Chapter 17Three Minutes

As twilight fades into the horizon, Tiantan is being swallowed into the night. The humid air presses close, thick with the weight of approaching storm clouds that swallow the stars into their vast, dark embrace. Only a few faint candlelights remain visible in windows across the valley—families settling in for evening meals, unaware that three li to the west, warriors fought for their very survival.

In the town square’s inn, a young girl stands frozen at her window, one eye pressed to a celestial monocle that transforms distant darkness into crystalline clarity.

Through Zobito’s transmission, Peach witnesses the battle beyond her wildest imagination. Distant steel clash and CelestCore armour glows pierce through the transmission’s limitations. She takes a deep breath to process what’s going through her mind. A young general leading his soldiers in divine armour, clashing against the Yaoguai horde. Fox Spirits yipping commands from above the trees, Husks swarming like angry insects, and an enhanced Rock Guai that makes the earth tremble with each step. Celestial weapons catching the last rays of twilight as they blur through purple poison smog. Trapped, they formed defensive phalanxes, CelestCore cuirasses blazing like small suns to burn away the suffocating haze.

And she remembers the masked assailant.

Even through the scope, even at this distance, the look on the grotesque mask clenched Peach’s breath. The way the assailant moved—too fast for her eyes to track, and striking with deadly precision more horrifying than what the mask tries to symbolise.

“Then the wind changed…” Peach breathed.

Zobito’s voice crackles through the connection. “Mortal ingenuity wielding celestial tools. Sometimes the heavens smile upon the brave, and other times… they need more than just a blessing.”

“You turned the tide for the Riders.”

“I turned my Wheels of the Sanctuary, yes.” There’s a pause, then Zobito adds with an air of modesty. “I must praise the young general’s intelligence, though, to use heat to elevate the smog.”

“Zobito, they’re hurt. Should we—”

“Wait.” Zobito’s voice sharpens. “Something’s wrong.”

The visor’s view shifts as Zobito pivots, scanning. Through the darkening woods, through clearings and over ridgelines, new movement catches the enhanced optics. There—distant yipping. Three massive shapes lumbering through the underbrush. And there—shadows flowing between trees, too many to count, all moving with singular purpose.

All heading toward Tiantan.

“No…” Peach’s hand clutches the window frame. “But they just retreated!”

“That wasn’t a retreat. That was a diversion.” Zobito’s voice carries the cold calculation of tactical assessment. “The General and his Riders were never the true target. Tiantan is.”

The visor’s view begins to shift, Zobito turning back toward the town. “Peach, listen to me carefully. I’m returning now, but it’ll take me approximately three minutes to reach you. You need to get the townspeople to safety immediately. Don’t wait for me. Every second counts.”

“Alright!” Peach pulls the monocle away from her eye. Her hands are shaking. Her heart pounds against her ribs like it wants to escape her chest entirely. This is about the farm girls who welcomed her. The children who peeked around corners with wide, curious eyes. The innkeeper snoring downstairs. Every person in this valley who treated a stranger with kindness, who made her feel welcome when she had no reason to expect welcome at all.

They don’t need a hero—just a warning.

And Peach has three minutes to give them one.

She turns from the window and runs.

Stop!

“Hold up.” Peach turns back sharply, her heart still racing from Zobito’s urgent warning. Three minutes. She has three minutes before Zobito gets back, and she’s worried about traumatizing the innkeeper. The weight of responsibility presses down, but practical problems demand practical solutions. “That headless body is hella creepy, and I’m about to leave it alone with the innkeeper.”

She yanks her blanket over Zobito’s sitting body, then pauses. The distant sound of yipping carries on the wind—too faint for most ears, but her heightened senses catch it. Three minutes. She has three minutes before the Zobito gets back, and she’s worried about traumatizing the innkeeper.

“Priorities, Peach,” she mutters to herself, then plucks a small cloth sack and fills it with the inn’s complementary bean stew. With dramatic flair, she places the sack of wet beans under Zobito’s mask and balances it atop the blanket-wrapped figure like a haunted statue trying to nap.

“Perfect,” she whispers while wiping her wet hands over her pants. “Totally convincing. And if anyone asks, this was definitely a strategic decision, not me panicking about interior decoration.”

She glances toward the window where distant shadows move through the trees.

“Hey Mr Innkeeper! My master is napping, don’t wake her up!” And then she runs off—ducking out the side door and sprinting toward the square, leaving behind what might be the world’s most unconvincing disguise.

Inside the inn, all is quiet. The only sounds are a fly buzzing lazily near the ceiling and the innkeeper snoring with rumbling consistency behind the front desk.

At the foot of the stairs, two small heads peek around the corner.

“See? I told you.” The older girl whispers, her two buns bouncing as she nods with the authority of someone who has solved a great mystery. “She hasn’t moved at all. Definitely a Jiangshi zombie.”

“Jiangshi have seals stuck on their foreheads.” Her younger brother whispers back, eyes wide with the confidence of someone who has heard exactly one story about Jiangshi and now considers himself an expert. “That’s how that girl manages to control it. She knows Golden Order magic.”

“The seal must be under that mask.”

They creep up the stairs, tiptoeing with exaggerated care until they’re through the door. Zobito’s body slumps on the floor in its lifeless stillness—arms resting beneath the blanket, mask peacefully on top, without a worry in the world like a meditating monk dozing off to a nice nap.

The boy gives his older sister a look of daring that only children can manage—equal parts bravery and complete lack of understanding about consequences.

“Go take off that mask.”

“Yeek… maybe the girl’s not lying, the mask’s just to cover a face full of pimples.”

“Well, we’ll never know. Let’s prove it’s a Jiangshi and save the town.”

“Yeek… what if it really is?”

“Then hold your breath. The big kids say if you don’t breathe, Jiangshi can’t see you.”

“Who told you that?”

“Chen Wei. He knows everything about monsters.”

“Chen Wei also said that throwing your milk teeth on the roof makes your teeth straight.”

“That’s different. That’s about teeth. This is about not getting eaten by a zombie.”

With the full confidence of children on a mission they don’t fully understand, she reaches up on her tiptoes and gently lifts the mask.

What she finds is a burlap sack of wet beans.

The beans stare back at her with ancient, leguminous wisdom.

”…What?” she squeals, her voice carrying the particular pitch of childhood confusion when reality fails to match expectations.

And then, as if on cue, the sack slips sideways. The mask tumbles off and thumps onto the wooden floor, splattering bean stew everywhere in a pattern that suggests either calligraphic expression or complete chaos.

“YOU SPLATTERED ITS BRAIN!!!” The boy screams with the enthusiasm of someone who has just witnessed the most exciting thing in their entire life.

The girl screams louder, because that’s what older sisters do when younger brothers scream—they must scream louder to maintain the natural order of things.

Zobito’s body, now without a head or its mask, twitches.

“Peach. Come in Peach. Are you there?” A cracking voice emits from the headless body, carrying the urgency of someone who knows that time is running out and danger approaches. “I am nearby. I am coming for you now.”

“IT’S COMING TO GET US!!!”

And just as they turn to flee, the headless body suddenly jerks to life. It stands up with mechanical movements, slips out of its robe to reveal its metallic body, and moves toward the children’s direction with steady steps.

“IT’S ALIVE!!!” the kids shriek in unison, tightly holding each other with the particular grip of children who have just discovered that their world is much stranger than they thought.

Suddenly, it readies itself into a sprinting stance. Orange lights ripple down its body and, with a burst of energy, it bolts down the stairs with mechanical precision, charging full speed straight through the inn’s wall in a crash of splinters and dust.

The innkeeper snorts himself awake downstairs, blinks once, sees the hole in the wall, and doses off right back to sleep—because sometimes, when you’ve lived in a town long enough, you learn that some things are better left unexplained.

Outside, the yipping grows louder. The shadows draw closer. And two children, still shivering nervously about their adventure with the headless body, remain blissfully unaware that their hometown is about to change forever.