CH 78

Chapter 78: Funeral Stop (II)

The hut had an unusually high ceiling, which made it more than half a zhang taller than normal buildings.

There was a gate in front of the door, but the gate was covered in scrawling talismanic text, and someone had driven nails into its sides, and the entire wooden gate seemed to have been doused in blood, or perhaps simply dipped into a pool of blood, so that the dark wood was still a bit moist. The gate emitted an old, metallic stench of blood, which intermixed with the smell of dead bodies that came from within the room.

The hut did not have windows on either side as most buildings did, but instead had two small windows at the top of its high walls that seemed to help let air through –– they looked like two tiny caverns.

Because the ventilating windows were so small, the interior of the hut never saw light and was constantly bathed in darkness –– a living person, merely approaching the building, would become filled with a sense of unease, let alone try to go into the hut to see what it looked like on the inside.

Frowning, Xue Xian fanned himself under his nose, but there was nothing he could do about the stench except maintain a neutral expression and hold his breath. He looked around and saw that there was text carved onto boards on both sides of the door, though it had been so long that the boards were now mottled and disintegrating.

As he studied the text, he discovered that it had six words: Yin souls depart. Yang souls allow.

It sounded familiar...

Xue Xian gave Xuanmin a questioning look.

Based on Xuanmin's personality, Xue Xian knew that to get him to open his mouth and speak in such a revolting place was less likely than dropping dead right then and there. So, as Xue Xian continued to hold his breath, and just as he'd finished asking Xuanmin his silent question, he felt Xuanmin grab hold of his wrist and hold it up. Silently, the monk used his finger to outline the characters into his palm –– Funeral stop.

Funeral stop?

Xue Xian had heard of such things: in the regions along the river in the Xiang area, there were men whose job it was to transport the dead to their hometowns to be buried. They only travelled at night and, during the day, needed to avoid all other living people. But often, it was impossible to complete the entire journey in one night, especially if they encountered bad weather. So every dozen li or so in this area, there would be buildings erected specifically for corpse-carriers and the corpses themselves to rest and shelter, and these were called funeral stops.

Xue Xian had not been witness to such practices, nor had he heard a lot about them, but he remembered hearing that there were many particulars to the corpse-carrying profession. They had to bring the body to its destination before it began to decompose, or else they would sully every place they passed through –– never mind the falling chunks of rotten flesh, just the lingering smell would be enough to overwhelm anyone else in the area. Who could tolerate that?

So for this funeral stop to smell this bad was not normal.

Grimacing, Xue Xian pinched his nose and paced about in front of the door as his face turned green. In the end, he threw caution to the wind and stepped through the door, automatically glancing back at Xuanmin for a moment.

At first sight, Xuanmin's face was ice cold and, except for a faint sense of disgust at the stench demonstrated by a small frown, he did not seem to have any other reaction to the funeral stop. But in those calm, pitch-black eyes, Xue Xian could see an indescribable sense of helplessness.

When he first noticed that emotion brimming beneath Xuanmin's eyes, Xue Xian wanted to smile. It wasn't funny, but coming from Xuanmin, the unexpectedness made it funny. But before he'd even turned up his lips to smile, Xue Xian suddenly realised that there was something wrong––

Xuanmin was normally so collected –– he repressed all of his emotions, never to be revealed. Most people could spend hours thinking about it, yet would not be able to guess anything about him. Even Xue Xian found it often impossible to know Xuanmin's mood or what he was thinking. But now, he could actually tell what Xuanmin was feeling.

He didn't even have to investigate –– it was as though it were the most natural thing in the world to know Xuanmin's feelings...

As soon as Xue Xian thought of the phrase natural, it came to him –– the copper coins!

It was the connection from the copper coin pendant.

That connection seemed to have deepened yet again after Xue Xian had used the pendant last night, so that now even these subtle shifts to Xuanmin's emotions could be transferred onto Xue Xian.

Xue Xian's half-smile was frozen into something much more complicated: after all, he still couldn't know if this connection was a good or bad thing –– if it became too deep, he may stop knowing whether his happiness was purely his own happiness or somehow affected by the emotions of the other; and if he was sad, whether the sadness had been multiplied by the other person's sadness.

The most anxiety-inducing part was, if he could feel Xuanmin's reactions, then could Xuanmin feel his emotions and feelings too? Especially certain urges that seemed to increasingly surge forth? 

Then they were far too closely enmeshed.

Just the thought of it made Xue Xian want to die of embarrassment.

He decided that, as soon as they left this place, he would tell Xuanmin about what was happening. If it was possible, they needed to sever this, or else more unnecessary complications would arise.

As Xue Xian's mind floated back to the present, he noticed Xuanmin staring at him, perhaps puzzled by why his face was frozen stiffly in such a strange expression.

"It's nothing," Xue Xian said automatically, waving his hand. 

Immediately, he rolled his eyes. All he could feel was his entire body be flooded with the stench.

Xuanmin said nothing.

The hut was even emptier than Xue Xian had expected –– actually, there was practically nothing inside. Never mind a table, chairs, or altar, there wasn't even a stone on which to sit. Xue Xian let his eyes adjust to the weak light cast through the minuscule windows by the ceiling, then walked around the room.

Compared to the totally empty room, the four walls did have more going on. The walls were covered in semi-circular metal hoops around the size of a fist, sometimes clustered tightly together, other times set apart. The two sides of each hoop were nailed into the wall, and the middle rose up in a small curve.

These hoops were always grouped in pairs, and spaced out next to them were another pair, the strange sequence creating a circle that extended around all four walls.

Xue Xian studied the hoops intently, and then noticed some frayed fragments of rope tangled on some of them and understood their function –– it seemed that when the corpse-carriers rested here, they would use the hoops to tie the body to the wall and keep it upright.

It both prevented the body from falling over, and protected the integrity of the body.

But soon, Xue Xian's steps faltered.

He saw that the hoop in front of him was stained with a streak of blood, which may have been splashed on or have been a result of someone scratching themselves against the hoop –– but the issue was that the blood was wet and sticky... it was obviously left there very recently.

Without lifting his head, Xue Xian waved at Xuanmin, then pointed at the hoops to show him the blood.

Xuanmin's brows furrowed slightly, then relaxed again. He pointed at the corner of the hut where Xue Xian had previously been standing.

Following his finger, Xue Xian looked over and realised that a pile of rope lay heaped on the ground there, as well as some crumpled paper. He had assumed that the items had been random things left behind by the corpse-carriers, so had not looked too closely and passed by.

But since Xuanmin had pointed it out, it meant that it was not so simple. But Xue Xian couldn't think of anything wrong with the items, so he obediently stuck out a hand to Xuanmin, palm facing up.

At first Xuanmin faltered, but then used his finger to write some more on Xue Xian's palm.

"Shifting spell." Naturally, writing on a palm was not as comprehensible as directly speaking, and it was also impossible to write anything too complicated, so Xuanmin had concisely written those two words.

It didn't matter what the design had originally been named. After Xuanmin had written down the explanation, Xue Xian understood the design's function –– similarly to the way that stranger at Mt. Lianjiang had instantly disappeared, someone had used this spell to leave this room right before Xue Xian and Xuanmin had arrived.

As he thought about it, Xue Xian became almost certain that this person was the same stranger he'd been chasing previously.

But...

Xuanmin wrote on Xue Xian's palm again: Not just one person.

Xue Xian walked over to that pile of rope and paper and crouched down. The floor was steeped in the stench of corpses accumulated over the years, and Xue Xian couldn't help but frown and pinch his nose again.

Now that he was close to the floor, he discovered that the strangers had used their blood to draw a circle, and the rope was piled inside the circle. The papers were covered in dried blood and seemed to have been randomly strewn around the blood circle.

In addition, Xue Xian had also seen something else...

In the corner outside the circle, right where the two walls intersected, there were several needles on the floor, and they held streaks of blood too. They looked as though they had been melded together and into the ground, so that they were impossible to see unless one looked very, very closely.

There were far too many uses for such long, thin silver needles, but in that dark and humid funeral stop, and recalling what Twenty-Seven had said about the figure in the divination "suddenly disappearing", Xue Xian immediately thought of one such use––

Some wizards, when faced with imminent danger, used such needles to replace themselves with corpse warriors.

By corpse warriors, it meant that they would do some magic to a dead body to make it "come back to life" –– it would look approximately like a normal person, but it would actually be an empty puppet controlled by the wizard. The person to whom the body belonged had no say.

And when the wizard had no use for them anymore, they would remove the needles and the corpse warrior would be a dead body again –– and dead bodies never appeared in Twenty-Seven's divinations.

If this really had been the case here, then it was obvious who the wizard was that had been controlling the body.

Since he had already come all this way, and would, in a few more steps, find the man who had maimed him and get his revenge, Xue Xian naturally was not going to give up. He grabbed Xue Xian's hand and wrote, Can the spell still be used?

Xuanmin replied, Chasing?

Xue Xian nodded.

Xuanmin understood. He wrote, The spell is spent, but can be recreated.

Then, he sliced a gash on his finger so that he began to bleed. Following some obscure sequence, he dripped blood onto those crumpled papers.

There were the gloomy sounds of blood striking the papers, and those dried streaks of blood suddenly became bright and fresh again, as though reinvigorated.

Xuanmin waved at Xue Xian, indicating for him to step into the circle.

The blood circle was tiny, and just big enough for one person –– it seemed that the group of strangers had gone in one by one. 

Xue Xian stood in the circle, intending to go ahead first, but as he raised his head to look at Xuanmin, he saw the monk slightly frown as he cast the spell. 

Based on Xuanmin's nitpicky, clean-freak personality, every extra second spent in this funeral stop was torture. So without another thought, in the instant that Xuanmin cast the spell, Xue Xian reached out and pulled the monk into the circle with him.

He had put all of his strength into his hands, so as Xuanmin stepped in, he stumbled and collapsed entirely onto Xue Xian.

A sudden twist of wind rose from all around them, followed by an extended weng sound as their surroundings shifted. But as soon as they were transported, Xue Xian began to regret what he'd just done ––

Xuanmin had slammed into him hard. The two of them half-grasped and half-clawed each other as they floundered backwards.

Then, there was a thud as Xue Xian crashed into a jagged wall built from broken stones, and Xuanmin in turn crashed into him.

The feeling of suddenly backing into those rough stones sent a shock wave of pain across Xue Xian's body, and he couldn't help but moan. But the back of his head, which was also supposed to have been struck, did not touch the stones at all –– instead, it was buttressed by something much softer, which had absorbed all the impact.

Stunned, Xue Xian realised that, right before they'd slammed into the wall, Xuanmin had automatically reached out to protect his head. And so the thing that cradled his head now was Xuanmin's hand.