Chapter 158 – Rouge Immortal Mountain, the Human-Head Lantern, and the Serpentine Brush of Fate - Part 2

After the brief meeting, Gemhill seemed calm and back to normal.

Inside the main hall of the Hundred Lotus Manor, Pang Yuanhua observed a young girl with a warm smile. She was quite fond of this girl, especially the way she became so absorbed in her work that it was as though her entire world narrowed to the task in her hands. Strangely, the scene brought to mind a terrifying woman surnamed Long.

Meanwhile, atop the high roof of Silver Creek, a blackbird crouched in silence.

Li Yuan wanted to avoid alarming any hidden threats, so he decided to watch for signs of trouble on his own. It was a bit more work, but sealing off potential dangers now was far better than racing to contain them after they erupted.

Seated in his study, he lifted his brush and began writing out lines of poetry he remembered from a time before he crossed into this world. Creating a visualization aid, he had realized, required a certain mood—one conjured from poetry, then expressed through art.

He penned several verses attributed to the poet Li Bai, believing he could capture their spirit and weave it into the life chronicle he needed to visualize—

“

Have you not seen the youth of Huainan, roving heroes by day,

who feast on the hunt by night, then cast dice to the wind?

They gamble vast sums without a second thought,

and cross a thousand miles to repay a debt of blood as though it were mere steps.

Ten strides, one kill, then vanish leagues away;

once the deed is done, they brush off their sleeves and conceal both fame and name.

At dawn they brandish blades as if saluting heaven;

by dusk, they ride home in drunken revelry.

”

[1]

He’d also learned simple brush techniques from Liu Changchong. Since advancing to sixth rank, his memory, senses, and muscle coordination had all been enhanced, letting him recreate on paper what he pictured in his mind’s eye. After leaving Southsky, he’d practiced by sketching with tree branches near the waters of Silver Creek, so completing a small painting now posed no difficulty.

He spent some time jotting down poetry, then closed his eyes, trying to capture its essence. When he grew tired, he silently observed the county’s nighttime bustle.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

Time passed, and evening fell.

Nightlife in Gemhill followed its usual rhythm: first, the restaurants filled up, and later, the brothels opened their doors. High above, a blackbird soared to and fro.

As Li Yuan maintained his watch, the familiar

tap, tap, tap

of a walking cane echoed outside. Then came a series of knocks at the lower part of the door.

He stood, smiling, and opened it. Behind the door stood his little bundle of joy, flushed with indignation, and behind her, Yan Yu, hurrying to catch up.

Yan Yu arrived at the threshold, exchanging a look of mild exasperation with her husband. “Your daughter insisted on coming to see you.”

“Papa!” Sheng’er had a crow perched on her shoulder and reached out for a hug.

Li Yuan glanced at the crow; its overall strength seemed to have grown to 9~11. He picked the girl up and said, “Papa’s busy. Would you go back to sleep with mama for now?”

She pouted, looking wronged and reluctant. Yan Yu sighed and smiled wryly.

Outside, the night wind rustled the trees in eerie silhouettes.

Li Yuan nodded. “All right, both of you, come in.”

Yan Yu hesitated. “Are we going to disrupt your work?”

“It’s fine,” he replied. “I’m just monitoring Silver Creek. That Fortune Trading Company we dealt with had ghost servants in its ranks, and even though they’ve left, I’m worried they may have left something behind.”

Yan Yu had already been drawn into these matters, and Sheng’er was strange by nature, as if she belonged in this world of hidden dangers. Li Yuan saw no need to conceal anything from them.

“So you’re worried about scaring off whatever might be hiding,” Yan Yu said, stepping fully inside and closing the door behind her.

Li Yuan returned to the table, settling Sheng’er on his lap. Yan Yu leaned over the poems on the desk, reading them with surprise. After a moment of reflection, she said, “These are wonderful. I could never write anything like that.”

Li Yuan only smiled. There was no easy way to explain his knowledge, and he didn’t want to lie to her, so he changed the subject, returning his attention to the county below.

Holding Sheng’er seemed to brighten the girl’s mood at once. She was so delighted that she had her crows start looking for his blackbirds, as if they were playing

hide-and-seek

with Li Yuan.

Apart from the one perched on her shoulder, she had another beside the gyrfalcon and four more flying about the night sky. Whether Li Yuan joined in or not, the child was wholeheartedly entertained.

Not only had her crows grown from a strength of 8~9 to 9~11, but their number had increased from four to six. They flew about under the moonlight, pouncing on any blackbird they spotted with a sharp

caw

!

Seeing this, Li Yuan gently patted his daughter’s shoulder. “Try not to make too much noise, sweetheart. Papa’s working.”

She nodded obediently, and at once the crows went quiet as well, roosting on the rooftops and blending into the dark without a sound. Their eyes glowed with an eerie intensity, their feathers stiff, each wingtip sharp enough to slice a human throat in one stroke.

Yan Yu sat with them a while longer, then rose with a grin. “I’ve made some eight-treasure porridge with plenty of red dates. I’ll bring some over for you both.”

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

And so, several nights passed.

On the third night, well past midnight, something strange occurred in one of the private rooms in Heavenly Scent Pavilion. A song girl set out a small incense burner, lit three sticks of incense, then prostrated herself before empty air. She bowed with an eerie reverence, the corners of her mouth curving in a sinister smile. Her cheeks were faintly flushed, touched by a thin layer of rouge.

Despite the fact that there was clearly nothing in the air, the song girl knelt and bowed as though entranced, showing the reverence of someone who’d lost her mind.

From a distance, the blackbird looked on, feeding its observations directly back to Li Yuan. As the woman finished her incense offering, she put away the censer upon hearing someone call her name, then hurried off.

A moment later, the blackbird swooped down to the window, accompanied by a crow. The blackbird struggled to open the frame; it had no hands, after all. So the crow lightly tapped and clawed at the latch, managing to nudge it open. The two birds slipped inside, hiding in the rafters.

Before long, the song girl returned. She carefully took out a small box of rouge from her sleeve and began applying makeup before a bronze mirror. The rouge was strikingly vivid, yet her face was unnaturally pale. Her white complexion, paired with the heavy crimson of the makeup, made it seem almost like she was preparing a funeral mask.

High above, the blackbird and the crow watched in silence.

After she finished applying her rouge, the song girl placed the little box under her pillow and lay down to sleep.

The blackbird tried to pull the box out but lacked the strength. The crow flew down instead, sank its talons around the small case, and yanked it free.

Startled awake, the song girl turned over—and the black bird abruptly flipped the blanket into the air, blocking her view. In the same motion, it launched itself upward.

The crow, with the rouge box clutched tight, crashed straight through the window.

The two dark shapes vanished into the night.

Outside, the girl shrieked in panic, giving chase through the streets, “Give it back! Give it back to me!”

However, the birds soared away, soon disappearing into the darkness.

Distraught, the song girl wandered the roads, crying hysterically, “Thieves! Thieves! Someone’s robbed me!”

Before long, the Blood Blade Sect guards on their nightly patrol rushed over. Outraged at this talk of robbery, they fanned out to find the

flying bandits

to no avail.

Meanwhile, the crow watched from above as the guards combed the alleyways in vain.

In Li Yuan’s study at the Hundred Lotus Manor, Sheng’er giggled gleefully in his arms. Yan Yu, baffled, could only ask, “What on earth are you two doing?”

Li Yuan scratched his head. He hadn’t expected to be pulling off a nighttime heist with his one-year-old daughter, but it had worked out perfectly.

Back on the street, the song girl, whose name was Dong Xiaolan, was in utter despair, terrified at having lost something so important.

Just then, the crow and blackbird quietly returned to the study. With a soft flutter of wings, the crow landed on the windowsill and tapped gently.

Yan Yu opened the shutters, and the crow, rather courteously, extended its foot to present her with the rouge box. Then it flew off again.

Taking the box from Yan Yu, Li Yuan felt an unsettling chill, as if he were touching an ice cube—much like the sensation he got from that wooden doll in his equipment list. Yet the box itself didn’t slip into his personal storage the way an

equipped

item would.

He propped his chin in thought, recalling how the song girl had burned incense and bowed to thin air.

“Could it be that when this makeup is applied, she can see things normal people can’t?” he mused, tapping the tabletop.

“Is this rouge box something the Fortune Trading Company left behind? And if so, have they scattered more of them around?”

Peering at the late-night bustle of Silver Creek, where patrollers were scouring every street to help that frantic song girl, Li Yuan smiled.

1. The verses come from various poems of Li Bai. The first two are from 少年行 (Ode to Youth), the third from 侠客行 (Ballad of a

Hero

), and the fourth from 赠郭将军 (A Poem For General Guo). I couldn’t find any official English translations, so bear with the attempts at poetry. ☜