Ten years pass on Taishi Mountain without announcement, without marker, without anything so merciful as a clear beginning or end. Seasons come and go like quiet visitors who never intend to stay — snow sealing the stone courtyards in white silence, spring loosening the earth into damp green breath, summer pressing cicadas into the trees until the air itself seems to vibrate, autumn stripping the world bare again. Through all of it, Chen Qinghe and Shen Ziyu remain. They grow taller first, then broader, movements lengthening, childish softness carved away by repetition and time until even their stillness acquires weight. The training ground changes too, though more subtly: wooden posts replaced when they split, flagstones worn smooth where feet pivot thousands upon thousands of times, shallow cuts etched into pillars where blades once slipped. What does not change is the absence at the center of it all — a presence-shaped emptiness where their master once stood, once watched, once corrected every breath and misstep with an unyielding calm that now exists only in memory.
Qinghe is the one who speaks of it first, though not directly. One evening near the end of winter, he finishes cleaning his sword in the fading light and does not sheath it immediately. Instead he studies the edge as if it might answer something unspoken. Across the courtyard, Ziyu is practicing thrusts, the spear point striking the air with dull, controlled snaps, each motion stopping a hair's breadth from the wooden target rather than piercing it. He has always favored power restrained at the last instant, as though proving mastery not through destruction but through the refusal to destroy. When Qinghe finally slides the blade home, the sound carries farther than it should in the cold air.
"Ten years," he says.
Ziyu stops mid-motion. The spear lowers slowly. For a long moment he does not turn, shoulders rising and falling once as if steadying himself before facing something heavier than an opponent. "You counted too," he replies at last.
There is no need to explain what they are counting from. The day their master walked into the mist has never truly ended; it has only stretched, thin and translucent, across everything that followed. Training continued because there was nothing else to do. Survival skills were honed because they had been told to. Techniques were repeated until muscle remembered even when the mind drifted. Yet the purpose beneath it all — the reason for becoming stronger — has lingered like a question no one dared to speak aloud, for fear that giving it voice might prove it meaningless.
"We should go down," Qinghe says, finally lifting his gaze from the empty courtyard to the darkening outline of the mountain ridges beyond. "He said when we turned eighteen."
Ziyu lets out a quiet breath that fogs in the cooling air. "We passed eighteen years ago."
"Yes."
Silence again, but this time it feels less like avoidance and more like something settling into place. The idea has likely lived in both of them for a long time, waiting only for one to acknowledge it so the other would not have to be the first. Going down the mountain is not merely travel. It means stepping into a world they know only through fragments of instruction — how to avoid powerful exorcists, how to move unseen, how to speak without revealing too much, how to survive when no one is watching to correct them. It means accepting that if their master is out there somewhere, he has chosen not to return. The only way forward is to seek him, or at least seek the reason he left.
By dawn the next day, the decision is no longer discussed. They pack little with spare clothing, travel rations, medicinal salves prepared from herbs grown on the mountain, weapons they have maintained as carefully as living things. Qinghe wraps his sword in cloth before fastening it at his side, while Ziyu secures his spear in a carrying case across his back, the shaft extending above his shoulder like a rigid spine. Two masks rest at the bottom of Qinghe's pack — carved faces their master once gave them with the instruction to wear them when dealing with outsiders. Neither puts one on yet. Up here, there is no one to see.
The descent begins under a sky washed pale by thin clouds, the path steep and narrow enough that conversation fades quickly into the rhythm of careful footing. For a time they walk as they have trained — silent, alert, conserving breath. The mountain smells of cold stone and resin, a scent so familiar it has long since ceased to register as anything at all. Only when the terrain softens and the trees thin do unfamiliar notes begin to creep in: damp soil rich with decay, woodsmoke carried upward from unseen hearths, the faint sweetness of something cooking far below. Human life announces itself not with sound first, but with smell.
Ziyu glances back once when the upper slopes vanish behind a bend in the road. "If he came down this way," he says, not specifying when, "there will be people who saw him."
"Or none who recognized him," Qinghe answers. "He would not draw attention."
A humorless half-smile touches Ziyu's mouth. "He never did."
The road widens further, packed earth bearing the grooves of cart wheels and hoofprints hardened by sun and time. Soon they begin to pass travelers — a farmer leading a mule burdened with sacks, a pair of women carrying baskets suspended from shoulder poles, a boy driving goats that scatter around the strangers with nervous bleats. Most spare them only brief, curious glances before continuing on. To these people, two young men in travel-worn clothing are not remarkable enough to linger over. Qinghe finds himself studying them instead: the looseness of their posture, the unguarded way they speak, the casual laughter that rises and falls without calculation. It is strange to witness a life not measured by discipline or survival, where a misstep costs only embarrassment rather than blood.
By the time the road levels completely, the murmur of a marketplace reaches them — not a single sound but a layered weave of voices, bargaining calls, clattering dishes, animals protesting confinement, children shouting without restraint. The noise feels almost physical after the mountain's long austerity, pressing against the ears until individual sounds blur together. Ziyu slows unconsciously, gaze moving from stall to stall with open curiosity he makes no effort to hide. Qinghe remains composed, though his attention is no less sharp, tracking movement, exits, the density of people. Old habits do not dissolve simply because the environment changes.
The market sprawls across a wide clearing beside a river, tents and wooden structures clustered without strict order, smoke rising from cook fires in thin grey threads. Merchants display bolts of dyed cloth that ripple like trapped water in the breeze, baskets of winter vegetables, strings of dried fish, tools arranged in precise rows that gleam where sunlight catches metal. The scent here is a chaotic mixture — oil, spice, damp wool, raw meat, sweet pastries frying in bubbling fat. Somewhere a musician plays a reed instrument badly but enthusiastically, the notes wander without a clear destination.
Ziyu pauses near a stall selling skewered dumplings, watching the vendor flip them over a charcoal brazier with swift, practiced motions. "We should eat," he says quietly, as if unsure whether such indulgence is permitted.
"Having walked down from a mountain, our energy is definitely worn off," Qinghe replies. "we have to rest too."
He gestures toward a sturdier building near the edge of the market, a two-story teahouse with wide windows open to release steam and voices in equal measure. The painted sign above the entrance has faded with weather, but the place is clearly well used. People come and go without pause, some lingering outside to finish conversations before stepping back into the crowd. The scent drifting from within is warmer, richer: tea leaves, broth, toasted grain.
Inside, the noise condenses into something more contained but no less lively. Wooden tables fill most of the room, many already occupied by travelers and locals alike. Servers move between them with trays balanced effortlessly, weaving through narrow gaps without collision. The floorboards creak underfoot, worn smooth by countless steps. Qinghe chooses a table near the wall where he can see both the entrance and the stairs leading upward, settling with his back protected out of instinct rather than fear. Ziyu sits opposite, setting his spear case carefully beside him before exhaling in a way that suggests tension he had not realized he was carrying.
A pot of tea arrives quickly with steam curling upward in pale ribbons. Neither reaches for it immediately. For a moment they simply sit, absorbing the press of human presence, the warmth, the sound of ordinary life continuing with no awareness of the two strangers who have descended from a world apart. Then Qinghe pours, the simple act grounding in its familiarity, and slides a cup across the table.
It is not their conversation that draws their attention, but someone else's.
At the table behind them, two middle-aged men speak in lowered voices that nevertheless carry through the general noise — the way fearful topics always seem to. One laughs nervously, the sound brittle as thin ice. "I'm telling you, I heard it myself. Thought it was a child at first. Humming, like some lullaby. But there's no one living up there anymore, and children will certainly be sleeping."
"You walked near that place at night?" the other demands. "Have you lost your mind?"
"I didn't know where the road led. Took a wrong turn past the shrine ruins. And then—" His voice drops further, forcing Qinghe and Ziyu to lean ever so slightly without appearing to do so. "Whispers. Right beside my ear. Couldn't make out words, just… breathing. And laughter. Like more than one."
The second man makes a warding gesture instinctively. "They say if you answer, it follows you home."
"I didn't answer. I ran."
"And still you went back this morning to tell the story."
A pause. Then, quieter still: "Because the footprints were there. Small ones around the shrine. No adults, and not a single track leading away."
Ziyu's fingers tighten around his teacup. Qinghe sets his own down without drinking.
"Children?" the second man whispers.
"...or something pretending to be..."
The first man swallows audibly. "They say it sings when the sun goes down. Same song every night. No one dares to go near that hill anymore. Even the hunters avoid it."
A long silence follows at that table, broken only by the clatter of dishes elsewhere. Then chairs scrape, coins are set down hastily, and the two men leave as though eager to put distance between themselves and their own words.
For a while Qinghe and Ziyu do not speak either. Outside, the market continues as before — bargaining, laughter, the mundane rhythm of trade. Yet something has shifted, subtle but undeniable, like a faint vibration beneath the surface of still water.
"We came to find him," Ziyu says at last, voice low, "not chase ghost stories."
Qinghe's gaze remains on the doorway through which the men exited. "Information rarely presents itself twice," he answers. "If people are afraid enough to speak of it openly, something happened."
"Or fear made it grow larger than it is."
"Perhaps."
He lifts his cup then, finally drinking, though his expression suggests he tastes nothing at all. "Either way," he adds quietly, "the shrine is on the road ahead, and we are trained to be exorcists."
"Let's just say we chose the wrong time to be here." He sighs.
Ziyu studies him for a long moment, then exhales through his nose — half resignation, half acceptance. "You were already going to say that, weren't you?"
Qinghe does not deny it, simply a faint smile on his face.