Where Immortals Once Walked

The battle had only just ended, and this fellow had already arrived. Unless he had traveled with the army, he could not have gotten here so quickly.

“Ah, y-yes.” Peng Fang’s forehead was slick with cold sweat from the pain. “Over the past few days, more and more people kept gathering at several military towns across the Yin River. It looked to me like there was going to be a battle. Oh, I’m not from Jintao, but I do have some medical skill, so I was hired on as an army medic.”

He Lingchuan smiled at him kindly. “How do you usually communicate with the god Bilu?”

“My god occasionally summons me in my dreams.”

“And in reality?” He Lingchuan did not need to enter dreams to chat with Shinan.

“Reality?” Peng Fang looked utterly bewildered. “That, I’m not sure about. The god only comes to find me at night.”

He Lingchuan gave a soft “mm,” then waved the Dragon Punishment Pillar in front of him.

“Then pass along a message for me. I want to meet Bilu. If he wants this thing back, he’ll have to come find me himself.”

Just then, two logistics soldiers passed by. He waved them over, pointed at Peng Fang on the ground, and said, “Carry him away for treatment. Keep him separate from the other prisoners.”

Peng Fang let out a breath of relief and was carried back into the city amid repeated thanks.

At that moment, several sudden claps of thunder resounded across the sky, shaking everyone’s nerves.

He Lingchuan lifted his head and looked upward. At some point, a thin layer of cloud had veiled the night sky, and snakes of lightning were slithering along the edges of the gaps.

Under his gaze, three or four more flashes split the sky in quick succession.

The blinding light illuminated both the heavens and the thin clouds until they shone almost transparent.

“Hm?” He Lingchuan’s pupils contracted.

Above the thin clouds, he had actually seen an incomparably enormous silhouette drifting slowly through the sky like a whale.

The layer of cloud was already vast, yet that giant whale nearly filled it completely.

He asked the soldier beside him, “Did you see that?”

“The... the clouds?” The soldier looked blank.

“What’s above the clouds?”

The soldier stared carefully for a few moments, then shook his head apologetically. “Commander, I... I don’t see anything except clouds and lightning.”

Was I just seeing things? He Lingchuan fixed his eyes on the clouds again and again. The massive thing was still there, only now it had swum from one stretch of thin cloud into another bank of cloud, rolling through the sky in open display.

By contrast, the small patch of cloudless night sky had turned faintly red, as if a corner of a painted canvas had accidentally been peeled away, revealing the base color underneath.

Against the black curtain of heaven, however, that tiny abnormality was not conspicuous at all.

Faint red?

What a familiar color.

He Lingchuan was still racking his mind when that small patch of night sky was swiftly covered by drifting cloud.

Footsteps sounded behind him. It was Sun Fuling. He turned and asked, “Did you see anything strange in the sky?”

“I did.” Sun Fuling laughed softly. “How odd. Isn’t it a little early in the season for lightning and thunder?”

At that, He Lingchuan studied her carefully. “Perhaps spring has come especially early this year?”

“That’s a good thing.” Sun Fuling poked his arm with one finger. “By the way, aren’t you still in the middle of something?”

“Huh? What am I in the middle of?”

She reminded him, “Why did you come out in the first place?”

“Ah, right.” He immediately remembered. “I was supposed to escort Teacher Sun home; catching a spy on the way was just incidental!”

He then resumed the unfinished business, and the two chatted as they walked home.

When the final streak of lightning cut across the sky, He Lingchuan looked up and saw the giant shadow turn and head into the depths of the clouds. In the blink of an eye, it vanished.

The sky then returned to calm. Around them, only the sound of wind stirring the trees remained.

The more He Lingchuan thought about the giant thing in the sky just now, the more familiar it seemed.

Wait, isn’t that the giant red figure inside the Generous Pot?

But hasn’t it always wandered in the ocean? Why would it appear above the clouds of Panlong City?

A strange thought came to him.

Since the Panlong World is also inside the Generous Pot, does that giant red figure swim around the Panlong World?

Normally, He Lingchuan could not see such boundaries, much less glimpse its form.

Yet tonight happened to be the exception.

Did something happen inside the pot?

Come to think of it, he had gone through endless hardship to seize back the Generous Pot’s lid and restore this divine artifact to wholeness, but he had never known what that actually meant.

Surely the Generous Pot should have changed as well.

That corner of the sky exposed just now was obviously like a bug, because he had actually seen the scene beyond the Panlong World, even if only for a few breaths.

Based on his experience in another world, this sort of situation very likely meant there was an error in the system’s operation.

Why would the original Generous Pot, now reunited with its lid, develop such a problem instead?

This pot had always given him the feeling that it was actually a living thing, albeit a very silent one. It should have a will of its own, yet it never spoke to him directly.

What sort of mischief is it secretly up to now?

Seeing him glance repeatedly at the sky, Sun Fuling asked, “What is it? Is there something interesting up there?”

Now there were only gray clouds, with neither stars nor moon in sight.

“Nothing.” He Lingchuan smiled. “I was thinking, what exactly determines naluo?”

Sun Fuling asked curiously, “What’s naluo?”

“Fate.” He looked at Teacher Sun. “In the language of the gods, it means fate.”

She did not think much of it. “Looking at the sky makes you think of fate?”

“Isn’t there a saying? My fate is mine, not Heaven’s[1].” He Lingchuan breathed out a puff of white vapor. “But when you look at the countless living beings in this world, whether in Panlong City or Yuheng City, it seems as if all of them walk lives shackled by the chains of fate.”

Sun Fuling did not agree. “Even if they broke free of those shackles, you wouldn’t know. It isn’t as if you could personally witness every single person’s life.”

He Lingchuan wanted to speak, then stopped.

How could he not see it? Zhong Shengguang had worked so hard, the Red General had worked so hard, and the soldiers and civilians of Panlong City had worked so hard. Yet in the end, they still had not changed the fate of destruction.

“So, what exactly decides and changes fate?” Of course, he was also thinking of himself.

“On the surface, the fate of the weak is decided by the strong. How long the pigs in a sty live depends on when their owner raises the blade. How long the State of West Ji lasted depended on when we chose to act. See? Now it’s gone.” Sun Fuling blinked. “Of course, if you only think of it that way, the answer is far too despairing.”

“Oh? Then please teach me, Teacher Sun!”

“This isn’t an exam question, so where am I supposed to get your answer for you?” Sun Fuling laughed despite herself. “But I think that instead of painfully trying to figure it out, it would be better to act and test it yourself. Once you successfully change fate, whether your own or someone else’s, the answer will naturally come to you.”

Changing his own fate. Changing another’s fate.

Did this “another” refer to Sun Fuling herself, or to the soldiers and civilians of Yuheng City?

He remembered what State Preceptor Qing Yang had said about the final fate of the owner of the heavenly centipede bone flute.

Now, she was standing right beside him, smiling sweetly, as if every misfortune in the world would never descend upon her.

He Lingchuan thought for a long time before finally nodding.

Then he glanced at the sky again.

* * *

Peng Fang was not only imprisoned separately; an army medic also came to set his dislocated shoulder, align his broken bones, and apply medicine to his wounds. The salve went on cool and soothing, greatly reducing the pain.

Someone also brought him a steaming hot meal. Astonishingly, it even had a meat dish and two vegetable dishes.

1. Note that the word/character for heaven in Chinese is the same as the word for sky. ☜