A Pawn's Passage

Beautiful Lady Yu, better known as the Twelve Peaks of Wu Mountain, stood separately along the southern and northern banks of the Yangtze River, with six peaks on each bank. Among them, Goddess Peak was the most beautiful. These twelve peaks were associated with the Eleven Witches, which meant that one Great Witch was still missing.

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Perhaps because Sage Qingwei had already set the tone beforehand, Qi Xuansu’s visit to Qizhou Daoist Mansion passed without incident. The youngsters of the Li family did not provoke him, and the older generation would also never do such things openly. They preferred to scheme in the shadows while maintaining smiling faces and pleasant conversation on the surface. Open provocation was like young men brawling over romantic rivals. Such hot-blooded impulsiveness was not the style of old schemers.

Qi Xuansu and the Western Daoist delegation first toured Qizhou.

In a sense, the Qizhou Daoist Mansion resembled a miniature version of the Daoist Order itself. Qizhou corresponded to the Central Plains, the core territory. The administered regions of Bohai Prefecture and the Liaodong Peninsula were equivalent to the overseas Daoist Mansions of the Daoist Order, while the administered portions of Silla resembled the New Continent.

After touring the various prefectures of Qizhou, Huangfu Ji traveled around the inland sea, passing through Bohai Prefecture and the Liaodong Peninsula before finally reaching the border of Silla. This concluded Huangfu Ji’s visit to the Daoist Order.

The Western Daoist delegation prepared to depart for the Southern New Continent. Qi Xuansu traveled with them, along with Lu Yujue and others.

As Qi Xuansu had reported to Sage Qingwei, Liu Hu remained in Jiangnan Daoist Mansion under Lei Xiaohuan’s supervision to gain experience first and familiarize herself with the Daoist Order’s various rules and procedures.

Qi Xuansu’s primary mission to the Southern Continent this time still revolved around Kukulkan. The Daoist Order could not tolerate the existence of an unstable factor, especially one possessing the power of an Immortal, or rather, a god.

Therefore, the Golden Tower Council entrusted Qi Xuansu with an important mission—to secretly investigate Kukulkan. This meant Qi Xuansu might very well directly confront a god, or even several gods.

Although Qi Xuansu had already encountered many Immortals, ghosts, and gods, most of the time, he merely played a support role from the sidelines. In Fenglin, Sage Qingwei had carried the main burden, with Great Sage Zhang and the Imperial Preceptor supporting from behind. In Poluo, Great Sage Lan and Great Sage Jiang had each intervened in turn. The strongest opponents Qi Xuansu had personally faced were only at the Pseudo-Immortal level. But this time, he had to shoulder the heavy responsibility and directly confront these gods, which was undeniably an enormous challenge.

However, Qi Xuansu was not entirely without support. Aside from Huangfu Ji, he could also seek assistance from Tantai Zhenxiao, Gong Fu, and Ixchel.

As the first Manly Immortal Qi Xuansu had ever met, Tantai Zhenxiao’s blood qi was immense, like an ancient primordial beast. Not to mention, he was the foremost figure of the Western Daoist Order.

However, the Daoist Order and the Western Daoist Order were not completely aligned in their views, so before Qi Xuansu obtained concrete evidence, it would not be appropriate to involve Immortals from the Western Daoist Order. Moreover, this was not the traditional sphere of influence of the Daoist Order, and there were not enough personnel available for Qi Xuansu to command. At the very least, he had no Spirit Guard forces, which meant that he would have to do things on his own.

Fortunately, he could still seek help from Huangfu Ji. As the Juesheng Hall Master of the Western Daoist Order, Huangfu Ji possessed many secrets concerning the ancient gods. In the past, most of Huangfu Ji’s attention had been focused on the Steam Evangelical Sect in the Northern Continent, causing him to overlook these matters.

Now, at Qi Xuansu’s request, Huangfu Ji had ordered his people to compile and organize the relevant archives. Once they boarded the Solar Ark and returned to the Southern Continent, they could review the materials one by one.

Of course, Huangfu Ji himself had little interest in these matters. Now, his attention had already shifted to the soon-to-begin construction of the new port. This trip to the Daoist Order had given him many inspirations, and he could not wait to tap into these inspirations and produce tangible results.

Juesheng Hall was extremely efficient, sending several case files to Qi Xuansu through the rapid post talisman on the Solar Ark. All of them were concise summaries accumulated over the years. Although Hall Master Huangfu Ji did not care much for these strange powers and supernatural phenomena, his subordinates had still faithfully carried out their duties and continuously kept records, so it did not take long to organize the information.

This at least made Qi Xuansu’s journey less dull. Over the past few years, Qi Xuansu had developed the habit of never wasting the slightest bit of time, filling every idle moment to the brim. Whether it was cultivation, handling official affairs, practicing calligraphy, reading books, or anything else, he simply could not bear to remain idle. Finally, he had something to occupy himself with.

Attached to the front of the file was a letter from the Chief Deputy of Juesheng Hall, serving as a sort of foreword.

Strangely, this letter was not addressed to Huangfu Ji but to Qi Xuansu. Clearly, the Chief Deputy already knew his superior well enough that he would not care about such matters, so writing to him would be pointless. Thus, he simply bypassed Huangfu Ji and reported directly to Qi Xuansu.

Qi Xuansu opened the letter. Its contents were fairly concise, written casually, and omitting formal courtesies.

It read, “I am very glad that someone has finally noticed these anomalies and taken them seriously. I must also admit that Beichen Hall surpasses the Juesheng Hall in professional competence, especially in terms of instinct and vigilance. I believe our Hall Master will not be angered by this. After all, he is inferior to Sage Qingwei. Likewise, I am inferior to you, Chief Deputy Qi.

“You have requested that we compile the suspicious incidents over the years that are related to the ancient gods. This is truly not an easy task, as most of the material we possess consists merely of fragments, insufficient to piece together a complete picture. The underlying connections are difficult to untangle. I can only provide a rough explanation based on my own understanding. Furthermore, because these fragments of information contain omissions and contradictions, I have made certain appropriate annotations and speculations.

“What especially needs to be pointed out is that this entire series of bizarre incidents occurred after Kukulkan had completely replaced the former sun god, Itzamna. This is also one of the important reasons why we suspect these incidents are related to the Feathered Serpent God, the current sun god, Kukulkan. (Note: the word “completely” has been purposely written to be bolder for emphasis.)

“Of course, this was merely suspicion. There was no solid evidence whatsoever, so it could not be submitted to the various Sages for formal discussion. Internally, we generally referred to this series of bizarre incidents as the Shadow Cases, and to this day, there has been no definite conclusion. Furthermore, because of the war between the North and the South, Juesheng Hall had no choice but to devote most of our efforts to gathering intelligence on the Northern Continent, causing the investigation into the Shadow Cases to be postponed indefinitely.

“Therefore, I was both surprised and delighted when I heard that the Hall Master finally decided to reopen the investigation into the Shadow Cases. I must also admit that the allure of Taiping coins is truly immense and impossible to resist. Chief Deputy Qi, you have provided the funds to build the new port, so the Hall Master naturally could not refuse your request.

“The reason we first took notice of the Shadow Cases was because of a murder that occurred in Cusco, the former capital of the Tawantin Empire, which held great political importance. The victim’s identity was even more unusual, as he was a priest of the Sun God.

“The people of the Tawantin Court were unable to solve the case, so they came to us, and we took over the investigation. We employed a whole range of methods, including Earth Qi Recall, communicating with the dead, and even divination and prophecy, yet we still failed to find the murderer. However, we did discover several unusual details. There was a black sun tattoo on the victim’s chest, over the heart. Furthermore, in the victim’s final words, he displayed extreme terror, as though he were being hunted by something. (Note: these were not his literal dying words, but rather statements obtained through magical communication with the dead.)

“This gave rise to a reasonable suspicion on our part. Who exactly was hunting this Sun God priest? Since he was so terrified, why did he not seek help from the temple? As such, the greatest suspects would naturally be certain people within the temple itself, which would explain why he dared not ask the temple for aid. This seemed to be the most reasonable explanation. Since it was not appropriate for us to interfere too deeply in temple affairs, we closed the case there.

“But the other cases that followed made us realize that the Sun God priest’s case was probably not so simple after all. Thus, this leads to the second case: the New Xijing Case.”

When Qi Xuansu saw this, he paused for a moment.

Xijing referred to Xijing Prefecture in the Central Plains. Before the Western Daoist Order left the Central Plains, its headquarters was located in Xijing Prefecture, just as the Southern Daoist Order’s headquarters was located in Shangqing Prefecture of Wuzhou. After the Western Daoist Order arrived on the Southern Continent, they established a new Xijing Prefecture, hence the name, “New Xijing.” In fact, many place names on the Southern Continent carried either Eastern or Western influences, with very few retaining native characteristics. The Western-style names had been given by the Westerners during their occupation of the Southern Continent, while the Eastern-style names were bestowed by the Western Daoist Order.

New Xijing was not a city exclusively for Daoists. Various indigenous temples still existed there, but under pressure from the Western Daoist Order, all the temples had been relocated to the mountains outside the city. Believers wishing to visit the temples had to traverse long and difficult mountain paths, which the Western Daoist Order called pilgrimage roads, supposedly to test the believers’ devotion. The Daoist temples were situated in the city center, occupying the most prosperous districts. The Western Daoist Order claimed this was because Daoists should not place themselves high above the masses but instead remain close to the common folk for convenience.

Qi Xuansu continued reading further.

“A temple of the Sun God located in the mountains outside the city was suddenly engulfed by shadows. By the time we arrived, none of the priests or worshippers inside had survived. We dispersed the shadows and examined the corpses, discovering that the souls and internal organs of these Sun God priests had all vanished. Furthermore, these Sun God priests also bore black sun tattoos on their bodies.

“This appeared to be an internal struggle between two factions within the temple. At first, we believed it to be a purge carried out by the Kukulkan faction against the Itzamna faction. This was hardly strange when a new ruler took over. Since the Sun God had been replaced, it was only natural that the priests beneath him would also be replaced. Therefore, we handed the case over to the temple authorities, letting them settle their own mess among themselves while we focused our energy on military affairs.

“But when the third case occurred, we realized that these were a series of interconnected cases and that they extended far beyond just a single Sun God temple.”