90 铜钱龛世 | Tong Qian Kan Shi | Copper Coin Niches -- 木苏里 | Musuli -- 英语翻译 | English translation -- Chapter 90

I'm not very happy with this chapter and I guess part of it is just because I don't feel I'm good with action? Bleh.

 Chapter 90: Peace for a Hundred Years (I)

    Xuanmin twitched his finger, and accordingly, the wizard Songyun's eyes rolled to the back of his head and he fell unconscious.

    Xuanmin laid down the wizard onto the black pebble shore, then swept his sleeve. The enormous waves rolled through the sky and crashed violently onto that spell design, emitting a deafening clang, but the force field that protected the spell from the wind and the rain did not budge.

    Xuanmin's magic was so strong that the towers of stone even remotely close to him were instantly pulverised. As he brought the waves into the force field again, slight golden cracks began to appear all along that invisible arch.

    Those cracks rapidly spread everywhere, and, suddenly, the force field seemed about to shatter and explode, yet was somehow suppressed by some other force.

    The Great Priest, sitting on the black pebble beach, stopped his prayer and parted his hands, pushing his palms out toward his spell, and then clasped them together again.     

    In that brief instant during which he'd stopped praying, those dots of blood streaming up his neck had also stopped moving –– and when he resumed his prayers, the blood began to move again too. The whole sequence of actions had taken place very quickly, but those enormous gusts of wind attacking the spell were even quicker. They changed directions and came charging straight toward the Great Priest.

    Dang––

    When, previously, the Great Priest had worn only his monk's robe and no protective armor, he was now encased within a bronze bell, which repelled the oncoming wind.

    The great force reverberated back onto the powerful red waves, so that they were knocked back the way they came and receded thunderously all the way back across the river.

    Xuanmin grasped his copper coin pendant, then made a tugging movement. The relentless power of those waves were all connected to his one hand, and tore at him so strongly that it seemed about to rip his hand off altogether. 

    He felt a searing pain, yet revealed none of it on his face, instead tightening his fingers into a fist and tugging backwards again. Those enormous waves crashing toward the other side of the river stopped in their tracks and were rigidly pulled back. Nor did he let this distract from the spell, which he continued to assault over and over with gusts of savage wind that shattered the surrounding stones and boulders and sent the broken pieces flying through the air.

    As Xuanmin injected more and more strength into his attacks, the force field began to wobble, and the bronze bell around the Great Priest also began to weaken. It appeared that the gusts of wind were about to slice through the Great Priest's armor.

    Yet, as the force field around the spell threatened to break, Mt. Jiangsong as well as the rest of the chain of mountains alongside it suddenly began to tremble –– as though this small circular spell were tied to some larger, greater spell, so that attacks on it sent the whole world quaking.

    Xuanmin frowned. His robes billowed amidst the howling wind all around him, yet no matter how powerful the elements were, they could not penetrate onto Heishi Shore.

    Just as he was about to press his thumb down onto his copper coins again, the Great Priest, encased within his bronze bell, suddenly stopped praying. Casually, the Great Priest said, "Do not continue in your futile efforts. This blood spell is linked to the great spell. If you continue to force it, then there will have been no point in my burying dragon bones beneath this mountain."

    Earlier, when the mountain range had shaken, Xuanmin had faintly seen a thread escape from the silhouette of the mountain, similar to the "spider silk" that they had observed at Mt. Lianjiang –– the ones that demonstrated all the locations linked together by a great spell. As he glanced over at the direction in which that thread had gone, Xuanmin understood––

    Bones Buried in the Rivers and Mountains.

    The enormous spell that ran through the entire mountain range behind him was a "Bones Buried in the Rivers and Mountains" design. Xuanmin could not yet remember the details about this spell, but he could deduce the basic principles from its design. This spell reached across mountains and rivers in the four cardinal directions, and, similarly to a small spell, it needed some magical item to anchor it. There were many magical items in the world, but to be able to anchor such a vast spell, there were only two.

    Which of the two the Great Priest had chosen was obvious.

    Xuanmin's gaze glided across that mountain range and knew that the thin thread that had flashed across the mountains earlier had come from the very foundations of the spell –– dragon bones.

    As the Great Priest finished speaking, Xuanmin's thumb nonetheless pressed down upon his coin.

    A deafening, earth-shattering noise emerged, sending a violent jolt across both the force field around the spell and the bronze bell that protected the Great Priest. The silver mask on the Great Priest's face split in half and clanged to the ground, revealing that pair of long-hidden eyes, which slowly fluttered open.

    He and Xuanmin both wore cloud-like monk's robes, and looked the same, and appeared the same. One sat, and one stood.

    In the instant that their eyes met, both of their gazes suddenly held a sense of terror, which quickly disappeared.

    In Xuanmin's sparse memories, he knew that he had only seen this "Shifu" take off his mask once or twice, and that had been when he had been very young. Despite the fact that they had been in the reclusive secret courtyard, where strangers were prohibited, the monk would still rarely reveal his true face. Thus, when it came to this "Shifu"'s appearance, Xuanmin's impression had always been rather vague.    

    Now that he could take a good look at the monk, Xuanmin realised that his impression had been extremely vague, and that he had missed out a great deal.

    Finally, it was the Great Priest sitting on the ground who, after a brief moment of fear and confusion, shook his head and scoffed cynically.

    Although Xuanmin's impression of him was indistinct, the same could not be said for his impression of Xuanmin. After all, in the beginning, he had been the one to bring Xuanmin home, to raise him from childhood all the way to adulthood.

    At the very least, he could clearly recall what Xuanmin had looked like as a child and as a youth. Even in those years when Xuanmin had inherited his title of Great Priest, he had been able to see Xuanmin's face.

    The name "Tongdeng" had been taken on by a total of four people up until today, or, more precisely, three people. The so-called Great Priest had never, in fact, been the same man, and the faces of these successive monks had not been identical, though in their childhoods they had all taken magic medicine to alter their appearance and thus looked slightly similar.

    Most of the time, the Great Priest wore a mask, and the number of people who had seen his true face could be counted on the fingers of a hand. Even if someone saw him one day, the next time they saw him may be many, many years later, and would not find his change in appearance abnormal. Besides, no one dared to look straight on at the Great Priest's face, and most of the time, even when he did wear his mask, those speaking to him would look slightly below his head, afraid to meet his gaze.

    In addition, the Great Priest's life habits and general aura were highly intimidating and made him unapproachable, so that nobody had the chance to detect if anything was amiss.

    The only thing that these Great Priests needed to pay attention to was the transition period between two Great Priests. During that time, the predecessor would already be quite old, in high contrast to the successor, who would be young and spry. When a Great Priest began to reach middle age, he would begin to use wax masks and human skin masks to control the ageing of his face. When Xuanmin had taken on the role of Great Priest, his face had still been too youthful-looking, and so he, too, had needed to wear masks in order to reduce the differences between his appearance and that of the previous Great Priest.

    At first, the young Xuanmin, out of deep respect for his master, had done all he could to model himself on his predecessor. But afterwards, once Xuanmin had become the dominant Great Priest, the roles had reversed: suddenly, it was the previous Great Priest who began to try to make himself seem more like Xuanmin.

    And after that, too much had happened between the two of them, so that they could no longer take off their masks in front of each other. Now that they were face to face again, they suddenly discovered that the other's true face was unfamiliar to them. How funny...

    Eventually, Xuanmin's gaze calmly moved down and settled onto the dots of blood on the Great Priest's neck. This was the means by which he was transferring the hundreds of people's fortunes and virtue onto his own body. As long as the blood ultimately clustered at his life pressure point on his forehead and became one small dot, the spell would be a success. And this spell was tightly enmeshed with the "Bones Buried in the Rivers and Mountains" spell. If this spell succeeded, then nothing could change the great spell again either.

    Before, when the Great Priest had stopped praying, the dots of blood would stop moving –– but now that the blood had crept up to his face, they seemed invigorated with some new life. Although the Great Priest was no longer praying, the blood continued to crawl slowly up his face.

    As Xuanmin rolled up his sleeve to act, the Great Priest did not hesitate to immediately stand up, still encased within his bronze bell.

    In the moment that they both attacked, a powerful force rippled out onto the spell. The enormous red waves resumed their tide and flowed toward Mt. Jiangsong, covering the entirety of Heishi Shore underneath them.

    In that instant, the earth began to shake and the waves thrashed back and forth.

    But Xuanmin could not get the upper hand: one of the copper coins on his pendant was still sealed, and, for some reason, with each attack, he could feel a strange sense of connection between him and the Great Priest –– not the same kind of thought and emotion connection he had with Xue Xian, but he felt that, no matter how hard he attacked the Great Priest, the effect would always be much more subdued.

    Besides, even as they fought, Xuanmin continued to focus some of his attention elsewhere, so that the river would not suddenly flood everything around it and cause a great disaster.

    Of course, just as he could not harm the Great Priest, the Great Priest could not harm him. The two appeared to be equal matches, with no clear winner and no clear loser.

    The copper coin pendant in Xuanmin's hand began to feel hotter and hotter, and the coin whose seal had not yet been broken was humming and thrumming ceaselessly, glowing so hot that it seared his skin. He felt that just another round of magic would utterly destroy that final seal.

    The red dots of blood on the Great Priest's face had reached the middle of his face, and were now creeping toward the bottom of his eyes. Even the world's most beautiful face would become hideous in such circumstances: the Great Priest's bloodied cheeks appeared evil and terrifying. 

    As they fought, Xuanmin kept an eye on those blood stains, and noticed that they were moving increasingly fast. As they reached the middle of the Great Priest's face, something seemed to have been unlocked within them, and they quickly streamed past his cheekbones.

    And then his eyes.

    And then his brow.

    Suddenly, a shock ran through that final copper coin as its seal shattered. The old, dull shell around it fell broken onto the ground, revealing a shiny, yellow glow beneath it...

    And an overwhelming rush of memories came rushing into Xuanmin's mind.

    In his memories, he was a child again, still copying sutras in a hall. The desk had been prepared especially for him, and was just the right size for his height. He stood, holding a brush in one hand, writing with a practiced, skilled calligraphy. Although he was but a child, he behaved as though he had already done such a thing thousands of times before.

    In those times, the copying of sutras had not really been to make him memorise them, nor had it been a calming, meditative exercise –– indeed, even as a child, he'd been aloof and untalkative. He copied sutras in order to practice his handwriting, so that his handwriting would look exactly the same as the handwriting from which he was copying.    

    But the strange part was, even without too much practice, his calligraphy already looked highly similar to the model.

    As he finished a page, he remembered this strange detail. He looked up to the Great Priest, who stood to his side, and asked, "Shifu, who copied these original sutras?"

    The Great Priest, who had been tapping his own copper coin pendant, suddenly stopped and glanced back at him. They stood in a dim room, so Xuanmin could not clearly see the Great Priest's eyes, and did not know how the monk was feeling. After some silence, the Great Priest finally said, "Tongdeng."

    Xuanmin was stunned. "Tongdeng?"    

    "Yes," the Great Priest said as he went back to tapping at his coins.

    That shiny yellow light flashed across the coins, brimming with magical energy.

    Xuanmin did not understand. "Shifu, you copied these sutras?"

    "How many times have I told you not to call me Shifu?" the Great Priest replied without looking up. Then he added, "These books were copied by the previous Tongdeng."

    "The previous?"

    "The role of Great Priest is passed down from generation to generation, but, to outsiders, he remains the same person. Naturally, his Buddhist name does not change, and remains Tongdeng. Of the Tongdengs that have lived, I am the third." The Great Priest paused for a long time, then said, "Someday, you too will be Tongdeng."

    As he said this, his expression continued to be submerged in the shadows, unclear and unknown.

    Xuanmin faltered. He was not a lively child, but he was still a child, full of unbridled curiosity. "So... what was your original Buddhist name?"

    He had wanted to call the Great Priest Shifu as usual, but had remembered what the monk had said, so had decided not to do so.

    The Great Priest mildly replied, "Zuhong. Or perhaps that was someone else's name. I forget."

    And then Xuanmin remembered the first time he had been called Tongdeng. He had just turned nineteen, and his face had still been that of a green youth. He carefully stuck the human skin mask onto his own face, then placed a silver mask in the shape of a beast's face on top of that one, and proceeded to lead a long, winding ritual procession to Taishan.

    From then on, he began to take the Great Priest's place more and more often, as Zuhong had begun to weaken with age, and the time had come for him to take over.

    In those fragmented memories, Xuanmin saw that he had become the overseer of all activities within the Ministry of Ceremonies. It gave him the feeling of looking into an idealised past life. If Zuhong had not changed his mind, Xuanmin would probably have lived out the rest of his days within the Ministry.

    Despite the fact that the Great Priest Zuhong had never wanted to be called Shifu, Xuanmin still considered him to be his master. So when Zuhong continued to postpone his retreat, and then expressed his wish to return to the Ministry, Xuanmin did not say no.

    Indeed, he had never coveted the position of Great Priest. Instead of travelling and administering, Xuanmin preferred to be secluded, alone, in the mountains.

    So after ten or so years as the head of the Ministry, he had given the secret courtyard back to Zuhong and moved himself into the bamboo building in the mountain hollow. Because he had been born with the Buddha's bones, his innate magical energy was stronger than that of Zuhong, and, for some things, Zuhong still required his help.

    Thus, although he lived alone in the mountains, he continued to maintain relations with the Ministry... until Zuhong asked him to calculate a dragon's catastrophe date.

    "Why do you need a catastrophe date?" At the time, Xuanmin had been invited back to the secret courtyard. He was standing at the top of the pleasure pagoda, and frowning, as he asked Zuhong this.

    Zuhong, standing by the table, wore a different costume so that, in case anyone happened to see the two together, it would not be suspicious. Zuhong calmly replied, "A few days ago, I divined that a great calamity will occur in three years' time. It appears to be related to the catastrophe period of a dragon. If I know when that is, I will be able to prepare better, and save lives."

    For a moment, Xuanmin felt that something was off.

    When he had been living alone in the bamboo building, he had detected some things, but had still not been able to confirm anything. And what Zuhong was saying did not sound wrong, so, although he hesitated briefly, he ultimately agreed.

    And much, much later, when he heard that someone had maimed a dragon during its catastrophe period, that gnawing doubt that he'd kept hidden deep in his heart for all those years suddenly burst out. The respect and gratefulness that he'd felt for his master when he'd been young completely disappeared, and all the small hints and clues that had raised his suspicions suddenly became crystal clear. The truth was far worse than he'd ever imagined: the trail of bones that Zuhong now held in his hands seemed to come together into one great whip, utterly destroying the peace in the world.

    Xuanmin had never been an indecisive person. He hid his fury beneath that cold face and strode into the secret courtyard, immediately casting a spell onto Zuhong in order to seal away his magic powers. But the connection between the two engendered by the Spider of the Same Name had been so strong that the effects had spread back into him as well, causing him to lose his memory.

    Before losing all of his memories, he'd hurriedly written a sheet of notes for himself, and had placed a series of seals onto his copper coin pendant, so that it could not be harmful if it fell into someone else's hands.

    Those chaotic, fragmented memories flew across his mind, taking him from his childhood all the way to the recent past, and filling in all the gaps that he'd previously had. He felt as though he were finally waking up from a deep dream.

    Xuanmin finally understood –– everything. Yet the scene before him still made him frown.

    Zuhong held a thunder flag between his fingers, and he suddenly waved it slightly; a dozen flashes of thunder rumbled down from the heavens. Zuhong did not want to kill Xuanmin –– instead, the bolts of lightning came together to form a net above Xuanmin's head.

    Without changing his neutral expression, Xuanmin tried to move.

    He could not escape this thunder attack, and knew that its purpose was to force him back onto flat ground. Earlier, when Xuanmin had been having visions of his memories, Zuhong had drawn a talismanic spell on the ground beneath his feet, knowing he would land there and become trapped.

    The spell was not a lethal one, but a puppet spell. If Zuhong's thunder drove him down from the air and into the spell, he would lose all control over his faculties and be at the mercy of Zuhong's control.

    "I would never kill you," Zuhong's calm voice floated over to him amidst the raging wind. "I just want you to be obedient––"

    Just as the thunder was about to push Xuanmin into Zuhong's spell, there came a deafening roaring sound as a black shadow pierced through the roiling waves. In the blink of an eye, Xuanmin had been swept away from the trap. Then, a long tail like a whip.

    Zuhong stopped speaking, and ducked, barely avoiding this new attack.

    In the next instant, hundreds of bolts of lightning crashed down from the dark clouds above.

    "A thunder flag?" came a sneer. "Child's play!"

    As the voice reverberated across the tempest, something placed Xuanmin down onto the peak of Mt. Jiangsong. That black shadow suddenly landed onto Heishi Shore, accompanied by more startling, shaking thunder. With one hand, that black-clad figure split the enormous red waves in half and brought them hurtling in Zuhong's direction.

89 铜钱龛世 | Tong Qian Kan Shi | Copper Coin Niches -- 木苏里 | Musuli -- 英语翻译 | English translation -- Chapter 89

 Chapter 89: River of Blood (III)

    He could feel his own fresh blood pour out of his body, taking all his warmth with it too. He began to feel cold, his vision began to blur, and his mind felt heavy and thick, so that his neck no longer had the strength to hold up his head.

    In that confused state of panic, he suddenly began to remember many, many things, fragmented and disparate memories from bygone times.

    He remembered that all the others who had grown up alongside him in the mountains were now sprawled in the pool of blood as well.

    He remembered the first time he ever met the Great Priest. He was still small, too young to understand things, and had not had any reason to interact with the Great Priest. He had waited until Songyun had been distracted and snuck down from the mountain into the nearest town, where the Taishan ritual procession had been passing through, and, there, he had glimpsed the Great Priest. That day, the streets were full, yet no one dared get too close. He had pushed among the crowd, trying to find a good position from which to see things clearly, but someone had shoved him, and he had stumbled into the street, right into the procession. He had thought he was going to fall face-first on the ground, but instead had seen a white cloud float past his vision and conjure a gust of wind, which had gently blown him upright.

    He had been too young, and had not processed what had just happened to him, instead obediently walking back into the crowd. By the time he'd returned to his senses, that procession had already gone ahead, yet he immediately took notice of the man in white on horseback at the very front...

    The memory was from so long ago that he'd thought he'd long forgotten it. Yet now, he was remembering it again.

    He realised now that, back then, he hadn't been so utterly afraid of the Great Priest -– indeed, he'd even revered him. When had he begun to feel panic, dread, and uncertainty in front of the Great Priest...?

    Following Songyun's orders, he and his brothers had travelled in the shadows for many years, and could no longer remember all the things he'd done. At the beginning, seeing all those human lives perish by his hand, he'd felt overwhelmed by guilt, and, in search of answers, had gone to Songyun about it.

    Songyun had said that everything they were doing, they were doing for the people. Those small preparations were in order to cast a single enormous spell. The spell was called "Bones Buried in the Rivers and Mountains", and, if it was successful, it could not only prevent great disasters, but also ensure a hundred years of peace in the region.

    Songyun had not taught him the most difficult and profound things, so when it came to the specifics of a great spell such as this, he had no idea. He only remembered Songyun saying something that he had always heard the wizard say: In order for great things to succeed, we must make some sacrifices.

    This had made sense to him, so he had remembered it.

    Until today; until he watched the rivers of blood flow ceaselessly, as he realised that the bridge between life and death was a short one now, looming ahead for him. A deep sense of fear came upon him, and his thoughts suddenly became confused and chaotic.

    He suddenly felt that those words of Songyun had been wrong, and that Songyun had missed out on many things. At least... at least they should have asked those people whether they wanted to be sacrifices. 

    Then, his mind lurched again, and, in his daze, he realised that Songyun had not been wrong, but...

    He suddenly wondered if the Great Priest, as aloof and detached as he was, was really acting out of love for the people. The hundreds of people laid out here, the bodies trapped beneath the river, and even more people who had become entangled in all of this... had their deaths been worth it? Had their deaths been inevitable?

    But he no longer had the strength to open his mouth and ask all these questions. He could not even take one last look at the Great Priest. He could only feel himself slowly begin to fall asleep amidst the ever-dimming darkness around him, and then... he would probably never wake up again...

    The blood flowing out of the thumbs of these hundreds of sacrifices finally dyed the entire sculpture blood-red. Not a single patch of the sculpture was bare, not even in the back, and it now exuded an evil energy.

    It seemed as though some devious ritual had begun. In an instant, the entirety of Mt. Jiangsong, even Baishi Shore on which the Great Priest still stood, began to tremble, and great red waves began to appear in the sky, rolling toward the shore, yet stopping just before they crashed against where the Great Priest stood, and receding once more. 

    It appeared as though two great forces were fighting each other.

    The Great Priest sat down and put his palms together. He began to murmur a prayer, as though he were delivering funerary rites for lost souls, but the words he was speaking were primitive-sounding and full of strange noises, an uncanny language. 

    The towers of black stones behind him crumbled and the great waves in front of him rushed toward him, but created a strange arch shape over his head without hurting him one bit.

    At first, the Great Priest looked perfectly fine, but as he finished a prayer, small pricks of blood began to appear all across his clasped hands, looking highly abnormal. There were at least a hundred wounds.

    Yet he did not stop reciting his prayers, as though he felt no pain at all.

    But it was like those pricks of blood were alive. As the Great Priest prayed, the blood began to crawl across the back of his hand, though every bit that they moved seemed to be done with great difficulty.

    The Great Priest still wore his silver mask, hiding his face. But in the blink of an eye, a thin layer of sweat had appeared across his temples, beside the mask –– although he made no noise nor movement, it seemed that he was putting all his effort into his magic.

    Slowly, the blood flowed from the back of his hand into his sleeves and up his arms. 

    The wind and waves became more frenzied, and the waves were so large that they seemed to want to swallow the earth whole. In the distance, the little buildings by the river were pummelled mercilessly by the red waves, and quickly collapsed with the sound of crunching and breaking. Another wave hit and washed the buildings cleanly away, into the current.

    At the same time, a golden thread as thin as lightning was swimming across the faraway sky as quick as thunder. Before anyone could react, the thread had gone toward the northeast, had landed somewhere with an enormous noise, and then gone to the southwest, and was now headed here.

    As the thread passed Dongting Lake and Mt. Wanshi and made its way to Daze Temple, the Great Priest saw a faint golden light appear by his feet. And those droplets of blood from his hand had crawled up his arms and were now at his neck.

    It was a terrifying sight: a pure-looking monk, covered in dots of blood all across his neck, and, as he continued to pray, that blood was steadfastly climbing up to his face.

    In the instant that the blood reached his chin, a new circle of blood appeared on Heishi Shore.

    A light flashed amidst this circle and two people appeared within it.

    One wore a white monk's robe and appeared to have recently stepped out into the common realm: he was very handsome, yet appeared very cold –– so cold that he inspired fear and terror, like an infinite void hidden beneath a frozen tundra. He was roughly holding a second man by the collar.

    That second man was covered in blood, and his previously grey robes were full of mud and in tatters. All the visible parts of his skin, from his arms to his neck and even his face, were severely scratched, as though he had been tortured by something invisible and manically scratched himself to a pulp.

    This bloodied man was none other than the wizard Songyun, from the valley.

    And the person who had captured him was Xuanmin.

    Xuanmin's face was still ice-cold, but his black eyes seemed to have some new emotion in them, something fierce and dark like a storm, and terrifying.

    As the wizard Songyun stepped onto Heishi Shore, he saw the Great Priest sitting with his palms clasped, and suddenly cried out in shock.

    "You're not –– You––" Songyun suddenly lurched, wanting to escape from Xuanmin's grasp, but Xuanmin, with a blank face, moved his hand to clutch the wizard's neck rather than his collar.

    "You––" Songyun had greatly suffered in the Cave of a Hundred Insects, or else he would not have been defeated so easily and ended up in this desolate state. With his neck in Xuanmin's hands, he spoke slowly and with pain. "You're the other–– Ah––"

    Before he could finish his sentence, Xuanmin tightened his grasp –– though it had not been because Xuanmin was paying attention to what Songyun was saying, but that he had seen the spell on Heishi Shore, as well as the drops of blood across the Great Priest's neck.

    Back at the valley, when the fourth seal had been broken, Xuanmin had regained another portion of his memories. Those fragmented memories had still been too all over the place, as confusing as if they'd come from a different world, and not something ordinary people could immediately process.

    Before he'd gotten those memories back, Xuanmin had suspected that his relationship with Xue Xian had not been as straightforward as they'd both thought. He'd started to feel that the person he'd been looking for had in fact been Xue Xian all along.

    But it had only been a feeling, and he had continued to have doubts.

    But when he'd seen himself calculate a dragon's catastrophe date in his own memories, he'd felt as though his entire person had been plunged into an infinite darkness, down and down, never to see the light again.

    Xuanmin had been the one who had maimed Xue Xian. What words could resolve that? So Xue Xian had left without turning back, and Xuanmin could not chase after him –– he could only watch as that long shadow rose into the skies and then disappeared into the clouds, without another trace.

    He would probably never see him again.

    But no matter whether Xue Xian wanted to see him again, he had to repay his debt. So he'd captured Songyun and immediately drawn a spell to transport him to where the dragon bones were buried. No matter what he'd done in the past, he now had to completely clear this debt once and for all. 

    A bone for a bone.

    If he caused a disaster, he would suppress it. If he cost people their lives, he would repay it.

    But as he finally arrived at Heishi Shore, he realised that things were far different than he'd imagined. That monk in the silver mask sitting across from him, praying –– he'd seen the man before.

    When he'd been a child, this monk had punished him by making him copy sutras in the freezing snow, and this monk had also brought him indoors, had given him a small heater to help him warm up again, had lectured him on moral lessons, had tucked him into bed, had made sure, when he left, that the door was shut tightly. 

    A very long time ago, he'd called this monk Shifu. But he had not called him that for a dozen years or more.

    Although his memories were still unclear and full of gaps, Xuanmin could remember that, many, many years ago, the first time he had ever called this monk Shifu, the monk had been silent for some time, and then waved his hand dismissively and said, "We are but old friends meeting again. I cannot be your Shifu."

    He had not understood what the monk had meant, and then he had stopped thinking about it.

    Now, he remembered a great deal, but not much of it was related to this monk. When he first laid eyes upon the Great Priest, sitting there, praying, he'd intuitively felt a strange, complex emotion surge forth –– he didn't know what it was, but he knew for sure that it was not an emotion a disciple should have been feeling toward his master.

    In that moment, Xuanmin frowned, and then he understood––

    Because this "Shifu" who looked just like him was sitting next to a great spell, and this spell was not one to save lives nor to save the world, but a life exchange spell, one whose only aim was to bring the monk fortune and virtue. 

88 铜钱龛世 | Tong Qian Kan Shi | Copper Coin Niches -- 木苏里 | Musuli -- 英语翻译 | English translation -- Chapter 88

 Chapter 88: River of Blood (II)

    Daze Temple stood on Mt. Jiangsong. At the foot of the mountain was Heishi Shore, a black pebble beach covered with rocks and boulders, some of which were so tall that they seemed to be part of a forest. Past Heishi Shore was the wide river, and the endless horizon.

    Bodies were piled all across Heishi Shore –– perhaps two hundred. They were all pale-faced, as though drained of blood. With their eyes tightly shut and their faces pulled into slight frowns, they appeared unconscious. They even looked, at first, to be dead, but their bodies were not rigid.

    Based on the attire of these unconscious bodies, which were mostly ragged and torn, some emitting a sour smell from not having been washed in some time, they were either outright beggars or itinerant, starving migrants.

    But some of them wore beautiful clothing, though the material of their clothes were not of high quality, and, from the split open callouses on their hands and their sun-wrinkled dark skin, they also looked to be poor working people.

    And inbetween these bodies, there were also some that looked like the lives they led were not bad. Perhaps they had gotten lost, or were in the countryside, when they had been kidnapped and brought here. Included in this group were Stone Zhang and Lu Twenty-Seven, who had been waiting for their companions at the teahouse.

    If they were awake now, they would probably be frightened by the scene. Because the two hundred bodies were arranged into circles –– circle within circle, all together making up a circular feng shui design.

    In the middle of these concentric circles was a stone sculpture around the size of a person, which had been crudely carved into the form of a monk stepping on a lotus leaf. From the back, this monk looked to be wearing a thin robe that billowed gently in the wind, like a stone Buddha. But, if one went to the front, one would discover that the monk's face could not be seen, because the monk was wearing a mask in the form of a beast's face. The mask was solemn and primitive-looking, and emitted a faintly evil aura.

    Even stranger, the monk's entire robes were carved full of complex talismanic writing, which looked to be similar to the text carved onto the small stone sculptures at Daze Temple, Mt. Wanshi, and Dongting Lake. The only difference was that the text on the monk looked to be mixed in with some other, mysterious script, which seemed to be some simple writing system invented by some bygone clan.

    If Xue Xian were here, he would recognise that script immediately as the exact same script that he had seen carved on the all in the Cave of a Hundred Insects –– but the handwriting was different. The difference was in fact minuscule, so that even the owner of the two handwritings might, in an absent-minded moment, mistake the two. 

    The lotus leaf part of the sculpture was covered in yellow talismanic papers.

    And beneath the lotus leaf, someone had also used blood to draw a circle around the sculpture.

    The two hundred bodies on Heishi Shore were arranged so that their heads faced the sculpture and their feet faced outward. Apart from this, they were in all sorts of positions, though there was one more thing that was identical –– on each of their foreheads, at their life pressure point, they had a small dot of blood, which looked to be a red mole.

    The wind blew hard across the river, sending ripples of water lapping against the shore. On a tempest day like this, each incoming wave threatened to drown Mt. Jiangsong itself.

    The circular design that these two hundred bodies had formed an iron cage around the sculpture, protecting it. The savage wind, strong enough to cut flesh and rip cloth, whirled past furiously, but the fragile talismanic papers on the sculpture did not budge. The pouring rain made the river water steadily rise, but not a single drop landed on the clothes of those two hundred.

    Outside the circle, a group of men in grey all knelt with one knee. They wore masks that looked similar to that of the Great Priest, except the Ministry's masks were red in color, whereas these masks were primarily green-black. With the Ministry's masks, these were yin and yang –– one light, one dark.

    All the men in grey also wore hip ornaments made of peach tree wood –– the exact same as the one that Xuanmin had taken from the man in the stone room at Dustpan Mountain.

    "Eight characters all aligned makes one hundred and eighty people. Not one more, not one less: ninety yin, ninety yang," reported the leader of the men in grey. Beneath the mask, his voice sounded muffled, and his words were broken up by the raging sound of the rain, so that it was almost impossible to hear what he was saying.

    They were kneeling before a man standing between two large black boulders, facing Mt. Jiangsong, with both his hands behind his back. The man wore a snow-white monk's robe with not a speck of dust. As the splattering storm approached the monk, it suddenly fell completely silent –– and even more mysteriously, when the rain fell upon him, it did not make him wet at all.

    This man was very tall, with a slender and elegant frame, so that just from his back he appeared to only recently have left his insular Buddhist realm to enter into human society. He looked utterly unapproachable.

    On his face, he wore a silver mask so that no one could see his appearance –– only a pair of black eyes. He was looking up at Mt. Jiangsong, and his cold aloofness seemed also to be mixed with some other feeling.

    As he heard the report from the leader of the men in grey, he rubbed his fingers, yet did not move his gaze.

    The grey leader looked up and glanced at the monk, then quickly looked away again, silently waiting for the monk to speak. Even this brief moment of silence made the men in grey feel uneasy and even ashamed, as though they had done something deeply wrong.

    The monk rubbed his fingers, then finally said, "Did you involve unrelated bystanders?"

    His voice had a fundamental sense of coolness to it, like the icy surface of a frozen pond.

    But this simple question made the men in grey begin to tremble. The leader quickly said, "No, no, we only kidnapped people from marginal areas, and if there were some idle people nearby, we brought them along too. There are no witnesses, and no proof."

    The monk rubbed his fingers again, then said, neither happily nor angrily, "Kidnapped?"

    "No, no, no, invited," the leader hurriedly amended.

    The leader forced himself to appear calm again despite his mistake, but for a long time there were no further words from the monk. Anxiously, the leader glanced at the monk and saw that he was still staring calmly at the peak of Mt. Jiangsong. Although he could not see the monk's eyes, the leader detected a sense of strong emotion in the monk, as though, somehow, the monk was feeling nostalgic about the mountain.

    Mystified, the leader suddenly felt foolishly brave. He had the audacity to ask, "This is an anonymous place in the middle of nowhere, with nothing special. Great Priest, why have you chosen this location?"

    Immediately, the grey leader wanted to slap himself dead on the spot. He had been raised by the wizard Songyun since childhood, and, from the age of sixteen, had begun to assist Songyun and the Great Priest in small matters. It had been seven or eight years since he'd taken on that role, but the number of times he'd actually met the Great Priest, he could count on the fingers of his hands. He still mostly received orders from Songyun and then would leave to execute them. Yet despite the fact he'd interacted little with the Great Priest, he still knew about the Great Priest's notorious temper––

    The monk had always had abnormal moods, and hated it when those beneath him had the audacity to ask unnecessary questions.

    In terms of what question was 'unnecessary', the monk had never clarified, so to the men in grey, that meant, "don't ask any questions."

    No matter what the monk's plans were, they were bound to be justified. They had no place to interject.

    Yet, when the grey leader had asked his question, the Great Priest had not become angry. In fact, the monk replied, "Many years ago, I met a saint here."

    Now that was.... too many years ago, so long that not even he could remember how old he had been at the time, what he'd looked like, who his parents had been, and why they had abandoned him on this wild mountain. If it had not been for that saint, he would probably have long died and have been resurrected several times by now, and would not be here today.

    Hearing the Great Priest's answer, the grey leader paused, shocked, then lowered his head and said, "That saint had a most excellent eye, or else we would not have peace on this earth today."

    "A most excellent eye..." The Great Priest seemed to be greatly amused by this phrase, then seemed to tease, "Peace? If the earth was peaceful, we would not have to do all this, and we would not have to come here now, nor invite all these suffering commoners."

    For a moment, the grey leader did not know how to respond. Indeed, the Great Priest was a man of few words, and it was highly rare that he would say so much in one go. If the grey leader did not respond, that would be a great offense. So he thought for a while, then said, "We are the foolish ones, who cannot part from tragedy."

    Hearing this, the Great Priest's gaze shifted and calmly scanned the grey leader, before turning back to look at Mt. Jiangsong again. Finally, he mildly said, "Everyone has some use. Do not belittle yourself."

    He gazed at the abandoned temple on the mountain, and lifted his hand in Buddhist greeting to it.

    To him, his whole life had begun right here, so it was fitting also to "die" here –– it was the only way that things could be whole. Besides, that he was here now was in part a disobedience of that person's wishes, so to come and repent before he "died" would give him a sense of peace.

    He believed that if the other lived, he would understand his motivations.

    When the Great Priest finished greeting the temple and looked up again, the talismans stuck onto the stone sculpture in the middle of the circle made of hundreds of bodies suddenly began to tremble.

    One was facing Daze Temple, another faced the direction of Dongting Lake, and another faced the direction of Mt. Wanshi.

    Those three talismans trembled simultaneously, emitting a whoosh sound, like the vigorous slap of the wind against a war flag.

    Next, the circle of blood surrounding the sculpted lotus leaf shone with a light, and that blood, which had been drying and becoming brown, suddenly glowed fresh again, and seemed to flow slowly.

    The Great Priest turned. He swept his sleeve, and a gust of wind sliced across the spell. The thumbs of the hundreds of people inside the spell burst and blood began to flow through those wounds and drip onto the ground. As though something were drawing them in, the rivulets of blood began to crawl toward the stone sculpture in the center. 

    It was an astonishing sight –– those hundreds of thin streams of red blood slowly, calmly making their way to the sculpture, like so many snakes. In the blink of an eye, they had made contact with the foundation of the sculpture.

    Although the men in grey had been prepared for this, they still felt a chill run down their spines as they watched the blood flow. The carved lotus leaf turned blood red in its entirety, then the redness began to crawl up the sculpture's feet.

    It seemed that the whole sculpture was going to be dyed red.

    How much blood that required, the men in grey did not know. They only knew that the blood in the two hundred bodies laid out for this spell was bound to be drained –– and none of these unconscious people would survive. 

    As they stared, dazed, the Great Priest glanced at them calmly and sent another gust of wind flying. The men in grey felt a sharp pain in their own thumbs, and then, before they could react, their right hands were slammed to the ground as though suddenly weighed down by an immense force.

    The force was so strong that none of them could fight back. Unable to control themselves, the men in grey crumpled to the floor and could only watch as their own blood was drawn out of their hands, sent crawling toward that stone sculpture, too. And it seemed that it was not only blood being drained out of them, but their very lives. 

    At first, they were too stunned to move, but then they began to struggle desperately. But no matter how much strength they expended, and what kinds of tactics they tried, their right hands were locked to the ground, and did not move an inch. Still, the blood flowed.

    The leader of the men in grey suddenly realised something. Shocked, he looked up at the Great Priest, and happened to meet eyes with the monk.

    There was not a ripple nor flicker of empathy in those black eyes. It was as though the monk were not looking out at hundreds of living human beings, but at a patch of grass outside a window.

    As he looked through those serene eyes, the grey leader finally understood the true meaning of what the monk had said: Everyone has some use. Do not belittle yourself.

    He also understood why the Great Priest had divulged so much earlier. To the monk, all this had been equivalent to talking to himself, with no one around to hear... after all, once they were all dead, they would no longer be anyone.