Qin Shu did not explain much to Chen Shui.
Some things, the people who ought to know would naturally have the ability to uncover the full story for themselves. As for those who ought not know, telling them would accomplish nothing.
If they were not strong enough, they could not change the reality before them anyway; knowing about it would only make them suffer.
Especially when matters of faith were involved, Qin Shu preferred to keep his mouth shut at first. Only after carefully investigating all the details would he consider informing the people around him who actually followed that faith.
He could hardly say something like that without any evidence—
Hello. The deity your family worships may have been dead for a very long time—completely and thoroughly dead, possibly since before you were even born. Its position seems to have been stolen by another evil god, and the body it left behind is currently being eroded by that evil god too. The thing is eating your family’s incense offerings while harming your relatives and friends, and before dying, every one of them suffered inhuman psychological torment…
Oh, right. And that huge hole underneath your family’s “sacred ground” isn’t some divine dwelling anymore either. For all we know, it really might destroy the world.
Could something like that really be said casually? Qin Shu did not think so. Besides, he was standing on their territory right now, inside Phoenix Village.
The entire foundation of Phoenix Village rested on the glorification and supreme worship of Long E and the Cave God. Destroying all of that would be tantamount to destroying half their lives—the sort of enmity born from tearing apart someone’s very Dao. Even if everything were true, if Qin Shu casually blurted it out, he might never make it out of these mountains so easily again.
So Qin Shu firmly kept quiet, thoroughly whetted Chen Shui’s appetite for answers, and then refused to explain another word.
“Let’s talk to your maternal uncle first. If he thinks there’s no problem, then I’ll tell you.”
“Brother Qin, how can you do this to me? Don’t, Brother Qin, hey, hey…” Chen Shui immediately returned to his miserable expression, practically dying of curiosity, while the combat-ready posture he had adopted earlier vanished without a trace.
Under his restless, agonized stare, Qin Shu and Pei Zhao silently walked past him, then around A-Dou, who stood solemnly beside the entrance like a small mountain, and stepped into the Drum Tower.
Strange-smelling and extraordinarily ornate.
Those were Qin Shu’s first impressions of Phoenix Village’s sacred ground.
Carved beams and painted rafters filled the interior beneath eight upturned eaves, while interlocking bracket sets curved like drawn bows. The beams overhead were covered in brilliantly colored hand-painted scenes depicting a phoenix’s rebirth through fire in exquisite detail.
The sequence began with a lively chick breaking from its shell, continued through the ignorant little red ball of fluff being harmed and falling to its death, and finally showed it spreading its wings from a lotuslike inferno of magnificent flames. Both the colors and brushwork were exceptionally bold. The artist had made no attempt to soften the miserable image of the firebird’s death, which only made the visual impact even stronger.
Coalball had already started crying inside Qin Shu’s head, overwhelmed with grief.
The only flaw was that this continuous mural depicting rebirth through fire occupied all three floors of the Drum Tower. Blood-red color filled nearly every visible surface from top to bottom, overshadowing even the enormous bronze drum that should have been the visual centerpiece.
At a glance, there was practically nowhere for the eyes to rest.
“Staying in here long-term would mess with your head.”
Once the initial shock faded, Qin Shu pulled Pei Zhao closer and whispered, “Mr. Xu talked about this in counseling class last time. When you decorate a home, especially a bedroom, you absolutely shouldn’t use too much heavy red paint across huge areas. It keeps the mind from relaxing and makes people feel oppressed and anxious…”
“Precisely. Unfortunately, the proposal I made thirty years ago to change it still hasn’t been approved.”
Before Qin Shu could finish, an extremely old, hoarse voice rose from directly beneath their feet. It carried a noticeable Yun City accent and, almost as a gesture of friendliness, picked up Qin Shu’s train of thought on its own.
Qin Shu’s heart gave a jump. Remembering what Chen Shui had said about his uncle, he found the situation even more unbelievable.
Chen Li Chi, Phoenix Village’s current Grand Shaman, was supposedly only a little over sixty years old. But no matter how Qin Shu listened to that voice, it sounded like it belonged to a shriveled old man in his seventies or eighties, thick with the exhaustion of approaching death. There was practically an aura of death in it.
“Young friends, I know why you’ve come. There’s no need to worry. I’ve already begun dealing with every question you want to ask. Come down and speak with me. Lift the floorboard beneath your feet and jump. You won’t hurt yourselves.”
“Oh, okay!”
Qin Shu pulled Pei Zhao slightly behind him and, more than happy to comply, immediately lifted the loose wooden board beneath his feet.
The space below was dim. Several dark-red candles flickered within it, which was quite a fire hazard, but at least they provided illumination while doing an excellent job of creating a horror atmosphere. Qin Shu leaned down and looked inside for a moment, his expression changing slightly before he jumped down first.
He landed in silence and steadied himself, then extended both arms and easily caught Pei Zhao when he followed. After confirming that the floor beneath them could support their combined weight, Qin Shu carefully set him down.
The cramped basement carried the damp, moldy smell of a place that had not been properly ventilated in years, mixed with the unmistakable scent of old age. Beneath it all lingered a faint chill—not ghostly aura, yet somehow even more like ghostly aura than the real thing.
An incense burner, a tea table, round meditation cushions, miscellaneous toolboxes stacked neatly in a corner… Completely ordinary household objects had been crammed into the narrow space. Qin Shu could not yet locate the huge hole Chen Shui had mentioned. The furnishings were not ugly, but the entire basement carried a late-life, deathly atmosphere that became deeply uncomfortable the longer one stayed inside.
Of course, the unpleasant smell was not the only thing that had changed Qin Shu’s expression. There was also the hunched old man kneeling on a cushion in front of the tea table, wrapped in a blanket.
Chen Li Chi stood and slowly made his way toward Qin Shu.
His hunchback was severe—extremely severe. His spine was probably twisted into a grotesque shape, folding his lower abdomen and hips almost completely together. His thin, pointed chin bobbed with every step, making it look as though his jaw could dislocate at any moment; if he lowered his head too far, that sharp chin might stab directly into his own knees.
In a place like Phoenix Village, where the soul was life and the physical body merely a vessel, such an excessively deformed body was particularly abnormal. Chen Li Chi looked as though something unimaginably malicious had cursed him out of sheer spite, forcing him to display the most wretched and grotesque version of himself possible.
“That’s right. I’m cursed.” Chen Li Chi slowly approached, leaning heavily on a thick black-wood cane. His swollen eyelids sagged so low that Qin Shu could barely see the whites of his eyes. “Young friends, this old man is a little inconvenient to look at. Please forgive me.”
The distance was only three or five steps, yet Chen Li Chi somehow took almost half a minute to cross it. He resembled an ancient turtle tottering through an animated film, except he was far thinner than any turtle had a right to be.
“…Mr. Chen, can you tell what I’m thinking?” Qin Shu looked down at him, his right eyelid twitching uncontrollably.
“I can’t read minds, but communication between people is usually very simple,” Chen Li Chi said after coughing twice, his voice as rough as gravel ground beneath a shoe. “I’ve simply lived long enough and seen enough. Once I meet children like you face-to-face, I can usually guess what you’re thinking. Call it intuition.”
Qin Shu was uncomfortable, because he simply could not bear watching an old person shuffle around trembling as though one gust of wind might knock them over. If he did not go over and help somehow, his whole body started itching with restlessness. Even if Chen Li Chi was a frighteningly ugly old man, Qin Shu still could not stand it.
He endured for a moment, then failed. Qin Shu reached out, supported Chen Li Chi by the arm, and slowly helped the seemingly collapsible old man sit back down. He even straightened the blanket wrapped around him while he was at it.
Only after making sure Chen Li Chi was seated securely and seemed to be breathing steadily did Qin Shu dare let go and continue the conversation. “Communication between people is simple… Then for you, communicating with deities and with Heaven and Earth must be relatively more difficult?”
“If one communicates only with benevolent deities, then naturally it isn’t difficult. An encounter of that sort brings endless benefits. It often leaves your ears clear, your vision sharp, and your entire body refreshed… It is entirely possible to attain sudden enlightenment immediately after divine communion and break through a bottleneck on the spot.”
After Qin Shu helped him sit, Chen Li Chi’s expression seemed to soften slightly, but because his face was covered in dense wrinkles and sagging skin, Qin Shu honestly could not tell whether his expression had changed at all.
Qin Shu was curious now. “Benevolent deities… So there’s actually a distinction between benevolent and malevolent deities? How do you determine the standard? Are there also gods that are neither particularly good nor bad?”
“There are. All of those exist. Ah, that’s an excellent question. My little nephew never likes asking me about these things, and I’ve wanted someone to talk to about them for ages. And don’t call me ‘Mr. Chen.’ What do people in the cultivation circles in your cities say nowadays? Ah, right, right. Call me Senior.”
Chen Li Chi’s voice was hoarse, but the more he spoke, the more talkative he became. His hands trembling, he even picked up the teapot and personally poured a cup for each of them despite Qin Shu’s attempts to stop him.
Qin Shu hesitantly lifted his teacup and immediately smelled spiritual energy even denser than the box of mulberry leaves from last night. Fine strands of it mingled gently with a honeylike fragrance. It lacked some of the earlier tea’s crystalline freshness, but the liquor itself was darker and richer.
He glanced sideways at Pei Zhao, and when Pei Zhao calmly raised his cup and drank without changing expression, Qin Shu finally relaxed enough to do the same. His eyes immediately brightened. “That’s excellent tea. One sip and my whole body feels warm. But Senior, you’re being far too polite. You absolutely can’t pour for us again. If anyone heard about it, we’d sound unbelievably rude.”
Chen Li Chi sighed softly. “Young friend, you’re too courteous. This time Phoenix Village is the one asking something of you. How could I neglect my guests? I don’t know your Eight Characters, but even judging only by your face and palm lines, I have some vague premonition. Your future is immeasurable.”
“Palm—palm lines?” Qin Shu stared. “I only supported your arm for a second, and you saw all that from my palm?”
“Peering into the secrets of Heaven is hardly so simple. Lately I’ve become obsessed with observing the stars and rather enjoy showing off. What I’m seeing around you now could perhaps be considered one of the external omens.” Chen Li Chi slowly shook his head. “In the language you city people use… I see Mars guarding the Heart, Venus crossing the heavens, and Ziwei shining brightly. Hiss… Some of those movements are inseparably entangled with you. Whether that is good or bad, I cannot say.”
Elio’s Notes: “Mars guarding the Heart,” “Venus crossing the heavens,” and a bright Ziwei are expressions from traditional Chinese celestial omen-reading. Mars was historically called Yinghuo, Venus Taibai, while Ziwei carries strong imperial and fate-related associations; Chen deliberately does not give Qin a simple good-or-bad interpretation here.
Qin Shu did not entirely understand, but those mysterious astrological expressions certainly did not sound reassuring. He immediately asked, “What about Pei Zhao? Will he get dragged into it too?”
Chen Li Chi froze, seemingly only then realizing that he had almost completely overlooked Pei Zhao’s existence.
Pei Zhao’s appearance and temperament were absolutely not the kind anyone should be able to casually ignore. Yet as a shaman whose senses and intuition were extraordinarily sharp, Chen Li Chi had somehow done exactly that. From beginning to end, he had never once managed to focus his attention on Pei Zhao.
It was as though his subconscious were interfering, deliberately steering him away from something he could not comprehend.
Chen Li Chi’s eyelids still sagged low enough to reduce his eyes to two long, dark slits. He abruptly met Pei Zhao’s gaze, but after seeing Pei Zhao sitting there with his teacup, perfectly calm and leisurely, Chen Li Chi silently withdrew his eyes again.
“I don’t know. I can’t see anything at all,” he said hoarsely.
“Nothing at all?” Qin Shu frowned. “Why?”
“I’m simply not strong enough. I’m not afraid of losing face over it. If I can’t see, then I can’t see. I certainly won’t invent nonsense to make myself look better.” Chen Li Chi paused. “Young friend Qin, let’s return to the matter of deities. That’s something this old man understands better, and I’d like to offer you a little goodwill first.”
“…All right. Thank you.”
“Benevolent deities are rare, malevolent ones are difficult to identify, and there’s no need to curry favor with those in the middle either. Caution comes first. This is what I’ve learned over many years, so you must remember how to judge them.”
Chen Li Chi took a sip of tea, his expression solemn.
“If someday you have the opportunity to encounter a deity face-to-face, yet discover that being near it makes you uncomfortable—that your chest tightens, your head spins, your breathing becomes chaotic, and instinct screams at you to turn around and flee while you can clearly feel how laughably insignificant and weak you are—then it is certainly not a truly benevolent deity.”
Qin Shu became thoughtful. “Is the standard really that absolute? Couldn’t some immortals just have bad tempers or unusually strong personalities?”
“No matter how strong their personality, they could have made you feel better.”
Chen Li Chi lifted his eyelids slightly and explained in an unhurried voice, “All they would have to do is restrain their pressure a little and pull back their presence. For an immortal, that is effortless. If they simply do not care how you feel, need nothing from you, regard you in their heart as an insect they could crush whenever they wished, or perhaps are deliberately suppressing and humiliating you… then regardless of the reason, they bear you no goodwill.”
“If you encounter a deity of that sort, a temporary arrangement where each side takes what it needs is one thing. But you must never casually form a deep relationship with it, never entrust your life and everything you possess to it, never convert wholeheartedly to its Dao, and never pray to it in a crisis and expect it to catch you when you fall.”
After saying four consecutive “nevers,” Chen Li Chi’s voice grew heavier as he emphasized, “If you cannot trust it completely, then treat it as completely untrustworthy. Remember that.”
“I understand, Senior. I’ll remember it seriously.”
Seeing Qin Shu’s earnest expression, Chen Li Chi became even more solemn. “Good. Secondly, if you are not a devout follower of any faith, yet some deity makes you feel too comfortable, that is even more wrong. That is where true danger lies. You must not lower your guard.”
“Too comfortable is bad too?” Qin Shu thought about it. “That actually makes a lot of sense.”
“Precisely. There is a gulf between immortals and mortals! You personally meet a deity, yet feel no genuine pressure whatsoever. You do not instinctively look inward or reflect upon yourself. Your strength is not tempered or improved. Instead, your reason simply floats loose in the air as though surrounded by a haze of opium smoke, leaving you euphoric and endlessly intoxicated, as though enlightenment had been poured into your skull and you were ascending on the spot… You have no family ties and no prior relationship with that being. Where in this world would such a wonderful bargain come from?”
Qin Shu strongly agreed. “Definitely. There’s absolutely no way anything that good happens for free. So strange deities like that are malevolent gods with bad intentions?”
“Evil gods.”
Chen Li Chi’s voice suddenly became much heavier.
“If not an evil god, then an Outer God.”
He emphasized it once more. At the same time, the pouchlike eyelids that had been hanging over Chen Li Chi’s eyes actually lifted completely.
He slightly raised his twisted, hunched shoulders and looked meaningfully at Qin Shu—or rather, he gave Qin Shu a chance to see him clearly.
Qin Shu’s breath caught. His pupils abruptly contracted, and the instant their eyes met, he felt as though a sharp arrow had struck him directly between the brows.
What overwhelming soul power.
It resembled a dead glacier barely revealing one cold, indestructible corner above the surface of an immense black sea, while beneath that dark and tranquil water hid an abyss several times larger still.
The sheer weight of this man’s soul was vastly denser and heavier than Qin Shu’s, the gap between them like the uncrossable distance between moonlight and a firefly.
Qin Shu rarely encountered such an absurd disparity in strength. Not until this moment did he directly experience that indescribable terror for the first time—that kind of overwhelming power that seemed capable of crushing him into mud in an instant.
His head began to ache, not because Chen Li Chi’s pressure was directly suppressing him, but because of his body’s instinct for survival.
The black horn on Qin Shu’s forehead tore uncontrollably through his flesh, exposing a fierce, razor-sharp point.
A weapon made for killing naturally carried its own presence. An invisible, icy sharpness rapidly unfolded through the cramped room, mixed with intense aggression and pressure. It wrapped protectively around Qin Shu and forcibly isolated him from the negative influence outside.
Blood ran from the corner of Qin Shu’s eye. A dark, bloody red spread through his ink-black irises, and his pressure abruptly surged, turning the entire room chillingly cold.
“Whoa!”
Chen Li Chi’s eyes flew wide open. Caught completely unprepared, he seemed to be injured by the force erupting from Qin Shu at such close range. A bloody tear even slipped uncontrollably from one eye as his eyelids trembled and sagged shut again.
Yet Chen Li Chi paid absolutely no attention to his own injury. Instead, he instinctively let out a loud, vigorous exclamation, his eyes lighting up as he could not resist examining Qin Shu’s horn from every possible angle, his expression changing wildly.
“Young friend, you—you! I don’t even recognize what kind of thing you are! Easy, easy! Stay seated and don’t lean forward. Be careful or you’ll send this old man flying with one thrust… How extraordinary. How did you turn into a human?”
“…My mom gave birth to me. I was always human.”
Qin Shu silently scooted backward and answered with mixed emotions.
Chen Li Chi’s eyebrows jumped. “Are you certain your mother gave birth to you?”
“Y-yes?” Qin Shu’s confidence was beginning to collapse under that stare. “I’m the only child in my family. They raised me from when I was little.”
“Have you seen your birth certificate? Your one-child certificate? Did you receive any only-child bonus points on the gaokao? Were you born naturally or by cesarean section?”
Chen Li Chi stared at him intensely. Seeing Qin Shu suddenly rendered speechless, he chased after him with increasingly detailed questions. “Eighteen years ago, even Phoenix Village had mobile phones. When your mother was in the maternity ward, did anyone take a few commemorative photographs of her holding you when you had just been born, all wrinkled and tiny?”
“Senior, how do you even know about all this… I really don’t think I ever paid much attention. I’d have to go home and dig through the safe. All our important documents are stored there.”
The questions left Qin Shu deeply unsettled, because he could not answer a single one.
Most of the everyday photographs left from his childhood showed a chubby Tang Rui Cheng beside him, or Tang Rui Cheng crying. They had been assembled into thick commemorative albums that were still gathering dust in a drawer somewhere.
His mother and Su Ting Lian had also taken photos while holding the two of them, bringing them to the zoo to see tigers and elephants and things like that, but by then Qin Shu had already been around one year old—a little kid who could crawl around, bounce about, and call for his mother.
His father disliked taking photographs even more whenever he happened to be home. There were only two or three pictures from vacations where he had accidentally wandered into frame wearing a kitchen apron. Because of his profession, he appeared in photographs even less often than Qin Shu’s mother.
Qin Shu’s childhood had been extraordinarily normal. Aside from receiving somewhat too little companionship, he genuinely did not have any particular family-of-origin trauma. But the swaddled-infant stage before that childhood… there really were not many records he could use for reference.
Now, after being questioned so relentlessly by Chen Li Chi on their first meeting, Qin Shu found himself unexpectedly uncertain.
He touched the dark horn on his forehead, turned toward Pei Zhao, and asked weakly, “Um, Zhaozhao… am I human?”
The instant he finished speaking, there was a smack as a wet wipe Pei Zhao had pulled out landed against Qin Shu’s face. Qin Shu froze, then immediately understood and obediently sat perfectly still.
Pei Zhao pressed his lips together without speaking. He carefully wiped away the trail of blood running down Qin Shu’s temple, and only after making sure none of it had dripped onto Qin Shu’s clothes did his expression ease slightly.
“Of course you’re human now.” Pei Zhao was satisfied. He put away the wet wipe and calmly explained, “If you were a monster, then when this horn appeared on your head, it wouldn’t have to forcibly tear through your skin and flesh. It certainly wouldn’t injure you in the process.”
“…That makes so much sense. But this really is my horn. It was already obvious back in Living Water Village, and now it feels even more real. Zhaozhao, when you touched it earlier, it was just like touching one of my fingers. The sensation was almost completely identical.”
Qin Shu fell silent for a moment. “Even if my body is physically human, a human who grows a horn on his head could still be called a monster, couldn’t he? And those nightmares I’ve had feel incredibly real too. The version of me inside those dreams really is a monster.”
“Young friend, could you tell me more about those nightmares?” Before Pei Zhao could respond, Chen Li Chi eagerly interrupted. “This old man would very much like to hear the details. If there are other clues to reference, perhaps I could find records in old texts and help you search for the truth.”
Qin Shu hesitated, his gaze returning to Pei Zhao. The fact that he now possessed an unbelievably cool beast horn, that he could use the power of his soul to control it, hide it, and manipulate it according to his will, had not come from his own efforts at all.
It was part of his birthday gift, part of his coming-of-age gift, something that came from… Pei Zhao sitting on his lap, lifting Qin Shu’s face between his hands, and placing one soft kiss at the center of his brow.
What Qin Shu did not understand, Pei Zhao might, and Pei Zhao would probably see far more clearly than Chen Li Chi could.
“Qin Shu, your nightmares are your private affairs. You don’t need to cut them open and show them to anyone.”
“…Okay.”
Then Pei Zhao seemed to sigh. “You’re a Xiezhi. Or rather, you used to be.”