The proprietor and his two employees were sobbing their hearts out when the emotion abruptly vanished, leaving them wailing without tears.
After another couple of howls, the three stared at one another and began patting themselves down in confusion. Outside, cries of grief continued to rise and fall. They were utterly astonished.
The proprietor slapped the assistant on the head. “Well, I’ll be! It’s stopped?”
“Wah!” The assistant yelped miserably. “The ghost may have stopped causing trouble, boss, but now I’m the one in trouble!”
Ren Yijue’s emotions had settled, and he felt much better. He changed his grip on Qian Xuelang’s arm to a gentler hold, still relying on him for support. Confusion showed on his face. “Thank you for helping, Jade Beauty. But… what was that?”
The three men had been busy marveling at one another. Only when they heard Ren Yijue did they realize Qian Xuelang was responsible. Their astonishment grew.
“Y-you know Daoist arts?” The proprietor nudged the assistant aside and approached, rubbing his hands together with an ingratiating expression.
The assistant’s eyes, however, suddenly lit up. He stared at Qian Xuelang for some time, then cried, “Hey! No wonder you looked familiar! Isn’t this immortal gentleman the one… the one who came here once with the immortal who lives on the mountain?”
The cook was wiping away his tears with his apron. “Really? Don’t tell me you’ve mistaken him.”
“Could I mistake someone who looks like that?” the assistant protested. “Your eyes have been clouded by cooking fumes back there, but mine are sharp as ever! If things hadn’t been so urgent just now, I’d have recognized him immediately!”
The proprietor narrowed his eyes, studied Qian Xuelang, and exclaimed, “It really is you! Amazing you remember, boy. It must be about ten years since this immortal gentleman last came here, and you were only ten yourself back then!”
Qian Xuelang ignored their antics. Rising, he asked, “Has Wei Wenfeng not come down the mountain?”
“No.” The question itself confirmed his identity beyond doubt. The proprietor hurriedly shook his head. “Immortal Master Wei hasn’t come down in more than three months. If he had, we wouldn’t have sat here helplessly. We’d have pooled some silver to ask him to deal with this.”
The town was isolated but lively enough to attract mountain spirits and strange creatures that occasionally caused disturbances. Wei Wenfeng had helped resolve such problems several times before.
“That shouldn’t be,” Qian Xuelang said with a frown.
“Perhaps the great forgemaster is cultivating in seclusion and hasn’t noticed, or perhaps he went traveling and doesn’t know what’s happening,” Ren Yijue said reassuringly. “You needn’t worry so much, Jade Beauty.”
“You don’t understand. The last time his residence drew heavenly lightning, it nearly destroyed Master’s remains,” Qian Xuelang said. “After Wei Wenfeng moved here, he never again left his residence unattended for long. He couldn’t possibly fail to notice sorrow this overwhelming.”
A suspicion suddenly rose in Ren Yijue’s mind, but he did not think it appropriate to voice it.
Qian Xuelang’s expression grew grave. “I can sense that the source of this sorrow is very far from the town. The people here are only affected by a faint aftershock, which is why no one has died. If its source came close, no one here would survive.”
Though the three townsmen did not understand much of what the cultivators were discussing, they understood no one would survive perfectly well. Their faces changed at once. Their knees gave way and they collapsed to the floor, begging for rescue through tears.
“Silence!” Ren Yijue barked, his head aching unbearably.
He looked utterly sickly, but his angry command carried considerable authority. He was not as cold and imposing as Qian Xuelang, yet he possessed a dignity of his own.
The three men choked back their sobs, no longer daring to make a sound.
Only then did Ren Yijue ask, “Does the Jade Beauty know what it is?”
“Whatever it is, it’s terrifyingly powerful, and may even be alive,” Qian Xuelang said. “Eighteen days. The source of this sorrow has not moved, and Wei Wenfeng has not descended. The worst possibility is… Wei Wenfeng has already discovered it. He hasn’t come down because he’s keeping it trapped. But he can only keep it contained; he cannot resolve the problem.”
That was also the most likely explanation at present.
“Can you manage?” Qian Xuelang asked. “Otherwise, would you rather stay here and wait for me?”
Ren Yijue shook his head. “If the creature is capable of such profound grief, it may be suffering from a knot in its heart that it cannot untangle. I have some confidence in dealing with living beings, so perhaps I can help. More importantly, we don’t yet know what we’re dealing with. If we separate and something happens to one of us, these townspeople may be dragged into the disaster.”
Yin Wuchen had previously drained a village of blood. Nothing guaranteed that this was not another demonic creature. If the Heavenly Demon deliberately targeted Wei Wenfeng, leaving Ren Yijue in the town might instead bring calamity upon it.
“You have a point,” Qian Xuelang agreed. “I’ll wait until morning, then we’ll set out together.”
Ren Yijue said no more and sat down on the spot to meditate.
The proprietor and his employees kept stealing glances at them, unsure how to react. Seeing the two discuss matters as though no one else existed and then settle into meditation, the townsmen dared not interrupt. They shrank back behind the counter in aggrieved silence.
Once the hour of Yin had passed, the overwhelming sorrow faded of its own accord. No one inside the barrier felt the change, but they could hear the crying outside gradually stop and knew the allotted time had ended.
Elio’s Notes: The hour of Yin runs from roughly 3 to 5 in the morning in the traditional Chinese system of double-hours.
Ren Yijue opened his eyes just then. His complexion had indeed improved considerably. He smiled at Qian Xuelang. “Jade Beauty, let’s be off.”
He placed another silver ingot on the table. They stepped outside into the daylight, though the town had yet to recover from an entire night of grief.
“If everyone spends the night crying like that, how can they have the strength to work during the day?” Ren Yijue shook his head repeatedly. “If this keeps up, people will die sooner or later.”
Qian Xuelang did not answer. His expression became graver still.
“Is the Jade Beauty worried about the great forgemaster?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t worry. The great forgemaster has Heaven’s favor. The Demon-Extermination War sixty years ago didn’t take his life, so Heaven must have other plans for him,” Ren Yijue said soothingly. “Let’s climb the mountain now and see what’s happening.”
Qian Xuelang felt slightly reassured and nodded.
They climbed the mountain side by side. Because they did not know what had been releasing the inexplicable grief at night, they moved with great caution, taking care not to alert their quarry as they pressed onward.
At first Ren Yijue could still exchange a few jokes with Qian Xuelang. But the higher they climbed, the paler he became. He fell silent. Eventually his entire body began trembling and his steps came to a halt.
Qian Xuelang walked a couple of steps before realizing Ren Yijue had stopped following him. He turned in puzzlement.
“Jade Beauty, I’m… I’m sorry.” All color had drained even from Ren Yijue’s lips. He gave a dry, weak laugh. “Ren is afraid… afraid that…”
He did not finish. Blood spilled from the corner of his mouth and he collapsed.
Qian Xuelang’s gaze sharpened. He stepped forward and caught Ren Yijue, whose head fell against his arm. He had clearly lost consciousness.
Nothing like this had happened to Ren Yijue before. He was not one to push himself recklessly; if his chronic illness were truly this severe, he would not have stayed silent throughout the climb. His condition had evidently worsened suddenly.
Holding the unconscious Ren Yijue, Qian Xuelang searched for shelter in the wilderness and found an abandoned temple.
The temple had been deserted for years and housed a half-bodied Bodhisattva statue, its form broken away by the passage of time. Qian Xuelang looked up and met the statue’s gaze, instantly frowning.
Perhaps the locals could not afford a skilled sculptor, or perhaps it was merely the light, but the statue’s face seemed almost sinister. Half its features had worn away, and the one remaining downcast eye seemed to be examining them with curious scrutiny.
Qian Xuelang disliked it, but had little choice. He laid Ren Yijue on the floor and, disregarding the many restrictions the latter ordinarily imposed, prepared to heal him.
Ren Yijue’s body, however, seemed to have lost every bone. However Qian Xuelang tried to pull him upright into a seated position, the moment he released his support Ren Yijue toppled either forward or backward. His face grew paler and a faint veil of black qi began to gather over his features.
Having no alternative, Qian Xuelang steadied him by one arm, pressed his other palm against Ren Yijue’s chest, and sent a vast torrent of true essence into his body.
After so many years of cultivation with a serene heart and clear mind, Qian Xuelang’s true essence was extraordinarily pure. Yet the moment he sent it into Ren Yijue, he felt another tremendous current of true essence drawing his own toward it.
“What?”
Qian Xuelang was startled. All the true essence within him seemed caught in that pull, the two currents mingling and gathering together. He realized there was something unusual about Ren Yijue’s cultivation technique. Even unconscious, he continued circulating true essence throughout his body to resist something.
In the next instant, an even more immense surge of demonic qi came roaring back. Ren Yijue’s body became a battlefield where the two forces clashed.
With Qian Xuelang’s assistance, Ren Yijue’s true essence grew more powerful than ever, but for some reason the demonic qi went utterly berserk, as though fighting for its life.
Fearing Ren Yijue’s body would burst apart, Qian Xuelang withdrew his palm at once. He stared, baffled, at Ren Yijue’s sweat-soaked face.
Such demonic qi could not possibly have come from the minor injuries Ren Yijue had suffered recently. From what Qian Xuelang had sensed while circulating his power, its vast and terrifying presence seemed almost innate. It would be extremely difficult to eradicate; Ren Yijue could only keep it suppressed himself. It must have been an old affliction, perhaps even something that had accompanied him since birth—
No wonder. No wonder Ren Yijue had said Ren Cangming was forced to fight just before giving birth.
And no wonder he refused to let anyone examine his wounds.
The Heavenly Demon’s attack must not only have injured Ren Cangming, but also gravely harmed the unborn child. For decades, Ren Yijue too had been plagued by demonic qi. He had fared somewhat better than his mother and could still move about by using his true essence to suppress it with all his might.
Qian Xuelang could scarcely imagine what Ren Cangming had sacrificed to preserve her beloved son’s life, or how many things You Pingsheng had tried to save an infant ravaged by demonic qi, before Ren Yijue could finally gain a new lease on life.
And how much suffering had Ren Yijue endured before he could walk, run, and live much like anyone else?
It seemed his sudden collapse had been caused by the demonic qi rioting within him. But why should this place provoke the qi in his body?
As Qian Xuelang struggled to understand, his chest suddenly tightened. Endless grief surged through him, making his limbs tremble. Such heartbreak seized him that he almost cried aloud.
Compared with this, yesterday’s sorrow was hardly worth mentioning.
But this emotion had come from outside, not arisen within him. Though he felt suffocated, he could resist it without too much difficulty once he circulated his cultivation technique.
Ren Yijue, however, was badly injured and could never endure grief of this intensity. Qian Xuelang was about to examine him when a wave of alarm struck. He spun around.
A tall figure was slowly approaching the temple against the light, holding a splendid long sword. The blade seemed to be fashioned from formless radiance and condensed frost, flickering between substance and illusion, impossible to determine whether real or imagined.
A black, thickly oppressive aura wound around the sword, circling like a living thing, struggling and wailing.
It was plainly noon, yet even the warm sunlight seemed to turn cold. A deathly stillness fell over heaven and earth, as though all had lost the will to live.
Grief carried to its utmost extreme, pain beyond naming: in the end, both became emptiness.
The approaching man’s face was wooden, his eyes vacant.
It was Wei Wenfeng!