Chapter 61: Yinbing, Feixue (5)

Xue Cuo hadn’t quite heard: “What did you say?”

The little ghost shook his head, still somewhat afraid of him. “Nothing.”

Seeing the burning nearly done, Xue Cuo withdrew the talisman slip, releasing the red-hot statue.

Once mere clay, the image had been fired in that fierce blaze until it was hard as stone, near to porcelain. 

Xue Cuo gazed at it for a while, then could not help but laugh. His laughter made the statue quiver, unable to lift its head. “Do you remember now?”

The statue, mournful as one facing sentence, its clay eyes trembling, stammered: “I remember, I remember! But I saw him only once. He bade me guard this place and nourish the blood pool.”

“Only once? You are a cautious sort, to obey so readily.”

The statue gave a timid grin, its brows twitching ingratiatingly. “You don’t know. He came from above. We wretches, such lowly creatures, how would we dare defy him? One simply makes things convenient.”

“The people of Yinliu Village?”

“Ah, he killed them all. Nothing to do with me.”

“He slaughtered so many, and you never reported it upwards?”

The statue faltered, unable to read the thoughts of the man beneath the bamboo hat. But the stranger’s power was vast; clearly he was a cultivator, and cultivators were mostly ruthless. Mortals no more to them than ants. 

The statue had not been a god for long, but had absorbed enough to parrot the logic: “They are but mortals, like weeds on the ground. Cut them down and they grow again; if they do not grow, then let the land rest for a few years. Besides, how can what a those from above do be called killing?”

Xue Cuo plucked a leaf and flicked it, shattering the cracked bowl before the idol. Half-smiling, he said: “Then tell me, how did you become a temple god?”

The statue glanced at the staring little ghosts; muddy water seeped from its body. It opened its mouth, then shut it again. 

Xue Cuo idly toyed with a talisman. At once the statue grew fearful, bouncing upright. “Bought! I bought it. I spent my whole estate in life to purchase it from the Temple of Divine Civil and Martial Affairs. I am an upright temple god, duly recorded and certified!”

“Bought?”

Xue Cuo’s tone was unreadable. “Your channels are rather wide.”

The statue looked him over, bounced a little, and tilted its head. “Young sir, could it be that you also wish to…”

Xue Cuo smiled, the expression gentler. At once the statue drew closer, grinning from ear to ear. “Sir, if you are willing to atone and make amends, I can put in a good word for you at the Temple of Divine Civil and Martial Affairs.

“The Divine Lord has great need of men at present. With your talents, if you would only repent and yield with propriety, would it not be excellent? Indeed, with your abilities, you could make your mark in Fangzhou.”

The more he spoke, the more delighted he became, wishing to clap his hands, though his true spirit was sealed in clay and he could only hop about in place.

Xue Cuo glanced at the sky. The moon shone alone, no stars beside it.

The ragged ghost had already shrunk behind a tree, too cowed even to look up at him.

Xue Cuo broke the silence. “Those little ghosts… did you rear them?”

The statue, now certain it had persuaded the notorious figure in the bamboo hat to defect, was beside itself with joy, shadowing Xue Cuo with eager hops. “They are mere trifles, feeding on the vital breath of passers-by. From time to time one may eat them for a treat. If you wish, I can present you a few.”

At that, the crouching ghost snapped his head up. His expression was hard to read, but like a hen guarding her chicks, he quietly pushed the little ones behind him.

Xue Cuo nodded, smiling. “Very well. Thank you for your candid words.”

His smiling gaze drove the statue to shuffle backwards, forcing a laugh. “Sir, you are…?”

Xue Cuo did not answer. He raised his bamboo hat a fraction. The cloud-qi in his palm coalesced into a stick of incense. A flick of talisman paper lit it. Carrying the incense, he walked before the temple shrine.

“You were ordained by the Divine Lord of Civil and Martial Affairs, and the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth shelters you. My talismans can bind you, but not destroy you.”

The statue’s face brightened, then grew wary. It forced a chuckle. “Sir, your arts are boundless, I have tasted them. If I submit a memorial, the Divine Lord will surely admire you, surely promote you.”

“Is that so?” said Xue Cuo. “I fear he would not dare.”

The statue hastily added: “Sir, the Divine Lord of Civil and Martial Affairs is a true immortal from heaven. You have yet to witness his powers…”

Xue Cuo planted the incense before the shrine, looked up at the sky, and said with a smiling drawl: “I fear he would not dare ordain me, nor could he bear me calling him Divine Lord.”

The incense flared; fine green smoke rose straight as a line.

The statue, fond of sacrifice, inhaled it without thinking.

The shrine shook violently, as though some hidden force peered through the smoke. At the same time, vast currents of karmic power amassed into an invisible mountain. 

The statue’s true spirit choked on the incense, and with horror watched its clay body fissure.

“You.”

Bang—

The statue burst apart. Its true spirit scattered, dissolving into pure aura that rained down in every direction.

Xue Cuo snorted, brushed the incense ash from his palms.

The Goddess of the Great Loch had once governed three thousand waterways, blessing the living of the Eastern Lands.

Her karmic power was so immense that Xue Cuo still dared not look upon it. Yet as her sole successor in the Dao, the burden of karma he bore was weighty beyond reckoning.

Even the temple god of Mount Eshan had been reduced to grovelling by a single stick of incense… how much less a petty village god?

This method was effective.

But if the Goddess learned that her disciple went about burning incense simply to kill his foes, she would surely be moved to clean house.

Not that it was ungodly…… merely, a little un-godly embarrassing.

Moreover, when both sides cross spells, once the opponent is on guard, the effect is not great, and it works only against those deities sealed by heavenly decree.

For instance, if he were to light a stick of incense to the Sword Immortal… cough, cough…

Xue Cuo sneezed several times in a row, raised his head guiltily, clasped his hands, and muttered to himself: surely Her Ladyship wouldn’t be so idle as to watch him for sport?

He walked towards the little ghosts. The ragged ghost, staring dumbfounded at the burst-open statue, wore an expression of utter astonishment.

That’s right, how could one who had seized a temple god possibly be some ordinary man? 

The tattered ghost shielded his younger brothers and sisters, dropped to his knees before Xue Cuo, and begged earnestly: “My lord, I had no eyes to recognise you. Please do not hold it against me.”

Xue Cuo helped him up. From the heavens fine fragments of true spirit drifted down everywhere, a strangely beautiful sight. He coughed a few times and said, “It’s not that retribution will not come… it’s only that the time has not yet arrived. Here, look behind you.”

The little ghost turned back. Those hiding beside him had, at some unknown moment, resumed their human shapes. They were all half-grown children, clutching one another in terror, faces full of fear and dread.

The ragged ghost, however, had not changed. When he turned, the children screamed one after another: “Save us! Don’t come near!”

He himself did not look frightening; at closer view his round face and features were delicate enough. Yet his clothes were in tatters, his pupils pitch-black, and even in silence his expression was twisted with resentment, his whole being thick with ghostly malice. “Don’t be afraid, it’s gege.”

The tattered ghost longed to hug them, but when he caught up one child, the little one burst out bawling. Cornered and unable to escape, it sank its teeth into his arm.

A half-corpse half-ghost, of course, could not be bitten through. The child soon let go, weeping until its eyes were swollen shut.

Yet Xue Cuo remembered: before it regained its form, this was the very smallest one, the one who had always clung closest to the ragged ghost.

The children huddled together in a heap, with no memory at all of their days as servitor spirits, nor likely of their deaths by poison. All at once one child pointed at the ragged ghost, covered its mouth, and cried out:

“You’re Zhu Xiaoqi?”

“What? Zhu Xiaoqi? The ragpicker Zhu Xiaoqi? He looks so terrifying now!”

“But wasn’t Zhu Xiaoqi burned alive? How can he be here?!”

“Go away, go away, don’t come near us!”

Once Zhu Xiaoqi was recognised, they grew all the more terrified. Likely they had known him in life, for now every one of them shrank as though wishing to keep eight spans’ distance from him.

The ragpicker ghost known as Zhu Xiaoqi stood stricken and dejected after being bitten, his mood fallen low. Xue Cuo set a hand upon his thin shoulder. Zhu Xiaoqi lifted his head, the darkness of his pupils swallowing the light.

Ghosts shed no tears. Xue Cuo sighed inwardly. So this ragged little ghost truly had been a ragpicker.

And he had lied.

He and these little ghosts were never of one family. A faint cyan glow flickered at Xue Cuo’s fingertips. A pale-blue talisman shot upward, spreading large; like sticky rice cake speckled with sesame, it rolled up the children, bundled them into a barrel, then shrank back down into his palm.

Zhu Xiaoqi clutched at Xue Cuo’s robe, lips pressed tight, and asked nervously, “Where… are you taking them?”

Xue Cuo pinched his cheek, and Zhu Xiaoqi stared in disbelief.

“So stiff.”

“Who… who told you to touch me!”

His voice trembled almost to tears. Xue Cuo ceased teasing and hurriedly said, “They’re frightened to death of you, and you still insist on caring for them?”

Zhu Xiaoqi gripped his clothes all the harder. Xue Cuo asked, “How did you end up like this?”

Zhu Xiaoqi opened his mouth, unable to decide where to begin.

Years before, he had merely been a child following his parents to Yinliu Village to escape calamity. His mother was sickly, his father addicted to gambling; the family’s means for turning life around were soon squandered, and in a fit of rage his father leapt into the river. His mother lied that she was going down to wash clothes, then followed after.

Zhu Xiaoqi grew up on alms, and with nowhere to turn often drifted back to Yinliu Village.

But in such times, what good life could a beggar have? He was forever filthy and stinking; naturally, the other children would not play with him.

Once, as a prank, they bound him to a tree, piled straw at his feet, and lit it.

When the flames rose, the children panicked and fled in a swarm. The straw burned hot and fast, searing the rope until it snapped. Zhu Xiaoqi flung himself into the river; after dragging himself ashore, he collapsed unconscious.

When he awoke, Yinliu Village lay in ruin.

Men and women beheaded, children scattered lifeless about a cauldron of blackened syrup.

A Daoist roamed the lanes, leading a tall corpse shrouded in white cloth. 

Zhu Xiaoqi remembered only that the shrouded corpse bit him once, and then nothing more.

When next he opened his eyes, the village’s Elder Huang had become a temple god, and had taken him as foster son, commanding him to lead the little ghosts in capturing victims.

Zhu Xiaoqi said: “Without killing, we cannot survive. At times, if travellers offered us blood-food, we would take only that, and seize no one.”

“But now you’ve slain Elder Huang, you’ll kill me too, won’t you?”

“Do it. I’m not afraid. This is the retribution I deserve.”