Where Immortals Once Walked

“That’s not so different from foreign states,” He Lingchuan said. He was genuinely curious about how Beijia was structured. “Lingxu City actually tolerates localized fighting inside a monster state?”

In his understanding, what state would not be scrambling to stamp out unrest the moment it appeared?

“I grew up in a relatively lush wilderness. Over there, the forests and grasslands get hit by wildfires every few years. The flames sweep across mountains and plains alike, leaving misery and death in their wake. After the fire, you can barely find a living creature,” Fushan Yue said with a faint smile. He paused, as if inviting He Lingchuan to picture it. “But in less than half a year, everything’s green again. There’s new grass, new trees, and life surges back as if nothing happened. The rot and old stagnation are wiped clean in one go.” His tone remained mild, even pleasant, yet his implication was sharp. “Such is the way of Heaven. Shouldn’t human affairs also cycle and renew the same way? Beijia has stood for a long, long time. This way of thinking has already sunk deep into people’s bones.”

He Lingchuan did not respond.

Fushan Yue’s argument sounded beautiful, sure—poetic, even. But letting rebellion burn unchecked? What state dared play that kind of game? More often than not, you would end up playing yourself right into collapse.

The world never unfolded according to anyone’s tidy theory. Every state that fought desperately for stability and security did so because history had taught them in blood what happened when you did not.

And yet Beijia was the exception.

Why?

Just because they had pledged themselves to gods?

Fushan Yue accepted the small wooden vial back from him. “So it’s a lignifying toxin. Thank you.”

Now that he knew what it was, he already had a plan forming in his head.

He Lingchuan asked, “The Wind Demon you released, it wasn’t the one the Baoshu King subdued, was it?”

“It wasn’t,” Fushan Yue said. He stood and stretched lazily, as if this conversation were no heavier than an afternoon chat. “A thousand years ago, the Wind Lord of the Ethereal Sect split off a smaller fragment of itself, so they actually had two guardian spirits protecting the sect—one big, one small. The world simply didn’t know.”

To most eyes, even cats and tigers were hard to distinguish by sex or age from appearance alone. And how much more so a Wind Lord, which was usually formless and invisible?

“The one the Baoshu King subdued was the larger one. The smaller Wind Lord was hiding inside a Wind Lion Lord at the time and went unnoticed. Later, someone picked up that Wind Lion Lord and brought it down the mountain to sell at the market. After passing through a few hands, the smaller Wind Lord eventually ended up with me.”

He Lingchuan did not ask why the official road by Heiyan Stockade had suddenly suffered a landslide. The cause was too obvious.

“As for the Baoshu King wiping out the Ethereal Sect, it was simply because he coveted their territory. He wanted to cut a road through there to connect north and south. The Ethereal Sect refused to relocate, so he annihilated them.” Fushan Yue spoke of it all as though it were nothing more than rearranging furniture.

He then went on, “Back then, the Gale Tundra produced rare medicinal plants like snow lotus and yellow-jade ginseng. That was because the Wind Lord liked to wander the tundra, carrying up special nutrients from beneath the earth. Common folk could pick the herbs with their bare hands. They never lacked food or medicine.”

“After the Baoshu King destroyed the Wind Lord, the North-South Divine Wind that came afterward had no spirit, no intelligence. It stopped coming down to the tundra. Those spirit herbs vanished from the plains entirely and now only grow on dangerous high peaks and cliff faces.” Fushan Yue gave a small, mocking smile. His tone sharpened into open derision as he said, “The funniest part is that the tundra folk believed the Baoshu King’s words. They applauded the fall of the Wind Lord and the Ethereal Sect, never realizing their livelihoods were being severed at the root.”

Then, as if turning a page, he shifted subjects, “You’re not bad. Come with me and build something great. In the future, you’ll sit high in power. Your wife and children will be honored by your rank, all of it perfectly natural.”

He’s trying to recruit me?

He Lingchuan laughed. “I’m used to being lazy.”

Fushan Yue took that as ambition aimed higher. “Lingxu City is good, yes. But it’s also had six centuries of rot built up. Powers knotted together like tangled roots. Countless talents have gone there and sunk without a trace. You may not find a path upward.”

“I’ll consider it,” He Lingchuan said. Then he held out his hand and crooked two fingers in an unmistakable gesture: Hand it over. “Stay in touch. After all, once I get to Lingxu City, I’ll be living in your grand residence.”

Fushan Yue laughed. Only then did he pull out a property deed, a set of keys, and a token plaque, handing them over. “There’s a steward there. Show him the token, and he’ll take care of everything.”

He studied He Lingchuan for a moment, as if weighing something. “You’re passing up a rare chance at glory, but fine. Then let’s be friends, at least for now.” He cupped his fists in a formal salute and said, “Until we meet again.”

He Lingchuan returned the salute. He watched as Fushan Yue collected his subordinate’s corpse into his storage space, then leap out through the hole in the wall. A few bounding vaults later, he vanished into the night.

Eh? Isn’t that the way to the inn’s back kitchen?

* * *

In the inn’s back kitchen, Fushan Yue caught a fat, healthy rat. He forced medicine down its throat, then carried it elsewhere to observe the effects.

Only after roughly five hours did the rat finally turn into a wooden carving.

Fushan Yue carefully recorded the entire transformation process in detail.

By then, dawn had already broken. He conducted a quick round of Tong City, gathering information, then went to the northwest corner and found an unremarkable little shop.

It was a two-story building that had goods for sale in front, a workshop in the middle, and living quarters upstairs.

The shop owner was a man in his early forties, gray already at his temples, with thick knuckles and heavy bones in his hands. He bore the unmistakable hands of an artisan who had worked his whole life.

The neighboring shop sold sundries and was forever dumping merchandise in front of his door, squatting on his storefront as if it were public land. The artisan kicked the neighbor’s basket back into their shop and got into a shouting match, then strode back inside with his chin held high.

That was when Fushan Yue stepped in. “I hear you’re the best woodcarver on the west side of Tong City?”

“The west side?” The artisan’s eyes bulged. “I’m the best in all of Tong City.”

“Carve something for me,” Fushan Yue said. “Do it well, and you’ll be rewarded.”

He reached reflexively toward his waist, and then he remembered, with a brief flash of irritation, that he had handed all his large silver over to He Lingchuan. On him now were only two small bits of loose silver, not even enough to cover labor.

When had he ever been this strapped?

Left with no choice, he pulled the jade thumb ring from his hand. “Use this as payment.”

“Black jade with green veining?” The artisan clearly knew his stuff. He lifted it to the light. The jade looked pitch-black, but under the angled light an oily green sheen emerged. “That’s worth money. What do you want carved?”

Fushan Yue glanced around. The artisan understood at once and led him into the rear workshop.

Only then did Fushan Yue retrieve Fu Ji’s wooden statue from his storage ring and set it down on the floor.

Producing a life-sized wooden figure of a man out of nowhere made the artisan jump. He tied on his headband, crouched, and leaned in to inspect it closely. Then he let out an involuntary cry. “Good heavens, this workmanship is insane! This doesn’t look like something carved by human hands!” There were no chisel marks, no signs of cutting, nor even any trace of deliberate shaping at all.

Exactly. Fushan Yue smiled faintly. “I want you to modify it.”

“Modify it?” The artisan looked baffled. “It’s already at this level, and you still want changes?”

What unsettled him was not the craftsmanship but the subject.

The carving was exquisitely detailed, yes, but what it conveyed was not beauty but agony.

And the wooden figure was even dressed in clothing, which made it all the more eerie.

Fushan Yue said calmly, “Yes, replace his face with mine.”

For a moment, the artisan thought he had misheard. “Huh?”

Fushan Yue stepped up alongside the statue. They had roughly the same build. “Can you do it?”

“Uh...” The request was even more disturbing than the statue itself.

The artisan was still hesitating when Fushan Yue extended one finger and tapped it down sharply onto the worktable.

Thunk.

His fingertip punched a clean hole into the tabletop.

The motion was so fast it was almost invisible, like the strike of a mantis shrimp.

Fushan Yue asked again, his tone as mild as ever, “Can you do it?”

That workbench was made of black ironwood, which was an absurdly hard timber. When the artisan had built it, he had ruined plenty of tools just shaping it.

Is this man’s hand harder than a chisel?

Only then did Fushan Yue slowly retract the claw-like tip of his finger.

The artisan shivered. He compared Fushan Yue’s face to the statue’s—bone structure, features, and spacing—then nodded repeatedly. “Y-yes. Yes, I can. When do you need it?”

Fushan Yue dragged over a chair, sat down, and crossed one leg over the other. “I’ll wait here. Take your time. Make it identical to me in every detail.”

* * *

The next day, Fushan Yue returned to the inn.

Fu Jiu greeted him. “Young Master, did everything go smoothly?”

“Mm-hm.” Fushan Yue told him to bring water.

“Eh? Where’s Fu Ji?”

“Out buying something for me.” Fushan Yue washed his face, drank a little wine, and dawdled until afternoon before he finally said, “Arrange for some people to guard me.”

Once everything was prepared, he raised the wooden vial and drank it down in one gulp right in front of Fu Jiu. Then, he tossed the bottle into the corner and said, “Disgusting, get out.”

Fu Jiu hurriedly picked up the bottle. Before leaving, he saw Fushan Yue close his eyes and sit rigidly upright, posture immaculate.

Fu Jiu shut the door behind him. He sniffed the bottle and caught a sweet fragrance.

About an hour later, faint groans began to leak from inside the room. The groans were low and strained, and it sounded as if someone were in pain. Fu Jiu turned on his heel and told two attendants, “Guard the door properly. I’ll be right back.”

He said “right back,” but in truth, he bolted out of the inn in a flash. He slipped into the adjacent market and bought rotten fish and spoiled shrimp, then smeared the stinking mess all over himself.

Only once he reeked of fish did he creep into the alley across from the inn and settle into hiding.

After roughly a quarter of an hour, the inn suddenly erupted into chaos as it became filled with shouts, running footsteps, and unceasing screams.

Before the city guards even arrived, a figure burst out of the inn, wandered through the market as if disoriented, then abruptly turned and sprinted straight for the city gates.

That person was Fushan Yue.

While refining the “spirit medicine,” he had realized something was wrong, and he had pieced together the crucial point. He charged out to hunt down whoever had set him up.

But the trail of scent stopped beyond the market. Fish stink was everywhere. His rage was boiling, his head was swimming, and he could not distinguish subtle traces properly.

By now, his limbs had already begun to stiffen. His running posture looked strange, almost grotesque. Tong City’s residents were used to all manner of monsters, so they only stared and stepped aside.

Fushan Yue pressed a hand to his abdomen, then suddenly pivoted and ran out of the city.

Even after swallowing something he should not have, he was still fast, so fast that his pursuers almost could not keep up.

Once he was outside the walls, he charged west into the mountains and never emerged again.

Two hours later, Fu Jiu arrived with the remaining guards. “Search the mountains! A passerby said the young master ran this way earlier!”

They searched until dusk.

At last, a guard found a wooden statue lying on its back in a gully. He leaned in to examine the face and saw that it was actually Fushan Yue.

No one understood. One guard swallowed hard and whispered, “W-what does this mean?”

The statue’s face was twisted, its expression ferocious with pain, but the features were unmistakably Fushan Yue’s.

The young master had come this way. They had searched and searched and never found him, finding only this statue that was identical to him.

This can’t possibly be the young master, right?

“What nonsense are you thinking?” Fu Jiu snapped, face dark. “Of course this isn’t the young master. Keep searching!”

They searched through the night and into the next afternoon, finding nothing.

Fu Jiu withdrew the team in sullen frustration.

But that night, he slipped out of the inn alone. He rode east for about eight kilometers until he reached a small town.

The town held only six to seven hundred people. It was called Tianhe Town, and most of its residents were farmers or hired hands.

Fu Jiu approached a modest house and knocked softly, using two short knocks followed by three long ones.

As he neared, a neighbor cracked open their door and looked him over twice. Then, without a word, they retreated back inside and shut the door again.