These last few years, whenever Shi Wuduan wasn’t fleeing from disaster, he was plotting rebellion. He lived with his head hanging on his waist belt. The first time he’d actually went to a rouge and powder painted paradise, he’d started choking on all the rouge and powder the moment he stepped in, turning into a little sneeze bug. He’d smugly thought that, since he was grown up already, he knew all about adult stuff. In truth, he didn’t know jack shit, so he froze up instantly.
After who knew how long, his brain finally caught up, Little Li-zi is…. kissing my mouth?
Then what should I do? He asked himself. Then his brain, which had suddenly rusted over, creaked and groaned as it chugged along for an age and a half before coming to a conclusion — I don’t know!
He remained stunned up until the moment Bai Li pulled away, but not before he lightly, suggestively bit his lip.
“Do you understand?” Bai Li’s eyes narrowed, his gaze falling onto Shi Wuduan’s reddened lips.
Shi Wuduan shook his still muddled head. He still felt awkward as ever and couldn’t resist wiping off his lips. He hopped off the branch straight away and said, “This….this…..”
“What?”
Shi Wuduan found himself at a loss for words. Ever since that night when he’d overheard Bai Li’s conversation with that mysterious man and guessed that perhaps Yan Zhen had been the one to open the Hall of Demons, he’d been determined to keep Bai Li by his side.
He almost couldn’t imagine what kind of circumstances would force him to become enemies with Bai Li. But… what else could he do? Recently, even though he’d been busy wrangling all those wily guests, he’d found time to travel all over Haining Commandery with Bai Li as he subtly reminded him how terrible everything had been before they’d taken over; he didn’t even hide his conversations with the military commander of Great Qian from Bai Li.
— Look! This is the reason we’ve chosen this path, the reason why we picked up hoes and smashed open the doors to the government offices, the reason why we rose in rebellion; I’ll make you see that I’m right.
He tried to change Bai Li little by little through gradual osmosis and indirect suggestions. Sometimes, he’d even shamelessly stick to him — I’ve been friends with you for so long, are you really going to turn into my adversary?
Shi Wuduan knew that right then, all he had to do was nod. Just one little nod and Bai Li could remain. Xia Duanfang said there were innumerable demons concealed within his shadow, then that meant his status was obvious as day. Bai Li’s attitude alone could entirely alter the karmic ties between the Hall of Demons and Great Qian…..
But…. it was too unthinkable.
Bai Li sat on the branch; the silver bow slung across his shoulder almost made him seem to glow. He stared unblinkingly at Shi Wuduan. Shi Wuduan’s gaze suddenly darkened, knowing that no matter what, he couldn’t rashly promise anything on the matter. Thus he sighed, looked down, then up again. He avoided the matter entirely and said, “Come down, Little Li-zi. Let’s head back first.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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He vaguely revealed a hint of desperate dependence.
Shi Wuduan came to a stop, but he didn’t say anything.
Only a long while after they’d left, when the sky was already turning pale, did a shadow emerge from behind the old tree — it was the man who’d been talking to Bai Li that night.
He’d donned a green robe over his thin, scraggly figure; his features were sharp as if they’d been shaped with a knife. A cloth-like shadow slowly floated up from behind him, making gurgling sounds. The man looked in the direction that Shi Wuduan and Bai Li had left in, sighed, and said to the “cloth,” “When I helped Lord Yan open the hall of demons, I hadn’t known the new Demon Lord was this young.”
Cloth, “Gurgle gurgle.”
The man frowned, “I thought that last time, he’d accepted the truth of my words. Who could’ve thought that even a year later, he would still be so obsessed? How could anyone who hopes to achieve greatness be hindered by that minuscule bit of nebulous affection?”
The cloth drifted higher, as if it was a flag being raised into the wind, and said “Gurgle.”
The man sighed again, “If I can’t make the Demon Lord doesn’t return this time, I’m afraid I’ll have trouble explaining it to Lord Yan.”
The cloth person looked down at him from above, which it found rather difficult — seeing as it didn’t have a neck.
The light of the morning rays flickered in his eyes — these rolling mountains, stretching for thousands of leagues, the glory of the empire, all of it would crumble under the wave of unrelenting war. Everyone knew that nothing could last forever, that rise and fall were only natural, yet when they were the ones standing at the edge of such an era, none of them were willing to admit it.
Whether one spent decades laboriously poring over classic texts or honing martial skills through freezing snow and scorching sun, in the end, wasn’t it all for the sake of realizing their aspirations and living up to all their learnings? Which young man didn’t dream of saving their country from the brink of destruction? Which scholar taking the imperial exams didn’t want to enter rise through the ranks, becoming chancellor or minister? The teachings passed down by ancient sages throughout the ages were all in the vein of “cultivate one’s character, regulate one’s family, and rule the state.” Sometimes the sages were right, and sometimes they were bullshitting. No one wanted to admit that they’d been the unfortunate fool who’d fallen for the bullshit.
Once, order had been maintained by the secret accord between the three great sects. Once, order had been maintained through benevolence, justice, etiquette, wisdom, trust, kindness, and magnanimity. But when the end was nigh, the proud, exalted imperial court had allied with demon creatures that’d crawled up through the cracks from the eighteenth layer of hell.
The cloth person spiraled down like a leaf before landing in front of the man. The man looked up at it, pondered for a moment, and suddenly said, “I heard you killed a person here for your master?”
The cloth person gurgled urgently, anyone who’d heard it would think it sounded like a tea kettle boiling over. Yet the man was uniquely gifted, for after tilting his head and listening carefully, he managed to discern all sorts of meaning in those burbling sounds. He gestured to it to quiet down and said, “I know about that. Your master interfered. Gave that Shi fellow a freebie, I’m afraid.”
The man squinted, “I’ve been covertly scouting around Haining these past few days. Shi… Wuduan, that young man is more than what he seems. Which means he can’t be allowed to live.”
The cloth gurgled, seeming hesitant. It reached out a pitch-black claw, barely even visible, and grabbed a corner of the man’s robes. The man looked back at it, asking, “What, hesitating again? Afraid your master’s going to blame you?”
This time, the cloth person didn’t boil water; it simply kept holding onto the man’s robes. The man shook his head, “He’ll come around.”
Then he shook off the small black claw and strode down the mountain, muttering to himself, “What is it these days, that the hearts of men aren’t even as pure as that of creatures driven by base instinct? Ai!”
And as if proving his own words true, in the same moment that he sighed and lamented, he plotted death and schemed destruction.
In Haining, before the merry atmosphere from General Gu’s wedding had yet to fade, before the bashful bride had learned how to talk to and get along with her husband’s band of rowdy friends, something happened — a strange plague began to spread throughout the city.
At first, it was only the old, young, or crippled who sickened and died. The number of funerals in the city increased, but no one had really paid it any mind; after all, it was that time of year when it was freezing cold one day and uncomfortably warm the next, it was always hard on those whose constitution was poor. But then, forsaken corpses began to appear more frequently on the streets. At first glance, they seemed to have frozen to death. But the snow had already melted, it was nearing summer, and Haining was near the southern sea, so it really didn’t count as cold.
A coroner got suspicious and performed an autopsy. They found that the corpse’s innards and bones had all turned black.
Before they’d had time to figure out whether it was a strange sickness or some kind of poisoning, just after they’d reported it up the chain, the coroner started feeling off. He weakened at alarming speed; walking a few steps was enough to make him pant, standing up slightly too quickly was enough to make him nauseous.
The coroner was only thirty-something years old; he was supposed to be in the prime of his life. He was supposed to be in good fitness, because he often went and worked the fields that his family owned. Yet in no more than three days, he’d nearly completely withered away. Two more days later, and he was found in his home, cocooned in cotton blankets. There were numerous braziers burning in his room. When the door was opened, heat rushed out from the room like it was a hot oven. His corpse should’ve started rotting already, yet he looked like he’d frozen to death.
Xia Duanfang stood outside, watching through the window — at first, he’d constantly been at odds with Shi Wuduan, but later, somehow, witnesses had seen Xia Duanfang squatting in the courtyard, wailing like he’d lost his mother. He’d cried to Shi Wuduan for nearly a whole night, and suddenly, their surveillance commissioner started putting his heart and soul into his work, as if he planned to keep mucking about with the Redscarf Army.
Xia Duanfang suddenly reached out his hand and contorted it into a strange position. A spell materialized above his palm. He stuck the spell onto the wall, letting everyone see the black qi that enveloped the house, almost forming a shell-like shape. When the spell came into contact with the “shell,” it burst into black flames and was burned away nearly instantly.
“How is it?” asked Shi Wuduan, who was following behind Xia Duanfang.
Xia Duanfang hesitated before answering, “I’m afraid he… died of unnatural causes.”
Shi Wuduan responded expressionlessly, “Choking to death on your food also counts as dying of unnatural causes.”
Unexpectedly, Xia Duanfang didn’t respond to the jest. He stroked his beard as he frowned and thought the matter through. There was a seldom-seen seriousness in his face. A while later, he said to someone nearby, “Go get my biggest disciple over here. Tell him to bring my ‘Eighteen Brocade Flags’ over so we can use it together.”
Shortly after, Xia Duanfang’s oldest disciple, Xia Xiaoyi, ran over with a pile of brocade flags in his arms, wobbling like a stick of bamboo. He shouted, “Shifu!”
Xia Duanfang instructed Xia Xiaoyi to stick the eighteen flags at various locations, then lit eighteen candles within the array. Shi Wuduan and the others retreated outside the boundary of the array to give them space. Suddenly, the winds roared. Xia Xiaoyi yelled “holy shit,” then dumped his master in the array and hid behind Shi Wuduan like a little good-for-nothing.
Then, black qi surged out of the corpse towards the eighteen candles, extinguishing them simultaneously. The black qi congealed in midair into the shape of a skeleton; it was ominously sinister. Then it abruptly shot upwards into the sky.
“It ran,” Xia Duanfang said.
“I saw.” Shi Wuduan craned his neck, “Old Xia, what is that? Who’s causing chaos in Haining?”
Xia Duanfang hesitated, then suddenly dismissed everyone else, including his oldest disciple, before he said to Shi Wuduan, “I have something to ask you, alone.”
“En,” Shi Wuduan noncommittally answered.
“After all this time, are you clear about what Bai Li is?”
Shi Wuduan startled, turned to look at him and asked, “What? You think this has something to do with him?”
Xia Duanfang’s expression darkened and he spat, “Most likely.”
Oh no. What exactly is little Bai ? 😳🥺