The mansions of the old, well-established families were all gathered in one area. Normally, there were no commoners around. The tall walls formed countless little alleyways between them, and the limestone paths were swept clean by the families’ servants.
The doors below the sign for the Chen residence swung open slowly. Out came a young man with a horse whip in his hand, surrounded by his servants.
Suspiciously, he eyed the furthest end of the alley. A few leaves had been plucked off the trees by the wind, but otherwise, all was silent.
“Recently, there has been some unrest in the household,” he said carelessly, when the attendant brought his horse over. “All of you, guard the house and prevent any evil fellows from sneaking in.”
The page boys guarding the doors nodded hastily, but there were traces of confusion and fright in their eyes.
These few days, strange occurrences had been taking place in the Chen household. Tiles fell off the roof for absolutely no reason. Fruits disappeared from the kitchen. A servant girl saw floating white shapes in the backyard in the middle of the night. In addition, old Madam Chen had fallen extremely ill and was now bedridden. Now all the servants of the household were in a state of terror.
Mounting his horse, the man left with his attendant.
It was only after he left that the servants began to talk. Two of them spoke, in hushed voices:
“Do you think Elder Young Master is going to Autumn Leaf Temple to request for some Buddhist ceremony, or to Huangxuan Abbey to request an exorcism from the priest?”
“They should all be pretty effective. Whoever it is, I wish they’d hurry up and deal with the evil ghosts here!”
“Tch.”[1]
A light chuckle. It made the page boys jump in fright, shivering like quails.
“Xiaoliuzi, did, did you hear something?”
“The evil ghosts are laughing; oh, Buddha!” A page boy plopped down on the floor and began to kowtow frantically.
The people crouched on the roofs and walls looked uninterested. The difference was quite stark; half of them looked shady and threatening, while the other half were clearly of the orthodox path.
The page boys looked around frantically, but they could not see those people.
“Today makes the seventh day; have you demonic cultivators not found out who the owner of the Stone-borne Flame may be?”
“I could ask you the same thing,” cackled a shrivelled old woman; on her face, with wrinkles like that of tree bark, there rested a black scorpion. Rolling her eyes about, she continued, “The Heluo Sect is well-versed in the ways of the Book of Changes[2] and the Eight Trigrams, and is a famous sect among the orthodox ones. Surely they must know the results by now, so why are you squatting here with us instead of asking them?”
On the opposite end, the old men who had dressed themselves to look otherworldly were choked up by this, their expressions full of embarrassment.
—those who had not yet formed their Golden Cores were considered to have taken only one step into the world of cultivation. Where would they get the dignity to be able to obtain information from the big-name sects? Ordinarily, the best they could do was trail behind and muddle along. Now that they wanted to get lucky and strike it rich, they could only wait outside the Chen residence.
For a long time there had been a rather strange phenomenon in the cultivation world: the truly capable masters would not care much for their looks. Conversely, the ordinary ones would dress in long robes decorated with amulets and arrays, carrying on them magic tools that gave off intimidating amounts of spiritual energy. They wrapped themselves up so tightly, all for the sake of improving their power and boosting their egos.
One could tell just by looking that there was no one of significance in this flashy, multicoloured crowd.
The demonic cultivators were not so different either. For the venerated ones would have no need to crouch here personally; they had all sorts of underlings at their every beck and call, to do all their bidding.
“If the Stone-borne Flame spills forth, all of Yunzhou City will be finished! We may escape in time, but the crooks and villains may very well be scared out of their wits!” someone from the orthodox side taunted, in order not to lose face.
“Rubbish!” Granny Poison Scorpion cursed furiously. “Don’t be hypocrites! You think we don’t know? You only want to benefit yourself; even if none of you can get the Stone-borne Flame, you could still save the commoners of Yunzhou City. It’s a good deed that wouldn’t make any difference for demonic cultivators, but you all are gunning for it; what a treacherous bunch you are!”
“What do you mean by that! We were not the ones who made the Stone-borne Flame acknowledge its master, so it has nothing to do with us even if it wants to blow up!”
“Heheh, if you really have the people’s best interests at heart, then you would show yourselves and herd this family out of the residence; make the head official of Yunzhou order the people to leave the city!”
“A pack of nonsense! You too know that Yunzhou is the main county, with a large population; you can’t just make everyone migrate elsewhere at once. It’s already difficult to ask the citizens to willingly leave their hometown, and if everything turns out to be fine, who is going to shoulder the responsibility for making all this fuss!”
“Well, the major sects have all arrived now,” Granny Poison Scorpion sneered, abandoning the argument. “I don’t see any of us getting anything good out of this, so we might as well leave while we can!” Paying no heed to the others’ reactions, she floated off the top of the wall, hobbling away.
At the same time, another group of people appeared from the other end of the alley. They carried small boxes, and in their midst was a man dressed in brocade robes. They appeared to be on their way to visit the Chen family.
“Hold on!” The brocade-robed man suddenly called for them to stop, frowning as he gazed towards the end of the alley, at the Chen residence.
“Now what is it this time, Young Master?”
The old attendant looked reverent, but in reality, he was very fed up with all of it.
He did not know what had happened to the young master of the family. A month ago, the young master accidentally fell off his horse and became bedridden. After he recovered consciousness, he did all sorts of things in the house; first he forked out exorbitant amounts for lingzhi mushrooms, then pestered the old madam about coming to Yunzhou. He even completely ignored his fiancée, the daughter of the Li family, and said not a word about her. When the old madam disagreed, he set off for Yunzhou on his own accord, attendants and all.
The moment they checked into an inn in Yunzhou, he said he wanted to visit the Chen family, who had been friends with them for generations. When he met a youth in the streets, he insisted that the youth was the Little Young Master of the Chen household. What a joke – everyone knew that the Chen family was scarce in direct descendants. Old Madam Chen had only one grandchild, Chen Shu, who was already past the age of twenty and had long since gotten married. Where could they possibly have a Little Young Master?
Although, there were rumours that the head of the Chen household once had a son. He had fallen into the pond, and no physician or priest could cure him. Word had it that he held on until the age of six, and then passed on—
The attendant shivered at the very thought. He could not help but wonder: did the young master get involved with something unclean?
Looking up, he saw the man staring at the roofs and tops of the walls, which were utterly empty; growing worried, he quickly persuaded, “Young Master, we are a little fatigued from the long journey, and it is inappropriate to visit at the moment. How about we…”
“Silence!”
The brocade-robed man’s face was ghastly pale with anger.
In his previous life, he was lucky enough to come into contact with the world of cultivation. However, even until his death, he was only ever the steward of a small sect, placed in charge of a bunch of people who swept the floors, carried water, and chopped firewood. He was unable to obtain even a pill for ceasing consumption of mortal foods, much less complete his Foundation Establishment stage.
Now he had only been back for a month, and he could barely remember the cultivation methods and oral teachings of that sect. His hundred-odd years of cultivation in the previous life had only amounted to that much. There was nothing wrong with his talent; rather, that was the extent to which the most basic teachings of a sect could elevate a person.
Furthermore, he was currently in a body of mortal flesh, and could not perceive the cultivators surrounding the Chen residence.
But if even the Chen household’s page boys could sense this ill feeling, who was to say that the man in brocade would not sense it?
—this brimming, sinister feeling that seemed to surround only the Chen residence.
Pupils shrinking abruptly, he let out a sharp curse:
“Damnit! How could this be, wasn’t it two years later…”
The Stone-borne Flame should have only been discovered by demonic cultivators two years later, when that fool from the Chen family was nineteen!
This Stone-borne Flame was already the greatest stroke of luck he knew of. After obtaining the Stone-borne Flame, Chen He became a formidable demonic cultivator within a hundred years, rising up to become one of the six demonic grandmasters. Before that, he was a fool who was not even fully literate. When he was being beaten by hoodlums at Autumn Leaf Temple, he could only shiver as he cowered on the ground, and he dared not even let out a sound as he cried.
He was only lucky enough to have a Stone-borne Flame in the backyard pond at home!
The man in brocade gnashed his teeth, his features terrifyingly twisted.
—he even arrived two years early, so why had the cultivators discovered the Stone-borne Flame already?
Granny Poison Scorpion, who had been leaving slowly under the cover of invisibility, sensed something amiss, and cast a suspicious gaze in this direction.
The man felt the back of his neck turn cold. He immediately realised that he was being eyed by a high-level demonic cultivator. Since it had already reached this level, it would be very difficult for him to obtain the Stone-borne Flame.
He would either do nothing or go all the way. First he would shake things up even more, and try to get another chance out of this!
Breathing deeply, he calmed himself down, then held his head high and said nonchalantly, “I am indeed a little fatigued. However, we have already come this far, and it would be bad if the Chen family’s servants were to see us leave. We should at least send them our gifts a notice of our visit, and we can visit again another day.”
These words made sense. The attendant could only suppress his doubts as he followed the brocade-robed man to the main gate of the Chen residence.
“I hail from the Yao family of Linshui; today I happened to pass by Yunzhou, and I have come to visit the family acquaintance.”
Seeing how the page boys were forcing themselves to greet him, with their faces aghast, the man in the brocade robes continued, “I saw the Little Young Master of your family lost in the streets, and was about to greet him…”
“Young Master, the Chen family does not have a Little Young Master!” the attendant hurriedly reminded. “You have it wrong, the Little Young Master died prematurely a long time ago!”
It would have been better if he had kept quiet. Upon hearing him, the page boys guarding the gates were at first confused, then blanched rapidly.
In well-established families like these, they seldom purchased servants from outside. These page boys were young, enough to have never seen Chen He, but they had heard the story of the Chen family head’s only son dying prematurely. Only, the family had not mentioned Chen He for a long time, so they did not remember it at once.
Hadn’t this Little Young Master gotten into some incident by the pond in the backyard? The same backyard that had been plagued by ghosts recently?
“Well…that young man looked like Little Brother Chen, so I thought—” The man gave a long sigh, then asked, “I only heard that your Little Young Master fell into the pond at age three and hit his head on a rock. He was saved even though his mental state had become affected. When did he die so prematurely? I, who was in Linshui, heard nothing about it.”
The page boys accepted his gifts and notice of visit, then sent him off after answering him vaguely. As they wiped off their sweat, they muttered about how this Young Master Yao was too tactless. For who would ask about such things at the front gates of someone’s residence? Besides, a child who died prematurely was bad luck, and would not even be recorded in the clan’s pedigree. Such a child would not have a funeral, and neither would any family acquaintances be informed of such a matter.
“How did he die?” asked a voice.
“Who knows how he died. He was in the mountains and wilderness, maybe he got taken away by a wolf.”
“How did that child die?” came another ghastly voice.
“I said it already, why are you asking—ah? Who, who’s talking.” The page boys were so scared that their legs gave way, sitting them down on the ground. Then they discovered that the steps were covered with poisonous scorpions, which caused some of them to faint from the shock.
“Tell Granny all the details.” Granny Poison Scorpion picked up one of the page boys and began to threaten him.
“Help!”
“Speak up!” The cultivators on the court walls also came down.
The Chen household had been strict. They were hearing this for the first time in seven days.
“Spare me, I’ll tell! The head of the household had a child who fell into the pond when he was three, hit his head on a rock and became foolish…”
“What rock? Did he bleed? Was there a lot of blood?” they interrogated.
“I don’t know,” the page boy pleaded, frightened out of his wits, “It all happened…over ten years ago!”
“Where’s that kid? We must see the person if he is alive, and we must see the corpse if he is dead; where was the body buried?”
“The Chen family went into the mountains to give incense offerings, and only said the Little Young Master had gone missing when they returned. Why would there be any grave?”
Without waiting for him to finish, at least half the cultivators had left. If they took this news to the major sects, they would be able to earn some favour, if not some kind of huge boon. The same applied to the demonic cultivators.
“There’s a high chance that child isn’t dead and has returned to the city. Inform the grandmasters[3] at once!”
“Search the whole city!”
Granny Poison Scorpion’s eyes were flashing as she silently followed after Young Master Yao. There was something wrong with that fellow, with the way he had exposed this incident right at the gates of the Chen household. He must have some sort of hidden intent.
~~~
In this moment, Chen He, who was about to follow his senior brother into the tavern, suddenly paused to stare at the man who was passing by on his horse, with his attendant at his side. The man also noticed this handsome youth standing at the side of the street, and looked at him uncertainly.
When their gazes met, they were both startled.
Chen He only felt that he was a little familiar, but in that man’s heart, it was nothing but turmoil and tumult.
—how could he forget the face of that cousin who had caused the deaths of the entire family!
That night, the floors of the courts were covered in corpses. Even the laughingthrushes[4], in their cages hung along the corridors, had died.
Fearing for his life, Chen Shu ran into the backyard in order to hide in the firewood storeroom, when he suddenly felt pain in his back and crashed to the ground. There came the sounds of people conversing.
“We killed so many, and we still haven’t found it? Are you sure it’s in this residence?”
“There’s no mistake, it’s definitely here—”
Before the second voice could continue, a loud call rang out in the distance.
“Found it, it’s that idiot!”
Lying on the ground, he struggled to open his eyes, his vision blurred by blood; suddenly, blazing red flames surged out of the pond. The last thing Chen Shu felt was the endless searing flames. Before he had time to lose all his blood, he was burned to death in the fire.
Chen Shu could not cry out. In his terror, he sat up, and discovered that he was still ten years old.
The tutor scolded Chen Shu for being lazy and sleeping in class, while that fool stood dazedly to one side, gripping the brush in one hand.
It had been that pair of eyes, that watched him emotionlessly as he turned to ashes in the flames.
—he remembered that the flames leapt straight towards Chen He, enveloping him, and burned everything to nothing.
Chen Shu’s eyes turned red with anger. His hands, still holding the reins, shook with fury.
That evil spirit was not dead, that bane of the household was back again!!
[1]: This is actually the sound of a (possibly derisive) laugh. And this is what I get for sticking close to the original Chinese sound…OTL
[2]: Original term was 周易, which is also known as 易经. It’s basically a book about divination. Also one of the oldest classic Chinese texts.
[3]: Here it refers to the demonic grandmasters.
[4]: This bird is referred to as 画眉(鸟) huamei(niao) in Chinese; specifically, it is known as the melodious laughingthrush, also known as the Chinese hwamei. The Chinese name means ‘painted brows’, which came from the white brow-like markings around the bird’s eyes.