Li Xiulan looked over the small crowd as she came to Song Fen’s side. She frowned, counting the number of people remaining. It was twelve; not even half of who they had started with.

“Is this everyone?” Li Xiulan asked, muttering it close to Song Fen’s ear so that nobody else could hear. Song Fen nodded gravely.

“Everyone we could find. T…t-here were more before, but some must have fallen into the fog before we could reach them.” 

Li Xiulan’s heart sank as she looked at the survivors. Most were hardly even able to stand, much less form coherent thoughts. The only ones who might be able to fight were Song Fen, Hou Jin, and Xu Chang, but Xu Chang didn’t even have a sword on him. That ugly fear reared its head again in Li Xiulan’s stomach, and she laid a hand over her mouth in an attempt to silence it.

“Alright,” Hou Jin said, stepping forward with his overly confident swagger. He turned to Song Fen, crossing his arms and glaring at her. “We are on the roof, as you requested. Now does this plan have a conclusion, or would you rather the real leaders take over?”

Despite his words, he seemed to lack his usual bite. It was almost as if he was trying to ask sincerely about what they were going to do but simply refused to break from his little play at being a spoiled heir. Li Xiulan turned to Song Fen as well.

“I don’t want to put any pressure on you, Song Fen, but I do think you are the most qualified to lead us right now. Do you have any ideas?”

Hou Jin shot her a glare which she returned with equal enthusiasm. Song Fen had been the only one to take steps to actually keep them safe. If they had listened to Hou Jin, they would still be in the room downstairs watching him try to blindly fight the fog. At the rate the fog was rising, by now they might have been dead.

Under the weight of all this sudden pressure, Song Fen seemed to buckle. She took a deep breath and laid a hand on her forehead, taking hold of Li Xiulan’s arm for stability. 

“Sorry…” she said, squeezing her eyes shut and then opening them again. “Sorry. Alright… alright.” She withdrew her hand from Li Xiulan’s arm despite Li Xiulan’s insistence that she didn’t mind if she stayed there. Song Fen took one last deep breath and then stood up straight, her confident persona once again in play.

“Let’s review what we know. We may find a weakness within t…t-hat information. First: this is a larger-than-average spirit, non-humanoid. It seems to have no grudges or specific targets, so we can likely rule out human origin.

Second: it has the ability to create barriers. We’re essentially trapped in a bubble, unable to get out through the doors or the sky. Given that I haven’t seen any White Snake cultivators, I’m guessing the barrier is also keeping them out.

T…t-hird: it moves through fog. It seems that anywhere even remotely covered by the fog is deep enough for it to swim in, despite its size. Perhaps that means that removing the fog would weaken it?”

“And how would we go about doing that?” Hou Jin said, placing a hand upon his hip. Song Fen bit her lip. Clearly, she didn’t know.

“Perhaps we could lure it out of the fog somehow?” Li Xiulan suggested weakly. The look that Hou Jin gave her said that her input was not welcome. She could barely argue with that; she wasn’t particularly sure what would interest a fog monster.

“So in other words… there is no plan,” Hou Jin said. He scoffed, crossing his arms. “I should have known better than to trust someone like you.”

Li Xiulan gritted her teeth, placing a comforting hand on Song Fen’s shoulder and stepping in front of her.

“You’re right. Why don’t you tell us what your plan is, then? Or is it just standing and slashing your sword at it until it happens to fall down dead?”

“I-!” Hou Jin choked. A flash of panic crossed his face as he glanced at the scholars, who probably hadn’t heard a single word of their exchange over their prayers. The moment was gone as soon as it came. He readjusted his expression into a harsh glare, looking down on the two of them.

“Of course I can come up with a better plan than that. I mean, given what we know about it, there is nothing we can use to motivate it to let us go or to reveal its position. So, isn’t the best plan to just rush in and kill it before it can kill us?”

“Great. Thanks.”

Li Xiulan rolled her eyes, shaking her head at Song Fen in an exaggerated manner. 

“Right, so, Song Fen. I think I’d like you to come up with a plan, if you don’t mind. Brainless over here can’t think of anything that isn’t exactly what I was just making fun of him about.”

Hou Jin sputtered, his face turning red with anger. Xu Chang placed his hands on Hou Jin’s shoulders, holding him back from inevitably charging at Li Xiulan. She didn’t particularly care. Her nerves were at maximum, and that meant she wasn’t going to take orders from someone just to be polite. 

“I trust you, Song Fen. I know you can come up with something,” she said, much quieter this time. Those words were sincere, and she wanted Song Fen to know it.

Song Fen met Li Xiulan’s eyes, holding her gaze there for a long moment. Her hands clenched into fists at her sides and she nodded, determination coming over her features.

“I’ll have t…t-o come up with something good, then,” she said, her face brightening just a little. “Um, no offense, Hou Jin. I just don’t think running into the fog is a good idea, given how fast it seems to be able to move when it’s in there.”

Hou Jin scoffed again, turning away from her.

“Whatever. I didn’t… I didn’t think- I was just seeing if you would correct me, is all.”

Song Fen smiled gently, like a patient mother trying to placate a stubborn child. “Of course. T…t-hen let’s think of something together.” She looked off the roof and sighed. “At this rate, I think we will have until nightfall. We need to be ready to defeat it by then.”

Although Hou Jin had seemed to want to protest working together, he was immediately sobered by the deadline. He tried to subtly look over the edge as well and was clearly unnerved by what he saw there. He cleared his throat and stepped forward, although he looked like he wanted to run away.

“I suppose I can help you out just this once, then,” he said.

The few remaining coherent people sat in a circle on the roof, tossing ideas back and forth. That was, unfortunately, only Song Fen, Hou Jin, Xu Chang, and Li Xiulan. When they tried to ask the others to pitch in, they received various rejections, some even going as far as bursting into tears upon being asked. So, they decided not to waste any more time and got to discussing their plans.

“We don’t know any of this thing’s weaknesses,” Hou Jin argued, “so there’s nothing to do but throw everything we have at it.”

“You do have a point,” Song Fen said. “We don’t know its weaknesses. But we do know how it operates, at least t…t-o some degree. That gives us clues as to how to defeat it. I agree, once we remove it from its element, our best plan is to attack it swiftly and strongly.”

“So we do need to lure it out,” Li Xiulan said, somewhat proud of herself for having said it first. But, as she said it, annoyance came over Hou Jin’s face once more.

“We’re talking ourselves in circles. We can’t lure it out because it has no motivation,” he grumbled. “We either need to move on from this or just start fighting. At this rate, we’ll be dead either way.”

A heavy silence settled over them all as they thought about it. Li Xiulan had to acknowledge that they lacked information. None of them had even seen the spirit, so it was impossible to gauge if they even stood a chance. Perhaps if they had, they could identify weak points. But that was impossible so long as it hid beneath the fog, which made the fog an ideal target… but then the question became how to either remove it or get the beast to exit it.

Song Fen was deeper in thought than anyone else, her eyes moving back and forth as if she was reading something laid out in front of her. Slowly, a light seemed to ignite in her eyes, bringing with it knowledge.

“I t…t-hink I have an idea,” she said, leaning forward. “Let’s go back to what we know. Based on what we’ve seen so far, do we think this monster is patient or impatient?”

Li Xiulan didn’t know what she meant by that, but she tried her best to review everything. For her, it had all seemed so sudden, but surely she could think it through.

“I suppose that it was patient, because it was slowly picking off people instead of just showing itself and eating everyone at once?” she said, although it came out more of a question than an answer.

“T…t-rick question,” Song Fen said. “I think it’s both. This spirit can clearly plan ahead to some degree since it waited until there were fewer of us to launch a full-scale attack. But think about the nature of that attack. None of us knew what the fog was when it started filling the room. If the monster hadn’t attacked that first man, we probably would have allowed the fog to come in, although we didn’t know what it was. By that point, it would have been too late for us. But the spirit didn’t do that. It dove right in. It acted impatiently, despite the fact that it had the ability to be patient.”

Li Xiulan’s head was reeling trying to keep up. “Okay… so it is both patient and impatient. I’m not sure what that has to do with anything?”

“T…t-hink about this. When we started moving people to the roof, the spirit still didn't reveal itself. We were out of reach, and so it didn’t want to expend the effort. It probably returned to its patient nature, knowing that it has placed its barrier and it will eventually reach us no matter what. But it likes to take what is in its reach. It is impatient when something is dangled right in front of it. So, in other words…”

“We get someone to act as bait,” Hou Jin finished, laying a hand over his mouth. “That’s what you're saying, right? One of us flies right above the fog so that we’re close enough that the demon might take the chance to try to pull us in?”

Song Fen nodded.

“Exactly. We have t…t-o give it something to tempt it if we want it to come out of hiding.”

“Woah, woah,” Li Xiulan said, frantically waving her hands in front of her. Surely Song Fen wasn’t suggesting something that dangerous? Putting anyone in the direct eating range of a monster seemed… well, bad. 

“Are you sure this is a smart idea, Song Fen? Even if you can get it to bring its head out of the fog, it would just dive back in as soon as it grabbed the bait, right?”

“Have some faith, Li Xiulan,” Xu Chang said. He was so quiet that Li Xiulan had almost forgotten he was here. “Miss Song Fen never leaves her work unfinished. Isn’t that right, Master Hou Jin?”

Hou Jin gave Xu Chang a sideways glance and snorted.

“Like I would know. Not like I associate with her.”

Xu Chang was unfazed, turning to Song Fen with a pleasant smile. “As he said, Miss Song Fen, he appreciates your hard work. Would you care to share the rest of your ideas with us?”

Hou Jin shot Xu Chang a death glare, but it was as if he was looking at a wall. Xu Chang did not waver, and Song Fen took his invitation with a smile of her own.

“Of course, Xu Chang. As I was saying, once the spirit has taken the bait, it will likely try to come out of the fog as little as possible. The bait needs to be watching extremely closely; once the spirit begins to lunge at them, they must fly up. Hopefully, the beast would pursue once it has already decided to chase, drawing it further out of the fog. T…t-hen it’s a matter of catching it.”

“Catching it!?” Li Xiulan exclaimed in disbelief. “You can’t be serious! There’s no way we can catch a spirit that large. We don’t even have a net!”

“When I say ‘catch,’ I mean something very temporary,” Song Fenn assured her, gently lowering one of Li Xiulan’s wildly flailing hands. Her touch was reassuring, and Li Xiulan found herself taking a deep breath.

“We catch t…t-he spirit. If we can create a rope, once the spirit has left the fog, the bait can fly around it and tie it with the rope. Then, we drag it to an empty rooftop, and…”

“And then we fight!” Hou Jin interrupted, his face lighting up. Li Xiulan had never seen him look so excited, especially when Song Fen gave him a nod.

“That’s right. Since we don’t know anything about it, we have to hope our combined power is enough to take it down. I do apologize for the roughness of the plan in that regard, but with both Hou Jin and I present, I believe we should be able to win.”

“Of course we’ll win,” Hou Jin said, pushing himself to his feet and drawing his sword. “With me on your side, how could we lose?”

Song Fen laid a hand on her chest and bowed her head to him. “I am grateful for your participation, Hou Jin,” she said.

Li Xiulan tightened her grip on Song Fen’s hand, pulling herself a little closer.

“Song Fen… who do you plan on being the bait?”

A sheepish look grew on Song Fen’s face and her eyes flickered away.

“Well, I’m not sure anyone will like t…t-his, but I believe that both Hou Jin and I should do it.”

“Both of us?” The light on Hou Jin’s face faded somewhat. “I don’t need your help, if that’s what you're implying.”

“If we want to carry a spirit of that size, we need at least two of us. And, if we both carry it, we can begin the fight immediately upon reaching the roof. Honestly, if Xu Chang had his sword, I would suggest all three of us working together.”

Xu Chang bowed his head regretfully. “My apologies, Miss Song Fen. Had I known I would have kept my sword nearby.”

“Nothing you can do about it now,” Song Fen replied with a shake of her head. “We must work with what we have, and Hou Jin, that means that we must work together.”

Hou Jin opened his mouth, complaints evident all over his face. But Song Fen cut him off with a sharp look.

“T…t-hese men are your people, Hou Jin. They depend on you and on the White Snake sect to keep them safe. You and I both want to protect them, and the best way to do that is by combining our strength. Would you rather try to prove yourself and allow them all to die?”

Hou Jin took a deep breath through his nose, his face growing paler than it already was. He pressed his lips into a thin line, rage boiling beneath the surface.

“Just help her,” Li Xiulan said. “If you’re so sure of your strength, use it to keep Song Fen safe. You can do that, can’t you?”

Hou Jin turned his back to them and crossed his arms. It was a long moment before he finally grunted.

“Ugh. If you need my help so badly, I suppose I can protect you.”

“Thank you, Hou Jin,” Song Fen said. Li Xiulan desperately wanted to correct him, that Song Fen was the one saving him by even trying to come up with a plan, but she held her tongue and instead flashed a sarcastic smile at Hou Jin’s back.