The moment Pei Zhao said that, the person who was frightened immediately became Chen Li Chi.
The loose, sagging skin on Chen Li Chi’s face trembled, and his eyes dropped with it. In an instant, he completely lost any desire to lean closer and inspect Qin Shu.
He even picked up the teapot and silently refilled both boys’ cups before saying hoarsely to Pei Zhao, “Under Phoenix Village’s Drum Tower, right beside the opening… You’re placing far too much trust in me by saying something like that here.”
“No. This place is exactly right. Heaven’s secrets cannot manifest here, and hidden matters will not leak out. As long as you don’t repeat it, no one will know. You asked us to meet you in this basement because you wanted to guard against eavesdroppers too. I’m merely borrowing the convenience of the location. It should be harmless.”
“…Yes. Harmless.” Chen Li Chi’s eyelids twitched. His hunched spine curled even farther inward until he almost resembled a cooked shrimp. Only his wrinkled face remained pointed straight ahead, impossible to read.
Pei Zhao thoughtfully lifted his teacup and continued at an unhurried pace. “You built this ritual site privately, didn’t you? Clever idea. You’re borrowing the local deity’s power and authority as camouflage. The Cave God’s name alone is enough to suppress outside scrutiny, so whatever you do here becomes convenient. Even if you create some enormous disturbance, you can blame it all on a divine manifestation.”
“Ha. Fellow cultivator, you infer the whole from the smallest clue. To see through this much in such a short time… It seems this old man’s cultivation truly is lacking.” Chen Li Chi paused, his eyes, nearly narrowed into dotted lines, slowly shifting. “May I ask what your true form is…”
“None of your concern,” Pei Zhao said expressionlessly. “If you have something to say, say it directly. If it is something Qin Shu can solve, and he is willing to help you, then he will. I won’t help.”
“…Hm? Me?” Qin Shu looked slightly lost, only now beginning to catch up with the situation.
To be honest, Qin Shu had not even understood what Pei Zhao meant at first.
While the two of them exchanged blows over tea, he hurriedly pulled out his phone, typed according to the pronunciation, and searched the internet.
Xiezhi, Xiezhi… By sheer coincidence, there was even a stone Xiezhi statue near his home, standing outside the gates of a Jiangcheng courthouse. It was huge, unpainted, and carved with slightly rough workmanship.
When Qin Shu was little, his mother occasionally had to rush to the courthouse for work and would bring him along, leaving him with a colleague for an hour or two. So Qin Shu had seen that statue many years ago and already had an impression of it.
Unfortunately, until five minutes ago, he had always assumed it was just a badly sculpted qilin, or perhaps some creative winged stone lion.
But according to Pei Zhao… that was apparently him. Mm, the former him.
That couldn’t be right!
Qin Shu opened page after page and discovered that the Xiezhi had quite a distinguished background. In ancient legends, it was an extremely fierce divine beast capable of easily distinguishing good from evil and truth from lies, seeing through the human heart at a glance and judging right from wrong.
Since it was a legendary creature, its exact appearance was difficult to define and had continuously changed across different eras.
Some people said the Xiezhi was as large as an ox. Others claimed it resembled a mountain goat. There were also depictions resembling deer or qilin, while later versions increasingly incorporated dragonlike traits. Not only that, whether the Xiezhi had wings, whether its tail was long or short, and whether its coat was black or white all somehow existed in a Schrödinger-like state.
The only truly fixed point was that the Xiezhi possessed a single horn, and Qin Shu… at the moment, he could temporarily be considered a one-horned human.
Still, even the exact shape of that divine beast’s horn varied. Whether it curved at all, how strongly it curved, whether it was pitch-black throughout or beautiful as white jade—every era appeared to have its own opinion.
Qin Shu was certain he did not look like most of the images online. They were far too chaotic, more chimera than chimera.
Of course, a few descriptions in old texts were disturbingly similar to scenes from his nightmares. For example… using the horn to smash a wicked person cleanly in half at the waist, then eating them immediately afterward, conveniently eliminating the need to wait until autumn for an execution.
In Qin Shu’s dreams, the nobles and officials who witnessed scenes like that had practically lost their minds, and the historical records were not much better. Anyone who dared lie in front of a Xiezhi had apparently needed to prepare for the possibility of being torn apart and eaten.
Perhaps because everyone wanted to prove their conscience was perfectly clear, no one seemed afraid of the Xiezhi. Instead, people worshipped it and searched everywhere for traces of the creature in hopes of pleasing their rulers. Its good reputation survived for thousands of years, so much so that even today, Xiezhi figures could still be seen outside numerous modern courthouses.
But blindly trusting the Xiezhi’s judgment and allowing it to eat every single “criminal” still felt far too bizarre to Qin Shu.
Not every bad person deserved to die. Prison existed for a reason. Even evil ghosts and deities could be arrested and sent to prison, never mind human beings.
More importantly, there were countless methods in this world for deceiving Heaven itself. Chen Li Chi’s entire reason for hiding in this basement was enough to prove that: the Heavenly Dao could be deceived, and Heaven’s secrets could be concealed.
Assuming Pei Zhao was right, Qin Shu could roughly guess that his extraordinarily powerful Heavenly Eye might also be an innate talent carved into a Xiezhi’s very bloodline. If he grew into his complete form, perhaps those eyes really would become unbelievably powerful, capable of perceiving everything… but could Qin Shu guarantee that he would never be deceived?
He wanted to believe anything Pei Zhao told him.
Even as his intuition became sharper and he occasionally sensed that Pei Zhao had left something unsaid or was concealing something, Qin Shu still had absolutely no desire to casually doubt his best friend. That alone destroyed most of his confidence in his own judgment, and he did not particularly want to change it.
So what if Pei Zhao deceived him? It was not as though Qin Shu had never deceived Pei Zhao. Normal people lied instinctively sometimes. Everyone experienced moments of guilt and concealment, and people even accidentally broke rules or laws without realizing it. He could hardly view everything in black and white and casually sentence random people to death… and he definitely could not casually eat them.
The more Qin Shu thought about it, the more he felt that he would have to become even more cautious in the future. Whenever something happened, he needed to consult multiple sources instead of listening to only one side. When he met Chen Li Chi’s gaze again, that feeling became even stronger.
So Qin Shu took a deep breath and tried to clear the mess inside his head, then buried himself in Pei Zhao’s arms for comfort, rubbing his beast horn back and forth against the side of Pei Zhao’s neck as he said muffledly, “Senior, tell me what problem you need help with first. After you finish, could you show me some solid evidence too? I’ve received too much information these past two days. All I can really say is… I’ll think about it as carefully as possible and try to stand on the right side.”
Chen Li Chi froze. Watching Qin Shu perform this extraordinarily smooth operation of “seeking comfort,” his eyelids twitched twice as though he had swallowed something filthy. His expression became extremely complicated.
When he saw Pei Zhao naturally raise a hand and pat Qin Shu’s head, completely unconcerned about the lethal weapon rubbing right beside his neck, Chen Li Chi quietly shook his head and hurriedly looked away.
He picked up his teacup. “Young friend, of course I have evidence. If I did not have something concrete, if we had not truly reached the end of our road, we would never dare casually ask outsiders for help. But then again, where in this world is there such a thing as absolute correctness? There are only different positions, different goals, and different desires.”
“That makes a lot of sense. Of course, this is how I see it—no one should be deprived of the most basic desire to survive.”
Qin Shu finally lifted his head and looked equally conflicted. “So killing in legitimate self-defense is right. And if someone is forced to kill a protected endangered animal in order to escape with their life, they won’t be convicted for it either.”
“That’s the worldview I grew up with. It might lean pretty heavily toward anthropocentrism and be somewhat unfair to yao cultivators… but now that I might not even be human myself, who knows what I’ll think in the future. Still, apart from the basic struggle to stay alive, I agree that almost nothing is purely black or white.”
Chen Li Chi nodded repeatedly as he listened. His hoarse voice grew strong again, carrying what sounded like genuine curiosity. “You’re quite young, yet your convictions are unusually firm. Admirable. Since inheriting the position of Grand Shaman, I’ve barely left Phoenix Village. My knowledge of the outside world is shallow, so I truly am curious. What are yao cultivators like? Are they like us?”
The question was as sincere as a child’s.
“Mm. I haven’t met many yao cultivators, but they really are like us.” Qin Shu looked at Chen Li Chi and tried to remain objective. “They have emotions and desires, happiness and anger, sorrow and joy. They have ideals and things they want to pursue. Of course instincts affect them, but they can also go against those instincts to obey rules and protect the things they believe should be protected.”
Chen Li Chi quietly listened to the end, closed his eyes, and sighed. “If that is so, then this old man can finally rest easy… and safely entrust what comes after my death to you.”
“…After your death?” Qin Shu froze, his gaze settling on Chen Li Chi’s deathly face. The words surprised him, but not very much.
Because Chen Li Chi looked like a man already marked for death. A body constantly nourished by powerful soul energy should have possessed far more vitality, yet his physical condition was worse than that of an ordinary elderly person who had never cultivated.
Qin Shu simply had not expected that the old man was intentionally planning to die soon. From Chen Li Chi’s tone, he apparently intended to die before Qin Shu and Pei Zhao even left Phoenix Village.
“The more one sees, the shorter one’s lifespan becomes. Without the Cave God’s protection, this ruined shell of mine was never destined to last much longer. If I can spend what remains of my life contributing one final effort toward Phoenix Village’s peace, then I’ll have died where I should.”
Chen Li Chi opened his eyes but did not look at Qin Shu again. His gaze floated vaguely toward the tea table as he said hoarsely, “There was quite a disturbance in the graveyard last night. I imagine the two of you already know at least part of the village’s situation. But before anything else, I need to make one thing clear—Long E is dead. Completely dead!”
“She died several thousand years ago in the mountain-god sacrifice, killed by the superstition of ignorant villagers. In that era, the souls of good people, heroes, and those rich in merit were not neglected by the underworld. King Yama would mark them in the Book of Life and Death well in advance. Xie Bi’an personally came for her and escorted her straight on to reincarnation, to enjoy good fortune in her next life. From then on, there was no Long E left in this world.”
Elio’s Notes: Xie Bi’an is the personal name commonly associated with White Impermanence, one of the underworld figures traditionally said to escort souls.
Qin Shu and Pei Zhao exchanged a glance and hurriedly asked, “Then the legends about the sun bleeding, the moon crying, a flood swallowing the village, Long E reuniting with her lover in Heaven, and being reborn through fire… none of those are true?”
“Half true, half false. Isn’t that what myths are?” Chen Li Chi gave a rasping laugh. “They decorate and beautify brutal, unbearable history, then pass it down through the generations as a beautiful story. Our ancestors would rather lift some monster of unknown origin onto a divine altar and transform disaster and destruction into part of a miracle than admit that they themselves had been completely wrong and that their entire people had already reached its end a thousand years ago.”
He suddenly scoffed. “Our savior reincarnated long ago. All that remained was a monster occupying her good name, committing endless slaughter in her name, dragging these mountains and forests into a hell that looked as though Heaven and Earth had collapsed.
“Even when the Cave God mercifully intervened to save us, all that survived were monsters barely clinging to existence. That sin continued from generation to generation, producing more little monsters without breathing or heartbeats… And now the Cave God is dead too. There is almost no room left to turn things around.”
Just as expected, Chen Li Chi knew the Cave God was dead. The owner of the bright-red coffin had not lied.
But something else Chen Li Chi said made Qin Shu confused. “If Long E reincarnated long ago, and her identity was taken by an unknown monster… then why are you still using your clan members’ coffins to construct her image, reproduce her face, and recreate Long E at full scale?”
That thing was an astonishingly enormous work of art. Judging by the labor involved, its creation had taken no less than centuries.
The Yun City tradition of cave burial was meant to allow ancestral souls to rest peacefully beneath the Cave God’s protection. The graveyard deep inside the cave had never been demonized or treated as frightening; local people had always regarded it as tranquil and sacred.
If that was the case, then the massive project of “repainting Long E” could not originally have been malicious. It had gathered the labor of countless Phoenix Village craftsmen, painters, and designers and embodied the entire community’s reverence and remembrance. The original idea should have been simple—to let Long E have a home to return to, let her receive offerings, and let her find a place of rest.
The problem was… who had ultimately benefited from everything Phoenix Village did for Long E? That was much harder to say.
“It’s a custom passed down through generation after generation. Ending something like that isn’t simple. My word means nothing. There are some thick-muscled old fossils in this village who would never believe my testimony alone. They’d simply stuff me inside a coffin too. Ha. Then I could become one of the pores on that woman’s face.”
“Old fossils? You mean something like clan elders?” Qin Shu asked. “Village Chief Liu mentioned last night that several retired corpse herders will be participating in the joint burial. She called them Phoenix Village’s strongest line of defense.” He softly sucked in a breath. “Their bodies must be ridiculously strong. Not easy to deal with.”
Chen Li Chi nodded slightly. His dry, cracked bluish-white lips curved into a strange smile. “Not easy at all. This old man was born weak. I would never dare confront them directly… so I won’t tell them. But from the moment I first became a shaman, I participated in the construction and design of every burial ceremony. I began at the root and tried to change things little by little, where no one would notice. Do you know? Every coffin must receive my approval and blessing before burial.”
He stopped there and did not explain any further, but the meaningful tone was obvious. Qin Shu thought silently for a moment, then understood. “Senior, did you hide some formation or mechanism in the burials specifically to target the monster impersonating Long E?”
“Indeed. That monster stole a thousand years of Phoenix Village’s incense worship for nothing. All that feeding made it lazy. Who knows how many resources, spirit mines, and spiritual herbs it devoured from Jin’e Mountain? The formation I left behind was very simple… Needle draws thread, karma entwines; Gu-silk coils like dragons, ring after ring, and Heaven’s eye shall be the judge.”
Chen Li Chi narrowed his eyes and began rocking his head gently, chanting several strange lines in a hoarse, elongated rhythm that sounded half like poetry and half like a spell.
At the same time, Pei Zhao raised an eyebrow as a strange circle of light appeared around his wrist, white as moonlight and soft as silk.
From a distance it looked dreamlike, but when examined closely, the texture of that light was disturbingly real, covered in exquisitely intricate patterns. It resembled a long, pale-white worm, pure and full-bodied yet carrying a bizarre aura, wrapped tightly around Pei Zhao’s wrist. It flowed like a snowy stream and writhed like a weak insect, neither alive nor dead, head joined to tail, carrying a dense vitality saturated with death.
Qin Shu’s pupils contracted. He was about to speak, but Pei Zhao stopped him with one look—let him finish.
Qin Shu anxiously kept quiet. At the same time, he took Pei Zhao’s wrist, dragged the hand firmly into his own arms, and covered it with both palms, rubbing and kneading it. He even checked Pei Zhao’s pulse several times with practiced ease.
Pei Zhao was used to it by now. He let Qin Shu use his hand as a stress-relief toy while quietly drinking his tea. The movements beneath the tea table did absolutely nothing to interrupt Chen Li Chi’s enthusiasm. The old man continued explaining.
“The karmic curse I spent half my life designing does not rely on spiritual energy, which makes it sufficiently hidden. That monster ate our incense worship without realizing anything was wrong, triggered the curse, and trapped itself inside a dead end long ago.”
As Chen Li Chi spoke, one hand hovered in midair as though feeling along an invisible thread. He chuckled softly. “Now everything is balanced. However many benefits it consumed from my people over the years, it must return the same value to Phoenix Village. If it attempts to cheat, cut corners, exploit loopholes, or evade the cycle of the curse, Heaven itself will impose a fair judgment.”
“Originally, everything was proceeding well. But after the Cave God died, the monster never stopped making little moves. Its ambitions grew. It became unwilling to remain under my control. I expected that too. Eventually, it was bound to encounter a true death… Hm?”
Halfway through his sentence, Chen Li Chi abruptly stopped. His fingertips were wrapped in the same milky-white thread that encircled Pei Zhao’s wrist, and the thread suddenly trembled violently in the air, transmitting its instinctive shudder outward.
“No wonder. I ate it.”
Pei Zhao’s honesty was terrifying. He looked down with interest at the silver-white thread floating around his wrist. “Was being eaten by me its destined death? It doesn’t matter. Keep talking. What remains of your plan? If the Karmic Thread is a secret art the Cave God bestowed upon you, then the deity was exceptionally generous and clearly favored you… Grand Shaman Chen, what do you think about the breaches in the world?”
“…”
Chen Li Chi abruptly fell silent. He looked at the thread, then at Pei Zhao, and instinctively sucked in a breath of cold air. He was not the only one shocked; Qin Shu was equally dumbfounded. “Zhaozhao, you—you… Seriously? When did you…”
“Qin Shu, you sleep too deeply. You need to pay more attention to your safety in the future.”
Pei Zhao looked at him, a tiny curve quietly forming at the corner of his lips. He had wanted to tell Qin Shu this for some time, and at last he had found the perfect opportunity to leave a sufficiently deep impression.
“…It’s fine. With you there, I’ll definitely sleep even better from now on. I feel incredibly safe.”
Qin Shu forced the words out with a stiff expression, then turned his eyes toward Chen Li Chi. “Senior, say something! Don’t make me be the only one feeling awkward!”
“…”
Chen Li Chi coughed softly. His gaze swept complicatedly across the two mysterious young men before he let out a low laugh. “It seems I truly can die without regrets. Since the two of you are this extraordinary, matters become much simpler. Tomorrow at noon, I will use my own life as the sacrifice to activate the hidden formation within the cave graveyard and summon the true divine phoenix into the mortal world, purging every monster and evil presence.”
“Why?” Qin Shu blurted out, then carefully chose his words. “Senior, what exactly is preventing you from living much longer?”
“When the Cave God died, I was already thirty. I saw everything. I know the enormous changes that the spiritual energy resurgence brought to this world. I resisted. I struggled. I also lost myself within it… Young friend, the ability to see beyond ordinary people also brings suffering beyond what ordinary people experience.”
Chen Li Chi did not answer directly.
He closed his eyes, as though attempting to conceal the complicated, turbulent emotions within him, and deliberately gave Qin Shu another warning instead. “You must remember that everything follows its own laws. Heaven’s Dao has its own arrangements. Whether a people flourishes or declines is not something human strength can truly interfere with. It is the turning of an era. Even if you see everything clearly, choosing to stand aside before forces that cannot be resisted—or even choosing the wrong side—should not necessarily be your fault. But I could never do that, so I would rather die with a clear conscience.”
“…All right. What do we need to do?”
“Watch me die. Do not interfere. Too many people in Phoenix Village believe blindly. No one will believe you. Even I still cannot see what those strange breaches truly are, why they exist, or where they came from. I know the two of you originally came to find me because you wanted an answer, but I truly cannot see it… Being deceived by an evil god is an ordinary human weakness. Everyone is a suspect. Do not relax your vigilance.”
Chen Li Chi’s words were earnest, while the deathly aura around him grew heavier. By now, he looked almost indistinguishable from a dead man. His face was withered, his complexion pale and bluish, and the flesh hanging from his bones seemed to have shriveled even further. He resembled an ancient elder only moments away from quietly passing away in meditation.
“Can you let me look at the breach?” Qin Shu asked. Seeing that Chen Li Chi had already made up his mind, he did not continue trying to persuade him. “Since you want my help, I need to prepare beforehand.”
But Chen Li Chi shook his head and refused.
“Needlessly placing yourself in danger is the worst strategy. Tomorrow at noon, when the phoenix circles overhead, young friend, all you need to do is make its divine fire resonate with your yang energy and lend it your strength. That is the true reason I asked Bai Long to invite the two of you here. As for everything else, let those immortals who have peacefully enjoyed incense worship for hundreds and thousands of years worry about it themselves. That is what they should be doing!”
…
Another half hour passed before Qin Shu and Pei Zhao left the Drum Tower.
Chen Shui was waiting anxiously near the entrance and immediately rushed over. “Brother Qin, Brother Pei, what did my uncle say? Did something happen to the Cave God?”
“He didn’t say anything. Don’t ask.” Qin Shu glanced at the expressionless A-Dou and forced down all the chaotic thoughts inside him. “Take us to Granny A-Shu. She lives on the south side of the village, right?”
His horn had already withdrawn, but the wound on his forehead remained obvious, a dark-red mark resembling some special sigil and lending a faint trace of aggression to his otherwise warm features.
Something had clearly happened, but his uncle had given Chen Shui no instructions. Chen Shui therefore did not dare press the matter. He sighed and told A-Dou to follow along, clearing weeds from the path as they went.
“Granny A-Shu is basically one of our village ancestors. She’s powerful, yes, but her personality is strange. She insists on living in the most isolated corner of the village. Even people our age are a little scared of her. How should I put it… Women who work with Gu are fine if they have other goals in life. But if they truly fall in love with that dark craft, they gradually sink deeper into it. They’re always poisoning themselves, getting sick, losing all sense of proportion… In the end, either they poison themselves to death or they poison someone else.”
The atmosphere between Qin Shu and Pei Zhao was subtly strange. Chen Shui felt uneasy, so he talked more and more, desperately searching for substantial topics. For once, he revealed his genuine opinion of Gu poison.
“You don’t like Gu, Mr. Chen?” Qin Shu turned slightly to observe his expression. His fingers gently touched the little centipede hidden around his wrist, soothing Yuanbao. “I think it’s impressive. I heard Granny A-Shu earned a lot of military merit before Liberation. A woman having that kind of power is pretty incredible.”
“Ah, I can’t deny what she contributed. But…” Chen Shui lowered his voice and jerked his chin toward A-Dou’s back. “Back then she killed Japanese invaders. That was perfectly justified. Nowadays the country is peaceful and prosperous, but she’ll still occasionally kill someone from our own village. That’s a little strange, don’t you think, Brother Qin? She killed my partner, and to this day, no one has given me a definite reason why.”
“…What do you mean? Who did she kill? Your partner?” Qin Shu stopped walking, his brain nearly crashing again. He hurriedly lowered his voice. “I didn’t misunderstand you, right? A-Dou is your partner?”
“Yeah. Granny killed him, but she left me the corpse and told me I could do whatever I wanted with it.”
Chen Shui’s expression did not change. He had clearly passed the emotional stage of grieving long ago. “For a corpse herder, a corpse is our most intimate companion. Having him obediently stay by my side for the rest of my life like this is incredibly romantic. But the village chief has never given me an explanation. No one will tell me what A-Dou actually did wrong. My uncle only vaguely hinted that Granny didn’t kill the wrong person… She might have been right. But I hate her a little, and once I started hating her, I began hating everyone who uses Gu to kill people.”
He said it so calmly that Qin Shu somehow became awkward instead. “Sorry. Next time I absolutely won’t casually knock A-Dou’s arm off…”
“Hahahaha. That incident was more my fault anyway. No need to mention it.” Chen Shui waved a hand. “Anyway, I’ll only take you two this far.”
Chen Shui stopped walking and pointed toward a red-brick house hidden among the trees not far away. “Granny A-Shu lives over there. If I get any closer, I’ll start wanting to send A-Dou in to steal her medicinal herbs, and that would make things awkward for everyone. You two go ahead. I’ll wait here. Cough, cough.”
Before he even finished speaking, the forced smile on his face stiffened, because the front door of the little red-brick house suddenly moved. The old wooden door had been soaked by forest moisture until its color changed with rot. As it swung open, it released a tooth-aching creak.
Granny A-Shu stood inside the narrow opening. She wore dark indigo-black cloth clothing, streaked with pale-blue creases from countless washings. Dense silver ornaments hung from her earlobes and cartilage and were pinned throughout a full head of white hair that gleamed like flowing silk. Even her nose and lips carried silver hoops of varying sizes, while silver studs pierced her brow bones.
She was an extremely distinctive-looking old woman. Strangely, however, her voice was as smooth and pleasant as string music. Nothing about it sounded ordinary, and the words she spoke carried even deeper meaning.
“Two little monsters. Come inside and let Granny have a look at you. Oh my, this child really loves looking pretty… What beautiful paper burial clothes.”
Qin Shu looked utterly confused, while Pei Zhao froze for only a moment before revealing a faint smile carrying just as much meaning.
She could see it. Before Qin Shu could.