The inn squatted before them like a dying beast, its weathered wooden bones groaning under the weight of accumulated years. Shadows pooled in every corner, and the air itself seemed to press against their lungs with malevolent intent.
"We only have three rooms left," rasped the innkeeper, her voice like autumn leaves scraping against stone. Her eyes, clouded with cataracts, fixed unnervingly on Yan Zheng as though she could see straight through to his soul.
The silence that followed had texture—thick and suffocating, like silk wrapped too tightly around the throat.
Yan Zheng inclined his head with practiced courtesy, though his hand remained subtly positioned near his sword hilt. "That will suffice. One room for myself, Xinyu, and Shen Yao. One for the young ladies. And one for His Highness."
"Huh?!" Chen Xinyu's voice cracked like a whip through the oppressive quiet. "Wait, wait—does that mean I'm sleeping on the floor?!"
"We'll assess the arrangements once we see the rooms," Yan replied, his tone carrying the patient weariness of someone accustomed to herding cats.
The innkeeper's lips curved into what might charitably be called a smile, though it resembled more the rictus of something long dead. "One room has a bed and a couch. The other two have only double beds."
Shen Yao's eyes lit up with the particular gleam that preceded mischief. "Ah, perfect! Then Yan-ge and His Highness can share that one."
The temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees. Yan's warning glare could have frozen fire. "Mind your tongue. His Highness sleeps alone."
"Yes! Of course!" Xinyu nodded with such violent enthusiasm it was a miracle his head remained attached.
Then, cutting through their chatter like a blade through silk, came a voice cold enough to frost summer air.
"It doesn't matter."
Hua Ling's words fell into the space between them with the weight of imperial decree. "Since Xinyu is my personal attendant, he can remain with me."
The silence that followed was so complete that Xinyu was certain everyone could hear his heart attempting to beat its way out of his chest. His mind, usually quick with nervous chatter, simply... stopped.
Rou Rou leaned toward Lan Xueyao, her whisper carrying with perfect clarity in the dead air. "Do you think His Highness can't sleep without Yu-ge nearby? Or perhaps... he's frightened of the dark?"
"Definitely frightened," Rou Rou concluded with the gravity of a scholar reaching an important conclusion. "After all, who else would willingly choose to sleep beside Xinyu?"
Lan's long-suffering sigh could have deflated a festival balloon. "Must you?"
Shen Yao, ever the instigator, smiled with serpentine grace. "Well, if His Highness finds the arrangement acceptable, then everything is settled quite nicely."
"I-It's truly fine," Xinyu stammered, his gaze ping-ponging between his companions like a trapped bird. "Really! I can stay with my shixiongs. No need to trouble His High—"
*Thump.*
Shen Yao's elbow found Xinyu's ribs with surgical precision, the blow delivered without even turning his head.
Cold sweat immediately beaded on Xinyu's forehead. *Why me?* his heart wailed to the heavens. *Isn't it enough torment to see him every waking moment? Now I must endure his presence through the vulnerable hours of sleep as well?*
He risked a glance at Hua Ling.
The prince's gaze met his—those dark eyes unreadable as midnight water—before he turned and walked away without a single word, his white robes flowing behind him like morning mist.
---
Before retiring to what Xinyu had already begun thinking of as his execution chamber, he clung to Shen Yao and Yan Zheng with the desperation of a drowning man grasping for driftwood.
"Can I linger in your room until sleep overtakes me?" he pleaded.
They took pity on him.
Rou Rou also attached herself to their group like a determined burr. "Yan-ge, I'm staying by your side. I fear the ghosts will possess my innocent soul."
Yan's brow furrowed with genuine puzzlement. "Whatever gave you such an idea?"
"Well, that's what Yu-ge told me," she replied with wide-eyed sincerity.
Yan's head turned toward Xinyu with the mechanical precision of a siege weapon taking aim. "Xiao Yu... did you frighten her?"
But Xinyu was lost in the labyrinth of his own spiraling thoughts, unaware of the conversation swirling around him.
*What if I talk in my sleep? What if I snore like a water buffalo? What if he strangles me with a pillow before dawn? Why does he want me in his room anyway? Does he harbor some... ulterior motive?*
*Fan—smack!*
Shen Yao's war fan connected with Xinyu's skull with the gentleness of falling snow—if snow were made of iron.
"Xinyu," he said with honeyed patience, "pay attention. Yan-ge is speaking to you."
Xinyu blinked back to the present like someone emerging from underwater. "Huh?!"
Yan's expression softened with something resembling sympathy. "Don't worry overmuch. His Highness doesn't appear hostile toward you."
"Haha... I certainly hope not..." Xinyu's laugh sounded like paper tearing.
Rou Rou smirked with malicious satisfaction. "That's what you get for scaring me, you wretch."
"Why do you never show proper respect to your elders?!"
She stuck out her tongue with the defiance of youth. "Bleh!"
When their meal arrived, they descended upon it like locusts upon grain, their earlier tension temporarily forgotten in the face of hot food and warm companionship.
Rou Rou, her cheeks bulging like a chipmunk's, managed to ask around her food, "Why does Lan-shijie retire so early...?"
"Just don't choke," Shen Yao muttered.
She immediately began choking.
Meanwhile, through the inn's paper-thin walls, Hua Ling sat alone in his chamber. Candlelight flickered across the pages of his book, casting dancing shadows on the walls. The sound of their laughter and bickering filtered through like distant music.
His scowl deepened, and he turned a page with perhaps more force than necessary. *So noisy.*
A soft knock interrupted his brooding.
"...Your Highness. It's me."
A heartbeat of silence stretched between them.
"Enter," Hua Ling said, his voice carrying the chill of mountain peaks.
Xinyu slipped inside like a guilty spirit, every line of his body radiating awkwardness. He stood just within the threshold, apparently rooted there by uncertainty.
Hua Ling looked up from his book. "Why are you standing there like a scarecrow?"
"O-oh, right. I'll sit..." Xinyu quickly claimed the small couch, his gaze darting around the room as though searching for escape routes.
"You needn't be so nervous," Hua Ling said, setting his book aside. "It's merely one night."
"Yes... Your Highness."
"You may rest if you wish."
Xinyu obediently arranged himself on the couch, pulling a blanket around his shoulders like armor. "Goodnight... Your Highness."
"Mm."
Hua Ling extinguished the candle with a breath, plunging the room into velvet darkness. The bed creaked softly as he settled beneath the covers.
Minutes passed. Slow, even breathing drifted from the couch. Hua Ling closed his eyes, finally allowing himself to relax—
*Rustle... rustle...*
Suddenly, the breathing was no longer distant.
Xinyu, deep in the grip of dreams, had risen from the couch like a wandering spirit. His eyes were closed, his movements guided by some unconscious instinct as he drifted toward the bed.
With a soft sigh of contentment, he climbed onto the mattress and curled up beside the prince like a cat seeking warmth.
Hua Ling, who slept light as a blade's edge, felt the dip of the mattress and the whisper of breath against his neck. His eyes snapped open in the darkness.
When he tried to shift away, the bed's modest size thwarted him. Worse, Xinyu's hand, guided by dream-logic, reached out to capture his wrist.
"Why so cold..." Xinyu mumbled against his shoulder, words slurred with sleep. "But so handsome... such a waste..."
Hua Ling froze as though struck by lightning.
"You..." he began, anger kindling in his chest.
"No more morning drills... stupid stick master... mm... oh, chicken buns..."
"...Idiot," Hua Ling breathed, though the word lacked its usual venom.
He clenched his jaw, caught between fury and something he refused to name. Too weary to argue with a sleeping fool, he found himself studying the peaceful lines of Xinyu's face in the moonlight. The youth's hand still held his wrist, palm warm against his pulse point.
Hua Ling's heart betrayed him with an unsteady rhythm.
Eventually, exhaustion claimed even his restless thoughts, and he slept.
---
Sunlight streamed through the window like spun gold, rousing Xinyu with gentle insistence.
"Mmm... the bed's so wonderfully soft. I slept like the dead..." He stretched with feline satisfaction, a contented yawn escaping his lips.
His eyes fluttered open.
*Wait. Bed?*
***BED?!***
He bolted upright as though scalded, his gaze sweeping the empty room with growing horror.
*Where is His Highness?!*
*Since when was I—?!*
His face drained of all color as realization crashed over him like a cold wave.
"I SLEPT BESIDE HIM?!" The words tore from his throat in a strangled shriek. "Oh no... oh no no no—WHY AM I STILL BREATHING?! He must have been furious—he even fled at dawn!"
He stared at his trembling hands as though they belonged to a stranger. "Should I run? Kowtow in apology? Dig my own grave to save him the trouble?!"
He pinched himself hard enough to leave marks. "Still alive. That's... something. BUT STILL."
Burying his face in his palms, he released a groan that seemed torn from his very soul.
"This is the worst mission in the history of missions."
---
Xinyu stumbled to breakfast looking like death's pale cousin, his complexion rivaling fresh snow.
"He didn't kill me," he whispered to Yan Zheng and Shen Yao, his voice barely audible.
"Yet," Shen Yao added helpfully.
"Why are you sweating like a pig in summer?" Rou Rou demanded. "Did His Highness steal your soul or merely your dignity?"
Lan, serenely sipping her tea, observed, "He hasn't possessed dignity for days now."
Yan Zheng sighed but offered a comforting pat to Xinyu's shoulder. "You're alive. Let's not question heaven's mercy."
When Qingze arrived, having completed whatever mysterious errand had kept him away, he immediately sought out his master. He found Hua Ling standing by the window, arms crossed, staring out at the morning light with an expression of profound contemplation.
"You appear to have slept poorly, young master," Qingze observed carefully.
"He drooled on my sleeve," Hua Ling stated with the flat delivery of someone reporting the weather.
"...Ah." Qingze's smile flickered and died. *How did he end up sharing a room in the first place?* He scratched his head in bewilderment.
Hua Ling's voice dropped to a mutter. "His breathing was irregular. I thought he was shamming sleep. But no. He's simply... stupid."
He turned away, but not before Qingze caught the faint pink tinting the tips of his ears.
---
When the sun had surrendered to night and painted the sky in shades of ink, their group finally reached the border of the cursed farmland. The road had dwindled to little more than a whisper of packed earth, and the air carried a chill that had no business existing in the height of summer.
Ahead, Yan Zheng and Qingze spoke in low tones with several villagers whose eyes kept darting skyward, as though expecting demons to rain from the darkness.
Chen Xinyu walked beside Hua Ling in torturous silence, wrestling with words that refused to arrange themselves properly in his mouth. *Just say it, coward,* his mind screamed. But every attempt died before reaching his lips.
Hua Ling's attention seemed fixed on the darkening forest, his gaze sharp as a drawn blade. Suddenly, his steps slowed, and his eyes narrowed to focused points.
An ancient woman materialized from the mist ahead, her movements the shuffling gait of someone walking between worlds. Her voice, when it came, was the sound of autumn leaves scraping stone:
"Everyone will die... everyone will die..."
The group froze as one. Xinyu, being Xinyu, stepped forward with hesitant concern.
"Uh... Grandmother? Are you well? Do you require assistance?"
The crone's head turned toward him with mechanical precision. Her eyes, white as boiled eggs, fixed on his face with uncomfortable intensity.
"Be careful, young one," she rasped, her voice carrying the weight of prophecy. "Your soul will be tarnished before dawn..."
Xinyu's breath caught in his throat. Before he could formulate a response, she shuffled past them and dissolved into the mist like morning dew.
He turned back to the group, his face pale as moonlight.
"Your Highness... I—"
"Don't concern yourself," Hua Ling interrupted, his voice carrying its usual cool authority. "It's merely residual spiritual energy. However, something is decidedly wrong with this place."
Gathering his courage like armor, Xinyu clenched his fists and offered a shallow bow.
"I... would like to apologize. For last night. I didn't intend to—ah—invade your bed. I was walking in my sleep. I didn't drool. Probably."
Silence stretched between them like a held breath.
"Hm," Hua Ling replied with magnificent ambiguity, then continued walking.
Xinyu's face crumpled in defeat. Was that acceptance or dismissal? With Hua Ling, one could never tell—and that, perhaps, was the most maddening thing of all.