Reflection (Disney Twisted Tales) - Elizabeth Lim Page 0,47

see. What about you?”

She faltered. He wouldn’t like this part, but she needed to tell him. “If we don’t make it out, I…I stay here. As his prisoner.”

The captain’s expression leapt with shock. “What? Ping, you can’t be serious. You can’t be risking your life to—”

“It was the only way,” she interrupted. “You did the same for me.”

Shang pursed his lips tight. His shoulders tensed, heavy with the news she’d just told him, but he knew it was too late to argue. Now he, too, glanced at the moon. “Then we make our way to the gates. Let’s go, Ping—”

A familiar roar cut him off.

ShiShi pounced in front of them, making the earth shudder from the impact of his landing. “I told you the great guardian of the Li family would not be defeated by a pack of demons!” ShiShi proclaimed.

Mulan was nearly speechless. “You’re back!”

“Of course I’m back. Did you expect to make it out of Diyu without me?”

Overcome with relief, Mulan embraced the lion. “We thought you were dead.”

Her hug caught ShiShi off guard. “Careful with the mane.” He made a face and shook his hair until Mulan had to back away. “It’s still in shreds after what you did to it.”

“Sorry.”

“How did you escape the demons?” Shang asked.

“Hmph. Those squirrels are no match for a great stone lion such as myself.” ShiShi squared his shoulders proudly. “Oh, there were hundreds of them, maybe thousands, even—”

Shang raised an eyebrow. “Thousands?”

“Fine. A hundred. Don’t interrupt. A lion always lands on his feet. And when I did, I ripped their spears apart with my jaws and roared my mightiest roar! Most of them ran away after that. Then I chased the rest around the Mountain of Knives until there was nowhere to go. Those gloating fools thought they had me, but I spied a portal underneath one of the knives. It led me here, to level fifty-one.”

Level fifty-one, Mulan thought. Still a long way to go.

ShiShi’s tail swirled behind him as he circled Mulan and Shang. “I must say, I’m surprised to see you two loitering about. Why are you still here? I told you to hurry. This area is rife with ghosts.”

“We didn’t see any,” she insisted. “How did you—”

“That’s odd,” the lion guardian interrupted. “I could have sworn that I’ve heard that many ghosts amass just below this mountain.”

Mulan froze, hearing the whispers now. They were faint, but getting closer. And worse, there were many of them.

“What was that sound?” came whispers from the knives. “It sounded like a lion.”

An angry voice. “It woke me.”

“It’s the outsider.”

“The outsider?”

“The boy with no name.”

“Find him! Tell the others.”

The ghosts glided up the mountain, their movement causing a gust in the air and making the knives whistle. A chorus of harsh squeaks and shrieks ripped the air.

Unlike the ones Mulan had encountered on the Bridge of Helplessness, these ghosts looked dangerous. And angry. A few were decapitated and carried their heads under their arms; others were missing eyes and fingers and teeth. Their auras were all varying shades of red.

Mulan, Shang, and ShiShi backed up onto the grass, but it was too late. Before they could get any farther, a band of ghosts blocked their path.

“The outsider from the real world,” rasped one of the bandit ghosts. He grinned at Mulan, revealing his missing front teeth. “I heard about him. He crossed the bridge. He wouldn’t heed the warnings.”

Another bandit ghost appeared. His belt was lined with a dozen knives, and he was missing his fourth finger and left eye. “You know what we do to those who don’t heed our warning.”

“Call the others. Tell them we found the trespasser.”

Laughter. It rang across the knives, bouncing off them like bells that chimed far, far into the distance while also sinking into Mulan’s bones. The ghosts scattered across the mountain, retrieving their knives and daggers.

“Ah, my blade hasn’t sung with the flesh of a mortal man since I was alive,” one said, sharpening his knives against each other.

“Don’t run, outsider. We’ll make you one of us in due time.”

The ghosts laughed. As they crowded together, blood and death singing in their hollow eyes, a pang of dread sharpened in the pit of Mulan’s stomach.

“Bandits and murderers,” Mulan murmured, repeating ShiShi’s warning.

And just her luck, they were all after her.

There was nowhere to run. The bandit ghosts surrounded them on every side. Even if Mulan decided to fling herself off the cliff, the Mountain of Knives waited below. They couldn’t fight, either—only Shang