Where Immortals Once Walked

Chapter 257: One’s Nature

The books did not only parade ghosts and ghouls, but all manner of monsters also took to the stage. They also teemed with intrigue among human states, feuds between Daoist sects, and the secret history of deals and betrayals between governments and the Dao. The cruelty of immortals and monsters, the pettiness of the human heart, the barbarity of the age, and the tangles of karma all stood naked within the books.

The books even touched on “gods,” hinting that although they never showed themselves, their influence on the mortal realm was decisive. The lives of people like Zhong Shengguang, Hong Xiangqian, Nian Songyu, and Sun Fuping all seemed to serve as case studies for that claim.

The deeper He Lingchuan read, the more he felt that once you stripped away the strange lights and colors, the ground tone of the books was a single field of gray-black. The more one pondered it, the more unsettling it became.

Another idea appeared again and again in the pages: the revival of spirit qi.

The author argued that by the Middle Era, the spirit qi of heaven and earth should already have begun to return, yet for some reason, it did not. “Some reason,” the author admitted, and then fell silent even in this otherwise loose-tongued text.

He checked the names on the title page. “As told by Ao Xun, recorded by Sun Yang.” So the book was a duet, one speaking and one taking notes.

He had spent days in the Literature Pavilion reading shelf after shelf, but now it felt as though all those books together were not as gripping as these two. Sun Fuling’s recommendations held true; she simply knew how to find books worth a reader’s time.

Unnoticed, the afternoon slipped into evening. The sky in the west blazed with the sunset afterglow. From the neighbor’s courtyard came the racket of adults scolding children and children shouting back, followed by a sharp rattle, perhaps a bamboo ruler cracking across leather. Sun Fuling’s house, by contrast, was quiet as a sealed jar. Not a single sound came from her side.

He knew she liked her peace and often went out, and in past days, he had not thought twice. After today’s fight, though, the silence felt wrong. She had returned home, yet he could not hear even the lightest footfall. Only a low wall separated their yards. With his present hearing ability, he should have been able to catch the movements in her inner room. Had she gone still as a statue the moment she closed the door? Or was she, like him, someone who cultivated?

In this dreamscape, his role felt part player, part passerby. He still did not know why he was here, yet the appearance of Sun Fuling could not be a coincidence. The dream itself seemed to have arranged it. A thought rose and would not go away: one of these days, when she left the house, he would climb the wall and have a look. He pushed the idea down, but it soon resurfaced.

A sudden clanging outside saved him from himself. Someone beat a gong twice and shouted, “By order of the city, a curfew begins at the sixth quarter-hour of the hour of the rooster[1]. All residents are to remain indoors!”

The sixth quarter hour of the hour of the rooster came to roughly half past six. From the timing, it was clear the curfew had been imposed on short notice. People on the street immediately hurried home, their footsteps turning the street outside into a ribbon of quick, disorderly steps.

His neighbors whispered through the wall. “What now?”

“Ever since the imperial nectar rain took place, there has been trouble. We only just had a few quiet days. Hah.”

He wondered whether the curfew had anything to do with the creatures that had appeared that afternoon. If so, it seemed that Panlong City’s leadership had taken the matter seriously. Patrol strength across the city grew obvious within the hour. Where a single squad used to pass his door each quarter-hour, now there were at least three. The puppet beasts that paced the streets also grew in number.

The city was gathering its strength to hunt for the creatures’ hiding places.

He was not optimistic. The thing moved too fast, and it could likely shrink its body. Once it crawled into a henhouse, who would notice a soundless lump of dark in a corner?

Four hours slid by without a peep. No alarms sounded, no signal arrows streaked the sky. The moon crossed the roofline and turned homeward in the west.

He went up to the roof of his house. At this time, most of the lights that lit up houses at night had already gone out. Midnight held even the dogs silent, and frost was gathering on the bare twigs.

At this hour, most of the city was dreaming. Only the cold wind and the lanterns of the nightwatch threaded the lanes.

He glanced down into Sun Fuling’s yard. The door was closed, yet the window paper glowed. A lamp was clearly still lit in her house, and it appeared that she was still awake.

The tree in her courtyard had been shivering in the wind earlier, but now its branches hung still. It felt as if the breeze had stopped everywhere at once.

Without his noticing, Panlong City had gone solemn and wordless.

Something in the air had shifted. He felt watched. A soft chorus of whispers seemed to brush his ears, part mutter and part sneer, the kind of sound that made your heart skitter. When he tried to listen closely, there was nothing at all.

The sensation was not unfamiliar.

He took a breath, fished in his coat, and swallowed a pill.

Then he turned, and there they were: a rolling, teeming cloud of Three Corpses Worms.

Those things again.

Since leaving the Panlong Desert, he had not seen such a massed swarm. They drifted around every building like schools of reef fish, flowing in and out of doors and windows.

They must be checking every thinking creature in the city.

Zhong Shengguang must be using the Generous Pot to control them.

This time, though, the horde behaved differently from what He Lingchuan had witnessed in the Panlong Desert. The fierce little bodies bothered no one, only looped around sleepers as if testing for something, then darted away toward the next. When they flowed over him, his heart pitched with a brief flash of irritation, yet no madness rose behind it. Those asleep knew nothing of it.

The point could not be clearer. The Generous Pot held them on a leash so tight that the creatures could go against their very nature. No human tool could achieve that.

What mattered more right now was whether they would find the quarry.

Zhong Shengguang had sent the swarm to comb the city, a measure of how seriously he took the threat.

He waited another two hours. The streets remained calm.

His eyes grew heavy as he read by lamplight. His last thought before he finally drifted to sleep was, Ah, right, my blade broke. I need to get myself a replacement soon.

* * *

Bailu Town, Haotian Township, Xia Province.

On a wooden scaffold at the east end of town, three youths were tied up. The youngest was fourteen or fifteen, the eldest barely past twenty.

The executioner stood by with a blade across his arms while a patrol officer read their charges aloud.

When the grain convoy had passed through, the three had stolen two cartloads. They had buried one, while they had slipped the other out under the cover of darkness before giving it out to townspeople whose bellies were gnawing.

They had been run down after days of pursuit. Under Great Yuan law, theft of military grain in wartime brought the executioner’s blade, carried out on the spot without reference to the royal court.

When he had finished with the list of crimes, the patrol officer asked, “Any last words?”

The oldest threw his head back and shouted, “Last words? Here is one for you: ******. I have no regrets. At least I had one full meal last night. You vultures took the last of our grain. You suck the blood of the people. A common bandit has more honor than you. What kind of officials are you?”

His voice broke and then rose again. “If only the Righteous Army from Woling Pass had taken the capital. They would have hauled your guts out of your bellies and looped them around your necks for a stroll. I’m holding my head out for you. Cut it off. There will be others after me. Sooner or later, you will lose yours the same way.”

He was magnificent in his rage. The scaffold was ringed three and four deep with townsfolk, all faces tilted up and strangely blank. Some stood with mouths open.

The patrol officer flicked a glance at the executioner. The man stepped forward. One stroke lopped off the boy’s hands. Blood arced from both stumps. He screamed, yet kept cursing. The second stroke took the feet. He fainted. The third stroke sent his head rolling.

For the principal thief who had stolen military grain, this was procedure.

Blood washed the planks. The head rolled until it stopped before the other two, who were already kneeling. The sight broke what little nerve they had left. One of them let his bladder go and shrieked, the other sobbed and begged, “Spare us, Sir, he tricked us into it.”

“We knew nothing beforehand.”

The patrol officer curled his lip. “He also tricked you into handing out the grain, and you knew nothing then?” The executioner’s blade rose and fell. As accomplices, they were granted a swift end.

The patrol officer raised his voice once more, “I shall repeat the order of the office of Xia Province: the front is deadlocked, supply is life and death, any theft will be punished on the spot with execution.” With that, he stepped down. Men came with buckets to sluice away the blood while kin wailed and gathered up the dead.

In the churn of bodies, someone quietly tugged the shoes from a corpse’s feet.

When the spectacle ended, the wooden-faced crowd scattered.

A very tall man turned with them, pressing his hat down against the wind. He cut along a side street screened by a fence and glanced through the gap. The pawnshop inside was crowded enough that people queued at the counter. Those who left did so with fury on their faces or with their shoulders sagging.

Soon it was his turn. The young clerk behind the counter asked, “What will you pawn?”

The tall man shrugged off his padded winter coat and shoved it across the board, fur side up. “Its lining is made of mouse skin. It’s waterproof and is excellent at keeping in warmth.”

The clerk pinched the nap. “It’s too old, and the fur has already been rubbed off. A fifth of a tael or ten grams of silver.”

The tall man grimaced. “When I bought it—”

“That was then.” The clerk had no interest in the story. Everyone who walked in had a past where they were somebody.

“Can’t you make it a little more?” the man murmured, already used to humiliation.

“Take it or leave it, that’s up to you.” The clerk pushed the coat back. “We’re drowning in pawned coats. We do not need yours.”

“I’ll pawn it, and this too.” The tall man pulled off his hat. “This one’s made from silver-mouse skin.”

“After that long on your head, one mouse is the same as another.” The clerk touched it once and named the figure at once. “Three and a half grams of silver.”

The tall man choked. His voice went up. “The two together are less than fifteen grams of silver? That little?”

An older clerk leaned over the scale. “What is all this? Since when is a rag worth so much?”

“It’s nothing,” the young clerk said with a pleasant smile. He handed over the money and lowered his voice. “Mr. Hong, that is already more than I should give you. Take it and go, quickly.”

The tall man, Mr. Hong, was startled. He heard footsteps behind the counter. The young clerk gave him a small nod toward the door. He swept the coins into his palm and walked out with his head down.

The wind bit hard. Spring was on the calendar, yet the street cut to the bone once a man stood there without a padded coat.

1. Also known as youshi (酉时), it corresponds to 5 to 7 in the evening in traditional Chinese timekeeping. The sixth quarter-hour would then be around 6:15–6:30 P.M. ☜