In Search of the Past, Retracing Steps to Mount Taicang 2
Xie Lian shifted his body and evaded the object. At first he thought it was a broken branch or a nest, but when he looked closer, it was a plank so rotten and rusty its original shape was indiscernible, and it had two steel chains connected on either side. If it was anyone else they might not be able to tell what it was, but Xie Lian knew immediately that it was a swing.
In the past, Mount Taicang had swings installed everywhere, both for fun and for training. Back when Xie Lian only just started to retain memory, there was once when he accompanied his parents to visit the Royal Holy Pavilion to pray for blessings and saw a group of young trainees sparring, flipping and flopping all over the swings. It was an exciting performance; the king and queen enjoyed it, and Xie Lian clapped and shouted his appreciation. The king and queen were so pleased they heavily rewarded the young trainees, and ever since then the impression that cultivation was something awesome and fun was left deep in Xie Lian's heart. However, as for him formally entering the sect for cultivation in his later years, the reason was no longer because it seemed fun.
After some rest, Xie Lian continued hiking. The higher he climbed, the thicker the bushes became, and every so often a critter would flash by, leaving behind a shadow of a bushy tail. There were also a number of squirrels huddling on the trees, munching on pinecones, peeking at this uninvited guest.
Thorns blocked his path, ripping at his clothes and limbs, but Xie Lian didn't notice at all.
Finally, he reached the peak of the Crown Prince Summit.
Of course, the Crown Prince Summit wasn't originally called the Crown Prince Summit, but changed to this name after the Crown Prince Temple was constructed. Amidst the bushes and weeds, there were still remnants of pebble paved grounds here and there, traces of a large, burnt foundation hidden. That was once the foundation of the temple. Going across it, through the rubble and ruins, through glass debris, was a fractured old well.
Looking from above into its bottom, it was easy to tell the old well had long dried up; the distance to the bottom but only a few feet, only mud visible on the ground. Without hesitation, Xie Lian crossed his legs over, and jumped in.
He didn't tumble onto the muddy ground, but instead traversed through that illusion, and descended for a number of meters before his feet touched solid ground.
The surroundings were so dark if he were to raise his arms he wouldn't see his hands. He raised his head to look up, and there was no sunlight either, as if a heavy piece of fabric had blocked it out. Xie Lian felt around the bottom of the well, feeling up several bricks, and pressed them down in a certain order. With a rumbling noise, a short, small door opened on the side. Xie Lian dropped down on all fours and slowly crawled through the path opened by the small door. The moment he entered he could hear another rumbling noise behind, shutting the opening. After half an incense time, he finally crawled to the end of the tunnel. Xie Lian stood and straightened his back, snapped his fingers and held up a small flicker of flames.
After that small ball of flames was ignited, as if in response, not far in the distance another faint light appeared like a pearl, waking up from its deep slumber, blinking open its bright eyes.
Soon after, more and more pearls lit up, spreading throughout and illuminating the surroundings that appeared clearer and clearer to be the Great Hall of an underground palace. Above the Great Hall. thousands of sparkling stars were embedded.
It must be hard to imagine that the Imperial Mausoleum of the ancient Kingdom of Xianle was hidden beneath the scorched earth of Mount Taicang. Those brilliant stars were night pearls¹ and diamonds implanted on the ceiling; the night pearls brighten with light, and diamonds reflect radiance. When they cross paths, the result was a brilliance bedazzling like a dream. It was like a miniscule milky way hidden below ground.
Each of the night pearls and diamonds were priceless; every single one was worth an entire lifetime of endless riches. However, Xie Lian didn't spare them any looks, and walked directly through the Great Hall, entering the crypt at the very back.
In comparison to the Great Hall, this tomb was exceedingly simple, only because the chamber wasn't fully completed, so there was no glamourous decor, only two coffins. Between the coffins stood a person, dressed in exquisite clothing, a golden mask on its face, and a sword extended, sharp and dazzling, pointed at him.
However, this person only maintained that position and didn't make any movement. Xie Lian approached, minding his own business, without a single care for that person. However, that was because Xie Lian knew, behind that golden mask there was no face, and under those exquisite clothes there was no person. The only thing standing was an empty stack held together by bundles of dried hay.
For so long, only this set of elegant dress and this mask stood by the sides of those two solitary coffins in his stead. On top of each coffin was a small golden plate, but the things in those plates were wildly disparate: fruits of some sort dried and shriveled to the core, and blackened, rotten, hard blocks of who knows what. After Xie Lian entered the chamber he cleaned out those things and threw them out by the corner of the crypt. He felt around his sleeves and folds. Originally he had a half-eaten bun on him, but that bun was given to Hua Cheng, so now he had nothing. Thus, he said, "Father, mother, I deeply apologize. I've forgotten to bring something for this visit."
Naturally, no one answered him. Thus, Xie Lian slowly sat down, and leaned against one of the coffins.
After zoning out for some time, he finally spoke again, "Mother, I saw Qi Rong."
"Qi Rong didn't die, he turned into a ghost. I really don't know how he lived these past hundreds of years."
Xie Lian shook his head, "He... killed a lot of people, and now there are people trying to kill him. The heavens probably won't forgive him either. Sigh, I really don't know what to do with him."
He was going to say more when suddenly, from some place extremely close, came a string of soft wailing.
Xie Lian froze, his face changed drastically.
He listened closely; it wasn't his hallucination. It really was the sound of crying. The cry was low, soft, and would've been easily missed if he didn't pay close attention. The sound was also high pitched; if it wasn't a child then it must be a woman.
The cries were nearby, as if they were only separated by a thin wall, the sound clinging close to him. Xie Lian whipped his head around, and at last confirmed – the sound came from the coffin he was leaning on!
Amidst his shock, the first words that came blurting out were unconsciously joyous, "Mother, is that you?!"
However, Xie Lian snapped out of it immediately, knowing that what he had desperately hoped for would never come true. His mother had passed eight hundred years ago, relieved of suffering, and had never devolved to a grudging ghost. The emotion behind those cries was also not of despair, but terror.
In that very moment, who in the world would be hiding in his mother's coffin and cry?!
Xie Lian couldn't hold back for another second, and threw open the cover of the coffin with his left hand, his right on Fang Xin, ready to strike. But, the moment he saw what was inside, the striking sword stopped in its path.
Lying in the coffin, singularly, was the form of a person covered in elegant, black attire, its face wrapped with a face cover.
The only possible person who it could be should've been his mother, but the one lying in the casket, was most definitely not her. The form was small and short, its body type completely different, and the most significant thing was, this person was trembling – it's a real, live person!
Xie Lian ripped off the face cover. Sure enough, beneath the fabric was the face of a young child!
His heart froze that very moment. He grabbed the child and lifted him, his voice shocked and panicked, "Where's my mother? WHERE'S MY MOTHER?! WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY MOTHER'S BODY???"
Although that elegant black dress didn't look anything out of the ordinary, it was in fact woven by the silk of an extremely rare worm. The silk was a tribute from a small foreign nation, and weaving it to clothing took intricate craftsmanship. Interwoven with fragrant herbal satchels and sealed into the coffin, the cadaver would remain preserved for thousands of years, allowing the dead to look as if it's still among the living. However, at that moment, the one wearing that silk black dress was this child, so where did the body of his mother go? What condition would it be now?
Xie Lian didn't dare to think deeply on it, and could only demand answers from this unknown child in his hold, "Where's my mother? Who are you? Why are you here? What did you do with my mother's body??"
But how could a child scared to tears answer any of his questions? He was too scared to even speak. Xie Lian dragged him out of the coffin, and realized suddenly that some ashen white powder had been shaken out of the black dress from the movement.
Face white as a sheet, he looked into the coffin and found the bottom of the casket was also covered with a thin layer of powder. The world spun and Xie Lian felt his heart stop.
His grip loosened, letting the child go, and he fell to his knees before the coffin, paralyzed.
He didn't dare to touch that powder with his hands, but he couldn't just let it sit and sift either, like incense ashes flying in the wind. Although in denial, he knew deep within what that was.
After having forcibly removed the silk funeral garb, what else could a sealed cadaver of eight hundred years become?
Instantly, Xie Lian's mind fell into chaos, unable to think; he held his head with his hands and there was ringing in his ears. Just then, his back tensed, his instincts sensed danger behind, and he whipped his head around, his hand fast like lightning, and grabbed, bare-handedly, the blade of a sword. Someone behind his back had tried to stab at him, and this person was that stack of bundled hay!
Turns out, someone had long since snuck in, dressed themselves in that exquisite attire, put on the mask, and disguised themselves as a lifeless wooden stack, waiting for him silently. A loud clanging sound rang in the air, and Xie Lian broke that blade into two halves with his bare hands, face unchanging with the blood now pooling in his palms. In a flash, he raised his leg and kicked that person in the abdomen, stepping them firmly onto the ground. With their chest solidly stepped on, that person grabbed at his boot and struggled yet unable to move an inch, as if they were nailed to the ground. Xie Lian bent down at the waist, and slapped away the golden mask with one hand, revealing the face of a young man. Xie Lian yelled, "Who are you?? Graverobber??? How did you get in???"
Just then, the child on the side cried, "Daddy!"
This cry finally made Xie Lian remember. This man and child had looked familiar – weren't they the pair he saved that Qi Rong almost cooked and ate back at the Green Ghost's lair?!
Xie Lian understood the situation instantaneously, and swung a punch like thunder at the man's jaw, roaring, "QI RONG, GET THE HELL OUT! I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!!!"
That man laughed as he spat blood, "Cousin Crown Prince! What a joyous occasion! We meet again! Hahahahahaha!"
Although the face was different, but who else could this insane psychotic laughter belong to if not Qi Rong? When he became formless, he possessed that young father!
No need for further explanation, but after his material body was thrown into that cauldron by Lang Qianqiu and melted, to avoid pursuit, he must've used the chaos of everyone running for their lives to possess the young man, and came to the Imperial Tomb of Xianle. Otherwise, how could any commoner know of the secret catacomb of Xianle royalty? And how could they have come in such a short period of time?
The child he brought along may have been for food, or maybe it was for hiding him in the coffin to divert Xie Lian's attention so as to ambush him from behind. Qi Rong held his face, looking wronged by Xie Lian's punch, and shouted, "Cousin why are you so mad? It's not like you'd die from a stab wound, hehehehehehe!"
'Thud, thud', and Xie Lian punched him again twice, his eyes red around the rim, "How had my mother treated you?? And you treat her like this?! How could you, to her body–?!!"
Qi Rong humphed, "Auntie is long dead. The person is no more, so what difference do corpses or ashes make? The corpse only changed form, isn't it still there? Here you are, tears and snot, weren't you much tougher when you killed An Le? Can't believe my good cousin actually has two faces, hehe!" He then changed face and spat, "How could I treat her like this? You're the one to blame! Don't you even know how to reflect on yourself? This is all your fault! You God of Misfortune have the galls to come cry at the Imperial Tomb of Xianle?!"
Xie Lian stomped down again hard and Qi Ron screamed, spewing blood from his mouth, but he looked even more excited, using both his hands to hold on firmly to the now blood soaked white boot while howling, "THAT'S RIGHT! THAT'S RIGHT! JUST LIKE THIS! THIS IS MORE LIKE YOU! FIGHT, FIGHT, KILL, FIGHT RUTHLESSLY! KILL CRUELLY! Don't give me that saintly look as if you are so burdened with unspeakable sin! Disgusting! UGH!"
That child came crawling over, bawling, "Wah! Dad! Dad are you alright!" He couldn't
understand what was happening, only that his father was being trampled. From his point of view, Xie Lian was like a violent demon, but scared of losing his only father, he wouldn't back down, and tried desperately to pull off the boot on his father's chest. That young man wouldn't stop spewing blood, scaring the child half to death, and he used his hands to cover his father's mouth, as if that could stop the bleeding. Seeing this, Xie Lian slowly calmed down, realizing that the owner of this body was innocent, and eased his foot slightly. He pointed the tip of Fang Xin down, nudging it to Qi Rong's cheek and said forebodingly, "Qi Rong, you, get the hell out yourself. Don't believe I won't pull out your spirit with your tongue!"
Technically, to pull out the tongue of another from the root, one could certainly pull out the attached haunting ghost along with it. Qi Rong cried derisively, "I won't! I won't get the hell out! What are you gonna do? Go on, pull! Come, come come, gonna kill me? I might just die, so don't miss this chance, otherwise you won't ever find my ashes in this lifetime!"
He even stuck out his tongue intentionally, as if he couldn't wait for Xie Lian to do good by his threat, and use that bloody method to pull his spirit out from this fleshy body. He blew many raspberries, "It's not like the person I'm possessing is anyone important, so why don't you? No one would know, no one would care, Your Highness' holy radiance won't be damaged. Look! I crumbled your mother to ashes, aren't you gonna kill me Hahahahahaha..."
That child couldn't move Xie Lian's boot, so he hugged his leg and cried louder, "Don't kill my dad! Don't kill my daddy!"
Xie Lian's breathing was becoming more laboured, his head dizzy, his body shaking, his hands itching to crush Qi Rong's skull, but he couldn't do it. Qi Rong spread his hands, "Hahahaha cousin Crown Prince, what a failure, what an absolute failure!"
Xie Lian picked him off the ground, raised his fists and rained punch after punch on Qi Rong's face, yelling with each punch, "SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!"
Yet, the more enraged he got, the happier Qi Rong became. To be able to drag the both of them to the same hell, Qi Rong was filled with rapture, his eyes shone brightly, "See! There's your true face! Cousin Crown Prince, who knows you better than me in this world? You might look like a pathetic, drowned dog that anyone can trample now, but I know. You're still proud on the inside; you couldn't stand anyone calling you a failure! You must hate me for calling you a failure! Have I stabbed your heart enough to bleed? Hurry! Come! Or are you gonna tell me loudly that this body is innocent, so you won't kill me in order to spare him? Come! Show me what you'll do!"
With so much provocation blended in that cocky, crazed laughter, Xie Lian couldn't stand it anymore.
'Schwing' and Fang Xin was unsheathed.
With a flash of a swing, the ominous black blade struck down!
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Translator Notes:
¹Night Pearls are made of fluorite crystals
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