The ancient floor tile beneath Lìngxiāo's foot vanished as if exhaled into nothing.
He stepped lightly to the next, his body a study in fluid tension. His robe whispered around him, and the crimson veil that had never left his hair since the temple claimed him stirred in a wind that did not touch the dust. It clung like a vow.
Then, the guqin began to play itself.
The melody was slow, haunting, carved from memory and loss. It did not simply sound—it spoke. A song mourning its own forgotten meaning. Lìngxiāo's ever-present smile turned thoughtful, his head tilting as he listened deeper, trying to catch the ghost in the notes.
The temple floor became a living trap. Tiles yawned open and snapped shut in a random, hungry rhythm. From slots in the walls, blades and axe-heads shot forth—not illusions, but cold, honest steel. It was a gauntlet of lethal intent.
Lìngxiāo did not fight it. He followed it.
He began to move with the music, skipping from one safe tile to the next. His steps were not frantic escapes, but measured, elegant placements—a dance. His hands traced arcs in the air, his body weaving through the deadly symphony with an eerie, purposeful grace. He was not avoiding a trap; he was learning its steps.
From his perch around Lìngxiāo's neck, Mò Qīn's beady eyes darted. He saw it—a flash of red fabric behind a tattered curtain, mirroring their movements. "What new game is this?" the snake grumbled, his dry voice a stark contrast to the melodic peril. "A ghost that speaks through floor puzzles? It seems to be enjoying itself far too much. Can we not do something more dignified than hopscotch with death?"
Lìngxiāo chuckled, the sound almost lost under a sweeping blade he arched his back to avoid. His smile widened, a crescent of genuine intrigue in the gloom. "He is not just playing, Mò. He is talking with his mouth shut. Watch the tiles I land on. Connect them."
Mò Qīn blinked and focused. As Lìngxiāo's dance accelerated, transforming from a graceful waltz into the frantic, beautiful steps of a desperate cry—a cry the ghost was forcing through his feet—words began to form. Carved into the tiles that did not vanish, glowing with a faint, sorrowful light.
HELP ME
KILL HIM
HE KILLED HIM
KILLED US
KILLED OUR SON
HE MADE ME LIVE IN THIS HELL
IF YOU DO NOT I WILL KILL YOU HERE
WHERE IS HE?
CATCH HIM
YOU WORK FOR ME
NOT THEM
DO AS I SAY
Mò Qīn read the jagged plea aloud, his voice flattening with each horrific line. He looked at Lìngxiāo. "He is fractured. Begging and commanding in the same breath. Who is 'him'? Who is 'he' telling you to kill?"
"That is why this case is a knot, not a blade," Lìngxiāo breathed, spinning under a horizontal axe. He could feel it now—a presence, not cold, but burning with a desperate warmth, hovering just behind his right shoulder. Guiding, pushing, pleading. "We cannot cut it with qì. This… this is the raw heart of him. We must follow its beat."
"And if the heart leads us into a stomach?" Mò Qīn hissed, tension coiling his small body. The lines between right and wrong, between victim and threat, were blurring into a terrifying grey. "What if this is the trap?"
Lìngxiāo's smile softened into something painfully gentle. "All I have ever wanted is for someone to believe in me."
It was his quiet creed. He was the exorcist who danced with monsters, who listened to the unspoken, who tried to heal the wound before severing the specter. He made horror into poetry, not to beautify it, but to understand it.
He made no move to capture the ghost, though it was close enough to touch. He needed its story more than its surrender.
"I do believe in you, Gōngzǐ," Mò Qīn insisted, worry sharpening his tone. "But this ghost… it is not wholly evil, nor wholly innocent. Such spirits are the most dangerous. They can change faces faster than you can change your mind."
"I do not need belief that sounds like disbelief," Lìngxiāo answered, his tone final yet not unkind. His path was chosen. He would follow, but not blindly. He would dance, but to his own rhythm within theirs.
Mò Qīn sighed, a tiny, defeated sound. "As you wish."
"Save that tone for when I am at the edge of death," Lìngxiāo said, the words devoid of emotion, yet heavy with a loneliness he never showed. "At least then it will feel like I truly had a friend."
"Stop speaking like that!" Mò Qīn snapped, fear lending his voice force. "You promised to return in three hours!"
"Only one remains," Lìngxiāo observed, never breaking his fluid motion. "Time is tight. But the story… is fascinating."
The next attack was a scything axe aimed for his throat. It came faster than the others.
"Gōngzǐ, LOOK OUT!"
Lìngxiāo dropped.
But the evasion was too extreme. He landed sprawled on the treacherous floor—one foot on a stable tile, one hand on another, his head resting on a third. The triangle of safety left his torso suspended over a fourth tile, which had vanished entirely, revealing a square of pure, swallowing darkness beneath him. Unlike the others, this void did not close.
"What an elegant position he has left us in," Mò Qīn whispered, staring up at the crisscrossing axes still carving the air above them.
Then, Lìngxiāo saw it. The six-headed key, hidden within his robes, pulsed with a soft, inner light. And in the same rhythm, something deep within the darkness below answered with a single, corresponding gleam.
A slow, dangerous smile—the kind that held no joy, only ruthless resolve—spread across Lìngxiāo's lips.
"Hold tight, Mò," he whispered.
"Why?"
"Because I am going to let the temple swallow us."
Mò Qīn's eyes went wide. "You cannot be serious."
But Lìngxiāo was already moving. In one fluid, powerful motion, he pushed off the tiles and dove headfirst into the waiting maw of darkness.
The tile snapped shut above him with a sound like a final sigh. The guqin music ceased. The temple fell into a silence so absolute it was louder than any scream.
Mò Qīn's mouth was almost flying away. "THIS IS GETTING TOO CUNNING FOR THOSE SELFISH CREATURES!"