The Plague

Bai Town had originally been a Waystation — a transportation hub connecting the major Safe Zone fortresses — and over time had grown from a simple waystation village into a proper town.

Towns like this, nestled near Safe Zones and military fortresses, tended to attract all sorts: merchants, Hunter-mages, Military Mages, Magic Association members, Field Expedition students, Noble Clan representatives... and of course, the occasional wanted criminal or Tribunal agent lurking somewhere in the mix.

Ordinarily, security in Bai Town was relaxed at best — the place functioned as a black market of sorts, answerable to no single faction. Whatever treasures Hunter-mages brought back from the wilds, or whatever gains military personnel had managed to keep off the official books, it all found its way here for trade...

"What's going on — they're checking everyone one by one?" Mo Fan stood in the entry queue, genuinely puzzled.

"You don't know, young brother." The man beside him — dark-skinned, with the build and bearing of a seasoned hunter — kept his voice low. "There's a disease spreading fast lately. Quite a few people inside Bai Town have already been quarantined. They're requiring everyone entering to get checked now — making sure they're not carrying it."

"Oh. Oh, I see." Mo Fan breathed a quiet sigh of relief. *I thought something serious had happened.*

Their flight with the Totem Xuan Serpent was ultimately a matter of defying Councillor Zhu Meng — a murky, ambiguous charge at best, and surely not serious enough to warrant checkpoints at every transit hub in the region. Besides, Bai Town answered to no one. If the Tribunal wanted surveillance here, they'd have to post their own people at the gate; they had no grounds to press Bai Town's residents into service for their Hidden Danger Strategy.

The inspection was purely routine. Mo Fan and Tang Yue both came up clean and were waved through without delay — not even an identity check.

The moment they stepped into Bai Town, both of them noticed something was wrong.

Normally the main street hummed with the energy of a proper market district — shops, street stalls, multi-story trading houses, commercial halls, merchant guilds, all packed tightly together with heavy foot traffic. It made sense: this was where the Mages who dealt with Demon-Beasts came to rest and do business.

Today the street was nearly deserted. The stalls were gone entirely. A few shops remained open, barely, but almost no one came or went. Even the trading halls, which fared a little better, were a shadow of their usual bustle.

Tired from the road, Mo Fan and Tang Yue found themselves an inn — the kind that didn't ask for identification.

The place was nothing special. While Mo Fan waited at the front desk for the room key, he noticed the girl behind the counter was wearing a white surgical mask. "This plague seems pretty serious," he remarked.

The girl looked up at him with wary eyes, clearly the skittish type.

She rummaged around for some time before finding the key, but didn't say a word.

The landlady beside her spoke up with a cheerful smile: "You can say that again. Ever since that giant snake appeared, this plague has spread across the whole Hangzhou region. If you ask me, that snake was real — all that talk of 'images' and 'footage,' the government always puts out news nobody believes."

"How do you know the plague has anything to do with the snake?" Mo Fan asked, genuinely puzzled.

"The sickness appeared just one week ago," the landlady said. "I'm no Mage myself, but even I know the Serpent Clan is mostly venomous. Think about it — a snake that enormous, if it started spreading its venom, wouldn't that be an epidemic right there? The way I see it, they'd better find that snake fast. If the disease keeps spreading, people are going to start dying!"

"Mom, that's all stuff you heard from other people," the masked girl finally spoke up.

"It all adds up," the landlady replied. "Things don't line up that neatly by coincidence."

Mo Fan chatted with them a moment longer, then took the key upstairs. Tang Yue, whose current situation made her identity far too sensitive to risk, had avoided the lobby altogether — she'd muttered something about the bathroom and slipped upstairs ahead of him.

Mo Fan found her waiting upstairs. "Did you catch what they were saying down there?"

Tang Yue gave a small nod, biting her lip gently, but said nothing.

"Are you hiding something from me?" Mo Fan couldn't help asking when he saw her expression.

Still no answer. In her eyes, he could make out traces of unease she was struggling to conceal.

"Never mind for now. Let's get to our rooms — you need rest too," Mo Fan said.

At the room, Mo Fan unlocked the door. Tang Yue stepped inside, visibly weighed down by her thoughts, then turned back to him: "Go to your own room. I need some time alone."

"Well, um... the landlady did mention this was the last room available today." Mo Fan scratched the back of his head with a look of convincing sheepishness.

Tang Yue looked up at his completely shameless face, caught somewhere between irritation and the urge to laugh. "With Bai Town this dead quiet? You really think I'll fall for that?"

"We'd look out for each other if we shared a room," Mo Fan offered.

"Get lost — go downstairs and find yourself another room. I know exactly what kind of person you are!"

"Teacher Tang Yue..."

The door **slammed** shut in his face. He even heard the deadbolt click. *So much for the classic period-drama routine.*

Mo Fan trudged off to get another room, flopped onto the bed without so much as washing his face, and was out cold.

In the room next door, Tang Yue dragged a chair out onto the balcony and sat down.

The building had been converted from a residential apartment block into an inn, so every room came with its own balcony.

The sky was fully light by now, but a pall of dread had settled over what had once been a thriving Bai Town. The occasional figure drifted between streets — each one masked, each one moving with hurried, anxious purpose.

Health stations, red medical crosses, healthcare workers swathed head to toe in protective gear, ambulances wailing past...

Tang Yue had been so consumed with worry over the Totem Xuan Serpent these past days that she hadn't realized how badly the plague had been spreading across the Hangzhou region.

"Mo Fan, are you asleep?" After a long hesitation, she finally called out toward the room beside hers.

"Not sleeping, not at all!" Mo Fan shot up from his bed like a spring.

"Why did you jump over here!" Tang Yue glared at him as he landed on her balcony, having apparently leaped straight across from his own.

"I didn't want anyone eavesdropping on us," Mo Fan said, perfectly self-righteous about it.

"I don't want to lie to you."

"So this plague really is connected to your god?" Mo Fan pressed.

"I... I don't know," Tang Yue said.

"But you told me it has no venom during the transformation period..."

"That's true. It genuinely has no venom during the transformation."

"No venom, and yet a plague is still spreading." Mo Fan let out a rueful laugh. "Your clan leader had you take it away not just to keep it from Councillor Zhu Meng's execution — he also wanted to get the source of this epidemic out of the city, didn't he?"

Tang Yue bit down harder on her lip. A long silence passed before she finally looked up, her eyes holding a quiet, stubborn resolve. "I believe the plague has nothing to do with it."

"What you believe is your own business, Teacher Tang Yue," Mo Fan sighed, at a loss for what else to say.

"Mo Fan, I... I don't know what to do." Tang Yue was completely at a loss.

"Think rationally. Hand it over to the Councillor. Like the landlady said, people could start dying in a matter of days. You saw what Bai Town looks like. If this plague really does take lives, the toll could reach hundreds, thousands. That's not a weight you can carry alone, Teacher Tang Yue."