When she left Stone Bridge Town, Shami deliberately turned back to buy a package of Osmanthus Cake.
The things had just come out of the oven, and the paper package still felt a little warm.
The owner tied it with hemp rope and handed it to her.
She took it and sniffed it, thinking Baiyin would probably complain it was too little.
She thought about going back to add more, but didn’t.
Six pieces were already expensive enough.
Buying two more would be worse than making them at home, though the ones she made would most likely not taste like this.
But anyway, Baiyin’s mouth could even eat what she herself stewed, so she probably had no right to be picky.
She stuffed the Osmanthus Cake on top of the bamboo basket to keep it from being crushed on the way, then checked again the things she had gotten from the caravan’s medicine shop, confirming that the medicinal herbs she had waited more than a month for had not been left out.
Only then did she start back into the mountains.
She hadn’t been back for two days.
There really wasn’t much to think about.
Baiyin was probably still lying around at home.
Maybe she had already finished the remaining half chicken.
If her luck was worse, she might have brought back something unrecognizable from somewhere and thrown it into the pot.
Shami felt a little annoyed just thinking about it.
She planned to check the salt jar first thing after entering, then see whether any of the money she had hidden was missing.
She had already paid for the Chen Family’s chicken before leaving.
If Baiyin stole another one, she really would have to consider hiding the money somewhere else.
When she reached halfway up the mountain, there was no movement in the woods.
Shami didn’t pay attention at first.
She carried the bamboo basket and kept climbing.
Only after passing the large moss-covered rock did she realize that the two Small Demons that usually liked to crouch in the trees and watch her were not there today.
Those things looked like squirrels, but their tails were forked.
Baiyin said they were useless.
Yet when Shami was little and went down the mountain, she could always see them following behind.
Once she deliberately took a long detour, and when she came back, those two things were so tired they lay on the tree for a long time without moving.
Today the branches were empty.
She looked up twice.
” What, no work today?”
No one answered her.
Shami laughed to herself, thinking it was crazy to talk about work with mountain creatures.
After a few more steps, another gray Small Demon crawled out from the grass ahead.
As soon as it saw her, it shrank back sharply, not even tucking its tail in properly, and dragged a trail of dead leaves away until it vanished.
“I’m not going to eat you.”
She said it casually, and her steps slowed a little.
The mountain was still the same mountain.
Wind passed through the woods, and the stream was still making noise.
It was just that some things were missing.
She couldn’t say exactly what.
It was like a house she was used to living in suddenly had a chair moved out.
At first glance you might not notice, but as you walked through, you always felt there was an empty spot.
Shami lifted the bamboo basket higher on her shoulder.
A very clichéd image suddenly came to mind.
The protagonist goes out to buy something, and when they return, their home is gone, or their people are gone.
Then the camera cuts to graves, blood, enemies, with some especially sad music.
Back when she watched anime, there were so many scenes like that she couldn’t even be bothered to complain.
Now that it really popped into her head, she herself felt it was unlucky.
“Don’t.”
She kicked a pebble by her foot.
“I’m not the protagonist.”
After another turn upward, the roof soon emerged from behind the trees.
The house was still there.
The courtyard wall was still there.
Clothes were drying on the bamboo pole.
The courtyard gate even looked the same as when she left, just pushed open a little by the wind.
The rim of the water vat still reflected light under the sun.
Seeing all this from afar, Shami’s shoulders relaxed, and even the inexplicable unease from before seemed stupid.
She pushed the door open, set the bamboo basket by the wall.
“I’m back.”
No one answered in the courtyard.
Shami first took the Osmanthus Cake out from the top, put it on the corner of the table, then bent down to check whether the package of medicine had been crushed.
She also called Baiyin once.
Still no answer.
She glanced toward the kitchen.
The stove was cold, the pot had been washed, and the medicine left out to dry yesterday was still on the bamboo tray.
“Where did you run off to?”
She took out the salt, lamp oil, and thread one by one, and only at the end discovered that the water vat was full.
This person had clearly come back.
Shami went to the backyard and looked around.
No one was in the place where Baiyin usually sunbathed, nor behind the house.
On the flat stone by the stream where she sometimes lay down to sleep, only a few leaves had fallen.
Shami stood there and waited for a while, then called toward the woods again.
“Baiyin?”
Still no sound.
“If you went to steal chickens again, I really won’t pay this time.”
The wind rustled the leaves.
Shami wrinkled her nose and turned back.
As she passed the courtyard gate, she noticed something on the table that had not been there before she left.
A small pouch of silver coins.
A folded piece of paper was pressed under it.
She stopped at the doorway and looked for two seconds, but did not go over to take it.
Baiyin wouldn’t write something like this.
She was even too lazy to keep accounts.
Basically all the paper at home was used by Shami.
Shami stood for a while, then suddenly remembered she had not looked in the inner room yet.
“…Crazy.”
She cursed, not knowing who she was cursing at, and walked over to push the door open.
“If you’re hiding inside, at least answer me.”
Someone was on the bed.
Shami’s steps stopped.
Baiyin lay on her side there, white hair spread by the pillow, her outer clothes shifted, her hands wiped very clean.
At first glance she really looked no different from asleep.
It was just that this person’s sleeping posture was normally not this proper.
In the middle of the night she could roll from the head of the bed to the foot.
When Shami was little and squeezed into the same bed with her, she had been kicked awake plenty of times.
“So you’re here.”
Shami walked over.
“I called for ages and you didn’t answer.”
She moved the unfinished wooden comb by the bed inward so she wouldn’t knock it off, then reached out and pushed Baiyin’s shoulder.
The body did not move.
Shami pushed again.
The warmth beneath her palm was wrong.
She looked down at her own hand.
After a moment, she pressed her palm to the side of Baiyin’s neck.
Nothing.
She switched spots.
Still nothing.
Shami pressed her fingers down harder, waited a few breaths, then felt for the wrist.
After that she bent close to the tip of Baiyin’s nose.
Her hair slid down from her shoulder and blocked her sight.
Irritated, she pushed those strands behind her and leaned close again.
No breath.
“…Fine.”
She sat down on the edge of the bed.
“If you Demons can’t even play dead any differently from humans, then that’s pretty unoriginal.”
Baiyin ignored her.
Shami reached out, lifted the clothes, and checked the wounds.
There were wounds on the shoulder, at the side of the waist, and on the palms.
Many places had already been treated.
The mark on the chest was instead very shallow, so shallow it was hard to believe this thing could kill Baiyin.
She pressed around it with her hand, then felt for the place where the Demon Core usually reacted.
There was nothing.
When Baiyin was alive, even if she slept deeply, the Demon Aura on her body would not stop completely.
Sometimes it was very faint, but if you got close, you could still feel it.
Especially since Shami had lived with her for so many years, she was so familiar with that aura that she would not even pay attention to it.
Now there was none at all.
She tried another method.
Still nothing.
She tried another.
Nothing.
Shami got up and opened the medicine cabinet.
The top few bottles were for stopping bleeding.
Below them was ointment for setting bones.
Further in were two bottles of medicine Baiyin had drunk herself when she was injured before.
She took them all out.
She pulled the corks too hastily, and one fell onto the table and rolled half a turn.
She grabbed it back and first poured a little into Baiyin’s mouth.
It wouldn’t go down.
The liquid medicine flowed out from the corner of her mouth.
Shami wiped it off with her sleeve and propped the person up a little higher.
“Open your mouth.”
Baiyin, of course, did not open it.
“Aren’t you usually a pretty big eater?”
Shami pinched open her jaw and poured in a little more.
It still flowed out.
She started looking for other medicine.
More and more bottles and jars appeared on the table.
She even took out several things that would never normally be mixed together.
If one bottle didn’t work, she switched to another, until there was nothing new left at hand to try.
Only then did she realize she had touched the side of Baiyin’s neck again.
Still nothing.
“I bought the Osmanthus Cake.”
She suddenly said.
The room was very quiet.
Shami put her hand down and went to twist open another medicine bottle.
“Six pieces, ridiculously expensive, and you’re the one who insisted on eating them.”
The cork wouldn’t come out.
She gritted her teeth and twisted twice.
Her hands were covered in the medicine she had just spilled, and they were terribly slippery.
“I already paid for the Chen Family’s chicken too.”
The third time, it still wouldn’t open.
Shami simply struck the bottom of the bottle against the bed frame.
The mouth of the bottle cracked.
She broke off the shards, and when she poured the medicine out, half of it spilled.
“If you steal again next time, I won’t cover for you.”
She smeared the remaining medicine onto Baiyin’s wounds.
“Do you hear me?”
The person on the bed was still the same.
Shami’s movements slowed.
“Enough already.”
She waited for a while.
“Get up.”
After she said this, she herself did not move again.
Some bird outside the window called once.
Shami suddenly stood up.
The chair was knocked over by her legs and hit the ground with a loud noise.
She didn’t pick it up and went straight out the door.
Baiyin is a Demon.
That this body had died did not mean she was necessarily truly dead.
Maybe the Demon Core was not here.
Maybe Baiyin could still shed her shell.
Maybe she had never told her what happened after a great Demon like her died once.
There were so many strange things in the mountains.
Why should she end after dying once like a human?
She first went to the stream.
No one.
Then the flat stone on the back mountain.
No one.
Further north, she also searched the path Baiyin had once taken when she came back after catching a wild boar.
There was still grass by the path broken by something’s steps.
Shami followed it a long way, and in the end saw only a newly collapsed earth slope.
“Baiyin?”
She called out.
Her voice still sounded normal.
After passing through the second patch of woods, she called again.
“Hey.”
The mountain only returned a little of her voice.
She walked faster and faster.
The sole of her shoe slipped on a wet stone, and her knee hit hard enough to hurt.
She got up and kept going.
Even though she knew Baiyin normally never came to this area, she still checked every place where a person could hide.
Nothing.
“I’ve had enough.”
She held onto a tree and caught her breath.
“This joke of yours isn’t funny at all.”
Her chest suddenly felt a little tight.
Shami breathed in.
It wasn’t enough.
She breathed in again.
Still not enough.
She had just been running too fast, that was all.
Shami knew how to handle this kind of situation: slow down, don’t gasp, stretch out the exhale, best to sit down.
She had heard people talk about it in modern times, and after coming to this world she had also seen people so frightened they couldn’t breathe.
She sat down leaning against the tree.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Inhale again.
Her chest tightened more and more.
Her fingers began to go numb.
“Don’t do this.”
She lowered her head and rubbed her hands.
“No… not now.”
Her voice came out a little scattered.
She shut her mouth and focused only on breathing, but at some point the woods before her eyes had become very narrow.
The tree trunks seemed to press in from both sides, and her ears were filled with her own heartbeat.
The more she didn’t want to see it, the more the face on the bed surged into her mind.
Cold.
No breathing.
No Demon Aura.
The medicine wouldn’t go down.
Shami suddenly stood up.
“This is so annoying.”
She kept walking.
By the end she no longer knew what she was looking for.
As long as there was a path ahead, she went forward.
When she called Baiyin, her voice grew hoarser and hoarser, and a few times she only opened her mouth without actually calling out.
In the end, she still returned to the courtyard.
The bamboo basket was lying by the wall.
She had probably knocked it over when she went out.
Quite a few things inside had scattered.
The lamp oil bottle had rolled below the steps, but luckily it hadn’t broken.
The package of Osmanthus Cake had also fallen to the ground, and the corner of the paper was stained with a bit of mud.
Shami stood at the doorway looking at it.
After a long time, she bent down and picked it up.
So this was what she had come back to deliver today.
She carried the paper package into the room.
Baiyin was still lying there.
Shami stood by the bed for a while and put the Osmanthus Cake beside her, then turned to pick up the piece of paper on the table.
She didn’t understand it the first time.
She recognized all the characters, but strung together they seemed to mean nothing.
She turned it back and read it again.
There was a conflict in the mountains.
Baiyin is dead.
No one will touch the things in the house.
If she needed help after returning, she could go down the mountain to find someone, or have someone send a letter to the Youmen family.
The signature had three characters.
Onkado Jing Zhen.
Shami stared at this name for a while.
Then she looked at the pouch of silver coins beside it.
She folded the paper again.
It was crooked.
She unfolded it.
She folded it again.
Still crooked.
Shami simply clutched the paper in her hand and turned to go out.
She had to go down the mountain.
She couldn’t even say clearly what she was going down for.
Asking clearly would be good.
Seeing whether this person actually existed would also be good.
In any case, she couldn’t rely on just a piece of paper.
By the time she reached the village entrance, it was already getting late.
Voices could be heard from far away.
Someone had moved a table outside the courtyard.
Several families were gathered drinking.
Children ran back and forth along the road.
Even the Old Man, who usually did not go out much, was sitting by his door soaking up the last bit of sun.
Someone was saying that the Northern Mountains could finally be entered now, and someone else was planning to go up tomorrow to see which places were good for gathering medicinal herbs.
Shami stood by the roadside.
No one paid attention to her.
She often passed through here anyway.
Some people in the village recognized this face, but they only knew her as a child who lived in the mountains.
They didn’t know who she actually lived with.
A man who had drunk a little was gesturing to the people beside him about what he had heard today.
“That person from the Youmen family is really amazing. No one dared touch that thing in the mountains for years, and he went up alone and was back by the afternoon.”
Someone beside him asked whether he had really not been injured at all.
The man said it seemed he had a wound on his shoulder, but anyway, he was fine.
Shami listened for a while.
“Where is Onkado Jing Zhen?”
Her voice was not loud.
The old woman sitting nearby recognized her and casually pointed to the courtyard ahead.
“Over there, staying at Old Zhou’s place. Why, did you also hear about the matter in the mountains?”
Shami nodded.
“I heard.”
She walked over there.
Her steps were not as hurried as they had been in the mountains.
She even walked very slowly.
Old Zhou’s courtyard gate was open, and someone inside was clearing things from the table.
Shami stood behind a tree opposite and saw a black-haired young man come out of the house.
His clothes had been changed, a thin cloth was wrapped around his shoulder, and a sword still hung at his waist.
Younger than she had imagined.
And better-looking than she had imagined.
That was a little annoying.
Shami had originally thought that the person who killed Baiyin should at least look somewhat like a villain, or at least have a face that said don’t mess with me.
But this person looked completely normal, and while talking to the Courtyard Owner, he even casually helped move aside a stool that was in the way.
She stared for a while.
Jing Zhen seemed to hear something and tilted his head slightly toward the street.
Shami had already stepped back into the tree’s shadow.
The people in the courtyard called him, so he turned back and did not keep looking.
Shami stood there and waited for a while.
Her chest began to feel uncomfortable again.
She did not go any closer.
By the time she returned to the mountain, it was almost dark.
The sounds of the village were left behind.
After she reached halfway up the mountain, nothing could be heard.
This time Shami did not search the woods again, nor did she call for Baiyin.
When she reached the courtyard gate, the package of Osmanthus Cake was still in its original place by the bed.
She went in and sat down.
The room was already too dark to make out a person’s face.
Shami fumbled to light the lamp, then opened the paper package of Osmanthus Cake, took out a piece, and placed it on the small dish by the bed.
“I bought it back.”
No one answered.
She sat there.
After a while, her breathing became disordered again.
Shami lowered her head and braced her hands on her knees, wanting to slowly empty out every breath, but her chest felt blocked by something, and no matter what, there was no room.
In the end, she simply stopped caring.
The lamplight flickered by the table.
The Osmanthus Cake sat there.
Baiyin was there too.
Shami sat until very late.