After asking the two questions that mattered most, Qin Shu suddenly found himself in no hurry to leave.
This City God was pretty great to deal with, and the tea was good too. Its faint, elegant fragrance even smelled a little like the hand cream Pei Zhao had given him.
A City God was essentially a guardian deity chosen by the local people in ancient times, the underworld equivalent of a county magistrate. Most had either been martyrs who had loyally served their country or capable people who had made significant contributions to the development and governance of the local area.
Judging from Huo Yang’s magnificent military court robes and the fact that he appeared only middle-aged, Qin Shu could already make a rough guess about his life before death. He had probably been a formidable young general who had just begun to make a name for himself, only to die on the battlefield.
Since he had run into such an approachable, benevolent deity, of course Qin Shu had to seize the opportunity and ask a few more questions.
Huo Yang did not know much about The Nine Nether Purgatory Scripture. He only knew that it was extremely ancient and seemed to have once been a cultivation method practiced by immortals or gods, something ordinary people would never even have the chance to encounter. Huo Yang himxself was, in truth, only a relatively “young” minor deity. His attention was focused entirely on matters within Jiangcheng, so he had never heard much about anything beyond that.
Qin Shu was not in any hurry, so he first asked about the spiritual energy resurgence and came away with a rough understanding of the current state of cultivators’ strength.
Although different schools and traditions divided cultivation into different ranks, the overall situation was more or less the same.
The long-lived powerhouses who had once remained hidden from the world would only become stronger under the resurgence of spiritual energy. Quite a few had probably already emerged voluntarily and begun stirring things up… which meant that if Qin Shu beat up a younger one, an older one might very well come knocking afterward. He needed to be more careful when wandering through this supernatural jianghu.
Elio’s Notes: Jianghu (江湖), literally “rivers and lakes,” traditionally refers to the world outside ordinary official society, especially the sphere inhabited by martial artists, wanderers, and other unconventional figures. Here Qin Shu jokingly applies it to the modern supernatural world.
But aside from that older generation of powerhouses and cultivation geniuses like Huang Yuyuan, the vast majority of cultivators were fairly ordinary.
The world had only been rich in spiritual energy again for a little over thirty years. Unless someone encountered an extraordinary opportunity or tremendous stroke of fortune, it did not matter whether they were human, deity, yao, or ghost. No matter how diligently they cultivated, most of them were still basically a bunch of noobs pecking at each other.
Of course, “noobs pecking at each other” was Huo Yang’s phrase. Qin Shu had expressed no opinion whatsoever. To a City God who had been dead for more than five hundred years, anyone weaker than him probably counted as a noob… but Qin Shu still needed to be more cautious.
After asking about all of that, Qin Shu questioned him further about ghost domains, different kinds of secret realms, and the location and opening time of the next ghost market. Finally, he added, “Uncle Huo, where did you get this tea? The quality is really good. Even the later infusions get sweeter the more I drink.”
Huo Yang chuckled. “Oh? You’ve got some taste, kid. This is spirit tea. It contains spiritual power—how else do you think it sobered you up? It’s not top-grade stuff, but it’s more than good enough as an everyday tea. Drink it regularly over a long period and it’ll nourish you considerably.”
Spirit tea?
If Pei Zhao drank more of it, perhaps it would help replenish his qi and blood and properly nourish his body.
Qin Shu immediately became even more interested. “Uncle Huo, where can I buy tea like this? Does the City God Temple sell it?”
“What I’ve got here was brought to me by Yuyuan.” Huo Yang lifted his chin. “If you like it, ask him. Have him send you a few jin.”
Qin Shu’s eyes lit up, and he turned toward Huang Yuyuan beside him. “Brother A-Yuan! Is this spirit tea grown by your clan?”
Huang Yuyuan had been quietly drinking his tea. At the question, he paused and actually gave an embarrassed smile, lowering his eyes slightly. “Young Qin, we ox yao are rather coarse-handed and cannot manage work this delicate. The person who processes the spirit tea is actually a… human. A tea merchant who lives in Jiangcheng.”
Something about his expression was strange. There was definitely more to this story. Qin Shu stared at him. “That makes it even easier. I can just go buy it directly from that tea merchant.”
“Cough. Mm… I’m afraid that may not be possible at the moment. I bought a thousand jin of tea from him and cleared out all the stock he had accumulated… If Young Qin is interested, I can have someone from the clan deliver some to your door tomorrow. You needn’t pay for it.”
Qin Shu’s pupils practically quaked. “You bought a thousand jin?! Brother A-Yuan, if your side needs that much spirit tea, I definitely can’t take it for free. We can just trade at market price.”
Before Huang Yuyuan could answer, Huo Yang, seated at the head of the table, suddenly burst into laughter. “Hahahahaha! You think it’s the tea he has his eye on? This little bull clearly has his eye on the young fellow selling the tea! He doesn’t dare pursue him openly, so all he knows how to do is hide his intentions and throw money at the man instead! Hahahahaha!”
Qin Shu: “…”
“City God, you really…” A flush rose across Huang Yuyuan’s face. He clearly wanted to say something but did not dare argue directly with the City God, so he simply grabbed his teacup in a fluster and buried his face in it, drinking furiously. All of his earlier effortless elegance had vanished without a trace.
Qin Shu suppressed a laugh. “If you like a human, then pursue him. Brother A-Yuan, you’re handsome, you have a good personality and high cultivation, and you’ve got an entire clan behind you. You’d be popular wherever you went.”
Huang Yuyuan shook his head. He held his cup and hesitated for a long while before coughing awkwardly and sighing in a low voice. “Leaving aside the fact that humans and yao belong to different worlds… he and I are both men. That alone is another hurdle. I still do not know what kind of person he likes, whether there is already someone in his heart, or whether he wishes to marry and have children. If I truly lay everything bare and confess my feelings, I fear we may not even be able to remain friends.”
“…This tea merchant is a man.”
Qin Shu’s heart gave a sudden jolt.
Huang Yuyuan sighed softly. “Yes.”
“Um, Brother A-Yuan, let me ask one more rather presumptuous question… His surname wouldn’t happen to be Lin, would it?” Qin Shu carefully watched his expression and added weakly, “Lin Shi Yu. Qingfeng Teahouse. Near the back gate of No. 2 High School.”
The instant the words left his mouth, there was a sharp crack as Huang Yuyuan’s teacup slipped from his hand and fell to the floor.
“Ha, you really are still a youngster.” Huo Yang laughed again. With a wave of his hand, he cleared away the shattered porcelain scattered across the floor. Delighted, he said, “Looks like that young shopkeeper is someone you both know. What a coincidence. Little bull, if the two of you make any progress, remember to come burn some incense at my temple and tell me something interesting. You hear me?”
Huang Yuyuan’s face had turned completely red, like a tomato. He stammered for a long time before finally hiding his face behind one hand, too embarrassed even to look at Qin Shu again.
Qin Shu was amused too. “If he’s too shy, I can come burn the incense.”
“Cough, cough! You’d better not.” Huo Yang hurriedly waved his hands in refusal. “Nothing against you personally. It’s mainly that your fate pattern is a little… hiss… If you burn incense to me, I’m afraid it might cost me years of my underworld lifespan.”
“Fate pattern?” Qin Shu’s interest immediately sharpened at the keyword. “Uncle Huo, Daoist Xu at Longmu Temple also said my fate pattern is unusual, but he refuses to tell me exactly what’s unusual about it. I looked at my own Eight Characters and couldn’t see anything.”
Elio’s Notes: The Eight Characters, or bazi (八字), are the eight characters derived from the year, month, day, and hour of a person’s birth in traditional Chinese fate calculation.
Huo Yang narrowed his eyes and studied him for a while before shaking his head. “Hard to say. Your fate pattern is far too overbearing. It veils itself from birth, yet somehow it still seems to make gods respect you and ghosts fear you… I never specialized in fate calculation, so I can’t see it clearly. The only thing I can make out is this: ‘Every plea must be answered; if unanswered, harm follows.’ In other words, if you burn incense and ask a god to do something for you, they have to make it happen. Otherwise, they’re guaranteed to suffer for it!”
“Ah? The day before yesterday, I burned incense to Supreme Lord Laozi and prayed for the safety of a friend who was facing a Heavenly Dao tribulation…” Qin Shu stared blankly for a moment. “Could it really have been because of me? Did Supreme Lord Laozi actually manifest?”
“Your friend survived, didn’t he? Still got all his arms and legs?”
“Yes. I saw him inside the ghost domain. He was doing… reasonably okay.”
“Then wasn’t that Supreme Lord Laozi manifesting? You really are something, kid. Even I can’t get an audience with the Supreme Lord.”
Huo Yang clicked his tongue in amazement, then could not resist adding, “My guess is you were no good in your previous life either. Otherwise, how could your fate be this fierce? Find yourself a proper fate-calculation master as soon as possible. And be careful whenever you burn incense or make wishes in the future. Offend some hot-tempered deity and they might come straight down here to settle accounts with you.”
“All right, all right. I’ll definitely be careful. Thank you, Uncle Huo…”
Qin Shu thanked him seriously, but at the same time, a lingering fear rose inside him. Even if his fate pattern really was unusual, he was not stupid enough to believe that simply burning incense meant every wish he made would inevitably come true. After all, he was not a believer in any particular religious tradition.
If he had not offered genuine devotional power in return, then anything he obtained through making a wish would surely require him to pay some sort of price.
Elio’s Notes: 愿力 refers to spiritual force generated through sincere vows, faith, devotion, or prayer. In this context, Qin Shu is thinking of supernatural exchange: receiving divine help without having offered corresponding devotion may carry a price.
Even if he had not noticed that price yet, sooner or later it would reveal itself. He would have to remain much more vigilant in the future.
It was already getting late, and most of the questions he had wanted to ask had been answered. After drinking another two cups of spirit tea, Qin Shu decided it was time to say goodbye.
He needed to go find Pei Zhao; he was starting to miss him a little.
Huo Yang yawned as well and slipped back inside the enormous City God statue standing at the center of the temple. Huang Yuyuan rose to his feet and led Qin Shu toward the exit.
One human and one yao walked between the gray-faced underworld constables guarding the gate. Huang Yuyuan even remembered to take out a small pouch and hand them several silver ingots wreathed in ghostly aura. He clearly understood the unspoken rules of the trade very well.
Elio’s Notes: 阴差 are functionaries of the underworld bureaucracy, often portrayed as constables, messengers, or guards responsible for carrying out the orders of underworld deities.
“Young Qin, there is no need to worry too much about the Dragon Mother’s birthday banquet. Gatherings of yao cultivators do not involve too many elaborate formalities. When the time comes, simply follow the Mountain Lord’s instructions and do as you are told.”
“I understand. Thanks, Brother A-Yuan. Will you be going too?”
“Yes. The Dragon Mother is benevolent and invited my uncle to attend the banquet. He is permitted to bring one guest, so my uncle is taking me along.”
“That’s great! I’ll find you there and we can hang out again!”
“…”
As they chatted, the stars seemed to wheel and shift. Qin Shu vaguely felt a wave of dizziness, then watched the temple before him dissolve layer by layer like ripples spreading across a river. When he opened his eyes again, they had already left the grounds of the City God Temple and were standing beside a dimly lit road.
Heading west would take them back into the bustling ghost market. Heading east would allow them to return to the real world on their own.
Qin Shu clearly remembered not taking the machete that the waiter ghost had tried to give him earlier, yet somehow it was now hanging from his waist, unmistakably real.
A little dazed, Qin Shu raised his head and stared at the hazy moon for a long moment. Then he drew a deep breath and gave himself a chance to recover.
He turned toward Huang Yuyuan, intending to say goodbye to the friendly bull yao, only to discover that Huang Yuyuan had turned his face aside and seemed to be wrestling with something. He kept looking as though he wanted to speak, then stopping himself.
Qin Shu raised an eyebrow. “Brother A-Yuan, I’m going to Qingfeng Teahouse for lunch tomorrow. How about I help you sound out Boss Lin’s sexual orientation while I’m there?”
“R-Really?!” Huang Yuyuan abruptly looked up.
“You can come eat with us too. You should spend more time around the person you like.”
“But… but if I go there for a meal without any particular reason, might Mr. Lin suspect that I’m being… suspiciously attentive for no reason?”
For such a perfectly composed, classically handsome man, Huang Yuyuan became even more awkward about romance than a character in a historical television drama. Every imaginable worry and hesitation seemed to be spilling continuously from his eyes.
Qin Shu struggled not to laugh. Rubbing his chin, he came up with an excuse for him. “How about this? Tomorrow at noon, I’ll bring my friend there first and order the food. You come to the teahouse a little later and say you’re delivering the tea leaves to me. Then I’ll invite you to stay for lunch. Perfectly reasonable. You can also use the opportunity to see how Boss Lin reacts. How does that sound?”
“Young Qin, you are actually willing to go to such lengths to arrange all of this for my sake…” Huang Yuyuan’s eyes gradually lit up, looking genuinely moved. “If you ever encounter a difficult problem in the future, you must come find me at the Huang clan of Lingshan. I will certainly do everything within my power to help you.”
“All right, all right. Then it’s settled. No getting stage fright and running away when the moment comes. Boss Lin is very easy to talk to.”
“I certainly won’t. Certainly…”
Once he had finished arranging tomorrow’s plan with Huang Yuyuan, Qin Shu really did have to leave.
Following the City God’s instructions, he walked beneath the moonlight with his gaze fixed straight ahead on the faint glow at the end of the road. He could not look back. He had to keep walking in one breath until he reached the very end.
The boundary between yin and yang was the Road to the Yellow Springs. There was no other way to leave the ghost market.
Elio’s Notes: The Yellow Springs (黄泉) is a traditional Chinese expression for the realm of the dead. The Road to the Yellow Springs is commonly used in supernatural fiction for the path between the worlds of the living and the dead.
Although no malicious ghost would dare openly attack someone beneath the City God’s watch, the road was still full of danger. Many ghosts who refused to reincarnate lingered there, hoping to find a living person to take their place in death.
Qin Shu therefore had to guard against every kind of underhanded trick, as well as attacks from greedy ghost cultivators. One careless moment and he could end up becoming someone else’s substitute in death.
Qin Shu kept walking. Five minutes passed, then ten, then half an hour… Ghosts patted his shoulder. Others blew cold air beside his ear. Some blocked the road ahead and giggled at him, while elsewhere the mangled corpse of someone killed in a car accident lay sprawled across the middle of the road.
Anything harassing him from behind, Qin Shu simply ignored. Anything that insisted on jumping in front of him and blocking the way, he punched to death. He did not dare relax his guard even slightly. Better to kill it first and worry about the rest afterward.
After roughly forty minutes, the persistent, bone-chilling wind finally disappeared. The glow ahead of Qin Shu grew increasingly dazzling. He took another deep breath and stepped across an intersection that had become almost blindingly white, and once again the world spun around him.
“Brother Qin, holy shit! Where the hell did you pop out from? You scared me to death!”
A familiar shout suddenly rang in his ears, accompanied by an oddly familiar smell.
Qin Shu rubbed his eyes and turned his head. Sure enough, he saw one of his classmates, Zhang Jia Le.
The innocent and thoroughly startled Student Zhang was currently covering □□ and scrambling to hide behind the partition beside a urinal, his eyes filled with horror.
Elio’s Notes: The □□ appears this way in the official JJWXC text and has therefore been preserved as written.
…The exit from the ghost market was actually the boys’ bathroom?
The corner of Qin Shu’s mouth twitched. He ignored Zhang Jia Le’s question and instead asked directly, “Where’s Pei Zhao?”
“He’s in the classroom doing homework. I think he bought some milk tea and food and went straight back. He barely hung around outside at all.”
Zhang Jia Le rustled around as he pulled up his pants, then poked half his head out. “Brother Qin, why didn’t you take him around with you? A few younger girls wanted to get photos with the two of you, but they couldn’t find you anywhere! Seriously, if you’re not around, the academic representative definitely won’t agree to it.”
“…Why would they want a photo of me and Pei Zhao together?”
Zhang Jia Le gave him a teasing grin. “I think they ship you two. Every so often, somebody submits something like that to the campus confession wall, saying the two of you are so clingy you’re practically twins. Hehe. But they never actually said that’s why, so maybe they just have a crush on one of you. What do you think? There’s still time to go over now.”
Elio’s Notes: “Shipping a CP” (嗑CP) is Chinese fandom slang for enjoying or supporting a romantic pairing. A campus confession wall (校园墙) is a school-focused social-media account or page where students anonymously submit messages, gossip, confessions, and other posts.
Qin Shu stared blankly for a moment. Without meaning to, he thought of everything involving Huang Yuyuan just now. Then the image before his eyes shifted to Pei Zhao’s face, followed by the sensation of holding Pei Zhao’s hand… Somehow, it all felt strange.
He unconsciously gripped the hilt of the machete at his waist, rubbing and squeezing it between his fingers. Then he leaned over and gave Zhang Jia Le a rather impolite elbow, his face tense. “What kind of nonsense is that? Don’t go agreeing to stuff like that for those younger girls in the future.”
“Hey, okay, okay! Ow, that hurts… Huh? Brother Qin, that knife is seriously cool. Which stall did you buy it from? Is it handmade by the hanfu club?”
“None of your business. I’m leaving.”
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