The smell of wood and sawdust permeated the air. Wu Xingyu fanned the fog away from his nose with his hand as he stared at the empty storage room. He scanned from corner to corner before finally turning away.
"Boss, what happened to all the milk in the storage room?"
"They are all sold out," answered the innkeeper.
"Sold out?"
"Yeah. A rich lord bought them all to be made into milk candies for his little son."
"All the milk?"
"Yeah. My sons will be leaving the town soon to buy some more sheep and maybe some cows as well from the countryside."
"More goats and ewes? How will the barns in the back have space?"
"Quit asking me so many questions and get ready to make tomorrow's food!" the innkeeper snapped.
Wu Xingyu head spun in circles in search for an alternative. Remembering a sack of soybeans left in the barns, he headed there, asking upon arrival, "What's going on here?"
Two men were busy cleaning up the scattered hay and straw with rakes. "We got to get this place cleaned up before the end of the day," one of them answered gruffly.
"What happened to all the sheep that were kept here?"
"All killed off for last night's festivities. Didn't you know?"
"All of them?" repeated Wu Xingyu in disbelief before coming to a realisation. "So that's why they could buy more sheep."
He rushed to the back where sacks of surplus produce were sometimes left there but found nothing.
"If you've got nothing to do then give us a hand," one of the cleaners threw an empty sack to Wu Xingyu.
"Oh, alright," Wu Xingyu grabbed the piles of hay and filled the sack to full. He dumped the sack outside and took a quick bath to wash off the smell and sweat.
The incessant fireworks that blazed until a very late hour last night had Ah-Xuan rolling and crying inconsolably. Wu Xingyu had placated her with his own pillow and blankets, gentle words, warm hugs and soft lullabies. He then grabbed some raw wool and washed them in warm water before rolling them into very small balls to plug into her ears. Though he knew they were not soundproof, Ah-Xuan could finally be appeased. The following morning he ignored a scolding from the stingy innkeeper for using up some of the wool, even though it was not an expensive material.
Wu Xingyu placed two fingers on Ah-Xuan's wrist as he did every night. After checking her pulse, he tucked her in bed and plugged her ears again. Ah-Xuan's health steadily improved but she frequently had nightmares that kept her from getting a good night's sleep, unless she was using Wu Xingyu's lap as a pillow and giving him pins and needles in return.
Waking up Ah-Xuan hopped off her bed and headed out of her room. Instead of walking normally, she jumped down the stairs step by step, mimicking a bunny. Before making a big leap of two steps, she called, "Xingyu Ge-ge! Look!"
"Careful now Ah-Xuan!"
Ah-Xuan landed on her feet, stumbling a little before regaining her balance. Impressed, Wu Xingyu patted her head. "I'm sorry Ah-Xuan, I can't get any milk for you this morning."
At the table Wu Xingyu could only bring a bowl of plain yet lukewarm water, from which Ah-Xuan sipped slowly from without complaining.
"Xingyu Ge-ge, is there honey?"
"Yes," Wu Xingyu placed a jar of honey on the table. Ah-Xuan scooped a large spoonful and mixed it in her water. She then dipped her fried dough sticks in the honey water and happily chewed on the softened ends.
Wu Xingyu promptly completed his morning duties of preparing the next day's foods. After washing the dishes, he washed his and Ah-Xuan's clothes.
"Here, your income for this week," the innkeeper gruffly left a pouch of coins on the table.
After drying his battered hands, Wu Xingyu counted the amount inside. "That's less than last week."
"That's because you took some wool without permission!"
"I only took a little bit."
"Quit yapping and get back to work!"
Wu Xingyu resignedly pocketed his earnings. In his next stroll through the markets while holding onto Ah-Xuan's hand he bought a variety of beans, red, black, soy and yin yang. Bundling up the purchases, he was about to head back to the inn when Ah-Xuan stopped, sidetracked by a straw stand with many sugar-coated Chinese hawthorns sticking out of it, the whole structure resembling a giant candy tree.
Despite his apprehensions that Ah-Xuan might throw a tantrum, Wu Xingyu said gently to her after checking the price of those snacks, "Let's not have any candies today, ok?"
Hearing his words, Ah-Xuan began to cry, just as he predicted.
Wu Xingyu tried to coax her but she cried harder and harder. He quickly tried to find some other means of appeasing her before she could attract a crowd, though in the public eye a young child crying her eyes out was nothing abnormal. He gave her hug and patted her head.
"There, there, Ah-Xuan. Don't cry, ok? I'll make something even tastier than those candied and snacks."
Ah-Xuan was still crying.
"It's all my fault, it's all my bad. Now be good, don't cry anymore, ok?" Wu Xingyu wiped the tears reddening her face. "Hey, look over there!"
Pointing behind her, Wu Xingyu directed her attention to a colourful array of delicate, paper pinwheels spinning in the wind at another stand. Intrigued by their intricate spirals and patterns, Ah-Xuan instantly stopped crying and gazed in awe before running towards them. Wu Xingyu let out a sigh. "Ok, that did the trick."
The store was ran by a middle-aged woman who kept a sunny disposition as she enticed Ah-Xuan with the toys. "Hello there, little girl. Do you want to play with one of them?"
"Mn!" Ah-Xuan nodded ecstatically.
"Sir, would you like to buy one for your daughter?"
"Daughter?" gasped Wu Xingyu, his eyes widened slightly before looking down at what was for sale. "How much is one?"
Being at a much more affordable price he bought three pinwheels along with a package of the origami paper and a bundle of sticks. Returning to the inn, he grounded the beans that were soaked overnight into milk before teaching Ah-Xuan cut and fold the papers into pinwheels and attach them on the sticks. After tearing apart much of the paper and breaking many of the sticks she finally crafted two pinwheels correctly.
"Xingyu Ge-ge, I want to write something on my pinwheels!"
Wu Xingyu passed her a brush. Remembering some simple characters in a cursive, feathery style she had learnt from him, Ah-Xuan messily graffitied on the pinwheels before picking them up and running about with them excitably
"Pinwheels! My pretty pinwheels!"
"Ah-Xuan, don't run around too much," said Wu Xingyu.
Ah-Xuan bumped into someone and dropped her pinwheels. It was the innkeeper's eldest son who was covered in sweat and the smell of animals. He raised his hand and slapped Ah-Xuan savagely across the face. "Stupid girl, watch where you're going!"
"Hey!" Wu Xingyu rose from the table and rushed to Ah-Xuan, shielding her in his arms. "She's just a child. Don't hit her."
Ah-Xuan wailed in Wu Xingyu's clutches.
"So what if I hit her?" snapped the burly man. "You and your little girl do nothing but freeload at our place so much."
"Looks like you just came back from the countryside," observed Wu Xingyu.
"Yeah, just brought back some sheep like my old man ordered me to."
"I was convinced that you might not want to come back since you're so pig-headed you're better off staying in the pigsties there."
"What the fuck did you just say?" the man hollered as he raised his fist. Without landing a single punch he was promptly knocked off his feet and lying on the ground. Ah-Xuan burst into laughter until she was startled with an infuriated look. "You shut up!"
The man got up and attempted to strike at Ah-Xuan, who shuffled a few steps back until Wu Xingyu intervened and the man was on the ground facing the ceiling again. As this continued, his humiliation doubled with every defeat, festering his anger and driving him to become increasingly reckless and witless.
In the middle of the man's last attempted strike, Wu Xingyu coolly asked, "Exactly how many times are you going to keep going like this?"
"Until you're fucking dead!"
"You really are more fit for a pigsty," Wu Xingyu got behind him and struck his nape. The man collapsed unconscious. Ah-Xuan approached the body, gave a kick in the stomach and stuck her tongue out at it.
"Stupid blockhead!"
"Come on Ah-Xuan," Wu Xingyu grabbed her hand and dragged her to their room where he quickly packed their belongings. Grabbing one of the pinwheel papers, he scribbled a note and left it on their bed for the innkeeper to find.
"Are we leaving this place?" Ah-Xuan asked timidly.
"Yes," Wu Xingyu carried his sack over his shoulder and picked up Ah-Xuan in his arms. He rushed out of the building and walked eastward until his arms tired
Holding Wu Xingyu's hand as they walked, Ah-Xuan suddenly shook it and looked up. "Xingyu Ge-ge, where are we going?"
"To the seas."
"The seas?"
Arriving at the East Seas Temple Ah-Xuan hyperactively gushed over the golden patterns and dragon shapes of the interior. Wu Xingyu met up with the elder arduously polishing the array of ornaments one by one before noticing the presence of his guests. Exchanging greetings, he looked up with a pair of bleary, wrinkled eyes and spoke in a raspy but steady voice. "Young master, you have business with the East Seas Temple, or the Sea Dragon Sect?"
"It's her I've come for," Wu Xingyu brought Ah-Xuan closer to the elder. "I saved her from a demon but I can't keep her by my side. It's too dangerous for her."
The elder sized up Wu Xingyu, from the light coloured robes to the travel sack over his shoulder. "You're a wandering cultivator I presume?"
"Yes."
"So you wander around slaying demons, right?" the elder walked a little slowly towards a table. "Tough work, is it?"
"It's alright."
"Hehe, no need to hide it from me. The cultivators at Sea Dragon Sect never stop complaining how much work they have," the elder pulled out a book and a brush. "May I have this child's name and age?"
A small voltage shocked Wu Xingyu. Brushing it aside he quickly made up, "Xuan from fine jade, age is f-five." Immediately he remembered that Ah-Xuan was a little too short, and thought, 'I should've said four.'
As the elder calmly noted those details in the book Ah-Xuan's expression turned ugly. "Xingyu Gege, are you going to leave me?"
"You'll be safer here than with me," assured Wu Xingyu. "I'll come and visit as much as I can."
"Xingyu Gege, you don't want me anymore."
"No, it's not... Ah-Xuan?" Wu Xingyu's eyes narrowed.
A red, ominous glow glinted from Ah-Xuan's downcast eyes. Her hair shifted as though blown by a gust of wind. A dark, evil aura emerged from her body.
"What's happening to her?" asked the elder in a fright.
"There was still some demonic energy in her!" Wu Xingyu summoned a burst of spiritual energy in his palm and grasped onto Ah-Xuan's shoulder.
"Xingyu Gege, you're going to leave me," Ah-Xuan's voice deepened, carrying the pains of abandonment and resentment that doubled as it fought against the energy Wu Xingyu channeled into her. "After everything... you're still leaving..."
"Ah-Xuan," Wu Xingyu called. "Ah-Xuan!"
Strange, cracking sounds came from within Ah-Xuan's body, as though the bones in her were starting to lengthen, shorten, dislocate and relocate themselves. The elder shuffled back, thoroughly nauseated. Just as Ah-Xuan's body started to distort she was suppressed by another force.
Wu Xingyu had pressed on her forehead the Purple Peacock Fan. Purple mists swirled in a whirlwind pattern from Ah-Xuan's head down to her feet. The red glow in her eyes dimmed and the bones in her body slowly fixed themselves. A weary expression overtook Ah-Xuan.
Wu Xingyu caught her as she fell unconscious in his arms. "A bit of demonic energy was lying dormant within her. Her emotions agitated it just now."
The elder warily walked up to Wu Xingyu. "Can you fix her?"
"I can fully exorcise the demonic energy out of her," Wu Xingyu tenderly placed a hand on Ah-Xuan's forehead. "But it'll also take away all her memories."
"Her memories?"
"Once I'm done she won't remember who she is, or who I am." And she'll forget about Dong Riyang as well. That's probably the best. "I'll fully entrust her in your care."
"Of course," assured the elder. "She'll join the other orphans at my temple and then become a disciple of the Sea Dragon Sect once she becomes of age. May I ask what's your surname?"
"I am surnamed Wu."
The elder quietly decided the name he would christen Ah-Xuan once she wakes up.
"Yi means memory, right?" Wu Xingyu asked in present time.
Song Yehai nodded.
Wu Xingyu smiled, his beaming expression giving off an extremely warm and peaceful aura that further beautiful to his eye-catching appearance and entranced Song Yehai in one look. His heartbeat raced a slight until he quickly pulled his mesmerised gaze away before Wu Xingyu could notice.
"Ah-Xuan loved sweets back then," said Wu Xingyu. "Does she still do?"
"Yes."
"Does she still like to put honey in her drinks?"
"And sugar on her seaweed."
"Seaweed?"
"She loves seaweed."
"How does one eat seaweed with sugar?"
Song Yehai remembered the unpleasant taste when he gave the strange combination a taste and swallowed a breath.
"She and Meng Qi are very close, aren't they?" Wu Xingyu asked.
"Yes."
"I'm glad she has found a home at the Sea Dragon Sect."
The carriage came to a halt after a trip that took less than hour though they had covered almost an entire day's worth of distance. "We're here."
As they got off the carriage, Song Yehai removed the reins and stroked the deer's neck. "Thank you Han Lu. You can go back now. Look after Wu Yi. She needs you."
With the permission, Han Lu promptly galloped off into the air.
They arrived at the ends of a staircase leading to the mouth of a great cave with jagged edges, black earthy minerals and large, bulky roots of surrounding trees. Birds, mostly just crows, gathered in the clear skies above, some choosing to perch on the branches rather than fly in circles with the flock.
"So this is the Caves of Passion," said Song Yehai.
"Mn," Wu Xingyu nodded. "The lair of the Three Ghosts Sect."
A crimson mist seemed to seep from the depths of the cave. Though faint, its aura was ominous and eerie as it swirled and eddied around the entrance. The rocky stairway leading up to it was cracked from an overabundance of weeds and vines. It had very few steps for them to cover. Upon arriving at the top they were met with someone guarding the entrance, a young, preteen girl on the verge of dozing off brought to full wakefulness by their presence.
"Who are you?"