CH 85

Chapter 85: Valley Spell (I)

Meanwhile, on a path for horses near the border to Wuchang Prefecture, a long carriage train was galloping along. Everyone in the train wore a robe of pure white, with primitive beasts embroidered on their chests, and their faces were concealed behind fierce but respectful masks. As they hurried along the path, their robes billowed behind them like clouds.

These were none other than the Taipu and Taizhu's group of exorcists.

Before, when they'd been approaching Wuchang Prefecture, they had heard from passersby that two teams of officials from the Ministry had already passed through Wuchang, which had mystified and terrified the locals. They knew that for the Ministry to send all these riders meant that something terrible had happened –– if it wasn't some great disaster, then some danger was threatening the stability of the religious order.

The past couple of years had already been quite difficult, unlucky ones. The winters and summers had been inconsistent, and there had been both droughts and floods. Midwinter periods were arriving earlier, and lasted longer, as though it had hidden spring and summer within its sleeve. Great blizzards were falling across the land, from the northernmost edge of the Gobi Desert to beyond the Five Ridges, in the very south, and it was impossibly cold. And between the snowstorms were frequent rainstorms. The people felt oppressed by the constant darkness of the sky, and wondered whether this current winter would ever end...

At first, there had only been vague, unsubstantiated folk rumors, such as the dragon lords being unhappy and causing the earth to fall out of balance –– some people believed this, and others did not. But now, the Ministry of Ceremonies had sent officials who seemed in a mighty hurry, and those who had not originally believed the rumors began to doubt themselves. It seemed that a great weight was hanging above them all, threatening to fall upon them at any time, with no way for them to prevent this or protect themselves.

The Taipu's group had originally merely been trying to track down the dragon, and had not had any real destination. But after hearing about the other Ministry groups, they, too, decided to head west.

They had not gone far when they received a dove letter from a Deputy Minister. The letter said that a great disaster was coming in the next two days, and that they had received orders from the Great Priest to go to Dongting Lake. Another group of officials were headed for Mt. Wanshi in Linjiang, Lanzhou. The Deputy Minister asked the Taipu's group to finish whatever task they'd been doing and await instructions from the Great Priest.

And just as the Deputy Minister had said –– around the time that the group was nearing Yuezhou Prefecture, the Taipu felt a slight heat on the hand that was gripping the reins. Behind her mask, she frowned slightly and made her horse slow down so that she could let go of the reins.

In the instant that she let go, a yellow flame appeared between her fingers –– it was not actually harmful, but it did feel hot.

A thin sheet of paper appeared from the core of the flame and, as the flame died, the paper became distinct.

The Taipu made a stop gesture with her hand, and the entire carriage train halted. The long train stood by a fork in the road. The Taizhu turned to the Taipu and said, "What did the Great Priest say?"

"We are to go to Daze Temple on Jiangsong Mountain." The Taipu handed the slip of paper to the Taizhu.

"Daze Temple? Isn't that a haunted temple? There's not even a priest there anymore. What are we going there for?" the Taizhu asked, confused.

Yet the Great Priest's black text on the white paper was clear––

There were only a few simple words on that slip of paper: Arrive at Daze Temple before 1pm; guard spell.

"Guard spell?" the Taizhu said, stunned.

Beneath her mask, the Taipu made a face. She paused, then said in a low voice, "Dongting Lake, Mt. Wanshi, Daze Temple... These three locations are hundreds of li apart. We're off to guard a spell, but what about the others? The same?"

"I don't think they are. If they are... Could a spell be that large? I've never seen that before," the Taizhu replied.

"But I feel like..." The Taipu hesitated for some time, then said, "Whatever. Let's think about it once we're at the Daze Temple."

If they wanted to arrive at Daze Temple before 1pm, they needed to hurry. So they did not have the time to delay further to contemplate the Great Priest's plans. They made a hand signal at the rest of their train and brought a rumbling trail of horses toward Jiangsong Mountain.

At the same time that the Ministry group was departing from Yuezhou Prefecture, Xue Xian and Xuanmin, encased in an air bubble, finally emerged from some infinitely deep water and were washed by its current into a small spring that lay at the bottom of a mountain stream.

As the two emerged from the spring, the bubble popped and vanished, letting the cascade of water falling down from the side of the mountain crash into them and drench them completely.

They leapt onto shore and Xuanmin immediately cast a drying spell on himself and Xue Xian. Within the blink of an eye, the water that had been dripping from their robes evaporated completely, leaving not a single drop. Their robes were light and comfortable, with no stickiness, and even the sweat that had been caused by the heat cast from the dragon of fire was gone. 

Delighted, Xue Xian shook his robe and let the final beads of moisture fall off, then looked around them.

They were in a deep mountain hollow, but one that was very different from the hollow in which Xuanmin's bamboo building had stood. From here, all Xue Xian could see were enormous mountain peaks, one after the other, looking like so many fingers curled to encase them within their palm.

The place looked like a heavenly vault, but with the top cut out –– some kind of natural deep well, and they stood at the bottom.

"There are three peaks," Xue Xian said as he pointed at the mountains in front of them. The peaks were so high that they disappeared into the clouds, and their faces looked as though they had been cut by a knife, with only a hook at the top of the cliffs shaped like an eagle's beak, whose hooks weighed down heavily. The peaks bore down on them like a series of epidote rocks. "Look familiar?" Xue Xian asked Xuanmin.

He'd asked it as a question, but his tone was that of a statement –– this was precisely the place where Old Qu had told them they could find the Cave of a Hundred Insects.

Although this legendary entrance had become Xue Xian and Xuanmin's exit, it still helped them to determine their current location –– they were in the Xia Mountain region.

Ever since they'd leapt out of the spring, Xue Xian had had the feeling that their surroundings were chock-full of yin energy. It didn't stink like the funeral stop, but there was nonetheless an old rotting smell, as though someone had suddenly flung open the lid to a wooden chest that had been sealed away for a decade –– humid air mixed with dry dust always gave off an ancient and negative atmosphere.

Instinct told Xue Xian that people had died here.

Many, many people.

Frowning, Xue Xian looked down at the fresh grass by his feet and nudged it with his toes. Just as he'd thought, the soil welled up with blood.

"Found it." He tapped Xuanmin on the shoulder.

But for a while, there was no response.

Xue Xian looked up at Xuanmin and saw that the monk was quickly retracting his gaze from the meadow of wild grass as though just coming back to his senses from something. Xuanmin looked down at where Xue Xian was pointing with his foot and said, "The blood hasn't clotted yet."

"What's wrong?" Xue Xian said in a low voice as he took back his foot and began listening to the valley for any noise.

Xuanmin was silent, then finally said, "I think I've been here before."

Hearing this, Xue Xian quickly glanced over at him then looked away. He began to follow the trail of blood, and, forcing himself to pretend to be casual, he joked, "How come you recognise everything?"

To be honest, Xue Xian had begun to feel a bit uncomfortable during this journey –– when he examined his discomfort more closely, he found that it felt as though he had missed out on or was forgetting something major. Something just didn't feel right... but he always either forgot to think on it or could not think of anything at all.

He had been feeling this way the whole time, all the way up to now –– when he suddenly understood. This discomfort was actually a strange, mysterious sense of danger, as though there were something lurking just around the corner that he had, intentionally or unintentionally, decided to ignore.

Hearing Xue Xian's words, Xuanmin did not immediately respond. Instead, he looked down.

For a brief moment, his face showed a melancholy expression, as though something particularly heavy were weighing on him.

After some time, Xuanmin shut his eyes tightly, then opened them again. He shook his head and said, "Actually––"

Xue Xian blinked slowly and seemed to want to get ahead of what Xuanmin was about to confess. He interrupted, "Let's find the stranger first. Your memory is terrible, so of course you can't just recall it now. Perhaps once another seal on the coins is broken, it'll become clearer."

Xuanmin looked at him meaningfully, then strode over to overtake him. "Yes," he agreed.

In fact, these blood stains very obviously indicated the direction in which the stranger had gone. Without much effort, the two ended up outside a small stone forest. The stone forest was only about ten zhang deep –– it wasn't big at all, but was enough for someone to cast an eight doors spell.

If someone was hiding inside, they really would be able to delay them for some time. If it wasn't for Xue Xian....

"What's the point of hiding in there?" Xue Xian called lazily into the stone forest. "If you were hiding in the middle of a city, then I'd have to consider bystanders. But since you're in the middle of nowhere, then I have nothing to worry about. Do you think you can hold me back with a bunch of random rocks?"

A sweep of his dragon tail and there wouldn't be much of anything left.

And the reason why Xue Xian was wasting his time talking to the stranger for so long without doing anything was to see if the stranger had any backup plan. Once he showed his hand, then Xue Xian could finish it all quite quickly.

Just as he'd thought, after he spoke, there was a moment of silence within the stone forest, and then a muffled, low sound of laughter, which started and stopped, perhaps due to the stranger's grave injuries. When the laughter died down, a sharp whistling noise rose.

"Since you've come all the way to my door, then I must be a good host to my guests," that low voice said.

That voice was accompanied by a loud, tragic wail that seemed to cover the whole sky like a rising tide. In the instant that the wail began to ring, the heavenly vault's door above them suddenly changed color –– dark clouds rumbled forth and instantly blocked out all light in the sky, submerging the entire valley in murky darkness.

Xue Xian suddenly remembered that, a hundred years ago, there had been a great fire in the mountains of Langzhou, caused by lightning. They say that the fire raged for three days and three nights, killing every single person living in the valley and, for the rest of that year, one could always hear the mountains crying.

In reality, that had not been the mountain crying, but the cries of the thousands of yin ghosts who had died in the blaze. The crying was harrowing, and neverending.

Xue Xian felt as though the entire land beneath their feet had begun to tremble with that wailing, and that remote, godforsaken valley suddenly filled with the sound of earth splitting apart as those long-buried, century-old corpses rose from the mud, mighty and ferocious. Then, they began to move.