Radiant Blade of the Wilderness

Chapter 138: Secrets

Another heavy snowfall came, sweeping away the frozen wisps on the flagstones, but the distance remained a field of white.

Ding Songyan walked back to his own courtyard, made his way to the stone table and benches heaped with snow to a chorus of creaking, flicked his sleeve, and sent the snow flying off in a flurry. The damp traces evaporated almost instantly.

He sat down, glanced at the deep snow still unswept in the courtyard, breathed in the sharp winter air, and opened the letter in his hand.

A delicate, cool fragrance drifted out. A few dried crimson plum blossoms lay half-visible among the pages.

”Ding Songyan,

”After my birthday in September, I went with my parents to visit my maternal grandparents, and along the way toured New Yu and the Feng Kingdom. I only returned to Five Mounds Mountain a short while ago and found your letter waiting for me.

”New Yu’s Tribodied claims to be descended from Emperor Shun and bears the surname Yao. They have one head and three bodies, and regardless of gender, every member has three or more partners...

”Similar to them yet different, the Feng Kingdom’s Triheaded has one body and three heads. Each head has its own thoughts and beliefs and they are constantly arguing and contradicting one another, so most of them have taken refuge in Buddhism, using the Dharma to reconcile themselves. They claim to embody the three ages of the horizontal and the three realms of the vertical in one body, calling themselves heaven-ordained children of the Buddha...

”The Quanrong are like dogs, placing men above women. I don’t care for them much. Quanrong men like to take wives from other species and make them kneel in service... They are only one of the Hundred Species, not yao. Even before the heaven and earth severance, they could not take human form...”

Xiao Qing recounted her travels with unhurried ease, making no effort to conceal her likes and dislikes or to offer any forced explanations.

Though Ding Songyan had come across descriptions of the Tribodied, the Triheaded, the Quanrong, and other non-human species in the books of the scripture repository, he had never seen any of them himself, and still found it all fascinating to read.

”When I returned to Five Mounds Mountain, the hills and streams were blanketed in silver and white, and the plum blossoms were in full bloom, crimson as blazing flame, breathtaking in their beauty. I plucked a few especially for you, dried them, and enclosed them here for you to enjoy.

”Ding Songyan, I’ve sent you flower petals twice now. Don’t you know what to send in return? Those chrysanthemum cakes from last time looked quite nice, but Double Ninth had long since passed, so they were already out of season. If there are similar seasonal things around the New Year, you could send some to indulge my cravings. If not, feel free to improvise.

”The matter you asked me to look into has also turned up some leads.

”The three surnames Xiong, Qu, and Pan are descended from Ye. Ye was born of Li’s descent into the world, and when Emperor Zhuanxu severed the connection between heaven and earth, he himself established the law: Zhong was entrusted with Heaven and Li was sunk into the Earth, and from that point humankind and the divine were separated.

”For millenia, who knows how many ancient monsters at the end of their rope have tirelessly searched for a way to circumvent heaven and earth severance. They believed that the martial art scriptures of the Xiong, Qu, and Pan clans might conceal the secret of Li’s descent into the earth, which could help them ascend to the Heavenly Realm. So they took advantage of the chaos brought by the Hundred Species rebellion, joined forces to target those three clans, and slaughtered them to seize their arts. But it seems they gained nothing. The three clans’ martial art scriptures held none of what they were looking for.”

To massacre entire clans over such a vague, ephemeral hope, and the scriptures turned out to hold no clues at all? Brother Pan’s family was wiped out so unjustly. What made it worse was that those ancient monsters had probably been near the end of their lifespans, which was why they had resorted to such desperate measures, daring to strike against the great surnames of the world. Now that 250-260 years have passed, there are probably very few of them still in the world. Anyone seeking revenge would have almost no targets left to find... Ding Songyan clicked his tongue in dismay, then felt a chill run through him.

However, since it had been confirmed that the Pan clan’s arts held no secrets about the heaven and earth severance, the Brightnight Sect taking Pan Yunzhou in as a disciple and helping him complete the aperture forging and viscera installation methods of the Myriad Stars Canon should not invite any human-caused disasters.

And since the Brightnight Sect itself had never reached the Heaven-Man Realm, the Myriad Stars Canon completed with the aid of the Celestial Stars Scripture certainly wouldn’t either. Whatever ancient monsters were still alive wouldn’t see this as a threat to themselves or worth the risk of exposing their secrets to stamp them out.

Ding Songyan felt somewhat less concerned about the matter of Pan Yunzhou and continued reading Miss Xiao Qing’s letter.

”Demon Sovereign Tan Guanchan is extremely dangerous. He is suspected to be of the Two-Faced, but no one has ever seen his second face—or rather, those who have are either dead or have succumbed to demonic deviation.

”My aunt says that Tan Guanchan is a peerless talent of an era, capable of breaking free from the techniques passed down by heavenly gods, mountain gods, divine beasts, and strange creatures to blaze his own path and create new arts. His hands are soaked in blood because of it. My aunt also says that it is perhaps only when Tan Guanchan reveals his second face that he is at his strongest.

”Try to stay out of his way. Don’t provoke him. If you ever truly encounter him, you could try invoking my aunt’s name—she has a history with Tan Guanchan, so there is some goodwill there.

”My aunt has had dealings with Tan Guanchan and was never turned Two-Faced herself. If Tan Guanchan really is of the Two-Faced, this suggests he can already choose at will who to transform and who to leave alone...”

Tan Guanchan blazed his own path and created new arts? Did he also consume Chaos? No, going by what Su Liudan had said, Tan Guanchan had created his new arts by using countless martial artists as test subjects. Hence the blood on his hands... Miss Xiao Qing’s aunt is certainly an interesting character. Master Yan had a history with her. The Demon Sovereign has a history with her. Quite a talent for knowing the great figures of the unorthodox world, isn’t she? No, she likely had connections among the orthodox too... Little wonder she had been known in her time as the jianghu’s greatest beauty, she who ”toys with all living things, beguiles the world”... Ding Songyan found himself genuinely curious about what kind of person Su Liudan was.

He gathered his thoughts and brought his gaze back to Miss Xiao Qing’s neat, graceful handwriting.

”I’ve asked around. Both the Chi Bird and the Tri-Azure Bird’s calls are ’Scree,’ and the arts associated with each match quite well.

”The Three Perils School is in the Feng Kingdom and originally had three lineages: the Chi Bird’s Scripture of Soothing Souls in the Nether Capital and Chart of Forgetting Sorrow; the Youye’s Scripture of Death and Rebirth and Codex of Yin Law; and the Tri-Azure Bird’s Azure Bird Divination, Scripture of Impermanence, and the Heaven-Conduit Underworld-Entering Divine Art.

”Later, the Tri-Azure Bird line split away from the Three Perils School for unknown reasons. Most joined with other traditions to found the Impermanence Order, while a smaller faction took the Heaven-Conduit Underworld-Entering Divine Art as their foundation and established their own independent sect.

”The Impermanence Order also has three lineages: one being the Tri-Azure Bird’s; one being devotees of Houtu who cultivate the Six Heavens of Luofeng; and one being followers of the Queen Mother of the West who split from the Yaochi School, primarily cultivating the Netherworld and Undying Chapters of the Yaochi Golden Book.

”The Impermanence Order primarily reveres the Queen Mother of the West, with the Tri-Azure Bird and the Earth Mother as secondary devotions. Their main altar is north of the Feng Kingdom, near Nether Capital Mountain, and they have followers across many regions...

”These underworld-related sects all like to seek out those born with yin eyes as disciples, which is why the imperial courts of the various kingdoms have so few people capable of spirit channeling. Had you not entered the Brightnight Sect, there would have been a good chance you’d have become one of them...”

The Yaochi Golden Book is divided into multiple Chapters, including the Netherworld and Undying Chapters? Ding Songyan suddenly recalled the Secret Classic of Mountains and Seas’ description of the Queen Mother of the West.

”Administers heaven’s plagues, commands the five destructions, communes with the netherworld, severs untimely death, gestates fortune and begets gold.”

He murmured soundlessly to himself, The Netherworld Chapter corresponds to ’communes with the netherworld,’ and the Undying Chapter corresponds to ’severs untimely death’?

That would mean my thinking is right. Different traits can be extracted and made into different arts. Upon reaching the Dharma Realm or even the Heaven-Man Realm, one can then cultivate related arts alongside each other to fill in the missing traits... That way, cultivation in the Human Realm and the Great Proliferation Realm would be considerably simpler and wouldn’t require so much time...

Ding Songyan, who still had much to learn about the various sects and schools, felt a sudden lift in his spirits.

He had already decided to make a trip north of the Great River sometime in his future jianghu travels and seek out disciples of the Three Perils School and the Impermanence Order.

Having finished with the matters Ding Songyan had asked about, Xiao Qing turned to write:

”Your pursuit of the Three Villains of Xiao City makes me long to do the same, but I won’t be able to roam the jianghu like that for several more years. Also, the world only knows Xie Fengchao for his fearsome hidden weapons, unaware that you and your Senior Sister Zheng are formidable with the sword. This gives me a small, secret satisfaction, as though I’m the keeper of something the rest of the world doesn’t know.

”When you share stories like this in the future, could you be a bit more detailed? It would be best if you wrote it the way a storyteller would tell it.

”The Twenty-One Heretical Ways do cooperate from time to time, but a scheme shared among multiple factions as you described is genuinely rare. I wonder how many watchful eyes noticed when you and I first met...

”I had planned to come south of the Great River again around the New Year, but when I thought it over I realized I wouldn’t see you anyway, I gave up on the idea. We both still have to work hard at our cultivation, so that when we encounter each other again someday, we can actually meet each other.

”Who knows how long it will take to reach the realm we’re aiming for. Ding Songyan, work hard on every path you take; even separated by a thousand miles, we are buffeted by the same wind1.

”One last thing, just between us: I also spent quite a long time paging through poetry collections before I found that line.

”Su Qingli.”

Miss Xiao Qing has evidently learned by now that I consumed Chaos... In his previous letter, Ding Songyan had not concealed his own strength, and Su Qingli’s reply made no attempt at coyness either.

He exhaled a puff of white breath and decided to wait until spring to reply to Miss Xiao Qing. By then he could not only recount the Qisong Prefecture experience in the manner of a storyteller, but also enclose a sprig of forsythia and close with the line: ”The south has nothing to offer; aside from a brief gift of spring’s sprig1.”

Ding Songyan folded up Miss Xiao Qing’s letter and was just about to change clothes and head to the Dipper-Mansion Training Ground when something stirred in his heart. He turned to look toward the door.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Someone pounded on the courtyard gate.

”Let yourself in,” Ding Songyan called out with a laugh.

With a creak, in came Xie Fengchao, dressed in a thick black robe and draped in a red greatcloak, with Xing Chang, Pan Yunzhou, Yang Shiduo, and Xu Chang’an following behind.

The imperial family of Great Zhao claimed descent from Zhurong, and so both court and commoners held red in high regard.

”What brings you all here?” Ding Songyan rose and asked.

Xie Fengchao was a frequent visitor to the Brightnight Sect, partly to spar, and partly to help Zheng Zhuxi and Ding Songyan with the Relief Society they had established to aid the families of those harmed by Yan Peng. He had negotiated monthly interest of 0.6% from the Liheng Bank on their behalf and handled a great deal of miscellaneous affairs. Zheng Zhuxi had also brought in two temporarily underemployed executives from the Hongxin Trading Company to oversee operations.

In all of this, Xie Fengchao had not taken a cut and sought no recognition. He simply ran himself ragged on behalf of his friends, sparing no effort and voicing no complaint. Both Ding Songyan and Zheng Zhuxi felt that he was a true hero of the age—loyal and righteous, a man who honored his word.

As for the Brightnight Sect itself, Xie Fengchao held a certain wariness toward it. He had deliberately avoided the terrifying Zheng Zhuxi and the martial prodigy Ding Songyan, thinking to challenge Tao Wenshu’s other personal disciples instead—only to immediately ”stumble into” a wager with Xue Xian in which he nearly lost his five signature hidden weapons to her.

As remnant snow slid from the eaves, Xie Fengchao—draped in his red greatcloak, every bit the elegant young gentleman amid the fallen world—heard Ding Songyan’s question. He raised the wine jar in his hand to his chest and said with a smile, ”To say farewell.”

Zhou Xingji’s ”Sending My Friend to Return East,” Northern Song dynasty.Lu Kai’s ”A Gift for Fan Ye,” Northern and Southern Dynasties period.