The air smelled of burned sugar.


    Zhen Wei crouched at the edge of the world, his shadow stretching long and thin into the abyss before him. The void wasn''t a wound. It was an amputation. The line between existence and nothingness was so precise he could have drawn it with a blade.


    Behind him, Lián Zhiruo stood rigid, his fingers curled around the Bixie pendant at his belt. The jade had been glowing faintly since they arrived, pulsing like a nervous heartbeat.


    The abandoned village stretched before them, frozen in a moment of perfect erasure. The air hung thick with the scent of charred wood and something metallic, like blood left to dry in the sun. Yet there were no flames, no smoke, just the void''s razor-straight border cutting through what had once been homes.


    A child''s red sandal sat just beyond the void''s edge, laces neatly tied as if its owner had simply stepped out of it. Next to it, a wooden bowl of congee had fossilized mid-spill, the grains suspended in time like insects caught in amber.


    Lián''s boot scuffed the dirt, sending a pebble skittering toward the void''s edge. It stopped dead at the boundary line, as if hitting an invisible wall.


    "No bodies," he observed, his voice tight.


    "No screams," Zhen agreed.


    He crouched, reaching out to hover his fingers over the sandal without quite touching it. "Just... leftovers. Like a scribe abandoned his scroll mid-character and left the ink to dry."


    A gust of wind carried the faint sound of wind chimes from somewhere deeper in the abandoned village. Strange, all the houses nearby had their doors and windows torn off, with nothing left to make such sounds.


    "You ever seen anything like this?" Zhen asked, uncharacteristically serious. "Even during the Heavenly Wars?"


    Lián shook his head slowly, his hand resting on his sword hilt. "Demons consume. Ghosts haunt. This..." He gestured at the perfect geometric edges of the emptiness. "This isn''t destruction. It''s like the gods took a blade to the fabric of existence itself."


    Zhen grinned. "Let''s see if it bites."


    Before Lián could grab him, Zhen dragged the sleeve of his robe through the void''s edge.


    The effect was instantaneous.


    Fine blue silk unraveled into threads, the embroidery dissolving like sugar in rain. The skin of his wrist beneath wrinkled, then smoothed, then freckled with age spots before cycling back to youth.


    "Fascinating," Zhen murmured.


    Lián yanked him backward so hard Zhen’s teeth clacked. The sudden force sent Zhen sprawling onto his backside in the dirt, his boots kicking up a cloud of dust that settled like cremated bone across his ruined robes.


    For a breathless moment, he just sat there, long legs splayed, torn sleeve flapping, staring at his own wrist as if it might dissolve next.


    "You idiot," Lián hissed, looming over him.


    Zhen laughed, stood back up and brushed non-existent dust from his knees. "Well, if we''re dealing with a celestial tailor who can''t measure properly, I vote we…"


    A faint creaking sound cut him off. They both turned to see a single wooden shutter swinging on a nearby house - the only movement in the entire dead village. As they watched, it slowed... stopped... then began swinging again of its own accord.


    "Okay," Zhen said, clapping his hands together.


    "New plan. We drink until this makes sense or we forget we saw it. Your pick, Didi."


    Lián didn''t smile.


    "We check one more house…”


    "Killjoy," Zhen muttered, but followed as Lián moved toward the sound, both of them stepping carefully around the frozen remnants of interrupted lives.


    A wet, rattling cough tore through the silence. The sound of drowning lungs, human and failing, choking on their own blood


    It came from the carcass of a nearby hut, its thatched roof caved in like a broken ribcage. Splintered beams jutted upward, piercing the twilight like blackened bones.


    A shadow was shifting in the ruin’s belly.


    Something alive in all this stillness.


    Both gods went still.


    Lián''s sword was in his hand before the second wheezing breath.


    "Hello?" Zhen called, his voice bright as he scanned the shadows. His free hand flicked a signal behind his back: two fingers, then a curl.


    Lián moved instantly. He flowed into position at Zhen’s left shoulder, sword drawn but angled low, covering the blind spot Zhen’s stance left open. Their shoulders nearly brushed, close enough to share breath.


    When Zhen shifted his weight left, Lián pivoted right without a word, clearing the corner with a sweep of his blade.


    Zhen ducked under the broken beams, his movement precise as a heron’s strike.


    Lián mirrored him, their steps synchronized.


    Then they saw him: a man in torn clothing, crumpled, ball like, in the corner.


    Zhen’s posture stayed light, but his stance widened, ready to lunge.


    Lián''s sword tip lifted, his fingers already tracing the first sigil of a binding charm in the air. Then he stilled.


    The motion proved unnecessary.


    In the hut''s gloom, an old man lay curled like a discarded puppet. His paper-thin skin clung to sharp bones, stretched so tight it seemed one breath might tear him apart. Milky eyes stared unseeing, the veins beneath blackened as if filled with ink.


    They didn''t need their divine sight to recognize the truth - this broken husk posed no threat to mortals, let alone gods of war. Yet Zhen''s hand remained on his blade. There was something wrong in how perfectly still the man lay, how his chest neither rose nor fell.


    "Not dead," Lián murmured. "Not alive."


    The farmer''s head snapped toward them with a crack of vertebrae. A smile split his face, too wide for human jaws. "Ah," he rasped. "Heaven''s dogs finally came to sniff at the scraps."


    Zhen crouched beside him, his usual smirk gone. He reached out, hesitated, then gently turned the old man’s face toward the light. “Lǎorén jiā… tell us what did this.”


    The man’s breath rattled, wet and thick.


    His milk-white eyes rolled blindly, then locked onto Zhen’s face, as if he could see straight through to the divine bones beneath his skin.


    “You’re too late.” His lips split, revealing blackened gums. “It breathes now.”


    A whisper of verse slithered through the air, the words old as burial jade:


    "噬者无鬼


    唯齿留痕


    饥潮吞天"


    (Shì zhě wú guǐ


    Wéi chǐ liú hén


    Jī cháo tūn tiān)


    "The eaten leave no ghosts,


    only teeth-marks behind…


    a tide of hunger swallows heaven."


    Lián''s grip tightened on his sword. "What in the eighteenth level of Di Yu does that mean?"


    The farmer''s black-veined eyes rolled toward the void. "It means... the Yama Kings are taking notes."


    Without warning, the farmer’s hand shot out, fingers clamping around Lián’s wrist with corpse-cold strength. His nails, blue as drowned flesh, dug deep enough to draw beads of crimson.


    Lián jerked back, but the grip held like iron shackles. His free hand flew to his sword hilt, yet he hesitated, not from mercy, but from the sudden, gut-churning realization:


    The man’s pulse was beating backward.


    “It learned,” the farmer rasped, then his jaw unhinged with a wet crack. His blackened tongue lolled between teeth now splintered inward, as if something had gnawed its way out from behind them.


    The voice that emerged wasn’t human. It multiplied: a chorus of men, women, children, all the voices the void had swallowed.


    "From the last ones it ate…" The last word elongated, a howl that splintered into countless voices before snapping to silence.


    Lián’s muscles locked. Not in fear, but in revulsion as the blood welling from his wrist defied gravity, streaming upward toward the farmer’s elbow instead of dripping to the ground.


    Zhen’s blade flashed.


    The severed arm thumped to the dirt.


    And the blood snaked sideways across the floorboards, inching toward the void’s edge like a living thing. The fingers, still curled around Lián’s wrist, twitched in time with the droplets’ crawl.


    “Well,” Zhen said, eyeing the creeping blood. “That’s new.”


    The old man''s body convulsed, milky eyes rupturing, thick fluid spraying across the dirt where it hissed and bubbled. His cheeks tore upward into a grin too wide for any living face, flesh peeling back to reveal... nothing.


    His throat became a gaping black hole. From that emptiness came an echoing moan, then inky smoke poured forth, wrapping around his collapsing face before streaming toward the fractured void outside the hut.


    Behind them, through the broken doorway, the void rippled in response.


    As the last tendril joined the abyss, the farmer''s body crumbled to dust. For a moment, the smoke formed a single character in the air:


    Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.


    "學" (xué – "to learn")


    Then it dissolved and the void pulsed, as if sated.


    And for the first time, it held a reflection.


    Not theirs.


    A figure stood within the void’s black glass, tall and slender, draped in white robes that should have gleamed but instead drank the light. Its back was turned, long hair spilling like ink down its spine, unbound and utterly still. The edges of its form wavered, not quite solid, as if Zhen were seeing it through warped glass... or across the surface of a dream.


    Zhen went rigid. His breath caught, fingers twitching at his sides as if to reach out.


    Lián’s voice cut through the silence, sharp with warning. “Zhen?”


    No response.


    Lián grabbed his arm, shaking him. "What are you..." Then he followed Zhen''s gaze to the void, and saw nothing. Just darkness.


    But Zhen didn''t blink. Didn''t move.


    The figure''s head tilted, just slightly, as if listening. Then it turned.


    "GE!"


    Lián''s voice tore through the silence like a blade through silk. His hands locked onto Zhen''s shoulders, fingers digging deep enough to bruise even a god''s flesh. When Zhen didn''t respond,


    Lián shook him hard, the way he’d seen a mother rouse her child from nightmares, back when he was still mortal. The memory surfaced unbidden: that straw-mat hut, the scent of boiling medicinal herbs, the warmth of a human hand on his cheek. Centuries gone, yet his fingers remembered.


    Zhen''s head snapped back, eyes wide and unseeing. His lips were parted around a word he hadn''t spoken.


    "Wake up!" Lián snarled, giving him another jerk. "Wake up, you reckless bastard, or I swear to every hell I''ll..."


    A gasp. Zhen''s chest heaved as if he''d surfaced from deep water. His pupils contracted, the void''s reflection fading from his gaze like ink in rain.


    "Didi?" Zhen rasped. His hands came up to grip Lián''s wrists, not to push him away, but to anchor himself. The tremor in his fingers was new.


    Lián didn''t let go. "You stopped," he said, voice low and furious. "Your heart. Your lungs. Like you''d been unmade mid-thought."


    Zhen''s throat worked. "How long?"


    "Long enough that I considered throwing you into the damn void just to punish you." Lián finally released him, stepping back to rake a hand through his hair.


    Zhen stared at the debris, then at his own hands, turning them over as if they might not belong to him. His fingers flexed, once, twice, testing their grip on reality. The tremor in them was slight, but Lián noticed. Zhen never shook.


    “Sorry, I thought I saw…” The words dropped like stones into silence. He cut himself off, jaw tightening around whatever truth threatened to follow.


    Lián went very still. Not the stillness of patience, but of a blade balanced on its edge. “What?”


    A beat. The wind howled through the abandoned village, carrying the scent of scorched earth and something sweetly rotten.


    Zhen’s eyes stayed vacant for a heartbeat longer with a hollow stare that Lián had only seen on battlefields. The look of a man who saw when fresh corpses steamed in the snow.


    Then, like a lantern flaring to life, his grin split wide. “A really ugly fish!”


    He clapped Lián’s shoulder, fingers lingering just a second too tight. “Teeth like a demon’s comb! Winked at me with both eyes… very forward for a river creature! Don’t you think?”


    Lián watched the performance: the overbright tone, the exaggerated shudder. The way Zhen’s laughter didn’t quite reach his eyes, still dark with whatever he’d really seen in the void.


    Lián’s eyes narrowed. “Liar! 吃人说梦 (Nǐ shì zài chī rén shuō mèng,) you’re ‘eating people’s dreams’ and calling it truth.”


    Zhen pressed a hand to his chest. “Didi! Would I lie?”


    “Yes!” Lián hissed through his teeth as he kicked the remains of the farmer''s sandal at him.


    Zhen dodged deftly and the shoe bounced soundlessly off the parameter of the void.


    "Good thing I''m not that shoe!" But his laughter rang hollow.


    And his shadow, Lián noted with a chill, still stretched toward the void, even as the man himself moved away.


    The inn''s sign swung on rusted hinges, its painted lotus so weathered it looked like a bloodstain. Inside, the air reeked of sour wine and the greasy remnants of a hundred meals never quite scrubbed from the floorboards.


    Zhen Wei sniffed, wrinkling his nose. "Charming. I take it this isn''t the celestial approved lodging district?"


    Lián Zhiruo eyed a suspicious stain on the wall that seemed to be moving. "We''re lucky it''s standing at all. This village is half dead already."


    "Ah, but look at the ambiance!" Zhen gestured grandly at a rat gnawing on the stair rail. "The local wildlife! The..."


    Lián pinched the bridge of his nose. "Next time, you negotiate with the Emperor for mission funds."


    “And miss this?” Zhen grinned, slinging an arm around Lián’s shoulders as they surveyed the crumbling inn. His gesture encompassed the warped floorboards, the suspiciously breathing wall stain, and the rat currently gnawing on the ceiling rafters. “Didi, where’s your sense of adventure? For once, we’re allowed to be here. This is practically a celestial diplomatic mission!”


    Lián shrugged him off, but not before Zhen caught the twitch at the corner of his mouth, that tiny tell Lián had never managed to train out of himself in three centuries. “My ‘adventure’ involves not sleeping with vermin.” He flicked a glance at Zhen’s dust-streaked robes. “Present company excluded.”


    "Ah, but that’s the beauty of it!" Zhen spread his arms wide, nearly toppling a precariously stacked tower of empty wine jugs. "This is the experience. The peeling plaster. The questionable aromas. The..." He kicked a floorboard, which emitted a sound like a dying guqin string. "Rustic acoustics. We’re living like mortals tonight, Didi. By decree."


    Lián eyed the sad state of the inn with reluctant acceptance, then froze. His gaze locked onto a shadowed corner where a hooded figure sat motionless, fingers rolling a single black jade bead across the knotted wood table. The bead clicked with each pass, precise as a clock''s tick, though the stranger''s face remained hidden in the drape of his hood.


    Zhen followed his stare. "Oh good," he murmured. "Entertainment."


    Lián’s hand drifted toward his sword. "Or a spy."


    "Same thing!"


    Before Lián could respond, the innkeeper, a wiry woman with knuckles like knotted rope, took one look at their celestial silks and set her cleaver on the counter with a thunk.


    "No offense, Excellencies," she muttered, eyeing the gold embroidery at their collars, "but last time gods lodged here, the roof caved in." Her gaze flicked to the door, as if expecting divine retribution to follow them in.


    Zhen and Lián turned to look at each other slowly, identical expressions of offended disbelief on their faces.


    Zhen gestured at himself, then Lián, mouthing ''We''re the problem?'' with exaggerated incredulity.


    Lián''s eye twitched. He turned back to the innkeeper, his voice dripping with celestial dignity. "Madam, I assure you, we are the most well behaved gods you''ll ever meet."


    Zhen coughed loudly, which suspiciously sounded like "Noodle heist."


    Lián stepped on his foot.


    The innkeeper looked between them, entirely unimpressed. "That''s exactly what the last ones said."


    The innkeeper''s cleaver thunked onto the counter. "No gods," she repeated.


    Zhen sighed dramatically, then reached into his sleeve and produced a jingling purse. "What if we''re exceptionally charming gods?" He plonked two gold coins onto the wood with a flourish. "Will this soothe your celestial anxieties?"


    The woman eyed the coins, then Zhen''s grin. Her calloused fingers darted out like a striking viper, snatching the gold before it could vanish. She bit one hard, then her entire demeanor melted into syrupy hospitality.


    "A Xiang!" she bellowed toward the back, slapping the counter. "Come show these esteemed guests to the Celestial Jade Suite!"


    A gangly teenager scrambled out, wiping flour dusted hands on his apron. He gaped at the gold still clutched in the innkeeper''s grip, then at the two gods, before bowing so low his forehead nearly kissed his knees. "This way, Venerable Ones!"


    Zhen leaned toward Lián as they followed the trembling boy upstairs. "Ah, the Celestial Jade Suite," he whispered. "I believe that''s peasant for ''the room without rat nests.''"


    Below them in the common room, the hooded figure tilted his head upward. Though his face remained shadowed, the weight of his attention pressed against their backs like a physical touch. His fingers stilled around the black jade bead, letting it rest dead-center on the knotted table where it caught the lamplight with an oily gleam.


    Lián eyed the boy''s trembling shoulders ahead of them. "You realize she''ll murder him if those coins turn to leaves at midnight," he murmured, though his free hand drifted toward his sword hilt, sensing the stranger''s gaze.


    Zhen didn''t glance back. "Then we''ll tip him extra to run fast," he said cheerfully, but his steps slowed just enough to position himself between Lián and the railing overlooking the common room. A casual shield. "Besides, our admirer down there seems more interested in watching than stabbing. For now."


    The stair creaked ominously underfoot. Somewhere below, the jade bead began rolling again with that same metronomic click... click... click...


    "Ah! The Celestial Jade Suite does justice to its name!" Zhen declared, sweeping into the room with arms outstretched as if greeting royalty.


    He turned to A-Xiang with a stage whisper: "Tell me, does this palatial accommodation include a complimentary foot bath? Or must we summon the singing sparrows ourselves?"


    The boy’s nervous laugh died in his throat as they took in the space:


    The room was large, suspiciously so for such a dilapidated inn, with high ceilings and grime-clouded windows that let in watery moonlight. Dust motes swirled around a single narrow bed (barely wide enough for one, though Zhen would certainly argue otherwise), its quilt frayed but recently beaten free of dust. Cobwebs draped the corners like tattered banners, and shadowy holes in the floorboards promised midnight rodent visitors.


    Yet against one wall stood a low table of surprisingly good rosewood, flanked by four stools with turquoise cushions. A lacquered tray held an antique tea set, the glaze crackled with age but the pot still warm to the touch. Most peculiar was the incense burner: a bronze crane with its head bowed in eternal supplication, smoke curling from the bowl cradled in its beak. The scent, sandalwood and something unplaceably sweet, almost masked the room’s mildew.


    Above the bed hung a garish tapestry, its dyes faded to ghosts of their original opulence. Two women lounged on a picnic blanket, feeding each other grapes with scandalously bare fingers, while ruby-eyed foxes frolicked at their feet. The stitching was crude, the proportions laughable (one woman’s hand was larger than her head), yet the scene pulsed with bawdy joy.


    Zhen traced a finger through the dust on the tea tray. "Someone prepared for us."


    A-Xiang backed away, bowing so deeply he nearly upended the incense burner. "I’ll just... fetch the extra blankets..."


    He fled before they could point out the obvious: no blankets in the world could make that bed fit two celestial warriors.


    Zhen plopped himself onto the lone bed with a dramatic sigh, arms spread wide. "Behold," he announced, "the lap of luxury." The wooden frame groaned in protest beneath him, one leg visibly shorter than the others.


    Lián stood frozen in the doorway, his gaze locked on the single cot. Then slowly, dangerously, he turned his head toward Zhen.


    "Ge." His voice was deceptively calm. "There''s only one bed."


    Zhen blinked up at the water stained ceiling. "Astute observation, didi. Truly, your divine perception knows no bounds."


    "You noticed."


    "I procured." Zhen folded his hands behind his head, grinning. "And what better way to strengthen fraternal bonds than shared…"


    The air cracked.


    One moment Lián stood three paces away, his face a mask of glacial calm. The next…


    …steel shrieked as his sword embedded itself in the mattress between Zhen’s thighs, the blade vibrating with the force of the strike. The hilt quivered mere inches from Zhen’s most vulnerable areas, so close the tassel brushed his robes.


    Lián hadn’t moved. At least, no mortal eye would have seen it. One breath he was still, the next his weapon was planted like a banner claiming territory, all without so much as a shift in his stance.


    Zhen blinked at the sword. "Ah." He tilted his head. "I see you’ve chosen violence as your love language tonight."


    Lián leaned down, bracing one hand on the hilt. "You have three breaths to explain why I shouldn''t throw you out the window."


    Zhen''s grin didn''t waver. "One: the fall wouldn''t kill me. Two: you''d miss me too much. Three..." He patted the lumpy mattress. "I already tested it. It''s firm. Good for your back."


    A beat. The sword withdrew and Lián took one step back.


    He dragged a hand down his face in total exasperation. "I''m taking the floor."


    "Nonsense!" Zhen rolled sideways, claiming exactly half the bed with limb flailing precision. He patted the remaining space. "Plenty of room! Unless you''re scared I''ll steal the blankets..."


    Lián''s boot thunked onto the mattress, crushing Zhen''s robes underfoot.


    "I''m scared you''ll breathe too loudly. And I might stab you in your sleep, Ge."


    Behind them, the door creaked open.


    A Xiang peeked in, arms piled with moth eaten blankets. He took in the scene: the sword, the boot on the bed, Zhen''s gleeful sprawl.


    "I''ll just... leave these here," he whispered, dumping the fabric and fleeing.


    Zhen called after him: "We''ll need breakfast too! Preferably something that hasn''t touched the floor!"


    A distant, despairing wail was the only reply.


    The gold coins on the counter bubbled, their surfaces warping like wax over flame. They fused together, reshaping into a single gleaming character:


    跑 (Pǎo – “Run.”)


    Then the metal evaporated, leaving only a scorch mark shaped like a laughing fox, its muzzle split in a grin too wide for any living creature.


    Across the room, the hooded figure’s black jade bead clicked against the table.


    Click.


    Click.


    Click.


    The rhythm matched the dripping of the inn’s leaky roof or perhaps a slowing heartbeat.


    Above, the floorboards creaked as two gods settled into a room that smelled of sandalwood and decay.


    The bead rolled one final time…


    …and came to rest pointing straight toward the stairs.