Yase stared blankly, sitting outside the wooden hut. The memory of the large bowl of water stained with blood that the old man had carried out still haunted him.
If only I had remained more vigilant…
Yase couldn't help but blame himself for his lord's condition.
The night was the only time his lord could roam this world freely, and he refused to be the nuisance that ruined his lord's peace. Because of that, he always tried his best to quietly eliminate whatever threat neared his lord.
Last night, when he saw how valiantly the shadow wielded the wooden branch like a sword, he foolishly believed that, despite the slim chances, the spirit inside his lord longed to fight for life instead of surrendering to a coffin.
But he could have never guessed that his lord was giving up.
Lord Yue was never fighting to survive. He was trying to remember who he was before the rot took everything away from him.
Yase inhaled sharply, his rough hand rising to cover his face. When the door opened, his body reacted before his senses did. He anxiously looked at the old man who came out of the hut carrying another bowl of bloody water.
He clenched his teeth, his nails digging deep into his palms.
"How is my lord?" he asked.
The old man did not reply. Instead, he walked a short distance away, emptied the bowl's contents, and set it aside. The dog tied to the pole wagged its tail happily when its master patted its head.
"Yase," the old man called gently. "Have you ever heard of Mù Yǔn?"
Yase frowned and shook his head, having never heard the name before.
The old man hummed softly and took the seat where Yase had been sitting. His wrinkled hands stroked his beard thoughtfully.
"Once this poison enters the human body, the soul begins walking ahead of the flesh. The ancestors called it Duskfall for a reason. But I wonder how much they hated Lord Yue for testing a forbidden apothecary poison on him."
All the warnings of hidden schemes fell on deaf ears. Yase didn't have the patience or presence of mind to care about the capital's schemes now.
None of it mattered.
All he wanted was to hear that his lord was still here. Even if he remained unresponsive like most of their journey, even if he lay as silent as he always did inside the coffin, Yase simply needed his lord to exist in this world.
At least until he turned the mud over the buried coffin with his own hands.
"How is my lord?" he repeated, his voice cracking with anxiety.
The old man wasn't surprised by the youth's stubbornness. He let out a heavy sigh and replied, "I managed to pull him back this time, but..." he continued quietly, "he won't last long. Consider the thread of his life already snapped in two."
"Right now, there is only a single fragile strand holding him to the earth."
As the day moved on, Yase remained by his lord's side, with a thin translucent screen the only barrier between them. He sat quietly, watching the shallow rise and fall of the shadow's chest—a reminder that his lord was still anchored to the living world.
In this rundown Shilin, the old man was the only physician. But Yase knew his medical skill far surpassed that of any physician in the Emperor's palace. The reason the old man had abandoned a chance to earn a fortune and settled in Shilin was unknown, and Yase had no intention of prying.
By a strange twist of fate, the elder owed him a life–debt, and Yase had chosen the right moment to collect it. Long ago, when whispers of Lord Yue's incurable rot spread throughout Yan, he had come to Shilin to seek the old physician's help. But his hope had been destroyed when he learned that no cure existed for the cruel rot.
Helpless, Yase returned to the capital, ready to bear the weight of his lord's coffin upon his shoulder.
Throughout the day, the old man went in and out, actively tending to the injured lord. Yet despite his skill, by the time dusk approached, Lord Yue's condition worsened. The rot inside him surged with terrifying force, crawling up his neck and across his jawline.
Behind the screen, Yase received orders for fresh herbs from the local market that would undoubtedly cost double their worth in silver in this treacherous town. Yet he didn't waste a single second and rushed out to gather them.
Inside the hut, the old man wrung out a wet cloth and gently cleaned the oozing scabs along the side of Lord Yue's face. Once he finished, he couldn't help but shake his head at the tragedy of this promising young man.
"You were a pure lotus forced to bloom in the middle of a graveyard," the elder murmured.
Despite cleaning away the rot, fresh lesions immediately began to seep from the wounds. The old man stood to change the water in the basin. When he reached the door, the sound of a barking dog reached his ears.
He frowned and quickly closed the door behind him.
Just as he turned his head to scan the courtyard, something hard struck the back of his head, causing him to stumble to the ground.
A few hollow-eyed figures stared malevolently into the dim hut where Lord Yue rested.