Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong
Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/
Chapter 156: There is a God on Xushan
A few minutes ago, Fang Xiu had been thinking that even the illusory images of his parents could soothe his inner exhaustion. In this moment, he was realizing that a truth he had already seen through could still pierce his heart like a blade.
For one second, it felt like Fang Xiu’s heart had stopped. His skin and flesh seemed to vanish, the cold wind blew directly against his exposed nerves, and his brain exploded into blankness.
Then his heart started pounding wildly, pumping blood furiously to his brain until he felt lightheaded. He could control his breath, but not his unruly heart.
Fang Xiu of course knew that he was special to Bai Shuangying.
His ghost was usually easy to read, but hearing this fact directly from Bai Shuangying’s mouth was somehow… entirely different.
The films he’d seen before now seemed like a joke. Watching pigs run and eating pork turned out to be completely different things.
Fang Xiu cursed himself a few times for being so useless and simultaneously felt relieved that Bai Shuangying was currently nestled inside his body. If Bai Shuangying had said this face to face, it might have taken him half an hour to recover.
He clutched his chest and shook his head, finally shaking back a bit of his rationality. “Oh? What kind of like?”
He kept his voice calm, only to despair as he realized Bai Shuangying was coiled tightly around his heart. There was no hiding his heartbeat.
As it turned out, Fang Xiu’s guess had been exactly right—Bai Shuangying was closely wrapped around his heart, clearly unwilling to allow his human even the chance to lie.
“I don’t care how humans categorize it,” Bai Shuangying replied matter-of-factly. “I already believed you were mine. Until I can accept you leaving, you are mine.”
“If I had to define it, my kind of like probably means ‘I am yours too’.”
He was willing to wait, to make concessions, even to sacrifice things in exchange for more time together. That was Lord Bai’s clearest feeling. Anything deeper, he couldn’t quite describe.
But he knew this was entirely different from liking lush forests or pretty porcelain figures.
Then Bai Shuangying was nearly stunned by the impact of Fang Xiu’s heartbeat. The organ was beating wildly, rhythm completely lost, banging into his body so hard he worried Fang Xiu might be going into cardiac arrest.
Just as Bai Shuangying was seriously considering whether he needed to intervene and save Fang Xiu, the rhythm finally calmed.
“You said that yourself,” Fang Xiu said at last, voice full of ambiguous meaning. “You won’t get a chance to take it back.”
“You’re more likely to regret it,” Bai Shuangying poked his heart again and it thudded anew.
Fang Xiu: “You have no idea—”
“Are you two done flirting yet?” A’Shou cut in with a low voice full of suppressed frustration. “The humans are about to get here.”
Fang Xiu: “…”
Fang Xiu coughed awkwardly and transformed back into the red-robed Mountain God.
A’Shou gave him a helpless glance.
The old Fang Xiu had always reminded her of something familiar. Back when she had defended the borderlands, she’d often seen the same look in the eyes of her comrades. It was the look of people who knew the situation was irreversible, who knew they were fated to die on the battlefield.
They all knew they were only temporarily alive. Everyone was a breathing corpse.
But now, something new had appeared in Fang Xiu’s eyes.
She didn’t know how to describe it. It wasn’t pure “hope”, and it wasn’t the wildness of “joy” either.
If she had to name it, it might be the vibrant thing called “desire” unique to the living.
……
Not long ago.
Guan He had been following the “phantom” of Fang Xiu, too nervous to get too close.
If Fang Xiu were really here, he would have met up with them. He wouldn’t just be wandering around this bizarre temple fair. So that “phantom” had to be fake, a roundabout message.
So Guan He followed with anxiety as Fang Xiu and his “family” walked and stopped and walked again. Eventually, he saw where the phantom had been guiding them—to the dark graveyard on the edge of the village, a place he hadn’t visited yet but had long heard about.
Fang Xiu didn’t belong here. The God of Weishan didn’t belong here. None of this matched the previous story’s pattern.
Guan He hid in a dark corner where the light couldn’t reach, scratching his head, trying to think clearly.
In the last ritual, it had been Fang Xiu who had led them to a breakthrough. But this time, the man and woman accompanying him couldn’t be explained. The God of Weishan had appeared and taken the role of “God of Weishan emerging among the sacrifices”, meaning none of the four current players had transformed.
By the script’s logic, it should have been Auntie Cheng who changed… so why had the story shifted?
[Do not be deceived. This is not the real ritual.]
[From your perspective, act freely.]
[I’ll handle Immortal Encounter E. We’ll meet again at the end.]
Those were the messages Fang Xiu had left behind.
Following the script was meant to leave the final death slot to the enemy. Now only the “murdered by another” option remained, and it wasn’t tied to the environment anymore.
Think. I have to think further.
The strange changes to the shrine, the sudden appearance of the mountain god, the modern-looking temple fair, the guiding Fang Xiu illusion…
“The script’s tone doesn’t shift halfway through.” Guan He muttered as he rubbed his fingers together. “New characters popping up like this are unnecessary. It must be a new force interfering.”
The Guishan Sect members had been with them the whole time. That left only Fang Xiu and the Underworld itself as possible interveners. If it had been the underworld, the fair wouldn’t look so “earthly”, and there’d be no reason to alter the script so drastically.
If Fang Xiu had failed and the Immortal Encounter E was taking revenge, the current script wouldn’t be this toned-down. The difficulty and intimidation factor hadn’t increased. That made it unlikely too.
The only remaining explanation was, Fang Xiu had altered the Immortal Encounter E and made the ritual easier for them. He hadn’t appeared yet, maybe because he was still struggling with it, or maybe he just wanted to test them.
Guan He reached this conclusion but found it hard to believe.
Maybe the Immortal Encounter E just wanted to toy with them by changing things constantly. Maybe he had missed some important clue. Maybe everything he was seeing was a hallucination… Maybe he was being too optimistic.
“Let’s go to the cemetery. I believe you.” After hearing his private theory, Cheng Songyun spoke firmly.
“But…” Guan He hesitated, full of doubt, like a student second-guessing answers during a major exam.
This wasn’t like last time with the Grave-Sealing E. Back then, he had the little black dog guiding him, and he trusted that Fang Xiu had a plan. This time, he had to rely entirely on his own judgment.
What if he was wrong? This was life and death, and they were being watched by cultists well-versed in metaphysics. One misstep, and he would drag Auntie Cheng down with him.
So this was the kind of pressure Fang Xiu had always been under when making decisions?
“Maybe we should explore the other three directions first… buy some time…” Guan He licked his cracked lips, sweat breaking out on his forehead.
Cheng Songyun subtly glanced toward Grandpa Dao and gave a barely visible shake of her head.
“Xiao Guan, we can’t let them see you’re hesitating. If we lose the initiative now, we’ll be in trouble… These people are like flies. They’re drawn to wounds.”
She whispered, “This ritual is like life. No one can predict things with a hundred percent accuracy. We can only follow our judgment.”
“And I think your reasoning makes sense,” she added gently but firmly.
They hadn’t spoken more than a few words when Grandpa Dao strolled over with a smile. “What’s the matter? See something?”
Believe in yourself. Believe in your deduction. If it were Fang Xiu… If Fang Xiu were here…
Guan He forced himself to breathe evenly and tried to mimic the Fang Xiu in his memory.
“I think the clue is in the cemetery.”
Grandpa Dao: “Oh?”
Guan He lied with all his might. “Just now, I saw the shadow of that red-robed mountain god heading toward the cemetery.”
“The villagers clearly revere the God of Weishan. They even built the opera stage directly opposite the shrine. Now we have to determine if the ‘God of Weishan’ is linked to humans, and the cemetery is the best place to find out.”
Grandpa Dao stroked his beard in silence.
Guan He forced down a swallow and tried to appear like he was in total control. “We’ve already found the three taboos. As long as we show proper respect to the god, we won’t violate the death taboo.”
“What we really need to watch out for is Old Man Fu. He and his evil spirits don’t fit with the fair’s style. He might be the kind of malevolent force trying to refine the E.”
Guan He improvised wildly, his brain cells screaming. Thankfully, under Grandpa Dao’s scrutinizing gaze, he barely held his composure.
“There’s some logic in that,” Grandpa Dao said.
“I think so too. In that case, I’ll lead the way. I’m good at defense,” Cheng Songyun said, slipping in at just the right moment.
…Time returned to the present.
The four of them pressed through dense darkness, heading toward the village cemetery filled with tombstones. The rain hadn’t stopped. Thick clouds completely blocked out the moonlight. If not for Grandpa Dao casting an illumination spell, it would have been pitch-black and impossible to see their hands in front of their faces.
Cheng Songyun recalled the layout from before and guided the group toward the nameless grave. Guan He walked beside the two cultists, palms slick with sweat.
Grandpa Dao was certainly not foolish enough to dig his own grave. So next… what would be the breakthrough?
The air was humid and sticky. The surroundings were utterly unfamiliar. Tombstones tall and short emerged from the gloom. Mud squelched underfoot with every step. Guan He tensed, eyes locked on Grandpa Dao’s back, barely daring to breathe.
They didn’t know how long they had walked when the group stopped before the nameless tombstone.
“Strange. This tombstone has no inscription,” Cheng Songyun said deliberately.
Grandpa Dao made a thoughtful sound and gestured to his remaining teammate to investigate. This Guishan cultist was experienced and cautious. He didn’t actually touch anything—not even a toe stepped into the grave mound’s perimeter.
Still, both cultists focused their attention on the tombstone. Their eyes were drawn in together.
This was a good opportunity. He needed to create it himself.
Guan He tried to think it through. This time, he only hesitated for half a second before acting. With black cloth covering his eyes, he used the Five-Ghosts Relocation to steal the cultist’s waistband.
Then he immediately released the child ghost, yanking the man’s pants down around his ankles in one clean motion. The entire attack took less than two seconds.
The highly mundane and absurdly physical assault threw Grandpa Dao and his teammate into a split-second daze.
The teammate cursed instinctively and bent over to pull up his pants. Cheng Songyun took the chance to strike. Using a broken shard of tile, she sliced straight across the cultist’s neck.
The area was so dark that Guan He couldn’t see the extent of the wound, but the heavy scent of blood filled the air. The man didn’t even manage to lift his trousers before collapsing into a pool of blood.
Cheng Songyun immediately raised her Resentful Ghost Shield, then pinned the body down and slashed twice more, nearly severing the man’s neck. At the same time, Grandpa Dao launched a spell directly at her shield, but it struck harmlessly without effect.
Being a seasoned veteran, Grandpa Dao wasted no time talking.
When the first blow failed, he turned instantly. A deadly red light of a spell swept toward Guan He. Terrified, Guan He instinctively activated a wall-walking spell to escape. He just barely filtered through the attack—but he was half a second too slow. The front of his chest was hit and a palm-sized patch of skin burned away.
And that was enough for Grandpa Dao to figure out his defense method.
The old man sneered and stepped between Guan He and Cheng Songyun, unleashing a barrage of tightly woven spells in Guan He’s direction. Facing the storm of magical attacks, Guan He’s mind went blank and cold sweat poured down his back.
What now? How was he supposed to dodge?
Cheng Songyun’s ghost shield was too far to protect him. He… wait.
Guan He bit into his fingertip, grabbed the jade Buddha. Before he could even register the result of the jade Buddha, another wave of spells landed on him.
He didn’t check his wounds. He charged blindly at Grandpa Dao. The old man froze for just a moment, long enough for Guan He to pass through his body and run toward Cheng Songyun’s shield.
Cheng Songyun quickly adjusted the barrier and pulled Guan He inside, protecting his battered form. By the time he stopped, the jade Buddha in his hand had already turned to powder.
Guan He shook the dust off his hands. His ears buzzed with the sound of near-death.
“To try and kill me this early… Looks like you already know something. But now that it’s just me left, you’re not going anywhere either.”
Grandpa Dao remained completely composed, sneering as he pulled out a jade pendant.
“Xushan is the sacred ground of our sect. The God of Xushan shall protect me!”
The author has something to say:
Xiao Bai: ?
Xiao Bai: Great, here we go again.jpg
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