Chapter 33 – Graceful Eyes, Dotted With a Scarlet Scale
“It’s nothing serious.”
“Oh.” Chou Bodeng nodded, then suddenly asked again, “Isn’t this a shamanic arts avatar? Are you lying to me?”
“It is a shamanic arts avatar.” Shi Wuluo’s hand touched Chou Bodeng’s for a moment before pulling away. He picked up the azure porcelain jar containing the scarlet powder and moved to the other side of the table. “I’m not lying.”
“Why didn’t I see you speak the day before yesterday? Were you playing dumb?”
“A Ruomu Spirit Puppet can only have the puppet master’s spiritual sense attached to it through a secret technique,” Shi Wuluo explained, somewhat awkwardly. “Otherwise, it’s just an ordinary shamanic arts avatar.” He placed the azure porcelain jar on the table. “…Dotting the Life Scale requires the spiritual sense to be present in person. You…”
He had wanted to say, If you’re unhappy, I’ll remove the secret art from the spirit puppet in the future.
For some reason, when the words reached his lips, he was reluctant to say them.
“Dotting the Life Scale?” Chou Bodeng pressed his finger into the shallow jar, flicked it, and when he turned his hand over, his fingertip was stained with a bright, translucent red. Fine grains of powder rose like sparkling stars, and soon his fingertip was once again a cool white, with nothing left behind. “Aren’t you the Head of the Ten Shamans? You even know the ways of Ru City?”
“Mm.”
Shi Wuluo responded with a low hum, taking a blackwood brush from his sleeve.
The brush tip was about 3.33 centimeters long, the handle fifteen centimeters. The frosted bristles were neat and strong at the base, and the handle was carved with an ancient seal script, not a language of the Twelve Continents. Shi Wuluo collected some of Ru City’s heavenly rain with the jar’s lid, slightly dampened the brush tip, and then dipped it at an angle into the fingerprint Chou Bodeng had left in the shallow jar. The crimson color quickly climbed the frosted bristles. Once the scarlet powder had dissolved into the brush, its color rich and full, he scraped it against the porcelain rim, leaving a thin vermilion line.
Chou Bodeng watched him do all this without a word, his face expressionless.
It wasn’t until Shi Wuluo raised the brush, his hand pausing in mid-air, that he lifted his head slightly, turning his face to the light.
The moment the brush tip landed on the corner of his eye, it was slightly hot. At first, it felt like a tiny spark landing on his skin, not quite painful, but it quickly seeped into his bones, and then it was like a pool of warm water, dripping down and being smeared away. Chou Bodeng couldn’t see how Shi Wuluo moved the brush or applied the strokes, but being skilled in fine-line painting himself, he could perfectly replicate the movements in his mind just by feeling the brush’s path and the pressure of the strokes, without needing to see it.
The brush fell like the first burst of sunset clouds, splashing a star of thick blood, which was then immediately smeared away, fading like a cicada’s wing, growing more distant and faint, until finally the brush was dry and the mark was a series of fine lines.
“Done.”
Shi Wuluo’s wrist was steady as he finished the last line of the scale pattern. He finally felt a bit more at ease, letting out an imperceptible sigh of relief. Just as he was lifting the brush to pull his hand away, his already faint form suddenly grew even more transparent. His pale, illusory hand trembled, and the brush he had been holding steady shook.
The remaining powder in the bristles flew out, spattering just below the corner of Chou Bodeng’s eye.
Unintentionally, it looked as if he had dotted a vermilion tear.
Shi Wuluo froze, instinctively reaching out to wipe it away, but Chou Bodeng stopped him.
“Not bad,” Chou Bodeng said, drawing his Taiyi Sword and examining his reflection in the bright blade. “It’s quite good-looking.”
The Life Scale was like a red cloud, ancient and bewitchingly beautiful.
The stray drop of powder had landed perfectly under his eye, like blood, like a tear, a mix of joy and sorrow, suddenly giving him a compellingly wicked air.
Shi Wuluo slowly drew his hand back into his sleeve, curling his fingers one by one, clenching them into a fist.
Chou Bodeng looked at the blade of the Taiyi Sword.
“Did you know?” he suddenly smiled, his eyes full of life, the scale and the tear coming alive together. “Before, when it hurt, I would laugh.”
The white candle burned past a knot in the wax, the wick sputtering a dark spark. The flame first dimmed, then leaped up, brighter than before. Shi Wuluo’s heart suddenly seized, the pain so intense he could barely maintain his avatar… He remembered another day, when he had passed through the raging heavenly fire of East Third Street in Fu City, only to see the red-robed youth stagger to his feet in the smoke and flames, and swing his sword.
No hesitation, no doubt.
It was as if he no longer liked this world one bit, no longer felt any attachment to it.
“I thought if I laughed, it wouldn’t hurt anymore.”
Shi Wuluo wanted to say something, but couldn’t, feeling as if his chest and throat were blocked with countless things. He didn’t know what they were, nor why he was suddenly in so much pain.
“Later I discovered that laughing is laughing, and hurting is hurting.”
Saying it was nothing serious, saying laughing would make the pain go away.
You can fool others, but can you fool yourself?
Chou Bodeng tossed the Taiyi Sword onto the table and leaned back in his chair, his face half in light, half in shadow. His voice was as still as a deep lake, separated by a layer of cold ice, making it impossible to discern his emotions.
“Go back to your Southern Borderlands. Stay out of my sight.”
***
The Southern Borderlands were mountainous and filled with menacing woods.
The forests were so dense that no sunlight could penetrate, the shade thick and cold. The ancient, brown trunks and buttress roots were like swords and walls. A black basalt altar was hidden within a circle of tall trees. Vines coiled around the trees bore dark, copper-colored bell-shaped flowers, which chimed faintly and distantly whenever the wind blew.
Shi Wuluo awoke to the sound of copper bells.
He opened his eyes, his pupils reflecting the crisscrossing tree trunks and broad leaves so dark they were almost black.
“Why did you wake up early?”
Someone beside him knocked a pipe against a stone coffin, tapping out some unburnt ash.
No matter how wary or disgusted the Central Plains and the other continents were of the Southern Borderlands, no matter how barbaric they thought it was, there was one thing from the Southern Borderlands they couldn’t live without: tobacco. Tobacco leaves only grew in the Southern Borderlands. Some merchants had gone to great lengths to transplant them elsewhere, but they never grew to have the same flavor as the shamanic smoke of the south.
There was an old joke that among the Hundred Clans, the clan head of the Changyu Clan had once written several thousand words denouncing shamanic smoke as “the shamanic art of a barbaric people,” claiming it was a “spreading poison that must be guarded against.” He called upon the world to quit shamanic smoke and guard against the southern shamans. The Changyu Clan was known for its literary prowess, and its clan head was a man of great learning. His words were earnest, his language passionate, and once his anti-smoking treatise was published, for three months, there was virtually no trace of southern smoke to be found in Kongsang, at least on the surface.
Then a guest went to visit the Changyu Clan, praising this as “a great virtue of your lordship.” The moment the Changyu Clan head clasd his hands in greeting, a wisp of smoke drifted from his sleeve.
The guest, amused, asked, “My lord, why do you hide shamanic smoke?”
The Changyu head replied, “This is not shamanic smoke, but a cloud from beyond the heavens.”
With that wisp of smoke from his sleeve, the smoke fiends of Kongsang instantly reappeared on the streets and alleys, puffing away more than ever. Not only that, but they would praise each other, saying, “What southern smoke are we smoking? This is the cloud from beyond the heavens, from the sleeve of the Changyu Clan Head.”
Shi Wuluo sat up from the coffin, not answering.
The man guarding the stone coffin, who was assisting him with the secret technique, was withered and gaunt, little more than a bag of bones. He wore a wax-dyed, wide-sleeved short robe, with a string of silver bats hanging from his waist. Seeing that Shi Wuluo didn’t answer, he continued to puff on his pipe with a patter-patter sound. Shi Wuluo walked out of the coffin, and as he passed the bird skeleton in the center of the altar, he took off a mask and hung it up.
It was different from the masks carved by the Oracle Maidens of Fu City.
Shi Wuluo’s mask was carved from black wood and traced with gold powder. The eyes were deep and long. When hung on the bird skeleton, it looked like the mask of a goshawk circling high in the sky.
“Got kicked out?”
The old man asked suddenly from behind him.
Shi Wuluo’s steps faltered.
The old man, having guessed correctly, continued to smoke his pipe with a serene expression.
“He told me to go back to the Southern Borderlands.”
Shi Wuluo said, his back to him, holding his scarlet saber.
The old man tapped his pipe, counted on his fingers, and realized this was the fourth time their Head Shaman had spoken to them this year. Truly a rare occasion… No wonder the young brats in the clan were all scared of him.
“And that’s it?”
The old man asked.
If that was all, he wouldn’t have picked up his saber again the moment he woke up, preparing to go to Qiong Ridge to slay serpents and slaughter demons… If this continued, the young ones in the clan would have nowhere left to train.
“…”
Shi Wuluo was silent for a long time, not answering.
Torches were stuck on the altar, their light reflecting on the stone surface, illuminating the age-old patterns. He looked at the black stone and the dark flames, thinking of Chou Bodeng under the candlelight, the Life Scale at the corner of his eye, and… that final drop that looked like a vermilion tear, or like blood. But no matter which description, Shi Wuluo didn’t like either of them, didn’t want to use either of them.
He just wanted to wipe that drop away.
“Oh,” the old man understood. “He got angry.”
“Mm.”
Perhaps it wasn’t just anger.
In that final moment, it was as if Chou Bodeng had, by some rare chance, opened a door, but before he could get close, he had slammed it shut again, coldly, with some kind of extremely sharp emotion.
The old man sighed and turned around, not surprised to see Shi Wuluo gripping his saber hilt so tightly that blood slowly seeped over the back of his pale hand and onto the scabbard.
He didn’t know who Shi Wuluo had fought with before returning to the Southern Borderlands.
Even for the Witch Clan, Shi Wuluo was a mysterious and incomprehensible existence… For so many years, the people of the Witch Clan had grown accustomed to their Head of the Ten Shamans leaving without a word, sometimes for the Great Wilderness, sometimes for the Central Plains. He would leave in silence and return covered in wounds. But this was the first time he had returned so heavily injured.
The other Great Shamans had been terrified. Even if the Hundred Clans had suddenly appeared before them and launched an attack, it wouldn’t have been more worrying than this.
While others were anxious, the heavily injured man himself offered no explanation, only uttering a single sentence:
“Open the altar.”
“He told you to go back, so you’re really just going to stay in the Southern Borderlands?” The old man tapped his pipe, but nothing came out. He untied a bundle of grass leaves from his waist and began to stuff them in, bit by bit. “Didn’t he ever teach you what’s called… what’s called perseverance?”
The old man had originally wanted to say “shameless pestering,” but the words on the tip of his tongue felt a bit disrespectful, so he switched to a more elegant phrase at the last minute.
“…”
Shi Wuluo walked directly down from the altar.
“Even if he said it, you don’t have to listen to everything. Besides, he only told you to go back to the Southern Borderlands, he didn’t say you couldn’t go find him again.” The old man squinted through the smoke, accustomed to not getting an answer for nine out of ten questions. “If you don’t go find him, someone else will.”
The footsteps behind him stopped.
“Right,” the old man hurriedly added, “you should at least go to Wuxian first and get your injuries treated. If you go find him like this, you might get kicked out again.”
The footsteps headed towards the spirit mountain. The old man slowly exhaled a puff of smoke and sighed.
You don’t understand anything, and it’s true he taught you everything… but some things, you can’t wait for someone to teach you.
After a while, a witch tribesman with a quiver on his back walked up hastily.
“Shaman, a letter from Taiyi.”
The old man knocked his pipe on the stone. “Bring it.”
***
Zhou Ziyan respectfully carried the Taiyi Sword up to the Circular Altar.
All of Ru City’s sacrifices, big and small, were held here, but compared to the “Returning to Water” ritual from the day before, this occasion was undoubtedly much more solemn. Under each of the four gate towers stood twelve Oracle Masters and Maidens, all with composed expressions and swords on their backs. After Zhou Ziyan inserted the Taiyi Sword into the high platform, Elder Tao Rong stood on the second tier of the altar and shouted, “Begin!”
There was a great splash of water.
Outside the Circular Altar, in the numerous silver lakes, pieces of azure porcelain dishes shattered and rose. Water droplets flew, and the red candles in the center of the porcelain dishes ignited with a whoosh, as if countless lotus leaves had suddenly grown on the water’s surface, with countless red lotuses blooming upon them. The ripples of water and the glow of fire collided, instantly forming a formation where heaven and earth merged.
In the waterside pavilion, the spectating Lou Jiang sucked in a cold breath.
“Truly amazing…”
He murmured, his expression complicated.
Every flicker of the candlelight, every change in the water’s ripples, was a turn of the formation’s art. If he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he would never have believed that someone in this world could simultaneously calculate firelight and water patterns, and then use such subtle, flowing elements to lay out such a serene formation.
The elders’ assessments had not been wrong.
Zhou Ziyan was indeed the greatest genius in the history of the Mountain Sea Pavilion.
If he hadn’t left the Mountain Sea Pavilion, hadn’t come to Ru City, hadn’t spent all his time on hundreds of millions of Ru fish, everyone could say with certainty that he would have long since become famous throughout the world.
Some people are just like that. They seem to be born just to make the world marvel.
“Damn…” Zuo Yuesheng was also muttering. “What’s going on? Why isn’t the Taiyi Sword rejecting him? Chou Bodeng, you and your damn sword, it’s really something else, isn’t it?”
Chou Bodeng sat on the railing. Faced with such a solemn and serious event as the Heaven-Worshipping Ritual, he had one leg bent, a fruit platter resting on his knee, picking and choosing what to eat. Hearing Zuo Yuesheng, he didn’t even look up. “It probably depends on your face.”
“Depends… depends on my face? What do you mean?”
“It means you’re not good-looking enough,” Chou Bodeng explained.
“Bullshit.” Zuo Yuesheng was furious. “When I was skinny, I was also a dashing, jade-faced young gentleman, you know?”
“What?” Lu Jing was amazed. “Fatty Zuo, you were skinny once?”
“…”
Lou Jiang took a deep breath, once again feeling that standing with these guys was a mistake.
He was about to walk around these two profligates and go somewhere else when he heard Ye Cang ask Chou Bodeng, “Martial Grand-Ancestor, do you think they’ll succeed? Can the Heaven-Worshipping Ritual really expel the miasma fog?”
“Probably…” Chou Bodeng thought for a moment. “The Chronicles of the Eastern Continent recorded one instance, but it’s been a thousand years, and the East Continent has only succeeded that one time.”
“In that case,” Ye Cang was a little puzzled, “why go to all this trouble to perform a Heaven-Worshipping Ritual? Why not just wait for the Miasma Moon to pass on its own?”
Lou Jiang’s steps faltered.
That’s right, why not just wait for the Miasma Moon to pass?
Although the Ru fish were in a state of hibernation, as long as they were present, the miasma fog wouldn’t invade the city. There was no need to go to such great lengths to hold a Heaven-Worshipping Ritual. What was even stranger was, why had Elder Tao agreed to it?
“Elder Chou,” Lou Jiang turned around. “The Chronicles of the Eastern Continent you mentioned, what were the specific circumstances of that ritual?”
“In the East Continent, between the two major veins, there was a city called Huai…” Chou Bodeng picked up a plum and answered casually.
“It’s starting,” Monk Budu interrupted him.
In that instant, they heard the sound of the tide.
This lake, formed by countless years of accumulated rain, was wide but not particularly deep. Ru City was tens of thousands of kilometers from the sea, so no matter how rough the sea was, it couldn’t affect this place. But they had definitely heard the roar of the tide!
The surface of the lake began to boil. Waves crashed against the gracefully standing porcelain dishes. A torrential rain poured down from the sky like a waterfall, striking the lake with a terrifying force, then surging up again from all directions. In that moment, the sound of the water was as mighty as the tide.
“The candles! The candles!” Lu Jing pointed at the porcelain dishes in the lake. “Look! They’re not extinguished!”
Yes, the waves were fierce, but the candles in the water were not extinguished.
Not only were they not extinguished, but they were burning brighter and brighter.
“It’s Elder Tao,” Lou Jiang said in a low voice.
Elder Tao stood on the Circular Altar, his gray robes whipping in the wind. The weight of heaven and earth pressed down on his shoulders. This man, who had acted like a rascal with Chou Bodeng and the others on the Heavenly Snow Boat, suddenly stood tall and straight, suddenly so imposing that he looked as if he could draw his sword and slay a ghost mother in the autumn fields at any moment.
He was supporting the entire formation that connected heaven and earth with his own power.
“Alas! In the ancient primordial chaos, the two realms were muddled!
The upper and lower forms were examined, and heaven and earth were thus divided.
The heavens carry the sun and moon, the earth bears the myriad people.
The thick earth was lost in miasma, plagues ran rampant.
Then came a divine rainbow, which transformed into the Ru.
Light and dark have their time, the city has its rise and fall.”
The Oracle Maidens and Masters below the gate towers bowed and kowtowed, singing as they circled the pillars. The female voices were sharp, the male voices rough.
“What are they singing?” Lu Jing asked.
“The Banshao Sutra,” Monk Budu answered in a low voice. “It’s the people of Ru City’s own creation myth. They believe that in ancient times, the world was chaotic. Later, heaven and earth separated, leaving the turbid qi on the ground. People were driven by the miasma fog to wander the earth, their suffering beyond words, so they prayed to the heavens. The heavens sent down a crimson rainbow, and the crimson rainbow transformed into the Divine Ru.”
The Divine Ru expelled the miasma fog, so people built a city where the Divine Ru roamed and rested. From then on, when the fog dispersed, they farmed, and when the fog gathered, they rested in the city.
The Banshao Sutra was not long. It sang of the initial separation of heaven and earth, of the city walls rising from the ground, of the pact between humans and fish, and of the endless stream of merchants and their looms.
They sang praises to the azure sky above and the yellow earth below.
Finally, Zhou Ziyan, on the high platform, performed three kneelings and nine kowtows, his voice high-pitched and mournful:
“Heaven, have mercy on my people! Grant us the sun and moon.
The sun comes and the moon goes, the plants and trees flourish.
Heaven, have mercy on my people! Grant us the four winds.
The four winds are orderly, the birds and beasts thrive.”
Ten thousand candles rose from the water. The flames were refracted by the water droplets, and billions of rays of water light and firelight intertwined. In an instant, the light spread beyond the entire City Divination Department, covering everything, up and down, east and west, north and south. In a flash, the entire city was enveloped in light. The rain falling from the sky, the streams flowing on the ground, all became part of the formation.
In every household in Ru City, a porcelain dish was set by the door, and a red candle was lit.
Men and women, old and young, all dropped to their knees and performed three kneelings and nine kowtows:
“Heaven, have mercy on my people! Grant us the sun and moon!”
“Heaven, have mercy on my people! Grant us the four winds!”
The voices collided, gathering at the three-tiered Circular Altar in the center of the city.
Elder Tao, pulled by the momentum of an entire city and the thoughts of a million people, had his crown shattered and his hair thrown into disarray. A fierce wind blew through the four gate towers, and together with the water and fire, it poured into the center of the high platform, like a hundred rivers surging into the sea.
In the midst of the raging tide, Zhou Ziyan stood up, bit by bit, with great difficulty, as if carrying an immense weight.
“Grant us the sun and moon! Grant us the four winds!”
He stood up straight and shook his sleeves.
The wind howled like a mountain and a tsunami.
The torrent of light and water between heaven and earth reversed its course, sweeping towards Elder Tao, towards Monk Budu, Ye Cang, Lou Jiang, Lu Jing, Zuo Yuesheng… and Chou Bodeng, who were all in the waterside pavilion!