Book 2: Chapter 32: Ghostly Friends |
Shui had been staring at Yin Hu whenever he looked away. Every time he looked around, he turned around to gaze back at her. She would act like she was busy doing something or another and not spending the whole day deciding whether she wanted to say something or keep quiet. At this point, it was getting wasteful and quite frankly irritating to see her so worked up without having a single idea of what it was.
It better not be the old man. Not sure how much I can sit by and let him bother the girls…
Yin Hu blinked.
The old man was technically part of his clan now. Would the role and responsibilities of an outer court member fall similarly to that of an elder considering his power and age? Would the system prevent him from betraying Yin Hu and the clan or make any covert attempt to lead the girls astray? He trusted Jun to listen to his rules and abide by them, but Shui, on the other hand, was a different matter altogether.
He had taken his time around the calamity now that they had figured a way to deal with the Void Qi using the old man's inheritance instance. They set up camp and did not move for the past couple days as they stuck around in the area trying to continue to fuel and give enough leeway for the old man to power and gather enough Void Qi, to tailor it without needing to return here anytime soon.
That man needed to cannibalize the First Calamity and turn its festering body into a battery of mountainous proportions.
It was as disgusting as it sounded.
Yin Hu turned back towards the little kid sitting before him, matching Shui’s expression but for completely different reasons.
Rong snapped his head away as though he had been caught red handed. His eyes couldn’t be stripped off of Yin Hu's cup of tea unless he turned to look at him.
Plus he has knowledge about the system itself and might know loopholes too.
Yin Hu made a mental note to grill Da Ruis about what he did know about what an administrator was and more, but it was a difficult subject to touch on without the right conditions. Just needed the right time and amount of privacy to ask questions without worrying about the girls asking hard to answer follow ups he refused to answer.
That smelled of disaster more than outright giving it to them.
Curiosity killed the cat after all.
Won’t happen for some time. At least until we reach a city. Any city at all for that matter, even I’m getting tired of camping outside all the time.
Rong gulped and blinked away the fogginess in his eyes. “One hundred percent positive, Clan Patriarch.”
Yin Hu matched Rong’s blinking.
Where does he get so much confidence from? I don’t get it.
He wanted to keep questioning the why’s and how’s but figured it would have been a moot point. If he wasn’t going to trust his First Elder now, when the hell was he going to in the future. What was the point of elevating him and putting down the very first building blocks of his foundation if he was going to never trust Rong’s judgement on difficult matters.
Might as well be training for the future when the girls would end up going out without Yin Hu’s shadow looming above them like a mother bear.
Shui sighed again.
I swear, this better not be about the dozens of loot filled spacial pouches. I will not raise a loot goblin in this clan–
Yin Hu stopped himself.
Ever since the girls had been kidnapped, he found himself growing more and more like a nagging middle-aged parent.
All the same worries and fears culminating in a spirit whisking them away as though it was a frightening story any mother would tell her kids to get them to behave. Except it had happened in real life. Yin Hu needed to slow his roll, they were kids after all.
“Shui. Come here,” he said, waving her to join him at the table. “Talk to me. What’s wrong? Is something bothering you?”
He knew all he needed to do was prod at the barely contained dam and it would explode with epic fury. Just as he expected, it did. Shui went on a thirty minute tangent about what she had done, how she had accomplished it, and all the friends she had made along the way.
Including why the treasure she had looted had to be kept with her for safety reasons and teaching her how to protect valuable items.
That earned her a quick reprimanding raised eyebrow.
Yin Hu struggled not to blurt out significant curses the more he heard how close to danger she had been. The plan had been to get Jun to explain what had happened after a drink of hot tea with his tea drinking Spiritual Tree partner. Not only had he not brought it out, considering the nature of the area and likelihood of it getting corrupted, now he had to know all of what happened from Shui.
The only thing keeping him quiet was the fact that she had made supposed friends. A sore subject that lingered with Yin Hu ever since they were in the Silver Mountain Gang’s bandit town.
He still remembered the way all the neighboring families had treated her.
Shunning her for wearing better clothes and eating better meals. Jealous of the little she had and forced their children to disassociate themselves and never play with her. They isolated Shui and left her without any friends at all for much of that time. Jun tried to make up for it by being her best friend, but it was unrealistic to have assumed it was a good replacement.
They weren’t close enough in age, maturity, responsibility, and more that separated what they enjoyed and how they played. Plus the issue with Hu Jun being her guardian and subsequently, her superior to be followed in dangerous times until he showed up. That couldn’t simply be forgotten even if it didn’t leave an outward effect.
“Rong,” he said as he turned to look for the old man, though he couldn’t see him. “Find Da Ruis and bring him here.”
“Yes, Master,” Rong vanished from his seat.
Shui’s sullen expression disappeared just as quickly as Rong and was replaced by the brightest smile he could remember the little girl giving. It was positively beaming. “W-What about the treasure protection–”
“Don’t push your luck. You’re still grounded from any exploration.”
Hu Shui clicked her tongue.
It didn’t take long for the old spirit and Rong to return. Da Ruis was a disheveled mess as though the little boy had dragged him from his bed half awake. They both bowed before him and stayed quiet, waiting for him to speak.
Yin Hu waved his hand again. “Shui. Explain to Da Ruis.”
She nodded and explained everything she had told him, minus the treasure protection measures, word for word as though she had rehearsed it a thousand times before this. A well thought out plan of action that might have been too perfectly planned. Da Ruis nodded along until she finished.
“Alas,” Da Ruis said with a deep sigh. “A few things prevent me from aiding you in this situation, little Shui–”
She prickled at being called little, clearly not liking it, but staying quiet for a more important reason.
“–First and by far the most important is that the Inheritance Instance can’t be used unless I have enough energy to remake it from scratch. Lord Yin Hu's power tore it to shreds and collapsed any chance of salvaging whatever was inside. Yet, even if it were still active, I’m afraid I would not be able to aid you anyway.”
“What? Why?” Shui asked with knit eyebrows.
“Well,” the old man rubbed his neck, laughing nervously. His eyes snapped between Yin Hu and the little girl. “Everything within is a figment of my imagination and parts of my original world that were stuck within my perfect memory. It is a remembrance of once great power that facilitates the transition from the old to the new. Quite literally an instance of inheritance and remembrance.”
Yin Hu frowned deeply. That complicated the problem a whole lot.
“W-What does that mean?” Shui said. “I don’t really understand what you’re saying.”
Yin Hu patted her head. “It means that all your cute friend shaped monsters were real when the instance was still active, but as soon as it was destroyed, they vanished with it.”
He didn’t have the heart to tell her they were all pretty much fake. Very realistic and basically real monsters in the Inheritance Instance, yet, even if it was still active, they wouldn’t have been capable of bringing them out into reality is what he assumed was the case.
Neither Rong nor Da Ruis corrected him.
Shui stood there stunned for a few seconds, before a hiccup escaped her. “T-They’re all gone?”
Shit… I need to figure out how to find her new friends ASAP. I can’t stand a sad inconsolable Shui, it just shouldn’t happen.