The territory markers were as subtle as scratches on trees, scent markers that only seemed to make He Renxiao and the horses nervous, and occasional bones of dead animals, meticulously arranged to warn predators stay the fuck away.
The four had been climbing and riding for hours up the mountainous forest of the Pine Frost, the pines growing denser and the air turning cold enough to sting, expected of the cold weather that was approaching.
He Renxiao had noticed the markers first, when they entered the mountain range that inherited the dense Pine Frost Forest. He said nothing, waiting to see if the others would say anything about them, to which they never did.
"We're being watched," Lan Qiang said quietly, breaking the silence the four had since become accustom to since they ran into the shadow mist figures. His voice was leveled and pitched though, like they had been talking the whole time.
No one argued. The feeling had weight to it—a pressure at the back of the neck, the particular stillness of a forest that has paused its breathing to watch something pass through it.
He Renxiao sighed and tried not to pay attention to it. The scroll had been sitting in his pocket the entire time, burning like a coal. He'd tried three times to decode it, each attempt leaving him with a headache and no answers.
The encryption was sophisticated, layered, designed to resist casual examination. Not the work of a simple messenger or a common spy. Someone with genuine skill had sealed it, and that skill spoke of resources, of cultivation, of a sender who had known it might fall into the wrong hands.
Your brother lives. Come home.
The words haunted him. A brother. A twin. Someone who shared his face, his blood, but not his memories. Not his scars.
Not his death.
He Renxiao had one once..
He was more than likely sure that this was referring to the "Twin Jades of Li Clan," an infamous story shared around the sister sects of the Li Clan of the recent dynasty, but the question was, if Huo Feng received this from the 'forgotten' dynasty, than, by all terms, was this emperor, encoded for general, He Renxiao in his first life? And could this scroll have been from some other world?
No one knows who these twins were. Just that they were born in the river of the Li Clan's sect, fathered by one of the three sons of Li Yuchu, Li Wenning, Li Chengyuan, and Li Chunge, and most importantly, blessed by the spirit of the Tiangou Dog and Wandering Snow Cat.
For the longest time, many thought that these twins were meant to be He Renxiao and He Wangji, since they were the only born twins of the Li Clan, but this was quickly decided against as "how could twins blessed by gods be the product of loss, one of the sons even losing their lives?"
He Renxiao pulled his gaze back to the road and tucked the thought away, somewhere behind his sternum where it would stop trying to crack him open. There would be time for that later. Perhaps. If later came.
"There." Mo Shuyi pointed to a ridge above them, his arm cutting across the grey sky with quiet precision. "Something's pacing us."
He Renxiao looked up and caught a flash of white—fur, or perhaps silk. Too large to be a normal fox and too graceful to be anything mundane.
The creature appeared again, closer this time, descending along the ridge-line with a motion like water finding the lowest point in a stone, and He Renxiao felt his breath catch.
Nine tails, each one flowing like water given form. Eyes that glowed with intelligence that was distinctly not human. A Hulijing. A fox spirit, and an old one, judging by the power that radiated from it like
heat from a forge—a warmth that had nothing to do with comfort and everything to do with the kind of age that outlasts dynasties.
The Hulijing descended from the ridge with liquid grace, landing in the middle of their path. The horses balked. Li Yuan's mount shied sideways, and he brought it back under control with the unconscious ease of long practice, but he'd gone very still after, one hand resting near his belt where no obvious weapon waited.
Up close, the Hulijing was even more than magnificent—white fur that seemed to glow from within, elegant features that shifted between vulpine and almost human in the way of very old spirits who have worn the world's perception of them for so long that their forms have grown uncertain. It regarded them with eyes that held the weight of centuries.
Then it looked at Mo Shuyi and snarled.
The sound was full of pure aggression, no doubt about it. A challenge to a game that Mo Shuyi didn't even know he was playing. Not only was it an aggressive sound, it was a statement, territorial and furious.
And just as suddenly as the snarl had come, Mo Shuyi's horse reared, and Mo Shuyi had to fight to keep it under control. Mo Shuyi was certainly frightened, but he couldn't pin point why. He had faced various spiritual beasts, some more stronger than this, so why now, of all times, was he scared?
The fox crouched low, tails lashing, every line of its body screaming threat.
"Easy," Lan Qiang said, his voice carrying a thread of spiritual energy meant to calm. The syllable was smooth, layered, the way a practitioner of his caliber shaped words into tools without visible effort.
"We mean no harm. We're simply passing through your territory."
The fox's attention snapped to him, and He Renxiao saw its eyes narrow with something like contempt. When it spoke, its voice was feminine, melodious, and utterly cold—the sort of cold that belongs to things that weren't of this world.
"Passing through?" A pause, weighted with disdain. "You reek of old magic, cultivator. You and your companions carry the stench of things that should not be. Especially him." Another snarl directed at Mo Shuyi, low and guttural. "Predator. Rival. You dare enter my domain wearing the skin of a wolf?"
Mo Shuyi had gone very still, standing there dumbstruck like a deer in candle light, a sight He Renxiao thought he would never see in his life. He didn't know whether to life or cry at this point.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Liar." The fox began to circle, slow and deliberate, forcing them to turn their horses to keep it in view.
"I can smell it in your blood, Wolf. Fae-touched. Alpha without a pack. You're an abomination, and I should rip out your throat for the insult of your existence." The words were clinical, not cruel—stated as fact rather than threat, which somehow made them worse.
He Renxiao felt that crawling sensation intensify, the one that had been plaguing him since they'd left the sect. It had started as a low hum beneath his sternum, barely noticeable, easy to attribute to fatigue or altitude. Now it was something else.
Something in him recognized the threat, recognized the fox as both danger and—and what? Not prey, exactly, but something that needed to be addressed. Challenged. Put in its place.
The sensation was uncomfortable in the way that true things are uncomfortable: it fit too well to deny.
The fox's attention swiveled to him, and its aggressive posture faltered. Its ears flicked forward, the tails stilling. Confusion replaced hostility. "And you. What are you?"
Before He Renxiao could answer, the sensation exploded into something more. Power flooded through him, the same power that had dispersed the mountain mist two days prior but stronger now, more focused, as if it had been practicing in the dark of him while he wasn't paying attention.
His vision shifted. Colors bled away. The world became rendered in terms of threat and territory and dominance—clean, simple lines of hierarchy that cut through the mess of thought like a blade through silk.
He dismounted, come to stand in front of Mo Shuyi's stead. His movements were too fluid, too precise to belong entirely to the body he'd been inhabiting.
The fox backed up a step, then another, its tails dropping.
"Impossible," it whispered. "You can't be. He is gone, lost to time and blood. And yet..." Its nostrils flared. "And yet you stand here wearing the shape of a mortal man, and the old markers know your name."
He Renxiao took a step forward, confused, and the fox bowed. Not submission, exactly—not the cringing deference of something conquered—but acknowledgment. Recognition of something greater, something ancient, something that commanded respect even from a nine-tailed fox who had watched dynasties rise and fall like tides.
The bow was the bow of an equal before a superior, offered not under duress but out of an integrity that He Renxiao suspected the fox prized more than its own life.
"The boundaries," He Renxiao heard himself say, his voice layered with something that wasn't quite his own—a harmonic beneath the surface, resonant and old.
The fox's eyes widened. "The Azure Dragon's blood. You carry both. Dog and dragon, guardian and judge. How is this possible?"
I don't know, He Renxiao wanted to say. I don't understand any of this. I woke up in this life with scars I can't explain and a dead man's memories that don't belong to me, and every day I understand less.
But the power wouldn't let him show weakness, like it knew it was stronger. Something in the back of his head made him think this was Renren Xiao.. It held him upright, held him composed, held his gaze steady on the fox until the spirit looked away—a gesture of deference that felt both wrong and absolutely right, a chord played in a key he hadn't known he knew.
"The shadow," the fox said quietly, its earlier aggression completely gone. What remained was something He Renxiao hadn't expected: concern. "You need to know about the shadow. It hunts between worlds, seeking those like you. Those who are—more than they should be. It's been growing stronger, feeding on the boundaries between what is and what was."
"What shadow?" Lan Qiang demanded, and He Renxiao heard the edge in his voice—the scholar's frustration with imprecision. "The shadow mist?"
The fox's laugh was bitter, the sound of something that has tried plain speech before and found the world unprepared for it.
"I cannot speak plainly about that which has no solid form. I can only tell you what I've sensed. Something hunts the ones who carry mixed blood. Something that exists in the spaces between moments, between lives. It's been circling you since you entered these mountains. I thought it was following me, but no—" Its gaze moved between He Renxiao and Mo Shuyi, then flickered briefly to Lan Qiang. "It's following them. All three of you. You're marked. Claimed. And it's coming."
The power receded as suddenly as it had come, leaving He Renxiao feeling lost. The world flooded back in color and noise and the mundane ache of cold muscles.
I don't know. I'm changing, or remembering, or becoming something I was always meant to be. I'm terrified and exhilarated and so, so tired of not understanding.
"I'm fine," He Renxiao told himself instead, pulling away. He steadied himself, turned back to the fox, which was watching him with an expression that might have been pity. "This shadow. How do we stop it?"
"Stop it?" The fox's tails lashed once. "You don't stop it, foolish guardian. You survive it. Or you become it. Those seem to be the only options for ones like you." It turned to leave, then paused, one paw lifted, its profile cut against the pale sky. "A word of advice, from one old thing to three young ones: the past is not as dead as you believe. And some deaths—" A long pause. "—some deaths don't take."
Then it was gone, vanishing into the forest as if it had never been, leaving nothing behind but the shiver of disturbed pine branches and the lingering pressure of something ancient passing through.
Lan Qiang urged his stead forward, in front of the others. "Come on, Pinefrost Village is close. We keep moving. I don't want to be out in the open when darkness comes."
He Renxiao nodded, approaching his horse and mounting again. "Then lets go."