Yuan stood up and grabbed his sword.
"Everyone stay in the main hall!" he instructed the employees. They looked at each other in confusion, huddled even closer together, and did as they were told.
The two nodded to each other in agreement before pushing open the door and rushing outside. With flying steps, they were faster than normal mortals and surrounded the demon.
In the courtyard in front of the large main hall, a shimmering black shadow swirled, reflecting the light of the sun. The laughter sounded cruel and arrogant.
"Where is she?" asked the voice as the incorporeal figure floated restlessly across the ground. The shadow turned, contracted, expanded, and flew in loops.
"You have no business here, demon," Yuan shouted angrily. The shadow paused briefly and flew a short distance toward the sky.
Yuehao prevented its escape by sending out more paper talismans and conjuring a protective circle around the property. Annoyed, the shadow began to flicker and repeatedly strike the barrier of glowing, thin lines.
"Cultists!" the demon growled angrily. The shadow began to swell.
Despite the cool air, both men were sweating. The gray sky grew darker and darker, and something ominous settled over the house. Without hesitation, Yuehao drew a sign in the air with his fingers, and Yuan did the same. At that moment, silver chains shot out and flew toward the shadow.
It screeched angrily. There was a hissing sound as the magical chains touched the demon inside the shadow. It was held fast and bound. But the demon was strong, tugging at the chains and making a hellish noise.
"This isn't good, brother," cried Yuehao, who was visibly struggling to hold the demon down.
"Hang in there, he's strong. We're stronger," Yuan encouraged him. With a deafening screech, the shadow reared up and dropped something. It was a golden hairpin with deep green stones.
"That belongs to Jiejie," cried Yuehao.
"Don't get distracted. Our sister is in the imperial palace. A demon would never set foot there. It's a trap," cried Yuan, pulling hard on the chains.
But Yuehao's brief moment of fear and inattention had loosened his side of the chains. The demon seized his chance and slipped through the hole.
"Yuehao!" His brother's voice snapped the younger boy out of his thoughts, in which his big sister was covered in blood and begging for help with her hands outstretched.
Yuan was right, Hua Jiejie would never be so easy to catch, and she was safe. The demon couldn't break through the barrier above the estate, so he tried to hide.
Yuan approached his brother and put a hand on his shoulder. He squeezed it encouragingly, sweat running down his forehead and his face red with exertion.
"Pull yourself together, Yuehao. Demons work with tricks. This one is strong, but he doesn't stand a chance against the two of us. It's our job to protect the people here," he said seriously.
Yuehao, who was sweating and out of breath himself, nodded. Right, they were from the Silver Crane Sect. It was their job to heal others, to protect them, and to rid the world of the impure and the corrupt.
"I understand," he said. Yuan smiled. So far, everyone who had fought them had been defeated. Whether evil spirits or demons, impure entities or human scum, the Zhao brothers were known to be unbeatable.
"He fled in the direction of Hua Jiejie's chambers," Yuehao remarked.
Her sister's chambers lay peacefully; if the door hadn't been wide open, no one would have noticed that something was wrong.
The small pond in her private courtyard was gradually beginning to thaw, and the water was gently rippling.
"If Jiejie ever finds out that a demon haunted her chambers, she'll never sleep again," Yuehao said angrily. Yuan sighed.
"Then we should make sure that nothing remains of him if we ever want to face her again," Yuan remarked. The two walked up the steps and entered through the door.
Yuan gave Yuehao a sign, and he sealed the door behind them with a talisman. Slowly, the two walked through the room in the semi-darkness and sealed all the windows with talismans so that the demon could not escape again.
A soft clinking sound hung in the air, but in the darkness of the abandoned room, they could not make out the individual shadows. Yuehao crept cautiously forward. The first lady's chambers were spacious.
It comprised several rooms, and the main house alone consisted of several bedrooms, a reception room, a study, and several private rooms with different views, where one could relax with tea and a good book.
Yuehao bumped into a cupboard. When he opened it, he found a selection of whips hanging neatly in a row. He picked a stick from the holder and examined the loop attached to it.
Jiejie was strict with the servants and her fiancé. As the eldest, it was her duty to maintain law and order. People had to respect her and listen to her. What she said was absolute. He hung the stick back up.
"It's really not easy being a woman," he sighed.
"You said it," a whispering, clinking voice sounded close to his ear. Yuehao spun around. But suddenly he was standing in front of the exact same cabinet, looking back. The room had mirrored itself.
"Oh no," he scratched his head. He had allowed himself to be drawn into the demon sphere.
"That's a mirror demon," he cried. Then he scolded himself. She, brother, would not be able to hear him from here. "Damn it!"
"Yuehao?" Yuan called.
His brother's aura had disappeared. Since he heard no sounds of fighting and smelled no blood, he assumed he was not dead.
He lit a fire stick and held it up. The beautiful face of a woman appeared before him. Her hair was half pinned up, her large eyes looking at him mischievously. Her smile captivated every man. She ran one of her slender, white fingers under his chin and lifted it.
"Your brother is looking for you," she whispered. Yuan grabbed his sword and struck at her. Fine cracks formed around him, and when he turned around, he noticed that the room was mirror-inverted.
"A mirror demon," he exclaimed.
"I told you, Yuan, were you also lured into her sphere?" Yuehao called out. Yuan looked around, but he couldn't find his brother.
"Looks like it," he called back.
"I'm at the door," Yuehao called out. Yuan raised his sword and ran toward the door.
He saw a figure in a white robe, but before he reached it, he ran into something hard and solid.
He heard laughter. Enraged, Yuan struck the reflection. The glass shattered, and when he turned around, he was back where he started.
"Damn it!" He tried again. This time he took a different route, but the result was the same: before he reached the door, he ran into a reflection, and when he destroyed it, he was back where he started.
"Yuehao," he called. "You mustn't destroy the reflections, they'll throw you deeper into the sphere," he shouted. Yuan listened, but got no answer.
"Oh dear, oh dear, it seems you've strayed too far from each other," the demon purred, floating past him.
She no longer hid her true form, and the jewelry in her hair and around her body clinked. Yuan took a step back. If he attacked her, he would surely only destroy another reflection and thus penetrate another level deeper.
It was like breaking a mirror and creating dozens more mirrors that reflected the image back. If you kept hitting it over and over, you would end up with thousands of tiny fragments that still reflected the unwelcome image unabated.
His brother was surely in another fragment. He wiped the sweat from his brow; everything was truly under an unlucky star.
Since they had rescued the Star Wanderer, they had rushed back without stopping. Then they had used Qi to contain the fire, and he had summoned the Water Dragon. Without sleep or food, he had immediately set about dealing with the consequences, and now he was trapped in this demon's sphere.
He felt his body weakening and the qi seeping out of him like an open wound. To catch his breath, he knelt down and leaned on his sword.
Strands of his dark hair had come loose and hung in his face. The soft laughter still echoed. A sharp sound cut through the sensitivity of the darkness. He raised his sword and fended off splinters that formed from the surroundings and rushed toward him.
The laughter grew louder as more and more splinters broke away from the surroundings. A sharp pain struck him in the side and Yuan cried out.
He felt the robe, which could no longer be supplied with enough qi to maintain the woven defense mechanisms, tear and become soaked with blood.
Another splinter pierced his thigh, and a third slowly bored into his chest. He knelt there, trapped between the mirrors, hardly daring to breathe too deeply.
Only now did the demoness's form completely detach itself from the surface and step toward him. She appeared graceful and full of beauty. Even now, as he struggled with death, he couldn't help but admire her. She smiled.
"Jingzi has you," she said softly, stepping toward him. Her red and gold robe with all its jewelry fit her flawless body like a second skin.
She leaned over him and pulled a long, pointed hairpin from her hairstyle. It was adorned with a magnificent phoenix with ruby eyes.
"If you weren't so pure and decent, my sphere wouldn't be so unpleasant for you," she whispered, stroking his cheek with her long, black fingernails. Blood dripped from the wound, staining the collar of his robe slightly red.
"You show people what they desire most and then let them perish in the illusion," he hissed through clenched teeth.
Jingzi laughed and wrapped her arms around his neck. She leaned forward so far that just one glance down would be enough to make him an immoral man. He stared intently into her eyes.
"You're right. But cultists like you are trained to hide your true desires deep within yourselves. My illusion has no effect on you," she muttered reproachfully.
"But that doesn't matter, there wasn't enough greed and depravity in you to make you blossom anyway," she said, rising again.
She stroked his cheek, chin, and then throat with the tip of her hairpin while watching him closely.
"As long as you die here!"
"Yuan, Yuan?" Yuehao called out.
"He was just here a moment ago," he cursed. He had clearly heard his brother's voice. But since then, hours seemed to have passed.
Yuehao was still standing in front of the door sealed with talismans.
They were attached mirror-inverted, so he was still in the demon's sphere. When he couldn't take it anymore, he finally decided to look for Yuan.
Moving around in the mirror sphere was not easy. Even the air clinked, and he shifted the space with every step.
"Damn it, Dage, we've been through worse than a simple demon," he hissed angrily. When he passed the closet where his sister kept the whips for the third time, he grabbed his sword and smashed it.
"Forgive me, Jiejie, but I have to get out of here," Yuehao gasped.
But instead of destroying the sphere or even scratching it, the cabinet stood before him again when he turned around.
"What the...?" He slapped his hand to his face. His brother would surely have thought of that if it had been the solution.
Yuehao thought feverishly. But every step was difficult for him. Sharp mirror shards dug into his calves like invisible daggers. He gasped in pain. No matter how many times he destroyed them, no matter how many times he reduced everything around him to rubble and ashes.
As soon as he blinked, everything looked the same as before. Well, not quite, the whole room was becoming increasingly distorted, as if he were looking through countless shards.
When he raised his head again, a sharp point pierced straight through to his throat. He swallowed. His entire robe and body had been slashed countless times. Blood seeped from his wounds, and everything itched and burned.
Normally, these wounds would be insignificant. But he was in a demonic sphere. As Yuehao slowly turned around, he felt as if he could see something on the other side of the mirror. He narrowed his eyes.
Sure enough, not far from him, behind the distortion of countless shards, he spotted his Dage. He was kneeling, and before him stood the demon in his full form.
"Yuan," he called. "Yuan Dage!" But he didn't seem to hear him.
Yuehao pricked up his ears, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't understand what the demon was saying to Yuan. He only noticed how she was wielding something sharp, dagger-like, and running it over his brother's body.
Damn it, what should he do? It was a mirror demon, a master of illusions. What spell, what weapon would be effective here in their sphere?
"Dage," Yuehao cried desperately. His brother was at the end of his strength; he had used too much qi to summon the water dragon and extinguish the fire.
"Fire!"
Yuehao's head snapped up. Of course, a fire hot enough could melt the mirror sphere and the demon.
Yuehao concentrated with all his might and shattered the shards around him. Just as they began to pierce his surroundings again, he gathered all the qi he had within him.
He took a deep breath and held it. He felt the pressure and heat building inside him. He closed his eyes as he began to burn internally. More, just a little bit more. To melt a mirror, he needed a hot flame.
He felt the fire building inside him until it became too much. Yuehao raised his index and ring fingers to his mouth. With a finger sign, he caused the flames to flare up and spread out widely. He released the pent-up qi.
The fire blazed bright blue and white. The mirrors shattered, and before new ones could form, they were melted away.
A scream rang out, followed by a deafening noise.
The sphere cracked, some cracks smaller, some larger. Fragments of the sphere collapsed. Yuehao closed his eyes as a particularly large fragment broke loose directly above him.
Yuan had picked himself up and shot towards him. With a swing of his sword, he smashed the fragment. With his last ounce of strength, he let the remaining qi flow from himself into his younger brother.
The flame was reignited and everything around them shattered. Yuehao gasped and coughed, taking a deep breath. His mouth and throat burned. They were back in their Jiejie's original room.
"Barbarians, you are barbarians," screeched the demon. Filled with fear and covered in blood, she looked up at them. Her clothes were burned and fused with her otherwise flawless skin. Her body had suffered fine cracks from which the black miasma flowed. "I hate you!" she hissed. Then she turned into black smoke and broke through the talismans sealing the window with all her might.
Made brittle and permeable by the heat, they gave way under the immense force and the demon was free.
The dark cloud swayed and could barely hold itself together, but after a few moments it had disappeared. Yuehao breathed quickly and unevenly.
"We have to go after her, we mustn't lose her trail.
Demons are vindictive; she will want revenge once she has regained her strength," he gasped.
Yuan looked at his little brother. He knew he was right, but neither of them was in any condition to chase after Jingzi. Nevertheless, he nodded. If they didn't act now, their family would soon be in grave danger.