Where Immortals Once Walked

Chapter 291: Wen Daolun’s Methods

Wen Daolun looked at He Lingchuan from head to toe, studying him in silence. Then he stroked his long beard and said, “Very well. In a while, you two can ride back in my carriage.”

That, clearly, was his way of agreeing.

After that, there was nothing for them to do but step aside and wait for the ceremony to run its course.

Wen Daolun had to burn seven sticks of tall incense before he was permitted to leave. By the time they were finished, the commoners’ offerings and prayers would also be mostly done.

While they waited, He Lingchuan leaned closer to Sun Fuling and lowered his voice. “So why exactly does Wen Daolun owe you a favor?”

“He occasionally visits Shumin State Academy.”

“...To teach children?” He blinked. What would Commander Zhong’s trusted counselor, a major figure in military strategy and divination, be doing in a hall full of noisy little fledglings?

“We don’t only teach kids, you know?” Sun Fuling replied with some amusement. Shumin State Academy was Panlong City’s finest academy; it educated the sons and daughters of officials as well as promising common-born students. “But he doesn’t come for classes. He comes to play chess with an old friend—my teacher, Xu Shichu. Two months ago, he came by again. My teacher was away, so I sat in and played a few rounds with him.”

“Master Wen said that if I could beat him, he’d owe me a favor. It was a best-of-three.” She gave a slight shrug. “In the end, I won two games to one.”

He Lingchuan said, feeling genuinely moved, “That kind of favor is precious. Are you really going to use it on me?”

“Favors are meant to be used,” she replied coolly. “The more you use them, the more you end up with. It’s not like they vanish once spent. And now you owe me a favor.”

“Fair enough.” He thumped his chest lightly. “Call on me whenever you want. I’ll show up.”

With nothing to do while Wen Daolun waited for the incense to burn out, He Lingchuan wandered toward the outer edge of the Divine Descent Platform and looked down.

Good heavens.

The cliff face below was scorched black, and residual arcs of lightning still darted faintly along the rock like ghostly snakes. Vegetation must once have clung to those stones, but after three bolts of heavenly lightning, nothing remained. Now, the slope was bare as bone.

He could see the scars of older lightning strikes on some of the rocks as well, weathered but still visible.

“I heard in the ritual eulogy just now that the god descended in thunder and carried the offering away. Are those scorch marks from back then?” He Lingchuan pointed to a rock below that had melted. No living creature could have survived down there.

“Yes. No one but a god could leave traces like this.” Sun Fuling’s voice drifted over, calm and distant. “When those three bolts of lightning came down, they gave us more than fear. They gave us something far more vital—faith.”

“Because it proved the god stood on your side?”

“Of course.” Sun Fuling sighed. “You weren’t in Panlong City back then, so you wouldn’t know how demoralized and hopeless everyone was. Once again, our motherland had flung us aside like discarded sandals. Even Commander Zhong fell gravely ill from sheer rage.”

After Panlong City became an enclave, Zhong Shengguang had led his people to defend the Panlong Wasteland for twelve long years. They had clung to this barren frontier, ringed by enemies, year after year. At last, the war eased, and Panlong City and West Luo were reconnected.

The peace had lasted less than a year.

War then flared up again, and the weak, overextended West Luo lost contact with Panlong City once more. At one point, the court had even considered ceding Panlong City directly to the State of Baling.

The blow this dealt the city was beyond words.

Twelve long years of blood and sacrifice surrounded by enemies, and what they got in return was the threat of being traded away like a bargaining chip.

How many twelve-year stretches did a person have in their life?

The despair that swept through Panlong City at that time could easily be imagined. Spirits sank across every level of society, and the very air became heavy with defeat.

In such a climate, if no god had appeared to “take their side,” if no awe-inspiring miracle had descended to rally their hearts, Panlong City would likely have collapsed from within long before any enemy managed to destroy it. The city would have torn itself apart.

He Lingchuan gazed once more at the sacrificial altar.

Three years ago, that rite of divine recompense had been the turning point of the entire Panlong Wasteland’s fate. From that day on, everything changed.

They waited a little longer. When the last stick of incense dwindled to ash, Wen Daolun finally descended from the altar and walked over to them in person. He then said, “Alright, come board the carriage with me.”

Time was a luxury he did not have. He clearly intended to use the journey back to answer their questions.

Just then, He Lingchuan pointed over the edge of the platform. “Look. Something’s moving down there!”

The barren ground beneath the Divine Descent Platform had once held shrubs and scrubby plants. Three bolts of lightning had charred them all to ash, causing even the soil to become a mottled black crust.

This was why the shapes running across that burned patch stood out so clearly.

He Lingchuan had honed his vision through constant training, and his sight had improved markedly. Even from several dozen meters above, he could tell that the tiny black speck below was sniffing the ground in all directions, and that it had a long tail streaming behind it.

Wen Daolun also lowered his head to look, then let out a cold chuckle. “Their thieving hearts never die.”

He Lingchuan asked, “Those are ferry-crossing ghostspawn, too?”

“Yes. I’ve already positioned Gale Army soldiers down there. They’ve begun the chase.”

Sure enough, no sooner had he spoken than several dozen figures burst from the shrubbery below and fanned out to encircle the black speck.

“Why would those creatures rush down here?”

Wen Daolun answered casually, “They want to feel the god’s presence for themselves.”

That statement baffled He Lingchuan on several levels.

The god’s presence? How could these ghostspawn sense such a thing, and why would Wen Daolun know to set an ambush there ahead of time?

Clearly, Panlong City’s understanding of ferry-crossing ghostspawn ran deeper than he had assumed.

He held his questions back. Wen Daolun clapped his hands together and said, “Come, let’s go.”

They followed him to his carriage. Their own rented vehicle would trail behind.

Wen Daolun’s carriage was larger, and its floor was layered with soft cushions. A small brazier glowed red in the center, and a low table stood to one side. Compared to the ostentatious travel arrangements of wealthy nobles, this was almost austere, yet comfortable and warm.

Once the three of them had settled in, the carriage lurched into motion. Wen Daolun spoke first, “I should make this clear upfront, or else Xu Shichu will pick my methods apart later. All so-called fate calculations and divinations rest on the premise that Heaven’s movements are preordained[1]. But ever since the Great Catastrophe of Heaven and Earth, that foundation has been shaken. With the world’s root damaged, no one can say for sure how accurate any predictive or divination art truly remains.”

He put things bluntly. After the great catastrophe three thousand years ago, divination had become unreliable at best.

He Lingchuan nodded. He had heard similar caveats before.

Wen Daolun then asked for his date and hour of birth. He Lingchuan opened his mouth to answer, but then he froze.

Crap!

His true birth year lay more than a hundred years after the fall of Panlong City.

If he used his genuine Four Pillars of Destiny, then no matter how it was interpreted, something would go wrong. The very numbers would scream that he did not belong in this era.

Why hadn’t I thought of this earlier?

He coughed. “I, I don’t actually know my exact birth details. I was adopted.”

“You don’t know your eight characters of your horoscope?” Wen Daolun studied him for a moment, then scooted closer. He examined his face carefully, then his hands, then took his pulse. Finally, he lifted one eyelid and looked at his eyes.

The procedure was very similar to how an old physician would conduct the classic four examinations—looking, listening, asking, and taking the pulse.

Wen Daolun casually tossed another piece of charcoal into the brazier. Only then did he say, “Judging from your face alone, you don’t look like someone without parents.”

“Maybe they’re still alive.” He Lingchuan forced himself to stick to the lie, though his heart twisted. This was like going to a doctor and hiding half your symptoms. How accurate could the diagnosis then be?

“Your blessings run broad and deep, and your prospects are limitless. At worst, your fate is that of a fine general. And you call that calamity?” Wen gave him a dry look. “If your life is considered dangerous, then the common people might as well give up now.”

It looked like He Chunhua’s constant muttering that his eldest son was a child of fortune was not entirely baseless after all.

He Lingchuan glanced at Sun Fuling, and they both shared a fleeting look before he said, “The one who performed the divination for me was a greater monster over three hundred years into its path. It’s studied the Heavenly River Collection handed down by Perfected Dongli for many years, and even left me two lines.”

“Perfected Dongli?” Wen Daolun started. He thought for a good while. “You mean the Perfected Dongli of the Grand Return Sect?”

“Mm-hm.”

“You’re certain?”

“Yes.” Perfected Dongli had left the note in his own cave, naming the legacy for later generations. How could that be mistaken? “The greater monster stumbled into the cave abode where Perfected Dongli passed away and inherited his relics and writings.”

“In the post-spirit-qi era, that man was a legend,” Wen Daolun murmured. He lifted his hand. “Recite the two lines to me.”

He Lingchuan obeyed.

Wen Daolun repeated the phrase under his breath, “Body like a prison cage...” He pondered for a long time before his brows knit. “Could this also mean a body that serves as a prison?”[2]

“What does that mean?” He Lingchuan asked at once. He did not miss that Wen Daolun had said “also.”

Wen Daolun sighed softly. “From the perspective of pure fate, you’re already far beyond the norm. Just surviving in the Panlong Wasteland, with this kind of fortune, is unusual. Think for yourself, has your life always gone smoothly?”

“Yes.” For the original owner of this body, it truly had. He had eaten and drunk well, played and idled through life, growing up with barely any hardship.

“You can’t provide your eight characters, and without them, we can’t properly determine your life palace. That makes it very difficult to calculate. If your auspicious fate truly is turning toward disaster, there must be a key turning point somewhere. I can’t see it. However, the lines of verse emphasize an usurped nest and a body that serves as a cage. Why highlight those specifically?”

Eyes on his nose, nose on his heart, He Lingchuan said nothing. The main reason he had taken the old turtle monster’s prophecy seriously was precisely those six words—“a cuckoo takes the magpie’s nest.”

He was a foreign soul occupying another man’s body. In theory, not a second person in this world should know.

Wen Daolun thought in silence for a long time, then suddenly lifted the carriage curtain and called instructions to the guards outside.

Soon, several of his personal soldiers came over carrying a large piece of oilcloth. They spread it over the entire carriage, covering the door and windows alike.

Only a faint, filtered light seeped through the edges.

“There’s one more method we can try,” Wen Daolun said. He lit a slender stick of incense and handed it to Sun Fuling. “Hold this.”

The incense was pale azure, its scent calm and soothing.

Then Wen Daolun drew a small piece of wood from his robe and blew gently across it.

The wood looked utterly ordinary, the sort of thing you could pick up anywhere on the roadside. It bore faint traces of moss and had two tiny holes bored through it.

When he exhaled, a wisp of white mist drifted out of one of the holes.

As it emerged, it gathered itself, taking shape in midair. The shape was half a palm tall and bore a tiny human figure that looked like a little girl. The moment she formed, she floated eagerly toward the incense in Sun Fuling’s hand, sipping at the smoke with visible delight. Her face actually brightened with pleasure.

A soul coming out of wood? He Lingchuan’s gaze sharpened as he studied the fragment again. There were not many soul vessels suited to harboring the dead. Could this be a piece of seabed wood?

“This is a tongkao. It’s formed from the gathered souls of children who died young, but specifically those who carried no hatred or malice in their hearts at the moment of death.” Wen Daolun tapped lightly at his temple. “Relax your mind. Don’t resist. I’ll have it enter your spiritual sea and take a look around.”

Spiritual sea? My sea of consciousness?

He Lingchuan’s thoughts flew at once to that glowing mark that lay deep within his consciousness.

He closed his eyes.

The tongkao circled him once, then slipped into his ear.

To him, the sensation resembled inhaling a breath of mint. The inside of his skull felt suddenly cool and clear, but that was all. There was none of the bone-crushing agony he had endured the last time a god forcefully invaded his mind.

Ten breaths passed.

Then twenty breaths.

When he opened his eyes, he found both Wen Daolun and Sun Fuling watching him intently in the dim carriage light.

Wen Daolun looked genuinely surprised. “You can open your eyes? Describe exactly how you feel right now.”

“My head felt cool for a moment, and then nothing.”

Wen Daolun frowned. “No pain? No illusions of any kind?”

He Lingchuan shook his head.

Another dozen breaths slid by. A thin ribbon of white mist floated out of his ear and re-formed into the tiny girl in midair.

She did not appear injured in the slightest. He Lingchuan let out a quiet sigh of relief. Perhaps because her way of “visiting” was far gentler than that previous god’s violent intrusion, the backlash she suffered was small.

She darted to Wen Daolun’s side and hovered by his ear, chattering away with great enthusiasm. Strangely, He Lingchuan heard nothing at all. It was like watching a silent play, her mouth moving rapidly, her tiny hands gesturing, yet not a single sound reached him.

1. This is basically just saying that the course of fate or destiny is predetermined. ☜

2. Note that the “prison cage” part would have typically only been translated as “cage,” but I had made some assumptions, leading to my translation. ☜