Where Immortals Once Walked

Chapter 546: Cheng Yu’s Confession

“In the blink of an eye, it’s already been six or seven years since I last went to Lingxu. I miss it quite a bit.” Fushan Yue rubbed his hands together eagerly, looking genuinely full of anticipation. “When do we leave?”

“Very soon.” Bai Ziqi put away that flicker of surprise as well, smiled at the two of them, and rose to his feet. “I’m still waiting on a few messages. I’ll head back first.”

The two men escorted Bai Ziqi to the entrance of the inn and watched his figure disappear around the street corner.

The imperial envoy refused to take a carriage and insisted on walking back instead, saying that walking helped him think.

Only then did He Lingchuan let out a long breath. “As expected, he wants me to go back to Lingxu with him.”

That man really isn’t easy to fool.

“Relax. With me at your side, he won’t be able to make things too hard for you!” Fushan Yue patted him on the shoulder. “Isn’t this perfect? You were going to Lingxu City anyway. Now you don’t have to travel with a merchant caravan, and you don’t have to worry about passing checkpoints either. A cloud envoy is personally escorting you there.”

He Lingchuan gave a bitter smile. Bai Ziqi wanting him in Lingxu City could hardly mean anything good.

Fortunately, Fushan Yue would be traveling with them. That meant Bai Ziqi could not openly make a move against him on the road.

On the way back, Fushan Yue noticed he seemed deep in thought. “What is it now?”

He Lingchuan had actually been mulling over the bamboo tube used by the gu master. At that, he shook his head. “I was wondering whether that batch of treasures that the Spring Palace lost more than ten years ago was really stolen at all.”

Fushan Yue could only shrug. “They say it was, so of course it was.”

What good would come of saying otherwise?

He Lingchuan thought of State Preceptor Qing Yang’s portrait. Mai Xuewen had spoken of State Preceptor Qing Yang with airy indifference, but He Lingchuan’s instincts told him there was probably some sort of connection between the two.

“From the portrait to the snail toad, everything points back to the Spring Palace.” He Lingchuan exhaled slowly. “The trail Mai Xuewen left behind is far too pointed. There’s no way Bai Ziqi wouldn’t notice it.”

Although Bai Ziqi had already taken over the elixir of youth case, which meant most of the pressure on He Lingchuan had eased, he could still feel it clearly.

The road ahead was full of thorns.

If this case went any deeper, it would no longer be something he could investigate. It might not even be something Fushan Yue or the State of Chiyan could investigate.

“The Spring Palace, huh?” Fushan Yue also let out a long sigh. “That bastard’s got some nerve. There may well be someone backing him.”

* * *

At last, day broke.

Cheng Yu felt pleasantly warm all over.

The moment he opened his eyes, daylight came streaming through the door and fell across his face, almost dazzling.

That had been his own request the night before: to sleep with his head facing the door.

The golden warmth of the morning sun made a person relax from the bottom of their heart.

Bai Ziqi was sitting in a chair in the corner. The moment he saw Cheng Yu stir, he said, “Hoh, I thought you might not wake up at all.”

“My arrangement with Cen Boqing was only ever a hired one. He paid, I killed. Or tried to kill, and failed.” Cheng Yu looked at the warm light spilling in through the door and visibly relaxed. He then said decisively, “As for the rest of the Cen Family’s dirty affairs, I wasn’t involved in any of them.”

Bai Ziqi smiled.

Cheng Yu pressed, “I’m not one of the major criminals in Cen Boqing’s case, am I?”

“You secretly tried to kill the special envoy of the Crown Prince of Chiyan. If a local magistrate were handling this, it would count as a major case.” Bai Ziqi was completely at ease. “In my hands, that depends on the circumstances.”

“What circumstances?”

“What method exactly did you use against the Crown Prince of Chiyan’s special envoy?”

Cheng Yu hesitated for a moment. “A nightmare.”

Bai Ziqi lifted his chin slightly in understanding. “So, you signed a contract with a nightmare?”

Some curse masters could form contracts with nightmares and borrow their power to kill in dreams. A victim slain in a nightmare would bear no wounds in reality, leaving behind no usable clues and no way to trace the attack.

But such things were extremely rare. Nightmares themselves were uncommon, and most of them could do little more than give people minor bad dreams and feed off a bit of fear to survive.

Nightmares devoured one another as well.

The truly formidable kind, namely the ones capable of killing in dreams, were as rare as phoenix feathers and qilin horns.

How could such tyrants of dreams ever willingly take orders from a human? To contract with them, one had to concede benefits substantial enough to satisfy them.

Cheng Yu nodded, still shaken by lingering fear.

“Did Cen Boqing and Wu Kai know?”

“They only knew I could secretly take people’s lives. They didn’t know it was a nightmare doing the killing. I never told anyone about something like that.”

“Then why did you suffer backlash?” Bai Ziqi asked. “Did the nightmare fail?”

“Not only did it fail, but it was also probably severely injured by the other side. Otherwise, its vessel wouldn’t have shattered so suddenly.” Cheng Yu gave a bitter smile. “I never imagined it would turn out like this.”

“Wu Kai confessed that you were capable of cursing a king of an entire state to death,” Bai Ziqi said next. “Was that also by borrowing the nightmare’s power?”

“Yes.” At this point, Cheng Yu had nothing left to deny. In the past, he had shrouded the matter in mystery only to inflate his own price.

“Hm. Then did you perhaps summon a dream lord?”

The most powerful nightmares were honored as dream lords.

“...Yes.” Cheng Yu was somewhat surprised that Bai Ziqi even knew that title.

“And its honored name?”

Cheng Yu lowered his voice. “If something is remembered again and again, it will answer in time. I cannot publicly speak its name.”

“With me protecting you, you still fear it?”

“It used to be an immortal. It fell into dreams and became a dream lord, and has devoured countless other nightmares.” Fear still lingered in Cheng Yu’s eyes. “It can enter dreams in broad daylight. Ordinary warding methods are utterly useless against it.”

“And yet you dare call the methods of the heavenly gods ordinary?” Bai Ziqi gestured toward the candle burning in the corner of the room. “With the eternal lamp of His Divine Majesty Lingxu protecting you, you’ll be perfectly safe. Speak, what is its honored name?”

An eternal lamp of the Divine Majesty? Cheng Yu looked toward the candle and indeed felt a calming, steadying force from its flame. He clenched his teeth and finally confessed, “It is the Hundred-Faced Nightmare. It once told me personally that its current cultivation has already surpassed what it had back when it was an immortal.”

“Hundred-Faced, is it?” Bai Ziqi stroked his chin. “And how did you avoid it before this?”

“I originally had a bottled dream land. I used it up at the Cen Residence. My soul hid within it to recuperate, but Cen Boqing woke me early, and my soul injuries still haven’t healed.”

As he said that, the candlelight in the corner suddenly flickered.

Warm sunlight illuminated half the room, so the flicker was subtle and easy to miss. But it happened to be directly across from Cheng Yu, so he still caught it.

Bai Ziqi turned to look as well, a faint frown appearing between his brows. “If Hundred-Faced is really that powerful, how did it lose to He Xiao?”

“Hundred-Faced’s power is not something an ordinary youth could resist.” Cheng Yu drew a breath. “I’ve always suspected he received the protection of some immensely powerful force. That would explain how Hundred-Faced suddenly suffered defeat.”

“Perhaps he has some magical artifact protecting him?”

“A magical artifact?” Cheng Yu could not help but laugh. “If a mere magical artifact were enough to block Hundred-Faced, then it would have no right to be called a dream lord. At the very least, we’d be talking about something at the threshold of a divine artifact!”

“A divine artifact...” Bai Ziqi fell into thought. “What kind of divine artifact would it have to be?”

“One that could merge with the firmament, suppress evil, ward off wickedness, protect He Xiao’s soul, and even gravely injure Hundred-Faced.” Cheng Yu was getting dizzy again. His soul injuries were not healed, and even speaking a few extra sentences left him breathing hard, his mind clouded. “There can’t be many such treasures left in the world today, can there? And I also believe that Hundred-Faced turning on me had a lot to do with He Xiao.”

“Oh?” Bai Ziqi murmured. “You mean He Xiao can turn a nightmare and command it to attack you?”

What sort of aberrant creature was Hundred-Faced? This was hardly something an ordinary person should be able to do.

“Extremely likely!” Cheng Yu pressed a hand to his temple. “I’ve never heard of Hundred-Faced suffering such a setback at anyone’s hands.”

Just then, the eternal lamp flickered again.

Then it went out.

Cheng Yu pointed at it, instantly tense. “That—”

“There really is something looking for you. It doesn’t even care that it’s daytime.” Bai Ziqi scattered a handful of incense ash toward the foot of the bed.

The ash drifted through the air, but upon reaching something, it seemed to hang there rather than fall.

What had been transparent was suddenly outlined faintly. It was roughly humanoid, with a torso, arms, and legs, yet not truly human, because its neck and arms were far too long, like some tree.

Also, it had two heads.

It was standing right beside the bed, both heads stretched out toward Cheng Yu, watching him.

If Bai Ziqi had not flung that handful of ash, no one would have known it was there at all.

That kind of malicious, hidden scrutiny made the skin crawl. Even Cheng Yu shuddered violently, his scalp prickling numb.

The moment it was discovered, the nightmare transformed into a strange gust of wind and rolled toward the door.

The incense ash traced its path clearly. Just as it was about to reach the doorway, Bai Ziqi slashed out with his sword and cleaved the gust neatly in two.

A faint golden radiance glowed along the blade.

Both men heard a strange cry, half there and half not. That cry was one of anger, yet also misery.

The strange wind immediately burst into a pale white flame, sweeping through the entire side room. Yet neither of the men inside felt any heat from it at all.

The wind tried to escape, but the four candles in the corners formed a barrier that trapped it inside. Their flames wavered violently, dimming and flaring as the wind buffeted them.

Again and again, it hurled itself against the invisible wall like a fly battering at a window.

Bai Ziqi said disdainfully, “So this is a dream lord? Hearing about it a hundred times truly can’t compare to seeing it once.”

Cheng Yu was staring in near stupefaction. “It... it...” How could Hundred-Faced be this weak?

As the two men spoke, the strange wind exerted all its strength and finally managed to blow out one of the candle flames. The invisible barrier instantly collapsed, and it rushed out at once.

Bai Ziqi did not try to stop it.

“Perhaps it doesn’t want to continue tangling with us in daylight. Or perhaps...” Cheng Yu thought it through on his own, and his eyes lit up. “After being defeated by He Xiao, its power dropped drastically. It’s no longer a dream lord!”

Bai Ziqi could not help but laugh. “You hid from something like that for days, and even used up a precious dream land over it?”

Cheng Yu had no answer.

He had remembered only the dream lord’s former might, and forgotten that if even he, as the summoner, had suffered backlash, then the nightmare itself must have suffered injuries many times worse than his own.

It too was badly wounded. How could it still retain its former dominance?

Once he realized that, his entire body relaxed, and the great weight on his heart vanished without a trace.

Bai Ziqi then asked, “Is your contract with Hundred-Faced still intact?”

Cheng Yu shook his head. “I discovered after returning to the Cen Residence that the contract had dissolved on its own.”

That was why he had panicked so badly at the time.

“Better that it’s dissolved. That means you can deal with it freely now.” Bai Ziqi asked, “Can you stand? I want you taken to the county jail to compare your testimony with Cen Boqing’s. I fed you quite a bit of good medicine earlier. You should be able to get up now.”

Cheng Yu tried sitting up and found that his body no longer felt nearly as heavy or weak as before.

“You really will help me deal with Hundred-Faced?”

“Of course.” Bai Ziqi’s tone was utterly sincere. “I’ll still need your help on my next case.”

Cheng Yu was curious. “What case?”

Bai Ziqi smiled faintly. “Once Cen Boqing’s case is concluded, you’ll naturally find out.”