Futile Devices Scans

On the western side of the main altar stood three pagodas, one large and two small, all white-bodied with golden roofs. The large pagoda enshrined the spiritual remains of Luo Jian, founding patriarch of the Ten Aspects Sect, while the two smaller pagodas housed rare treasures, ritual implements, and sacred objects offered by temples from across the country.

Qingtie avoided the guards at the entrance and used the slight protrusions of the relief carvings as footholds, climbing swiftly to the fourth story of the eastern pagoda, nimble as a rat.

The pagoda was constructed of brick and wood, its intricate mortise-and-tenon framework and painted ceiling decorations forming a dizzying patchwork of red and green. Qingtie had no idea which gods the paintings represented. All he knew was that none resembled the obscene “demons fighting” scenes in the side hall.

A single floor was not large. In the central shrine sat a statue of Mahākāla. The deity had six arms and dark skin and was said to be the wrathful manifestation of the Tathagata when subduing demons. Foremost among the Dharma protectors, he governed warfare and slaughter and was revered in Yanyuan as the “God of War.”

Elio’s Notes: Mahākāla is a wrathful Buddhist protector deity. Tathagata is an epithet of the Buddha.

On the offering table beneath the shrine lay weapons, helmets, and other objects in a variety of styles, each with a history of its own. Most were spoils accumulated through Yanyuan’s many years of warfare.

Qingtie swept his gaze over them before finally settling on a long sword at Mahākāla’s feet. It did not look especially conspicuous.

The scabbard had a copper core covered in black sharkskin, with gilded engraved fittings at the tip and mouth. A Yazi motif decorated the guard, while black velvet cord wrapped the hilt. At first glance, it looked simple and elegant, like an ornamental sword kept in some scholar’s study.

Elio’s Notes: Yazi is a fierce, dragon-like creature from Chinese mythology commonly used as a decorative motif on weapons.

Yet the moment he slowly drew it, a chilling murderous aura seemed to rush straight toward him. The blade gleamed coldly, clear and bright as autumn water. Though it had been sealed away in this miserable place for years, one glance after it left the scabbard was enough to tell that this was a divine weapon that had drunk the blood of countless people.

Qingtie worked in assassination. His weapons were generally short daggers, poison, or whatever happened to be within reach. He rarely had any opportunity to use such upright, gentlemanly weapons and had little appreciation for them. After turning the sword over several times and failing to see what made it special, he tore a length of cloth from the offering table, wrapped the weapon, and slung it across his back.

Standing atop the four-story pagoda, he looked out through the window and took in the landscape around the main altar. A thin trail of red smoke was rising among the northern mountains—the signal they had agreed upon beforehand, proving that “Baitie” had successfully escaped with Helan Zhenjia’s head. It was time for Qingtie to clean up after them.

Qingtie slipped out of the spirit pagoda and returned by the same route to Chiming Courtyard, climbing back in through the rear window Baitie had left ajar.

Blood had soaked the floor dark red. Even the heavy incense could not conceal the smell of gore. Helan Zhenjia’s headless corpse lay side by side with a disheveled guard on the stone platform, while Nayan Kun and another guard lay on the ground.

Qingtie removed his disguise, changed into a guard’s outer robe, and tossed his fine clothes and mask into a heap beside Helan Zhenjia. He fastened the stolen sword at his waist, took two lamps from the table, and casually poured the lamp oil over the stone platform.

The flames fell and slowly spread along the gold-embroidered brocade bedding. Crimson tongues of fire greedily licked at the offerings of flesh, and that so-called Pure Land Lotus Platform seemed to transform into a true lotus of karmic fire.

Curtains hung everywhere in the hall and caught fire the instant the flames reached them, burning with astonishing speed. Qingtie left the side hall and wandered casually through various poorly guarded halls and courtyards, setting fires wherever he went. Once the flames grew and joined into a continuous blaze, he hid in a large tree near the Sutra Repository and watched from above as the sect followers rushed frantically about trying to extinguish them.

He thought mockingly that Helan Zhenjia had spent his entire life cultivating crooked, heretical paths. If he knew that he was about to burn to ash—not enter a spirit pagoda, but instead be doused with water by his own followers, mixed into the mud, and washed down the drains to return to nature—would he regret having worshipped the wrong Buddha?

Everything he needed to do was done. Next, he only had to slip into the crowd fighting the fire, pretend to fetch water, and wait for an opportunity to escape—

“The wind has shifted! The fire is heading south!”

“Quick, quick! Bring water!”

“No use—the flames are too strong! This place can’t be saved!”

“Bad news! The lamp oil sent by the Commandery Prince of Ganyang is still in the storage yard… Run! Forget the fire—run!”

Qingtie: “…”

Honestly, he had only intended to create chaos. He had never planned to wipe out the entire main altar. Unfortunately, luck sometimes refused to be reasonable.

Boom—!!

“Fate makes fools of men” and “Heaven’s will is impossible to predict” found perfect expression in the sudden change of wind. The mountain gusts inevitably carried sparks into the storage yard, where wooden barrels of lamp oil had not yet been put away. Six hundred jin of oil fed an enormous explosion. Flames burst upward like the sun falling to earth and instantly spread across a vast swath of halls and trees. Even the Sutra Repository diagonally opposite felt the scorching blast.

Not far from the storage yard, the Medicine Buddha Hall had already become a sea of flame.

That True Spirit… what was his name again? A’Lin. Had he escaped?

Qingtie strained his eyes toward the hall, but even his keen sight could not pierce the smoke and fire, pass through roofs, windows, and the golden Buddha statue, and distinguish the person hidden behind it.

The instant he realized he was hesitating, he almost laughed coldly at himself. He had come to assassinate Helan Zhenjia, not save people. Back in Chiming Courtyard, he had spared A’Lin’s life and transferred him to the Medicine Buddha Hall. By his own conscience, that was already more kindness than a stranger could reasonably expect. There was absolutely no need to risk going back. What if A’Lin had already escaped?

Even if he had not escaped, even if he ultimately died in the fire, perhaps that was simply a calamity written into his fate. One could escape the first day and still fail to escape the fifteenth. It was not Qingtie’s crime.

He should leave.

Yanyuan’s armies were still trampling over Longsha’s land. Innocent civilians died every day. If he returned one day sooner, perhaps he could save many more people instead of throwing away his own life for one unlucky mute boy.

But Qingtie himself had put A’Lin inside the Medicine Buddha Hall. He had started the fire. He had disguised himself as the younger son of the Commandery Prince of Ganyang, come up this mountain, and assassinated Helan Zhenjia. It was because of him that A’Lin had been dragged into this disaster.

Qingtie sprang from the treetop, landed lightly atop the wall like a feather carried by the wind, pivoted on his toes, and raced toward the Medicine Buddha Hall.

The hall was filled with thick smoke. Heat scorched the skin red. Tiles and broken beams fell continuously from the roof with crackling noises like a violent rainstorm, and the entire building was on the verge of collapse. A falling crossbeam had already crushed the western side of the platform. Only the Medicine Buddha at the center remained, serenely holding a flower and smiling as though completely unaware.

Covering his mouth and nose with a damp cloth, Qingtie climbed over the broken masonry and reached the platform. Circling behind the Medicine Buddha, he found A’Lin curled in the corner, his breathing weak and his consciousness nearly gone.

Qingtie inexplicably breathed a sigh of relief. Good thing I came back to check. Otherwise this kid really would have been trapped here and burned alive.

He pulled A’Lin up, crouched, and hoisted him over one shoulder in the same sack-carrying fashion as before. A’Lin coughed violently, regained a little awareness, and seemed to stiffen. Qingtie had no idea what to say, so he muttered dryly, “Sorry. Picked the wrong hiding place. Made you suffer.”

A’Lin: “…”

When the fire first started, A’Lin had struggled desperately to escape. But the drug had not completely worn off. He had barely crawled a few steps before his strength failed. Worse, he inhaled too much smoke; his lungs burned, breathing became difficult, and the numbness in his limbs actually worsened.

One brush with danger was an accident. Two were misfortunes arriving together. Three meant one’s allotted fate had reached its end. If Heaven itself chased a man down determined to kill him, human strength could do nothing about it, and no amount of praying to gods or Buddhas would save him.

The greatest despair in life was not hardship but helplessness: gathering the slightest bit of courage after one’s heart had already turned to ash, only to have it extinguished immediately by an even colder bucket of water. A person could fight an enemy. A person could fight himself. But how could anyone fight impermanence?

A’Lin had finally stopped struggling and lain down to wait for death. Then someone even more unpredictable than impermanence itself—the young assassin, or rather, his elusive lifesaver—appeared before him again without warning.

Unfortunately, there was no one nearby this time to ask why on his behalf. Half-conscious, he was slung over a painfully hard shoulder, and whatever tears might have fallen were dried by the surrounding flames before they could leave his eyes.

Qingtie was already moving quickly, but just as he prepared to jump down from the platform, an ominous cracking noise sounded overhead. He looked up and instantly leapt backward. A burning beam brushed past the tip of his nose and crashed down onto Sunlight Bodhisattva, sealing the only escape route.

A bead of sweat formed on his forehead, whether from heat or fear even he could not tell. Qingtie thought grimly that he should never have mocked Helan Zhenjia earlier. At least that man had left behind a perfectly good head. If Qingtie died here today, he might only leave two jin of relics.

He surveyed the surroundings and rapidly calculated. They were trapped in the narrow gap behind the Medicine Buddha, with death on every side. The only possible escape was to climb over the gilded halo above the Buddha’s head. But the space was too cramped to use lightness techniques properly. He would have to climb using the protruding carvings while constantly watching for falling debris. If the roof collapsed halfway up, he and A’Lin could meet Helan Zhenjia on the Naihe Bridge as fellow travelers in a foreign land and share a bowl of Mengpo Soup.

Elio’s Notes: Naihe Bridge is the bridge souls cross in the Chinese underworld before reincarnation. Mengpo Soup is the mythical drink that erases memories of one’s previous life.

The fire crackled everywhere, but a deeper rumbling seemed to be coming from far away. The platform beneath his feet shook without pause. Between the vibration and the waves of heat, everything before him warped and distorted—even the golden surface of the Buddha statue seemed to be melting.

Wait.

If the hall was hot enough to melt gold, how was he still alive? Or had the Ten Aspects Sect cut corners when constructing the statue, making it nothing more than a wooden shell coated with wax? If that were true, would climbing over it simply make the whole thing collapse?

That tiny inconsistency gave him hope. His heat-dulled mind suddenly cleared.

He reached behind the Medicine Buddha and rubbed at the surface. Gold powder coated his fingers, and beneath the place he had wiped appeared a dark iron surface. That section seemed to be made from a different material. As the outer coating melted away, the outline of a seam slowly emerged.

Qingtie thought, The Ten Aspects Sect has such an enormous establishment here. To prevent themselves from ever being trapped on the mountain, they must have built several secret passages leading downhill. Could this Medicine Buddha Hall be the entrance to one?

Ignoring the burning heat against his hands, he rapidly searched for a mechanism. Suddenly his palm encountered an unusual raised point. He pressed hard. Click-clatter… A system of ropes and gears turned. A metal plate slowly rose, revealing an opening large enough for a person. The statue was hollow, and within it a steep slope plunged deep underground.

The passage was too narrow to carry someone over the shoulder. Qingtie murmured, “Forgive me,” lowered A’Lin, then gathered him into his arms. Pressed tightly together, they squeezed through the opening and slid down the steep slope.

The farther underground they went, the wider the tunnel became and the gentler its incline. The air was cold and damp, carrying the earthy smell of wet soil. It was hardly pleasant, but compared with smoke that seared the lungs, it felt like flying directly from hell into the celestial pools.

After sliding through darkness for a while, their downward momentum finally stopped. Qingtie braced himself against the floor, stood, and struck his fire starter.

The surrounding stone walls bore clear marks of human excavation, while earth and rock had been packed overhead to prevent collapse. His guess had been correct. This was a secret tunnel constructed by the Ten Aspects Sect. It extended in only one direction and wound downward with the terrain. Following it should eventually take them to an exit at the foot of the mountain.

Qingtie slowly exhaled, steadied himself, and helped A’Lin upright. “We’re safe for the moment. Rest for a while. Once you’ve recovered, we’ll leave.”

A’Lin nodded weakly. Between shock, terror, smoke, and fire, his face was pale even beneath the painted patterns, but at least he could now remain standing with Qingtie’s arm supporting him.

The tiny flame illuminated the sharp, slender line of Qingtie’s jaw. A’Lin stared at his cool profile and suddenly realized that this was his true face.

He was far more handsome than the foolish young master he had been pretending to be, and younger than A’Lin had imagined. Yet inexplicably, it felt as though this was exactly what he ought to look like.

A’Lin raised a hand and gently brushed Qingtie’s cheek, wiping away a smear of soot from the fire.

“Wh—”

Whether he was deciding to turn back and save someone, trapped with no road left, or escaping from seemingly certain death, Qingtie had hardly changed expression, as though even the sky collapsing would be something he could take in stride. Yet when A’Lin unexpectedly touched him, the sensation no more substantial than an icy feather brushing his skin, a strange awkwardness suddenly rose in him.

Noticing the soot on A’Lin’s hand, he wiped his own face as though trying to wipe away that faint ticklish feeling as well. “Oh. Thanks.”

Unfortunately, he had forgotten that his own hands were covered in soot and gold powder. One swipe turned his face into a complete mess. A’Lin’s eyes widened slightly before he abruptly turned his head away, but his trembling shoulders betrayed him. He could not suppress his laughter at all.

The chaotic painted designs hid A’Lin’s actual features, but his bone structure was beautiful, and when he smiled, he was unexpectedly striking.

A smile that genuine, open, and born from the heart did not belong buried in the gloomy underground. It ought to bloom beneath a bright, open sky.

“…”

Qingtie looked down at his own palm, realized what A’Lin was laughing at, and reached out to smear A’Lin’s face in return, poking him backward against the stone wall. In the end, he broke too and laughed. “Still laughing? You don’t look any better than I do.”