Fluffy WangXian Oneshots Book Two

The Favour Of Heaven Part 3

Lan Zhan looks down and sees an imp, well, half of one, anyway. It's just a head.

"Well?? What are you waiting for??" Now it sounds annoyed.

Lan Zhan is so shocked by its appearance that he doesn't immediately draw Bichen to kill it. Instead, his feet follow the command and he realises that the door to the other side has always been there, right in front of him but cleverly disguised under a trailing vine; one would never know it was there unless they knew exactly what they were looking for.

Meanwhile, the imp is bouncing ahead of him like a rubber ball, not minding the impact of his face hitting the ground.

"Does that hurt?" Lan Zhan asks him, because it must, right?

"Oh, I don't even notice it much now," the imp replies, with a cheeky grin.

The thing is, imps are usually small and while mischievous, not actually a threat especially to someone as powerful as himself. Lan Zhan thinks this without being boastful: it's a fact. This one is just pitiful. Its head is bald which is a good thing, because having no hands or body to speak of, how would it cope with getting hair in its eyes? Its nose is quite big, and squished on account of being smashed against the uncompromising ground far too often. It also has angry eyebrows that look so out of place that Lan Zhan wants to laugh but that would be rude. And he can't overlook the fact that he never would have found the door if not for this extra help.

"What is your name? And why did you help me?" Lan Zhan asks, looking around.

They are in a forest, but it's far from being lush and vibrant green. The trees look spooky with a strange kind of hanging moss dangling from their branches like abandoned spider webs, grey and mottled brown. There's an even stranger smell in the air, of earthy mulch and wet soil...putrid in certain whiffs, and Lan Zhan slows his breathing straight away in case the air is noxious.

An unholy screech rises suddenly, and Lan Zhan looks up in time to see a barred owl take flight from above him, its wings completely silent. Around his feet, an odd and mysterious fog is rising and he realises that the imp has bounced away from him.

"Come on!"

Lan Zhan hears it shouting as if it's far away. The mist has covered the ground rather quickly, and the thickness of it prevents him seeing his new friend.

"Better keep moving," the Imp says suddenly, sounding closer.

When Lan Zhan looks around for it, he sees it hanging off the weird moss, swinging on one of the vines. The imp is correct. When Lan Zhan looks behind himself, the rising mists have enveloped the path he walked on, obscuring the trees and reducing them to dark shadows.

"I haven't got a name," the Imp replies to Lan Zhan's earlier question. "No one has ever asked me that."

Isn't that also something else strange?

"Were you ever human?" Lan Zhan walks faster now, as the Imp catapults itself between vines. It looks thoughtful.

"Can't remember."

Lan Zhan thinks it would have shrugged if it had a body.

"Where's the rest of...you?"

"Who knows...somewhere. Say, will you help me find the other parts? Of me?" The Imp grins at him hopefully.

But Lan Zhan doesn't get a chance to reply. Loud roars of the kind that Lan Zhan has only ever encountered on night hunts fill the air and suddenly they're being attacked on all sides. Lan Zhan is fighting them without the conscious decision to do it, muscle memory keeping him alive. They are coming out of nowhere and there's no room to think. Just slash, slash, parry, chop, all over again on repeat.