. The guards had gone to circle the mountain and search for another entrance.
Fine. Good plan. He just had to find them. Then, and only then, could he decide whether to save someone, scold someone, or collapse on the ground from sheer emotional exhaustion.
By the time he reached the foot of the mountain, his shadow guards were already waiting. They stood straight and composed, their expressions politely blank. Very wisely, they pretended not to notice that their usually terrifying King looked like he had just wrestled a tornado and maybe lost the first round. His hair was half loose, his robe was streaked with mud, and a stubborn twig clung to his sleeve.
"This way," the guard said, voice calm, as if this wasn't a complete disaster. He pointed not to the cave entrance, but to a narrow side path winding up the mountain.
"We followed a group of suspicious armed men and discovered another entrance," the guard continued. "They seem to know where they're going."
"Good," Shu Mingye muttered, already stomping up the muddy, root-infested trail.
The path was cruel. Mud sucked at his boots. Roots grabbed at his ankles. Vines swung at him. A branch whipped him across the face with shocking accuracy. One puddle nearly ate his entire left boot. He ignored all of it. He had one goal: get inside that cave.
When they finally arrived, the entrance gaped at him—nothing but a crack in the mountain, dark and ominous. He didn't hesitate. No dramatic pause. No calculating plan. He didn't even dust the twig off his sleeve. He stormed straight inside. And from somewhere deep in the stone belly of the mountain, it reached him. Shouting. Clashing. The sharp, unmistakable ring of steel against steel.
Good. That meant they were still alive. Probably.
He moved faster. He didn't bother looking at the skeletons littering the path, or the corpses slumped against the walls, or even the strange patch of dripping goo at the corner. None of it mattered. He ran until he saw them.
Two of them were still busy fighting some rather angry people. Shen Zhenyu wasn't fighting, he was crouched beside a body, doing something that could only be described as suspicious. And then there was Linyue. She stood in front of him, her back turned. Shu Mingye couldn't see her face. Naturally, his instincts sent him straight for her. But before he could take another step, Shen Zhenyu suddenly stood and, without warning, began smearing something across her face. Left, right, smear, pat, rub, dab. It was fast. It was alarming. It was... not elegant.
Shu Mingye stopped cold. His mind blanked. "...What?"
What in the world was that man doing? Was that… was that blood on his hands?
Linyue blinked in faint surprise at the treatment. "What are you—oh. Right." She sighed.
Shen Zhenyu's blood-smeared hand was now lovingly painting her cheeks. Of course. The jade dust powder. It must've washed away when she took an involuntary dive in the river of blood. So now Shen Zhenyu was reapplying camouflage with the nearest available material. She stood very still while he artfully rearranged her wet hair to stick across her face in what must've been the ugliest, most tragically convincing disguise known to mankind.
Creative. Disgusting. Effective.
At that moment, she turned around right as the sound of fast, purposeful footsteps echoed through the cave and came face-to-face with Shu Mingye.
What is he doing here? Linyue thought, half amused, half annoyed. Don't tell me he came chasing youth and immortality too.
Shu Mingye's frown carved deeper the instant he saw her. No, not her face exactly. At least, not the version of her he knew. Her face was half-hidden under a mask of blood, damp strands of hair plastered to her cheeks. Her robes were soaked a deep, alarming red. If someone had whispered that she had crawled out of a haunted well after haunting people for seven days, he might've believed it. He might even have offered her a towel and a stick of incense.
Actually, all of them looked like that. The entire group resembled a failed horror play where the fake blood budget had gotten out of control.
He Yuying stood alone in a puddle, dripping slowly and mumbling something about cabbage.
Song Meiyu looked like she had been enthusiastically dunked headfirst into a giant pot of tomato soup.
Shen Zhenyu was slightly more composed, but only slightly.
Yet despite the horror-show appearance, they were standing. They were breathing. They were upright. Against all odds, they were still in one piece.
Shu Mingye squinted at her, his expression unreadable but his chest tight with worry. "...Are you okay?"
Linyue, blood still streaked across her cheeks, answered with the flattest face he had ever seen. "Of course not. My precious pie has been defiled by blood… and I smell like rotten fish."
Her pie? At a time like this, she was still thinking about pie?
He glanced at her again, this time more thoroughly.
Limbs: all present.
Bleeding: minimal.
Limping: none.
Status: red, soggy, and slightly terrifying… but alive.
His shoulders dropped, a long sigh escaping him, a mix of relief, disbelief, and weary resignation. She wasn't dying. She was just damp, slightly furious, and currently radiating the smell of a cursed seafood stall.
Finally, he let his eyes wander past her and instantly regretted it.
Bodies. Skeletons. Blood. So much blood. It painted the ground, the water, the rocks. Some of the bodies were fresh, still faintly warm. Others were little more than bones, brittle and hollow. The pool of blood shimmered, dark and unsettling. And just to complete the nightmare décor, several of the armored attackers were scattered nearby. A few groaned pitifully, others lay sprawled in very tragic-looking poses. One man twitched dramatically and then passed out again.
What have they gotten into this time, Shu Mingye thought grimly as he found himself knee-deep in what might have been blood, soup, jam, or something worse. At this point, they didn't just need luck. They needed an exorcist. Maybe two. And a spiritual cleaning service, just to be safe.
He turned slowly, taking in the chaos: the soaked group of cultivators, the groaning attackers, and the overall haunted cave aesthetic. His voice came out tight, edged with disbelief. "…No one's going to say something?"
Linyue, calm as ever despite looking like a blood-smeared ghost bride, pointed lazily toward Shen Zhenyu. "Brother Zhenyu is interrogating one of them."
Sure enough, Shen Zhenyu—having finished his abstract art project on her face earlier—was now crouched beside a still-conscious attackers. His tone was low, patient, and far too calm for the situation, which only made it more terrifying. The attacker stared up at him with wide, panicked eyes, clearly torn between answering the question or pretending to faint. Judging by the sweat running down his temple, pretending wasn't working.
Song Meiyu leaned toward He Yuying and whispered loudly enough for everyone to hear. "He looks so scary like that. Ten times scarier than when he's brooding."
He Yuying, wringing another depressing stream of red water from his sleeve, muttered back, "This is the first time I've ever pitied the enemy. Should we… give that guy blood-contaminated lotus pie? For courage?"
"Pie won't help him," Song Meiyu whispered back, eyes wide. "Look at his face. That's the face of a man who knows he's about to spill every secret, including what he ate for breakfast."
The attacker let out a strangled sound, halfway between a squeak and a sob, as if agreeing.
Shu Mingye pinched the bridge of his nose. Wonderful. A haunted cave, a river of blood, and now background commentary during a serious interrogation. He turned to Linyue, his voice dropping to the dangerously calm tone he only used when seconds away from flipping a table. "Why did you even come here?"
"Herb," she said simply.
Shu Mingye just kept staring.
"Dream Star Leaf," she added.
He stared harder.
"It's rare," she said lightly, tilting her head, "and shiny."
Shu Mingye's eye twitched. "Did I not say I would send people to find them?"
"You left the scroll of herbs on the table earlier," she said innocently. "I thought you changed your mind."
Ah. That ridiculously long scroll. The one that had unrolled across the entire table, the floor, and possibly halfway out the door. He had been too mad to think straight that time because of the tea mixed with a suspicious emperor-supplied liquid that might have been poison, or love potion, or an extra-strength laxative disguised as a tonic. Hard to say with emperors.
He sighed. Honestly, he wasn't sure if he was still mad or just tired. "The word of a king can't be taken back so easily," he said, rubbing his temple. "If I say I'll help you, then I'll definitely help you."
Linyue tilted her head at him, face still streaked with drying blood. "Is that so?"
Behind them, Song Meiyu immediately cheered. "So, we don't have to go to haunted caves and cursed swamps anymore?!"
He Yuying, who was still dripping faintly red water from his sleeves, muttered, "Finally. My soul can start healing."
Shu Mingye looked around the cave again—at the rocks, bones, more rocks, and literal puddles of death. "Is there even an herb here?"