(1) A Young Friend, Manchun

The weather was clear that day, and Anu once again wanted to go across the ridge beyond the Mist Forest to Qingxi Town to amuse herself. She and Xing'er had a friend of many years in Qingxi Town named Manchun; whenever the two of them slipped out of the Mist Forest, they always loved to visit Manchun there. Manchun was a mortal girl, and whatever was fun or delicious to be found in Qingxi Town, she would always share with her two sisters. Since it had been so long since their last escape, Anu and Xing'er were still filled with great enthusiasm for everything Qingxi Town had to offer.

With the war between the Asura Clan and the Celestial Clan having ended peacefully, Anu was in rather good spirits, and so she set off with Xing'er in tow. Who could have known that while still some distance from Qingxi Town, Anu already sensed a thick trace of demonic energy hanging over the place. She found this strange — Qingxi Town was a simple, unspoiled little town, its residents living in peace and harmony, its trades flourishing, its days tranquil; what possible cause could there be for such an anomaly? And as they drew closer to Qingxi Town, that demonic energy only grew stronger still, until Xing'er, too, began to sense it.

"Anu! Do... do you sense something?" Though Xing'er had already transformed into human form, her spiritual power remained weak, and she lacked experience facing enemies, so her voice carried a note of unease.

"I could see the demonic energy rising to the sky from a great distance off."

"Then why didn't you stop me sooner? Shouldn't we turn back? Why do you keep going straight ahead?" Xing'er halted in her tracks, her voice full of trembling.

"Everyone living in Qingxi Town is a mortal, and so is Manchun. If that demon harbors ill intent, then they're all in grave danger. You're a demon yourself, after all — what is there to fear? If we don't go and see, and the townsfolk end up harmed by this demon, could your conscience bear it?"

"I... I can't do it, I... my power is too weak, I don't know how to fight."

Anu knew Xing'er's nature well — timid and fragile by disposition, she had only been able to grow up without a care because of the protective barrier array her father had set up. That she had managed to take human form was not through any particular diligence in her cultivation, but simply because she happened to be rooted in the very heart of spiritual energy within the whole Mist Forest, and so, drawing on the boundless energy of heaven and earth, she had naturally transformed into human shape over eight hundred years — a mere small sprite. Now a thousand years old, her cultivation had made hardly any progress at all; likely because there were no enemies for her in the Mist Forest, she had simply grown lazy, drifting through her days, and now, faced with something real, she found herself cowering and hesitant.

"You're still a thousand-year-old apricot tree spirit after all — don't go boosting others' morale while deflating your own. It's nothing to not know how to fight; fight a few more times and you'll learn." Anu encouraged her: "Even if you truly can't fight, at least you can protect yourself, which is more than Manchun and the others can do — we absolutely must go and see how things stand. Besides, that demon may not even harbor any real malice — perhaps nothing at all will happen. And more than that, don't you still have me? I don't think much of some measly demon — don't be afraid!" Anu gave Xing'er a pat on the back.

Hearing Anu put it this way, Xing'er felt she had no choice now but to see it through, having come this far. What Anu said made perfect sense — Manchun was a little sister who had always treated her with genuine sincerity; how could she possibly disregard whether she lived or died? And so, though her heart trembled within her, she could only steel herself and press on toward Qingxi Town.

Walking into Qingxi Town, the whole place was strangely silent, the streets cold and empty with not a soul stirring; the once-bustling roads now had every shop's door shut tight. This eerie atmosphere left Anu and Xing'er both sensing that something was terribly wrong. The two exchanged a glance, and, understanding one another without a word, said together, "To Manchun's house."

As always, rather than entering through the front door, they moved themselves directly by magic into Manchun's own chamber. Though Manchun was merely the daughter of an ordinary family, not some wealthy heiress, and lived in no grand estate requiring elaborate protocol to gain an audience with her, still, since Anu and Xing'er were not mortals after all, they did their best not to disturb mortal affairs unnecessarily.

Though somewhat startled by Anu and Xing'er's sudden appearance out of thin air, Manchun was by now well used to it, and at the sight of the two, the fear and terror that had gripped her face finally began to ease. She rushed toward them, grabbing an arm of each with her two hands, crying with delight, "You're here, thank goodness! I couldn't get into the Mist Forest to find you — I've been so scared and worried here, not knowing what to do."

Manchun had not originally known that Anu and Xing'er were not mortals; the three had become friends when Manchun was thirteen years old, and now Manchun had grown into an eighteen-year-old young woman, her figure and appearance having changed enormously in the meantime. No mortal could withstand the flow of the years, naturally changing with each passing year, especially at that age for young men and women. But Manchun had noticed that Anu and Xing'er had not changed in the slightest over all these years — they seemed to remain forever seventeen or eighteen. Having originally claimed to be seventeen or eighteen years old, after five years had passed, they ought long since to have married and taken on the bearing of mature women — mortal girls rarely had the chance to remain unmarried past twenty — and even Manchun herself already had her parents busily arranging her own marriage. Only these two were strangely unhurried about it, their family showing not the slightest urgency. What was more, whenever Anu came to Qingxi Town, her face was always covered with a veil. All these oddities left Manchun full of doubt, and she had questioned them about it more than once. For the sake of preserving their friendship, and since neither of them was particularly skilled at lying, Anu and Xing'er had at last, under Manchun's repeated and unyielding questioning, given in and told her the truth of who they really were. Manchun, being a simple and pure-hearted girl, had felt nothing but astonishment upon learning that one of them was an immortal and the other a demon, without the slightest hint of rejection, and the bond among the three remained as close as ever, with Manchun faithfully keeping their secret.

"What on earth has happened? The streets are completely empty!" Seeing that Manchun was, for the time being, unharmed, Anu's anxious heart eased somewhat.

"I don't really know what's happened myself. It must have been about three months ago — a man claiming to be a cultivator of immortality came to town, and all at once a whole estate sprang up on the slope of Phoenix Mountain, where he began telling people's fortunes and reading their faces. When the townsfolk saw him conjure an entire estate overnight, they were all amazed, thinking his immortal arts must be extraordinary, and gradually more and more people went to him seeking guidance. But then, recently, some of those who went to the estate began to go missing. Later, even people who had never once been near the estate started disappearing too, and so everyone grew afraid, hiding away in their houses all day, not daring to step outside. Even so, we still hear shrill screams drifting in from near and far every now and then, and no one dares even to look. No one knows whose household will suffer next, or when their own turn will come — thank heavens, thank heavens you've come."

"What cultivator of immortality? It's clearly nothing more than some demon causing mischief, playing tricks and harming people." Hearing this, Anu's face filled with indignation, and she immediately turned as if to head straight for Phoenix Mountain to see for herself. "It cannot be allowed to keep cultivating through such wicked methods, harming and killing people."

"Wicked methods?" Manchun was startled to hear this — though deep down she had already had some inkling of it herself, hearing the truth laid bare in the light of day still left her shaken.

"Even the little demons of our Mist Forest, however much they might want to cultivate quickly, would never resort to a method like this — going against the way of heaven, devouring people's very essence. This creature has truly lost all sense of decency; if we don't teach it a lesson, it'll think there's no justice left in this world at all." Anu took Xing'er's hand. "It's too much trouble to go out and capture prey each time, so it's more likely he captures several people at once and slowly torments them at his leisure. We need to go and see if there are any survivors left — if there are, you'll need to help me, we must save these people." Instructing Manchun to hide safely at home, Anu pulled Xing'er along and headed straight for the slope of Phoenix Mountain.

The estate's exterior, with its red walls and green tiles, did not seem particularly unusual at first glance — insects chirped, birds sang, flowers bloomed in profusion, and at a glance it even seemed rather pleasant. But a faint, foul stench drifted through the air, and even from a distance it was enough to make Anu and Xing'er frown. Xing'er's face in particular was etched with worry; had Anu not been pulling her along, she likely would not have been able to hold steady, wanting only to turn and flee back the way they had come.

"What in the world is this creature? Why does it stink so much?" Anu stood outside the estate's surrounding wall, gazing at the tightly shut gate, and casually produced two daggers, commanding: "Search the whole estate." As she spoke, she flung the daggers, and they seemed to understand Anu's words perfectly, darting instantly into the estate and flitting about everywhere within.

As it happened, these two daggers, ordinary as they might appear, were in truth extraordinarily attuned to their wielder's will — when Anu had first forged them, she had fed them her own blood, so that they could resonate with her every thought, making them one of her most powerful magical implements. Because Anu had nothing to do day after day in the Mist Forest, growing utterly bored, she had always needed to find something to occupy her time, and so had begun experimenting with forging magical implements. Yet forging such implements with no outlet to actually use them would have been pointless, and so she had fused implement and weapon into one, and once perfected, took to trying them out on the little sprites, which gave her a bit of amusement besides. That said, when Anu used the little sprites to test her implements, she never truly struck with full force, using perhaps only two or three parts strength as a token gesture — however fierce and unruly she might be, she was not so heedless of right and wrong as to actually treat the little sprites' lives so carelessly. Her fourth brother Hemuda, back when he still lived in the Mist Forest, had often been the target of her weapon-testing as well. Her mother never stopped her from this, for after all, a proper Asura man ought to be brave and fierce, and had better learn to stand on his own rather than be forever beaten down by his little sister.

As it happened, the two daggers appeared identical at first glance, differing only in the black and white colors mixed into the ends of their hilts — black for yin, white for yang, together forming the Yin-Yang Daggers. Not only could they resonate with Anu's own will, but the two daggers could also respond to one another, allowing them to shift and transform in a thousand different ways, their marvels dazzling to behold and scarcely believable.

Anu hovered aloft at a commanding vantage point, watching the Yin-Yang Daggers dart back and forth through the estate for some time, until suddenly the two daggers came to rest together at the window of a certain room. Seeing this, Anu flew down at once, and sure enough found within the room some ten or twenty of Qingxi Town's residents, both young and old, bound with iron chains. She recalled her two daggers, then flung the Yang dagger out again to sever the chains from one person, while the Yin dagger suddenly split into a dozen or more daggers, breaking the chains from everyone else all at once.

At that moment Xing'er, too, flew down; Anu conjured her own sword with her power and handed it to Xing'er. "The Yin-Yang Daggers haven't found that demon yet, but its aura is so heavy that this estate must surely have some hidden chamber — he must be somewhere within these grounds. As we get these people out, we need to guard against him ambushing us. I'll go in front, you cover the rear. I'll lend you the Seven-Colored Flowing Light Sword — don't hold back when the moment calls for it, just drive it into him with all your strength." As Anu instructed Xing'er, she turned to the terrified crowd before them and said, "Don't be afraid — we're friends of Miss Manchun here in town, and we've come specifically to rescue you. Everyone, hurry and follow me!"