"All Wukong had to do was to borrow the Plantain Fan from the Iron Princess, but he has done many wrongs. He was the one who destroyed Lord Tao's crucible and reduced a part of the world into a dessert as the flaming pieces fell from the sky. The Iron Princess refused. After all, why would she, a High Immortal, help a dirty little monkey?"

The Plantain Fan—The Ninety-Nine Scriptures

CHAPTER TEN

The morgue smelled just as I remembered.

The morgue of Jinlun was a large one. Hundreds of bodies were brought here to be exterminated every day, and its fires were said to rise so high, they touched the heavens. But to me, the size of the fire did not matter. What mattered was no one was going to miss a few bodies. Or their faces.

With a thick wad of cloth pressed over my mouth and the curved sickle in the sky lighting my way, I walked among the row of bodies awaiting the pyre in the morning, searching for the faces I needed.

The stench was overwhelming. Even as a mortal, I found the odor so offensive, I could pass out. But now, with my heightened senses as half-Immortal, the smell attacked me fervently, diffusing even through the cloth I'd sprayed with perfume before entering. The corpses Donghwa had given me to train with were odorless, preserved perfectly with his powers, but he'd refused to let me use any of those faces.

A true Facechanger harvests their own faces, he had said with a most contemptuous look. Your skills will truly be tested only when you're required to be independent.

Row after row, I pulled back the white sheet covering the bodies to look at their faces. I needed three. One to get me into the Jade City, one to get me into the Palace and the crown prince's side, and one for good measure.

I wished there was another way to obtain faces, but Donghwa had shaken his head and laughed.

There are three types of faces. The first type is the painted face. A painted face can be drawn onto any paper and then worn for one day, but it doesn't last. Painted faces wear off after sundown and you will need to paint a fresh face to use in the morning. The second type of Faces is the mortal face. To obtain a mortal face, you will need to skin the face of the person you wish to turn into and wear that. Unlike a painted face, a mortal face will never wear off. The last kind of Facechanging is the immortal face. Any Facechanger who wears the face will obtain its raw and original powers.

I stopped at the fifth row where the face of a young man caught my attention.

The dead man had a thin face and high cheekbones. He looked somewhere in his thirties, a man who could have been married and with children. Young enough to be in the army, honest-looking enough to be trusted with a military position. I wondered how he died. There were no wounds on his body, from what I could see, and he looked too well-fed to be a slave who had died from labor.

You need to work swiftly, Donghwa's voice was clear in my head. The moment life flees a human, the body starts to decompose. You have less than one day to obtain their faces or else you would have a rotting corpse to work with, unless you're a High Immortal who can preserve the dead.

I whipped the scalpel strapped to my waist, removed the scabbard, and pressed the tip of the blade into the man's face, just below the hairline.

Normal metal wouldn't make the cut. Before I left the Forest of a Thousand Faces, Donghwa had presented me with a Nerithim scalpel. The Nerithim wrought curlicue ended with an elegant twist at the hilt, where a small green glinting rhinestone sat.

Imbued with Donghwa's magic, he promised me the blade was sharp enough to cleave through anything—the perfect tool and weapon for a Facechanger. Pressed against dead flesh, the blade stopped decay in its tracks.

I kept my hands steady as I worked my way down his chin, cutting around the entire facial region. The squelch of metal against flesh fell silent as opening met closure. Then, I sunk my fingers under the skin and applied pressure upwards. It peeled as easily as clay could be carved and molded, leaving behind a perfect layer of red muscles and unmoving eyeballs as it detached from the man's face.

Truimphantly, I placed the face onto a piece of clean cloth and tucked that into the leather pouch slung around my shoulders. I still remembered the first time I skinned a person's face—I had thrown up all over the counter, much to Donghwa's disgust.

Choose! he had chided me. Nurse your abhorrence and sacrifice your friends, or swallow your disgust and save those you care for?

As the months passed in Donghwa's time bubble, the disgust ebbed away, replaced by raw intrigue and passion.

I found joy in what I did. It was slow and monotonous, the same steps over and over again, just like the loop I was trapped in with Donghwa. As the scalpel rose and fell, with every face I tugged off an unnamed corpse, I kept my head in a perfect standstill, letting myself submerge in the disturbing quietness, peeling face after face and arranging them in neat rows for Donghwa to inspect. I loved what I did, for it kept the real demons at bay.

It frightened me initially, realizing I enjoyed harvesting faces. Then, that horror waned as harvesting became a chore, and it became a part of me.

I found my second face on the eleventh row. It was a man with a face as wide as Eunuch Gui's, but more modest, and definitely kinder. Quickly harvesting it, I moved on to the remaining few rows, praying fervently to find the last face I needed.

A face so beautiful, it would render all speechless. Such beauty could be found in the Pavillion, but I was not going to step foot into that Immortal-forsaken place ever again. Donghwa had proposed I murder the daughter of a noblehouse to get her face, but her life wasn't mine to take. I was no High Immortal.

But what I could take, were faces forgotten by the mortal world, decaying flesh useless to all but my kind. I held my breath and combed through the last two rows.

Come on. Come on.

The remaining bodies were either too decomposed or were male. Dejected, I walked out of the morgue, ripped off my scarf, and took in a lungful of the cool night air.

Although I had spent months with Donghwa, not a day had passed in the mortal world. It was as if I had just left the Palace in search for answers. I still had three months to assassinate the crown prince.

As I turned to leave, I noticed a mound of bodies piled up next to a scatter of logs, ready to be set alight.

It was worth a try searching. I didn't have enough time to cross the city to find another morgue. While trapped in the veil between the Three Realms, time came to a standstill, and I didn't have to worry about losing precious moments while training. But now I was out in the mortal realm, time was real, and I needed every second of it.

I ran a gentle hand over the bodies in the pile, being as respectful toward them as I could. It was one thing to harvest, and another to trample on the dead. Then, I found my prize. The corpse had the most beautiful face I had ever seen. Her full lips were white, her lashes were dark and long, and her face fair and good. This girl was the epitome of Erden beauty—oblong eyes, white teeth, and elegant eyebrow arches.

Jealousy stung my heart, making it skip a quick beat. It was brief and sudden, but nonetheless painful. I could have been this girl if I wasn't sold to the Pavilion. My fingers went up to touch the scars on my face. When I trained with Donghwa, I kept the faces on for as long as he allowed me to. Being in another's face allowed me to forget my scarred past, and that I couldn't walk in the public without inviting looks of pity and disgust.

Grunting, I removed her body from the pile. With High Immortal blood burning in my veins, it gave me extra strength and clarity. If I were still mortal, I couldn't have done it without help.

Her lifeless hand flopped to the sides, exposing the angry purple slashes on her wrist. Dark bruises and bite marks ran all the way from her neck to her naked breasts.

Maybe we weren't so different after all.

"I need your face," I told the dead girl. "Sorry about that."

With practiced fingers, I harvested her face and tucked it away in my leather pouch. I turned to walk away, but a feeling of sorrow snagged my heart. I looked back at the faceless corpse of the girl. She could had been a pleasure lady, and finally decided she had enough. Or she could have been violated and ended herself thereafter.

I wished I had something to say to her, but the words refused to form. We were strangers, yet our lives were somewhat similar; tragedy at the hands of the Imperials and their ruthless rules. I scooped her body into my arms, lifted her over to the bed of dried sticks, and laid her in the middle of the pile.

"May you find peace in the Nine Heavens, sister."

It felt odd to have my faith in the High Immortals renewed. I had spent most of my life resenting them, convinced they were mere figments of human imagination. Months of training with a High Immortal opened my eyes to another world superimposed upon our own; neither the mortal's realm nor the Nine Heavens, but something more sublime and mythical. The High Immortals were real, but most of them were dead, reduced to nothing but faces lining the dark walls of another sad High Immortal.

I reached into my pouch and brought out a flint. Sparks flew as I struck it against a stone I found on the ground, and soon, the pyre was ablaze. I stood there for a minute or so, watching as the flames engulfed the body and reduced it into ashes.

Fear was a heavy boulder in my heart, coiled in my stomach, seeping its coldness into my palms. I gripped my scalpel tightly. I allowed myself to be afraid, to face the fear and the trauma Lord Hua had inflicted on me five years ago. There was no shame in being scared. It reminded me of my roots before I attained powers, that I was still part human.

The fire rose ever so high, and I stepped right in front of it, close enough for sweat to roll off my skin, my eyes to water, and my lungs to choke from the smoke.

Let the flames smolder me into ashes so I could rise again as a phoenix.

I wished I had paper money to burn as an offering to the bodies whose faces I had harvested. It was customary for those beloved to the deceased to burn paper offerings, so they could live a luxuries life in the Nine Heavens or haggle their way through should they land in the Eighteen Hells. Although I was nowhere close to these people, I felt a moral obligation to reciprocate what I took from them.

I bowed toward the pyre, then moved toward the unconscious guard sitting on a bench outside the morgue.

Brushing my fingers across his forehead, I whispered the words in his head.

Wake upon my leave.

Donghwa had not only taught me Facechanging; he had also passed on his knowledge of Bodystealing. It was the art of manipulating the human mind, rendering it into a state of submission so they could be controlled. But it wasn't always so easy.

Humans can feel a foreign presence in their mind, and they'd fight it, Donghwa had said. Only those drunk, weak-willed, or broken, could be swayed by a Bodystealer. Nevertheless, never let down your guard.

The guard was already half-asleep from the amount of alcohol he poured into his body, but there was still resistance, like a gust of wind tugging at a parasol from the opposite direction. It was present, but weak. I gave it a kick, and the resistance shattered immediately like old tiles.

Sleep.

He keeled over, snoring like thunder in the sky. Quickly, I adjusted the strap of my leather pouch and left for the Jade City.

JinLun was a ray away from the Jade City. I pulled out the muslin veil from my pouch and secured it to my face, covering the scars. With that, I walked out of the morgue and headed toward the populated part of the town.

I still possessed the Credits I stole from the temple. Donghwa hadn't brought the issue of my thievery up, so I assumed he either had no use for human money or decided to let the matter slide. With two silver Credits, I rented a bedroom in a reputable inn with an overarching balcony. Most importantly, there was a large mirror in the bedroom.

I bolted the door and wedged the doorknob shut with the back of a chair. Then, I sat my pouch down on the dresser and removed my veil.

There were no mirrors in Donghwa's residential plane. He insisted I use the large lotus pond in the middle of the Hall of Faces instead. Now, standing in front of a real mirror, I stepped back and took in my face.

I had my mother's face—a soft upturned heart and an easy blush; and I had my father's eyes. Left unattended for the past few months, my hair had grown to my shoulders, falling over my burned side, covering it. My fingers reached automatically for my scalpel, ready to lift it up and chop the locks, but I stopped myself.

There was no need to do that. I had my faces. Once I turned into someone else, no one would harm me. No one would dare tear my hair from its roots and force me down.

I slid the scalpel back into the leather pouch and pulled out the older man's face.

Holding the face like how one would wring a cloth, I pressed it against mine. The moment the face came in contact with my skin, it latched on like a starving man seizing bread from mercifull hands, sinking into every pore and prodding every nook and cranny, followed by the agonizing cracks of my bones as my body assumed the stature and shape of person's. The sensation of being pierced by a million needles was horrifying, but I had performed over hundreds of transformations. My spine bent, and I gripped the sides of the dresser tight as wrinkles crept over my fingers and my eyes.

I watched my reflection in the mirror as the man's face melted into mine. The seams of two overlapping skins fused together and vanished. My eyes turned from pitch black to a dark shade of acorn, my lips stretched and inflated, and my eyebrows narrowed.

LiYuan.

Facechanging allowed me to catch a brief glimpse of the person's life before they passed. Some were more than just glimpses—especially those who died a most traumatic death. This man must have died a natural death, for there was peace in his essence.

I decided to adopt his name, and at the same time, form a new identity for this face. With his face, I could easily get through the Jade City gates, for who would suspect an honest woodcutter?

With renewed vigor, I repacked my leather pouch, slung it over my shoulders, and stopped a horse-carriage making its way down the road.

I gave the driver one Bronze Credit. "Take me to the Jade City, kind sir."

The driver was a merry man smiling a most brilliant smile. He tilted his straw hat toward my direction and gestured to his carriage.

"Hop on. I'm going there myself too."

Throughout the journey, I hugged my pouch tight. My Nerithim scalpel was a buldge in the leather, pressing hard against my chest, giving me reassurance as the carriage pulled into the city I despised with my entire being.

I was coming back to save what I loved.

Several guards in red and silver armor patrolled the entrance arch, all of them clutching spears, peering into caravans, pulling people they regarded as suspicious aside, and waving others into the Jade City.

The carriage came to a halt. A guard pushed back the curtain and stared at me.

"What brings you to the Jade City?"

Don't show fear, don't give them a reason to suspect you. You're LiYuan, a woodcutter with a wife and a child.

"Oh," I said in LiYuan's deep voice. "I'm here to visit my cousin. He's very ill. The physicans believe his days are numbered. I hope to see him one last time before he leaves us."

The guard's expression relaxed. "You have my condolences. My own cousin died from a mysterious illness a few months ago, it was a tragedy for him to die so young."

"Indeed," I agreed. "The High Immortals can be merciless."

"Aye," the guard said, "But I heard there's a very good temple in the Jade City called The Golden Shrine. Go burn some offerings, light some candles, and hopefully the High Immortals will bless him with a miraculous recovery."

"I will. Thank you for your kind words."

The guard stood aside and waved for us to enter the city. He nodded and went through the gates, and I hissed out the breath I had been holding since the arch came to sight.

The ever-familiar expanse of the Jade City crept to view, and I traversed the main street where throngs of people rushed about, crying out their wares and haggling with their buyers. The scent of date candy was everywhere, suffusing every single inch of the city.

Scrunching my hands into fists, I braced myself for the impact of memories. I had expected silent tears and shaking, but somehow, I sat calmly until the driver disembarked and bade me goodbye.

With LiYuan's face over my own, there was an odd feeling of safety, a net which would catch me should I fall back into the abyss of my past. I could look people straight in the eye, feel the wind caress my cheeks. I didn't have to hide behind a veil any longer. It was liberating; a sweet breath of fresh air.

But I wasn't here to strut around. I quickly found myself a small inn and paid for a single room for the night. Once upstairs and in my room, I drew the door shut and bolted it.

I needed a detailed plan. Even with my new faces, I still couldn't waltz into the Jade Palace without permission. My eyes fell on the thin stack of papers, an ink pot, and a writing brush on the round table. I sat down, picked up the brush, and started plotting.

The crown prince's birthday was on a full moon. I scrambled to my feet and grabbed the paper calendar off the rusty hook on the wall. Full moon was the twentieth day of the month. Now that the crown prince was of age, he'd be seeking a suitable partner. High Immortals willing, he would hold a grand selection. Eligible women from all over Erden would pour into the Jade Palace, vying for his attention.

No. I shook my head. I couldn't wait that long. The crown prince was said to be a very solemn man with no interest in marital affection. Perhaps I could pose as a guard instead? Not feasible, that involved climbing the Head General's tower and stealing his seal to make myself a soldier's pass.

Think, Sarna. Who could you become to enter the Jade Palace without suspicion, yet enabled you to near the Imperials?

The answer struck me like a stone from a sling.

A slave.

The Jade Palace craved slaves. And there was only one place which provided the Imperials with the slaves they needed. The black market was always operational, no matter the time of the year. Men, women, and children continued to be abducted and auctioned off at the Duke's Bay. The Duke's Bay was the largest human auction in the Jade City, owned and run by a man named Bao. He had a hideous face resembling a squashed pig, fingers fatter than sausages, and uneven yellow teeth which jutted out whenever he guffawed. He was the one who cuffed me and dragged me onto the stage, parading me to the buyers and slavers.

The calmness surrounding me when I went through the arch vanished. All the training, all those faces, they still couldn't protect me from the one thing I desperately wished to erase from my past.

"Ten Gold Credits for this lean one. Too skinny and ugly to be a Palace whore," he had said. "But I daresay she's good for scrubbin' floors or your groin!"

The crowd of buyers had broken into laughter, then started bidding. I was sold for thirty Gold Credits.

Fingers trembling, I undid the clasp of my pouch and drew out that one face that had burned an imprint in my mind. I did not know her name, but possibly the most exquisite person I'd ever set my eyes on—thick dark tresses, pink full lips, a fair face in the prime of her youth.

The face was cold against my warm, living fingers. The large bronze mirror fixed onto the dresser loomed from the corner, sunlight glinting off the filigree in bursts of orange flares.

Beautiful women were either sold to the Palace or the Pavilion. In the past, I didn't have a chance. I couldn't fight back.

Now, I could. I had the power to pull on every string of emotion, to challenge their ideas, and change their thoughts. My plan sounded simple in my head: wear the woman's face and compel the slavers to sell me to the Jade Palace. But whether I had the courage to stay in character was debatable.

I stood up and walked toward the mirror. My gait was slow, as were my thoughts. They were trapped in a fuzzy cloud of disbelief. I fought to leave the circle, and now I was going to throw myself back in.

For Biyu, for Zichuan Theater.

I peeled off LiYuan's face and pressed the womna's skin onto my face.

The moment the face came in contact with my skin, it latched on with the force of a gale. It was like nothing I had ever experienced: like the face was angry, bursting with seething anger. I watched my reflection in the mirror as the woman's face melted into mine. The seams of two overlapping faces fused together and vanished. My eyes turned from pitch black to a light shade of bronze, my lips stretched and inflated, and my eyebrows arched. My bones snapped and stretched into her tall frame, and heavy black hair burst from my head, falling down to my waist.

Her name ripped through my mind and burst through my throat in one loud, furious roar.

QARA.

I gripped the sides of the dresser until my knuckles turned white. Panting and gasping, I blinked the lights out of my eyes and looked into the mirror.

A beautiful stranger stared back.

I lifted my hand and touched my face; the person in the mirror copied my movements. I bit my lip, she bit hers; I winked, she winked. I turned my face to and fro. The seams had vanished completely. The only trace that proved I was wearing another's face was the little ridge at the bottom of my chin. No one but a Facechanger would ever know I was wearing another's skin.

My fingers reached for the reflection in the bronze mirror. They reached back. Qara was my guarantee into the Jade Palace, and possibly the face I would be wearing to kill the crown prince.

"Thank you," I whispered.