Where Immortals Once Walked

He Lingchuan gave a start. As if his grip had slipped, the half a scallion root left in his hand tumbled to the ground. “What? We’re the ones who have to hold it up?”

“If monsters cause trouble within our borders, that’s one thing. However, the greater danger lies to the north.”

At those words, both Mozhe Jingxuan and Wu Shaoyi stiffened, blurting almost in unison, “The monster state!”

Bordering Great Yuan to the north was none other than a monster state.

The original He Lingchuan had been fond of listening to storytellers. He might not have understood much of current affairs, but he had heard his share of strange tales, many of them about the northern monster state.

A state ruled by humans was called a human state. A state ruled by monsters was, of course, a monster state.

From time immemorial, humans and monsters had been entangled. Humans slaughtered monsters, monsters devoured humans, and on and on this went in endless cycles. Human states could pool their strength to resist monsterkind. Especially after mastering the use of origin energy, even powerful monsters were no match for humans in single combat.

So the monsters banded together too, founding states of their own in imitation of humankind.

There were several monster states in the world, but the one north of Great Yuan was the strongest of them all: the State of Beijia. To the people of Yuan, though, it was simply “the northern monster state.”

Greater monsters lived far longer than humans, and thus monster states often outlasted human dynasties. The northern monster state had stood for over six centuries, while the land beneath He Lingchuan’s feet had already changed hands multiple times.

But exceptions always arose, especially when imperial nectar appeared, shattering old patterns.

“Every time imperial nectar emerges, the monster state is thrown into upheaval, and the turmoil inevitably spills over,” He Chunhua said, brow furrowed. “The crocodile monster at Immortal Spirit Lake, for instance, only invaded Yuan after a change of rulers in the monster state. Now, with its politics already unstable and imperial nectar descending on top of that, their chaos will only deepen.”

Just then, a messenger arrived to report, “My lord, a letter has come from Kuzhu County.”

He Chunhua took it, glanced it over, and said, “Reply at once. Tell them we’ll be there tomorrow morning to lend our support.”

Once the messenger had gone, He Yue asked, “Support? Do you mean in ritual or in battle?”

“Now that imperial nectar has appeared and monsters are stirring, Kuzhu County plans to issue a proclamation against them tomorrow morning,” He Chunhua replied solemnly. “As an official of the royal court, I am duty-bound to assist them.”

Madame Ying stepped forward. “I just heard that a village eight kilometers from here was attacked this morning. A bird monster broke into a home and took a child.”

He Lingchuan added, “This afternoon in Shuanghe Town, someone was mauled by a mongoose and they lost two toes.”

“And that’s only here in the densely settled areas near Woling Pass. Think of the outlying regions.” Mozhe Jingxuan sighed. “Imperial nectar’s descent brings not only blessings, but calamities as well.”

“That is why Kuzhu County must first issue a virtuous proclamation, warning the new monsters not to run wild. If they will not heed words, then force will follow.” He Chunhua rose to his feet. “Tonight, rest early. We set out before dawn.”

* * *

At dawn the next day, the Coordinating Army arrived at Fengling Port right on schedule.

The commoners were already gathered there, waiting to watch. The Country Magistrate of Kuzhu County led the local gentry forward to exchange greetings with He Chunhua.

Not long after, the appointed time of the third quarter of the hour of the dragon[1] arrived.

The county magistrate ordered five fat pigs, fifteen roosters, and nine baskets of live fish brought to the riverside. Mounting a great stone at the port’s edge, he unfurled a written proclamation and began to read it aloud.

His own voice was hoarse and not especially strong, but the moment he began, the mandate token at his waist lit up brilliantly.

The sky was clear and the sun blazed overhead. He Lingchuan saw a faint wisp of azure qi gather in the air above Fengling Port.

Looking closer, he realized that this azure qi was rising from the bodies of the commoners and militia of Kuzhu County below, as well as from the men of the Coordinating Army that his father had brought.

It was blazing, vigorous yang qi.

All of a sudden, the county magistrate gave a sharp shout—“Chuh!”—and his voice exploded outward in waves. The surrounding forest shuddered as if in a gale, and the waters of the Hongchuan roiled as though stirred by hidden whirlpools.

He Lingchuan did not pay close attention to the words being recited. They were ornate, balanced couplets, rhymed and ringing, but he could not help but wonder, “Can beasts that have only just turned into monsters even understand such flowery prose?”

Clearly, this ceremony was not for the uneducated. Never mind monsters, there were turns of phrase that even He Lingchuan himself barely understood.

Still, once he “translated” it in his own mind, it boiled down to this: Kuzhu County was warning all the newborn or newly-awakened monsters in the area not to run amok on the people’s land, and especially not to eat humans. Only then could man and monster coexist in peace. And as for the spirits of the mountains, marshes, and waters, their responsibility to keep the beasts in line was to be strictly enforced. Each domain was responsible for its own, and anyone who shirked duty would be dismissed. They would then receive no more offerings, and thereby no more origin energy.

The more the magistrate intoned, the denser the azure qi above Fengling Port became.

When his final words rang out, he set the proclamation aflame and cast it onto the river.

At once, the azure qi overhead sank down with a loud whoosh and swept across the burning paper.

In that instant, the proclamation burst into a storm of sparks. The qi itself caught fire, blazing into the image of a giant azure kite. It stretched over sixty meters in length, with a wingspan of a hundred meters, and once quenched by flame, it transformed into a fire kite, letting out a piercing cry that shook the heart as it swooped across mountain and river alike.

Wherever it passed, nothing was spared from its fire: forest, soil, stone, even the river’s surface.

The fair scene of green hills and clear waters turned to a world of flames in the blink of an eye.

Beasts fled the woods in droves, birds took to the air, fish leapt from the water—all in utter panic.

But after one circle overhead, the fire kite vanished into the clouds. The inferno at Fengling Port died out as if it had never been, leaving not even a wisp of smoke behind.

Blinking, He Lingchuan saw that a small tree only six meters away, which moments ago had seemed engulfed in flame, was still intact. Its branches and leaves were utterly untouched, as if it had never been set aflame to begin with.

The Kuzhu County magistrate shouted, “Birds and beasts, return to your places!”

He repeated the command thrice, his voice booming in all directions, magnified by the glow of his mandate token.

Amazingly, the creatures seemed to understand. The fleeing animals turned about and calmly wandered back to where they had come from.

Only two great bears lumbered out, jaws gaping in a roar. The crowd of onlookers shrank back at once.

They were terrifying creatures.

Yet the bears did not attack. They merely nodded toward the magistrate, then each picked up a fat pig in their jaws.

When they stood upright, they reached nearly seven meters in height, their slick, glossy hides gleaming. A two-hundred-kilo pig was nothing for them; they carried the pigs away as though they were mere toys.

He Yue whispered, “Usually, the first to come forward for the offerings are the local guardian spirits. This means they’ve acknowledged the magistrate’s proclamation. From here on, it’s their duty to maintain order.”

Once the guardian spirits had set the example, the woodland monsters followed suit. A pack of wolves worked together to drag off another pig, weasels snatched chickens, and to He Lingchuan’s utter bafflement, an entire herd of goats marched out of the trees and devoured, right in front of everyone, over a dozen fish and two chickens.

“Wait a minute, goats eat meat now? Or are these goat monsters just omnivores?”

Wu Shaoyi muttered back, “There’s nothing strange about this at all. Men from the Western Regions say goats are sometimes but disguises worn by evil spirits.”

Overhead, flocks of birds descended, wings gusting, to claim fish from the baskets. Ordinary birds would never dare approach humans so closely.

The river, however, remained quiet.

He Chunhua stepped forward. “No water spirits?”

“The water spirits of this stretch of the Hongchuan likely perished in the battle at Woling Pass,” the Kuzhu County magistrate said with a sigh. “The Water Spirit Tablet is already broken, the seat of the water spirit lies empty. We’ll need a new water spirit.”

With that, he ordered soldiers to carry the remaining livestock to Wuxin Pool, a backwater lagoon off the main river.

He Lingchuan followed along and saw the soldiers march onto the plank bridge, shoving all the livestock into the water, leaving only a single fat pig behind.

The pond, which had been placid a moment before, suddenly began to boil.

Every so often, a massive fin or maw would break the surface, but before anyone could catch a clear look at the creature, it would vanish again.

Whirlpools of all sizes spun across the pond.

He Lingchuan had a good idea of what was happening beneath the surface of the water. The water monsters were probably fighting it out to see who could take the seat of the water spirit.

Sometimes only bubbles surfaced. Other times, what rose to the top was blood—dark red, or murky green.

He asked He Yue, “So the old water spirit here was killed by our old acquaintance, wasn’t it?”

He Yue gave a wry smile. “Most likely. The giant crocodile joined Hong Xiangqian at Woling Pass. Amphibious though it was, its true battlefield was the water.”

The Hongchuan’s former water spirit had been officially enfeoffed, standing with the Righteous Army, so of course, the crocodile monster could not allow it to live.

The crocodile monster had been ferocious enough to slay at least two water spirits. And yet, it itself had been driven out of the northern monster state. At the thought, He Lingchuan felt a stir of yearning. Were those legendary world-shaking monsters he had once heard about in storytellers’ tales truly alive in the north?

He Chunhua leaned in and said softly, “The original guardian spirits of Kuzhu County weren’t those two black bears.”

“They weren’t?” He Lingchuan’s eyes widened. “The original guardian spirit was killed, too?”

“No, not killed. It was a multicolored tiger.”

He Yue was puzzled. “Then why didn’t it show up today? On a day this important?”

That was out of place. On occasions like this, guardian spirits were expected to aid the county magistrate in keeping order, asserting their own dominion in the process. Only by doing so could they cow the new monsters and keep them from running amok.

The grand display the Kuzhu County magistrate had staged earlier with his mandate token, where he burned through a great deal of origin energy to conjure the fire kite, had likewise been to strike fear into the arrogant new monsters, to show them human might, and warn them against preying on mankind.

This was not just for the sake of the state or the people, but also to ensure the guardian spirits themselves could maintain authority afterward, which was why local guardian spirits usually cooperated eagerly.

“It’s said the tiger stepped down and left, traveling to the northern monster state.”

He Lingchuan blinked. “Why?”

“You’d have to ask it yourself.” He Chunhua gave a thin smile. “But as I say, a hidden dragon will not remain in the depths forever.”

As they spoke, the turmoil in Wuxin Pool gradually subsided. Rippled lines traced across the surface, and now and then a tall fin appeared—a sign that the water-dwellers were dispersing.

Then a massive black fish swam close to shore, its head as large as a basket, lifting it toward the magistrate and holding still.

He Lingchuan noticed it bore many scars.

The magistrate asked, “Are the others of the water subdued?”

The great black fish nodded.

“Are you willing to take up the seat of water spirit and safeguard the safe passage of boats at Fengling Port?”

The great black fish nodded again.

1. Also known as chenshi (辰时), it corresponds to 7 to 9 in the morning in traditional Chinese timekeeping. ☜