The flesh reassembled itself.
In the crater where the bell had fallen, something stood up. It checked its limbs — one leg was missing, so it split the other in two. Good enough. It sniffed the air and caught the scent it wanted. The immortal medicine was close.
Miles away, Beichenzi opened his eyes to sunlight and concerned faces.
"The old man's alive!" Su Yan grinned. "I told you fortune favors the righteous."
Zhu Chanchan nodded solemnly. "Senior Beichen fought a Heavenly Demon for us. Such loyalty. Such courage. Future generations will sing of his righteousness."
Beichenzi sat up, took one breath, and shoved them all aside. He leaped from Yuan Qi's head.
"I'm done protecting you brats!"
His jump carried him over the edge of a cliff. Yuan Qi froze. "Which side?"
"Right," Su Yan said, peering down.
Yuan Qi's right side bordered the abyss.
Beichenzi crashed onto a ledge a hundred zhang below, his bones screaming. Worse — voices rose from the depths, whispering, tempting, pulling at his mind. He'd seen strong cultivators leap into that darkness. None had returned.
"Su Yan! Save me!"
The rock crumbled. He fell —
The bell swooped down, mouth open, and caught him. It carried him up, deposited him on Yuan Qi's head, and Beichenzi lay there gasping, too exhausted to even curse.
Su Yan smiled. "See? Righteous to the core. You jumped into danger to test the abyss for us, then came back."
"Righteous my ass," Beichenzi wheezed. "If I could escape, I'd have ditched you bastards already."
His dignity shattered, he abandoned all pretense of courtesy. "I'm finished. That demon will catch us. At best I survive two more exchanges before it eats me. The bell is drained." He eyed Zhu Chanchan. "Maybe if we throw the girl into the chasm..."
She hid behind Su Yan.
Su Yan paced across Yuan Qi's broad skull. "You've lived since the Great Han era. You must have friends."
Beichenzi laughed bitterly. "Friends? In my line of work?"
"Then dangerous places. Somewhere that could kill a Heavenly Demon."
"Places that would kill me faster, in my condition."
"Somewhere to hide?"
Beichenzi hesitated. "There is an earth god temple... but we're too far."
Then Zhu Chanchan pointed. "There!"
A paulownia tree stood on a distant peak, its branches heavy with green fruit. Beichenzi's eyes filled with tears. "Tongbai Mountain! The green paulownia! Phoenixes roost there — maybe that foolish bird is hiding among its branches!"
They raced toward it. Yuan Qi flew partway, then crawled — less draining for his massive form. They reached the tree by afternoon, but no phoenix slept among its limbs. Su Yan searched every hollow, every branch, finding nothing.
"I know another way," Yuan Qi said quietly. He'd been thinking. "Su Yan has a seal inside him. Sometimes his memories leak through, and he does impossible things. If we break that seal completely —"
"Impossible!" Beichenzi snapped. "Absolutely not!"
Yuan Qi circled him, his voice dropping to a whisper. "You said yourself — we're dead otherwise. Is this how you want to end? As a prison guard watching a prisoner?"
Beichenzi's face twisted. Three thousand years of discipline warred against three thousand years of resentment.
Zhu Chanchan stiffened. "It's here. Close."
Beichenzi's decision came in a rush. He pulled out a yellow robe and threw it — the robe flew like a man, racing south as a messenger. Then he set up an altar, placed a paper talisman in a shrine, and lit incense thick as an arm.
The feather-clad young man appeared at the tree line.
"Now!" Yuan Qi shouted.
Beichenzi swung his peach-wood sword, severing the incense's burning tip. The flame died.
Wind rose from nowhere. Clouds swallowed the sky. A crack of thunder split the world —
And struck Su Yan directly.
Lightning danced across his skin, sank into his brow, became a mark of fire and fury. He stood slowly, and the clouds above began to spin, a vortex ten thousand li wide, with him at its center.
The seal was breaking.