A heavy silence hung between the two for a moment before Su Yao received her answer.
Li Xiu shook her head. Her perfectly styled hair swayed. “No one knows where it started. It’s just always been this way. The family records are a mess before my great-grandfather’s generation. It’s like our history just begins there.”
Su Yao filed that away. A convenient historical blank spot. How typical.
“What about the women?” Su Yao pressed. Her tone was clinical. “Do the women in your family also die too soon?”
“The women?” A strange, conflicted look passed over Li Xiu’s face. “No. Not like the men. But it’s different for us.” She lowered her voice, leaning closer. “My grandmother told me, the women, we smell delicious to spirits. Like walking, talking spiritual banquets. It attracts all the wrong kind of attention.”
She gestured vaguely to the expensive jasmine scent clinging to her. “This perfume is actually a masking agent, a specially formulated potion made by a feng shui master we retain. It makes us smell unappetizing. Or at least, less appetizing.”
Su Yao stared at her. The pieces clicked into place with devastating clarity. Weak cultivators. A televised exorcism of her old friend. The men’s so-called “curse,” pitiful from the start. Now the women of the line were walking spirit bait, needing to douse themselves in mystical perfume to avoid being eaten.
A soul-deep sense of pity and disgust washed over her.
If these were truly the descendants of Li Xuan, the man who had ended her with a single cup of poison, then the irony was too perfect.
How the mighty have fallen, she thought. The words dripped with contempt. His line is reduced to this? Hiding from ghosts with cologne and waiting for the men to drop dead from a ‘natural law’ they're too weak to break?
Out loud, she simply said, “I see.”
She looked at Li Xiu, the heiress forced to wear anti-spirit perfume like mortal bug spray, then shifted her gaze to her dying grandfather beyond the window.
Pitiful, Su Yao decided. Utterly and completely pitiful.
The urge to find the traveler and confront him evaporated, replaced by a new, colder ambition. There was no grand confrontation to be had here. Only a dying, feeble legacy.
A dying legacy was an opportunity.
“Thank you for telling me,” Su Yao said. Her voice was devoid of any real emotion. She turned to leave. Her mind was already racing with new calculations. The Li family presented itself as a resource, weakened and vulnerable, rather than a threat to be solved.
She was very, very good at exploiting those.
Li Xiu managed a weak, watery smile. “I don’t know why I just told you all of that. I’ve never told anyone outside the family. But thank you for listening. And for not looking at me like I’m crazy.”
Su Yao offered a thin, placid smile. “Don’t worry. I think you’re as perfectly sane as I am.”
The heiress let out a shaky breath of relief. “I’m glad we talked. I should have talked to you more often. You’re actually really nice, Xiao Ling.”
The words hung in the antiseptic air. Su Yao’s smile remained, but her eyes held a glint of ancient, predatory amusement.
“You wouldn’t say that,” Su Yao said, her voice a casual, conversational murmur, “after you saw me open your ribcage and pull out your organs to see if they smell as delicious as the spirits say.”
The sentence was delivered with the same tone one might use to discuss the weather.
Li Xiu’s relieved smile froze. Her blood drained from her face so fast she swayed on her feet. She stared, her mouth slightly agape. Her mind struggled to process the horrifying words that had just slithered from Xiao Ling’s mouth.
“W-what?” she stammered. Her voice was a faint whisper. “That… that was a joke, right?”
Su Yao tilted her head. Her expression was one of pure, innocent confusion. “A joke? What was a joke?”
“The… the ribcage. And the… organs,” Li Xiu choked out. Her hand instinctively flew to her chest.
Su Yao’s confusion seemed to deepen. She reached out and placed a cool, steadying hand on Li Xiu’s arm. “Li Xiu, you must be exhausted. The stress is getting to you. You’re hearing things.” Her voice was gentle, soothing enough to be utterly convincing. “I said you should get some orange juice and forget your woes. You really should go rest. You’re unwell.”
Li Xiu blinked. The horrific image was already blurring, replaced by Xiao Ling’s concerned face. The sheer dissonance between the gentle words and the visceral threat she thought she'd heard created a cognitive short-circuit. Doubt flooded her.
“O-orange juice…?” she repeated dumbly.
“Yes,” Su Yao said. Her smile was warm and reassuring. “Go get some rest. Everything will be clearer after you sleep.”
She gave Li Xiu’s arm a final pat and turned to walk away. Her footsteps echoed softly down the polished hospital corridor.
Li Xiu stood alone, trembling slightly, staring after the retreating figure. The cold fear was fading, replaced by a deep, unsettling confusion. She could have sworn, she could have sworn.
She shook her head, pressing her fingers to her temples. “I really must be losing it,” she murmured to herself, turning back toward her grandfather’s room. The memory of the threat was already unraveling and being rewritten by Su Yao’s calm suggestion.
It was, after all, far easier to believe she was going crazy than to accept that the girl who had saved her brother was a monster who casually discussed vivisection.
Su Yao had only taken a few steps down the hall when she paused. She turned on her heel and walked back. Her footsteps were silent on the polished floor.
Li Xiu was still standing there, looking dazed and confused.
“One more thing,” Su Yao said. Her voice cut through the heiress’s swirling thoughts.
Li Xiu jumped, startled. “Y-yes?”
Su Yao directed her eyes towards the nurse’s station further down the hall. A young nurse was diligently writing on a clipboard. Her face was a mask of professional concern.
“See her?” Su Yao murmured. Her voice was barely audible. “The one by the window? Be careful around her.”
Li Xiu followed her gaze, bewildered. “The nurse? Why?”
“Because she isn’t human,” Su Yao stated, as if commenting on the weather. “Just because something looks human, sounds human, and acts human doesn’t mean it is. Remember that. They are what they eat. And you, with your particular scent, must look like a five-course meal to something like that.”
The color, which had barely returned to Li Xiu’s face, vanished again. Her eyes widened in pure terror as she stared at the unsuspecting nurse, who chose that moment to look up and offer a polite, professional smile in their direction.
Li Xiu recoiled as if struck.
Su Yao watched the absolute horror dawn on the heiress’s face. The paralyzing fear and shattered sense of safety was a masterpiece of expression.
The best part? Su Yao hadn't sensed anything particularly unusual about that nurse. She might have been a perfectly normal human. Or something else. It was a coin toss. Su Yao dismissed the matter as unimportant.
The truth was irrelevant. Her reaction was everything.
She gave a slight, indifferent shrug. “Or not. Who knows? This is a hospital. Probably lots of things here that aren’t what they seem. Fun to think about, though, isn’t it?”
She offered Li Xiu a final, glittering smile that held no warmth whatsoever.
“Get that rest. You look like you need it.”
With that, she turned and left for good, leaving Li Xiu paralyzed in the hallway. The heiress stared with naked terror at every medical professional who walked by. Her worldview was thoroughly and cruelly shattered, all for the fleeting amusement of a nine-tailed fox who was, quite frankly, bored.
The hospital elevator doors slid shut with a soft ding, enclosing Su Yao and a pale man in an orderly’s uniform, staring blankly at the floor indicator.
Su Yao pressed the button for the lobby.
The elevator gave a slight lurch and began to descend. Then it passed the lobby level. The numbers on the display continued to drop: B1, B2, B3, far past the number of floors listed on the panel. The lights flickered, casting long, stretching shadows.
The pale orderly slowly turned his head. His neck creaked like old wood. His eyes were completely black, devoid of whites or iris.
“This isn’t your floor,” he rasped. His voice was like dry leaves skittering across concrete.
“I’m aware,” Su Yao said. She watched the numbers plummet. B10, B11.
“You should be afraid,” the thing hissed. Its form began to blur at the edges, elongating in the flickering light. A cold began to seep into the small space. The air grew thick with a grave-dirt stench.
Su Yao sighed, a sound of boredom. “Should I?”
The elevator shuddered violently. The lights died completely, plunging them into an absolute darkness that felt heavy and suffocating. A low growl echoed from where the orderly had been, replaced by the sound of something large that scraped against the metal walls on many limbs.
“I WILL DEVOUR YOUR SOUL! I WILL FEAST ON YOUR FEAR!” a voice boomed in the darkness, no longer pretending to be human.
A cold, clawed limb brushed against Su Yao’s cheek in the pitch black.
“Your breath is atrocious,” she remarked calmly. “Have you considered haunting a mint factory? It might improve your palate.”
The oppressive darkness recoiled slightly. The growling stopped, replaced by a confused silence.
“…YOU aren’t AFRAID.”
“It’s been noted,” Su Yao said. The lights flickered back on, dim and jaundiced.
The creature revealed its true form, a monstrous thing of shadows and too many joints. Its maw filled with needle-like teeth, pressed against the ceiling of the elevator car. The thing stared down at her, its black eyes wide with something other than hunger for the first time: frustration.
“WHY ARE YOU NOT AFRAID? ALL HUMANS FEAR THE DARK! THEY FEAR THE UNKNOWN!”
Su Yao finally looked up at it. Her eyes glowed faintly in the gloom. A slow, terrifying smile spread across her face.
“You’re making a rather dangerous assumption.”
She took a single step forward and the elevator groaned in protest. The ancient, boundless demonic aura she usually kept tightly leashed within Xiao Ling’s form unfurled just a fraction.
It was the aura of a being who had hosted banquets in realms beyond death, who had drunk with older and far hungrier things than this.
The creature’s monstrous confidence shattered. Its form flickered, shrinking back. Its many limbs trembled. The shadows that composed its body writhed in sudden, instinctual terror.
“W-what are you?” it stammered. Its voice was now small and reedy.
The elevator doors suddenly slid open with a cheerful ding onto the perfectly normal, brightly lit hospital lobby. People milled about, oblivious.
Su Yao stepped out without even granting the creature a backward glance.
“Disappointed.” She walked away, leaving the thing from the deep dark cowering in the elevator. It was utterly forgotten, its hunger replaced by the chilling certainty that it had just offered a banquet to a being that saw it as barely an appetizer.
The walk home from the hospital should have been quiet. It wasn't.
Three figures stepped out from the shadow of a convenience store, blocking her path. They wore modern clothes, but their postures were all wrong. Their eyes held a fanatical glint Su Yao recognized immediately.
“Demoness!” the one in the middle spat. His hand was hidden inside his jacket, no doubt clutching a talisman. “We felt your vile aura at the hospital! The Vanishing Moon Pavilion will not allow your kind to roam free!”
“You again? Don’t you people have a newsletter to publish or something? Your technique is outdated.”
The lead cultivator’s face purpled with rage. He pulled his hand out. A crackling ball of blue energy formed in his palm. “Your arrogance ends now! For the righteous path—”
Su Yao interrupted him by letting out a blood-curdling scream, the perfect pitch of a terrified schoolgirl.
“AAAAHHH! HELP! HE’s GOT A WEAPON! HE’s GOING TO HURT ME!”
She stumbled backward. Her eyes were wide with manufactured fear, perfectly mimicking every damsel-in-distress she’d ever seen in mortal movies.
The cultivators froze, bewildered by the sudden, earsplitting sound. The lead cultivator looked down at the energy crackling in his hand, then at the screaming girl. His righteous fury was momentarily short-circuited by the sheer social incongruity of it all.
It was all the time she needed.
A passing delivery driver on an e-bike screeched to a halt. A shopkeeper ran out of his store. Within seconds, a small crowd of concerned mortals had gathered.
“What’s going on here?”
“Are you alright, miss?”
“That man has some kind of taser!”
“He… he tried to grab me!” Su Yao sobbed, pointing a trembling finger at the lead cultivator, who was still holding the very obvious, very illegal-looking ball of crackling energy. “He and his friends! They were saying crazy cult stuff!”
The cultivators panicked. This was not in the manual. “Fools! She is a nine-tailed demon fox! The Queen of Hundred Demons! We are cultivators purging evil!”
This only made things worse. The crowd, now including a pair of cops who had been on a foot patrol, looked at the men with a mixture of alarm and pity.
“Nine-tailed what now?”
“Crazy bastards.”
“Probably on drugs.”
“Officers! Thank goodness!” Su Yao cried, running to hide behind the two policemen. “They just came at me! I was so scared!”
One of the cops held up a hand. “Alright, sir, calm down. Let’s see some ID. And you need to extinguish that thing in your hand. Now.”
The lead cultivator, faced with the utterly mundane authority of the city police, could only splutter. “You don’t understand! We are from the Vanishing Moon! The prophecy—”
The other cop unclipped his taser. “I won’t ask again. Drop the weapon.”
Trapped and humiliated, the cultivators could only watch as the ball of energy fizzled out in the lead cultivator’s hand. They were promptly handcuffed and read their rights for attempted assault and possession of an illegal weapon.
As they were being led away to a squad car, the lead cultivator locked eyes with Su Yao, who was giving her statement to a third officer.
She met his gaze. From the safety of the policeman’s side, she offered him a small, cold smile. It lasted only a fraction of a second, but it was enough. It held no fear or distress. Only ancient, mocking amusement.
His eyes widened in dawning, helpless horror. Instead of demonic power, she had beaten them with a scream and a phone call to the mortal authorities.
Su Yao finished her statement and politely thanked the officers before continuing her walk home.
The righteous path, it seemed, ended at the police station. How delightfully modern.
Wong Lei was hiding behind a bus stop. Her eyes were wide as dinner plates. She’d seen it all as Xiao Ling gave her statement, calm and collected now, and then kept walking down the sidewalk as if nothing extraordinary had happened.
She practically jumped out in front of Su Yao. Her earlier fear was replaced by bewildered awe.
“I saw that!” Wong Lei blurted out, pointing a trembling finger back toward the scene. “You… you got them arrested! You screamed for the police!”
Su Yao stopped, giving her a flat look. “And?”
“And!” Wong Lei said, her voice rising with excitement. “I was wrong about you being an evil spirit! An evil spirit would just… I don’t know, eat their souls or something! You’re just… weird!”
Su Yao looked down at her own hands, then back at the overly excited girl. A slow smile touched her lips.
“Of course I’m not a demon,” Su Yao said. Her voice was perfectly level. “I’m just a human. A perfectly normal human girl.”
She was, technically, telling him the truth. Her current body was human. The vessel was 100% organic, mortal matter.
Wong Lei deflated with relief. A giant, goofy grin spread across her face. “I knew it! I’m so sorry about the talisman thing! I just get these ideas sometimes…”
Su Yao’s mind, however, was already elsewhere. This mortal body. Its limitations were frustrating, but it presented opportunities. New experiences. Her eighteenth birthday was fast approaching. Legal adulthood would soon be hers. With it, legal access to certain beverages.
This body had a pathetic alcohol tolerance. The thought of getting thoroughly, messily, humanly drunk for the first time in millennia was oddly appealing. It would be a novel way to celebrate her “birth.”
She looked at the chattering, relieved Wong Lei. A party needed guests. And this one was conveniently available.
“Since you’re so invested in my humanity,” Su Yao interrupted Wong Lei’s apology monologue. “My birthday is soon. There will be a party. You should come.”
Wong Lei’s eyes lit up, all former exorcism attempts forgotten. “Really? You’re inviting me? I’d love to! It’ll be so much fun!”
“Fun,” Su Yao repeated. The word felt foreign on her tongue. She could already imagine the taste of cheap liquor on this new palate, the dizzying spin of a truly inferior metabolism overwhelmed. “Yes. It will be a night to remember.”
She turned to continue her walk home. A genuine, anticipatory smile of a connoisseur about to sample a new vintage played on her lips.
“I can’t wait to get drunk,” she murmured, more to herself than to Wong Lei. “It’s been too long. I’m curious to see this new body’s limits.”