After some time, Han Yu comes out of the tiny kitchen carrying a tray with three steaming bowls of rice.

The children immediately rise to attention. The youngest boy finally drops the chicken bone he has been gnawing on the entire time.

"I could only make rice with some dried mushrooms as garnish, everything else was spoiled."

He deposits each bowl in front of the children and hands all of them a pair of chopsticks, although neither of them is able to observe proper table etiquette.

Han Yu's expression grows more somber as he watches them eat ravenously.

Xi Zirui tells him what A-Jiu said.

"That doctor again, the waiter at that roadside inn mentioned them too."

Xi Zirui nods, drumming his fingers against the scarred tabletop. "Maybe we should pay the good doctor a visit."

A-Jiu's little head snaps up from her bowl the moment the words leave Xi Zirui's lips. "Please, gege, don't go. You'll disappear just like mama and papa."

Her humid eyes are huge and pleading when she turns them on Xi Zirui. He doesn't know what to do besides pat her awkwardly on the head.

"There, there," he says, looking at her as if she might bite. "We'll be fine."

Han Yu watches him handle the little girl and smiles at his awkwardness.

"Don't worry, little A-Jiu, your geges are very strong!" he flexes his biceps at her which wrests a giggle out of her. "Come on, eat your food. There's still a lot of rice in the pantry, I'll teach you how you can make more."

Xi Zirui fishes inside his robes and produces a pouch of silver taels that Su Xueyi gave him. He dumps its contents on the table and nods towards A-Jiu. "You can buy some more food with this as well, but don't buy a lot at once. Food spoils."

A-Jiu looks at the mountain of silver in awe, her tiny fingers shaking on her bamboo bowl.

---

Han Yu adds some more of his own silver to Xi Zirui's pile, and promises A-Jiu that they'll find her parents.

Once outside, he admits, "I'm just not sure if we'll be able to find them alive."

Xi Zirui agrees. "What is this doctor doing, and why is everyone else convinced nothing is going on?"

Xi Zirui might not worry about human's well-being naturally, but he falls victim to curiosity like the best of them.

Besides, whatever is happening in Peiya can have repercussions for Heavenly Dragon sect, and Xi Zirui wants to catch the opportunity with both hands.

He and Han Yu wander the deserted streets for a while longer, inspecting every signboard for indication of a doctor or their clinic.

Finally, at the end of a narrow street, they get lucky.

The carved sign hanging above the door announces Physician's Wei's practice, but everything looks dark when they put their faces to the paper window panes.

"Maybe they're asleep already."

"Too bad," Xi Zirui says, landing a swift kick on the front door, making the entire house rattle. "Is anybody home? We have a medical emergency."

He's about to kick the door a second time when it bangs open, revealing a young woman with disheveled hair and half-fastened robes.

"What's the emergency?" she asks, looking from Xi Zirui to Han Yu bleary-eyed.

"We'd rather not say here, can we come in?" Han Yu asks, already making his way inside.

Xi Zirui follows after him, amused at the sleepy doctor's attempts to regain control of the situation.

"This is very rude," she says, watching on hopelessly as the two of them take a sweeping look around the room where she sees patients. Looking into jars and pots indiscriminately. "Please don't touch that," she says, when Xi Zirui looks like he's about to open a clay pot.

"Why, is this the cause for all the disappearances in Peiya?"

She looks at him as if he has grown a second head. "What?"

Xi Zirui puts the pot back on its shelf, and turns to the young doctor. "Physician Wei, how long have you been a doctor?"

The woman sputters, tightening the robes around herself. "Well, I, a few years, but I've only opened my practice in Peiya two months ago or so."

Han Yu changes a meaningful look with Xi Zirui. "Around the time A-Jiu's father disappeared most likely."

Xi Zirui nods. "Followed shortly after by her mother."

Physician Wei looks between the two of them as if she's trying to make sense of a child's finger painting.

Han Yu turns to the young doctor. "Are you aware that people are disappearing from Peiya village?"

"And that hungry ghosts seem to be showing up in their stead?"

The doctor looks to be on the verge of tears. "Please, I don't have much money, but whatever you can find feel free to take."

"We're not interested in money," Han Yu says, walking up to the young doctor with a vicious glare. "We only want to know what's going on here."

The woman shakes her head, her hands trembling. "I don't know anything, I'm sorry. I didn't know people were missing."

The oddest thing is that Xi Zirui doesn't think she's lying. Her panic is too genuine for someone who is only trying to deceive them.

He pulls Han Yu back by the arm. "Let me try and talk with her."

Xi Zirui expects Han Yu to put up more of a fight, but he just steps away from the doctor and lets Xi Zirui approach her.

It's not like Xi Zirui is a better interrogator than Han Yu, but unlike him, his judgement isn't clouded by how furious he is at the grim fate that has befallen Peiya.

"Where did Physician Wei study?"

He can tell that's the last thing she expects him to ask her, but judging by how wide her eyes grow, she's probably wishing Han Yu kept pestering her with accusations.

"I-, I don't know how that's relevant."

"Who did you apprentice under?"

"The, physician...uhm."

"Physician Tang?" Xi Zirui asks, saying the first name that comes to his mind.

The woman nods enthusiastically, like a drowning person clinging to a lifeline. "Yes, he was my master."

Xi Zirui nods. "Interesting, considering I just made him up."

Across from them, Han Yu glares at the shivering woman. "It's time you told us what is really going on here."

---

Physician Wei sits down by the shuttered window, her shoulders slumped and her features haggered.

"I really, don't know anything about any disappearances," she says, shaking her head. "I just wanted to be a doctor and help people."

"But you didn't study for it," Xi Zirui says. "Didn't apprentice under any established doctors?"

Slowly, she nods.

"My family was too poor, they didn't have the money to send me or my siblings to learn any trades."

Han Yu nods in understanding, easily swayed by a sob story apparently.

Xi Zirui is less naive.

"Is there any other physician in Peiya village?" he asks.

A little flustered, the woman shakes her head. "No."

"So your motives to establish a practice here weren't exactly altruistic, were they?" Xi Zirui leans towards her, boxing her in against the wall. "I mean, as the only doctor in Peiya, you must be making quite a lot of money."

Her expression shifts, some of the teary vulnerability vanishes.

"Why would I harm my own patients then? What would I get from that? It's best for me if they are alive and well so they can return often," her eyes flash with barely restrained hatred and Xi Zirui smirks.

He has her where he wants now.

"Where did you learn your medical skills?" he asks. "You must have produced some sort of record for the county magistrate to allow you to open a practice. More than that, you would need some display of your competence."

She stays quiet for some time, her gaze shifting.

Han Yu rises to his feet. "We are cultivators, we have ways to make you tells us the truth, but you probably won't like them."

"Fine," she spits odiously. "I saved a snake spirit I found in the woods. It was trapped in one of those arrays you cultivators like to set up to catch its kind and I set it free. It granted me a boon."

"It gave you medical skills?" Han Yu asks, his eyebrows raising up to his forehead. "For setting it free?"

Xi Zirui looks between the woman and Han Yu, he thinks there's more to this story, but he's willing to see where she's going to take it.

"Apparently, some snake spirits can grant minor wishes. Learning a trade isn't something major," she says with a shrug.

"You're well informed about spirit creatures... curious for someone with no formal teaching or cultivation abilities."

She glares at him, needled.

"You cultivators want to hoard all the knowledge to yourselves. Keep us all common folk in the dark about the things you do...well, some of us aren't idiots. We know that if you care so much about catching these spirit creatures it must be because they're valuable."

Xi Zirui's smirk widens, he has her now.

"Which is why you set the trap yourself. You wanted to catch a spirit creature and see what benefits it could grant you." He shakes his head. "But you were outsmarted, and now everyone in Peiya is paying the price of your arrogance."