He had been following this path for… four hours now, if he had to be realistic. Though at this point, after trudging along the narrow, barely-visible trail of pebbles through the hazy canopy of bamboo all day – without food – he was tempted to say that he was going to walk this stupid road for eternity.

He’d passed a small pond earlier, probably an old extension of the Yellow River – which he had been following, at least until a group of traveling soldiers scared him off the road. After running like a headless chicken through the forest, he’d gotten himself thoroughly lost, and it was only through sheer luck that he’d managed to find this small trail. Four hours ago.

It was now getting dark. Wearily, the man heard his stomach grumble and reached into his garments for his water flask. His tired fingers fumbled, and while he was struggling to dislodge the flask, he tripped over a protruding root and fell on his knees by the side of the road.

“… Nafan, come on.” Groaning, the man muttered forlornly to himself and took the lucky opportunity to rest his tired feet. Finally managing to free his flask, he drank the rest of the water – some two or three small gulps – and sighed heavily.

 Nine years and all he had managed to accomplish was become a homeless, jobless, defenseless nomad. And to think that he had already been scorned at back then, too. A ‘ghost,’ they called him. His skin tanned differently, his eyes were a funny pale gold, and his hair was a weird honey-brown – his mother had been a foreigner who’d lived in the palace. How she’d gotten there, Nafan had never really understood… she’d claimed to be friends with the Emperor, and yet he’d never seen them talk. In fact, the only thing that they’d had in common was an irregular interest in the lycan…

The muddy ground suddenly flew towards his face and Nafan jerked his head back in alarm, realizing that he’d been dangerously close to dozing off. Getting up, the man bent down to brush the dirt off his knees with a weary sigh… and promptly froze.

A deep shadow by the side of the road had caught his eye. No ordinary person would have seen it, but for an expert like him, it was an unmistakable sign.

A paw print. Too large for a dog, so it had to belong to some other kind of beast. A wolf, maybe, or something worse. A couple specks of leaf debris had settled over it, but that was all – the print was recent.

For a long while, Nafan stared at the print. Something tingled in the back of his head, but it was muffled by the throbbing of his headache and the whining gurgling of his stomach. Eventually, he straightened and glanced around with a spooked shiver. The shadows were lengthening by the second – if he stayed out here any longer, he was probably going to be eaten by whatever made that print.

Motivated by a fresh surge of fear, Nafan straightened his garments and set off again, muttering prayers under his breath. He jumped at every rustle, gold eyes glinting anxiously in the faint moonlight as he glanced jerkily around. But eventually, the forest showed his poor soul a sliver of mercy. Light – he caught the soft glow of lanterns from a window in the near distance, and saw that beyond a few more shrubs, the path ended in a stone staircase.

Fervently thanking the gods, Nafan broke into a run. He made it about half-way up the stone staircase before he tired himself out, and by the time he reached the front door of the house, he was almost crawling.

It was a large house, he noticed warily as he straightened and walked up to the front door. The outer walls were a mixture of brick and wood, and in the darkness they looked like they were covered in snakes – though he knew that in reality, they were just vines. Hanging above the door, an engraved clay sign creaked in the faint breeze. It read, Youmei Inn.

An inn! Well, that was all he needed to know. Heaving a sigh of relief, Nafan pulled experimentally on the painted wooden doors. They slid open, and without further hesitation he slipped inside.

Warmth, light, and the aromatic scent of tea and alcohol combined hit him full-on and Nafan almost fell to his knees again. Swallowing back his drool, Nafan fixed his garments again and stumbled forward wearily.

This was the main chamber of the inn, some sort of pub. It wasn’t busy, but for an inn this far from the Yellow River, in the middle of nowhere, he was impressed by the business. Amongst the many tables and chairs set out, there were about four parties, all men. The largest group consisted of four people who looked like soldiers. Nafan skirted around them warily, making his way instead to what looked like the front desk. An elderly man, whom he guessed was the owner, was standing there expectantly. He was giving Nafan a bewildered stare, like he thought he was hallucinating.

Already used to that look by now, Nafan walked up to the counter and smiled.

“Hello, I saw the sign. This is an inn, right? Is there space for me to eat and stay for the night?” Or a couple nights, part of him thought, but he pushed that thought back. No, no, he had to keep going, if he didn’t find a job soon he really was going to become a ghost.

“Uh…” The old man opened his mouth with a confused rasp, then turned his head and barked in a thickly accented dialect. Nafan, not quite able to understand, remained there with a smile plastered to his face until several moments later a young woman – barely more than a girl – walked in. When she saw him, her eyes lit up in that similar expression of confusion. Nafan made sure to stretch his beam a little wider.

The elder walked up to her, said some things in her ear, then walked past and left them alone. The girl raised an eyebrow and cast the old man a displeased look before turning and, somewhat resignedly, walking up to the counter.

“He says you want to stay the night.” She still had an accent, but at least he could understand her.

“I’m also interested in food,” Nafan added airily, hoping that his stomach – which was now grumbling nonstop – wasn’t actually as loud as it sounded inside his head.

The girl paused, gazing at him calculatingly. She seemed to hesitate, then leaned over the counter towards him, eyes narrowing challengingly.

Perhaps it wasn’t exactly the right time to be noticing, but Nafan found himself thinking that she was quite pretty. Pale skin, long dark hair pinned back with decorative clips, wearing loose silk garments that parted just deep enough for him to glance down – and notice that there wasn’t much there. Faintly disappointed despite himself, he wasn’t able to drag his eyes back up before sharp fingers suddenly pinched his lower cheeks and forced his head back up.

“Your eyes wander. You seem to have fine taste.” Her voice was musing, but there was a dangerous glint in her dark eyes.

Nafan hastily averted his gaze with a hasty chuckle. “Aha, sorry, I didn’t mean to–”

She released his face with an unimpressed sigh.

“Your appearance is an oddity, but I suppose men are all the same on the inside.” She scoffed wryly, pulling out an ink pen and a piece of parchment and passing it over the counter. “It’s one silver coin for a bed, twenty coppers for dinner, and one silver for a bedmate.”

“A what?” Nafan echoed, his gaze shifting distractedly down to her exposed shoulders.

Sighing, the girl pulled up her silk garments and tapped a finger on the parchment. “Sign here for one silver and twenty coppers, we can spare you a meal tomorrow morning if you don’t cause trouble.” She glanced up at him, and he saw it again – the hardened glint in her eye.

“You’re from Qin, aren’t you.”

Every tendon in his body tensed. It took a heavy pause and all of his composure to drag a sheepish smile back onto his face.

“Oya, you found out.”

Lowering his head, Nafan hid his face beneath his long bangs tried to keep his voice airy as he quickly signed the parchments.

“Was it my accent?”

He’d spent several years on this side of the country already, so he’d hoped to have lost some of his tell-tale dialect. Right now, with all the states deeply tangled in a vicious war, it was a major disadvantage for him to be wandering in enemy territory.

“You try to hide it, but it’s obvious.” She sighed, but broke off in a pause when she took the parchment back. Nafan blinked down at her head, wondering if he’d done something wrong again, and jumped a little when she snapped her gaze up to his with a dubious raise of the brow.

“You… what language is this? Are you really a foreigner, when your dialect is so strong?”

“My mother was a foreigner. She gave me the name,” Nafan admitted. “Don’t worry, I don’t know what it means either, or what language it is. I only know how to write it.”

“… Hm.” The girl glanced down at his chest idly before flicking her gaze back to his face with a wary look. “You don’t seem like an evil guy. You should get yourself a normal name. At least to write down on paper.”

Laughing forlornly, Nafan nodded, just to appease her. “Your wisdom is appreciated,” he murmured, turning his head distractedly towards the tables as the old man from earlier appeared with a tray of food and tea. “So… may I eat?”

Slamming the piece of parchment unceremoniously into a drawer, the girl sighed and waved her hand idly in a gesture for him to shoo.

“Find a place to sit. Take my advice and go to the corner over there, away from the soldiers.” She lifted a hand to point at a small round table at the very far end of the room. “They’ve had a few drinks, so they should be in a good mood, but still. I don’t want a fight to break out in my inn.”

“Thank you.” Gratefully, Nafan unstrung two extra coins and passed them over. She gave him a strange look, but he just smiled. “What’s your name?”

“… Wang Tianxi.” Sounding a little more amiable, she pocketed the coin and echoed his smile. “Enjoy your stay.”