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A storyteller in town once said the Unclean Realm was full of the screaming of animals at night. Not because the Nie clan was not a righteous one, he rushed to add. It was only that some things never wash away.
Nie Huaisang had been about to leave, several cups in and having run out of different names to introduce himself to strangers. But he spent a shichen or two egging the storyteller on. I live just on the other side of the wall , he said in a whisper. Some nights, it sounds like they’re screaming for help.
Everyone departed in shivering clusters that night. And when Nie Huaisang went home laughing, no one looked at him twice. His face was not as recognizable as Da-ge’s back then. It was not very hard to go unnoticed.
Now, Nie Huaisang’s face is one of the most recognizable in Qinghe. And for the past three nights, the Unclean Realm has been full of screams for help.
Though these screams do not belong to animals.
The first two nights, it had been easy for Nie Huaisang to dismiss his retainers at the end of the day. By the third night, it’s almost impossible. Since the argument that had been raging in the main hall since the morning–since what was left of the Nie cultivators agreed, reluctantly, who the screams must belong to–everyone’s been on edge.
“I’m perfectly safe here, thank you,” Nie Huaisang says, pitching his voice high enough to be heard through the closed door. “This is a very sturdy door. Finest I own.”
Neither of the two retainers in the hallway laugh. “Zongzhu,” says one of them. The more confident one, Nie Huaisang thinks. He hasn’t really tried to tell them apart yet. “If these cries really do belong to–someone who died by Chifeng-zun’s hand, he could seek that vengeance from you.”
He still sounds hesitant to even say it. It had taken hours of debate for anyone to suggest the idea without being shouted down. The men who had died in the grip of Da-ge’s rage were honorable, everyone said. Loyal servants of the Nie sect, even in death. And they were cultivators, not civilians. They would have had soul-calming ceremonies as children.
Nie Huaisang had known that wasn’t true. But he’d kept it to himself. Da-ge would have corrected them, though. He would have been the first to tell everyone in the hall that not everyone is from so genteel a family to afford a soul-calming ceremony. Not everyone is born the same way.
Not everyone leaves the same way, either.
“Nothing’s going to happen to me in here,” Nie Huaisang says, summoning some pale impression of an authoritative voice. “Run along now. Um, please.”
There’s a stutter of a moment before their footsteps begin to move. They’re not quite out of earshot when Nie Huaisang catches the first voice say, “... know what’s to become of us,”
“Chifeng-zun taught him well,” the second voice cuts in. “Perhaps once he has time to grieve…”
Ah , Nie Huaisang thinks ruefully, but your friend is right. The Unclean Realm isn’t in danger. But it wasn’t as if he thought much of their safety until right now, did he?
It’s alright, though. There’s no one in any danger, here. No one living.
Nie Huaisang steps back from the door, quietly sinks to his knees. And he feels for where one of the floorboards doesn’t quite line up with the rest.
The little crawlspace at the bottom of the ladder, nearly too small for two people to stand in, has seen a lot of Nie Huaisang’s belongings over the years: artwork, questionable books, his own failed doodles. Da-ge would laugh, at least, that Nie Huaisang was still stashing his secrets down here. He wouldn’t approve. But maybe he’d laugh.
More importantly, sound travels strangely through the hidden spaces of the Unclean Realm. The cries have echoed into every narrow, remote corner. Even from just outside in the hall, Nie Huaisang’s retainers hadn’t traced the sound to the neatly-drawn containment array just below their feet.
The spirit huddles in the center of the array, watching Nie Huaisang descend. He looks soaked with sweat, which can’t be true. Maybe it’s just how Nie Huaisang would expect a living person to look after screaming so desperately. But more likely, it’s just how he looked in the moments before Da-ge drove Baxia through his heart. The others had been right about that part, after all. The spirit died in the peak of Da-ge’s rage.
But this isn’t one of Da-ge’s retainers, heartbroken to die at his master’s hand. This is a Jin.
“Aiya.” Nie Huaisang huffs a laugh. “So noisy. I am sorry, you know. If my old friend were here, he could perform Empathy for me, but my cultivation isn’t strong enough. But the sooner you calm down, the sooner we can talk.”
“Lianfang-zun.” The Jin’s chest heaves with breaths he’ll never take again. “ Lianfang-zun !”
“Ah,” Nie Huaisang says. “Didn’t I tell you? He left ages ago. Brought your body back to Jinlintai, if that’s any comfort.”
The spirit doesn’t calm. But some of the clawing desperation leaves his face. “Lianfang-zun is a good man,” he whispers.
“Mm,” Nie Huaisang says. “You came here with him often, didn’t you? He must have valued your opinion quite a bit.”
“I couldn’t tell Lianfang-zun anything he doesn’t already know.” It’s the clearest sentence Nie Huaisang has gotten from him so far. “Didn’t get to study with the others. Parents are servants. If my cultivation was stronger…”
Nie Huaisang hums as he nods. “San-ge was going to help you?”
The spirit’s eyes shift. Regain a little more awareness. “I needed to keep meditating. Strengthening my golden core. When I was ready–he said he’d teach me.”
Nie Huaisang whistles low. “A student of Lianfang-zun himself. So he certainly trusted you, didn’t he?”
His face creases. “Trusted me,” he whispers. “Yes.”
“Of course he did,” Nie Huiasang says. Gentle as he can. “He wouldn’t leave just anyone to watch the door during Chifeng-zun’s treatments, would he?”
“I–” The spirit falters, then. “Did he? I don’t…”
Nie Huaisang’s mouth quietly curls. Being dead, Er-ge said once, is like being in a fog. It’s taken this long for the spirit to remember this much.
But the Jin remembers now. Enough, at least, to lie.
“You don’t have to be afraid of me.” Nie Huaisang backs off, as if to prove it. “Look at yourself. What more can I do to you now?”
“Nie-er-gongzi,” the spirit says.
“Nie-zongzhu,” Nie Huaisang says. “I don’t know if you’ve realized it yet, but my brother is dead.”
“Chifeng-zun’s condition was delicate,” the spirit says. “If there were any interruptions–”
“Of course.” Nie Huaisang held up both his hands. “That’s what you believed, isn’t it? And if you suspected otherwise, you would have spoken up.”
“There was nothing to suspect!” the spirit says. “Lianfang-zun was–”
“Someone who was going to teach you, when no one else would. Someone who’s taking your body home to your family right now. I’m trying to tell you that I understand,” Nie Huaisang says. “But think carefully for a moment, and tell me. Were you told only to not let anyone interrupt? Or were you not even meant to let them listen?”
“I–” The spirit shakes his head, hard. “I don’t remember.”
“It’s natural that you thought nothing of it,” Nie Huaisang says. “I didn’t, either, until you started haunting us. I thought, haven’t I heard that voice before? And then I realized–you used to stand outside the door. I stopped to listen, once, and you hurried me down the hall. I know I can be disruptive. But I wasn’t being disruptive then, was I? I was just listening.”
“Please,” the spirit cries. “Lianfang-zun loved your brother.”
“I’m not asking if he loved him,” Nie Huaisang says. “I’m asking–all those hours you stood there, did you listen?”
The spirit goes deathly still. Lit only by the dim, dusty light through the slats above, he all but looks like he’s disappeared.
“You see,” Nie Huaisang says. “I actually understand you completely. San-ge was good to me. Good to my brother. A good man. That’s what I’ve been trying to think, since then. But the way Da-ge looked at him as it was happening–I can’t forget it, you know? I can’t let it go.”
“Nie-zongzhu,” the spirit whispers.
“But I don’t know anything,” Nie Huaisang says. “I’ve never known much of anything. You, though… I think San-ge thought if he praised you enough, you’d trust him unconditionally. I think he forgot that we notice even what we don’t want to notice. That even when recognizing what we saw means the world we knew no longer exists, we saw it anyway.
“Though maybe San-ge was just waiting for his chance.” Pushing off against the wall, Nie Huaisang makes his slow way back across the crawlspace. “It was what first bothered me, after that night. I wonder if you noticed, too. That when Da-ge grabbed you by the throat, San-ge lowered his sword. I thought he was trying to get through to my brother. Now, though…”
“Stop it.” The spirit clutches at his arms, at his hair. But there’s no texture left to him anymore. No traction. Even his limbs slip through his fingers. “He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t!”
“I think that he did,” Nie Huaisang says. “I think he knew that if you didn’t suspect anything, you would before long. I think he lowered Hensheng. And I think, even knowing that you’d never had a soul-calming ceremony, he watched you die. Your mentor. Your good Lianfang-zun.”
When the spirit crumples to his knees, it’s soundless. Nie Huaisang kneels just as quietly. “I’m not so weak that I can’t lay you to rest,” he says. “But to do it before you’ve said everything you need to say–well. It feels like a waste, doesn’t it?”
“Please.” The spirit’s voice is more dust than sound, now. “Let me die.”
Nie Huaisang rests his hand beside the Jin’s, outside the array. Their skin looks the same color like this. Bone on bone.
“You’re already dead,” Nie Huaisang says. “So make it count.”