As the sun began to settle, An Fei slowly trudged back towards the abandoned jewelry shop she had sheltered the night before. The young girl’s heart was stone-laden with a mixture of cold wonder and anxiety, and her mind preoccupied itself with the events of a few hours prior. She ignored the elderly man’s smiling greeting as she sat down, and rubbed at her weary forehead with her thumbs.
As the elderly man had stated, she was an observer to the fullest extent.
The people laboring in the city could not detect her presence, nor could they hear or see her movements. There was hardly a need for her to sidestep or evade someone approaching her direction, for they fluidly changed their direction to naturally evade her position. The experience was similar to when she utilized the <Steps of Underlying Shadow> but An Fei quickly grasped on a key problem.
The <Steps of Underlying Shadow> merged her background into the earth when she fused together Yin and Yang attributed spiritual essence.
The demeanor, physical presence, and others’ perception of the world was forced to fail to recognize her presence, and would write over the subconsciousness of other people to ignore her outright. In that regard, she was then regarded as a part of the world that others walked, and would not be given any preferential treatment over her presence. However, she could interact with the environment that they did recognize, and the whilst they could not allude the disturbance to her actions, but the disturbance itself could be recognized.
They would notice any boxes or objects that she moved, and if she tapped them on the back, she would most certainly elicit a response.
Yet in the perplexing state that confused illusion and reality, she was completely isolated from the world.
An Fei had tried on multiple approaches to interfere with the laborers of the city, but to no avail. She had displaced several block of stone and chopped planks of wood placed besides a man with strong physique. Not only that, she had snatched at a piece of jerky partially delivered into a child’s mouth to check his response.
The man paid no heed of the materials’ disappearance, and simply marched towards the collective pile to gather more. Likewise, the child didn’t respond even as the jerky clenched in his hand was missing, and grabbed another from the earthenware jar. An Fei had placed her hand on top of a portion of the wall still undergoing construction as a young man prepared a block to be placed down.
The young girl could only watch in silence as the patch of the wall below her hand was ignored until she stepped back, and the laborers hardly recognized the discrepancy in their work.
It was surreal and disorienting to watch as the world was everlastingly real before her eyes and senses, yet her presence and interference was akin to a ghost’s moans during the daytime.
“The diagram isn’t active. This could be an illusion… but could illusions manipulate all of the body’s senses at once?”
She had checked her body multiple times during the day, but the diagram of the <Steps of Underlying Shadow> was nowhere to be found. An Fei could only retreat towards the abandoned jewelry shop and obey the elderly man’s instructions and guidance.
She knew that she could probably escape the confusion by fleeing into the Sanctum, yet the young girl had a fleeting and uncomfortable premonition that should she attempt to flee, something – or anything – could go disastrously wrong.
It couldn’t be explained/ by reasoning or logic, and was akin to a primal, natural instinct.
“They finished construction of the roof, and will not have to worry about gathering supplies for five days of survival,” the young girl complained as she sat down on a partially salvaged wooden bench.
“Were you trying to teach me that the collective will and bonding is important for survival?”
The elderly man shook his head with his customary small smile exuding warmth. He sat down besides An Fei and heaved a sigh as the frail, aging body withered and bloomed in the span of a few breaths.
“The capabilities of a group of humans are both a blessing and lethal curse,” the elderly man tossed his stick towards the door frame.
“Their need for shelter is now sated, but the majority will not be able to enjoy the shelter. They could excavate the jerky and wine that others have prepared for the winter, but even that is not enough.”
“Why will the shelter and supplies not be sufficient?”
An Fei narrowed her eyes and turned to face the seated elderly man. The latter was unflinching under her persistent glare, and loudly exhaled in raw anticipation.
“How many people have you seen during these past two days? How many have you seen throughout your stay in this city?”
“Eighty people alive… including those who cannot contribute to either assisting the construction of the shelter or gathering of resources,” the young girl pondered for a brief moment.
“In the city… there were thousands… perhaps a thousand remaining per major street, or a hundred per alleyway.”
“A good estimate,” the elderly man asserted with a gentle nod.
“The street we sit along is hardly more than a larger than average alleyway in the vast city. The shelter we have seen is one of many dozen that have been, or are to be constructed throughout the week. The sacrifices we have seen so far, are just one of many throughout the vast cities of Bei Tang.”
“However, resources are limited, and the demands of people are always in excess. Who is to say that there still remains jars of wine and dried meat to be searched for the people who have expended everything to build a shelter for their kin? What of those who have yet to emerge from the shadows – those who have no desire to sacrifice anything at all?”
An Fei’s response was sluggish as her mind briefly tossed together the numbers required for calculation, and her body shivered when she had arrived to her answer. She raised her hand to her nape on reflex, only to discover that a thin sheet of fragrant sweat had blossomed.
“A rough estimate of surviving buildings and the supplies remaining… there are likely just barely enough for the remainder of the week,” the young girl murmured with a faint twitch of her lips.
“If there are twenty people who are still surviving along the street, lurking in the shadows… then perhaps three days.”
“The people will begin to starve from tomorrow.”
The elderly man’s words brusquely cut off An Fei’s train of thought. The young girl blinked in surprise as the frail and wizened body stretched to stand near the doorway, and the popping of joints rang true in the former’s ears.
“The winter rain is impartial to all in Bei Tang. However, those who do not experience the pain of sacrifice along with others, or have no requirement of experiencing such pain, will never call upon themselves to expend for the sake of others.”
“Those who do not experience the pain of sacrifice will never call upon themselves…”
An Fei repeated as she pursed her lips. The elderly man gently waved his palm to quell her thoughts, and glanced towards the dim skies.
“Remember the state of the city before the winter’s devastation. The commoners and laborers could afford no more than ordinary thatched and clay tiled roofs, whereas the privileged and endowed can obtain immortal talismans and protective arrays to ward off the rain – certainly, not permanently, but enough for a few days.”
The people of Bei Tang could labor for two consecutive days, and utilizing nothing more than rough cut blocks of stone, planks of timber, and a bonding agent made of ash and the cursed rain, create shelters capable of enclosing an area of fifty square meters whilst enduring the harsh torment of the rain. It was a feat that ordinary humans could not accomplish, but they were forced to due to their circumstances.
Whereas, those endowed with great privilege and wealth could tide through the harshest of the devastation relying on their accumulated benefits, and when the situation was ripe and ready to harvest, swing their scythe to exploit the labors of the poor…
As An Fei arrived at her conclusion, her ears pricked at a dull reverberation of a stone block crashing onto the slightly damp and tarnished earth. The young girl rose to her feet and strode towards the doorway only to be barraged by a wild tsunami not of a primal chant of howl, but of human voices and intelligible words.
