Chapter 551: The Interweaving of Karma and Reality
The words “thick-skinned and black-hearted” were a perfect description of Fatty Bai.
Bai Guo then produced a small wooden bottle about ten centimeters tall. “This is for you too!”
The stopper was jammed in tightly. He Lingchuan gave it a gentle shake and heard tiny granules rattling inside. “What’s this?”
“Ah, this is fish paste!” Fatty Bai explained. “A specialty from the coast of the State of Song, refined over a slow fire from all kinds of seafood essences! Add one or two drops while cooking, and it’ll boost the flavor so much that the dish tastes like an entirely different meal. Go back and try it, you’ll definitely love it.”
Since it was hard to refuse, He Lingchuan accepted it. A glance around the shop showed that plenty of customers were buying fish paste too, but theirs all came in large wooden bottles.
So this profiteer had merely given me a sample.
* * *
The Hall of War.
The stone building was as bare as ever, without the slightest decoration.
He Lingchuan remembered that the last two times he had stood guard here, the lingering heat of late autumn had still been brutal, and the place had been swelteringly hot. The military officers were fine, as they had cultivation and were supposed to be impervious to heat and cold. But a half-baked spellcaster like Wen Daolun had sweated buckets.
Fortunately, the weather had cooled now, and staying inside felt much more comfortable.
As usual, only after a full-body security check was He Lingchuan allowed to enter.
There were four soldiers standing guard outside the hall. Inside, only he was supposed to be present.
Yet someone was already there waiting, and had even poured himself a cup of tea.
It was a robed scholar, and the little finger on his left hand was missing.
The moment He Lingchuan saw his face clearly, he gave a start and stopped in his tracks.
The scholar was facing the door. He smiled faintly at him. “Hello.”
He Lingchuan’s powers of composure were far stronger than before. His distraction lasted only an instant. He immediately reacted, stepped into the hall in a single stride, and replied, “Hello.”
The man was a little over forty, with a weary face that still could not conceal his fine features. There was a mole between his eyebrows.
Most importantly of all, He Lingchuan recognized that face.
Shao Jian.
Though the weathering of years had carved wrinkles into him and frosted his temples with white, He Lingchuan could still recognize at a glance that this was none other than Shao Jian, nephew of the late King of Yuān!
He had seen the conversation between uncle and nephew in the illusion at the ruins of Qianxing City.
Back then, the King of Yuān had known that the tide had already turned and the state could not be saved. So he entrusted the Generous Pot, the saber, and the divine bone necklace to his nephew Shao Jian, ordering him to flee by night to West Luo and deliver the set of three into Zhong Shengguang’s hands.
Naturally, he must have succeeded. Otherwise, there would be no Panlong City today.
But He Lingchuan had never imagined that someone from the illusion would appear before his eyes, alive and breathing—well, not exactly alive and breathing, since this was not reality after all.
Still, it was enough to make his heart pound.
Across nearly two hundred years of time, he was finally meeting another figure who ought to have left his name in history.
Of course, the key words there were “ought to.”
Because Shao Jian had acted in secrecy, his connection to Zhong Shengguang and Panlong City had never been written into any historical record. But He Lingchuan knew very well that this man was precisely the one who had set the grand and tragic saga of Panlong City in motion.
Facing Shao Jian, a hundred emotions surged through He Lingchuan at once. It was only at this moment that he dimly realized how deeply entangled his own fate had already become with Panlong City. The two were shaping one another in profound ways.
When Zhong Shengguang had once held the Generous Pot in his hands, had he felt the same?
Perhaps He Lingchuan’s burning gaze struck Shao Jian as odd, for the latter also studied the youth before asking, “Have we met before?”
He Lingchuan shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
He did not ask Shao Jian’s name or identity. Soldiers standing guard in the Hall of War were to see, but not ask.
Clearly, however, Shao Jian was not bound by that rule. “What’s your surname?”
“He.”
“This is the first time I’ve ever seen a soldier this young standing guard in the Hall of War.” The youth in front of him looked no older than seventeen or eighteen at most, yet he was already qualified to stand watch here. Shao Jian smiled and said, “The Red General must trust you a great deal.”
He Lingchuan answered briefly, “She does.”
The last time he had seen Shao Jian, the man had been barely into adulthood, all youthful vigor and heroic bearing. Now Shao Jian was close to forty, about the same age as Zhong Shengguang, and a certain weariness had begun to show in his face.
Though he was a cultivator, time had not shown him much favor.
Shao Jian was about to say more when the door opened with a creak, deliberately loud to alert those inside.
The Red General entered alone in a suit of light armor.
The moment He Lingchuan saw her, his heart tightened slightly.
She wore no mask. Her face was lovelier than peach blossoms and plum flowers, yet it held the cold detachment of someone looking down on all living things from beyond even the ninth layer of Heaven.
No one followed behind her.
“Shut the door.”
As He Lingchuan closed the door, Shao Jian also rose and bowed respectfully. “Lady Mitian, it has been a long time.”
“Shao Jian.” The Red General pulled out a chair and sat down. “Was the journey here peaceful?”
“The journey was smooth. I encountered neither bandits nor calamity, and no one followed me.”
The moment He Lingchuan heard that, he knew Shao Jian must have spent the past twenty years hiding and moving in secret. He had clearly become extremely experienced at concealing his tracks.
The Red General, however, was not fully reassured. “Stand in the sunlight.”
It was now slightly past noon. The sun had just begun to tilt, and sunlight poured in through the open window.
Shao Jian stepped into the beam, his body seeming to be shrouded in a layer of gold.
The Red General casually pointed at He Lingchuan as well. “You too.”
He Lingchuan immediately stepped over and stood beside Shao Jian, the two of them together bathed in the sunlight.
The Red General then took something out from somewhere. It was a broad-mouthed golden bowl containing a half-burned block of incense. She brushed a hand over it, and the incense ignited of its own accord, releasing thin wisps of milky-white smoke.
The smell of the incense carried an air of solemn sanctity. When He Lingchuan inhaled it, he almost felt as if he were standing inside a temple.
The Red General blew once in their direction, and the smoke drifted over and wrapped around them, gathering without dispersing.
Neither of them dared move.
After five or six breaths, in the sunlight and white mist, He Lingchuan suddenly discovered that on Shao Jian’s shoulder there was a faint black line, straight as a taut wire, extending directly out through the window.
The Red General’s voice sharpened. “You’ve been marked.”
Shao Jian was startled. Twisting around, he saw the antenna-like black thread on his own shoulder.
He brushed at it twice with his hand, as though trying to sweep off something weightless.
The black line remained, barely visible, stubbornly refusing to leave.
He Lingchuan checked himself and found nothing at all.
He was clean. The Red General only glanced at him once before turning all her attention back to Shao Jian.
Shao Jian was uneasy and suspicious. “What is this?”
“The attention of other heavenly gods.” The Red General blew another breath of white smoke over him, so that Shao Jian was almost completely shrouded. He Lingchuan could barely make out his features anymore. “Humans cannot remove it on their own.”
Strangely enough, inside the smoke, Shao Jian did not seem choked by it at all. Instead, he breathed as easily as before.
“This mist can block their scrutiny. Otherwise, once the thread of fate is severed, they would turn even more attention toward you.” As she spoke, the Red General reached toward his shoulder, lightly pinched the black line, and tugged, as if plucking away a cobweb.
And just like that, the so-called thread of fate broke!
The god that had cast this thread must surely be curious who could possibly sever it. But with Shao Jian enveloped by Mitian’s mist, they could not lock on to his location.
The Red General caught the broken black thread and tossed it straight into the golden bowl.
With a puff, the flame turned black and burst into a cloud of dark smoke.
Within that smoke, a figure could be seen indistinctly, bearing a pair of huge wings. It appeared to be part butterfly, part giant fluttering moth.
“So it’s that thing.” The Red General flicked her hand, and the smoke in the air vanished at once, leaving Shao Jian once more standing in sunlight. “Good news. This is not one of the gods worshiped by Beijia, so the monster states of Beijia have not yet noticed you. Shao Jian, which state did you pass through before this, or which person did you come into contact with, that worships Du Nie?”
Shao Jian was taken aback for a moment. After thinking it through, he answered, “It might have been a small state I passed through in the desert. It’s very far from here. But the god they worshipped was human-shaped, not... not like this.”
Of course, outside Beijia, there were still other states that openly worshiped gods. It was simply that none of them could compare in strength to the northern monster state.
The Red General said calmly, “Humans make up the majority of believers. Because of that, the forms gods show in the mortal realm are usually human-shaped.”
He Lingchuan heard the implication between the lines: their true forms, however, were not necessarily so.
“Just don’t go there again.” The Red General put away the golden bowl. “After all, across an entire world, these wild gods often lose track of their targets for all sorts of reasons. It isn’t always because of human intervention. As long as you don’t step back into its field of vision, it won’t be a major problem. They themselves usually won’t care that much either. Hm, I have a task for you.”
Shao Jian’s expression grew solemn. “Please instruct me.”
He Lingchuan watched the two of them, curiosity rising in his heart.
Back then, the King of Yuān had instructed Shao Jian to tell Zhong Shengguang to do everything possible to destroy the Generous Pot. Yet now, Zhong Shengguang not only had ignored that warning, but he had also even used the Generous Pot to bring the Heavenly God Mitian down into the mortal realm.
So what’s Shao Jian’s relationship to Panlong City?
He’s very likely the last surviving bloodline of the King of Yuān’s family. He Lingchuan thought. After delivering the three-piece set, surely he hadn’t simply walked away and drifted through the rest of his life in remote obscurity?
The Red General then took out another object and spread it across her palm.
This truly was a strange day. The people and objects appearing one after another in Panlong City kept surpassing He Lingchuan’s expectations.
What the Red General had taken out looked like a bronze tube, no larger than a middle finger. At the top of the tube was carved the head of some unknown beast. The beast had a pointed snout, a short nose, fine teeth, little ears, and a savage face like the crushed head of a pig that had taken a punch straight to the snout.
The tube was engraved all over with patterns that looked partly like designs and partly like writing, though not in the language of the ancient immortals.
A gemstone was set into its body, and the inside was hollow. Within it was a bit of red substance that sometimes seemed to flow like liquid and sometimes vaporize into mist.
The instant He Lingchuan saw the thing, his eyes went wide.
Because he recognized it too.
A Dragon Punishment Pillar!
After He Chunhua had led Xia Province’s army into battle against the roving cavalry of Xun Province at Xinhuang Town, an attendant or disciple of Beijia’s state preceptor had carried just such a Dragon Punishment Pillar to gather the nightmare qi from the battlefield.
At the time, that attendant had explained that the Dragon Punishment Pillar was an ancient treasure made from bronze pillars taken from the edge of the Field of Slain Dragons, and that the so-called nightmare qi was the resentment, terror, and fury of soldiers before death. Beijia wished to gather it and take it back for transcendence rites.
But later, the Soul-Stealing Mirror had corrected that explanation. Nightmare qi was in fact the vital essence of the human body, dispersing into the air after death.
What shocked He Lingchuan even more was the sentence the Red General—or rather, Mitian—said next, “I have finally made this thing.”
Her voice carried rare emotion.
Mitian made a Dragon Punishment Pillar?
He Lingchuan’s thoughts raced.
Why would she want to make such a thing?
Does Panlong City also need to gather nightmare qi?
