Chương 17: Shenhua

Shenhua was visible from two kilometers out, its walls low and pale against the afternoon sky, with the road widening as they approached the gate. The first sign that something was wrong was the gate itself, which was open, and the absence of anyone passing through it. Zero had not seen a city gate before, but he had read enough in the sect's reference materials to know that a trade hub's gate at mid-afternoon should not be empty. The road should carry traffic.

The gate should carry guards who were bored because the traffic was routine. There was one guard. He was not bored. He was watching them approach with the kind of attention that was not professional assessment but personal fear wearing professional clothing. Viria looked at the empty road and cursed.

"Team Solace lied."

"No," Zero said.

"They said Shenhua is a trade hub." Viria gestured to the deserted streets, " This is not a trade hub."

"It was a trade hub," Zero replied.

"Something changed." He watched the guard as they approached, and the guard watched them, and when they reached the gate the guard asked their business. Zero said that they were travelers passing through, and the guard let them into the outer districts of Shenhua. The city inside the gate was larger than it had appeared from outside.

The streets were proper streets, paved, with the infrastructure of a working market: stalls that should have been open, storage buildings that should have had movement around them, a central square visible at the end of the main road that should have had people in it. None of it had people. In its place were closed doors, drawn shutters, and the occasional face that appeared at a window and disappeared again. Viria's initial anger at Team Solace had morphed into unease.

"What the hell happened?"

"Fear," Zero said.

"The city is afraid." He ran Identify on the district itself, which he had not done before, but it seemed like a reasonable extension of the skill's principle. The result was partial and more atmospheric than informative. Shenhua Outer City Market District Type: Urban settlement, trade hub Economic status: Significantly reduced Population activity: Suppressed Note: Fear response likely. He dismissed the window. The cause was what they needed, and Identify had told him it did not know.

"Tavern," Miho said.

"Why?" Viria asked.

"Because fear gathers in two places: Temples and taverns. This city does not look like it has temples. The tavern will have the people who cannot stay inside alone." They found it three streets from the gate, identified by its sign rather than its noise. The sign was a gourd. The noise was minimal.

The tavern had five people in it. Three of them were at the same table, not speaking, drinking with the specific efficiency of people who were not there for the experience. One was the barman, stationed behind his counter with nowhere else to go. The fifth was alone at the corner table, a ceramic cup in both hands, with the settled look of someone who had been in this particular corner for a meaningful portion of his recent life. All five of them looked at Team Zero when they entered.

The three at the table looked away again quickly. The barman looked at them with professional neutrality that did not quite conceal the relief of having something to do. The man in the corner did not look away. Zero registered the difference. They approached the barman. He asked what they were having. Miho said information, which was not on the menu, and the barman said he did not deal in information. Viria started to say something when the man in the corner spoke.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"I'll tell you," he said.

"For a price." They looked at him. He was perhaps fifty, smelled heavily of alcohol, and had the look of someone who had given up on doing anything useful for their life.

"What price?" Yukito asked.

"Convince him," the man said, indicating where the barman was, before had gone into a back room, with his cup, "to let you fix the cellar. The wine has been running low for three days, and he won't let anyone touch it." Miho looked at the barman, who had re-entered from the back room.

The barman looked at the man in the corner with an expression Zero had learned to read in twelve days of cultivator interaction: the expression of someone for whom patience had been a professional requirement for so long that its limits had become very well defined.

"Did that old drunk send you over here," the barman said.

"He offered information," Miho said.

"In exchange for us being allowed to address whatever is wrong with your cellar." The barman was quiet for a moment. Then he sighed.

"It doesn't matter who it is anymore." He reached below the counter and produced a key, old iron, and set it on the counter.

"Stairs in the back. Don't break anything else."

The cellar was cold, smelled of vinegar, and something organic underneath the vinegar. Zero went down first. His eyes adjusted before the others reached the bottom, enhanced without conscious decision: the darkness was information-dense and his body had learned to treat information-density as reason to look harder. The floor was wet. He crouched and touched it. Rice wine, from the smell. Spreading across the stone floor from several directions. Viria, behind him, found the lamp on the wall and lit it.

In the lamplight: twelve casks, arranged in two rows, each one large enough to hold a season's supply. Seven of them had dark stains at their bases where liquid had been seeping. Viria moved to the nearest and ran her hand along it, and Zero saw the expression on her face change from assessment to conclusion.

"Holes," she said. Zero examined one of the casks. The edges of the hole were rough and irregular in a specific pattern.

"Teeth marks." The barman, who had followed them down, said something emphatic that did not translate as a word so much as a sentiment.

"Rats," he said, after the sentiment.

"Those damn rats again."

"How long?" Miho asked.

"Four days. I sealed the entrance twice, and they came back each time. I don't know where they're getting in." Zero stood and closed his eyes. He had been running his hearing at baseline since the monkey fight, which had involved enough ambient noise that enhanced hearing would have been disorienting. He expanded it now, redirecting attention from the room's large sounds to its small ones. He held up his hand to indicate everyone to be quiet.

There between the walls: scratching, chewing, and the faint rustle of small bodies. He triangulated the sound sources, identified two clusters, and mentally marked their positions against the wall layout. Zero opened his eyes.

"Northeast corner," he said.

"Behind the second cask from the wall. Two clusters. The larger one is closer to the corner, the smaller is near the drainage pipe." Viria had been looking at the wall while he spoke.

"Where exactly?" she said.

"Within a handspan?"

"Within a handspan," Zero confirmed. He showed her the positions. Viria's expression became the one she used when she had seen a way to do something and was already composing the moment.

"I'll take care of it," she said. She drew her sword. The barman, behind them, produced the alertness of a man who had just watched someone draw a sword in his cellar.

"You'll damage the wall!" he said. Viria smirked, "I won't." She held the sword at her side, adjusted her grip the way Jianyu had corrected it, felt for the spatial line running through the wall at the angle Zero had indicated. The extension was different from outside-air cuts. This time, there was material to account for. She let the blade find the line rather than forcing it, the way Jianyu had said before she left, let the sword know what it is cutting before you decide where to cut. Viria cut. Twice.

There was no impact or noise from the sword itself, but there was silence from inside the wall where there had been small sounds. A beat later, she opened a small portal at waist height in the wall, reached through it, and withdrew two small, still forms, which she held up for examination. The barman stared.

"The cores," Zero said.

"Yes, I know." Viria was already looking at them. She withdrew them cleanly, which was faster than the monkey extraction had been but structurally similar, and placed them in her Spatial Inventory. She looked at the barman.

"The holes will need patching," she said.

"But they won't be coming back." The barman looked at his wall, which was unmarked. He looked at his casks, which were the same. He looked at Viria.

"That was…" he started.

"That was very precise work." Viria beamed before she could stop herself.

"Thank you," she said.

The man in the corner had not moved. They sat down across from him, which was not something he had invited but which he accommodated by making space on the table for their cups, which was invitation enough. He looked at all four of them with mild respect.

"Children," he said after a moment. Zero looked at him.

"That is what changed," the man said. He lowered his voice, not for dramatics, but because he was a man who had learned to be careful about what he said at normal volume in a quiet room.

"Someone, or something, has been killing children. Not all at once; one here, two there. Maybe five would go missing over the course of three weeks. The city watch found nothing, the cultivators the mayor hired found bodies." He looked at his cup.

"The parents found out, eventually, that the watch had stopped looking. And then everyone else found out." He paused for a moment, "and then, the city closed." The room was quiet. Zero processed this information in the particular way he processed things that had more dimensions than facts: not filing and categorizing, but holding. Beside him, he felt rather than saw Miho go still. A system window opened.

Hidden Quest Discovered: The Children of Shenhua Objective: Investigate the disappearances and deaths of Shenhua's children. Primary goal: Identify the culprit. Secondary goal: Prevent further deaths. Reward: Additional hint toward the Jade Obelisk's location. Warning: Local fear may obstruct investigation. Zero looked at the window, then at the man, who was looking at his cup.

"We accept," Yukito said before Zero could consider the circumstances. He looked at Yukito, who was looking at the man in the corner, and understood that Yukito had accepted before the window had even appeared. Miho said nothing. She was still looking at the table, her tail was very still, and Zero did not push. Zero grabbed a nearby chair.

"Tell us everything you know," he said to the man.

"From the beginning."