Night rain poured down in sheets.
With a long creak, the wooden door slowly swung open.
Fengxue stepped into the run-down little temple.
The temple had been abandoned for a long time, thick with cobwebs and dust, even the features of the idol in its shrine had blurred beyond recognition, a heavy layer of gray dust settled over it.
On the stone platform where the idol stood were a few chipped, broken bowls. There were no offerings in them, only a bowl of clear water, catching rain that leaked down from the roof.
Fengxue cupped her hands politely toward the idol and said, “It’s raining outside. I’ll be staying here for the night. Forgive the intrusion.”
She cleared off the offering table, poured the good wine from her gourd into a porcelain bowl, and set out a piece of wine-lees cake alongside it as an offering.
There was some dry firewood stacked in the corner.
Fengxue got a fire going, leaned back against the stone platform, and peeled the traveling talisman off her foot.
Looking at the rain-soaked talisman, she sighed quietly and tossed it into the flames.
She had no plans to return to Qingming Mountain, but she still meant to go to Ningzhen first and help resolve that matter for the family there. She’d been racing along on the traveling talisman the whole way, never expecting to run into a downpour crossing this ridge.
Once soaked through, the talisman lost its power completely, she could no longer bounce along like a grasshopper, and her half-baked wind-riding technique was useless too, so she’d had no choice but to push on through the rain on foot, gritting her teeth.
Fortunately she’d come across this ruined temple, offering somewhere to rest for the moment.
Fengxue stripped off her soaked Daoist robe and draped it over the stone platform to dry, propped both her swords beside it, and sat with her arms wrapped around her knees, watching the flickering firelight, eyes lowered.
She wasn’t sure exactly when she’d drifted off.
In any case, she dreamed of her past life again.
After returning from the Demon Den, a dull ache had settled permanently in her chest, and her temperament had grown more volatile and erratic, until people and dogs alike came to resent her.
She’d clung stubbornly to proving that she was the one who’d led Shen Yujing out of the Demon Den, though if she was honest, she couldn’t even quite remember what had actually happened in there.
Day after day of anger and unfulfilled longing had gradually twisted her features into something ugly and repellent.
One day, a violent storm broke over the mountain, lightning splitting the long night apart.
In the blinding, ghastly-white flash, as she wiped down her sword, she saw in the blade’s reflection a monster’s face.
…
Across both lifetimes, thunder and the sound of rain wove together, unrelenting.
The wooden door gave another long creak, and another traveler, soaked from head to toe, stepped into the little temple.
Fengxue glanced at her.
It was a woman, her skirts drenched by the rain, stained with mud and dust until their original color was impossible to make out. Her brow was lowered, wrinkles at the corners of her eyes blooming like flowering branches, a few silver strands escaping her gathered bun.
An older woman, well along in years.
Fengxue said nothing, simply picked up her sword and stirred the fire a little.
Deep in the mountains, an abandoned temple, a rainy night, the ghosts and spirits one met out here outnumbered the living by far.
“Where has the young lady come from?” the woman asked, settling by the fire and starting up conversation of her own accord.
Fengxue smiled faintly. “From wherever I came from.”
The woman smiled too. “And if I asked where you’re headed, I suppose you’d only tell me you’re going wherever you’re going.”
Fengxue nodded.
The woman moved closer to the fire, its light falling across her face.
Fengxue idly stirred the flames with her sword.
‘Crackle.’
The fire popped softly.
Through the frost-pale blade, she studied the woman on the sly, and found, no matter how she looked, that she simply couldn’t make out the woman’s features clearly.
It was as if a thick layer of ash lay between them.
The woman suddenly spoke. “That robe you’re wearing is a mountain Daoist’s robe. You’ve come down from the mountain, haven’t you?”
Fengxue said nothing, idly stirring the flames.
The woman went on, “Qingming Mountain is such a rare pocket of peace in this world. Why would the young lady want to leave it?”
Fengxue pressed her lips together, gazing into the deep red flames, and after a long pause said, “My hometown is in Cangzhou, up in the far north. It’s often troubled by raids from the northern tribes. I’m worried about my family, so I came down.”
The woman laughed. “But once you’ve gone up the mountain, cut off from the mortal world, cultivating in peace, why still hold onto worldly attachments?”
Fengxue was quiet for a moment before answering. “I suppose I’m just an ordinary, worldly person, then.”
In her past life, once she’d discovered she was turning into a demon, she had fled Qingming Mountain.
Fengxue had gone through countless books in the mountain’s library pavilion, and pieced together an answer from the elders’ roundabout hints, guessing at what had caused the strange change in her body.
Somehow, in the Demon Den, she’d been infected with a trace of demonic qi.
That demonic qi had coiled itself around her heart, driving her toward obsession and delusion, tormenting her day and night, with no cure short of gouging out her own heart and gutting herself.
Normally, when an ordinary person harbored evil thoughts or was infected with demonic qi, they turned into a demon in short order.
Her case had been somewhat unusual.
Back then, once she realized there was no cure for what she had, she’d left the mountain.
She’d been afraid of having her heart cut out and her stomach split open, of being treated as a demon by her own fellow disciples, or locked away in the mountain for a hundred years, never to see her family again.
She’d thought, before she finally became a demon, she wanted to see her family one more time.
But once she got home, she discovered her hometown had just been ravaged by war, fires raging, scorched bones scattered everywhere, and her family nowhere to be found.
For many years after that, she had searched for them.
…
“Family?” The woman sighed softly. “My family was caught in the chaos of war too. We fled all the way here from northern Jing Province, the whole household on the move, and now, only I remain.”
Something stirred in Fengxue’s heart. “I hadn’t heard of any war in northern Jing.”
The woman gave a bitter laugh. “It’s been far worse than that. First bandit raids, then war and chaos, then famine on top of it all. Ah, along the way, the rivers carried more bodies than the roads carried walkers. We ran into brigands, and ghosts and monsters besides, until in the end I was the only one left, walking alone through the deep mountains. Fortunately I finally found somewhere to settle, and things have steadied since, though every now and then I still think of the family members still out there on the road.”
Fengxue thought to herself: wandering alone through the deep mountains on a rainy night, you might not be entirely human yourself, either.
But since the other woman was speaking to her so warmly, she didn’t call her out on it.
Ghosts and spirits weren’t always malicious, after all, sometimes they were simply lonely, and wanted someone to talk to.
“Since the little Immortal Maiden can’t bear to be parted from her family,” the woman said, wiping at the rain still on her, playing at idle chitchat, “goodness, no matter how I dry off by this fire, I just can’t seem to warm up.” She laughed. “Why go back up the mountain, then?”
The firelight fell across Fengxue’s stern, striking features.
A thin layer of ice seemed to float over her eyes, glinting cold in the firelight.
Fengxue stared into the deep red flames and said quietly, “Foolishness, I suppose. Although I’ve never regretted it. Qingming Mountain is a good place. It taught me a great deal.”
She really had grown rather fond of Qingming Mountain, in truth.
While up there, she’d felt wronged, resentful, unwilling to accept her place, she’d heard plenty of idle gossip, gotten into plenty of fights with her fellow disciples. But looking back on it now, in later days, she found that lively, restless youth had been rather fun, in its own way.
Her fellow disciples hadn’t liked her, but in the end, none of them had ever truly meant her harm.
If they didn’t like the look of something, everyone just settled it with a round of wooden swords, and that was that.
Some of the senior sisters had even pitied her for her “hopeless infatuation” and quietly slipped her extra pills now and then.
And now she also knew that her Master had lied to save her face, saying “I took her as a disciple, it had nothing to do with Shen Yujing”, and that her fourth senior brother wasn’t nearly as fierce and hostile as she remembered, his coldness had simply been frustration that she was too absorbed in love to cultivate seriously.
Even Junior Sister Fuliu had given her a fine sword.
Everyone had been rather good to her, except Shen Yujing.
It was only that she couldn’t stay on the mountain any longer.
Not wanting to dwell on the subject, she said instead, “There might be a pocket of peace somewhere at the foot of Qingming Mountain.”
In her past life, amid all that chaos, she’d known of exactly three places of peace.
One was Qingming Mountain. One was Wanfa Temple. And the last was the capital, where the Bureau of Suppression held its seat.
The woman wiped the rain from her face, though she’d been by the fire quite a while now, she was still soaked through.
“We were actually thinking of heading toward Qingming Mountain ourselves. It’s just such a long way, a thousand mountains and ten thousand rivers, and the great marshes are full of water ghosts, and the mountains full of man-eating monsters. It’s not an easy road.”
Fengxue asked, “But northern Jing is closer to Wanfa Temple. Why not go there instead?”
The woman looked puzzled. “Wanfa Temple? What sort of place is that? I’ve never heard of it.”
Fengxue fell silent at that. Wanfa Temple had stood for a thousand years, and over the eight hundred years since this current dynasty began, its fame had grown ever brighter, blazing like the noonday sun.
Although it had been founded later than Qingming Mountain, in terms of influence and renown it was quietly overtaking it.
That had something to do with this dynasty’s centuries of devotion to Buddhism, and something to do with Qingming Mountain’s own deliberate isolation from the mortal world.
Qingming Mountain forbade its disciples from using their arts to chase fame, fortune, or wealth, her so-called senior brother in name only, once he became a powerful minister at court, had been expelled from the sect and could never return to the mountain again.
Wanfa Temple, on the other hand, was rather skilled at running its affairs. It owned tens of thousands of acres of fertile farmland as private property, and the villagers of several nearby settlements all worked as tenant farmers hired by the temple.
Beyond that, it ran countless other businesses, incense offerings, wish-granting, consecrations, exorcisms, lodging, and more.
In her past life, Fengxue hadn’t even dared set foot in that place bathed in Buddha-light. But she’d heard people say every single statue inside gleamed with golden light, dazzling enough to rival the sun itself, and that the monks all wore shimmering kasaya robes, tall and imposing, as though arhats had descended to walk the earth.
As for Qingming Mountain…
Fengxue glanced down at the patches on her own robe and the hole in her shoe, and pressed her lips together.
In any case, there were few subjects of the current Great Yin dynasty who hadn’t heard of Wanfa Temple.
Yet the woman looked entirely ignorant of it, saying, “Who doesn’t know of Qingming Mountain, though? Qingming Mountain’s immortal masters save the dying and heal the wounded, slay monsters and rid the world of demons, even monsters tremble at the mention of its name. Isn’t that so, little Immortal Maiden?”
Fengxue nodded.
The woman lowered her eyes. “Since the little Immortal Maiden comes from Qingming Mountain, this old woman has a humble request.”
Something in Fengxue’s chest went taut, she narrowed her eyes slightly. “My skills are far from refined.”
The woman laughed and went on regardless. “Why so modest, little Immortal Maiden? Ah, this old woman has nothing to her name but a fine bolt of brocade, but a great rat has set its eyes on it. Might I ask the little Immortal Maiden to help me drive the creature off?”
Fengxue didn’t know the woman’s true nature, and didn’t want to agree outright, but couldn’t refuse directly either, for fear of provoking her.
After a moment, she answered, “If I happen to see it, I’ll deal with it.”
She left the statement deliberately incomplete, leaving aside whether she’d even see the thing at all, even if she did see it, she could always just close her eyes and pretend she hadn’t, and even if she did step in, if she couldn’t win, she could always just turn and run.
At any rate, she hadn’t promised she’d actually win.
Still, going by what the woman had described, it was just one big rat. She could probably… handle that, surely?
The woman rose and bowed politely to Fengxue. “Then my thanks to the little Immortal Maiden.”
Fengxue made a small sound of acknowledgment, holding her sword close, staring silently into the firelight.
Thunder rolled and rumbled.
A ghastly-white streak tore through the black clouds, then was swallowed again by darkness like a rising tide. In the leaking, dripping ruin of the temple, only the small campfire flickered with its warm, dim red-gold light, holding up a small little world of warmth against the storm.
“Rest a while, little Immortal Maiden,” the woman said, gentle and kind. “I’ll keep an eye on the fire.”
…
‘Grind, grind—’
A hair-raising, teeth-grating sound cut through the rain, echoing at Fengxue’s ear.
Her lashes trembled, and she quietly opened her eyes.
A creature the size of a calf crouched in the corner of the temple, gnawing on something.
Blood seeped out from the shadows, trickling toward Fengxue’s feet. She turned her head, the woman who’d been sitting beside her was nowhere to be seen, and beneath the creature, the corner of a blood-soaked skirt showed faintly.
Could it be that while she was asleep, something had already happened to the woman?
But why hadn’t she cried out for help?
Had Fengxue really slept that soundly?
The creature seemed to sense her gaze and turned around, sweeping a pair of blood-red eyes the size of clay pots coldly over her.
Only now did Fengxue see it clearly, small, shifty eyes, a pointed snout, long whiskers: a giant rat that had cultivated into a spirit.
Its whiskers were like strands of black iron wire, its tail as thick as a bowl and long as a whip, and the fangs poking from its mouth gleamed a stark, savage white.
That “great rat” the woman had mentioned… was rather more “great” than expected.
Fengxue glanced beneath it, the woman’s chest had been torn open into a bloody hole, flesh split apart to expose bone gleaming white beneath. Clearly there was no saving her now.
She held the giant rat’s gaze for a moment, then slowly closed her eyes.
Since the outcome between the two spirits had already been decided, there was no need for her to step in and fight something so ferocious and vicious as this.
Seeing her close her eyes, the giant rat lowered its head and went back to feeding on the woman, seemingly not sparing her a second thought.
‘Grind, grind—’
The tearing, gnawing sound came again, unnervingly clear in the rainy night.
Fengxue’s lashes trembled, her hand tightened on her sword hilt, then loosened again.
Did she see it? Did she not see it?
The Fuwei sword in her arms seemed to tremble faintly.
Fengxue sighed inwardly. Since she’d already given the woman her word, she couldn’t very well just watch her corpse get devoured…
Sure enough, she still couldn’t manage to pretend she hadn’t seen.
Her eyes snapped open. She surged up, drawing her sword, a flash of frost-white light cutting through the air like lightning, striking down at the giant rat.
“Filthy beast!”