Sunlight broke through the rosy clouds and spilled across the river, setting the surface glittering.
Early vendors pushed their carts onto the streets, and breakfast stalls had opened before dawn. Steam drifted through the air as customers gradually filled the little tables, and the streets slowly came alive.
“Boss, ten baskets of hot buns to start, and six bowls of hot noodle soup.” Liang Yun picked the busiest breakfast stall and quickly claimed a table.
“Coming right up! Have a seat, honored guests!” the stall owner said cheerfully.
The hot buns and noodles were soon brought over. The owner thoughtfully added two small plates of pickled vegetables. None of the six had eaten or drunk anything for an entire day and night, so no one stood on ceremony before digging in.
Yue Jingming had barely lowered his head for a sip of soup when the top basket of buns was already empty. Xiao Chunhe stuffed the largest bun in his hand toward him. “This one’s good. I fought them for it just for you.”
The owner was an excellent cook. The buns had thin skins and generous fillings, their soft, fluffy dough carrying the distinctive fragrance of wheat. The meat inside was plump and juicy, and each bite released rich broth that soaked into the wrapper and perfectly balanced the savory fat. Add a mouthful of the owner’s crisp homemade pickles and the flavor rose another level; follow it with a sip of piping-hot clear noodle broth and warmth spread from the stomach to every limb, sweeping away all exhaustion.
A growing boy could eat a frightening amount. Ye Shijiu’s eyes grew brighter with every bite, while Liang Yun wolfed down his food like a starving ghost reborn. Across from them, the real Ji Luo ate quickly too. The real Ji Chen had looked sorrowful at first, but little by little he also began to eat.
Xiao Chunhe bit into a bun and lightly nudged Yue Jingming, signaling for him to look at the two brothers.
Yue Jingming lowered his voice. “Their memories are disappearing.”
“If they can eat, that means their souls are settling back into their proper places.” Xiao Chunhe ate quickly yet somehow still looked elegant. “By the time they finish this meal, they’ll probably have forgotten most of what happened.”
“That may be for the best. There’s no need to burden them with more trouble,” Yue Jingming said.
“Daoist Yue.” The real Ji Chen lowered his head over his noodle soup, then suddenly asked, “Do you know that fierce ghost’s real name?”
Yue Jingming shook his head. “No one knows his name. The people below mostly called him Lord Six.”
“Then…” The real Ji Chen fell silent for a moment. “Can he still reincarnate someday?”
“He became a stone statue, but his soul is still inside it. What happens from here will depend on his own fortune,” Yue Jingming answered patiently.
“Then could we… ever meet again?” The real Ji Chen raised his head, his expression complicated. “I hate him and resent him for trying to harm me, but I made plenty of mistakes too. When I hated him most, I wished his soul would scatter completely. Yet now that everything is over and he has become a stone statue, why do I feel so miserable? I even received twenty years of life for nothing. I ought to be happy.”
His eyes reddened as he looked at Yue Jingming, as though hoping this profoundly capable Daoist could point out a path for him, yet also as though he were merely asking himself. His face was full of bewilderment.
Ye Shijiu and Liang Yun both looked toward Yue Jingming as well.
“Young Master Ji, the living and the dead walk different paths. When it is time to let go, let go. Dwelling on it further will do no good.” Yue Jingming lowered his eyes.
But people were not grass or wood; who could truly be without feeling? So it was for the living, and so it was for fierce ghosts. Those feelings, true and false alike, might be sweet as honey, yet in the end they did the living no good and only fed their inner demons.
The real Ji Luo rose and bowed deeply to them. “Thank you all for saving my life. If there is ever anything the Ji family can do for you in the future, I, Ji Luo, will spare no effort even at the cost of my life.”
Not to be outdone, the real Ji Chen said, “I may not compare with my elder brother, but I too am deeply grateful to all of you for saving my life and giving me another chance.”
“Young Masters, there is no need to keep it in your hearts. Since we met, it was fate,” Yue Jingming said.
“Brother Jingming is right. We must have had some connection in our previous lives, or we wouldn’t have happened to run into this whole affair.” Liang Yun laughed. “Eat up. If you don’t hurry, this brat is going to put everything into his stomach.”
Ye Shijiu, who had been eating with his head down, chuckled and turned around. “Boss, ten more baskets!”
“Careful you don’t eat yourself into a pig.” Xiao Chunhe knocked him on the head and took the opportunity to snatch another bun, which he held between his teeth.
The autumn air was crisp beneath a brilliant sun, and the meal was soon finished.
The eyes of the brothers Ji Luo and Ji Chen gradually became confused and uncertain. When they looked at the people around them, their gazes turned increasingly unfamiliar until they had completely forgotten everything that had happened.
“How strange. What am I doing here?” Ji Luo took some copper coins from his sleeve and set them on the table. “I need to go back and study.”
Ji Chen gave him a disgusted look and laboriously dug out a few copper coins of his own. “Seeing you first thing in the morning is terrible luck. Boss, the money’s on the table.”
After paying, the brothers glanced once at the group of strange people sharing their table, thought nothing more of it, and left the stall one after the other, disappearing into the bustling crowd.
Later, the real Ji Luo would throw himself into his studies and place first in the imperial examination, while the real Ji Chen would resign from office, return home, and open a private school by the river. Every trace that “Lu Yu” had ever existed would gradually be erased. But all of that belonged to the future.
For now, Ye Shijiu patted his perfectly round stomach and sighed gloomily. “Doing good when nobody knows about it feels awful. They forgot everything, and the people of Zhangzhou don’t even know Master saved them. We worked ourselves half to death and got nothing in the end.”
Liang Yun said, “Not entirely. At least we got to take a sightseeing trip through the underworld.”
“That’s true.” Ye Shijiu’s eyes lit up. “Normal people never get a chance like that. If I’d known, I should’ve caught a few ghosts to bring back and play with…”
Xiao Chunhe gave Yue Jingming an unreadable look. “You really aren’t going to interrogate the real Ji Luo again? He tampered with your dantian, and now you’ve exhausted all your merit. You should grab him and search his soul.”
“He acted under the control of charm incense. The earlier interrogations produced nothing, so Feng Qingying must already have prepared for that,” Yue Jingming said. “Besides, he is only an ordinary mortal. Forcing a soul-search on him could injure him.”
“You nearly died and you’re still worried about whether he gets hurt?” Xiao Chunhe snapped. “I don’t care if you help other people, but now you tried to save them and something went wrong with your dantian, your cultivation is gone, the merit you worked several lifetimes to accumulate has all been exhausted, and those people don’t even know you saved them. I—”
Xiao Chunhe gritted his teeth. “Right now we should use whatever means necessary to drag Feng Qingying out and eliminate the threat at its root!”
“My dantian wasn’t destroyed. It was only contaminated by ghost qi. Once I find a way to clear the ghost qi away, my cultivation will naturally recover. There’s no need to worry.” Yue Jingming comforted him. “Fortunately, you recognized me in time. If my dantian had actually been destroyed, the consequences would have been difficult to predict.”
“Then what about your golden light of merit?” Xiao Chunhe was both angry and frantic. “If I’d known this would happen, you might as well have let me swallow all of it.”
“That merit came from saving people in the first place. Using it up to save people means it served its purpose.” Yue Jingming took his hand. “We should be grateful I still had that merit. Otherwise countless people would have died last night, and today we wouldn’t be eating buns and noodle soup this delicious.”
“You…” Xiao Chunhe laughed despite himself, then forced his face stern again. “It’s your body anyway. I don’t care.”
Yue Jingming copied the way Xiao Chunhe had tilted his head earlier and said calmly, “All right.”
Xiao Chunhe sucked in a sharp breath. Unable to bear it, he cupped Yue Jingming’s face in both hands and warned him, “Don’t act spoiled with me.”
Surprise flickered in Yue Jingming’s eyes. “Act spoiled?”
“When you do that, I really want to eat you.” Xiao Chunhe narrowed his eyes and licked his lips. “But before I eat you, I’ll definitely strip you bare and lick you all over very carefully. I’m sure you’ll taste even better than those buns. If you cry and beg for mercy, I might even let you off.”
Yue Jingming silently released his hand, slung his sword over his back, and strode away, leaving Xiao Chunhe nothing but an icy, merciless back.
Xiao Chunhe watched him in torment. The demon-gu that had climbed up his thigh made him bare his teeth in pain again, so he irritably slapped it once. Then, with a flick of his fan, he leisurely followed after Yue Jingming, calling in a teasing voice, “My good Rongxi, my good wife, my good Jingming, wait for me~”
Tap.
A small stone lightly struck his shoulder.
Xiao Chunhe whirled around and caught sight of a little fox’s shadow flashing around the street corner. His eyes slowly narrowed.
Hu Xiaohu?
* * *
An inn in the distant outskirts of Zhangzhou.
The Myriad Demons Scroll lay spread across the table. A compass the size of a palm floated above the scroll, and above the compass hovered a small copper spoon.
Ye Shijiu carefully touched the spoon’s handle. It slowly spun twice, then returned to its original position.
“That isn’t pointing south either. From the direction, it looks northwest,” Ye Shijiu said.
“Keep going northwest and you’re heading toward the capital.” Liang Yun propped his chin on his hand and stared at the little spoon. “It didn’t react at all when we ran into a fierce ghost like Lu Yu. Just what kind of troublesome thing is waiting in the capital?”
Xiao Chunhe watched as the place corresponding to Zhangzhou on the Myriad Demons Scroll slowly revealed a stone statue of a fierce ghost. He clicked his tongue. “Don’t tell me this thing lights up every time we subdue some demon or ghost. There’s no pattern to it at all.”
Yue Jingming looked at him when he heard that.
Xiao Chunhe raised his brows and looked away.
The group studied the Myriad Demons Scroll for most of the day without finding anything useful, then returned to their rooms to rest.
Yue Jingming sat cross-legged on the bed, meditating in stillness.
Ye Shijiu had appeared in time to interrupt “Ji Chen,” so Yue Jingming’s yuan core had not been destroyed. Instead, there was now a mass of pitch-black ghost qi entrenched in his dantian, blocking his meridians and cutting off his true qi. The three masses of mist-light he had previously sealed away by force also remained: Cen Changsheng’s anger, Qiu Rongxi’s resentment, and his own desire for Xiao Chunhe. The white, green, and crimson clouds of mist had yet to disperse. Not only that, the mist representing his lust and longing for Xiao Chunhe had grown much larger.
The transparent true qi cultivated through the No-Thought One-Mind Art had already become heavily muddied. Now, with this mass of black ghost qi added to it, it was almost impossible to sense at all. His cultivation had clearly been forced into a desperate corner.
Moreover, the fact that the No-Thought One-Mind Art could affect the demon-gu on Xiao Chunhe’s body seemed to have begun only after Yue Jingming developed resentment, anger, greed, and desire…
Yue Jingming quietly looked inward, unconsciously knitting his brows.
His cultivation had reached a dead end. Should he turn back while he still could, or force his way forward in search of a thread of survival?
Someone suddenly knocked on the door.
The little fox sprawled every which way beneath the blankets jolted awake and changed back into human form with a poof. Still bleary-eyed, he went to open the door. “Who is it?”
“Chunhe, it’s me,” Yue Jingming’s voice came from outside.
Xiao Chunhe woke instantly. He hurriedly smoothed his disheveled hair and patted the wrinkles from his clothes. After thinking for a moment, he tugged his collar down much farther, then finally opened the door at an unhurried pace. Leaning bonelessly against the frame, he smiled. “Couldn’t sleep alone in that lonely bed?”
“Mm.” Yue Jingming nodded. “May I come in?”
Xiao Chunhe’s heart leapt. He stepped aside to let him pass. “Of course.”
Yue Jingming walked toward the table. Delighted, Xiao Chunhe shut the door and followed him, asking eagerly, “Coming into my room this late at night… did you finally decide you want to sleep with me?”
Yue Jingming sat down and poured each of them a cup of cold tea. With a serious expression, he said, “My thoughts are too tangled for me to settle into meditation, so I wanted to come talk to you. I disturbed your sleep, Chunhe. I hope you won’t mind.”
Faced with Yue Jingming being this solemn, Xiao Chunhe rubbed his nose somewhat awkwardly, sat beside him, and took a sip of tea to wake himself up. “It’s nothing. It wouldn’t exactly be appropriate for you to go looking for anyone else.”
Yue Jingming said, “It isn’t as though I’ve never considered performing the rites of Duke Zhou with you.”
Elio’s Notes: 行周公之礼, literally “perform the rites of Duke Zhou,” is a classical euphemism for sexual relations between spouses. Yue Jingming’s deliberately formal phrasing is part of why the line hits Xiao Chunhe like a brick.
“Pfft!” Xiao Chunhe sprayed out a mouthful of tea. His eyes went round with shock, and he woke up completely.
Yue Jingming continued, “It is only that our relationship has neither proper name nor standing. On top of that, the demon-gu on your body is causing trouble, while my No-Thought One-Mind Art is also obstructed. We cannot act like that now. Once these matters are resolved, I should report to my teachers and elders and properly become Dao companions with you.”
Xiao Chunhe stared at him in astonishment. “I’m a fox demon, and a half-demon at that… Never mind whether Zushan would even agree. Are you really willing to be with a demon?”
Yue Jingming lowered his eyes. “Of course I am. But aside from what I just mentioned, there is one more thing I have never explained to you.”
“What?” Xiao Chunhe narrowed his eyes. “Don’t tell me you were already betrothed to someone back on Zushan?”
“Absolutely not.” Yue Jingming frowned. “Why would you think that?”
“That’s how storytellers always tell it. First you deceive me out of my body and my heart, leaving me hopelessly and deeply in love with you, only for me to discover that you already have a lovely wife and beautiful concubines waiting at home. Then I have no choice but to swallow my humiliation and become your eighteenth concubine,” Xiao Chunhe said solemnly.
Yue Jingming said, “…”
“But if that really happened, I’d dig out all their hearts and eat them, then eat you alive at the end.” Xiao Chunhe propped his chin on his hand and smiled at him with an innocent, obedient expression. “I can beat you now, after all.”
Listening to him say something so horrifying with that smile, Yue Jingming not only failed to find him frightening, but somehow thought the fox looked even more adorable. He sighed inwardly. “I came down the mountain not only to eliminate the moyao, but also to face a life-and-death tribulation. If I fail to pass it, I will die and my Dao will be extinguished.”
Xiao Chunhe knitted his brows. “What life-and-death tribulation?”
“It still isn’t clear, but the signs have already begun to appear.” Yue Jingming frankly explained his situation to him, including the predicament inside his dantian. “Before, once I knew I had feelings for you, I threw caution aside and decided to be with you, confident that I could handle any danger. But things are different now.”
He looked calmly at the fox demon before him. “When the tribulation comes, I do not know whether I will live or die. I may even drag you into it. Before any of this is settled, making promises to you rashly would be deeply irresponsible. You deserve to know that. If you choose to leave, I will understand.”
After listening, Xiao Chunhe’s expression turned grave. “So after all that, what you mean is that you can’t sleep with me right now.”
Yue Jingming said, “…”
Xiao Chunhe raised a hand to feel his forehead. “Even if that’s what you’re thinking, you would never normally say it so bluntly and hurt someone’s feelings. Are you suffering qi deviation?”
“Not quite yet, but I am close.” Yue Jingming lowered his eyes to the water in his teacup. “I… truly feel awful inside. I only wanted to come find you.”
He knew saying such a thing was hardly appropriate, but the unfamiliar, complicated emotions and desires filling his chest had thrown him into complete confusion. Almost instinctively, uncontrollably, he had come to Xiao Chunhe without wanting to consider the consequences.
Xiao Chunhe stood frozen.
Candlelight flickered over Yue Jingming’s handsome profile. His eyes were lowered, and a rare trace of worry lay between his brows. Even when he was on the verge of qi deviation, this Daoist remained terrifyingly calm and composed. He simply sat there in silence, a jade statue dusted with grime yet helpless to do anything about it, able only to look quietly at the person before him, pitiful and adorable all at once.
Xiao Chunhe’s heart softened into a complete mess. He stood, walked over, and pulled Yue Jingming into his arms. “It’s all right, it’s all right. Back when my demon-gu hurt so badly I thought I’d die, weren’t you the one who told me two people could always think of more solutions? Now that you’re the one in trouble, of course I’m staying with you. Life-and-death tribulation or whatever, I don’t care.”
One sat while the other stood. Yue Jingming buried his face against Xiao Chunhe’s waist, his nose filled with the strong, rich fragrance on Xiao Chunhe’s body. His heart settled considerably. Then he asked, “In that case, why have you still refused to be completely honest with me?”
Xiao Chunhe’s ears heated. “You won’t sleep with me, yet you want me to strip naked and let you look? That hardly seems fair.”
Yue Jingming was silent for a moment. “I meant what you wanted to take from Lu Yu.”
Xiao Chunhe stiffened. “Huh?”
“Back at the Zheng residence in Dengling, you took the Chalcedony Demon Heart. Later, at the cliff, you took Cen Shuang’s eyes. After that, when we left Zhongzhou, you doubled back to Prince Wenren’s residence. You must have taken something from Zhou Ran as well.” Yue Jingming’s voice was low. “Perhaps even earlier, when we first met in Jiarong County and you went to buy those jiaoren pearls, you were searching for something too. Am I right?”
Xiao Chunhe slowly released him. “Jingming, I didn’t mean to hide it from you. It’s only that this matter is vitally important to me.”
“So you traveled with Liang Yun and me because the Myriad Demons Scroll could guide you to the things you wanted. Is that right?” Yue Jingming asked.
Xiao Chunhe clenched his teeth and forced the words out. “Yes. But it wasn’t only because of that. I… I never had friends or family on Zixu Mountain. Being with all of you makes me feel safe, and happy too. I wasn’t traveling with you solely because of the Myriad Demons Scroll. If that were all I wanted, wouldn’t it have been safer to kill you and take the treasure?”
Yue Jingming caught the hand Xiao Chunhe was trying to withdraw. With his other hand, he reached through the fabric and pressed the center of Xiao Chunhe’s chest. “I saw it yesterday. That Chalcedony Demon Heart is covered in talisman script, and you hid it in here. You would rather sever one of your own fingers than let anything happen to this heart. The person this heart belonged to is very important to you, right?”
“Yes.” Xiao Chunhe’s whole body went taut. “No matter what price I have to pay, I will protect these things.”
Yue Jingming’s gaze paused. “I understand.”
Even as he said it, his fingers did not leave Xiao Chunhe’s chest. A faint black mist gathered in his eyes, only for him to force it back down.
If he were not already hovering at the edge of qi deviation, then even after deducing all this, he would never have taken the initiative to question Xiao Chunhe. He would simply have waited until Xiao Chunhe chose to tell him. Yet now, whether because the ghost mist was affecting him or because he could no longer suppress his own selfish feelings, the thought that Xiao Chunhe had schemed and struggled so painstakingly for the sake of another person bothered him intensely. He even found himself disliking it.
Xiao Chunhe stood rigidly in place, seemingly lost in thought, or perhaps thinking about the person who had owned that heart.
Yue Jingming formed a hand seal and recited an incantation, forcibly removing the threads Xiao Chunhe had transformed from his little finger to stitch his chest closed. Before Xiao Chunhe could object, Yue Jingming used blood talismans he had prepared in advance to thread the wound closed, replacing the little finger Xiao Chunhe had been using.
“What is that?” Xiao Chunhe stared in surprise at the red marks left across his chest. One scar after another sank into his flesh until they were no bigger than tiny red moles.
“Talisman paper refined with my heart’s blood. It can seal blood, preserve flesh, and keep true qi from dispersing.” Yue Jingming took Xiao Chunhe’s hand with the missing finger, carefully set the little finger back against the severed joint, and placed another blood talisman over it.
Xiao Chunhe felt only a faint prick of pain before his little finger returned to its original place. Four tiny red marks remained around its base, reconnecting the severed meridians.
“Once the flesh and meridians heal completely, the talisman paper will dissolve on its own.” Yue Jingming released his hand and stood. “It’s late. I’ll go now.”
Only then did Xiao Chunhe seem to wake from a dream. “Actually, this heart—”
Yue Jingming cut him off in time and said quietly, “It belongs to someone extremely important to you. If you don’t want to tell me, then you must have a reason you cannot speak of. I shouldn’t force you. I was presumptuous tonight. Get some rest.”
With that, he rose and left the room.
Xiao Chunhe touched his restored little finger, then the scar across his chest. A rare trace of bewilderment appeared in his eyes.
Was Yue Jingming… angry?