Those words rang in his ears. I’m dying, Sen. How often had Sen himself uttered nearly the same sentiment? The effect of those words on him was almost primal. He knew the lengths that someone in that situation might go to. He understood that it would be a short step from where he himself had been not so long ago to finding it acceptable to sacrifice anyone you needed to in order to survive. He didn’t think that the fox had gone that far. He might have been willing to use Sen and Li Yi Nuo to get what he needed, but Laughing River had been at least a little halfhearted in his efforts. After all, he’d let Sen scout ahead, even though the fox must have known that they were close to their destination. Letting Sen find it and see what was waiting there was almost certain a sign of some second thoughts about the whole thing. Of course, that assumed that what the fox was saying was true and not simply another layer of planning and deception.

Li Yi Nuo was tugging on his hand, urging him to leave as he said they would. Yet, her expression suggested that she knew it was a lost cause. Sen wasn’t as certain that it was a lost cause. He thought hard about the situation they all found themselves in. He wanted to just go. Things back at the ruins hadn’t changed just because he had more possibly true information. He still didn’t see a way to get into the ruins because that tide of unholiness around the ruins wasn’t just going to let them walk in. Even his hiding ability would be all but useless. Sure, it might blind some of the monsters, ones that relied on spiritual perception rather than actual physical senses. Anything that had actual functioning eyes would be able to see him. Of course, if I—, he started to think and shook it off. Making a plan was pointless until he knew a whole lot more, starting with whether the fox was even telling the truth.

Sen let go of Li Yi Nuo’s hand and turned to face the fox. The trickster with the twinkling eyes, the infectious grin, and the quick jokes was gone. In his place, stood a lean figure with dark eyes and a deadly serious expression. Sen reminded himself that being a trickster could mean playing the serious part as well as playing the fool. He steeled his heart. Dying because he wasn’t paying enough attention or let himself get taken in by a good story was not the way he intended to leave the world. Sen didn’t say anything right away as he tried to get a read on the fox. Unfortunately, Laughing River had had lifetimes to perfect his performances. Sen expected that it would only be wholly unwarranted confidence that let him think he knew what the fox was up to at any given moment.

“Dying?” Sen asked. “You’ll have to forgive me if I’m a little incredulous. After all, don’t you become immortal once you get your last tail? Or something like that. I’m a little hazy on the myths.”

Laughing River pursed his lips in dissatisfaction before he answered. “We are immortal, but we’re also not. There are a bunch of rules about it that I’ll spare you. Let’s just say that, for the purposes of this conversation, I’m not immortal that way.”

Sen waited for the fox to continue. When the fox didn’t come up with anything else, Sen shot Laughing River an annoyed glare.

“Let’s say, for the purposes of this conversation, that I’m going to need a lot more than that.”

“I really am dying. You can ask Caihong about it the next time you see her. You can even check for yourself.”

Sen nodded. “Oh, rest assured that I’ll do just that. What I don’t understand is why you’re dying or why you needed to come here to find a solution. Or why you couldn’t find one somewhere else. I get the sense that dying business isn’t new information for you. Just how long have you known? How long have you been looking for a fix?”

“That’s a lot of questions,” grumbled Laughing River. “It could take a while to answer all of them thoroughly.”

“It’s fine,” said Sen. “I have the rest of your life.”

The fox gave Sen a look of genuine surprise. “That’s pretty cold, Sen.”

Sen turned and very deliberately looked at Li Yi Nuo before turning back to Laughing River.

“Alright,” said the fox. “I’ve got no room to point fingers about being cold. Seriously, though, we’ll be here forever if you want a thorough, in-depth review of how I got here. I’m a lot older than you are.”

“How about we just start with the essential highlights and go from there,” said Sen.

“Even that could take a while,” muttered Laughing River.

“Nothing but time over here,” said Sen walking over and leaning against a massive tree trunk.

“Okay, super high-level, big picture stuff. I like it here. I mean, sure, it’s dangerous and filled with violence-crazed cultivators like your girlfriend’s master,” said the fox, gesturing at Li Yi Nuo, “but look around you. There’s a lot more wilds to this world than human civilization. It’s everything I could ever need.”Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

“My master is not violence-crazed,” objected Li Yi Nuo.

“Didn’t he cut off a woman’s head for trying to get you killed by our boy over there?” asked Laughing River, pointing at Sen.

Li Yi Nuo drew herself up. “That wasn’t the only reason he did that.”

“Didn’t he threaten to murder a room full of people right after that because they went along with her plan?”

“That might be true,” answered Li Yi Nuo a little sheepishly.

Sen shot her a questioning look. “Seriously?”

“We’ll talk about it later.”

The fox continued as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “That’s to say nothing of the fact that your glorious sect patriarch signed off on him doing it.”

Li Yi Nuo’s eyes bulged. “How can you know that?”

“I’m a fox. I know everything. Then, there’s Sen here. I mean, I love the guy, but he can barely get out of bed in the morning without leaving a few bodies on the floor.”

“Hey!” said Sen.

“Am I lying?” asked the fox.

“No,” admitted Sen. “It’s just sort of impolite to bring it up.”

“Ironically, Sen’s tendency to leave literal piles of corpses in his wake is half the reason why I wanted him along for this little excursion. So, yeah, I totally have to own the hypocrisy of criticizing cultivator hyperviolence while also wanting to use it. But that’s the world we live in.”

“I suppose I’m next,” said Li Yi Nuo.

The fox looked her up and down in an oddly clinical way. “No. You’re positively docile for a cultivator. I’m a little surprised you’ve made it this long without someone cutting your head off for jollies. Don’t get me started on Sen’s teachers, though. I swear that the deities of death send those three gifts every New Year. Or is it four teachers now? I’m not sure where the crazy lady fits into the hierarchy. Sen?”

Sen rolled his eyes. “Oh, who knows with her? I think we’ve drifted a little off-topic here, though. You were explaining why you’re dying and so on.”

“Right,” said Laughing River. “My point is that I find this plane of existence very comfortable. That’s why I worked so hard to never get my ninth tail. It let me keep on doing what I wanted to do right where I wanted to do it, but things happened, and that last tail just showed up anyway, the little bastard.”

“Yes, immortality is such a burden, I’m sure,” said Li Yi Nuo.

Laughing River gave her a stern look. “Don’t make jokes until you’ve tried it. Immortality isn’t free, girl. Which is actually my point. I became immortal, but there were rules if I wanted to keep being immortal. In my defense, I did try to follow them. Mostly. Usually. Enough that the heavens didn’t get too mad at me.”

The fox fell silent, seemingly lost in old memories. Sen let it go for a little while before he nudged the fox.

“But?” asked Sen.

“But it turns out that I wasn’t as good at not making the heavens mad as I thought. I was told to ascend or else. I may, possibly, have not taken that or else as seriously as I should have.”

Sen thought he had a sense of where this was going. “So, you just went off and did whatever the hells you wanted until that or else started to settle on your shoulders.”

“And then for quite a long time after.”

“The heavens made you mortal again?” asked Li Yi Nuo.

“Um, it’s a bit more complicated than that, but let’s say that's true for our purposes.”

“Then, why not just ascend?” asked Sen.

“Yeah, that was still possible for the first, oh, thousand or so years. Like I said, I like it here. I kept putting it off. When I finally decided that the heavens weren’t just joking around, it turned out that I waited a little too long. I don’t have the power I’d need to ascend anymore. Or, maybe I should say I don’t have the right kind of power anymore.”

Sen started banging his head against the tree he was leaning against. “And there’s some relic or construct or artifact in those ruins that will let someone just ascend?”

“Not just anyone. You couldn’t use it. Not until you’re quite a bit farther along your path. But there is something in there that I can use. I won’t get into the finer points because neither of you has the right background to understand. The simple answer is that there’s a treasure in there with a very strong time-space affinity. It’ll be enough to let me get where I need to go.”

“And you know how to use it? Are you a space cultivator?” asked Li Yi Nuo.

“Me? Oh, definitely not. But I have had centuries to figure out what I would need to fix my tiny little error in judgment. I spent that time learning the essentials and developing enough of an affinity to make this work.”

“You can’t just develop new affinities,” said Li Yi Nuo.

“Human cultivators can’t,” said the fox while giving Sen a speculative look. “I’m not human. And I was dying. I was quite motivated. Don’t worry. It’s so agonizingly painful that most spirit beasts would never put themselves through it. I wouldn’t have put myself through it if there was any alternative other than death.”

Li Yi Nuo asked Laughing River a few more questions, but Sen wasn’t paying attention anymore. The fox could be lying, but that story was just absurd enough that it had the ring of truth. Plus, there was a simple enough way to check the most essential fact of the story immediately. If Laughing River really was dying, it likely meant the rest of the story was true. If the ruins did contain a time-space treasure, that would give the story even more credence. Of course, that just brought them around to where they started. The treasure might be what the fox needed, but that in no way meant that it was possible to physically acquire that treasure. Plus, there was still the whole problem of offending the heavens by taking something from a sacred ruin and all the karmic fallout that would go along with it, if the wrath of the heavens didn’t simply kill them. Even if he ultimately decided to go along with the mad scheme, he wasn’t sure what to do about Li Yi Nuo. She had no stakes in this situation and no reason to risk death and karmic retribution. One problem at a time, Sen told himself. He looked at Laughing River, who cut off mid-sentence.

“First things first,” said Sen. “Open up and let me take a look. Then, I’ll decide if we have anything more to talk about.”