The lantern is twenty- thirty years old, and the travelers are on their way to the "fuling mansion" . They're going to be "a long journey" , the travelers say. The poisonfeather tribe abandoned the central region, but they didn't agree to form an alliance with the guards. The lantern contains fragments of the lantern, which seems to dictate everything that happens in the twenty-mile circle around the tower. The guards were protecting the girl who lived there, but she wasn't affected by the lantern's effects. They don't know what to make of the fragments, though. They can't figure out why the guards are so worried about exorcists being so wealthy. They haven't heard from anyone else, except for the spirit of Xuanchi, who's delighted to be looked at by his master. He sighs and says he'd rather not bother anyone else. The spirit of the girl says she hates him because he's her only friend, and that's why she doesn't like him. The jade scroll can "seal away demons," the spirit says, but in the past, when he was "young and stubborn," he once painted "something else... something not exist." The spirit says he won't tell the reader this, but that it's "right."