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Qiu Fei packed his bags. He had one suitcase and one backpack. He had spent many years in Excellent Era either training or working for the Guild, and it showed. Each place he looked at brought back memories, memories that he gave proper care to as he sat down in each spot and worked out what he wanted to keep or chuck away.
Moving was hard.
Some things were definitely needed, like his favourite towels – plush even though the colour had worn out over the years from black to light grey – or his portable charger, but other things like random papers and notes to himself scattered around the room were thrown out without hesitation.
Qiu Fei had a moment of weakness though; a small pin with the Excellent Era logo on it. Technically he should have tossed away the insignificant badge when the scandal broke out, but it was a gift.
Ye Qiu had given it to him when he finished the training camp a few years ago. It was one of the happiest memories he had. Ye Qiu had smiled at him, his hand resting on Qiu Fei’s shoulder, and murmured “congratulations” as he handed it over. He gave it to everyone who graduated from the training camp and became an official member of Excellent Era. The memory was now tainted with the understanding that even back then something was wrong with Excellent Era – that Ye Qiu was holding everything in, eventually running away from it all when it got too hard. To make it worse, Ye Qiu went to a rival guild.
Qiu Fei debated on packing it away but ended up placing it in his backpack, tucked between a jumper and his toiletry bag, before he left. His locked the door to his apartment with a heavy heart. The walk down to security was silent apart from his suitcase hitting the stairs with a loud ‘thump’ that echoed each time he stepped down. The ticket in his jacket singed its presence in his mind like a demon trying to create a contract with him, persistent and heavy.
He delivered the keys to the security guard on duty without a word and walked out of his apartment building. He was glad that he chose to stay in his apartment when he got promoted to regular since the Excellent Era building was destroyed in the Incident. Qiu Fei looked both ways, deeming it safe, before stepping away from the protective circle of the apartment building and onto the street. The wards carved onto the foundation of the building helped to keep it somewhat safe, it didn’t protect it from invited demons but it did help keep them away from the building in general.
Qiu Fei’s hand tightened around his bag as he wheeled his suitcase to the major road, wary of anything that might pop up. He suddenly missed his weapon; he had it since graduating the training camp as a Battle Mage. It had been taken away after the Incident as the government went after every Excellent Era Guild member for their punishment.
The roads were quiet but various people were around; scattered as they quickly walked to wherever they were going. A few were more suspicious, lingering at the corners of buildings and in alleyways, but they didn’t come close or make moves on people around them, so Qiu Fei left them alone as well while he caught a taxi.
The ride to the train station was quiet. Neither the taxi driver nor Qiu Fei spoke apart from giving necessary information like Qiu Fei’s destination and how much the fare was. Qiu Fei stared at the street. Right there , Qiu Fei thought as he saw the main street. A year ago, Ye Qiu ran away from Hangzhou with Guild Leader Yu and his guard after placing the Guild in the hands of Sun Xiang. Qiu Fei wasn’t there at the time, he was busy escorting Su Mucheng back to Excellent Era after she ran away, but he was told what happened after Ye Qiu escaped most of the Guild. Normally Qiu Fei wouldn’t buy into any gossip but evidence on the other hand…
There is no point in thinking about the past , thought Qiu Fei as he looked at the various electronic advertisements placed around the train station and hurried past them, almost breaking into a sprint, rushing to go through customs and sign everything off. He was late, or rather he was going to be the latest person from his guild to show up. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to go on the trip, though he could do without being forced to leave, but he got caught up in signing everything off as acting Guild Leader. There had been so much to do, thought Qiu Fei with bone-aching exhaustion.
Every other higher up had fled the remains of Excellent Era as fast as they could. Tao Xuan had mysteriously disappeared. Though Qiu Fei could say to himself that it started earlier than that, when Liu Hao transferred to Wind Howl to become Guild Leader Hao’s guard -no, it started when Ye Qiu left on the night that Sun Xiang was made Guild Leader. Right now, Qiu Fei can see the signs, but back then it was harder to see what was going on. Nobody said anything until it was too late and those left were too underqualified to do anything about it. To make matters worse, Ye Qiu was still missing.
Qiu Fei slipped through customs with a little bit of trouble. He didn’t even have raw iron on him, which made the customs guard stare at him suspiciously, as if he was a Warlock about to transform instead of a person from a failing Guild. They scanned his bags twice just to double check that he wasn’t harbouring anything illegal like illegal tomes and contracts or smuggling fae across borders.
Qiu Fei had to run all the way to the electronic barrier as he rushed to get to the train, his suitcase’s wheels making sounds of protest against the tiled floor and his backpack hitting him with every step. Panting slightly, he rummaged through his jacket pocket and slid the ticket in. His heart was racing as the machine cheerfully accepted his ticket with a beep and let him through.
Qiu Fei could see at least four guards to each carriage through the train windows as another guard told him to hurry up, more than enough guards around that they could take out each of them with minor losses. Qiu Fei wasn’t surprised though, he had been told that other Guilds were going to be around to supervise the trip to ensure that nobody ran but he wasn’t told which ones. Spotting the Guild crest across their chests, Qiu Fei was relieved to find that Void was going to be supervising them.
It seemed like Excellent Era had some recent history with every other Guild; with Blue Rain the remaining guild members would riot since Ye Qiu was technically now part of Blue Rain, Thunderclap had previous upper members of Excellent Era – so it was a security risk – and Tyranny was their rival Guild since Guilds were a thing so they couldn’t be trusted not to stir something up. The trip went near Shanghai so Samsara could have transported them but they were currently the top guild in China and busy protecting the eastern borders. That left only so many guilds to act as the security detail for them.
Qiu Fei deposited his suitcase in the suitcase area, checked his ticket, before making his way to his assigned seat. The seats were small and cramped, befitting the economy class, with four seats squashed together into a foot space. As he made his way down any talking was silenced and Qiu Fei could feel the other Excellent Era member’s gazes as they trailed him, only after he walked past them did they talk in low voices.
“– didn’t he –”
“Why is Qiu –”
“– I thought that he –”
Qiu Fei hitched his backpack higher onto his shoulder as he ignored it. There were already people in the same foot space as him; neighbours. Luckily for Qiu Fei he recognised one of them, Wen Li. He wasn’t that close to Wen Li, they went to the training camp together but due to their different disciplines – Qiu Fei going through Battle Mage training and Wen Li going through Launcher training – they didn’t talk much but Wen Li didn’t talk that much anyway since he was a rather quiet man. Though, Qiu Fei remembers playing some card games and Mah-jong with Wen Li after hours too.
“Hello Wen Li,” greeted Qiu Fei as he got into hearing range. He was rather glad that he got to sit next to a semi-familiar face; when he was given the ticket, he wasn’t sure who he’d end up sitting with. “I thought you were going to Mystery Fantasy?” asked Qiu Fei as he awkwardly tried to get into his seat while dodging legs. The other two neighbours were Lin Jianan, a Berserker who was currently curled up on her seat and napping, and Gongsun Ming, an Elementalist.
Wen Li looked at him and smiled faintly. “They weren’t high enough,” Wen Li said. Qiu Fei took a few moments to remember Wen Li’s speech patterns since Wen Li wasn’t the best conversationalist. He tended to only say sentences that he thought were relevant over saying the entire thing, which was great for missions but terrible for everything else.
“I’m sorry to hear that, are you going to try again later?” Qiu Fei was saddened for the other man. Launchers weren’t that popular since the amount of training that went into becoming a Launcher was mind-blowing. It was usually too much work for too little profit when Sharpshooters could do the exact same thing at a shorter range and less training. Su Mucheng made Launchers popular but not popular enough.
Wen Li shrugged. “Maybe. I thought you were going to Tiny Herb.”
“No, I’m staying with Excellent Era,” stated Qiu Fei. Wen Li made a short hum sound that Qiu Fei was used to hearing from people in doubt. “You doubt it?” Qiu Fei asked sharply.
“No, you idiot. He’s doubting that there’s going to be an Excellent Era to even go back to, because if it hasn’t escaped your notice we’re getting punished for that damn Guild,” said a sharp female voice, Lin Jianan. So she wasn’t napping after all, thought Qiu Fei as he turned towards her.
“There will be. I’ll make one – a better one,” said Qiu Fei with all his conviction. Lin Jianan scoffed before turning around and curling back up.
“Sorry,” said Wen Li softly as he took out a book. Qiu Fei took that as his cue that he was allowed to get his phone instead of speaking anymore.
Scrolling through government-sanctioned new articles, he read as they predicted when the next internet blackout would be – another leviathan attack to the cables running through the South China Sea, and reports on the weather – predicting a very cold winter this year, with some saying it was Excellent Era’s fault for that since the backlash from the Incident was changing things such as the weather and demon attack patterns.
That was just pure speculation, there was no basis to that! Qiu Fei put his phone down instead of getting angry over it but there wasn’t much else to do; they were stuck on a train to Wuxi for 4 hours, then it was a 37-hour trip to Hami. Maybe Lin Jianan had the right idea: sleep it off.