After a few moments, he felt a small stone thrown over his head, making him gasp weakly.
He looked at his left side.
It was that same boy who asked him the question, now much closer because the carriages were close and somehow Lìngxiāo was the only one in his own carriage.
He finally asked, his voice raspy. "What is your problem?"
"My problem?" That boy echoed bitterly—or Lìngxiāo didn't know either what tone this was. "You are my problem."
'Why does..everyone have to press me when I feel too bad to even look at them??'
Lìngxiāo wasn't in the mood to talk. His chest still ached with the vision of his dead father. His replies were even bitter and sharp.
Even he didn't know if he meant it or not. He just said it for the sake of the little cracked pieces of peace which he was trying to collect—because breaking seemed harder and hurt more.
"I would rather return like a curse to be an actual problem while carrying 'problems in cursed form' when I return for some people. Any problem?" He said. He made sure to keep that annoying word 'problem' in it.
The other boys and girls inside shifted awkwardly. The carriage drivers weren't even having headaches on if they picked up any fight even while inside the different carriages.
They were enjoying free drama played by kids—but it wasn't a childish matter either. Because all were criminals.
That boy's eyes twitched like even he wanted obedience, like Chóng Fēi. His eyes—green as peacock feathers—wide with silent disbelief.
He threw words again. "I would see if you can make it after ten years or already.." He paused to take his own hand near to his own throat and move it one way to another, mocking a knife move, making mocking faces of death. "Dead already after eight years."
Lìngxiāo's lips twitched again.
He didn't know how creepy his smile was. His eyes a little wide and his smile dark as he said in a low but cold tone. "Think about yourself first."
That boy looked him up and down while nodding to himself, trying to act cool—yet Lìngxiāo could see somehow his smile had made him scared. The boy's gaze wasn't as sharp as before.
"I know my way out." The boy muttered. "You are the one helpless here, killer boy."
Lìngxiāo stared at him.
His smile froze at his face as if it was settling into something he could never remove. The muscles around his mouth felt tight. But he didn't pay much attention, thinking his body was reacting to the trauma.
"Bahahahaha!!"
A laugh filled the night. Not from the carriage drivers—but out of nowhere.
"Ohhhh, there are so many innocently dark looking children! Which one should I steal?~" The voice added with a haunting teasing tone.
It made all the carriages stop at the mid path into the deep forest within the mountain. They looked around in confusion and awareness.
Even Lìngxiāo and the other kids froze.
"A gûi?!"
"His laugh is creepy!"
"What if it is a bloodsucker?!"
The children hushed in panic. Their darkness from their faces melted into general innocence and panic. Lìngxiāo swallowed hard, even his saliva not making his throat wet properly from not drinking in a while.
'Better if he chooses me to take away.' He thought with almost cold calculation.
"Silence!" One of the drivers hit his sword harshly at the cage of the carriage, making the children stop crying out, though their faces were pale.
They weren't normal drivers but low-ranked guards of the Yùn Chóng clan—brave enough, but not too much.
That annoying boy stared up at the trees into the dark and then at Lìngxiāo.
Lìngxiāo didn't even pay attention there either. He slowly crawled closer to the back of the driver instead of sitting at the corner of the caged carriage—without fear.
His eyes eagerly searched for the figure who had just spoken, while the drivers were now slowly moving with swords ready at their hands.
"Are you crazy?" That boy asked. "We are staying away and you go EVEN closer to the cage so it can eat you more easily?"
"I'm crazy." Lìngxiāo answered flatly. Then he looked at the boy with that same smile which hadn't left his lips.
"I would give it a hand too." With that, he took out a hand without fear, almost showing that boy how insane he could be.
"Eh, kid! Put back your hand." The driver of his carriage warned. "We would not be responsible if this unusual presence breaks your arm before your execution."
"Then don't take it." Lìngxiāo said simply to him too. "I want to see how a gûi looks like closely. Do they have faces or is their face..bare and dead too?"
That guy facepalmed, pinching the bridge of his nose with a tight jaw.
But before he could say something more, that unknown voice spoke again. "Ah, found the perfect one."
Everyone's blood seemed to turn cold.
"Do not stop the carriage! Move!" One of the guards ordered.
Everyone nodded and ran their carriages faster. The sounds of the horses' hooves were sharp and almost desperate.
Lìngxiāo's hand was still out, waiting. A twisted hope spreading into his little hollow chest. 'Has he chosen me or something?'
Something moved fast from the trees, jumping from one to another like a ninja belonging to Nihon. It didn't look like any ghost or curse at all.
He was wearing all black. Skin seemed glaring like silver under the faint moonlight.
Lìngxiāo felt a shiver when he felt the figure's gaze was on him the whole time while following the carriage side by side—from the side Lìngxiāo was gripping the cage.
Lìngxiāo couldn't look away either.
'I don't know what to feel.'
'Am I scared or not?'
Then suddenly the figure disappeared from his sight within a blink when the carriages took a ruthless turn at the mountain path. Lìngxiāo felt like he would break off the carriage and fall from the valley by the force used at the carriage.
He was clinging to the wooden grills of the cage. He heard only panicked cries of the kids and guards cursing at each other by now—for not letting others overtake, and it was hard to do too because the path was tall and slim, barely letting even three carriages move all at once side by side.
Only two could make it. But they still needed proper focus.
Then something hard fell right over the roof of the carriage where Lìngxiāo was—hard enough to crack it.
Lìngxiāo's breath caught by the unexpected crack over here. He didn't really expect this presence—whatever he was, human or ghost—would really think of taking him.
"The gûi is here!!"
"He is right over there!!!"
"He might take away this boy who—"
Kids screamed more at something they were seeing on top of the carriage. Their eyes wide and horrified. Even that boy who was being brave earlier stared with mouth open, all clinging over each other for emotional support.
Lìngxiāo pressed himself at the corner of the carriage, his breath shallow, his messily tied ponytail blowing by the sharp gusts of the wind.
Emotions seemed getting clear now: fear.
'No. What if he really eats me?!'
Pale fingers popped into the gaps of the carriage roof and started to effortlessly pull away broken pieces of the wood, tearing it away without any care, standing tall.
Lìngxiāo now clearly saw him even into the faint light of the moon.
The man was wearing a black hood, black robe, and totally covered to even see his face. The hood's edges were wild looking like feathers of any raven or cracked wings of any black moth.
Their gaze met.
"Welcome home, kid~" the unknown man said.
Before Lìngxiāo could take a breath, the figure came inside in one fluid motion, grabbed Lìngxiāo by his arm, pulled him up into his arms, and jumped outside.
Into the valley.
The guards stared but didn't stop, and kept moving. The kids were crying in fear, hugging each other.
That same boy now stared at the empty space where Lìngxiāo was, and then at the valley.
"DON'T KILL ME!!" Lìngxiāo cried out.
He tightly gripped the man's robe, his tears flying away from his face like liquor crystals by the wind. He didn't dare look anywhere—just kept his eyes shut.
"You just wished 'return like a curse to be an actual problem while carrying 'problems in cursed form' when I return for some people'?" The man said.
Lìngxiāo's eyes fluttered open. He looked at the man's covered face.
'H-he was watching me the whole time or something? I was..already chosen?'
He didn't know if he should believe his own theory or not. His lips twitched yet still remained forming a smile.
"And even wished so I choose to kidnap you, but now crying like a child?" The man added again, too casual to be any ghost. "Come on, I am just bored."
Lìngxiāo blinked rapidly, not knowing how to react.
'B-bored..?'