Chapter 31 – So He Won’t Be Lost
“Elder Chou, why do you suddenly bring this up?”
Zhou Ziyan smiled and flicked his sleeve, brushing off some powdered sugar that some mischievous child had gotten on him.
“To gaze up at the heavens, so vast and boundless.” Chou Bodeng’s fingers tapped against the wooden waterside corridor, keeping a slow, deep rhythm with the gentle rise and fall of the water. As he recited in a long, drawn-out voice, the misty, glowing vapor from the lake’s surface swirled and unfurled, as if it were the vast, dark cosmos itself. “How confident are you in a Heaven-Worshipping Ritual that can expel the miasma fog from a five-hundred-kilometer radius around Ru City?”
Elder Tao could only help Zhou Ziyan activate the formation; the one responsible for the prayers and sacrifices could only be Zhou Ziyan himself.
Because he was the City Diviner of Ru City.
Only he could represent the entire city in praying to the azure heavens above and questioning the yellow earth below. Only he could gather the thoughts of the entire city to plead with the cosmos to grant them grace, disperse the fog, and reveal the green mountains. The moment the ritual began, the jumbled thoughts and feelings of the entire city’s populace and the Divine Ru would surge into Zhou Ziyan like a torrent. His will had to be as vast as the sea, capable of accepting ten thousand rivers flowing east, or else the ritual would fail, and he would be left a simpleton.
“Whether I, the sacrificer, am worthy, will the Emperor descend? Or will he not? Whether I am unworthy, will the Emperor descend? Or will he not?” Releasing his grip on his sleeve, Zhou Ziyan gazed at the Ru fish eggs floating with the waves in the lake, looking somewhat ill at ease. “Whether he descends or not is for the heavens to decide, but whether I sacrifice or not is for me to decide… It’s a very naive thought, and my teacher often scolded me for it. But, in the beginning, I didn’t actually like this place. I even found it quite detestable.”
Chou Bodeng finally turned his head to glance at him.
“You can’t tell, can you?” Zhou Ziyan said, embarrassed.
Indeed, he couldn’t.
A man who was a professional child-rearer, who could remember over a hundred million Ru fish with perfect clarity, seemed to have “I was born to be one with this city” written all over him. It was hard to imagine a time when he found the city detestable.
“Forgive my impertinence, Elder Chou, but what kind of city do you think Ru City is?”
Chou Bodeng thought for a moment. “Ru City is very beautiful.”
Zhou Ziyan smiled again, not particularly surprised by the answer. He looked up at the gray, overcast sky, the endless fine rain falling into the depths of his eyes. “Many who visit Ru City once or twice think so. They come for a short time and leave just as quickly, and they find it beautiful.”
“Are you trying to say it has an ugly side?” Chou Bodeng asked.
“No,” Zhou Ziyan said softly. “I’m trying to say that most people don’t know where the beauty of Ru City comes from. Someone once told me that the most vibrant red is the color of life.”
The color of life?
Chou Bodeng raised an eyebrow slightly.
Just as Zhou Ziyan was about to say something, a little oracle maiden of eight or nine came running over. “Ziyan, Ziyan, someone is returning to the water again.”
“How many times have I told you? Call me City Diviner. At the very least, you should call me Mister. You little brat.” Zhou Ziyan tapped the little girl’s head, not too lightly and not too heavily.
The little oracle maiden puffed out her cheeks and said crisply, “But everyone calls you Ziyan, Ziyan. Why can they call you that and I can’t?”
“Well said. All people are equal.” Chou Bodeng applauded the sharp-tongued little girl.
The little girl stood on her tiptoes, peeking her head out from behind Zhou Ziyan’s arm, and looked at Chou Bodeng with wide eyes. A child’s eyes were dark and bright, perfectly clean, and they looked at people with great earnestness. She scrutinized Chou Bodeng for a while, then happily clapped her hands as well. “Immortal Brother is beautiful too!”
“Those two ‘beautifuls’ don’t mean the same thing, and you shouldn’t use ‘beautiful’ to describe a man…”
Zhou Ziyan felt something was off.
Chou Bodeng propped up his chin and praised her, “You used it well. This Young Master is indeed uniquely beautiful.”
“Is Young Master Brother a new Oracle Master?” The little girl tilted her round face up at Zhou Ziyan. “Ziyan, Ziyan, can I play with him in the future?”
“You must not be rude to an Immortal Elder.” Zhou Ziyan flicked her on the forehead. “Go to the Circular Altar and prepare everything. I’ll be there shortly.”
“Ziyan, Ziyan, you’re angry again!”
The little oracle maiden was turned around by him and skipped away.
“Is the ‘color of life’ you mentioned this ‘returning to the water’?” Chou Bodeng asked.
“If Elder Chou doesn’t mind, please come along. There are many people in Ru City, but under normal circumstances, we don’t let outsiders witness this scene. As for why…” Zhou Ziyan sighed. “You’ll understand once you’ve seen it.”
***
The city streets were like rivers, the alleys like streams, and where the streams and rivers converged, they formed a lake.
The Circular Altar was about thirty-three meters wide and fifty meters high, encircled by two sets of walls. On each of the four sides of the walls stood a gate tower with four pillars and three doors. The altar was divided into three tiers. The lowest, widest tier was submerged in water, while the highest, solitary tier seemed to reach for the cloudy heavens. At this moment, two Oracle Masters and two Oracle Maidens stood under each of the four gate towers. The lower and middle tiers were ringed with lit lamps, thirty-six in total.
“Oh soul, scattered and lost, where have you gone?
To the four corners you do not return, where have you gone?
Why forsake your homeland? To go is ill-omened!”
On the high platform, Zhou Ziyan paced around a male corpse, his voice sharp and high-pitched as he sang.
Chou Bodeng watched him from a distance, feeling as though the young man who had been so adept at nursing children during the day had suddenly transformed into someone else entirely—solemn and dignified. His voice pierced through the vast water mist, questioning the heavens above and searching the earth below, sternly rebuking the wandering soul from the boundless, ethereal expanse of the land.
“Soul, return!”
The Oracle Masters and Maidens under the four gate towers sang out in unison.
Zhou Ziyan clasped his hands around his saber, plunging the tip into the deceased’s chest. As he circled the platform, the blade sliced downwards, cutting the body open. After death, a person’s blood should gradually darken and coagulate, but at this moment, as Zhou Ziyan’s saber fell, fresh blood gushed out like a spring, its color a deep crimson.
“Soul, return! The thick earth is lost in miasma; here alone can you rest.
Soul, return! The high heavens are boundless; here alone can you rest!
…”
The water mist churned as the desolate Soul-Summoning Song, carrying the homeland’s condemnation and call, passed through the four gate towers. A rosy glow gradually appeared around the Circular Altar, which had previously been illuminated a snowy silver by the light from beneath the water. One by one, Red Ru Fish, having arrived on the mist at some unknown time, gathered and danced around the altar. They responded to the song of the oracles, gently urging the wandering soul, like a mother, a father, a brother, or an old friend, to return home.
Chou Bodeng pressed his temples.
Zhou Ziyan was conducting the “Returning to Water” ritual in the local dialect of Ru City. Chou Bodeng had never studied any city’s language other than the common tongue, so he didn’t understand the specific words. Yet, it was as if he had heard a similar sound thousands upon thousands of times before, so much so that upon hearing a similar melody, he instantly understood the call surging from this unfamiliar language.
Oh, soul of the departed, do not linger long in the darkness. So many people are here, guarding a bright lamp, waiting for your return.
…Boundless miasma, endless, deathly silence. Nowhere on earth was there such darkness.
Who had lit a solitary lamp in that darkness?
Who was calling out again and again in the depths of that deathly silence?
So he wouldn’t be lost, so his soul would be settled and at peace, and so he was moved to the brink of tears.
“Soul, return! They will not leave!”
Zhou Ziyan’s saber carved out the deceased’s heart, as red as life’s final, splendid moment. He placed the vermilion heart at the very center of the square platform and stepped back, sheathing his blade.
“Soul, return! Return to the water!”
Tens of thousands of fiery, iridescent lights rose up, then descended again, like a flower composed of countless lives, blooming magnificently before gloriously closing. In an instant, they submerged the high Circular Altar and the departed.
Return to the water! They will not leave!
Return! Return!
Chou Bodeng took a step back, leaning against a pillar as he watched this seemingly cruel yet incredibly magnificent scene. After the soul-summoning and the dissection, the school of Ru fish submerged the Circular Altar, circling it for a long, long time, as if in welcome, as if in acceptance.
“Do you still think Ru City is beautiful, that the Ru fish are beautiful?”
Someone asked from behind him.
“You used to hate Ru City because of this?” Chou Bodeng asked in return.
Having descended from the Circular Altar, Zhou Ziyan’s sleeves were still stained with the deceased’s blood, which neither coagulated nor cooled. Drop by drop, it fell, dissipating like an illusion of light the moment it left his sleeve. He nodded. “When I was little, the thought of being cut up and fed to fish after I died scared me. I’d be perfectly whole while alive, only to be torn to pieces in death. Just thinking about it would make me cry my eyes out. I was teased about it for years.”
“And later?”
“Later, my parents died. They died a long, long time ago. I watched them being sent to the high platform on the water, crying and kicking. I don’t know where I got the strength, but several people couldn’t hold me back. They were also swallowed by the Divine Ru. My parents were gone. So, I hated all the Ru fish. I felt it was this place, these fish, that had swallowed my parents. It was real hatred, the kind where no one’s persuasion could get through to me.”
Chou Bodeng listened in silence.
As he spoke, a few Red Ru Fish swam to Zhou Ziyan’s side, gently rubbing against his cheek. Zhou Ziyan reached out and gently pressed the round forehead of one of them with his fingertip.
“After my parents died, they tirelessly stayed by my side, day and night. There was always a Red Ru Fish circling me. Sometimes it was this one, sometimes that one, though back then I couldn’t really tell them apart and thought it was always the same few. But I hated them then,” Zhou Ziyan said softly.
Through the misty rain, it was as if he could see that radical, stubborn child again.
“So I deliberately hid in my room, for many days. I knew the Divine Ru were worried about me. If I didn’t eat or drink, they would stay with me. I wanted to keep them from returning to the rain… The Divine Ru can’t stay out of the heavenly rain for long. I was actually trying to make them die. The human heart is a terrifying thing, capable of such cruelty for no reason at all. Every time I think about it now, I just want to go back and strangle that little ingrate.”
A Red Ru Fish slapped him with its tail.
It was like when he was a child and said something wrong, and an adult would pat him on the head, a light, scolding tap.
“Actually, the one who nearly died wasn’t a Red Ru Fish, but me. After my parents died, I barely ate. I thought I had hidden for many days, but in reality, it hadn’t even been a full day before I collapsed. As I fell, I suddenly felt like I was being carried on my father’s back again… but it wasn’t my father. It was the Red Ru, many, many of them.”
They had gathered together and lifted him out of the dim room.
Their scales were cold, but the light from their bodies carried a faint warmth, a familiar warmth that made one want to bawl their eyes out.
It was his father’s broad shoulders, his mother’s gentle hands.
Scattered among countless Ru fish, thousands upon thousands of them, surrounding him like an ocean.
He hugged the largest Ru fish, tears streaming down his face in silence. A few smaller Ru fish swam over, pressing against his cheeks, gently wiping away his tears.
“Later, I sometimes grew to dislike some of the people who came to Ru City. The ones who were just passing through were fine, but some who learned about Ru City’s ‘Returning to Water’ ritual always found it cruel and bloody. They understood nothing. They saw only a fraction of it and then, with self-proclaimed elegance, condemned this place as barbaric and heartless.”
“What do they know?”
Zhou Ziyan pressed the corner of his eye, and a crimson Life Scale appeared.
“It’s not that the Ru fish are greedy for flesh and blood. It’s that the people of the city are unwilling to leave this place.”
“The people of Ru City do not die. Life on land is just a short journey.”
They were all just roaming fish, and in the end, they would all return to the school.