Chapter 120 – Matters of Past and Present in Jest and Laughter
It was a Ding Year again, and the day of the first snow. In a tavern and teahouse, a waiter bustled about, serving tea, water, and side dishes to the customers. As he worked, he couldn’t help but keep glancing at a table by the window.
This ‘Yu Family Teahouse’ was located at the intersection of the east-west secondary roads in Qianlai City, West Continent. Although it couldn’t compare to the most bustling taverns, it was still constantly filled with travelers. Wilderness walkers, merchants, and cultivators heading west to Whale City or north to the main sect of the Beast Taming Sect would almost always stop here for a rest, inquire about large and small ships heading out to sea, and find out about this year’s requirements for new disciples at the Beast Taming Sect.
All walks of life, all sorts of people—what kind of customer hadn’t the waiter seen? But the three customers sitting at the large table by the window today were a bit odd. Judging by their age, they didn’t seem like travel-worn merchants hoping to strike it rich by finding pearls in Whale City. At such a young age, to be able to travel so widely and carry swords, they must be cultivators. But judging by their behavior, they didn’t seem like they wanted to apprentice at the Beast Taming Sect either—who, seeking the immortal path, wouldn’t rush to ask about changes to this year’s recruitment list upon entering a teahouse? These three, on the other hand, had ordered only a single bowl of the absolute cheapest coarse-leaf tea upon entering, and before it even arrived, they had slumped onto the table, fast asleep.
Which immortal sect’s disciples were this broke?
The waiter watched them, pondering how to politely ask these three to finish their tea quickly and make room for other customers. Just as he was pondering, another youth entered the teahouse. This youth was tall and thin, with a handsome face. He wore a dusty gray robe that was clean enough, but the stitches were crooked, a product of some ‘master’ craftsman. He carried a long saber wrapped in cloth strips on his back, which he clearly cherished like his own life. The saber-bearing youth’s gaze swept the room and he walked straight toward the three people sleeping soundly by the window.
“A bowl of coarse-leaf tea and a plate of dried tofu.”
The waiter’s mouth twitched slightly. Well, the saber-bearing youth was a bit more ‘generous’ than his three companions, at least he ordered a side dish.
“Right away, sir. Please wait a moment.”
The waiter left with a broad smile.
Ye Cang felt the few remaining coins in his sleeve… By his count, it was his twelfth year since joining the Taiyi Sect, and he had finally experienced firsthand why Fatty Zuo used to snort loudly and purse his lips whenever Taiyi was mentioned: “Pah! Poor ghosts!” He struggled to tear his gaze away from the several plates of soy-braised beef at the next table and looked at his three junior brothers and sister, who were sleeping soundly amidst the din. A vein on his forehead couldn’t help but throb twice.
Just as he was about to go over and kick these three good-for-nothing juniors awake, a sharp crack suddenly sounded in the teahouse. Following the sound, he saw a storyteller in a blue shirt take a seat on the stage.
“Foolish, foolish, foolish, mad, mad, mad, a hidden flood dragon, seeming false yet true. Go, go, go, rest, rest, rest, seeming a dream yet not a dream—” The storyteller in the teahouse slapped his wooden block again, the crisp sound silencing the noisy crowd. As silence gradually fell, he continued the second half of his opening line in a desolate tone, “…and in a blink, all is empty.”
Ye Cang’s hand froze in mid-air, his expression momentarily dazed. Twelve years ago, this wild song was not yet so widely known in the Twelve Continents. The one who first sang it had not yet become a disheveled-haired Buddha; he was just an unreliable bald donkey squatting in the miasma, about to starve to death. That day, the Heavenly Snow Boat was traveling from Fu City to Ru City. Fatty Zuo, Lu Shiyi, and the Little Martial Ancestor were standing on wooden stools, betting against Elder Tao Rong of the Mountain Sea Pavilion, while he was on deck practicing a mental cultivation art the Little Martial Ancestor had casually tossed to him. The way the Little Martial Ancestor had tossed it to him made it seem like he had just dug some tattered book out of a garbage heap… What was even more ridiculous was that the ink on it hadn’t even dried.
As he practiced, he grumbled to himself, wondering if the Little Martial Ancestor had written this thing while drunk. But there was nothing he could do. Since the Little Martial Ancestor had given it to him, he had to bite the bullet and practice it.
“In a flash, it’s like a dream since we parted, how many past events have turned to nothing,” the storyteller’s voice was slightly hoarse, making one feel as if, in the piercing daylight, old books were slowly being turned, pale golden dust motes flying in the air, all past events like a dream. “Let’s speak of that Ding Year, which was also the great year of the thousand-year cycle. The Heavenly Dao, in black robes with a scarlet saber, ascended the ninety-thousand steps, cut down the three thousand transforming realms, and a snow fell upon the Twelve Continents…”
The teahouse quieted down. The storyteller was recounting the particularly famous ‘The Night of Dusk and Dawn’s Division’ from The Old Tales of Twelve Years. Though called old tales, it had only been twelve years. Many of those present could be considered eyewitnesses, but the events of those twelve years had turned countless historical treatises to ash overnight, changing the state of the world in the blink of an eye. The large bowl of coarse-leaf tea and the dried tofu were served. Ye Cang was no longer in a hurry to wake his junior brothers and sister. He took his bowl and sat down, listening to the storyteller recount the old tales along with the packed room of wilderness walkers, merchants, and cultivators from all over.
Logically, he should have known more inside details about the ‘The Night of Dusk and Dawn’s Division’ than most. After all, on the night of the great change, he was in Zhunan, waiting for the battle between the Taiyi elders and the Thirty-Six Islands to end so they could return to East Fufeng together. But strangely, though he usually cultivated late into the night, that night he was unusually sleepy for some reason and just drifted off. As a result, he hadn’t seen a single one of the phenomena that nine out of ten people in the Twelve Continents had witnessed, such as ‘One Hand Covering the Sky’ and ‘The Shattering of the City in the Clouds’. He had even slept with his head off the pillow, and when he woke up, his arms and neck ached all over. It was truly bizarre.
“During The Night of Dusk and Dawn’s Division, there were too many battles, some won, some lost… Taiyi fought Kongsang in the Nine Marshes, a death battle for three days and three nights, and in the end, fire broke out at Cloud-Connecting Pass. It’s laughable that the Hundred Clans, arrogant for ten thousand years, were reduced to nothing in a single night.”
The storyteller spoke with ease, and the bloody smoke of that night slowly unfurled before the crowd once more.
“Unfortunately, the Undying City ultimately fell into the hands of the Great Wilderness, a great shame for the Twelve Continents. Fortunately, the heroic souls of the Mountain Sea guarded the Southern Star, so although the Great Wilderness occupied the Undying City, it was never able to destroy the Southern Star Tower. And in that battle, the one leading the elites of the Mountain Sea was a famous heroine, Madam Yan Huatang, whose red makeup was like a bride’s. This Madam Yan and Zuo Liangshi, who once slew a High God with a single slash, were a married couple, known together as ‘Peerless Poetry and Painting’…”
Ye Cang pursed his lips and took a sip of tea. The fall of the Undying City was also an extremely important event in the great turmoil of ‘The Night of Dusk and Dawn’s Division’. That year, none of the Mountain Sea flying boats that went to the Undying City returned south. The ten thousand ghosts led by the former White Emperor, now the Desolate Lord, were unstoppable. At the critical moment, Madam Yan led the disciples of the Mountain Sea and, like Zuo Liangshi before her, used her bones to anchor the Southern Star Tower, burning her soul to guard the sleepless night. A year ago, Elder Tao Rong went to investigate the Undying City and saw Madam Yan’s heroic soul from afar, valiant and lingering at the top of the tower. Her soul still remained, a glimmer of hope. It was a silver lining in a dark cloud.
When he put down his teacup, the storyteller had already reached the part about the ‘Divine Lord’s Return to the Mortal Realm,’ and the teahouse patrons were clearly much more interested than before. After all, this red-robed Divine Lord was now known to everyone in the Twelve Continents, and this knowledge was mixed with many complex feelings. There were those who respected him, feared him, admired him, dreaded him, worshiped him, and hated him… a jumble of everything. The millions of years of history of the Twelve Continents, past and present, were rewritten because of him. One person became the past and present.
“Let’s say the Divine Lord descended from the Heavenly Staircase, his white robes burning in the fire, a gate-tower shattering with every step. At that time, immortals and demons all gathered. The Divine Lord tied up his hair in the wind, looked up, and said with a smile that hatred, resentment, love, and loathing were all as they may be; he himself would enter the cage.”
At this point, the storyteller paused, looked down, and plucked the long zither on the table, playing a quiet, clear melody. Most people in the Twelve Continents who enjoyed plays were familiar with this tune, which came from the hand of Mister One-Page-of-Dust, who wrote Dream Return Order. It was the opening song for the ninth act, ‘Heavy Grudges,’ and its lonely, obscure tone faintly matched the events of the twelve-year-old tale. Many female cultivators speculated that the ‘Young Master Qiu’ in Mister One-Page-of-Dust’s writings was likely an allusion to the Divine Lord. However, such speculation was rather disrespectful to that Divine Lord, and many great scholars would turn pale and denounce it upon hearing it. But the female cultivators were never ones to be trifled with. They would exchange verbal spars with the scholars, refuting them with reason and evidence, and the two sides would be at a stalemate. However, out of respect for the Divine Lord, these verbal disputes were generally not brought out into the open.
The storyteller’s zither skills were not exceptional, but his voice was clear and mournful, and when he sang softly, it added to the sorrow:
“The strings end, a sorrowful wind returns; in red robes, trimming a lamp at night;”
“Most is the light hatred of autumn, a million sighs caught in the throat, the night quiet at the third watch;”
“A parting dream of three thousand years, old tales in the clouds all come to naught, how many disputes?”
“…”
The teahouse was quiet. Ye Cang didn’t listen to plays much, always feeling it was a waste of time. This time, it was his junior brothers who had come to the West Continent who had chosen this meeting place. He had only sat down to listen closely after coincidentally hearing the wild song Monk Budu had once sung. This was the first time he had ever heard this tune from Dream Return Order, and upon hearing it, he was lost in a daze.
…It was as if a white-seed oil lamp woven from bamboo strips was swaying in a corridor, the bamboo lattice casting mottled light and shadow. The person trimming the lamp was dressed in red, silent in the night wind. The third watch was quiet, and no one heard his sigh.
It wasn’t ‘as if’. He had really seen it. After The Night of Dusk and Dawn’s Division, the Little Martial Ancestor did not return to Taiyi but went out to sea. No one knew what he discussed with the Thirty-Six Islands. Half a year later, the Thirty-Six Islands landed on Qing Province, and the Taiyi Sect, originally located on Qing Province, moved back to Kongsang, except for the cultivators who were protecting the cities. After returning to Kongsang, the Little Martial Ancestor would occasionally sit alone in the high pavilion on Undecided Peak late at night, sitting by a silver screen, watching the lanterns and drinking wine. Without needing orders from the elders, the Taiyi disciples never went to the top of Undecided Peak to disturb him. They would just see the high peak piercing the clouds and the lonely pavilion from afar, and everyone would feel uneasy.
Opposite Undecided Peak was just pitch-black mountains. How could the Little Martial Ancestor always be facing that pitch-black place! So they thought and thought, and eventually came up with a plan. Whoever was on night duty would use their spare time during the day to split some thin bamboo and make a few bright lanterns. At night, they would release one lantern every watch in a place visible from Undecided Peak. This way, when the Little Martial Ancestor was on Undecided Peak, he could see the lights instead of the cold, silent mountain shadows. It was a good thing the Taiyi disciples had been self-sufficient for years, sewing their own sect uniforms and carving their own waist tokens. They were all quite skilled, and in just a few days, they were making them quite well. However, the Little Martial Ancestor actually only went to Undecided Peak occasionally, but everyone would release bright lanterns every night, and not a single disciple on night duty slacked off.
Over time, it became a new habit for the Taiyi disciples. Specks of bright light, watch after watch. Silent. Compared to a noble title like ‘Divine Lord,’ Ye Cang and the other Taiyi disciples preferred another name: Little Martial Ancestor. Little Martial Ancestor. Just hearing it, you knew it meant arrogant, proud, and willful.
“Sob, sob, sob…”
His dazed thoughts were abruptly interrupted by the sound of sobbing next to him. Ye Cang turned his head and saw several young female cultivators from some unknown immortal sect, sobbing and biting their handkerchiefs. Among them was a female swordswoman in purple, who was particularly emotional. She slammed the table and stood up, cursing angrily, “Damn the immortal sects! Damn the common people! The mortal realm isn’t worth it! The common people aren’t worth it!”
Her companion beside her reminded her in a low voice, “A Ying, we are an immortal sect.”
“…Uh.” The purple-robed swordswoman faltered, then muttered, but still insisted, “Even if we’re an immortal sect, we still have to curse them! Look at the things they’ve done…”
On the other side, disciples from other immortal sects looked a bit uncomfortable, and someone was about to argue with the purple-robed swordswoman. A cold sweat broke out on the storyteller’s forehead. Well, this was the downside of telling The Old Tales of a Parting Dream. It easily led to verbal spars, which could then escalate into a full-blown brawl. Seeing the situation was getting bad, the waiter frantically signaled to the storyteller. The storyteller hurriedly slapped his wooden block again.
“Everyone,” the storyteller changed the subject, “have you heard about a recent event in the West Continent?”
“What event?” a cultivator asked curiously.
“Everyone knows that in Plum City, in our West Continent, there’s a Heavenly Lake that’s an excellent fishing spot in the Twelve Continents. At the foot of Heavenly Lake Mountain, there’s a wealthy weapon-forging manor called ‘Hundred Bows Manor.’ A few days ago, the lord of this manor, seeing the beautiful scenery of the snowy mountain, went up to fish. As soon as he got there, he saw an unparalleled beauty already sitting in the small pavilion in the middle of the lake.” The storyteller’s expression became a bit strange here. “The manor lord was smitten at first sight and wrote a doggerel poem about his vast wealth, attached a Water Soul worth ten thousand gold, and sent a servant to deliver it to the beauty.”
Hearing that the lord of Hundred Bows Manor had given away a Water Soul right off the bat, the cultivators in the teahouse gasped. Ye Cang couldn’t help but be amazed. The Record of Marvels says: South of Witch Mountain, the Boli River has its source and flows south into the sea. In it is Bo jade, and the purest, most flawless of it is the Water Soul. Although the Witch Clan had now re-emerged from the Southern Borderlands and was no longer trapped by the boundary seal, the price of this Witch Mountain Water Soul was still sky-high. It was a precious material used by cultivators for refining weapons. That day, the lord of Hundred Bows Manor, in order to win a beauty’s favor, had given away a Water Soul just like that…
Ye Cang felt the few pitiful copper coins in his sleeve, his face expressionless:
These damn rich people…
The more he thought about it, the more bitter he felt. Ye Cang picked up his teacup and took a large gulp.
“Hey, Mister Hu, can’t you make your stories a bit more believable?” someone in the teahouse immediately questioned loudly. “That’s a Witch Mountain Water Soul, not some worthless rock. Even if the lord of Hundred Bows Manor is rich, he wouldn’t just give something like that away upon first meeting, would he?”
“You’d better believe it. If any of you here could see that beauty fishing alone by the Heavenly Lake, nine out of ten would be willing to go bankrupt just to have him look at you once,” the storyteller’s expression grew even stranger as he slapped his wooden block. “Who do you think this person fishing alone in the heavenly snow is?”
“—None other than the Divine Lord in red!”
Pfft—
Ye Cang sprayed a mouthful of tea all over his junior brother’s face.