Fengxue knew a little about human-faced dogs herself, the process of making one was unusually cruel.
The practitioner cut a wound across the victim’s back, then pressed a specially treated dog’s hide onto the raw, still-warm flesh and blood.
After some time passed, fur would gradually grow in on the hide, and the person would become a dog.
Fengxue had seen plenty of brazen heretical cultivators before, but never one bold enough to openly use a human-faced dog to earn money at the very foot of Qingming Mountain, in broad daylight, in front of a crowd.
A flash of cold intent crossed her eyes as she gathered her breath and leapt after the youth across the rooftops.
She knocked a scholar’s raised wine cup askew and startled a cat awake from its nap on a roof.
Amid a chorus of furious meowing, Fengxue finally caught up to the youth.
She flicked up a loose roof tile with the tip of her sword.
‘Clatter.’
The youth skidded to a sudden stop, the tile just missing his feet. He looked up at the girl standing on the roof edge and shouted, “Not selling, not selling! This dog isn’t for sale!”
Fengxue snorted coldly. “Whether you sell it isn’t up to you.”
“You’re being unreasonable, little miss. I already said it’s not for sale…” The youth, looking pained, dug a talisman out of his robe and pressed it onto his shoe.
Fengxue knew this talisman well too, it was called the Divine Traveling Horse Charm. Stuck to the foot, it granted swift movement, a hundred li a day. Simple to make, easy to carry, truly a household must-have for anyone planning to travel, or make a quick getaway.
Cradling the human-faced yellow dog, the youth waved at Fengxue and said with a grin, “Little miss, until we meet again by fate. I’m no bad person, don’t—”
Fengxue calmly pulled out a talisman of her own and pressed it to her own foot.
The youth: …
He said nothing more, leapt up and over a high wall, and bolted toward the edge of the city.
Fengxue followed close behind, launching herself into the air after him.
The two of them chased each other back and forth, bouncing between rooftops and walls like a pair of grasshoppers.
A drunk patron rubbed his eyes and laughed. “Wifey, come look, grasshopper demons!”
…
The youth ran straight for a small courtyard on the outskirts of the city.
Could that be where the child-trafficker’s den was?
Fengxue followed him, kicked open the wooden gate, sword in one hand, the other hand tucked behind her back holding a yellow talisman.
The courtyard belonged to an abandoned temple. Behind the low earthen wall, a peach tree was in full bloom.
Under the flowering tree stood a square four-legged table, with a jar set at its center.
A few young people stood around it, staring at the jar with dark, brooding eyes.
Refining gu-worms?
Fengxue tightened her grip on the earth-escape talisman.
Hearing the wooden door kicked open, the group looked up, and a lazy, clear voice drifted out from among the flower shadows: “Ah Yao, weren’t you supposed to be earning money? Why’d you come running back looking like you got dragged through the mud?”
The youth called Ah Yao made a bitter face. “Senior Brother, don’t even ask. I got targeted by a tigress.”
The senior brother laughed softly. “What tigress? Clearly it’s one of Qingming Mountain’s immortals, sworn to slay demons and defend the Dao.”
Something about that voice struck Fengxue as familiar. She stepped closer, sword raised.
Ah Yao huddled to one side, clutching the human-faced dog, shouting “Senior Brother, save me!”, but the frost-faced beauty didn’t so much as glance at him, striding straight past to the flowering tree.
Ah Yao shuffled the dog further into a corner.
Fengxue approached, and there beneath the tree’s shadow she saw a familiar face.
Ah Yao’s senior brother was a strikingly beautiful youth with skin of extreme pallor and eyebrows of deep black. He wore vivid red robes seemingly piled with embroidery, the broad sleeves stitched with a few blossoming lotus flowers, much like the deity described in the old poem, ‘he made a garment of water-chestnut and lotus leaves, gathered lotus blossoms for his robe.’
But for all the exquisite luxury of his clothes, his hair was simply gathered into a loose topknot held by a single wooden hairpin set at a careless angle, a few loose strands falling across his fine brows and eyes, giving him a look both beautiful and unhurried, wild and free.
He propped his chin on one hand and looked at Fengxue with a smile. “A little immortal maiden of Qingming Mountain?”
Fengxue held his gaze for a long moment, murmuring to herself inwardly: ‘Ye Pengzhou.’
The future Demon Lord who would one day face Shen Yujing in a decisive battle atop the clouds.
Fengxue couldn’t remember exactly when she’d ended up under Ye Pengzhou’s banner. In her past life, wandering the mortal world in exile, she’d happened to hear that a great demon had risen in Yunmeng, a demon who sheltered monsters from every direction and carved out his own Ghost Kingdom, all his own.
As a “demon” who wasn’t especially strong and had no wish to learn heretical arts, Fengxue too had ended up fleeing to the Ghost Kingdom of Yunmeng.
Those had been the most comfortable days of her life after leaving the mountain, even surrounded as she was by all manner of monsters, ghosts, and grotesque things.
People needed heroes. And it turned out monsters wanted their own protector too.
Fengxue pressed her lips together and pulled her gaze away from the youth’s pale face, sweeping it over the other two beside the table instead. One was a cold-faced girl with a scar on her face and a blade at her waist, the other looked to be a small girl of five or six, cheeks soft and pink.
She thought back to that “Ah Yao” Ye Pengzhou had just called out, and glanced again at the youth huddled in the corner clutching the dog.
A few familiar names flashed through her mind.
Lu Yuan, Ye Xingyue, Jiang Yao?
She remembered these people, like Ye Pengzhou, all of them would go on to become terrifying, vicious ghosts.
Her gaze settled on the black jar on the table, and her expression turned suddenly grave.
These few great villains, all gathered together, refining beast-making techniques ‘and’ raising gu in a jar?
Ye Pengzhou held a black throwing knife, his pale, slender fingers pressed to the hilt, spinning it idly between his fingers, the thin, sharp edge brushing lightly against his fingertip.
The Ghost-Wailing Blade.
The terrifying demonic weapon that would one day devour tens of thousands of vengeful spirits.
Fengxue’s hand tightened on her sword hilt on instinct, her scalp prickling faintly. Still, she kept her grip and demanded coldly, “You’re using beast-making techniques at the foot of Qingming Mountain?”
Ye Pengzhou drawled lazily, dragging out the words, “Wronged, oh so wronged, Immortal Maiden—”
He dug the Ghost-Wailing Blade into the clay jar and scooped out something a deep, glistening red.
“Blood?” Fengxue’s whole body went taut.
Ye Pengzhou laughed. “Chili paste. We brought it specially from Yunmeng. Want some?”
Ye Xingyue held up the bun in her hand. “Me first, me first, the food here has no spice at all, so bland my mouth’s about to go moldy [1]so bland it’s unbearable jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2991338_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2991338_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });.”
Lu Yuan silently produced her own bun.
Jiang Yao, still clutching the dog, shouted, “Save some for me! Don’t eat it all!”
“Yeah, yeah.” Ye Xingyue chirped back brightly, then turned to Fengxue with a grin. “Pretty big sister, want to try some? It’s really good.”
Fengxue shook her head gently, and her grip on the sword hilt loosened bit by bit.
Then, piecing together the chattering explanations coming from all sides, she gathered the gist of the situation.
Ye Pengzhou and his group had come a long way from Yunmeng to attend Xuanmen’s Grand Rites of Heaven. Along the way, they’d caught a heretical cultivator who’d been stealing children to make human-faced dogs.
Short on travel funds, they’d used the same beast-making technique on the cultivator himself, turning him into a human-faced dog, and had him perform math and dances in the streets every day to earn some silver.
Ye Xingyue took a bite of her chili-dipped bun and said, “Pretty big sister, don’t believe a word this bad dog says. He’s hurt so many kids.”
Fengxue touched a finger to the space between her brows and opened her Heaven’s Eye. When she looked at the yellow dog again, the scene changed entirely.
The dog’s hide was packed densely with the faces of vengeful ghosts.
Blood ran from all seven orifices, the whites of their eyes were shot through with red, and they had no pupils.
Looking more closely, it wasn’t that they had no pupils, their pupils had all rolled to one side, showing only half a sliver, as if all of them were staring with vicious hatred at the man who had been turned into this dog.
Fengxue made up her mind and nodded. “I understand.” She looked toward Ah Yao in the corner. “I misjudged you. Sorry about that.”
Ah Yao waved a hand, laughing. “It’s fine, it’s fine, heroine… ah, no, Immortal Maiden, stepping in when you see injustice on the road [2]intervening to help a stranger in trouble jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2991338_1_2').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2991338_1_2', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });, I really admire that! Immortal Maiden, um, so…” He looked a bit embarrassed, rubbing his hands together. “You Qingming Mountain cultivators, drawing a Divine Traveling talisman must be nothing to you, right?”
He looked at Fengxue with obvious anticipation.
Fengxue: “…Ahem. I just wave a sword around,” she said, her voice trailing off, sounding a touch guilty. “I wouldn’t know how to draw talismans.”
Although she didn’t know how to draw them, she happened to be carrying quite a few talismans on her.
Hearing this, Ah Yao’s face fell, and he muttered, “That traveling talisman cost me eighty coppers. That could’ve bought eighteen sesame cakes.”
“Hiss—” Lu Yuan hissed flatly, biting down harder on her bun.
Ye Xingyue counted on her fingers. “That’s ten candied hawthorn skewers, too.”
Ah Yao rubbed his hands, face reddening, and said bashfully, “Little… little Immortal Maiden, do you happen to have any more traveling talismans…” He covered his face, deeply embarrassed. “Never mind! Forget I said anything!”
Fengxue took out a traveling talisman and said, “I misjudged you and made you waste one. I really ought to give you one back.”
The Divine Traveling Horse Charm she carried had been drawn by one of the mountain’s deeply cultivated elders, its effect, once applied, was doubled compared to the one Ah Yao had bought from some wandering mystic.
Ah Yao lit up with delight and reached out to take it.
“Tch.”
The youth holding the throwing knife let out a soft, mocking laugh. “Pathetic. Ah Yao, you’re that hung up over one traveling talisman?”
Ah Yao made a tearful face. “Senior Brother! We can barely afford to eat buns as it is, don’t act so tough about it!”
Fengxue was thoroughly stunned.
She pulled out two more talismans, and the instant she did, she saw everyone’s eyes light up at once. A thought crossed her mind, one that felt both absurd and entirely reasonable—
Could it be that these few great villains, when they eventually fell to demonhood… it was because they were just poor?
Fengxue pressed the talismans into Ah Yao’s hands. “Don’t refuse. You’ve come a long way, I really should be hosting you properly. Let me bring you all up the mountain.”
Ah Yao was overjoyed. “The little Immortal Maiden really is heroic and warm-hearted [3]brave and righteous jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2991338_1_3').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2991338_1_3', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });, as beautiful as she is kind!”
Ye Pengzhou spun his throwing knife, rose to his feet, and cupped his hands toward Fengxue in salute. “Little Immortal Maiden, we brought this dog, this heretical cultivator, along meaning to hand him over to Qingming Mountain anyway. Since you’re here, he’s yours to deal with.”
Fengxue looked at the human-faced dog.
The yellow dog, apparently thinking she meant to save him, ran straight to her feet the moment Ah Yao let go of him. He lifted his half-human, half-canine head, tail wagging nonstop, and an unmistakably fawning expression crept onto his face.
Fengxue crouched down and stroked that strange, half-human, half-dog face.
The yellow dog bared its teeth in an ingratiating grin, as if trying to lick her hand, and stuck out the stub of a tongue that had been cut short.
Fengxue asked, “Did you cut out his tongue too?”
Ye Pengzhou’s expression froze for a moment, he spun the throwing knife, running a finger along the thin blade as though weighing his words.
Ye Xingyue came bouncing over instead. “Pretty big sister, this bad thing cut out a bunch of kids’ tongues. Said they were too noisy. My senior brother said he should get a taste of having his own tongue cut out.”
She blinked, pressing her fingertips together, all pitiful innocence. “I heard Qingming Mountain Daoists have a lot of rules, you won’t be mad at us, will you?”
Fengxue smiled, about to comfort the little girl and tell her she’d feel no pity at all for a heretical cultivator. Instead, the girl spun on her heel and pointed straight at the youth beside her.
“It was all Senior Brother’s idea! Blame him instead!”
Fengxue: …what a wonderful junior sister.
Ye Pengzhou gripped his knife hilt tight, opened his mouth as if to say something, then held back, and instead flicked a finger against the girl’s forehead.
“Ow—!”
Ye Xingyue let out a pitiful wail, clutching her forehead, and cried loudly, “Pretty big sister, look, he’s abusing children too! Hurry and arrest him!”
Ye Pengzhou, at the end of his patience, said, “You unlucky little thing.”
Ye Xingyue: “Wuuu, big sister, he’s cursing at me too. Arrest him right now.”
These few demon lords-to-be were behaving nothing like she’d imagined. Seeing the human-faced dog and the clay jar, Fengxue had assumed they must already be great villains even in their youth, she didn’t expect them to be quite so…
She rubbed her forehead, crouched down, and stroked the yellow dog’s ears.
The human-faced dog’s tail wagged even more happily.
Ye Xingyue whispered, “Senior Brother, pretty big sister isn’t going to let this bad guy go, is she?” She added, all innocence, “Then how are we supposed to earn travel money?”
Ye Pengzhou said nothing, only watched the girl in front of him.
The little girl crouched on the ground, cupping the dog’s face in both hands, her eyes gentle, just like all those kind-hearted girls in the mortal world who couldn’t walk past a cat or dog without being charmed half to death.
Except the thing in front of her was a human-faced dog, the face bloated and grotesquely ugly.
It made for an exceptionally strange scene.
Fengxue said softly, “Bring him up the mountain? The Grand Rites of Heaven are about to begin, no killing is allowed on the mountain grounds.”
Ye Pengzhou said with a laugh, “Sounds like this dog’s luck is holding up.”
The yellow dog’s tail wagged faster still.
Fengxue patted the dog’s head. “Don’t worry. I’m about to get you out of there.”
Getting him out meant nothing more than peeling the dog hide back off. This man had worn the hide for so long that if it wasn’t removed soon, the hide would fuse completely with his body and he would become a true dog.
She drew out the Fuwei sword, seemed to think of something, and set the sword aside, choosing instead a sharp stone nearby.
Holding the stone, she smiled at the human-faced dog. “This part’s going to hurt a bit. Bear with it.”
Ye Xingyue asked, “Can’t you just use a spell-chant to make the hide fall off? What is big sister doing?”
Ye Pengzhou lifted a hand and covered the girl’s eyes.
Unable to see what was happening, the girl could only hear a series of horrible, low groans. When her senior brother finally let go, she slowly opened her eyes and saw a man lying on the ground, bloody and stripped bare, his life or death uncertain, while the pretty older sister sat cross-legged in the pool of blood, her fair face spattered with a few flecks of crimson, cradling a bloody hide in her arms, and smiled at them with crinkled eyes.
Fengxue climbed up, glanced at the blood and dirt on her own body, then at the bloodied man on the ground, and lowered her brows, murmuring the Xuanmen chant for the deliverance of souls.
“By the Most High’s decree, deliver your lonely soul, every ghost and specter, every creature born of the four wombs, receive this grace…”
Ye Xingyue: “Pretty big sister has such a good heart, she’s even giving the bad guy a proper send-off.”
Ye Pengzhou brushed a willow leaf across the girl’s eyes.
The thin leaf, cool with dew, swept across Ye Xingyue’s eyelids, and when she opened her eyes again, she saw one weeping human face after another emerging from the dog hide.
They looked like a row of crying children.
Human-faced dogs were extremely difficult to make successfully, this heretical cultivator had no telling how many lives he’d claimed before, and the hide was bound with many trapped, grieving souls.
As the girl’s chant continued, the weeping faces gradually grew peaceful.
Once Fengxue finished the deliverance chant, she stroked the hide in her arms without offering further explanation, then turned back and said politely, “Everyone, let me take you up the mountain.”
Perhaps the sight of her peeling the skin off with her own hands using a stone had been too much to stomach, because aside from Ye Xingyue, the others had all gone somewhat pale.
Ah Yao showed it most plainly, staring at her with a shudder, wishing he could shrink himself right into the wall. He covered his mouth, holding back wave after wave of nausea rising in his throat, not daring to look even once at the bloody, flayed man on the ground.
Wasn’t Qingming Mountain’s immortals supposed to be kind and merciful?
How did they end up with this… this terrifying woman who could skin a man alive without so much as a change of expression! And she’d done it with a stone, no less, skinning with a dull stone made the whole thing agonizingly slow and painful…
Sure, that heretical cultivator had done plenty of evil.
But even so, this was too brutal.
Ah Yao’s face was a mask of fear as he choked down the roiling in his stomach. He didn’t dare look at the girl, and secretly thanked his lucky stars that he hadn’t been the one to provoke her from the start.
Seeing that no one was moving, Fengxue said, “Do you all want to eat first? I’ll wait here.”
Ah Yao took one look at the blood-red chili paste on the bun and promptly threw up.
References[+]