259 Old Willow Troupe

[POV: Ye Yong]

The Night Blades bickered behind her as they marched along the beaten road. One argued with growing impatience, insisting they were in the wrong place altogether. Another countered with conviction, saying they should have gone straight to the Union and established a base of operations for easier access between operatives. A third shook his head and muttered that the rumors about the Heavenly Temple’s borders demanded immediate attention, and that sneaking closer might already yield answers. Their voices rose and fell in quiet dispute, but Ye Yong paid them no mind. Her attention was fixed on a rough map spread across her lap, the kind of overpriced scrap that only desperate travelers would ever buy, its ink already smudged from wear and handling.

Ye Yong’s jaw tightened as her eyes lingered on the crude lines. Her Night Blades had been given one clear task: to locate a certain pair of cultivators at the request of his lordship, Da Wei. She would be damned before she returned empty-handed. Yet the Hollowed World proved vast beyond reckoning, its fractured territories belonging to lords and sects who jealously guarded every grain of soil. The rumor mills churned without end, clogging every lead with false trails and conflicting tales. Each whisper of Lu Gao and Yuen Fu seemed to dissolve the moment they followed it, leaving them circling endlessly. The mission was simple in words, but to her, it already felt like chasing shadows through a maze without walls.

When the troupe finally approached the gates of a mid-sized city, the Night Blades fell into their practiced roles. Ye Yong presented the forged documents she had prepared months earlier, her expression calm, as though she had been born to travel the roads as a wandering performer. Behind her, her companions donned their flamboyant outfits, bright silks and patterned robes stitched to draw the eye. They sold themselves as high-class entertainers, masters of art and drama. In truth, their repertoire was shallow from half-remembered dances, snatches of melodies, and staged duels turned into dramatic performances, but they had never once failed to convince the untrained masses. As blades in the dark, deception was their craft, and this guise had carried them far.

The guard tapped the wooden shaft of his spear against the ground, eyes narrowing as he scanned Ye Yong’s papers. “And where exactly did you lot crawl out from?” he asked, his tone carrying that practiced suspicion of one who had his job.

Ye Yong dipped her head respectfully, her lips curving into a rehearsed smile. “We are from a village at the edge of civilization,” she began, voice steady but edged with the sorrow of someone who had seen too much. “Once, it was a humble place, nothing more than farmers, hunters, and children laughing by the fields. But wild beasts came first, prowling down from the ridges. Then bandits followed, picking apart what little remained after each raid. Bit by bit, the walls crumbled, the people fled, and the name of our home was lost, as though it had never been etched upon the land at all.”

She paused deliberately, letting the weight of silence linger, before continuing. “We call ourselves the Old Willow Troupe, to honor the only thing that endured when everything else was gone. In our home’s center stood a single willow tree, weathering storm, claw, and fire. It was the last to fall, and so we carry its name, hoping its memory grants us the same resilience.”

The guard shifted uneasily, clearly unused to such a dramatic introduction. “That so? Haven’t heard of it,” he muttered.

Ye Yong nodded, her voice flowing with the confidence of someone who had practiced every syllable. “You wouldn’t have. It was too small, too far removed. Our people were scattered like seeds on barren soil. Some went east, some west. We… we chose to wander, to survive by whatever skill we still had. Some of us learned to perform, to bring joy where sorrow lingered. A troupe born from ashes, you might say.” She allowed just a shade of wistfulness to color her words, enough to seem heartfelt without sounding rehearsed.

The man’s frown deepened as she pressed forward, her tale tumbling in deliberate waves. “I don’t ask for pity, only for passage. We have little left but these songs, these dances, these small sparks of art to remind us we still live. That is why we travel, why we stand here before you.”

Her words were not laced with grandeur, nor too extravagant for belief. It was a simple tale of misfortune, woven with the threads of hardship any soul in the Hollowed World could understand. And indeed, Ye Yong knew that well. Though the Hollowed World seemed endlessly different from the False Earth she once knew… the factions, the sects, and the sprawling territories… at their heart they shared the same cruelty. Villages swallowed by beasts, towns bled dry by bandits, homes abandoned in the night; these stories were not uncommon. Her lie was merely a mirror of the world’s truth.

The guard sighed as her story pressed on, his grip on the spear loosening with every passing moment. His eyes glazed, as though caught between irritation and fatigue. “Alright, alright, I get it,” he grumbled, waving her off as though shooing away an unwanted breeze. “Go on, go on. Just… spare me the rest of your sad songs. I’ve heard enough.”

Ye Yong bowed slightly, hiding the smirk tugging at her lips. With a grunt, the guard stepped aside, letting the troupe pass through the gates.

The streets buzzed with the hum of daily life, but beneath the noise was a current of dissatisfaction. As Ye Yong and her troupe slipped into the flow of commoners heading toward the market and central plaza, she caught fragments of conversation.

“Did you see the price of grain today? It’s gone up again.”

“At this rate, even porridge will become a luxury.”

“And the officials claim there’s no shortage. Ha! Easy for them when their tables are full.”

Their voices blended together, low and bitter, but clear enough to paint a picture of simmering unrest. Ye Yong kept her expression even, neither sympathetic nor dismissive. Such murmurs were valuable to note, yet dangerous to dwell on too long.

Inwardly, her thoughts spiraled elsewhere. The war was building, but slower than expected. Her liege had spoken of a world-spanning conflict looming over the Hollowed World, yet so far the escalation felt muted. On the False Earth, they had endured something beyond comprehension… wars shaped by forces that towered over human schemes. Even then, she had grasped only fragments of the truth, but the shadows behind it all were enough to haunt her. Here, in the Hollowed World, the stakes felt even heavier.

The scale alone was staggering. Hundreds of continents, each vast enough to house countless nations and sects, were woven into this plane. To imagine the scope of an all-out war across such an expanse was to invite madness. Her liege might be ready to confront it head-on, but Ye Yong’s heart knew this conflict was no mere echo of what they had left behind. This would dwarf it, a tide of blood and ambition ready to swallow anything unprepared.

The troupe broke into the central plaza, where the press of bodies thinned into a wide open space. Ye Yong moved with careful purpose, guiding her disguised assassins to the chosen spot. They laid out a broad mat, its fabric carefully stitched with the words ‘Old Willow Troupe’ in bright thread, alongside a polite message of thanks for their patrons’ generosity.

Props emerged from hidden packs, polished instruments gleamed in the sun, and their tools of deception took shape in the open. The vocalist cleared her throat as the beatbox specialist adjusted his stance beside her, ready to give rhythm to their act. Behind them, the musicians formed a careful half circle, their placement drilled in through repeated rehearsals. The dancers took their mark at the front, their posture elegant but calculated, each movement an invitation to draw in wandering eyes.

“Should we go with number two?” one of the musicians asked as they unpacked their instruments.

“But we just did rock and roll in the last city,” another protested, tugging at his flashy sleeve.

“I wanted to do pop… Or maybe we go traditional?” a dancer chimed in, bouncing on her heels.

Ye Yong folded her arms, her tone calm but decisive. “No. We go with number five.”

Her words ended the bickering. The troupe knew better than to press once she had chosen. Around them, curious commoners slowed their steps, craning their necks at the flamboyant group assembling in the plaza.

“What are they supposed to be?” a vegetable seller muttered to her neighbor.

“Some traveling performers, I think,” the man replied, squinting. “Never seen costumes like those.”

“They look like peacocks,” another said, though his eyes lingered with interest.

A sharp, steady beat resounded as the troupe’s beatbox specialist drew in a breath and let rhythm ripple from his chest, punctuated by percussive taps from his throat. The musicians joined seamlessly, lute strings thrummed, zither notes cascaded like water, and flute melodies wove light tones between the crash of cymbals and the deep roll of drums.

Then the vocalist, a small dainty woman whose delicate frame belied her force, leaned into the beat. Her words came quick and sharp, rapped in cadence that stunned the crowd into silence. The dancers followed, breaking into a sequence of twists, freezes, and spins that few had ever witnessed in these streets. Each move was sharp yet flowing, their bodies weaving patterns drilled into them long before. They had their liege to thank for such choreography.

Ye Yong allowed herself the faintest smile, though her mind never left the mission. The reason they could flaunt themselves so openly was not mere bravado. The Night Blades had learned the art of suppressing their Spiritual Pressure until it seemed they were no different from ordinary mortals. That ability had not come freely… it was earned through brutal training under the shadow of her liege’s Hell Soul, the same Hell Soul that now resided within her heart.

The training had lasted over a month, each day a relentless ordeal. Every lesson drove them to refine suppression until not a single ripple of their power could be felt. Yet it had not ended there. They had been forced to master techniques that would serve in battle and subterfuge alike from Flash Step, Lion’s Courage, Hollow Point, Blessed Regeneration, Halo of Restriction, etc. Each name still carried the sting of exhaustion etched into her bones. And, as if to salt the wound, the Hell Soul had trained them in performance arts, turning assassins into entertainers. It was cruelly absurd, yet strangely effective.

Now, that discipline bore fruit. Where the commoners saw flamboyant performers, Ye Yong saw weapons honed to perfection, every movement precise and deliberate.

Slipping away from the center, she wove into the edges of the plaza. Her eyes never left her troupe as she found her perch in the shadows of a stall’s awning. Watching them from a distance, she measured their execution and the gathering crowd’s reactions, weighing how long they could remain in one place before suspicion outweighed spectacle.

The beatboxer’s rhythm deepened, thundering through the open plaza like a heart made of stone and fire. Musicians layered their sound atop his beat, strings and woodwinds weaving together until the dainty vocalist stepped forward, her voice sharp and measured. She rapped with a cadence that cut clean through the air, her lyrics spilling like water on parched soil:

"Yo—

I walk the jade path, clouds under my feet,

Qi flow steady, my rhythm complete.

Not here for bloodshed, I let the sword sleep,

Lotus blooms in my heart, roots planted deep.

Warriors chase fame, clash steel in the rain,

But I cultivate calm, let go of the pain.

Why spill rivers red when rivers can heal?

Seal blades away, let the silence reveal.

Peace!"

The crowd stirred, the vocalist raising a peace sign. Whispers broke out among the commoners who had gathered. 

“Did she just… say peace?” one muttered in disbelief. 

Another frowned, uncertain. “Strange words for a time like this.”

A third, more daring, chuckled and clapped. “Still, it has rhythm. Makes my feet want to move!”

The dancers flipped and twisted with perfect precision, each breakdance move punctuated by an eruption of colors from their flowing silks. Children squealed with delight, while older men and women watched with a mix of awe and discomfort. Some recoiled at the clash of beats and rhythm, too harsh and too loud for their ears, but others leaned forward, caught by its raw energy. Even a handful of high-born nobles perched at the plaza’s edge nodded in approval, their jeweled sleeves twitching as though tempted to join the rhythm.

Ye Yong stood silent at the back, her eyes sharp as she took in every detail. “The commoners are uncertain, yet drawn to it. The middle-class seems curious but cautious. The high-born approve, likely because it is new and strange, not because they understand it. Yes… number five was the right choice after all.”

She reminded herself that this was part of her responsibility. Before any performance, she made her own assessment of the ground they were treading. She had heard the city lord liked innovation, even if he had little fondness for music. He was a patriot, one who had once served the Martial Alliance with fervent loyalty, a man whose core belief lay in fairness. This knowledge shaped her troupe’s choice. A song about peace and unity was dangerous in its boldness, but also irresistible to the ears of a man who respected ideals more than melody.

The beat carried on, holding the crowd’s attention, which gave Ye Yong the opening she needed. She melted into the throng, slipping between merchants and townsfolk, her movements smooth and unremarkable. Every step was deliberate. The troupe created the distraction, but she was the knife in the dark, sliding where eyes refused to look. With the Hell Soul dwelling in her heart, she could have forced her way to whatever she wanted, breaking locks and bending wills. Yet she knew better. True efficiency meant using the path of least resistance, leaving no trace, and stepping on no one’s tail.

Her gaze drifted toward the alleyways lining the plaza. Faint carvings etched in brick, a mark that seemed to mean nothing to the untrained eye. A flicker of cloth dyed in a shade too plain to be a coincidence. A whispered trade of coins hidden in folded paper. Ye Yong’s lips curved faintly. “Signs of the underground… clear as day.”

The training she had endured and the cultivation she bore allowed her to recognize these subtle patterns with ease. She knew what they were… the veins of the city, hidden yet vital, the network that thrived beneath the surface of every great settlement.