Words are understood, echoes through water, as the haunting cries of the werewolves and wolves rise from the woods, distant growls leaving him twitching and bolting and now, breathing too fast, too hard, back against a boulder, rabbit still.

Sizhui finds him thus, and he flits his eyes toward whites and blues and sleeves, those ridiculous sleeves, and the smile that twitches his lips is a rictus grin.

"Sizhui."

The one fear that had always hung over the Yiling Laozu's neck, and the one that Jiang Cheng, even when it would have been easiest, didn't breathe a word about it.

"I, um. Up. The trees, up, I can't find, I've been looking, there's little houses, the villagers said something, houses in trees—" He rubs his hands over his face, wiping away trailed tears that had blossomed like the terror in his chest, "Can you see one?"

The first tree he scaled he also fell out of, when the thick branch broke under his weight, a hidden internal rot weakening its whole. Here, now, he breathes in sharp, gasps out, tries to force himself to longer, measured breaths. Fails, but still keeps trying.