That was insanely cool—ridiculously, unfairly cool.
From his clothes and styling to that easy, effortless swagger, Huang Yu Yuan was exactly the kind of thing Qin Shu loved to see.
Qin Shu wanted abilities like that too: a universe hidden inside his sleeves, summoning objects from across mountains, countless transformations, riding clouds and mist… Just imagine how incredible he would look showing off outside with tricks like those. Unfortunately, fate had apparently decided he was never going to learn any of them!
And then there was this bull yao, looking effortlessly dashing about everything. While casually paying extra to cut the line, Huang Yu Yuan even tossed several gold melon seeds toward the wine stall. The previously irritated wine-stall owner immediately broke into a smile, filled two large cups with rice wine on the spot, and personally brought them over to Huang Yu Yuan and Qin Shu.
Elio’s Notes: Gold melon seeds (金瓜子), also called 瓜子金 in historical sources, were small pieces of unminted gold rather than standardized coins or ingots. They were valuable portable pieces of gold and could also be bestowed as rewards.
The Mountain Lord Huang Yu Yuan had called for had yet to reveal her true form.
The instant Qin Shu accepted the rice wine in bewilderment, his scalp suddenly tightened. He had the distinct feeling that some enormous presence was watching him.
Following that strange sensation, he turned his head and saw an enormous eye slowly opening within the distant sky. Its eerie crimson vertical pupil stained even the gloomy moon hanging at the horizon with a wash of blood-red light.
Qin Shu figured he had not done anything wrong, so he forced himself to meet the giant eye directly and let it inspect him. He could vaguely tell that it definitely belonged to some sort of feline creature—and one that was very much not to be trifled with.
The noisy shouting around them gradually faded. Without anyone noticing exactly when it happened, the area surrounding the wine stall fell silent. Every yao’s gaze landed on Qin Shu, filled with scrutiny and vigilance, along with one unmistakable trace of fear—their fear of the Mountain Lord’s might.
None of them dared look directly at the Mountain Lord.
Even Huang Yu Yuan stopped speaking. He lowered his head slightly and waited in silence for the Mountain Lord’s judgment.
Qin Shu, on the other hand, did not feel anything particularly extraordinary. He possessed no spiritual power, which ironically meant he could not sense the oppressive presence of someone with profound spiritual attainment at all. Aside from a faint sense of caution, another feeling actually began rising inside him…
So cool. That giant tiger eye gets cooler the longer I look at it. Even the Mountain Lord’s whole entrance is unbelievably badass!
With his thoughts wandering all over the place, time passed quickly, and the intense sensation of being watched soon began to fade. Immediately afterward, Qin Shu saw the giant eye blink rapidly several times before suddenly widening again. Its outline became even larger than before, as though the Mountain Lord hidden among the clouds had bent down for a closer look. It felt as if that enormous eye might press right up against Qin Shu’s face at any moment.
“Um… Hello, Mountain Lord? Are you finished looking? Am I allowed to compete?” Qin Shu froze for a moment, instinctively raised a hand to touch his face, and cautiously tested the waters.
The little centipede was wrapped around his wrist from head to tail. As usual, Yuanbao had disguised itself as an ordinary blood-red bracelet, and Qin Shu’s raised hand exposed a flash of deep crimson.
The Mountain Lord’s gaze shifted several inches downward and paused. Then the enormous eye abruptly closed and vanished from the sky without a moment’s delay, retreating so quickly that it somehow looked almost flustered.
The lights of the ghost market returned to normal, and everything once again became brilliantly illuminated and bustling. The gathered yao all released their breath at the same time. Those who had been drinking went back to drinking, those who had been eating meat resumed eating, and the surrounding noise quickly returned.
Qin Shu was just about to ask Huang Yu Yuan what exactly that reaction had meant when he heard two coughs inside his own head. It felt somewhat similar to the way he communicated with the little centipede; nobody else seemed able to hear them.
Then an unfamiliar woman’s voice sounded directly in his mind. “Cough, cough. Young friend, I am Jiangcheng’s Mountain Lord. A pleasure to meet you.”
Her tone sounded considerably friendlier than that enormous crimson eye had looked—almost unnaturally friendly, in fact. Qin Shu did not lower his guard, however. So far, aside from the little centipede Yuanbao, he had never encountered another yao cultivator or spirit creature capable of using long-distance voice transmission to speak directly inside his head.
Qin Shu cautiously replied in his mind, keeping it brief. Greetings, Mountain Lord. I’m Qin Shu.
“Very good. Now then, Young Qin, the rules for the Dragon Mother’s birthday-banquet selection are extremely simple. Before each match, drink one cup of wine, then take your place at the table. Once victory and defeat are decided, the winner remains to defend the table while the loser is eliminated. Anyone who deliberately spills or leaves wine unfinished will be considered a cheat, and the match will be invalidated.”
“…Do I really have to drink?” Qin Shu’s expression immediately went blank.
He knew perfectly well what he was like after drinking. Considering the kind of nonsense he got up to the moment alcohol touched his lips, if he actually swallowed several large cups of rice wine tonight, there was no telling where the evening might end up.
“If you cannot even drink, what will happen when you embarrass yourself while offering a toast to the Dragon Mother at the banquet? Do not refuse. Drinking is an indispensable part of the selection.”
After patiently explaining that much, the Mountain Lord’s tone somehow became increasingly excited. “All right, Young Qin. Your wine cup is at the corner of the table. Fill it, drain it in one go, and once you are ready, the match can begin!”
Qin Shu: “…”
Now that things had reached this point, he really could only grit his teeth and go through with it. Running away outright would be unbearably awkward—not only for him, but probably for Huang Yu Yuan too.
And in order to avoid getting swatted to death by one of the Mountain Lord’s paws, Qin Shu closed his eyes, raised the wine cup, filled it under the cheers of the surrounding yao cultivators, and drained it in one gulp.
He sat expressionlessly before the square table and called out, “I drank it. Who’s my opponent?”
“Good!”
A young tiger-headed man shouted his approval, rolled up his sleeves, and dropped into the seat opposite Qin Shu with an imposing swagger. Grinning, he said, “You’ve got guts, young fellow! Those two useless old horses weren’t even fit to take the table. All they knew how to do was deliberately drag things out. Come on, come on—I’ll have a match with you!”
“Whew…”
Qin Shu drew a deep breath, slowly exhaled, and planted his right elbow on the square table before clasping hands with the young man’s enormous furry paw.
The anxiety he had felt before drinking had already vanished. Right now, the reason Qin Shu needed to breathe deeply was because he was trying very hard not to laugh.
This tiger-headed youth did not have particularly profound spiritual attainment. He had only managed to roughly transform his torso into human form, while his hands and feet remained enormous, furry animal limbs. It was ridiculously cute.
Qin Shu’s palm pressed directly against the pad of the tiger’s paw. When he tightened his grip slightly, he could feel not only the hard calluses but also the strangely soft, springy flesh beneath them.
I’m basically arm-wrestling a giant cat. Hahaha.
Another muscular tiger-headed man walked forward. The two characters “REFEREE” hung across his chest, and unlike the competitor, his hands had transformed into ordinary human fingers. He lightly covered Qin Shu and the young tiger’s clasped hands and roared, “Both ready?! Three, two, one—start!”
The instant the words left his mouth, shouting and cheering erupted across the fairground. The referee strode backward, while the tiger-headed youth’s eyes instantly sharpened with ferocity. Clamping down hard on Qin Shu’s right hand, he tried to force it toward the table with all his strength.
Qin Shu remained expressionless, desperately controlling the corners of his mouth. He found stable footing with both legs and recalled arm-wrestling with his friends when he was little. Then he tightened every muscle in his body, abruptly twisted his wrist, and drove their clasped hands in the opposite direction.
BANG—!
In the next instant, time seemed to freeze strangely for a moment. Everything around Qin Shu appeared to slow down, unfolding before his eyes in drawn-out motion.
He saw the sharp lines of muscle standing out along his own arm, his fingers sinking deep into the soft fur of the tiger’s paw. Yet the paw beneath his hand seemed strangely unsupported, almost suspended in midair. It felt as though the slightest additional pressure would be enough to topple it.
Qin Shu could hardly believe what he was seeing. For a moment, he suspected the rice wine had already begun affecting him, but this was no time to hesitate.
He stopped thinking and simply followed his instincts, pouring his strength into that point. In the blink of an eye, their clasped hands slammed hard against the tabletop. The sudden force of the impact split a vicious crack straight through the surface of the stone table.
“Right side wins! Left side loses!” the referee immediately shouted.
“Good!”
The cheers from the crowd of beasts grew even louder and more excited. The surrounding men crowded around Qin Shu in astonishment and delight, slapping and touching him from every direction.
Qin Shu caught his breath. The overpowering rank smell of the yao around him made him even dizzier than the alcohol, and he turned toward Huang Yu Yuan in mild confusion. “I’m sitting on the right side… right?”
Huang Yu Yuan smiled and used one hand to push aside the excited, drunken men, leaving Qin Shu a little breathing room. “Well done, Young Qin. My maternal uncle’s judgment really was excellent.”
The tiger-headed youth rubbed his numb paw and laughed as well. “Impressive, young fellow! I lost fair and square. I couldn’t resist you at all—I’m convinced! How does that saying the Mountain Lord likes go again? You can’t judge a man by his clothes… or was it his looks? Ah, whatever, whatever! Hahahaha! That felt great!”
“…Haha.” Qin Shu laughed twice in bewilderment.
Apparently, he really had won a match. But the victory had come so inexplicably that Qin Shu could not stop thinking about it. The more he recalled that strange slow-motion moment, the stranger it seemed.
It did not feel like an alcohol-induced hallucination. It felt more like the kind of flow state that appeared during extreme concentration.
The tiger-headed youth’s arm had unquestionably been there, yet the moment Qin Shu slipped into that strange state, the opponent’s powerful arm seemed to disappear from his perception. All that remained was the weakest, easiest-to-overcome point: the fist and wrist.
Qin Shu had instinctively pressed down on that weakness and poured his strength into it. The effect had been devastating, and he had barely wasted any force at all.
He rubbed his temples, and his thoughts suddenly drifted back one week, to the day he had first met Daoist Xu at Qingfeng Teahouse.
At the time, Daoist Xu had briefly explained the distinctive nature of the first chapter of the Nine Netherworld Scripture. Qin Shu had already turned those mysterious words over in his mind countless times since then, and even now, he had not forgotten them.
“Master Qin only needs to practice diligently. Your vision will naturally broaden, and in the future you will easily be able to perceive the true nature of all things…”
Easily perceive the true nature of all things. Those words were worth thinking about. Perhaps this had nothing to do with anyone else, and perhaps it was not an illusion at all. Maybe Qin Shu himself had somehow stumbled into this ability without understanding how. Perhaps tonight’s strangely effortless victory had also been the power of his Heavenly Eye at work.
If he could enter that state whenever he wanted in the future, he would have much better odds whenever he got into a fight.
Qin Shu picked up his wine cup and suddenly began to feel excited too. He looked at Huang Yu Yuan. “Brother A-Yuan, when does the next match start?”
“Can’t wait already? Ah, how nostalgic. That youthful drive.” Huang Yu Yuan laughed heartily, then explained at an unhurried pace amid the surrounding noise. “Young Qin, simply remain seated at the square table and drink your rice wine. Anyone bold enough will come forward to challenge you. Just be careful not to force yourself. Exhausting your strength will injure your body.”
“Thanks, Brother A-Yuan. I’ll be careful!”
Qin Shu finally understood. He refilled his cup, drained it again, then turned eagerly toward the surrounding crowd. “Who’s next?”
“You’ve got nerve! I’ll do it!”
The words had barely left Qin Shu’s mouth when an enormous black bull with a glossy coat charged over from nearby and raised its head with a long moo. Its huge hooves pounded against the ground, leaving cracks with every step. Even at a glance, its sheer weight was frightening.
As the black bull approached the square table, Qin Shu’s vision blurred. The animal transformed into a tall, powerfully built, dark-skinned bald man with a thick beard, his flushed face split by a fierce grin.
“Human boy, want to test your wrist strength against Grandpa Bull?”
The alcohol was beginning to take effect, and Qin Shu was finding it increasingly difficult to rein in his rising swagger. His heartbeat grew louder and louder, pounding heavily beside his ears. He lifted his chin. “Less talking. Drink!”
“Hahahahaha! Bottoms up! Grandpa Bull will drink an extra cup and give you a handicap!”
The enormous black bull yao downed two cups of rice wine in succession, wiped his mouth with satisfaction, sat down, and immediately seized Qin Shu’s hand.
“Where’s the referee? Stop dawdling and get over here!”
“Coming, coming. So impatient…” The tiger-headed referee covered their clasped hands. “Three, two, one—start!”
At the same moment, Qin Shu stared at the thick fist opposite him and drew a deep breath. The noise around him gradually faded into a slow, distorted hum. Everything before his eyes narrowed until only one fist remained: the hairs on its skin, the bulging blue veins, the wrist trembling faintly beneath the enormous strain…
…
…
Half an hour later, Qin Shu sat inside the City God Temple with a cup of pale tea in his hands. Surrounded by a refined, peaceful fragrance, he fell into deep thought.
To tell the truth, he had no idea how he had ended up inside the City God Temple.
In his memory, he had clearly still been drinking and accepting one challenger after another, repeatedly training that strange power of concentration. The fragrance of rice wine, sweat, rank body odor, and the various peculiar smells of furry creatures had been swirling around his nose.
Those overpowering smells still seemed to linger even now. Yet somehow, when Qin Shu opened his eyes again, he discovered that he was already sitting inside the City God Temple.
A small rosewood table stood before him with pale tea arranged upon it. Huang Yu Yuan sat beside him with a smile, while an unfamiliar middle-aged man sat across from them.
The man wore the court robe of a Ming-dynasty military official, with a fierce tiger embroidered across the rank badge on his chest. His presence was even more imposing than Huang Yu Yuan’s, while his face was similarly striking, with sword-like brows, bright eyes, and a distinctly heroic bearing.
Elio’s Notes: In the Ming dynasty, officials wore embroidered rank badges (补子) displaying animals associated with their official rank. Military officials used beasts rather than the birds associated with civil officials.
Finding himself stared at by two classically handsome men who both looked distinctly dangerous, Qin Shu sobered up considerably.
His memories were still too muddled for him to make sense of everything, but from the enormous statue behind the unfamiliar man and the furnishings around them, Qin Shu could at least determine that this was probably the City God Temple he had originally been trying to find.
What forced him to sober up even more was the fact that the enormous statue behind the stranger had exactly the same face as the man himself.
“May I ask… are you the City God?” Qin Shu remained silent for a long moment before carefully speaking.
“Aiya, what era are we living in? None of that ‘my lord’ nonsense. I’m Huo Yang, courtesy name Zi Zhong, the City God of Jiangcheng.” The middle-aged man waved dismissively, then gave a snorting laugh. “Brat, I’ve watched you grow from a bare-assed baby into what you are now. Don’t give me that useless ceremonial crap.”
The corner of Qin Shu’s mouth twitched. “…All right. Then what should I call you? Uncle Huo? Grandpa Huo?”
“Hahahahahaha! That’s much better!”
For some reason, the City God named Huo Yang laughed even louder. “Uncle, Grandpa—either one is fine. Just don’t act like those feudal old ghosts who can’t keep up with the times.”
“You look like you’re still in the prime of your life, so I’ll take the liberty of calling you Uncle Huo.” Qin Shu took a sip of the fragrant pale tea and forced himself to sober up faster. “Uncle Huo, did I pass the selection for the birthday banquet? I drank too much earlier, so my memory is a little blurry.”
“You did. Here’s your token.” Huo Yang flipped his hand and produced a perfectly round black pearl roughly the size of a human eyeball.
He tossed it to Qin Shu. “Pretty, isn’t it? A thousand-year-old clam produced a whole cluster of grape-like pearls like this. For little brats like you, it counts as a decent treasure. Keep it safe. On the day of the birthday banquet, the token will activate on its own and guide you there.”
Qin Shu caught the pearl and tucked it toward the restless little centipede inside his sleeve before hurriedly asking, “Thank you, Uncle Huo. Oh, right—I’m looking for a friend. His name is Pei Zhao. He’s the same age as me and is wearing a No. 2 High School uniform jacket. Have you seen him anywhere in the ghost market?”
At the name, Huo Yang’s expression stiffened almost imperceptibly. He gave Qin Shu a strangely complicated look, cleared his throat, and answered with unusual brevity. “He isn’t in the ghost market.”
“Okay. Then, Uncle Huo, I have one more question…”
“Cough. Go ahead?”
Qin Shu hesitated for a long moment. He vaguely felt that Huo Yang’s attitude had suddenly become strange, but it was rare to have the opportunity to speak face-to-face with Jiangcheng’s City God. Naturally, he had to seize the chance while he had it.
“It’s about that friend of mine. I think he may be possessed by an extremely powerful evil spirit. When I check his pulse, I can tell something is wrong. He’s very smart and capable himself, so I’m sure he has ways of controlling it, but I still want to do whatever I can to help him get rid of the danger as soon as possible… The problem is that I can’t cultivate any techniques. I can only kill ghosts with my fists, and I’m afraid I might hurt him. I genuinely don’t know what to do.”
“…”
“Uncle Huo?”
“Hmm? Ah. Cough, cough. You said you’re afraid you’ll hurt him?”
“Yes.”
“Kid, then just hit him more gently. The Nine Netherworld Scripture is meant for killing ghosts. One light punch isn’t going to kill a person.”
“…Huh? Is that really how it works?”
Qin Shu fell into thought. He remembered the few casual slaps he had given Tang Rui Cheng on the back before, and suddenly understood.
Oh. Right. That really does seem to be how it works!