Chapter 303: Much Injustice in the Mortal World
According to the immortal book *Record of Mountains and Seas*, Tongye Prefecture is indeed full of mountain gods, demons, and spirits.
Even though Chen Ping'an often deliberately detoured around those places with abundant spiritual energy or those filthy and treacherous areas that looked terrifying, he sometimes still fell into traps. For example, one night, Chen Ping'an saw a small town with brilliant lights in the distance. He had no map with him and thought he needed to replenish supplies, so he followed the lights all the way there. Geomantic maps have always been forbidden items in dynastic kingdoms, regulated even more strictly than weapons.
That small town had no night curfew, but there were city gate soldiers checking travel documents. When Chen Ping'an entered the city smoothly and found an inn that was still open, the innkeeper shook his head and waved his hand, saying that the silver coins Chen Ping'an offered were not accepted here. Each country has its own standard copper coins—that's normal—but refusing even genuine gold and silver was a bit strange. Fortunately, the innkeeper pointed the way, saying there was a place where gold and silver could be converted into local currency, and he could come back to the inn after exchanging.
So Chen Ping'an found a shop with a very high counter, almost one and a half times a man's height. Chen Ping'an, following local customs, stood on a small stool and said he wanted to exchange money. He handed over a few silver ingots and received a pile of copper cash coins and a stack of paper notes. The copper coins were heavy and full-bodied. On the paper notes, Chen Ping'an saw official government and bank vermilion seals, so he didn't think much of it. He returned to the inn, paid the money, and showed his travel documents. The innkeeper meticulously recorded everything for future inspection by the household office clerks of the local yamen.
The next day, when Chen Ping'an was about to go out, the innkeeper was still clicking away on his abacus. Smiling, he reminded Chen Ping'an of a local custom: when chatting with people, one must never say the word "paper." For example, phrases like "paper talk on military strategy" or "a mere scrap of paper" are absolutely forbidden. Otherwise, if he got beaten out of town, don't say he hadn't warned him.
Chen Ping'an kept this in mind, thanked him, and went to buy rice, oil, salt, and two sets of clothes. When he returned to the inn to eat, he found the food tasteless and bland. Later, he left the town and walked dozens of miles. When he could vaguely see the outline of the city, he encountered a sudden heavy rain. Chen Ping'an took shelter in a dilapidated pavilion on a mountain. With nothing to do, he slowly practiced his standing post exercises. Then he saw a shocking sight: the city at the foot of the mountain seemed to melt like mud in the heavy rain.
Chen Ping'an quickly pulled out the items he had bought in the small town, along with the copper coins and paper notes. His scalp immediately tingled.
They were all cut from white paper, just like the things the living burn for the dead in the underworld.
As if amused by Chen Ping'an's predicament, someone inside the pavilion wall chuckled, the voice penetrating the wall and echoing within the pavilion.
Chen Ping'an had only been surprised by the absurdity of the small town, not truly afraid of these spirits and monsters. So when someone played tricks in the mountain pavilion, Chen Ping'an quickly recovered. He just sat on a long bench made of ancient wood from the deep mountains, facing the opposite stark white wall, silently drinking his wine.
Unless he was extremely unlucky and had encountered a cunning mountain lake great demon or a colossal evil lord, otherwise it was probably just a creature of shallow cultivation. Scaring ordinary mortals was easy for that thing, but it would also be easy for Chen Ping'an to swat it dead with one slap.
The creature, still unaware that it had run into an iron wall, tried to be mysterious, its voice feigning even more gloom: "Aren't you afraid of me?"
Chen Ping'an tucked his Sword-Nurturing Gourd at his waist, stood up, and slowly walked toward the wall. With a slap, he directly pasted a Pagoda Subduing Demon Talisman on it. Immediately, a pleading voice with a hint of childishness rang out from inside, on the verge of tears. Chen Ping'an didn't remove the yellow talisman paper. Smiling, he asked, "Do you think I'm afraid?"
The creature shouted, "Afraid, afraid! I'm so scared I'm about to come back to life!"
"Come out. If you keep hiding, I'll really have to get rough with you. Tell me, what's the story with that small town?"
Chen Ping'an took down the Subduing Demon Talisman, put it into his sleeve, and sat back in his original spot.
A young boy with lingering fear emerged from the wall. On the front and back of his clothes were embroidered official patches, but unlike the colorful ones of secular courts, they were only in black and white. He cowered by the wall, looking at the immortal master sitting opposite. Not only did he bow, but he also made a strange salutation and announced his identity. He turned out to be a local earth god appointed by a previous dynasty. After the change of emperor and imperial surname, he was automatically classed as a former official, stripped of his official position, and his already meager cultivation became even weaker.
In life, he was the beloved youngest son of a powerful regional official. After his death, before the seventh day, a wandering immortal passed by, entered the funeral hall, and helped his father arrange things. Thus, he became a low-ranking earth god without rank, enjoying considerable incense offerings, mainly to bless his family's ancestral grave feng shui. Later, the land changed hands, and everything turned to dust.
Looking back, the matter wasn't serious; it was rather amusing. Chen Ping'an asked this earth god, now without official imperial recognition, more about the origin of the paper-people town. It turned out that over ten thousand townspeople had died overnight in a massive disaster that seemed like a natural calamity. To prevent public panic, the court ordered surrounding prefectures to seal off the news and invited eminent Buddhist monks to perform a ceremony, preventing it from becoming a dangerous yin-sha-laden land.
Chen Ping'an asked what would happen to the town after the heavy rain. The boy smiled and said it was fine; as long as the weather was sunny for a few days, it would return to normal.
Chen Ping'an then squatted on the ground, facing the town, and burned those paper money and paper clothes inside the pavilion.
The boy squatted beside him and sighed, "This immortal master, I didn't expect you to be such a kind person."
Chen Ping'an laughed it off.
He also asked the boy about the landscape within a thousand li radius—whether there were any immortal sects or ferry crossings. The boy answered everything without hiding anything.
He said that about eight hundred li to the north, there were indeed demons causing trouble, occupying a mountain and declaring themselves kings. They didn't often engage in the business of kidnapping woodcutters or mountain folk. The mountain and its surroundings were relatively peaceful, and there were few reports of commoners suffering. At their peak, many traveling cultivators had to take detours. However, later they suffered some upheaval and became quiet. It was said there were only a few scattered cats and dogs left, not worth mentioning. The truth was hard to tell; rumors outside were varied. Some said it was because immortal masters from the Planchette Sect found them an eyesore, others said it was because a Buddhist practitioner settled there, and some demon offended him, provoking the Vajra's wrath of a Buddhist master, leading to this calamity.
Chen Ping'an was slightly surprised. Back in the Dali Kingdom, the mountain path where the bride ghost appeared still haunted him.
There were some dead branches in the pavilion. With the boy's help, they gathered them together and lit a fire starter. Man and spirit squatted by the campfire.
Although the boy's face looked childish, he had actually lived for five hundred years. So he explained the reason to Chen Ping'an: "The reason the demons on that mountain didn't eat grass near their own den is that, aside from the mountain king's relatively gentle temper, there were also many violent subordinates under him. They certainly had no Bodhisattva's heart. But when you carve out a territory, the worst thing is to have a bad reputation that makes people pale just hearing it. Word spreads from ten to a hundred to a thousand. What if it attracts idle immortal disciples looking for fame by slaying demons and devils? What then?"
Chen Ping'an nodded.
The boy held his two palms close to the fire and chuckled, "Kill or not kill? Kill the small one, and a big one comes. Kill the big one, and an old one comes. Even if you're capable of killing two when one comes, or killing all three, you'd have killed them all. But if it gets too big, the local government reports to the court. The emperor feels his face is lost, so he begs the immortal masters to come out."
The boy said helplessly, "Most annoying."
Chen Ping'an smiled. "If it weren't so, the world would have already turned into a mess. How would the common people at the foot of the mountain survive? Take that town—over ten thousand people died. What would their relatives and friends elsewhere think? All of them gone overnight. The living would be terrified too."
The boy was stunned, as if he had never considered this question.
After that, the boy told some interesting local stories, mostly hearsay he had picked up. After all, over several hundred years, he had to find some amusement to pass the time.
When the heavy rain stopped, Chen Ping'an bid farewell to this minor earth god and continued his journey.
Only the boy was left standing outside the pavilion, muttering to himself.
During his travels, Chen Ping'an also passed by an ancient tomb. A group of impoverished scholars on their way to the capital for imperial examinations stood before a large grave, showing expressions of self-pity and admiration.
Then he saw two white foxes dart out from among the graves, imitating humans by making bows.
There were also a few younger foxes lying on top of the graves, tittering. Their eyes showed some intelligence, full of longing and shyness, not at all like vicious demons, but more like greedy children.
Those scholars returned the bows.
Chen Ping'an found it amusing. He knew it must be fox demons playing tricks to seduce people. But Chen Ping'an wasn't too worried. In the mortal world, fox demons, no matter which continent, rarely commit violent acts. Since ancient times, they have been naturally close to humans. It was mostly to break through the love tribulation and increase their realm and cultivation.
So Chen Ping'an didn't expose them on the spot, letting those scholars believe that the grand mansion in front of them was real, when it was actually just a tomb.
Chen Ping'an only quietly stayed by the tomb.
Sure enough, the next day, those scholars left the grand mansion safely, overjoyed, feeling that they had a wonderful romantic encounter worth a lifetime.
Chen Ping'an smiled and left.
Three hundred li later, Chen Ping'an arrived at a small country called Northern Jin. When passing by a city, it happened to be market day. Chen Ping'an actually bought two sticks of sugar-coated hawthorn berries. Earlier, he had heard that the Ruqu Temple in Northern Jin was very famous. There was a large stone, said to be one of the enlightenment sites of a Bodhisattva, called the Stone Lotus Platform. It was five zhang square and could hold several hundred people. Yet one person could make it shake, and no one could explain the principle. When the Northern Jin emperor made a western tour, he personally tried it, was greatly delighted, and the Ruqu Temple became famous.
But when Chen Ping'an asked several people, they all said they didn't know any Ruqu Temple. Only then did Chen Ping'an remember that the boy had mentioned this event as happening about two hundred years ago. Two hundred years in the human world is enough to change many customs.
Chen Ping'an hesitated for a moment, then persistently kept asking until he got the location of the Ruqu Temple ruins. He went there and found it overgrown with weeds, with neither human aura nor demonic aura. It was heavy with twilight. In the sunset, Chen Ping'an found a huge stone but couldn't see anything special about it.
Chen Ping'an finished the last candied hawthorn, threw away the stick, and turned to leave.
After Chen Ping'an walked out of the broken gate of the Ruqu Temple, a little figure peeked out from the top of the huge stone, emerging from within.
It sat on the stone, silent.
It turned out that the reason the lotus platform could shake was that a "little lotus person" had been born from the earth and stone essence. It liked to hide and giggle secretly. Every time someone tried to shake the huge stone, it would eagerly sway left and right, and the stone would move with it, causing misunderstanding.
But one day, it felt a bit bored. The shaking of the Stone Lotus Platform began to "work sometimes, not at other times," and finally stopped completely, "immovable as a mountain." It had left the Stone Lotus Platform, wanting to go far away to find companions. Year after year alone, it felt lonely.
In the end, it found two partners in succession: a snake spirit and a river deer spirit. With an innocent heart, the little lotus person was tricked by them into giving away one small arm formed from "cloud root and earth essence" and one petal of a Chenghuang lotus leaf. But it persisted in seeking companions. Finally, it found a flower spirit who didn't ask it for anything. It brought her back to the Stone Lotus Platform, and they played together, tricking the tourists together. But one day, when it woke up from sleep, it found that the spiritual energy of the Stone Lotus Platform was all gone, not a bit left. The flower spirit was also gone.
The spiritually dead Stone Lotus Platform was once again ignored, eventually completely forgotten. Only a one-armed little spirit often sat on the edge of the stone platform, humming folk songs, gently swinging its feet.
Sometimes it felt a bit sad, because it didn't know how those three companions were doing now.
If they weren't doing well, why wouldn't they come to see it? It would comfort them.
If they were doing well, why still wouldn't they come to see it? It would be happy for them.
It couldn't figure it out.
The little creature suddenly turned its head and found that the outsider in white robes was sitting on the other side of the stone, drinking wine toward the sunset.
When it noticed its gaze, he smiled at it.
Startled, the little creature jumped up and plunged its body directly into the huge stone.
Chen Ping'an laughed heartily, jumped off the stone, and truly left the Ruqu Temple, no longer teasing that little spirit.
The little creature hid inside the stone for a long time before it dared to sneak out. It looked around, confirmed that the person was gone, and then came to the place where he had been sitting. It suddenly opened its eyes wide and found a coin glowing with spiritual energy.
Spirits in the mortal world mostly love mountain immortal money and feed on it.
Setting down a Snow Flower Coin was just a casual gesture for Chen Ping'an.
But after Chen Ping'an left the city and walked off the official road, just as he entered the mountains, he found a tearful little thing standing in front of him on the path, holding the Snow Flower Coin in both hands, looking at Chen Ping'an. The little thing seemed both anxious and happy.
Chen Ping'an slowly walked over. The little creature was timid by nature and instantly vanished from the road. This happened several times. The little creature followed Chen Ping'an for nearly a hundred li of mountain road.
Chen Ping'an didn't actively approach it; he let it follow him from a distance.
The big one and the small one traveled together.
When they reached the deep mountain forest the boy had mentioned, the terrain was indeed steep. Just as Chen Ping'an was about to leave the mountain range's boundary, he encountered what seemed like a mad little demon. It was dressed in rags, staggering along, repeating a heartbroken phrase: "With such a heart, how can one become a Buddha? How can one become a Buddha..."
This so frightened the little creature that it forgot everything, ran over, and hid at Chen Ping'an's feet.
After that, the little creature completely lost its wariness. It either bounced around beside Chen Ping'an or perched on his shoulder.
Later, Chen Ping'an brought this new, speechless companion through a war-torn country. The land was devastated, forcing a group of heroes to become outlaws, occupy a mountain, and raise a banner.
Everywhere Chen Ping'an went, he heard the heroic deeds of these thirty-six gallant men—how they were full of spirit, how their martial arts were superb, each described as strong enough to move mountains. Chen Ping'an certainly didn't believe it all, but he thought that if he had a chance, he would go to that mountain and take a look, meet the heroes. Even if they might not be willing to drink with him at the same table, just to get a whiff of their chivalry from afar would be good.
So Chen Ping'an went there out of admiration, only to find a black inn selling human meat buns. When Chen Ping'an saw that several traveling merchants traveling with him had fainted, he also pretended to be unconscious. He was tied up and carried to the back of the shop, thrown onto a long butcher's block. Then a shop assistant walked toward them, carrying a boning knife and yawning.
In a nearby prefectural city, an executioner was about to behead a major bandit when dozens of people stormed the execution ground. Among them, a big man wielding twin axes hacked his way through, laughing wildly. He chopped down both onlookers and soldiers alike with his axes, cutting them in half.
A short, dark-skinned man scolded him, and he reluctantly stopped, looking dejected and losing all his murderous aura.
That dark-skinned man looked at the big man, waved for him to leave, then glanced around. His face was full of exhaustion but even more of relief and satisfaction.
He had just harshly reprimanded the twin-axe man, speaking sternly, but now as he looked at the back of his trusted lieutenant, the corners of his eyes held a smile.
This group successfully rescued the man from the execution ground. They had prepared horses nearby, galloped away at full speed, and quickly left the chaotic prefectural city.
The soldiers dared not leave the city to pursue.
When the group dismounted, flushed with triumph, laughing as they entered their own shop one by one, they found that the familiar husband and wife were no longer there. Instead, there was a white-robed youth. On the wine table before him lay a long sword.
The sword aura was chilling.
Within the time it takes to burn an incense stick, Chen Ping'an left the shop.
Inside the shop behind him, some were dead, some alive. All were considered heroes in the eyes of the world, and indeed, almost everyone died without hesitation, still full of heroic spirit even at the verge of death.
As for those who survived, most remained silent from beginning to end, or voluntarily backed off after sustaining a minor injury. They neither boasted nor showed much desire for revenge in their eyes. Instead, there was a kind of bewilderment, as if saying, "Since life is like this, it can only be like this."
Chen Ping'an didn't care about any of that.
Leaving the shop, he saw a group of fine horses tied by the roadside. After thinking for a moment, Chen Ping'an led one tall horse from the roadside, mounted it, and found that riding came naturally to him—he was quite skilled.
At first, he rode leisurely. Then he galloped freely through the martial world.