The Mortal Realm.
Tengluo City, South Sea.
The old woman lived in a small north-facing room in a crumbling courtyard on the south side of the western road of Tengluo City. Three refugee families shared that yard.
Her son and daughter had died while fleeing. She placed their remains in clay jars and carried them on her back all the way to Tengluo.
The city was poor, yet being near the South Sea, there were at least fish and shellfish to be had.
They owned no land. Several households pooled their money to buy a small fishing boat. Then one day corpses began floating in from the sea. After that, those waters could no longer be entered. Life grew hard again.
Even so, the old woman gradually took in many children. They were all homeless, all disabled. The good-looking ones, with sound limbs, could beg a mouthful of food anywhere. Those who starved were either maimed or plain beyond pity.
Like a ragpicker scouring the streets, she gathered a dozen such children.
At first she took them to comb the tidal flats; they could scrape together something to eat. But once the plague spread, the land failed, the sea turned black, and there was nothing left.
One child said, “Mum, sell me.”
She ignored him, busy prising barnacles loose. Only when she was thoroughly entangled in seaweed did she snap, “Your limbs are twisted. No one would buy you.”
The child said quietly, “I’ve a fair face. Some people like those without hands or feet.”
“Get away,” she scolded. “I’ve no time for your nonsense.”
The child lowered his head and limped off.
One night, he vanished.
Someone delivered half a sack of millet and several bundles of greens.
The winnowing basket fell from her hands. She seized the messenger and demanded wildly to know where the child had gone. The man, offended and superstitious, insisted he did not know. He had only been paid to deliver the goods.
Paid by whom? He had not seen the person. Could not say.
The old woman searched everywhere with the remaining children. But to look for someone in times like these was like dredging the sea with bare hands.
Exhausted, she returned home and examined the sack of grain. Pressed into the millet was half a tiny handprint. It was small, just like the child.
She sat at the doorway from dusk till dawn. When the cock crowed, she cooked a small bowl from the millet, watering it thin.
The children sat blankly, none of them eating. One whispered, “Mum, if we don’t eat… will you promise not to sell us? Don’t trade us for grain.”
Another child scolded him, “Coward. Mum, it’s all right. I’ll go in exchange.”
“Yes. Me too. You all eat. If there’s no food, I’ll go.”
The old woman felt her head swim. “Who told you this?” she asked.
The children lowered their heads and said nothing.
There were rumours saying that she raised these children for shameful profit. The children themselves feared not being sold, but not fetching a good price.
Something inside her broke. She overturned the bowl. Smashed the pot.
“I have never sold you,” she cried. “Not once. If you won’t eat, then don’t. We’ll starve together. There’s no way to live in this world. Life and death, what difference is there?”
She stopped searching for food. Lost all will. She carried the two clay jars from her house to bury them. Beside the grave she dug a large pit… and lay down in it herself.
As she wiped the jars clean, she noticed a small hole in one. Had the starving children burrowed through, scraping for flesh?
Her fingers trembling, she opened it. The bones inside were undisturbed. But there were oysters. Rotting fish.
She remembered how the missing child would whisper to the jar, nestling against it at mealtimes.
“Are you hungry? You should eat too.”
The old woman collapsed. Clutching the jar, she wept her way home.
She lifted the remaining half sack of millet and went out again. On the road she met a young man in blue robes.
“You weep bitterly,” he said gently. “Whom do you seek?”
“My child is lost,” she replied.
“I can cast a divination,” he said. “No charge. Perhaps we shall find him.”
She refused at first. But the young man calmly described the child’s appearance, his limp, the shape of his face. Only then did she believe.
“He was taken south,” the young man said. “To Qianyun Marsh. Go there.”
“Qianyun Marsh?”
He handed her a small paper boat folded from talismans. “Take your household to the shore. Set this upon the sea. It will carry you.”
Half-believing, half-doubting, she obeyed.
When the paper boat touched the water, it swelled into a great vessel. Startled though she was, she lifted the children aboard one by one.
High in a treetop stood Xue Cuo, holding the translucent spirit of a child by the hand. Together they watched the boat drift away.
“You see?” Xue Cuo murmured. “They’ve gone.”
The child stared at the sea, large eyes brimming with reluctance. He nodded once, then clutched Xue Cuo’s leg. His form dissolved into a small golden spark and settled into the lotus resting in Xue Cuo’s palm.
Xue Cuo turned and flew towards the sea.
There, the countless corpses had birthed a towering mass of baleful energy. It had already coalesced into a sha-spirit and cultivated for some time.
Xue Cuo crouched lightly upon the surface of the water and addressed it with patience.
“Cultivation is hard-won. But this is not where you belong. Come with me.”
The baleful energy condensed into the shape of a youth… twisted-faced, vicious in aspect. Unconsciously it devoured the resentment of the drowned, becoming a ghost-fiend steeped in hostility.
Other cultivators would have frowned and withdrawn. But first, it was a thing of water. Secondly, it was a ghost. How convenient.
Xue Cuo smiled mildly. “I shall count to three.”
The ghost-fiend leered from the waves. “Very well. Be my bride, and I’ll come ashore.”
Xue Cuo’s expression did not change. He flicked a talisman alight.
With a long, creaking groan, an ancient stone bridge manifested across the sea. Upon it stood towering ghost officials astride spectral horses, armour black and severe.
The ghost-fiend felt a surge of netherworld pressure and plunged back into the water in terror.
Chen Zongping led a squad of subordinates whose cultivations were now greatly advanced. Their armour clashed as they plunged beneath the waves.
Before long they emerged, dragging a bruised and tightly bound ghost-thing ashore.
Chen Zongping clasped his hands in salute. “Eldest Shixiong, the culprit has been apprehended.”
Xue Cuo folded his arms and crouched before the ghostly creature, smiling as gently as a spring breeze. “Why so quiet now?”
The creature trembled. Its wide eyes flicked towards the ghostly bailiffs standing watch, faces grim and menacing, and it shuddered, not daring to utter a sound.
Chen Zongping snorted and shot the foolhardy thing a glare. Then, with proper respect, he handed his Eldest Shixiong a sheet of spirit money and reported gravely, “Eldest Shixiong, many demons of the Feather Clan have died of late. There may be upheaval within the demon tribes.”
Xue Cuo’s thoughts went first to Kong Yun. The boy had not visited him in some time. With the Supreme Freedom Technique at his disposal, it should not have been difficult.
He cast a divination. At once, his heart gave a faint, uneasy jolt. His expression grew solemn as he put the divining board away. “I see.”
Turning to the abashed ghost-creature, he said mildly, “Do not be afraid. I have no intention of killing you. You were born in answer to Heaven’s calamity, destined to bring trouble to this lake. I have not come to suppress you, but to offer you a chance. A chance to cultivate and ascend.”
The creature’s eyes nearly stopped moving. It stammered, “Wh-what chance?”
Xue Cuo smiled and took it by the hand, drawing it to its feet with disarming warmth. “Come. Allow me to introduce the formidable Daoist resources of Qianyun Marsh. We have the Goddess of the Nine Bends of Qingzhou and the Yellow River, who oversees the divine arts of incense and offerings. We have Her Ladyship, Naturally Wondrous, Merciful and Stern, Dao-Responding Goddess of the Great Loch, who lectures on the moral doctrine of the Xianghuo Divine Dao. There is also the Eastern Land’s Little Sword Immortal’s Dao arena, where you may observe and study. And should that prove insufficient, we enjoy modest acquaintance with the Dragon Clan of the Eastern Sea and even with Western Spirit Mountain.”
The ghost stared, dumbstruck. “Then I…”
“You need only obtain your completion certificate,” Xue Cuo replied smoothly, “finish three subjects and sixteen courses, and thereafter you may go forth and trouble a region as you please.”
The ghost’s scalp prickled. For some reason, it felt even more terrified. “Tr-truly?”
With a rasp of steel, Chen Zongping drew his Soul-Slaying Blade. “How dare you question our Eldest Shixiong? What? You don’t wish to go?!”
“No, no! I’ll go! I’ll go!”
Xue Cuo nodded in satisfaction and patted Chen Zongping lightly. “No need for such roughness. When people of Qianyun Marsh go abroad, we must uphold the reputation of the Divine Dao. We cannot have others thinking we rely solely on strong fists and powerful backers, and reason with no one. Would that not be unbecoming?”
Chen Zongping scratched the back of his head, abashed yet brimming with admiration. “Yes!”
“Very good. Take him back. I shall pay a visit to the presiding sect and the proper temple deity here.”
“Yes.”
Chen Zongping hauled the ghost onto a ghost-horse and set off with a clatter of hooves. The creature glanced back. The young man in blue had opened a folding umbrella and was strolling unhurriedly into the curtain of rain.
Unable to help himself, the ghost sighed, “Such a beauty…”
Chen Zongping’s tiger eyes widened. “Hm?”
“I mean, dignified! Handsome! Most dignified indeed.”
Then, wistfully, it added, “If only I could paint him…”
The ghost-horse came to an abrupt halt.
Chen Zongping seized the creature by the collar and looked it up and down. “You can paint?”
“I know a little. Just a little.”
The Bridge of Rebirth sank back into the sea.
…
Xue Cuo turned and entered Tengluo City.
Within the city stood three incense temples: one dedicated to a Proper Deity of Heaven and Earth, two to nameless lesser gods, and wedged between them, a small cultivation sect.
The little ghost’s spirit had escaped from one of those minor temples before encountering Xue Cuo.
Rain began as a drizzle, then steadily thickened. Before the lesser temple, the soil had been washed crimson by the downpour and gave off a heavy reek of blood.
A pair of spotless white boots stepped into the mire. The hem of blue robes rippled like clear water.
Holding his umbrella, he walked as though the place were empty. The bustling mortals within took no notice of him. The clay idol, however, trembled.
Upon the altar sat a clay jar brimming with flesh and blood. Fine black threads extended into it, siphoning sustenance, attempting to reconstruct a new body.
“You have done them a handful of good turns,” Xue Cuo observed mildly. “How then do you justify riding upon their heads, drinking their blood, and eating their flesh?”
He ignited a talisman. Ignoring the clay idol’s wailing pleas, a blaze of True Solar Fire engulfed the temple, burning it utterly clean.
He exhaled softly and proceeded to the next shrine.
“Fellow Daoist,” he called gently, “do not be alarmed. I merely wish to look about. Kindly open the door… open the—”
The entire temple tore itself from the ground and bolted towards the forest.
Xue Cuo flicked his sleeve. Thirty-two talismans unfurled, forming the Dao image of Azure Sea Surging Waves. A roaring waterspout crashed forth, smashing the fleeing shrine and shattering the clay idol to pieces.
Only then did Xue Cuo stroll forward, sighing faintly. “When floodwaters wash away the Dragon King’s temple, even family fail to recognise family.”
Though broken, the idol’s consciousness lingered. Hearing the sincerity in Xue Cuo’s tone, it gathered hope. “You… you won’t eat me?”
Xue Cuo blinked in genuine surprise. “What possible use would I have for eating you?”
The idol burst into sobs. “So long as you don’t eat me, all is well! This humble god is willing to serve you faithfully!”
“Very well,” Xue Cuo agreed pleasantly.
He dispersed the idol’s form, ground its true spirit to dust, buried the fragments beneath a bridge, and fed the remnants of its body to passing wild dogs. At the spot, he planted a single stick of incense.
“Safe travels, Fellow Daoist.”
…
He next visited the small cultivation sect.
It was a desolate place. Only a handful of Daoist children of eleven or twelve remained. Their leader was called Wu Shanyu, the sect’s eldest disciple. He was a young talisman cultivator, sharp-eyed and wary of Xue Cuo.
Xue Cuo wandered the grounds and examined the talismans the boy had drawn. That, he suspected, was why these children had survived at all.
Somewhat impressed, he asked, “Would you follow me?”
Wu Shanyu was fierce by nature, but intelligent. The hostility in his gaze had dulled… whether from calculation or the recognition that he could not win was unclear.
“Who are you?” he demanded.
Instead of answering, Xue Cuo picked up a stick of charcoal and made several quiet alterations to the talisman.
Wu Shanyu’s eyes lit at once. His small face grew solemn. “You are also a talisman cultivator.”
Xue Cuo smiled. “Well? Will you come?”
Wu Shanyu glanced at the younger disciples behind him, whom he still needed to protect. After a moment, he said firmly, “I will go.”
Xue Cuo left him a talisman paper boat and instructed him to take the remaining townsfolk to Qianyun Marsh. Then he made his way towards the southernmost temple.
This was a proper Temple of Heaven and Earth. Inside, it was ruinous and choked with cobwebs. The celestial gods had long since abandoned this small corner of the world.
Xue Cuo wiped the incense burner clean and placed a stick of incense within… but did not light it. Instead, he snapped it into the pattern of three long pieces and two short.
Gazing at the majestic yet dust-covered idol, he said quietly: “When Heaven and Earth undergo great calamity, who is to say it is not your own?”
Only after this did he depart, rising into the air and flying towards the Demon King’s court.
