The Faith and Salt

Xiao Yan caught David just as he was about to fall.

Their eyes met.

A house spirit slipped out from the small wooden shrine on the wall.

It was moving through the air like a stream of floating ash.

Xiao Yan brushed himself off and impatiently pushed David away.

Wei Yuan paid no attention to this clumsy foreigner.

This was no ordinary entity, but a well spirit. Its most undeniable mark was the spectral rope bound tightly around its body.

At the sight of it, deep disgust and shock instantly twisted Xiao Yan's face. He shot Wei Yuan a harsh stare, silently demanding an explanation.

Feeling the weight of that glare, Wei Yuan shifted uneasily. He glanced back at Xiao Yan, guilt clearly written across his face.

"I will explain," he said quietly.

The maid waiting in the study flinched, quickly stepping aside as the shadow darted past. Her nervous reactions made it clear she was not used to the creature.

The spirit circled Xiao Yan's shoulders, recognizing him immediately, exactly as house spirits were meant to do.

As the entity circled his shoulders, his right hand shifted, his thumb resting on the cold hilt of his sword.

He deeply distrusted these things. Some of the Lierens often argued that people should use the power of spirits to defend against monsters.

But Spirits are loyal to nothing.

Wei Yuan gestured to the back of the room, where a large map was hidden securely behind a massive bookcase.

Opening it was a difficult process.

The two maids walked to opposite sides of the heavy furniture. They stepped simultaneously onto hidden wooden pedals built into the floorboards.

Deep behind the shelves, heavy mortise-and-tenon joints finally unlocked with a loud, grating clack.

Together, the maids pushed the thick bookcases apart.

The old wood groaned and scraped harshly against the floorboards, stubborn and hard to move.

Throughout the slow process, the pale spirit hovered near the ceiling.

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It swept through the dark corners of the study, silently standing guard to ensure absolutely no humans or other entities were spying on them.

Watching the pale shadow sweep the room, Xiao Yan did not relax in the slightest.

The sight behind the shelf, however, only deepened his confusion.

On the left hung a world map, concealed within a hidden compartment behind the bookcase.

It initially faced the wall until the maids used long iron hooks to flip it around. Thin ink lines marked the borders of various foreign nations.

Xiao Yan had zero interest in it.

It was the map on the right that seized his attention.

He stared at it, completely stunned.

"What are these marks?" he asked Wei Yuan.

"Rot zones," Wei Yuan said.

On the heavy paper, dark water stains spread from the deserts of Xinjiang, bleeding across Mongolia and stretching all the way into Outer Manchuria.

These were the widely known danger zones.

But—

Xiao Yan's breathing hitched. His jaw tightened instantly.

He stepped right up to the parchment, leaning in so close his nose almost brushed the paper to confirm what he was seeing.

He barely stopped himself from reaching out to physically touch the dark stains.

This cannot be real.

A loud ringing filled his ears.

Wei Yuan had previously mentioned he was compiling a detailed political and geographic atlas, but he had never said a single word about investigating the Rot zones.

"Where did you get this information?"

"It comes directly from official reports submitted to the capital by the local provinces."

"How the fuck do you know?" Xiao Yan yelled at him for the first time. "Impossible. That’s nonsense."

Wei Yuan remained silent. He knew exactly how hard this map hit Xiao Yan.

Following the empire's northwest, the marks stretched down to the southwest, consumed the entire south, and bled across the eastern coast and the central plains.

More than half the empire sat inside the Rot zones.

Half the people were living lives that were worse than death.

A violent anger surged in his chest. This map was an absolute insult. It completely erased the very meaning of his existence.

His fists clenched tightly, his breathing heavy and rough. Without waiting for Wei Yuan to speak another word, Xiao Yan turned and left.

He crossed the courtyard where the actors had just performed, stormed out the main gate, and kept walking.

With no destination in mind, the only thought driving him was the urge to get as far away from that damn place as possible.

Down in the damp, narrow alleys, the loud, overlapping shouts of butchers and fishmongers only fueled the intense frustration burning inside him.

To outpace the fire still burning in his chest, he started to run, leaving the damp, winding alleys behind.

Sprinting through the heavy city gates, he passed clusters of graves marked by white mourning banners, making a straight line for a low, wooded hill.

Thick bushes tore at his skin as he forced his way up. Strangely, the stinging cuts brought a brief sense of relief.

If the Rot he had dedicated his entire life to fighting had already spread so completely, what did a few physical scratches matter?

Pushing his body through the dense brush, he charged all the way to the summit. Gasping for air, the sheer exhaustion actually felt good.

Once his breath steadied, however, the fury flared right back up.

He ripped his sword from its sheath and hacked at the surrounding branches. Curses tore from his throat into the empty woods.

Then, dropping the blade, he drove his bare knuckles into a thick tree trunk.

He beat the solid wood until his strength completely gave out.

With one last, heavy shout, he collapsed to his knees.

Then he looked up. The tree now leaned at a sharp angle, its bark completely ruined and ready to snap.

A sudden, crushing wave of guilt replaced the anger. He had ruined a perfectly healthy tree for absolutely no reason.

Still on his knees, he grabbed his head and broke down, burying his face deep into the dirt and dead leaves.

Curled up against the earth like a child seeking a mother's embrace, he wept.

He missed his mother.