CH 68

Chapter 68: Dog Tags (III)

That movement was light and short. Within a blink of an eye, it had stopped.

Had it even happened?

Xue Xian's reaction was still quite slow. He looked down dully at his own lap, unsure if he should check his pocket, as though waiting for the movement to occur again.

Danglang.

The gentle sound of metal clinking against metal rose, and, in the absolute stillness of the room, was loud and clear.

"It's moved," Xue Xian suddenly said, pointing at his own robe and looking up at Xuanmin.

Xuanmin was already looking over with those dark eyes –– it was unclear if he, too, had heard the clinking, or if he had already been staring at Xue Xian.

The lantern light was so weak that, by the time it reached Xuanmin, it was extremely dim. Xue Xian could not see what expression laid behind those eyes –– but even if he had been able to see, with the disorientation caused by the whole day's events, he would likely still be unable to guess what Xuanmin was thinking.

Those eyes were probably completely calm and collected as usual...

Xue Xian repeated, "Something's moved."

So basically, some things really needed to be restrained. If you were too lax with it, some people would not only become sluggish and unwilling to move, but also become stupid. At least Xue Xian's current idiotic state was highly different to normal –– before, the things he'd said after what had occurred had not been enough to reveal that something was amiss. But now that unexpected events were occurring again, it was obvious that he had become entirely ignorant.*

Xuanmin sat there, half-illuminated, half in the shadows, staring back at Xue Xian. Finally, he said, "Yes."

In the silence of the night, his voice was as deep as a lake, and, in the orange glow of the lantern, seemed even to lose its usual edge and coldness, and instead revealed a sense of warmth and fondness, which tugged at Xue Xian's heart in an inexplicable way. 

Thus Xue Xian faltered for some time, until the thing in his pocket moved again, which brought him back to his senses.

After three times, Xue Xian was finally dragged out of that deep sense of exhaustion. He looked down and reached into his pocket.

The pocket was still damp from all that sweat, with a slight humidity. So as he took out those thin dog tags, they were covered in a slight layer of moisture. 

Danglang.

As he retrieved the dog tags, that metal clinking noise arose again. 

Now Xue Xian could be sure that the movement came from one of the dog tags among the pile. He spread those twenty or thirty flakes of metal across the table under the dim lantern glow, reaching out to toggle them one by one.

Danglang.

"I found it," said Xue Xian, pointing at one of them and picking it out.    

"Perhaps the vengeful energy has not yet dissipated," Xuanmin said.

"Yes," Xue Xian said idly. He brought the dog tag closer to the light and squinted at it again, then looked closer at the scratched-out name on the back. After a long time, he snorted and said, "I can't read it."

Those scratches were far too messy. It was impossible even to see the original markings, let alone read the name.

Xue Xian sat up and held the dog tag out to Xuanmin.

"What is it?" Xuanmin asked.

"Here. You can do the rites," Xue Xian said casually. Then he looked back at the rest of the dog tags on the table and counted them. "Twenty-eight. Do you need incense? You'll have to prepare twenty-eight sticks of incense."

As he spoke, perhaps because it had heard him and understood, the dog tag in his hand suddenly trembled again, as though wanting to escape his grasp. 

"Don't move," Xue Xian told the dog tag.

Don't move...

Earlier, when, desperate to relieve himself of that gnawing anxiety, Xue Xian had taken hold of that hand and brought it into his robe, Xuanmin had seemed to have said that to him, more than once.

As he inadvertently repeated that phrase, Xue Xian's still fatigued mind couldn't help but go back to the sound of Xuanmin's heavy breath interwoven with his own –– he went mute, and by the time he'd managed to drag himself back out of the memory, he found that his face and the tips of his ears were hot.

His body tense all over, he held that dog tag and stole a glance at Xuanmin.

For a moment, Xuanmin's gaze seemed to fall slightly, but then he looked back up at Xue Xian's face again. Eventually, his gaze settled on the dog tag in Xue Xian's hand. Not once did he look directly into Xue Xian's eyes –– either because he happened to skip them, or because he was avoiding them.

Before, when the fog had first dissipated, Xue Xian had especially chosen to use a casual tone when making his proposition to Xuanmin, wanting to use that nonchalant manner that he normally had in order to squash the awkwardness from that palpably ambiguous intimacy. 

Indeed, although he had been alive for many, many years, he had never encountered a situation like this before, and didn't know how he was supposed to approach it. So all he could do was grit his teeth and treat it as "an extremely normal matter", a simple helping hand given between friends, which had no bearing on anything else at all.

After many years, when the already confusing memory would have faded to almost nothing, perhaps it really would become an easily forgettable, extremely normal matter. And as for him and Xuanmin, they would continue to interact the way they'd always interacted, and did not need to expend time or energy changing anything about their relationship.

That was also perhaps why Xuanmin had summoned that poisonous fog, during: with the dense white fog between them, unable to see each other's faces, and unable, therefore, to catch anything in the other's gaze or expression, it would resemble a strange and blurry dream, and would not engender any unnecessary impact.

But now, as a single phrase triggered Xue Xian's memory so that he couldn't help but think of that moment, and certain emotions took advantage of the memory to come pouring back into him, Xue Xian realised that some things could not be pushed aside by something as simple as infusing some casual tone to one's voice...

He was still staring at the dog tags, and, as he stole another glance at Xuanmin, he suddenly came back to his senses again.

Xue Xian tugged the corners of his mouth, wanting to say something offhand to push away that suddenly awkward atmosphere again, but instead found that he had put on a forced smile, and looked extremely insincere. So he decided that he might as well not even try anymore, and instead said, "I don't think it's vengeful energy on this dog tag. There seems to be something else."

It was unclear whether Xuanmin had zoned out or if he was pondering something, but it was only after some time that he blinked and said, "He has spent too long trapped in that tomb under the river. His soul must be half gone by now. Without much of himself left, it's unlikely that vengeful energy can become so tangible."

He paused, then got up from the praying mat and walked over to Xue Xian with his hand out, saying, "Give it to me."

Before, when he'd been sitting over there, he'd looked at Xue Xian, but now as he came over, he was no longer looking at Xue Xian. His gaze was focused entirely on the dog tag as he picked it up, wrapped it in a talismanic paper, and murmured a prayer while giving the wrapped tag a flick with his finger.

The dog tag emitted a weng–– sound and spasmed between his fingers. Next, the blurred silhouette of a man slowly squeezed itself out of the dog tag and hovered before Xuanmin.

Xue Xian peered over at the man, but his face was as though shrouded in mist...

Mist...

Xue Xian forced his face to become blank as he rolled his eyes and shoved the beginnings of that memory back into the depths of his brain. He continued to peer over––

The man's face was quite hard to make out, but Xue Xian could roughly see that everything that was supposed to be on a face was there. The man did not wear a soldier's uniform, but instead a basic and slightly ragged overcoat –– the openings of its sleeves, however, were empty, and hung limply against his side. 

Clearly, someone so gravely injured was unable to return to the battlefield –– he could no longer even hold a weapon –– so he must have retired. Xue Xian realised that such soldiers, forced to return home, would probably have had rather complicated emotions...

As Xue Xian looked over at him, the man seemed stunned, and looked down at his own body too, as though surprised that he now had a silhouette. Then, he got down on one knee in front of Xuanmin and Xue Xian and bowed his head in an incomplete but highly respectful greeting.

And because he had no arms, as he got back up, his movements were strained and pathetic.

"Th-thank you, great master, for your help," he said –– so he could speak, although his voice was abnormally low, and as hazy as his form.

Even so, he jumped in fright.

"I can speak again..." he muttered. "Can you hear me?"

Xuanmin looked him up and down, then nodded.

"Was it you moving around just now?" Xue Xian asked.

The man nodded and said, "It was."

"A final request not completed? Or not wanting to transcend because you don't feel you got your vengeance?"

The man nodded, then shook his head. "I wouldn't dare. It's just..."

After all, the man was not a normal spirit, but a fragmented manifestation of vengeful energy. He spoke slowly and with great effort, and needed to stop every few words, as though, in the middle of his sentence, he had forgotten how he'd intended to finish. He thought for a while, then added, "I heard that you were about to leave this place..."

Heard?

Xue Xian froze as he tried to recall it: earlier, with nothing to say but had still wanted to say something, he had indeed said something like, If there's nothing else, then let's tidy up and go back to the Fangs. But... heard?

"You heard? What else did you hear?" Xue Xian asked as his face turned green, then pale. His gaze unconsciously turned to Xuanmin.

Xuanmin seemed to sense that he was being observed, so glanced back at Xue Xian, then retraced his gaze and looked at the man, as though waiting for the man to answer that highly awkward question.

If this dog tag had been conscious the whole fucking time, and could hear everything in the outside world, then...

Xue Xian was positive that he had never in his life felt his face grow so hot.

If it had been just him and Xuanmin, then any anomalous behavior from two people in the throes of dragon spit fever was completely understandable to a certain extent. If only the heavens knew, the earth knew, you knew, and I knew, and no one else outside of that knew, then it wasn't entirely impossible to just bury the matter.

But if some random third person knew, then that changed everything. That palpable awkwardness rippled back up into the room, still mixed in with that strange, indescribable intimacy, utterly destroying any pretense that anything had been "understandable".

Xue Xian couldn't avoid thinking back to the details of what had happened –– this time, he willingly recalled them. But as he scanned the memory again, those dazed, vague moments did not become any clearer. He still could not remember if, amidst that unbearable anxiety, he had cried out, nor if he had muttered anything else. 

He probably hadn't, but who knew...

Well, one person did know, but...

Xue Xian glanced at Xuanmin again, then looked down and frowned. Maybe I should commit suicide right now, he thought. Or please just hurry up and do the rites for that damn spirit so he can transcend and go away. 

When he looked up again, he discovered that, for some reason, Xuanmin had moved slightly closer to him. And he didn't know if this meant anything at all, but Xuanmin now happened to be standing between Xue Xian and the soldier, which gave him the feeling that he had just been protectively pushed behind someone's back. 

Now that his vision was blocked, Xue Xian could no longer see the soldier, only Xuanmin's back -– and, naturally, the soldier could not see him either. As he realised this, that intense blush and awkwardness from before settled down a bit.    

Thankfully, that soldier said, "My mind was never very clear. As soon as I became conscious, I heard the two of you say that you were going to leave, but... but before you leave, could you help me with something?"

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* OK i also don't understand, like I genuinely dont get it. Last time i said i didnt understand i was simply in denial but this time i really dont, it's just so vague. I swear I've translated exactly what it says and like... what??