But it was, after all, a fairly witless ghost-thing, relying only on scent to tell people apart. Its eyes were nothing but two painted pupils, black and lightless, unable to actually see the way a person could.
It withdrew and said, “The two immortal children are respectfully invited to board the palanquin.”
Ye Pengzhou said, “If it’s a paper palanquin, the two of us together might be a bit much for it.”
Fengxue said, “Didn’t you notice? All they’re carrying is a coffin. That so-called palanquin is probably just that black coffin.”
Ye Pengzhou crossed his arms and laughed. “No wonder, creatures of the underworld, through and through.”
They walked calmly through the crowd of spirits, and just before climbing into the coffin, the youth turned to look at her. “Little…” He spun his fan and tapped it against his own head. “Sister, will you board first?”
Fengxue nodded and climbed into the coffin first. It wasn’t large, being, after all, a “palanquin” prepared for young children.
She lay on her side, her back against the coffin’s inner wall.
Ye Pengzhou climbed in after her, lying on his side as well.
The paper figures carrying the coffin swayed slightly.
The old-woman effigy asked in its shrill voice, “Why are the two immortal children so heavy?”
Ye Pengzhou said with a laugh, “Nothing strange about that, we just eat a bit much, that’s all.”
His tone was so casual, and the paper figures had so little real intelligence, that the explanation passed easily enough. The effigies sealed the coffin lid shut, though Ye Pengzhou quietly slipped a finger in to leave a thin crack open.
In the cramped coffin, the two of them lay pressed close together.
The paper figures lifted the coffin, and the two of them felt it sway back and forth as they were carried along.
Ye Pengzhou lowered his voice, pitched so only the two of them could hear. “If I’d known, I’d have picked the coffin at the Zhang house instead. That one was much bigger and roomier, lying in it would’ve been so much more comfortable.”
Fengxue didn’t know what to say to that, so she stayed silent, her mind turning instead to how strong this Lord Manshan might actually be. If they couldn’t win, perhaps she could open her own chest with the needle and thread and strike a bargain with the malevolent thing lodged in her heart-temple.
But opening her heart-temple in front of others, risking exposure of the abnormality within her, that could well leave her in a worse position than in her past life.
If she used that method, the cost wouldn’t be small.
It was her very last resort for staying alive.
Thinking of what might come, she couldn’t help a flicker of unease.
Grandma Yun had told her to hold fast to her own heart, not to let herself turn into a demon… could she really manage that?
The coffin was small and pitch dark, lying on her side, her shoulder brushed against the cold lid, and with nothing but blackness before her eyes, the confusion and melancholy of two lifetimes pressed down on her like a rising tide.
Although she’d lived two lives now, in her past one, ever since leaving the mountain, she’d spent so little time truly lucid, working to suppress the malice in her heart, most of her days had passed in a daze, years ticking by without really living them.
Fengxue let out a quiet sigh.
“Why the sigh?” the youth’s light voice sounded beside her.
Fengxue startled, snapping back to herself, remembering she wasn’t alone in this coffin. The faint scent of lotus drifted off Ye Pengzhou, always calling to mind the Yunmeng of her past.
By the time she’d reached Yunmeng, there’d been no lotus flowers left on the great marsh, only tens of thousands of water ghosts.
She gathered herself and said, “It’s nothing. Just thinking about something.”
Ye Pengzhou asked, “Thinking about your former fiancé again?”
“I was not!”
Ye Pengzhou laughed. “I met him, you know. He’s no good.”
Fengxue found that rather odd, everyone who saw Shen Yujing always praised him as brilliant beyond compare, so why did Ye Pengzhou think he was no good?
Could he have somehow sensed that their two fates would one day drive them to opposite extremes?
Or was it simply that immortal and demon were natural enemies?
“Why no good?”
Ye Pengzhou said, “Handsome enough, sure. Pity he’s blind, though.”
Fengxue asked, “Blind how?”
Ye Pengzhou said with a laugh, “Someone as wonderful as you, and he can’t even see it, what else would you call that but blind?”
The corner of Fengxue’s mouth twitched, then immediately pulled taut again as she said coldly, “I’m hotheaded and pick fights, and my talent for techniques is poor. What’s so wonderful about that?”
Ye Pengzhou’s voice carried a smile. “As far as I’ve seen, up and down Qingming Mountain, you’re the best one there. Don’t think I’m just talking nonsense, every bird on that whole mountain told me so.”
Fengxue asked, “You can understand what birds say too?”
Ye Pengzhou said, “A little. Hah, and thanks to those birds, they led me straight to that black bear’s honey wine!”
Just then, the wind tore a gap in the clouds, and cool, silvery light spilled down from the sky, piercing the darkness of the night and slanting in through the crack in the coffin lid, illuminating this small little world of theirs.
Moonlight fell across the girl’s brow and eyes, lighting her fine, lively features, her skin fair as snow.
The lazy smile faded slowly from Ye Pengzhou’s face as he stared, transfixed, at Fengxue.
Fengxue’s senses had always been sharp, she noticed at once, her willow brows rising, her almond eyes going round. “What are you looking at?”
Ye Pengzhou gazed at her, entranced, and said, “Little Immortal Maiden, you really are lovely.”
Fengxue shot him a sidelong glare and jabbed the hilt of the Fuwei sword hard into his stomach.
Ye Pengzhou let out a soft yelp of pain.
Hearing the sound, the paper figure asked shrilly, “Is something wrong, the two immortal children?”
“Hmph,” Fengxue said. “Bitten by a dog.”
Not to be outdone, Ye Pengzhou said, “Scratched by a cat!”
The paper figure said, “How strange. How would there be a cat and dog inside the palanquin?”
The “cat” and “dog” exchanged a glance, each let out a soft huff, and turned their faces away from one another.
”””
The coffin swayed back and forth, rising and falling, tilting now left, now right.
‘They must be climbing the mountain,’ Fengxue thought to herself.
After a stretch of climbing, the coffin came down hard against the ground. The music and singing stopped, and the paper figures announced shrilly that they’d delivered the boy and girl.
Fengxue gripped her sword tight, expecting to come face to face with the malevolent spirit at any moment, but after setting the coffin down, nothing happened at all.
The muffled sound of strings and winds drifted through the heavy coffin walls.
Ye Pengzhou pressed a hand to the lid, his tone shifting slightly. “The lid’s gotten heavier. It won’t budge.”
Fengxue tried pushing too. It felt as though a massive boulder now weighed the coffin lid down, even with both of them pushing together, it wouldn’t open.
The paper figure’s shrill voice sounded again. “The escorting immortal children, please proceed on your way.”
Ye Pengzhou asked, “Proceed where? What way?”
Fengxue said, “What do you think? The road to the underworld, obviously.”
The coffin was lifted again, swaying forward. With the lid impossible to open, they could only see outside through that single sliver of a gap left deliberately open earlier.
Anxious, Fengxue propped herself up, pressing Ye Pengzhou down beneath her, and pushed her head close to the crack to look outside.
Ye Pengzhou asked, “What is it? What’s out there?”
A massive alchemical furnace stood before a great boulder. The furnace gleamed with brilliant gold light, ornate and luxurious.
Dazzled for a moment by the blinding gold glow, Fengxue murmured, “Gold.”
“Gold?!” Ye Pengzhou tried to sit up and look too. But the moment he lifted himself, he caught the faint fragrance drifting off Fengxue, his face went hot, and he obediently lay back down.
Fengxue blinked. “So much gold… no, wait. It’s an alchemical furnace.”
Two figures in Daoist robes stood before the furnace, fanning the flames hard.
“Quick, quick, bring the palanquin over.”
“This pill has to finish refining by the middle of the month, without the immortal children’s golden elixir, the whole batch will fail.”
“You foolish paper things, hurry it up, will you? This humble Daoist’s in a rush to get to the feast up ahead.”
…
“Humble Daoist?”
Ye Pengzhou whispered, “One of your Qingming Mountain people?”
Fengxue said, “They’re not Qingming Mountain people. Even though they’re both wearing mountain Daoist robes.”
Ye Pengzhou asked, “How can you be so sure? What if they’re just a couple of black sheep?”
Fengxue said, “No patches on their robes.”
Ye Pengzhou let out a snort of laughter.
Fengxue glared at him.
He cupped his hands with a grin. “The little Immortal Maiden really does have keen insight, hit the nail right on the head. So, can I take a look too?”
Fengxue said, “Weren’t you enjoying lying on that coffin board so much? Go on lying there, then.”
Ye Pengzhou sighed mournfully.
Flames roared up inside the furnace, deep red tongues of fire occasionally leaping out of the man-high opening.
The two Daoists worked giant fans, stoking the flames higher, while calling for the paper figures to hurry the escorting immortal children over to the furnace.
“Looks like they’re planning to refine us into pills.”
Ye Pengzhou sighed. “Little Immortal Maiden, if we get thrown into the furnace together, does that count as dying side by side [1]sharing the same fate in death jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3024836_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3024836_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });?”
Fengxue said, “I have no intention of dying side by side with you. Besides, it would be too much of a waste for you to die at the hands of a few ghosts and spirits.”
After all, this was the man who would one day become the Demon Lord, founder of his own Ghost Kingdom.
Ye Pengzhou’s brows lifted, and he smiled. “I see, what a shame it would be for this world to lose the two of us!”
The bright moonlight fell across his smiling peach-blossom eyes.
Something stirred in Fengxue’s chest, she looked away and went back to studying the scene outside through the crack. Where they were seemed to be some kind of back courtyard, white walls and black tiles, the ground paved in blue-gray brick, the cold, clear moonlight illuminating everything around them plainly.
She pushed upward with all her strength.
The lid didn’t budge an inch.
The paper figures carried the coffin forward, step by step, toward the furnace.
‘Crack, crack.’
A strange sound came from beneath her. She looked down and saw that Ye Pengzhou, having failed to pry the lid open with the Ghost-Wailing Blade, had switched tactics and was now trying to chisel through the bottom of the coffin with a small knife.
He’d already chipped away several times, and had only managed to produce a bit of wood shavings.
The terrifying future demon lord, wielder of a peerless evil weapon… didn’t seem to be much use at all, apparently.
Ye Pengzhou said, “Little Immortal Maiden, want to try rocking it a couple times?”
Fengxue nodded.
The two of them threw themselves against opposite sides of the coffin, and sure enough, managed to rock it hard back and forth.
The fire-fanning Daoist said, “Careful! Don’t shake the Mount Tai talisman loose.”
The other laughed. “So what if it comes loose? They’re just two little kids, does the mountain lord really need a Mount Tai talisman for that?”
“These two have such tender, delicate skin, I’m worried I might not be able to help myself and eat them!”
“Hahahaha, ruin the mountain lord’s plans and watch him use you for the elixir instead.”
…
“So there’s a Mount Tai talisman weighing it down. No wonder we couldn’t push it open,” Ye Pengzhou said.
Fengxue made a small sound of agreement, and an idea came to her at once. She pressed close to the edge of the crack, making a little room for Ye Pengzhou, and watching the thin back of the paper figure ahead of them, said, “Use your throwing knife on its legs—”
Before she’d even finished speaking, a streak of black shot past her cheek.
The throwing knife sliced silently through the paper figure’s feet.
The effigy’s body, light as air, snapped in two and toppled to the ground, and the coffin, tilted at that end, went down with it. Riding the momentum, the two of them shifted their weight together, one foot kicking off the other side, both pushing at once, sending the coffin flipping through the air until it crashed down onto the ground.
“Huh?” The fire-fanning Daoist turned his head and cursed. “You useless paper things, can’t even carry a coffin properly. Get it steady, now!”
The paper figure, pinned beneath the coffin, didn’t move at all.
The Daoist set down his fan and walked over to check.
The instant he drew near the coffin, it split cleanly in two, and a flash of frost-white sword-light and a streak of black knife-shadow leapt out together, striking straight at him.
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