Red light sifted through the tall grass and spilled onto Chen Ai’s hands as though they were doused in blood. She held my decapitated head in that dying light, turning me about, inspecting me, her expression frozen before a tremble carried through her grip and shook the world.
“Senior brother, no…”
Out of reflex, I played dead to protect my secret. If it was just Chen Ai, I might have shown her the true extent — if not the origin — of my abilities, but it wasn't just Chen Ai; the other members of the expedition rustled closer through the tall grass, and, any second now, they would see me in a state that was obviously unsurvivable.
Which would lead to questions…
But if I continued playing dead, then the demonic experiment could arrive and find the cultivators with their guard down.
Tears spilled down Chen Ai’s cheeks, and the hot droplets landed on me.
“I’m so sorry! You died, and I didn't even lift a finger to help you. I failed my debt to you…”
Oh, no… Her words broke my metaphorical heart. I had been so caught up in considering my secrets that I forgot about the emotional toll on my companions.
Her sobbing became a wail.
“I thought there was no way you could die, but… You did! And I couldn't save you!”
Her anguish attracted the others, and they gathered around to stare at my head. Their expressions ranged from concern to shock to relief.
Hmm, only the old Shen swordsman looked relieved, and I made a mental note to follow up on that, but right now I had a larger issue.
“Should we bury him?” Shen Tongtong asked nervously. “Or would cremation be more appropriate? Did he have any funeral requests?”
“He never told me…” Chen Ai whispered. “He never even told me his name…”
Another tear fell and landed on my forehead, rolling down my cheeks in an imitation of Chen Ai’s pain.
“Damn,” whispered the half-buried helmet. “Are you going to let her cry like this without even talking to her? I thought I was heartless… get it… because I have no heart?”
I almost told him to shut up, but that would have given me away. Instead, I resorted to glaring at him when Chen Ai held me face down.
“Stop,” I mouthed.
“It’s actually a sophisticated joke,” said the helmet. “You see, not only am I head-based adornment, thus negating the likelihood I would have a heart, like, say, a chest plate might, but I am also, by definition, a hollow item since I exist on the exterior rather than the interior, thus making any possibility of a heart truly inconceivable.”
Chen Ai chuckled softly.
“I didn’t think it would turn out this way,” she said as she turned to the old Shen swordsman.
“Excuse me, senior. I have a request to make.”
“What is it?” the old Shen swordsman said respectfully.
She must have seen his dubious expression and was questioning him about it. I knew he’d been suspicious since the beginning. There was something wrong about the way he hid his name without anyone questioning it, and now Chen Ai had caught on to this loose thread. She truly was my junior sister!
“I must borrow your sword.”
“Why?”
Yeah, why?
“Unfortunately, I must stain it with my dishonorable blood. I owed my senior brother a life debt, and since I could not serve him in this world, it is only fair that I follow him to the next that I might serve him there.”
The expedition members gasped, but none of them spoke a word of disagreement. They were all nobles, and she was a wandering cultivator. Her life meant nothing to them, and, more than that, they all lived in the honor-bound insanity that was the world of cultivation.
“This is a true misfortune,” said the old Shen swordsman mildly as he drew his blade. “There is nothing that any of us could have done against an overwhelming foe such as the Butcher Bird, but I shall not argue you out of your honor. Please, it would be a privilege for you to use my blade.”
Chen Ai solemnly took the proffered sword.
Are you really going to let her do this?
This is far too heavy a price, even to keep a secret…
Survival is important, but don’t we want her to survive?
The secret won’t matter if you kill all the witnesses.
My past selves whispered their advice as the helmet continued explaining its joke from the ground. If he wasn’t half-buried and mumbling in the dirt, I think Chen Ai might have noticed him.
She bowed to the others.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“I wish you all the best,” she said.
“Wait,” said Shen Botao. “Shouldn’t you wait until after the valley? We could use someone with your strength to help us survive.”
“This is not a matter of survival,” Shen Tongtong said. “This is about upholding her duty to the expedition leader.”
“Exactly,” said Ran Qin. “We have lost two members of the expedition thanks to her actions, and honor demands that she remove herself from the situation.”
These words, and the blame for Ran Cong’s death, bowed Chen Ai’s powerful shoulders.
“You are both right,” she said. “Excuse me.”
Once more, she bowed, and the expedition members bowed back, before Chen Ai strode away. The tall grass quickly separated us from the group, the whispering blades sounding too much like a living being for me to feel in any sense comfortable.
I had to remember that the Butcher Bird’s experiment was coming.
I couldn’t let Chen Ai kill herself, and I needed to warn her about the demonic sprawn, but cultivators had sharp hearing and…
Chen Ai reached out to touch the grass, and the long blade hissed as it rubbed against its neighbors. She spread her touch, and the hissing, scraping sound increased in volume, as though a wind were passing through this area. Wiping her eyes on her sleeve, she held me up to her face.
“Alright,” she whispered. “I know you’re alive; you can stop playing dead.”
My metaphorical heart skipped a beat.
The grass whispered as she waited for me to respond. I looked around to make sure that nobody else was nearby, then noticed Chen Ai’s raised eyebrow. Right, if she saw my eyes moving…
“How did you know I was still alive?”
“I didn’t. You just told me.”
“Oh… so were you faking that grief?”
She wiped away tears, but her smile remained bright.
“I’ll never tell. Especially since you were faking your death.”
“Of course,” I said with pretty mild exasperation, considering the circumstances. “I’m sorry for faking my death. You didn’t mean all that about honor and killing yourself, did you?”
“I never joke about honor. My debt to you transcends the value of my life.”
Oh…
This was my fault.
Despite all her words, I’d never truly taken her vow seriously. In part, I hadn’t believed that I would die, and so I never thought Chen Ai would end up in this position. But also… I knew cultivators were crazy, but I never thought they were that crazy.
“I forgive your life debt,” I said. “No, it’s better to say there was never any debt between us.”
Chen Ai snorted.
“Sure, tell me that after you lead me into a valley of certain death.”
“Oh, right… Sorry for being so reckless with your honor.”
“If you talk like that, people might get the wrong idea.”
I closed my eyes and did my best bodyless imitation of a bow.
“I would never do anything to give people the wrong idea
“Enough! We can have this conversation when we escape this damned valley. We only have three days to reach the temple, and it's almost the first night. Can you hurry up and heal? Or do you expect me to carry you around like a damned cabbage?”
As she posed the question, I had a sudden insight into how Cabbagy must see the world, which I'm not ashamed to admit I understood in that moment.
“Would that be so bad?”
Her raised eyebrow was answer enough.
“Ok, ok,” I said. “Let me just…”
I squeezed, and blood drooped out of my neck in a long tendril.
Chen Ai gripped me by my hair and held me at arm's length.
“This is actually a lot grosser than I expected.”
I ignored her comment as I focused on accelerating my regeneration as much as possible. My blood reservoir was rapidly dwindling, so I tried to heal using my flesh and bone reservoirs, but they remained sealed. Without access, I was forced to transmute blood into flesh and bone, which was incredibly expensive.
Blood spooled out of my neck, slowly changing into bone as I built my spine.
“How did this even happen to you?” Chen Ai asked.
“The Butcher Bird attacked me.”
“Did you deserve it?”
“From its point of view, sure.”
She paled.
“Do I need to worry about a deranged Nascent Soul spirit beast plucking us up and impaling us on a tree?”
“No,” I said as I wove nerves, veins, and arteries down my spine. “But we have eight days to make our way towards the Myriad Tree.”
“You mean the temple?”
“No, the Butcher Bird changed the deal. We need to reach the tree, and we’ll have to face off against its experiments along the way.”
She blinked.
“Experiments?”
“Oh… the Butcher Bird made that grass trap, and it has made some other monsters that we’ll have to fight. They’re all quite…”
I almost said demonic, but bit the word off. Chen Ai looked at me curiously.
“Why was the Butcher Bird so willing to talk to you?” she asked. “Is it because of your bloodline?”
I didn’t want to lie, but I’d been lucky enough to avoid her learning my secret so far. I felt like a coward, but I agreed.
“Yes. It wants me as a test subject, but I refused.”
“You refused?”
“That’s why I’m a head?”
“And it just let you go?”
“It said it would gather enough data from observing.”
She looked around.
“I don’t like the sound of that… but there’s nothing we can do to stop a Nascent Soul spirit beast. We’re just lucky it doesn’t want to behead all of us. So, those experiments…”
“Yes?”
“Do you know anything else about them? I’d appreciate a heads up.”
I rolled my eyes at the pun.
“From what I understand, it’s either an animated environment like the Dancing Blades Field, or it will be a humanoid form that is… possessed somehow.”
“Somehow? Are you talking about demonic cultivation experiments?”
This was the first time such a topic had come up between us, and I did my best to play it cool. Fortunately, being a head with a body growing from my neck gives me a lot of wriggle room as far as expressions go.
“I believe the Butcher Bird is practising demonic cultivation.”
Chen Ai’s expression tightened.
“Then we must be vigilant. No matter what it promised, we cannot trust the word of a demonic cultivator.”
“Are demonic cultivators so bad? I’ve never had a personal experience with one…”
“Only the truly demented hide from the heavens,” Chen Ai said with obvious disgust. “We must tell the others about this development, as well as about the experiments we’ll have to face. It is good that we can have some expectations about the dangers we’ll face.”
My heart formed at the end of arteries like a ripening fruit, after which it promptly sank from a combination of gravity and guilt.
“That’s right! There’s an experiment in the tall grass, it’s heading for the group!”
“What? Why didn’t you say so?”
“I was distracted! Let’s go help them fight.”
She carried me through the tall grass.
“I’ll drop you off nearby. Don’t come out until you’re fully healed. We can say that the head we found was a false creation made by one of the experiments.”
I eyed my low blood reservoir. Could I even heal completely? I knew the Butcher Bird was watching me, and taking note of how quickly I could heal when I wanted to. Hopefully, it wouldn’t punish me for lying earlier.
“I’ll heal as quickly as I can. Do you have any clothes?
She laughed.
“It’s all in my pack, the only thing I have on me is this,” she said as she waggled the old Shen swordman’s sword.
“Why did you even take that?”
Her expression darkened.
“Because he’s here to make sure we die in this valley.”
“Wait.”
She stopped. The grass brushed and whispered. We couldn’t hear the group. I continued to heal, skin forming over my neck as my ribs unfolded.
“Do you think he’s the only one?” I asked.
“Hard to say.”
“Which begs the question…”
“Yes?”
“Should we even help them?”
Chen Ai pondered my question, and I couldn’t tell which way her decision would go. Shouts came from nearby, and a strange whirring noise before the familiar clashing of blades: the experiment had attacked the expedition.
Whatever decision we made, we had to make it now.
