“Little Immortal Maiden, do you think Lord Mantou can really become an immortal?”
Fengxue shook her head. “Of course not. The Dao has three tiers, and immortals five ranks, Heavenly Immortals, Divine Immortals, Human Immortals, Earthly Immortals, and Ghost Immortals. Someone like old Master Zhang, who was just an ordinary mortal with no cultivation at all in life, but who did good deeds and accumulated virtue, and after death continued to protect the region, perhaps somewhere is short a minor local deity, and they’d summon him to serve as some low-ranking clerk of the underworld, or a local earth god.”
“But this business of ‘attaining the Dao and ascending, transcending the mortal world’ that Lord Mantou, Lord Manshan, keeps going on about, that’s a Heavenly Immortal, and there’s no need to even consider it. That’s simply impossible. If he’d spent even a few years studying on Qingming Mountain, he’d know that cultivation has no shortcuts, using underhanded methods might fool heaven for a while, but sooner or later, retribution always comes.”
Ye Pengzhou said with a laugh, “Sounds like Lord Mantou’s downfall is that he simply hasn’t read enough. If only he were as well-read and knowledgeable as the little Immortal Maiden here…”
“Enough,” Fengxue cut off his flattery. “Stop grinning like that. Are you really set on this?”
She had no clear sense of how strong Ye Pengzhou actually was right now, but from what she could tell, he wasn’t much stronger than she was.
And she’d already found even a single giant rat a difficult fight.
The great spirits at that feast were all considerably stronger and more vicious than the rat had been, fighting them head-on would be nothing short of throwing an egg against a rock, courting death for no reason.
When she’d come down the mountain, Fengxue’s only goal had been to keep the two Zhang children alive, and to get a sense of this so-called Lord Manshan’s strength along the way. But having overheard the spirits’ conversation and witnessed their savage, man-eating nature firsthand, she’d come to realize something.
After tonight, once these spirits scattered to wreak havoc elsewhere, letting them go free would mean countless innocent lives lost, with no telling where or how many.
Better, then, to simply kill every last one of them.
But she only had this one night, there was no time to go back to Qingming Mountain for reinforcements. Fengxue bit her lip, and, with real reluctance, drew out the wooden token hanging at her waist.
The peachwood token Master Lingyun had given her had come from a thousand-year-old peach tree spirit.
In his youth, while traveling, he’d slain a monster in a dream and saved an ancient tree spirit’s life. In gratitude, the tree spirit had carved off a piece of its own heartwood and given it to him.
Worn at the waist, the token brought many benefits to its bearer, but for malevolent spirits and demons, it carried a natural, powerful suppressive force, an excellent tool for banishing evil.
In her past life, Fengxue had lost her wooden token in the middle of a life-or-death struggle. This time around, she’d meant to keep it close, a small keepsake to hold onto.
But…
Fengxue raised her hand and let the token fall toward the alchemical furnace. Just as the flames were about to swallow it, a slender, pale hand caught it out of the air.
“The immortal way holds life precious, and delivers all beings without limit,” Ye Pengzhou read the carved inscription aloud, then said, “Little Immortal Maiden, this token looks like a fine piece. Keep it.”
He blinked. “I have an idea!”
Fengxue asked, “What idea?”
Ye Pengzhou pulled a small brown clay jar from his robe. “I’ve got medicine right here.” He took out a pill. “Water-Ghost Whisker, from the great marsh, hah, well, it’s not actually water-ghost whisker, I just made up that name myself.”
Water-Ghost Whisker, also called Shade Dew Grass or Ghost’s Tears Grass, grew in places thick with ghost qi, its leaves beaded with dew, an excellent herb for suppressing monsters and ghosts.
Ye Pengzhou named off a few more ingredients, all of them well suited to suppressing spirits.
Fengxue looked at the plain, unremarkable little black pellet in his hand. “So you had this the whole time, why didn’t you use it earlier?”
Ye Pengzhou blinked, then laughed a few times, clearly trying to bluff his way past the question.
Fengxue said, “Hmph. Give me back the token.”
Ye Pengzhou smiled, waving the token in front of her eyes a few times, and just as she reached out to take it, he suddenly closed his fist around it, holding it tight.
Fengxue said, “Give it back.”
Ye Pengzhou said with a smile, “Little Immortal Maiden, if it’s something important to you, you shouldn’t just throw it away so carelessly. Next time, I might not give it back so easily.”
Fengxue took the token and, without another word, tucked it against her chest, muttering, “Thank you.”
Hearing that, Ye Pengzhou’s peach-blossom eyes curved into a smile.
The two of them crouched by the furnace, watching as the various ingredients inside gradually melted under the fire’s heat, until, before long, a thread of golden liquid began to congeal within.
Faint traces of blood-red, deep black, and sickly green swirled through the gold.
“He really did manage to refine it into a pill,” Ye Pengzhou said, clicking his tongue in amazement. “Little Immortal Maiden, have you ever seen a pill that looks like this?”
Fengxue shook her head. “Never.”
Suddenly she heard a faint rustling sound behind them, and quickly gripped her sword hilt, pulled her veil back on, and turned smoothly to walk toward the source, a clump of shrubs, drawing her sword to strike the instant she reached it.
“Spare me, Immortal Maiden!”
The tip of her sword stopped a mere inch from a man’s face.
Zhang Xingzhi, pale as a sheet, raised his hands and crawled out of the underbrush, whispering, “It’s me.”
Fengxue said, “What are you doing here?”
Zhang Xingzhi glanced at her guiltily, then quickly lowered his eyes. “I saw the paper figures carry you two off, so I quietly followed. I meant to keep up with you, but once the white mist cleared, I couldn’t find you anymore.”
Fengxue asked, “Then how did you end up here?”
Zhang Xingzhi laughed sheepishly. “Lord Manshan… well, that’s the mountain where our family grave is. I thought I’d come take a look at the ancestral grave while I was at it…”
Torn between exasperation and reluctant admiration, Fengxue said, “You really do have some nerve.”
Ye Pengzhou grabbed Zhang Xingzhi’s hand and said with a grin, “Good man, you’ve arrived at just the right moment! We happen to be short-handed.”
Zhang Xingzhi said, “The two Immortal Lords need only give the word!”
Ye Pengzhou said, “All those monsters are gathered in there drinking together right now, perfect chance to catch them all in one net. We need you to go around the outside and set the whole area ablaze.”
Fengxue said, “Once the fire starts, other areas might manage to put it out in time, but your family’s ancestral grave will certainly burn.”
Zhang Xingzhi clenched his fists. “No matter! If it means wiping out this nest of monsters and ghosts once and for all, my great-grandfather surely wouldn’t blame me. I’ll simply choose a fine feng shui site to rebury them afterward!”
Ye Pengzhou unhooked the gourd at his waist, filled with strong liquor that would help the fire catch.
This whole garden and its pavilions were nothing but an illusion, for all its apparent grandeur, it was really just a barren hillside with a few burial mounds.
Fengxue drew out the Fuwei sword. “You have protective righteous qi on you, so the lesser spirits can’t harm you. But if a great monster escapes the fire, they kill without hesitation, take this sword, to defend yourself.”
Zhang Xingzhi waved a hand, declining, and instead bent to rummage through the shrubs, pulling out a kitchen cleaver and a firewood hatchet.
He held the cleaver in his left hand, the hatchet in his right, and swung them both about clumsily. “Little Immortal Maiden, see, I came prepared!”
Ye Pengzhou cupped his hands, praising him. “A true man of valor. If a python doesn’t swallow you whole, the little Immortal Maiden’s buying you a drink afterward.”
“My thanks!” Zhang Xingzhi hung the wine gourd at his waist and accepted the Strength of the Titan talisman, the Golden Armor talisman, the Divine Traveling talisman, and the earth-escape talisman Fengxue handed him, returning her bow with a deep one of his own. “I’ll be off, then.”
Fengxue felt another pang at losing four more talismans all at once. She patted her half-emptied pouch, took a few deep breaths, and tossed Ye Pengzhou two talismans as well.
The Golden Armor talisman, cloaking the wearer in armor of gold, impervious to blade and spear.
The earth-escape talisman, borrowing the earth to vanish, hiding one’s trail.
Both fine talismans she’d paid dearly for.
Ye Pengzhou thanked her with a bright smile, then handed the escape talisman back. “No need for this one.”
Fengxue took the earth-escape talisman back. “Someone else asks me for a favor, and I might not even give it to them. And another thing, if you want to treat Zhang Xingzhi to a drink, go ahead, but why use my name for it?”
“Hmph—”
She turned her head back to watch the flames in the furnace.
As the golden liquid flowed and the elixir took shape, the fire gradually shrank, fading from brilliant red to a dull, lightless glow, until only a small, charred fragment of bone remained.
The golden elixir rolled slowly around inside the furnace.
Fengxue said quietly, “You don’t have an escape talisman. If we run into trouble, you won’t have a way out.”
Ye Pengzhou said with a smile, “I only know how to go forward, I don’t know how to retreat. What about you, little Immortal Maiden?”
Fengxue turned to look at him. “You’re not afraid? Or are you just confident you won’t die?”
Ye Pengzhou spun his throwing knife, a carefree, roguish smile crossing his handsome face. “Confident… not really, no. Hah, but what’s there to fear? Everyone dies eventually. If I could die alongside the little Immortal Maiden, at least we’d make a fine pair of ghost drinking companions—”
Fengxue’s eyes went round, and she shot him an irritated glare. “Don’t talk nonsense. Even if you die, I won’t.”
Ye Pengzhou smiled. “Of course, of course. The little Immortal Maiden is a true cultivator, you’ll live forever, unaging. As for me, well, I haven’t finished tasting every fine wine this world has to offer yet, so I’ve no intention of offering up my neck to the blade either. If neither of us is going to die, then it’s them who’ll be dying tonight.”