Chapter 296: Farewell
(This chapter is not a long one, only seven thousand words, because there's another chapter tonight.)
Lu Tai pointed toward the courtyard entrance back then, saying that after pasting that Pagoda Demon-Subduing Talisman, beyond the gate was the jianghu, but within the gate was already up the mountain.
Those words had made Chen Ping'an want to drink.
After that, Feiying Fort became lively, and liveliness brought human warmth. Compared to the previous deathly stillness—a quiet that seemed almost like the brink of death—the current Feiying Fort was clearly more reassuring.
Because two extraordinary outsiders had arrived at Feiying Fort. They weren't the kind of wandering heroes or renowned grandmasters that the fort was familiar with. Instead, they were mysterious and arcane, even more novel than the already eccentric Old Master He.
The middle-aged man, ardently invited by the fort's lord, walked through the streets and alleys of Feiying Fort, leading a white horse. On both sides of the saddle hung two large bundles of pine and cypress branches. Every time he stopped, the man holding a horsetail whisk would burn a branch. Without any visible flint, he simply rubbed two fingers together, and the pine or cypress branch would ignite, emitting waves of faint fragrance that rose in curling wisps.
The residents of Feiying Fort gathered at a distance to watch. Among them were some white-haired old men who knew a bit about old almanacs and began showing off their knowledge, saying this was called "courtyard torch," a remarkable immortal technique that could ward off evil and dispel filth. Pine was the king of trees, honored as the "Eighteen Lords," equivalent to a duke in the imperial court. Cypress was second only to pine, like a marquis. In particular, pines and cypresses from famous mountains and great peaks were extremely noble. Therefore, burning pine and cypress, combined with immortal formulas, could connect to the divine.
Compared to the tall man with his whisk and white horse, the other shabby old man seemed much more vulgar. His appearance couldn't match his companion's, and his methods reeked of rustic charm. Thus, not many Feiying Fort commoners went to watch him and broaden their knowledge. This old man was said to be the master of the young Daoist Huang Shang, a hermit Daoist living in the mountains, an old acquaintance the fort's lord had made in the jianghu. This time, the old man had been counting on his fingers in the mountains and calculated that Feiying Fort was in trouble, so he came down the mountain to help pray for blessings and avert disaster.
The shabby old man wore no Daoist robe and performed no talisman drawing or star-treading rituals. He simply had people catch a dozen roosters and hang them at the fort's main gate, the ancestral hall entrance, the well, the training grounds, and other places. Then he spent all day watching those roosters, carrying a small bag of millet at his waist filled with glutinous rice, and a flask of clear water to tend to the roosters. The water in the flask was not from the well water regularly used in Feiying Fort but mountain spring water that his disciple Huang Shang had fetched from a deep mountain far away.
Chen Ping'an and Lu Tai parted ways. Lu Tai enjoyed watching the so-called immortal master from Taiping Mountain playing tricks, while Chen Ping'an went to observe the old man's methods. Laymen watch the excitement, experts see the craftsmanship. Chen Ping'an was somewhere in between. Although he didn't understand the origins of the old Daoist's actions, he could confirm that after each rooster was hung, the yin wind and baleful aura diminished somewhat. It was like two armies confronting each other, with one side avoiding the enemy's sharp edge. But this retreat caused no casualties; it was merely gathering strength in the shadows.
When the old man fed the roosters glutinous rice and water, his worried expression showed that he too had detected something amiss. His heart was far from light.
As for the whisk-wielding man who paraded ostentatiously, his expression was smug, as if with a snap of his fingers all evil would be obliterated.
The siblings Huan Chang and Huan Shu were responsible for clearing the way for this man.
Tao Xieyang's face was pale, and he often coughed. He only followed the old Daoist together with Huang Shang.
Lu Tai didn't explicitly state the difference in their cultivation levels. He only said that the man was definitely not a cultivator from Taiping Mountain in Tongye Continent, while the shabby old man was a genuine mountain-dwelling Daoist, one who pursued secluded learning and found peace in wisdom, living as neighbors with mountains and waters.
Taiping Mountain was one of the foremost great sects in central Tongye Continent, no weaker than the Fuji Sect. It was so reclusive as to be nearly world-weary, and very few cultivators ever left the mountain. It was a culmination of internal and external alchemy methods. Even Lu Tai, far away in Central Continent, had heard of it, but its fame in the world was far less than that of the Tongye and Yugui Sects.
Two more days passed in peace and harmony.
Even the common folk living in the alleyways of Feiying Fort noticed the strangeness in the sky.
At dawn, when the sun should have been rising, the sky above Feiying Fort was churning with black clouds, layer upon layer, like living things brandishing claws and fangs at the fort, pressing heavily on everyone's hearts. The old steward He Ya, who served as the schoolteacher, sent word that the school would not hold class that day and told the children to go home and stay there. The young students were overjoyed. On their way back, they walked in groups, pointing at the black clouds, saying one looked like a centipede, another like a water buffalo. Finally, they saw a black cloud that resembled a woman's ferocious face, and the children scattered like startled birds, running home in fright.
Chen Ping'an was practicing his boxing stance in the courtyard when he discovered the ominous celestial signs. Lu Tai sat at the stone table, silently counting on his fingers in divination, his expression calm.
At what should have been a bright morning hour, it was as dark as deep night. Not a single ray of sunlight could penetrate Feiying Fort.
Chen Ping'an again heard the eerie, giggling sounds from outside the alley, drifting back and forth.
He stopped his boxing stance, ran to open the door, turned around, and looked up. The ordinary talisman paper of the Demon-Subduing Talisman had been steadily losing its spiritual energy as the days passed. It had become dim and lusterless. What had been a pristine yellow talisman now looked like a Spring Festival couplet pasted for most of the year—severely faded, wrinkled, and with several black ink spots where the baleful energy had seeped through. No wonder those yin creatures and ghosts dared to show themselves and provoke him.
Lu Tai walked out of the courtyard with hands tucked into sleeves and stood shoulder to shoulder with Chen Ping'an. Looking up at the decaying talisman, she murmured to herself, "In an extremely distant era, talismans drawn by people with the cultivation of a seventh-tier martial artist only grasped a superficial essence. Talismans drawn by ninth-tier cultivators could be considered to have entered the hall. So at that time, the power of talismans was unimaginably great. Among them, the obscure and enigmatic 'Three Mountains and Nine Marquises Master' was regarded as the 'Orthodox Talisman Master.' It's a pity that we descendants don't even know if this is a person or just an alias."
Chen Ping'an stood on tiptoe, took down the talisman, and tucked it into his sleeve.
Immediately, a clamor arose all around. Mist rose from the muddy path in the alley, rapidly spreading. First, it reached ankle height, then the knee, and soon it was waist-deep.
It was like Chen Ping'an lifting a pot lid, only to reveal a billowing cloud of steam. But while the steam from a stove would have been warm and fragrant with rice and vegetables, this alley mist was clammy, damp, and yin, carrying a faint, fishy odor.
Chen Ping'an turned to look. Fortunately, the mist didn't surge in one go into the courtyards of the households along the street. However, the various door gods pasted on the gates—Sage of Martial Arts, Civil and Martial Gods of Wealth, and the like—emitted a faint sizzling sound. Their already sparse and faint spiritual energy dissipated completely, no longer able to protect the homeowners.
In Chen Ping'an's field of vision, at the end of the alley, the pair of figures in white mourning clothes appeared again. The small child still stared at Chen Ping'an. Its pair of bright red eyeballs continuously oozed blood, which flowed down its snow-white face. But the blood never left the face; it crawled around like earthworms, entering and exiting the eyes, as if treating the child's eye sockets as a nest.
The adult holding the child's hand had no facial features on its face—as if covered by a thick white cloth, leaving no visible ears, nose, brows, eyes, or mouth.
There were many other foul and gruesome yin creatures as well, all moving toward this courtyard at the end of the alley. There was an old woman with dead fish eyes, crawling nimbly on all fours along the courtyard wall, constantly murmuring that she wanted to eat flesh.
There were also many young children squatting at the base of the wall, hugging their knees, their heads buried in their knees, emitting whimpers from between clenched teeth—broken and intermittent, floating on the wind. They seemed to want to tell a sad story, but they were too young, their speech unclear, unable to express themselves truly.
Although Chen Ping'an had respected ghosts and spirits since childhood, he truly wasn't afraid of them.
Consider this: a four- or five-year-old child, braving all weather, dared to go alone to the Immortal's Grave. Then, after learning boxing, coupled with this trip to Tongye Continent, it was his third long journey. In all that time, how many strange landscapes had he seen? He wouldn't be frightened by such a display.
So even when the big and the small figures wobbled to the alley directly opposite the courtyard gate, Chen Ping'an remained unmoved. Instead, he took a step forward, standing at the edge of the steps, as if waiting for them to make a move.
The child with a face covered in blood like a spider web kept staring at Chen Ping'an. It tilted its head and, while maintaining eye contact with him, spoke: "Your flesh smells very good. Can I have a few bites? I only want half of your heart and liver, is that okay?"
The child's words were spoken extremely slowly, and it didn't stop walking forward. By the time it uttered "heart and liver," it had its back to Chen Ping'an, but its head had twisted around completely, still "looking straight" at him. It also extended a pitch-black tongue, licking at the blood around its mouth.
The old woman crawling along the wall was the first to attack. She leaped through the air, pouncing at Chen Ping'an.
Chen Ping'an didn't even look at her. He took a step forward, descending the steps. Before his boot touched the alley ground, he threw a casual punch, striking the old woman's head. The yin creature was knocked backward, slamming into the opposite wall, which shattered with a crash. It didn't even have time to scream.
Seeing this, the yin creatures in the alley erupted in savagery. Black smoke roiled, and creatures formed from the resentment of the dead madly lunged at Chen Ping'an.
Chen Ping'an kept one hand behind his back, tucked in his sleeve, and only used his right hand to fight.
His fist intent remained restrained, flowing only through his right arm. His true qi condensed without leaking outward. Yet every punch he threw shattered the yin creatures that came charging at him.
For the current Chen Ping'an, this amount of fist intent was like drawing just one bucket from a deep well.
But to the yin creatures, that arm of the white-robed youth looked like a small piece of "sunlight" cutting through the darkness—scorching hot and blinding.
In just a few blinks, seven or eight out of ten yin creatures in the alley had been destroyed.
Lu Tai, at some point, had sat down on the threshold, watching with her hands tucked in her sleeves, a smile on her face.
The child who had threatened to eat half of Chen Ping'an's heart and liver broke free from the adult's hand. In a flash, it appeared behind Chen Ping'an, its hand shaped like a knife, stabbing toward his back, trying to cut open his back and dig out his heart.
The hand knife was swift. But just as the child thought it was about to succeed, it screamed in agony. When its fingers touched Chen Ping'an's white robe, it was like plunging into a furnace. Melting like snow, it couldn't withdraw in time, and half its arm vanished.
Chen Ping'an's left hand remained behind his back, still showing no movement. The corner of his eye had been fixed on the faceless yin creature. He simply leaned backward, bumping into the child yin creature. The golden nectar of his dharma robe touched the latter, and in an instant, the child melted like a candle, turning into a wisp of extremely pure black smoke that tried to flee into the distance. But Chen Ping'an turned, twisted his wrist, and drew an arc with his fist, smashing the black smoke until it had neither head nor tail.
Lu Tai teased, "This is a bit unfair, you know."
Chen Ping'an curled his lip. "Where's the fairness with creatures that aren't even human?"
Chen Ping'an suddenly turned his head, looking toward the end of the alley.
At the well near the neighboring street, the murky well water began climbing up the inner wall of the well. Using the mist on the street to mask its yin aura, it quickly flowed out of the well mouth and surged toward Chen Ping'an's alley. As it rushed into the alley entrance, it "saw" Chen Ping'an crushing the child yin creature. After a moment of hesitation, the well water retreated back.
Chen Ping'an extended his right hand from his sleeve, revealing a fresh Pagoda Demon-Subduing Talisman pinched between his fingers. He silently called out "Fifteen." A verdant, translucent flying sword shot out of the Gourd Nurturing Sword, streaking behind Chen Ping'an. Fifteen's tip pierced the yellow talisman, and in a flash, it was gone, trailing a streak of golden light emitted by the talisman.
This talisman had originally been intended for the yin creature that held the child's hand. But after a brief exchange, Chen Ping'an felt confident enough that he could handle it with fists alone. Since that strange thing in the well had come out on its own, Chen Ping'an let Fifteen carry the talisman to subdue the well, cutting off the well water's retreat.
The well water moved swiftly, but nowhere near as fast as Fifteen's flight.
Arriving at the well, from which came sounds like a grieving woman's sobbing, Fifteen's sword tip stabbed at the well mouth, pinning the golden, glowing Pagoda Demon-Subduing Talisman to the well's rim.
It then slowly rose, circling the well mouth.
The well water that had crawled out covered the surrounding area, filled with ripples, revealing twisted female faces full of resentment and hatred. After a few attempts, it reluctantly sent a small stream toward the well mouth, which quickly vaporized into smoke. After several tries, the talisman attached to the well mouth remained steadfast, its spiritual light abundant. The surging well water finally gave up. It all converged, eventually forming a humanoid yin creature, about a zhang tall, its body covered in rolling well water, its features unrecognizable.
Fifteen naturally took this as a provocation. It pierced through the forehead of the well-water yin creature, abruptly stopped, then flew back through its back and heart, repeating this with relish.
Perhaps it hadn't expected the flying sword to be so rich in sword intent. The newly formed humanoid well water dissipated with a splash, reverting to a sheet of water spreading in all directions. It began to surge away, retreating into the distance.
Fifteen didn't bother with such tricks; its sword tip simply kept stabbing into the water.
Back in the alley, the faceless male yin creature, which had hoped the well water would "possess" it, showed a hint of fear. Instead of engaging Chen Ping'an, it darted toward the dead-end wall.
Chen Ping'an stomped down, arriving at the wall first. He slammed a palm against it.
Another Demon-Subduing Talisman.
The wall immediately revealed its true form: a mass of bones and skeletons, among them many frames of young children, and even some that looked like infants ripped from a womb—an atrocity beyond words.
When the wall appeared, the children squatting at its base whimpered and sobbed.
Seeing this, hatred burned in Chen Ping'an's heart.
The male yin creature tried to rise and flee the alley, but Chen Ping'an, furious, turned and reached out, grabbing its faceless head. His fingers hooked like claws, the sleeves of his golden-nectar dharma robe fluttering, emitting a glow like a shrine enjoying a millennium of incense. The yin creature let out a pleading wail from the depths of its soul. Chen Ping'an held it with his right hand while his left fist punched through its heart. Golden light exploded from his entire arm—both his own fist qi and the spiritual energy of the golden nectar.
He twisted his right arm, forcibly ripping a huge hole in the yin creature's chest.
Not stopping there, he tried to tear the creature's soul apart completely, deliberately controlling the force—thread by thread, layer by layer—like the torture of flaying and pulling sinews, drawing the soul bit by bit into the sleeve of his golden-nectar dharma robe, making it suffer the pain of a thousand cuts and a thousand slices.
Lu Tai stood up, gently reminding him, "Chen Ping'an, that's enough."
Chen Ping'an took a deep breath, released his left hand, and pulled his right hand out of the yin creature's chest. He punched once, shattering it, then flicked his sleeve, drawing it all into the dharma robe's sleeve. Finally, he shook the sleeve, and fine, ashen dust sifted down.
Chen Ping'an looked ahead. The children yin creatures squatting at the base of the wall hadn't fled. They were just trembling violently, still clutching their knees as if waiting for death. They babbled in tearful voices, not knowing what they were lamenting, as if suffering immense pain and torment.
Chen Ping'an turned to look at the talisman on the bone wall and hurriedly pulled it off.
After taking down the talisman, he took a step, crossing seven or eight zhang, and crouched beside one of the squatting children. It was a child only two or three years old. Chen Ping'an extended a hand. Even though he tried his utmost to restrain his fist intent and the spiritual energy of the golden nectar, making the dharma robe as ordinary as possible, the child still trembled even more violently.
Chen Ping'an quickly rolled up both his sleeves, almost to his shoulders, and gently patted the child's head.
He couldn't speak.
In the myriad sufferings of the world, even if it was unavoidable karmic retribution from a past life, shouldn't it at least wait until a child was a little older, a little more understanding?
Chen Ping'an felt this was wrong, this was not good.
Because he could empathize the most.
He withdrew his hand, wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, turned to look at Lu Tai, and asked, "Is there a way?"
Lu Tai walked over slowly, no longer possessing her earlier carefree demeanor. She nodded. "Don't you know the Yang Qi Lamp-Lighting Talisman? If you draw it in reverse, it becomes a Yin Qi Guiding Talisman. Then I'll draw a Netherworld Ferry Talisman, and we can help these little ones cross over. The talisman you draw is to convince these yin creatures, who have yet to open their spiritual wisdom, to rely on instinct and stand up to walk. Mine is to open a door for them, so they have a path forward, not a dead end."
Chen Ping'an silently called Fifteen.
It sped back from the alley entrance.
Chen Ping'an took out a yellow talisman paper and his Little Snow Cone brush. He sat cross-legged, holding the brush in one hand and the paper in the palm of the other. Under Lu Tai's guidance, he attempted to draw the reverse Yang Qi Lamp-Lighting Talisman for the first time. Because his mind was unsettled, he failed. Lu Tai said nothing. Chen Ping'an took a deep breath and brought out another paper, but again he fell short at the final step. This was extremely rare for Chen Ping'an since he had started practicing boxing.
Chen Ping'an himself felt a little dazed.
Lu Tai sighed.
Because a fragment of Chen Ping'an's state of mind was wavering.
Lu Tai then took out her bamboo fan and gently fanned it, not looking at Chen Ping'an. She smiled and said, "Don't put yourself in everyone's shoes for every matter. Learn to stand outside the situation."
"No rush to draw the talisman. After suffering for so many years, those little ones shouldn't mind waiting a bit longer."
Lu Tai fanned a gentle breeze, helping to conceal the invisible yang energy seeping down from the black clouds above, now that the alley's yin wind and clouds had cleared. She continued slowly, "After we deal with things here, I'll go directly to the bamboo building to find the fort lord's wife. Chen Ping'an, you don't need to come with me. I need you to scatter those black clouds and take care of some lurking yin creatures—they might not have low cultivation. Don't worry about me."
Chen Ping'an grunted in acknowledgment.
Lu Tai looked up at the sky. "The truth is roughly clear. For the past few decades in Feiying Fort, the yin has flourished while the yang has waned. Someone has been orchestrating this deliberately, all to make the fort lord's wife—born with an extreme yin constitution—conceive a ghost baby rarely seen in a century. This ghost baby is born from a woman's heart orifice, taking several years to gestate, feeding on her qi and blood, not the usual ten-month pregnancy in a woman's womb. As the saying goes, 'harboring a ghost in the heart' refers to this situation. The fort lord's wife is not a cultivator, so her vitality was insufficient. All the peculiarities in Feiying Fort were to maintain her life, until the ghost baby breaks out of her heart, at which point she dies completely. And because the evil created is so deep, after death, her soul likely won't find peace. Alive, she endures a fate worse than death; dead, she suffers a death worse than life. Truly tragic."
Chen Ping'an frowned deeply.
Lu Tai continued slowly, "According to several Daoist classics in my family's library, such a filthy thing, once born, possesses sixth-tier cultivation. It's quite troublesome—coalescing and dispersing unpredictably. Unless killed in one blow, it's hard to destroy. It loves devouring the internal organs of living people. If left unconstrained, within a hundred years, after wreaking havoc on a few cities and devouring over a hundred thousand people, it can smoothly advance to the Nascent Soul stage. A ghost baby is already extremely hard to capture and kill. For a ghost baby at the Earth Immortal level, it would take at least three Earth Immortals joining forces to even hope of exterminating it. A solo Nascent Soul cultivator going after it would be nothing more than delivering himself as bait."
Lu Tai sneered, "Such methods may not be much in Central Continent, but here in Tongye Continent, it's quite a scale."
She said no more and just fanned her bamboo fan, a gentle breeze brushing her face.
Chen Ping'an was silent for a moment, then said softly, "I can draw the talisman now."
Lu Tai glanced at him and smiled.
This time, he succeeded! Chen Ping'an wiped the sweat from his forehead and was about to put away the Yin Qi Guiding Talisman. Lu Tai looked bewildered. "What are you doing?"
Chen Ping'an replied, "The talisman paper isn't high quality; I was just practicing..."
Lu Tai snatched the talisman from him and said with exasperation, "You're so silly sometimes. For a bunch of little ones, this talisman is more than enough. A better one might even attract their greed, making them choose to remain as wandering ghosts in the cracks between yin and yang. That would make things worse."
Chen Ping'an nodded. He first handed the Little Snow Cone to Lu Tai, then asked before taking out more talisman paper, "Your Netherworld Ferry Talisman has to break through the boundary between yin and yang. It's very different from my simple guiding talisman. So, the better the material, the more effective?"
Lu Tai seemed about to speak, but held back.
Chen Ping'an understood the answer and directly took out a golden talisman paper.
Lu Tai didn't take it. "Is it worth it?"
Chen Ping'an nodded.
Lu Tai shook her head. "I think it's not worth it."
Chen Ping'an turned to look at the two rows of children at the base of the wall, then turned back to Lu Tai and grinned, his gaze resolute. "Just use this paper, but make sure you don't make a mistake."
Lu Tai sighed. She closed her eyes for a moment, then with solemn concentration, she opened her eyes, gripped the Little Snow Cone, and began drawing the Ferry Talisman on the golden paper. This was a unique talisman of the Yin-Yang Lu Clan from Central Continent. Its pattern depicted a lone boat with an old man punting a pole, flanked by two strings of ancient seal script.
Chen Ping'an trusted Lu Tai's talisman drawing. He turned to look at the children.
Once, someone in the Yang Family Shop had heard the words "not worth it."
Chen Ping'an looked at those children—like seeing dozens of himself, waiting for an answer.
A moment later, Lu Tai laughed. "Done!"
Lu Tai returned the Little Snow Cone. They both stood up. Chen Ping'an picked up the Yin Qi Guiding Talisman and infused it with a strand of pure true qi. The talisman shimmered with spiritual light, soft and gentle. Completely different from the Yang Qi Lamp-Lighting Talisman, once the guiding talisman activated, the children at the wall base lifted their heads dazedly, staring yearningly and happily at the talisman in Chen Ping'an's hand.
Lu Tai tossed the golden Netherworld Ferry Talisman toward the bone wall at the end of the alley. The talisman stuck to the wall. A golden line appeared around each of its four edges. The central area of the talisman paper began to dissolve, and the golden lines expanded outward, eventually forming a golden door frame.
Lu Tai told Chen Ping'an to walk toward the door, holding the guiding talisman, and to go slowly.
The children yin creatures stood up one after another, following Chen Ping'an, who guided them forward, toward the end of the alley.
Lu Tai sat on the steps of the courtyard entrance, resting her chin on one hand, watching Chen Ping'an's back.
Following Lu Tai's instructions, Chen Ping'an gently placed the Yin Qi Guiding Talisman inside the door—as if setting it on the threshold. The talisman hovered, motionless.
Dozens of children yin creatures walked through one by one. Some hopped and skipped, some wobbled, and some older ones held the hands of younger ones.
As they gradually entered the door, suddenly all their little heads crowded behind the threshold. They looked at the white-robed youth standing outside the door and smiled.
Though they were yin creatures, their smiling faces at that moment were purely innocent and radiant.
Lu Tai couldn't see Chen Ping'an's expression.
She, dressed in a male green scholar's robe, was actually born a woman, her real name "Lu Tai," with "Tai" meaning "raised high," as if in silent defiance of the ancestor named "Lu Chen."
She only saw Chen Ping'an waving goodbye to those children.