He lay collapsed on the cold ground. A quaking headache, no, bodyache tremored throughout without pause. “H-how many more times do I have to do this?”

  Bing Xin chuckled. “Until you could sense your soul.”

  Through gritted teeth he asked, “And when's that?”

  “I don't know.”

  “Of course you don't!” He croaked. “Now what?”

  “There's no way to refine the soul right now. As for pacifying? Sleeping is your only viable option to pacify and help heal your soul injury.”

  Without hesitation, Dejiu rolled over to his back. He needed this constant pain to stop. He didn't care about staining his tattered and mucky kasaya robes.

  It was far too late now. Seems like everything for him has been too late… lately.

  “Ah.” He groaned tiredly. Sleeping atop filth and blood. What best to remind him of the days spent in Hell?

  Actually, there was something better to remind him of those days. Dejiu shifted his gaze and looked at his right arm. “Miss Bing Xin, what do I do about my missing right hand?”

  He patiently waited for her to respond.

  “Deal with it yourself. Hopefully you’ll get lucky someway or another.”

  “Huh!?” He scoffed. “Can’t you do your wishy-washy cultivation tricks? Some sort of secret knowledge? Cursed daimon techniques?”

  “I could. Some of my options would be helpful, perhaps even better than waiting until you receive something capable of regrowing a hand. However, if you’d like to graft a daimon’s hand onto that stump, you’re welcome to heed my earlier advice.”

  “...” He frowned. “Would there be a way to make it look normal?

  “A long process, but it could be done.”

  He nodded and considered the graft. It was better than no hand, but he’ll turn to some daimon-crossed abomination.

  Gazing into the frost-lined ceiling he sighed. “Can I ask one more thing before I sleep?”

  Bing Xin left him waiting for a few seconds but he asked anyway.

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why do all this? Throwing me into that wager with the Old Bird, helping me cultivate, teaching me all I know. What do you gain from this?”

  Bing Xin paused once more, but much longer because he didn’t have anything to follow up with.

  And after a few minutes, she responded.

  “What do you think are the Heavens, little monk?”

  She asked a short question, but it was infinitely hard to answer.

  “The Heavens?” He paused. It was a weird question to return when he asked something unrelated. But he answered truthfully nonetheless. “They’re not a destination or a reward. For our temple, they’re... an illusion, aren’t they? A reflection of samsara’s cycle. Beautiful, maybe, but still a trap. True liberation isn’t found there. True peace is found in breaking free of the cycle altogether.”

  “Besides, what’s the point of striving for a realm if you can lose it all again? I’d rather fight my battles here, in the dirt, and forge something lasting.”

  “...I disagree, little monk.”

  Dejiu felt a shift and she surged out. He rolled over to his side to look at her.

  “You may think the Heavens are out of reach, but not for me.”

  He chuckled a little. “A daimon striving for the Heavens?”

  She didn’t return a laugh like she usually did.

  “Is it crazy to think like that, little monk? I was in Hell looking at Heaven, I am a daimon and you are human. Your love, your intrigue, your wonder, your hope, your passion. All things I could only watch from the depths, no matter how strong I became.”

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Her silhouette deepened the surroundings.

  “Why? Why do you think there is a Heaven above you? You can’t see it, whereas I can. Your world is my Heaven. A Heaven for daimonkind if you will. You all are living in paradise as beings blessed from birth while daimons are damned to a wretched fate. Yet you people spurned your blessings. You disgust me, yet I still long for all that you are.”

  Her words lingered in the air. Dejiu didn’t respond immediately. What was there to say? He wasn’t much of a thinker, she and Teacher Jiansu could attest to that. But her words made him think. Bitter words that felt like a reflection he couldn’t quite dismiss.

  He exhaled slowly, letting the ache in his body meld with the silence. There were no answers tonight—only the wind's chill and the exhaustion's slow pull.

  She seemed to sense this too, whirling in a pool of shadows before she returned inside him once more.

  He closed his eyes, ready to sleep.

  —

  “Wake up little monk. That Arhat disciple is coming.” Bing Xin urged.

  Dejiu was a little too immersed in his sleep to hear. His snoring seemed to irritate Bing Xin because she didn’t wait another second before tightening some sort of invisible pressure around his throat and heart before he snapped awake with a yelp.

  He shot up and looked around for Bing Xin but her shadowy manifestation was nowhere to be found. “Wha–”

  “Your freedom is coming. Hear the steps?”

  “Hm? Oh. Ok.” He muttered. The remnants of slumber whisked away as he blinked repeatedly, replaced by a throbbing pain. Yep. Soul injuries are not to be trifled with. What if someone else other than Bing Xin did this? He groaned to himself.

  “You’d die. Anyways, I must suppres myself. We’d be too close to that Abbott once you leave this gaol.” Bing Xin said.

  Rubbing his eyes, he saw the faraway hall reveal Xue Bing Lie.

  And it didn’t take long for Xue Bing Lie to realize something was wrong with Dejiu.

  “Huh? You were given two pills, correct?” Xue Bing Lie asked with raised eyebrows that didn’t fit his intimidating face. It looked kind of funny. If only Dejiu was so foolish to mention it though.

  “Yep. Two pills, Arhat disciple Xue Bing Lie.” Dejiu nodded. He watched Xue Bing Lie form something with ice to cover his finger. It looked like a sort of elaborate and precisely made structure.

  Xue Bing Lie jammed his ice-coated finger with the structure inside the lock and the thick rolled iron gate swung open. Finally. Freedom at last!

  “You were supposed to refine your prana to that of ice!” Xue Bing Lie said, staring at the puddle of blackish filth and blood in the center of his cell. “Not advance!”

  Oh does he think the blood is from prana backlash when I broke through? Convenient if I must say! Dejiu inwardly grinned.

  He shrugged his shoulders. “Didn’t know how to. I just thought the pills would overpower the quantity of hell element prana in me.” He said bluntly. Truth be told he still didn’t really know how to refine his prana. He could have a guess and try, but that’d be wasted effort. Better time spent obtaining strength and treasures.

  “Huh.” Xue Bing Lie muttered. “That was dangerous. Breaking through. Wait, no, you were just in the High Initiate realm. You breakthrough twice?! Are you a brazen fool, Junior Monk Xue Dejiu!?”

  “Ahem.” Dejiu coughed. “It just happened. I felt a little prana backlash from the sudden breakthroughs, but I was still given two pills. A little blood, a little impurities. Nothing much.”

  “Arhat Xuanyang wouldn’t have given two precious pills if you were that close to breaking through! You misfit! You were supposed to refine them and fix your imbalance!” Xue Bing Lie began putting the pieces together.

  Dejiu shrugged his shoulders again and walked passed the thick iron bars. “I just swallowed them. Not my fault I broke through with those. Arhat Xuanyang must’ve underestimated how much prana was in the pill or how talented I am in drawing its full quantity. Nobody even taught me how to cultivate properly.”

  “I see. Fine.” Xue Bing Lie muttered again with a frown. “Come. We’ll leave the inner sanctum.”

  It didn’t take long for them to walk out of the Hundred Penance Gaol. Probably because there was only a single-digit number of cells, each connected by a single corridor. But what lay outside the gaol made Dejiu raise an eyebrow. Was this always here?

  The Heavenly Snowy Temple is separated into two rings. The vast outer ring was simply deemed the outer sanctum. Vice versa for the inner ring. They practically possessed the same buildings — monasteries, refectories, prayer halls, trainer halls, but these same buildings were made smaller for the inner sanctum due to how few people were allowed entry.

  But as he walked out, he found himself atop a singular spire somewhere beside the nine-storied pagoda at the inner sanctum’s center. One of the spires that border the pagoda it seemed as he looked around. There were four of similar jagged spires that housed a single building atop. Each outside the four corners of the pagoda.

  He shifted his gaze and stared at the center of, well, the entire temple. The giant snow-capped pagoda just as it was seven years ago. Damn that fateful day. Especially that bastard Xue Fan. Dejiu can't think of that day and those his age without forgetting a certain two-faced bootlicker and his cohort of young monks. Handsome, tall, charismatic. Even those young nuns who weren’t even supposed to hold feelings of affection to others, much less a monk, held Xue Fan in high regard!

  Argh! Somehow it's just coming back to Dejiu that he’s back at the temple.

  He shivered. A biting wind grazed the exposed skin under his tattered kasaya robe and cut his musing. His entire upper half was practically exposed. His robes were held together by filthy and frayed fabric. One more thing I have to do now. He frowned.

  Xue Bing Lie motioned Dejiu. “Grab my hand. We’ll descend.”

  Dejiu complied and locked his arm around Xue Bing Lie’s brazenly large arm.

  Then a hum sounded from beside Dejiu as Xue Bing Lie somehow conjured ice from his feet.

  “Pretty cool. Literally.”