Chapter Text
The town is quite cute, really. A clean waterway with humble bridges, rows of neat buildings, and an obviously well-maintained network of trees and gardens.
All in all, Caiyi doesn’t look like the haunted nightmare town that was described in the report.
Wei Ying pulls the report from his Qiankun pouch and scans it again. Eyes narrowing, he activates a communication spell.
“What do you want.” Jiang Cheng’s ire is obvious even with the distortion of distance.
“So cold! So cruel!” Wei Ying swoons dramatically, throwing himself upon an empty bench. “What did I ever do to deserve this treatment?”
“Oh, shut up.” A grunt, the clash of swords, then an explosion sounds from Wei Ying’s wrist. “Make it quick.”
“Your mission sounds way more exciting than mine,” Wei Ying grumbles, sitting up and looking around. A couple of shutters close with a snap as more villagers hide from him. “Caiyi is quiet and everyone’s terrified, but it seems fine otherwise! I’m not sure the intel was right.”
“It was the peacock’s intel. Blame him.” Another sharp ring of clashing metal. “Check it out properly. If it’s nothing then good for you, vacation. If not, I’m not paying for your funeral.”
Wei Ying sticks his tongue out even though there’s nobody to see it. “Fine. Don’t forget Jiejie’s dinner tonight!”
Jiang Cheng makes an offended grunt. “As if. Don’t be late! I’m not dealing with the peacock alone.”
“Sure, sure,” Wei Ying says, swinging his legs. He ends the spell with a sigh.
The rest of the town is just as peaceful. No creepy mansions, no rotting swamps, no dismembered body parts littering the streets. Wei Ying fishes through his sleeve for a talisman. “Okay, time to test you out,” he says to one of them, flicking it in the air with a flourish. “Find negative energy,” he orders.
The talisman shudders under a red glow before it stills, two brilliant red beams pointing in opposite directions.
“Huh,” Wei Ying mutters. Both directions look equally tranquil, so he picks one randomly and heads down the street.
Wei Ying encounters several monster lures hidden behind bricks and cobblestones, suspicion growing with each one he destroys. The combined magic of them is potent, strong enough to draw several monsters to the same area. So why is it empty?
The network of lures shatters with the next one he breaks, and the air shifts. The pungent stench of decay fills his nose and makes his eyes water. The pristine wood of the houses around him becomes stained with black and rot, crumbling and groaning with the weight of their rooves.
“That’s more like it.” Drawing his flute out of his belt, he plays a few inquiring notes. The dark energy quivers with rage, coalescing to his right. He follows it confidently and almost walks straight into a ghoul. “Hello!” he says cheerfully, reaching for his sword. “I hope you’re the thing behind this.”
He narrowly avoids getting splattered with old blood as he beheads the creature, but barely has time to celebrate before more ghouls come crawling out of the broken houses.
The stench only grows as he kills them, bodies slowly piling around him as more and more ghouls throw themselves at him. “So many,” he murmurs, gutting one and beheading another with the same slash of his sword. “Who summoned you?”
No answer, not that he was expecting one.
He takes down another large ghoul and waits for a long moment, straightening and scanning the area in the sudden silence. Sheathing his sword for now, he pulls a few vials from his Qiankun pouch and gathers some ghoul blood and claws for later.
A walk around the perimeter doesn’t reveal any hidden monsters, but Wei Ying can’t shake the feeling this isn’t over.
Just as he’s deciding to investigate that other direction his talisman had offered; his least favourite sound comes from behind him.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me…”
Bracing himself, he turns to see a hellhound snarling at him. As he stares, a few more creep out of the shadows and stalk towards him.
Wei Ying is a highly accomplished witch, one of the Jiang coven’s strongest even at his age. No amount of magic has helped him curb his instinct towards dogs, however, so he promptly turns tail and legs it.
The hellhounds burst into a spine-tingling chorus of howls as Wei Ying runs, dodging the ghoul remains and heading for the relative safety of the inner town.
A smaller one nips at his heels and he speeds up, some part of him registering he’s heading in the other direction of negative energy but certain it has to be better than dogs.
Most of the doors are locked but the inn is open, monster-repelling wards framing the entrance. Wei Ying dives inside and swings around. The hellhounds are stuck outside, flinging themselves at the door but thrown back by the barrier of the wards.
“Oh, thank fuck,” Wei Ying pants, pressing a hand to his racing heart as the hellhounds glare at him. “Why did it have to be evil dogs.”
He gathers himself enough to stand and shut the door, locking it for good measure. Starting to sweat now that he’s stopped, he turns to take in the inn. The interior is as neat as the surrounding buildings, and the lobby is clean and welcoming.
It’s also just as empty.
Wei Ying can hear the rumbling growls outside the door and resigns himself to spending at least an hour inside. A cursory inspection doesn’t reveal anything suspicious, though he can’t quite shake the sensation of being watched. There’s a notebook on the reception table opened to today’s date, but there aren’t any names listed. He flips back, frowning to see numerous empty pages. There have only been a couple of visitors registered in the past couple of months, where before that the pages had been filled with names.
His mouth twists. “Weird.” Maybe the town was as haunted as the report had claimed.
There’s a faint noise from upstairs. Wei Ying looks up, standing still as he listens. There’s another quiet sound, like a door closing. Wei Ying can see the angry red eyes of a hellhound glowering at him through a window, so he decides to investigate.
“Stay there until I figure out how to kill you,” Wei Ying tells the hellhound, pointing at it imperiously. It bares its teeth and Wei Ying hightails it for the stairs. They creak beneath his feet as he walks, distracting him as he keeps an ear out for danger.
The hallway is empty. Although he knows there haven’t been guests for weeks, the windowsills are spotless and the floor shines with a recent clean. Whoever maintains the inn has clearly been doing their job.
Wei Ying takes out his flute to twirl it between his fingers, pulling out his new talisman. It quivers before glowing red, releasing a strong red beam to the left. He folds it away for now and walks soundlessly along the floorboards, heading straight for the door.
The room is empty, the bed made and towels laid out at the end invitingly. He pokes his head inside, looking behind the door and furniture. He pulls out the talisman and stares as it releases a pulsing circle instead of a beam. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asks it. Wei Ying sighs and takes a seat on the bed, tapping a foot on the floor. He brings the flute to his lips for another set of inquiring notes, but this time there’s no rush of resentful energy.
Flinging himself back, Wei Ying stares at the ceiling. He can sense the monsters nearby, prowling the streets now that he’s stirred them up. He could summon some more coven members, but that would also mean getting an earful from Jiang Cheng. He hums with thought, considering the pros and cons of just summoning something worse than hellhounds to wipe them out for him.
“You should leave.”
Wei Ying almost flies off the bed. “Fuck,” he says, holding a hand to his pounding heart. “You’ll give me a heart attack.”
The man at the door looks unamused. Wei Ying takes a moment to admire his beauty, dark hair pinned back by a simple yet elegant ornament. His eyes are gold and about as warm as his tone. “It’s not safe for you here. Leave.”
“Ah, I’m intruding, sorry.” Wei Ying rubs the back of his neck awkwardly, surprised at how flustered he is. “There’s a bunch of monsters outside, you’ve probably noticed, I mean. Are you the innkeeper? There’s been nobody here in ages. Not that I looked.” The man’s eyes narrow. “Okay I totally looked. Anyway, I hate dogs and really don’t wanna go out while they’re there.”
The man doesn’t move, but Wei Ying gets the sense he’s listening. He hopes he is at least.
“I can pay for the night if you want. Wait, that sounds bad. I can pay for a night’s stay. You can totally ignore me; I’ll just be here. Deciding how to get rid of them. I won’t make a mess. Probably.” He’s rambling, but it’s very easy to go on when he’s not getting anything back. “I’ll pay if I do. I’m not as poor as I look!” He gestures to the ghoul blood staining his robes. “It’ll wash out. Oh shit,” he gasps, twisting to see he’s left dark red patches on the sheets. “I’ll, uh. Pay for that.”
The man takes a deep breath. Wei Ying is used to getting that kind of reaction. “This is my last warning,” he says, and Wei Ying swears he’s getting paler. “It’s not safe for you here.”
Wei Ying glances out the window. He can’t see any monsters this high up, but the low growling of the hellhounds is so constant he’d tune it out if it didn’t chill him to the bone. “I don’t think you understand how much I hate dogs,” he says with some semblance of a smile. “I’d rather die than go out there, haha. Just let me stay for an hour? I should figure out something by then.”
The man steps closer, bare feet soundless on the floorboards. Wei Ying is somewhat entranced by the slow sway of his hair, gleaming soft as silk as it falls against his simple white robes. “Very well,” the man says. Between one breath and the next, the distance between them is gone. Wei Ying finds himself lying back on the stained sheets, limbs pinned by large hands and insistent knees.
He blinks at the ceiling as the man noses at his neck. “Um,” he says, lost for words. The nose brushing against his skin is cold, and his hands aren’t much better. Wei Ying is, perhaps, slow to the conclusion that the man isn’t human. He should… do something. Push him off, cast a spell. The importance fades the more Wei Ying tries to grasp at it, dazed as his nose fills with sandalwood. “Shouldn’t you… take me to dinner first?” he manages.
The huff at his neck is amused. The man pulls away with glacial reluctance, his eyes brilliant gold in the afternoon light. Wei Ying’s thoughts quiet from a whirlwind to a gentle summer breeze. “I’m sorry,” the man says, something close to sorrow filling those beautiful eyes. Wei Ying should feel worried, panicked… but somehow all he can call upon is effortless calm. “It’s been too long. I’m sorry.”
Wei Ying loses time. A blink and there’s a press of wet lips to his neck, not as warm as he’d anticipated. Sharp pain as something pierces his skin… teeth, he realises, as his shoulder grows damp. The pungent smell of iron fills the air and his nerves protest as blood is sucked out of him.
He should… definitely do. Something. Wei Ying stares blearily at the ceiling as his concerns just… fade into insignificance. He’s lost in a fog, aware his thoughts still exist, but they flutter out of his reach. Even his magic is dazed, slinking lazily into his meridians instead of breaking the gates to defend him.
Of course he can’t just behave like a normal witch, Wei Ying muses as his ears ring, his vision darkening at the periphery. When Jiang Cheng had almost died, his magic had burst through his skin in a crackle of electricity to protect him. Wei Ying’s is falling into hibernation.
He closes his eyes with a sigh, a sensation almost like pleasure racing the path of his arteries. He waits for it, tracking its progress until it hits his brain in a wash of fuzzy relief. There's a quiet sniffling, like man is crying even as he feeds, Wei Ying realises with the last of his awareness. “’s okay,” he slurs, relaxing into his hold. He can’t tell the difference between tears and blood on his skin. He tries to say it again but his throat doesn’t work.
He can’t feel his hands. His body is so heavy he couldn’t possibly lift even a finger. Another rush of relief hits him.
He sinks into it.
Dies.