Chapter 9 (1/2)
Proud 4
Over there, Lan Sizhui and the rest had scouted around the ancient graves with no result. Some time ago they had at last turned towards the Tian Nu shrine to search for clues.
Within Dafan Mountain, besides the generations of ancestral tombs belonging to the Fujiao townspeople, there was also a Tian Nu shrine.
Within the shrine was consecrated, not a Buddha, not a Guanyin (1), but rather a single “Wu Tian Nu”. (2)
Several hundred years ago, a hunting family from Fujiao entered deep into the mountains. Within a cliff cave they found standing a strange stone almost ten feet tall. Naturally occurring but unexpectedly bearing a close resemblance to a person, its arms and legs seemed as if they were arranged in a dancing position.
Still more wondrous was that on the head of the stone statue one could vaguely distinguish facial features bearing a woman’s smile.
The Fujiao townspeople had a strange notion. They believed that this was a G.o.d stone formed by the gathering of heaven and earth spiritual influence in one place. Furthermore, it spontaneously became the source of many legends.
One of them was that an immortal was secretly in love with a fairy. Filled with bitter yearning, in order to console himself, he carved a statue with her appearance. The fairy, later discovering this, became furious. With the statue still unfinished, the immortal had no choice but to abandon his efforts. Another was that the Jade Emperor had had a daughter that he doted on. She had died young and his memories and love for his daughter had condensed to become this stone statue.
There was a stunning variety.
These stories that pa.s.sed from one mouth to another eventually became their own beliefs. The people then began to turn the cliff cave into a shrine. The stone base became a G.o.d’s seat, tribute was offered to the “Dancing Celestial Maiden”, and all year round offering incense burned in front of the shrine.
Within the cliff cave was a wide open s.p.a.ce like a temple, the celestial maiden’s idol stood in the middle.
At first glance it really did resemble the form of a person, its waist could even be said to be graceful.
On closer scrutiny, it was crude; however for a naturally made thing to resemble a person to such a degree was enough to cause astonishment.
Holding the Feng Xie board, Lan Jingyi moved it high then low yet the pointer remained still.
On the platform, a surplus of candles lay in disarray illuminating a thick layer of incense ash. Fruit offerings in dishes let out the scent of sweet putrefaction.
Gu Su Lan clansmen were all extremely fastidious to some extent, fanning the air in front of his nose, Lan Jingyi said: “Seeing the local people speak of how this celestial maiden shrine is very effective in granting wishes, how could they allow it to become so run down. They don’t even arrange for anyone to clean.”
Lan Sizhui replied: “There have already been seven consecutive lost souls, with the rumors of the lightning striking the Fujiao ancestral tomb and releasing the vicious fiend within, who would dare climb up the mountain. Incense will break, naturally there is no one to come and clean.”
A disdainful voice echoed from outside the cliff cave: “A piece of broken stone, I don’t know who would call this a deity, also who would dare to place incense and wors.h.i.+p before it!”
Jin Ling entered with his arms folded behind him.
The prohibition against speaking had not been long; he was already able to open his mouth again.
However to begin with, right away he didn’t have anything good to say. He looked at the form of the celestial maiden and snorted: “These village hicks, any setback and they can’t work to overcome it; instead all day long they burn incense and wors.h.i.+p deities asking Buddha and asking ghosts. There are countless humans on earth, G.o.ds and Buddhas cannot even attend to themselves, much less take care of them let alone a single nameless wild G.o.d! This spirit, if I make a wish, and request that the soul eating thing here within this Dafan Mountain promptly appear in front of me, can it accomplish that?”
Following behind him was a small group of clan cultivators. Hearing his words they promptly agreed, laughing heartily in praise.
The original quiet of the shrine, owing to the surging crowd entering inside, all of a sudden became noisy and cramped.
Lan Sizhui inwardly shook his head. Turning around he casually swept his eyes over the area finally resting on what approximately could be called the face of the celestial maiden. There could vaguely be seen facial features, seemingly bearing a merciful smile.
However, he felt this smiling face had some sort of indescribable sense of familiarity, as if it had been encountered somewhere before.
Where on earth had he seen it?
Lan Sizhui felt that this had to be an important matter. Unable to help himself, he approached the deity’s platform, wis.h.i.+ng to examine the face of the celestial maiden more carefully.
Just at that moment, suddenly someone b.u.mped into him.
A cultivator who had originally been standing behind him suddenly collapsed without a word.
The others all with great alarm immediately went on alert. On guard, Jin Ling asked: “What happened to him?”
Lan Sizhui, holding his sword close, carefully examined the person's body. This cultivator still breathed and seemed to still be in good health. It seemed as if he had merely suddenly fallen asleep, but somehow even after calling his name and being slapped he would not wake.
He got up and said: “It looks as if he is…”
Before he could finish speaking, the originally dim cave suddenly lit up, full of red light, as if a layer of blood had poured down the surrounding walls.
The incense and candles on the platform in the corner of the cave unexpectedly all spontaneously began to burn.
Zeng zeng came numerous sounds as everyone within the rock cave drew their swords and grasped talismans.
Just then, from outside the shrine, a person suddenly rushed in. Holding a medicine wine gourd he splashed the entirety of the celestial maiden statue, immediately filling the cave with the pungent smell of wine. He grasped a talisman paper in the air and with a single stroke tossed it at the body of the statue. The deity on the platform instantly ignited into a raging inferno, turning the inside of the rock cave into bright day.
Having finished, Wei Wuxian picked up the items and threw them back into the yin yang pouch, shouting: “Everyone withdraw! Don’t you see the soul eater lies inside the celestial maiden statue?”
Someone cried out in fear: “The position of the celestial maiden has changed!”
Just then the idol’s limbs clearly moved, one arm pointed towards heaven, one foot raised, and the body still displaying a graceful appearance.
Now within the red and yellow raging inferno, the limbs came back down.
This could be seen from all sides, it was not a hallucination!
In the next moment this idol once again lifted a foot and stepped out of the blaze!
Wei Wuxian yelled: “Run run run! Don’t attack it! It’s useless!”
The majority of the cultivators paid him no attention. A mult.i.tude of people had searched and searched in vain for the soul eating beast and at last it had finally emerged, who would possibly be willing to let it get away! However, even with so many immortal swords chopping and slas.h.i.+ng, together with paper talismans and magic weapons of every kind thrown in, there was still nothing that could stop the stone statue’s steps.
It was close to ten feet tall. Its movements like a giant, it had a completely oppressive feeling. It lifted two cultivators up to its face. The stone mouth seemed to open a bit then close, following which the swords in the two cultivators' hands dropped with a clang. Their heads hung down; obviously their souls had been sucked away.
Every kind of attack was completely ineffective. This time, the onlookers at last were willing to listen to Wei Wuxian’s words. Milling about, they desperately fled in all directions.
With everyone in disarray, Wei Wuxian was exceedingly anxious that he couldn’t find Jin Ling. Riding the donkey he rushed to find him. Losing no time he entered the bamboo forest and by and by he ran into the Lan clan’s younger generation. Wei Wuxian shouted to them: “Youngsters!”
Lan Jingyi said: “Who are you calling youngsters! Don’t you know what clan we belong to? Do you think you can wash your face and then immediately act as one of our elders?!”
Wei Wuxian replied: “Fine fine fine. Elder brothers. Set off your signal, call your family call that… that Han Guangjun to come out!”
The crowd of juniors repeatedly nodded, simultaneously running and rummaging through their clothes.
After a moment, Lan Sizhui said: “The signal flare… I used it that night back at the Mo Clan village.”
Wei Wuxian was alarmed: “Didn’t you replenish your supplies afterwards?”
It was the first time he’d ever had to use the signal flare, Lan Sizhui said with embarra.s.sment: “I forgot.”
Frightened, Wei Wuxian asked: “How could you forget something like this? You know Han Guangjun told you to be on guard!”
Lan Jingyi’s face was extremely dejected: “We’re done for. The next time we see Han Guangjun the punishment will be severe…”
Wei Wuxian: “Punishment. You should be punished! If you’re not punished you won’t learn your lesson.”
Lan Sizhui: “Young master Mo, young master Mo! How did you know that the soul eater was neither a soul eating fiend nor soul eating beast, but rather the dancing celestial maiden?”
Wei Wuxian began to run alongside them in order to search for Jin Ling’s figure: “How did I know? I saw it.”
Lan Jingyi caught up as well, with one on the left and the other on the right and him sandwiched between them they ran: “What did you see? We saw a lot of things.”
”I looked and finally, later, I saw it, ok? What is in the vicinity of ancient graves?”
“Probably could be anything, usually there are the souls of the dead.”
“Correct, the souls of the dead. Therefore it can’t be a soul eating beast or a soul eating fiend. It goes without saying, if it was either of those things, with so many souls of the dead in that place, how could it not eat them up? Inconceivable.”
This time more than one person asked: “Why?”
“I’m explaining this to you, the Gu Su Lan clan, ah…” Wei Wuxian really was unable to bear it: “You should spend less time teaching the points of immortal school etiquette and more time teaching genuine cultivation clan history. Spending this kind of time teaching things both terrible, long, and even more burdened with nonsense, yet teaching practical things won’t do? I don’t understand this kind of thing. Compared to living souls, the souls of the dead are easier to absorb and you can get many more. The body of a living person acts as a protective barrier, wanting to eat a living soul you have to break the barrier. Just like…”
He glanced to the side seeing the donkey gasping for breath with rolling eyes, “Just like an apple placed in front of you, another apple placed in a locked box, which would you choose? Naturally you’d choose the one in front of you. This thing only eats raw souls, but it is creative with its eating, a very picky eater, also very difficult to deal with.”
Lan Jingyi was surprised: “So it was this kind of thing? That seems to make a lot of sense! Wait a minute, so you’re really not a lunatic!”
Lan Sizhui ran while he explained: “We all believed it was the matter of the landslide and the lightning that split open the coffins that drew out the lost soul. Naturally, we then believed it was a soul eating fiend.”
Wei Wuxian said: “Wrong.”
“How is it wrong?”
“The order is wrong. Cause and effect is wrong. I’ll ask you, the landslide and soul eating incidents, which was first and which was after, which caused which result?”
Lan Sizhui said without thinking: “The landslide was first, the soul eating happened after. The former caused the latter result.”
Wei Wuxian said: “Completely wrong. The soul eating happened first, the landslide was after. Eating the souls was the cause, the landslide was the result! The landslide that night, suddenly under a torrential rain, lightning struck a coffin, remember this. The first lost soul, that sluggard who was stranded within the mountain that night, it was several days prior to his marriage.”
Lan Jingyi asked: “What’s strange about that?”
Wei Wuxian said: “How isn't it strange! A poverty stricken idler, where did the money for such a large wedding come from?”