Chapter 408 - The Tianxiang Chamber (1/2)
“What did you just say?” “The Sect has no such thing as a Divine Corpse!?”
Whatever things Xiao Chen and Su Lianyue expected to hear, this was definitely not it. No Divine Corpse exists here at the Corpse Refinery Sect? Then why is the Sect amassing the malignant auras of grudge and hatred?
A frown wrinkled on Su Lianyue’s face. “Can you be more clear, Senior? What is the Sect doing then, if there is no Divine Corpse?”
“Who can tell? Some devilish errand for some sinister folk, I guess! The Sect has nothing as remotely close to what you all call the ancient Divine Corpse, nevermind the remains of an Immortal King. The whole thing is nothing but a millennia-long farce. Whatever that thing is called… it’s only the corpse of a simple girl. But one thing boggles me – how could a woman of the common folk has so strong a grudge that all the anger of the entire world put together would still pale in comparison?”
“Hold it right there,” Xiao Chen felt his head spinning, “What did you say about a woman of the common folk? What strong grudges? Everyone here has been gulled for thousands of years?!”
“Yes,” Yu Yangzi muttered with his abruptly-strangely-calm voice being the only sound in the chilly silence suddenly, “Indeed… The woman’s name was Red Sleeve!”
“Red Sleeve?”
Xiao Chen and Su Lianyue exchanged a look that was limned with doubt and suspicion. So this diabolical order has been operating for millennia with a woman called Red Sleeve at the helm and no one here was any the wiser?
“So you mean to say that this Red Sleeve is the one who had weaved this myth about a Divine Corpse, the remains of an Immortal King, to all the High Chieftains and Elders since Heaven knows when? Telling them that this Divine Corpse would be the object of their deliverance from the eternal bondage to the Administration?”
“Spot on,” Yu Yangzi remarked with a wicked chuckle, “More so, with the Soul’s Life Source of everyone here in the grasp of Red Sleeve. It was a myth passed down through endless generations that people began to cling firmly to it like ants on the scent of sugar. Those who wished to disprove this myth were hunted down like dogs and executed as traitors of the order and had their souls delivered to the Administration and their remains reused as Corpse Puppet. No one, not even the High Chieftain himself, is free from such fate!”
So this Red Sleeve must really is a dangerous person, Xiao Chen and Su Lianyue shared the very same fearful dread. That would explain the fear and awe everyone has for the woman in red, the lady-in-waiting of Red Sleeve.
“But… Err… Senior,” Su Lianyue asked again, sounding positively doubtful, “Has there not been any attempts to overthrow her rule?” Members of the Corpse Refinery Sect were not known for their loyalty and faithfulness.
“Overthrow? Hardly,” Yu Yangzi allowed, “High Chieftains of the past have all had their souls consumed by Red Sleeve or sent to the Administration of Heaven. Even in my state, I’m one of the handfuls of lucky ones… Her might is beyond your comprehension and she is eternal. Imperishable. Not even the Nether Emperor can do anything to her. Fuelled by her anger, her hatred, and her malice, there is no power in the worlds and those beyond that affect her. She has, in fact, the most intense and purest grudge and anger ever known!
Xiao Chen understood what little he knew about Rancorous Qi and Malicious Grudge. The Rancorous Qi from the residual emotions of a dying man would later become what we know as Malicious Grudge, the aura of unrest and hatred of the dead. The aura of Malicious Grudge could reanimate a corpse into a mindless and soulless being driven and sustained only by the intent of revenge. An abomination damned to never enter the Samsara.
It was what happened to Wang Luo, the student of the Ziyang Sect he once met. Wang Luo was murdered in cold blood and the vestigial grudge and unrest would slowly grow into the aura of Malicious Grudge and a reanimated Wang Luo would have risen from dead, back to exact vengeance if not for Xiao Chen’s interference to lay him back to rest peacefully.
Malicious Grudge auras aging more than a thousand years are known as Heavy Grudge auras which are further classified into several levels. The Corpse King that Xiao Chen fought against radiated only an ordinary Heavy Grudge aura. But what Red Sleeve has was the very worst of them all. A fit of anger and hatred that would never fade, one that could only be birthed if a person is brutally, cruelly, and wrongly killed.
Xiao Chen frowned. He could not understand how could a woman of the common folk, like how Yu Yangzi described her, could possibly develop such strong and intense fury? Even the Corpse King he had encountered before exuded only the strong emotions that seemed ordinary in contrast. What experiences did Red Sleeve have during her life that had rendered her so?
The more he listened, the more Xiao Chen felt dazed and giddy as dread burgeoned in him. For brief seconds he was silent until he finally asked, “Senior. The people who are taken on every seventh day of the seventh month; is Red Sleeve indeed behind all these abductions?”
Su Lianyue’s face turned to stone almost at once. Yu Yangzi shook visibly for a brief instant before he answered, “Yes. Red Sleeves sends her men to abduct girls born on the seventh day of the seventh month every three hundred years. It has been a practice for three millennia.”
Three thousand years?! How many innocent girls had perished at her hands?! Su Lianyue and Xiao Chen wondered in unison. The dread growing in Xiao Chen became stronger and disturbing as he asked again rapidly, “Then what are these girls abducted for?”
“I don’t know,” Yu Yangzi replied, his head shaking slowly, “I do know, however, that she has taken one of our unused cave halls for herself and named it Tianxiang – meaning lighting incenses…”
“Tianxiang?” Xiao Chen and Su Lianyue looked at each other again in bewilderment. Red Sleeve and Tianxiang… Putting both together would form a Chinese idiom, hongxiu (Red Sleeve) tianxiang, that means the companionship of a gentle and fair lady… How eloquently put…
The revelation made them flutter as the recollections of the few nights they had just gone through came back to them vividly and the chilly air around them only made them want to hug each other tightly for warmth. The distressing wintriness made both men and women eager for each other’s company the more they wallowed in the premonition of the despairing news.