Chapter 26

Qing Zhouxue and Bai Su stood on the Qingshuang Sword, dragging behind them a twitching Wang Wu.

The spirit sword traveled a thousand li a day, and they returned to Taichu Sect with utmost urgency. The moment they arrived at Lingsu Peak, Bai Su hurriedly took out a pill from the cabinet and stuffed it into Wang Wu's mouth, then poured a mouthful of herbal concoction.

While she was busy, Qing Zhouxue, who knew nothing of medicine, could not help and so stepped outside. She was about to fly back to meet Ruan Mingzhu and Lin Xunzhen when she ran into two familiar figures.

It was Yun Shuchen and Liu Xunqin, seemingly in the middle of a conversation.

Her master caught sight of her and looked slightly surprised. "Why are you back again?"

Qing Zhouxue briefly recounted the events and couldn't help asking, "Was this arranged by the Sect Leader?"

"No."

Yun Shuchen said, "Normally speaking, this trial was not a one-sided choice by Taichu Sect—notices were posted in the town early on. Anyone with the desire to cultivate, regardless of wealth, status, or aptitude, could leave their name."

"Wang Wu's mother is a demon." Qing Zhouxue frowned. "Why would she willingly leave her name... Ah, perhaps Wang Wu himself left it without knowing. Master, Shishu, I'll go find Senior Sister Lin and the others first—"

Just as she spoke, a cry of alarm came from inside the house. Liu Xunqin frowned. "What's that sound?"

Bai Su and a figure tumbled out of the threshold, locked together. Wang Wu's face was twisted in fury, his mouth gaping as he lunged for Bai Su's neck. She pushed him back with all her strength, shouting, "Junior Sister, save me!"

Qing Zhouxue drew her sword and stabbed at him, but she couldn't kill Wang Wu, since the task wasn't finished—she was inevitably hampered. She only hoped to make him let go in pain. Yet the boy, even with a sword through his back and blood pouring out, remained as fierce as a beast, dragging his limp arm as he twisted and crawled to lunge at her again.

Elder Liu watched coldly—until the two of them nearly crushed her herb garden.

She walked over calmly, picked up Wang Wu with one hand, and smashed his skull with a single palm strike. Only then did he stop.

"Master!"

Bai Su struggled to her feet, ignoring her own scratches, stunned. "He's dead..."

Qing Zhouxue was momentarily frozen as well.

"Everyone has their own fate. This thing should have died over a decade ago; keeping it around is pointless." Liu Xunqin flicked her sleeves and walked away, leaving behind an ambiguous statement.

Wang Wu's corpse was unlike that of an ordinary person. The moment his vital breath was severed, a wisp of black qi emerged from his forehead, and then he instantly turned into a desiccated skeleton.

He... he wasn't a living person at all.

But he himself didn't seem to know. Not just him—the two young cultivators, lacking in cultivation, hadn't noticed at a glance either.

Yun Shuchen let out a soft sigh. Liu Xunqin had cut straight to the heart of the matter with a single sentence. That woman was as dull as ever.

She had been standing aside, watching the fire from across the river, delighted to see the two junior disciples scared out of their wits. It was quite amusing.

"Demonic power can preserve a corpse from decay, but memories will forever remain frozen at the moment of death."

Yun Shuchen seemed intrigued. She raised her hand, and the skeleton slowly rose, its hollow eye sockets staring at them, utterly eerie.

A slightly hoarse voice, issuing from a few broken teeth, gradually pieced together the full picture of the events.

The third year of Wude.

By the bamboo shoot stream of Zhushan Village, cooking smoke curled upward, peaceful and prosperous.

He was born. His parents, illiterate, simply called him Wang Wu—so as to suggest many children in the family, a good omen.

The family raised chickens and ducks, and hung dried meat outside, so they had to be wary of yellow weasels. The elders said you mustn't harm yellow weasels, but the younger generation considered them evil creatures—unclean. Ordinary folk would beat them to death if they saw them, then burn the bodies.

But a child certainly didn't understand such things as evil or not. He simply loved all manner of lively creatures, just as he loved dogs and cats.

At four years old, he sat on the threshold, the adults too busy to pay him any mind. He watched as, from a distance beyond the door, a thin, yellow little thing darted out—looked extremely clever, its eyes rolling around as if spying on the half-fresh strips of meat hanging on the rack.

But the little thing didn't dare come close.

He giggled, and the little thing, startled, darted back four or five steps, though when it turned and saw he wasn't chasing, it stood still and resumed its watch.

Wang Wu stood on his tiptoes, took a piece of meat, and tossed it far toward it. It seemed to startle the creature; it scurried off, cautious, and vanished in an instant.

Gone. Wang Wu searched several times, disappointed, pouting and starting to cry, until his mother came and carried him away, scolding, "Cry again, cry again—careful, a yellow weasel demon might eat you up."

And so he struck up a bond with the yellow weasel.

Yellow weasels are spiritual. Every few days, it reappeared at the family's door. Wang Wu was overjoyed. Risking a beating, he tossed more dried meat out the door.

This time, the yellow weasel lowered its head to sniff, and confirming it was food, snatched it up and ran. After a few such encounters, one beast and one human grew familiar in secret. Sometimes Wang Wu would find little trinkets he'd never seen before at the doorstep—seashells, broken jade, even the occasional fragment of gold.

Every time he crouched and slowly picked them up, the yellow creature would be watching from a spot not far away, waiting until he'd gathered them all, then dart back into the bushes and disappear.

He began to call it Little Yellow. It seemed a spirit; every time he called, Little Yellow would always emerge from somewhere.

After one spring, Little Yellow never came again. Wang Wu waited at first, then gradually grew disappointed, and the thought slowly faded.

Until the new snow of the next year covered the old autumn leaves, and the spring grass of the year after sprouted anew.

One day, Wang Wu happened to push open the window and was delighted to see that yellow shadow once more. "Little Yellow!"

Little Yellow was thin, its fur a sallow yellow, no longer as spirited as before. But its belly was round and swollen—it must have had pups.

Wang Wu pulled out a piece of dried meat and was about to throw it over when he heard his mother shriek beside him. Before he could react, a broom came down hard.

Wang Wu's heart clenched. Tearfully, he pushed the broom aside and breathed a sigh of relief—Little Yellow had run off.

"What are these things doing around here again lately? Didn't we just kill a few dens and make some nice new furs a while back? Husband, keep an eye on the chickens in the yard." He heard his mother say this to his father.

In the following years, Wang Wu never saw it again. He grew from a nursing babe into a young lad.

Those years the harvests were poor, and the family's livelihood grew harder. Wang Wu reached the age for schooling, but schooling cost money. He saw how his mother's clothes were patched until only tangled threads remained, and how the table hadn't seen meat for half a year.

So he dug out the bits of gold and jade he'd hoarded over the years from under the straw pile to supplement the household.

His parents grew suspicious. These odds and ends, exchanged piece by piece, fetched quite a sum. They asked where it came from. Wang Wu told them truthfully: "The Great Yellow Immortal gave it to me."

"Great Yellow Immortal? There's no such thing as a Great Yellow Immortal in this world." His father dismissed it as a child's fancy.

Only his mother, hearing this, opened her eyes wide in fright. She grabbed his shoulders, looked him over, and lowered her voice to a whisper: "These things are unlucky. How did you get mixed up with them? I saw..."

She muttered ceaselessly. A single autumn wind blew, and she fell ill. At first she could still get out of bed, but within a few days she was confined to her sickbed, unable to move, her breath faint as if on the verge of death.

The money for Wang Wu's schooling, the money dug from the straw pile, all went to medical expenses—no more than a floating twig in the sea that Jingwei tried to fill.

After they sold their fields and their house, and borrowed from every relative in the neighboring villages, they finally reached a dead end.

"That gold." His father's sunken eyes were full of vicissitudes. He asked Wang Wu, "Where did it really come from? Could there truly be spirits in this world?"

Perhaps it's only when a person is pushed to the edge that they start to believe in ghosts and gods. Wang Wu was about to speak, but his throat moved and he swallowed the words. His instinct told him that exposing Little Yellow was not a good thing.

The man opposite, his eyes filled with hope, stared at him intently until he slowly lowered his head.

"Can you find it?"

"Our family truly can't make ends meet. Just borrow a bit more..."

He shot a glance at his mother struggling in her sickness. Wang Wu's heart grew heavy. He stammered a few words and finally gave a slight nod.

"Little Yellow, Little Yellow."

He made up his mind, knocked on the threshold, and called its name. The yellow strip of a creature nimbly emerged from some bush, watching him from a moderate distance.

Wang Wu crouched down. "Do you... do you have any more gold? My mother is sick. We need money to save her life."

He pressed his lips together. "Don't worry. Once we get through this hard time, when I have silver in the future, I'll definitely build you the grandest shrine and make offerings so you can ascend to immortality early."

Little Yellow tilted its head, then suddenly hopped up and turned its backside to him, moving in stops and starts. Wang Wu's heart leapt with joy, and he stumbled after it.

He watched as Little Yellow squeezed into a deep hole, then its hind legs shuffled and kicked at the ash. Its supple body twisted inside the den, and then it emerged with a piece of gold in its mouth.

Just as joy filled his heart, Wang Wu heard the sound of a bow being drawn behind him.

A gust of wind whistled past, and the arrowhead sank into the white fur of Little Yellow's belly.

White turned to red.

The gold falling from its mouth rolled to Wang Wu's hand, also flecked with red foam.

Wang Wu's eyes widened in disbelief as he turned to look behind him.

His father, lowering the hunting bow, walked over, bent down, and picked up the gold. Wang Wu lunged at him, flailing with fists and feet. "Liar! That's not what you said before!"

He was slapped away. "You fool! The Taoist said it's probably this thing that's ruined our luck!"

That night, Wang Wu developed a high fever, dizzy and heavy as cloth soaked in water.

In his ears, bells clanged endlessly; in his nose, the cloying scent of incense lingered. He felt as if hundreds of Taoists surrounded him, performing rites, their noise making his head throb.

In the end, all he saw was bloodstained fur—unshakable, like a nightmare.

He woke again to bright daylight. On the table lay five whole skins, clean and neat—one large, four small.

His father was chatting merrily with a white-bearded Taoist, and eventually sold the large skin and the four pups' skins at a very gratifying price.

"With a single strike of the hoe, I pulled out four whining pups from the den. A bountiful catch."

"This beast already has some slight cultivation; the threat is still minimal, but its fur is quite rare. It can be used as material for alchemy."

"Such evil creatures—better rid of them early. I trust the illness at home will improve."

Wang Wu wanted to sit up. His nails dug into his palms. He wanted to bite the ox-nosed Taoist, and he wanted to bite his father who had followed him. He struggled and writhed, stiff as a fish stranded on the shore. Until a broad palm landed atop his head, and a voice said with satisfaction: "The money to save your mother's life has finally been secured."

At those words, he froze straight.

Finally, he closed his eyes, and all strength drained from him like silk being pulled.

He lay back down, and tears flowed.

With this windfall, Wang Wu's mother went to the best place in the capital for treatment. The surplus money was enough to buy back the family property they'd sold. Life grew more and more prosperous, but strange things began to happen in the village.