Chapter 229: An Immortal's Testament

“Our casualties?”

“Not many. After all, we struck first this time.” The sparrowhawk did not give a specific number; instead, it went on, “Afterward, Zhu Erniang and the Red General negotiated.”

“What did they say? Are you at liberty to share?”

The sparrowhawk said without a shred of hesitation, “Of course, because I don’t know.”

“...”

“We all waited halfway up the mountain, us and the other burrow spiders alike. Only the Red General and Zhu Erniang spoke at the summit.” The sparrowhawk kept eating as it talked. “We saw Zhu Erniang waving her legs and baring her fangs, looking furious. The Red General stayed calm throughout. In the end, he returned after having successfully negotiated terms with Zhu Erniang. As far as I know, the spiders will still abide by the old pact and won’t attack travelers. There’s also a new clause. They’ll help Panlong City defend the southern region of the Panlong Wasteland. In other words, Zhu Erniang will send spider monsters to patrol the southern main road on a set schedule. If anything unusual happens, they’re to report it.”

A local overlord handling local security, nothing could be more fitting.

Previously, Panlong City’s pact with the burrow spiders had been loose and respectful. But after Zhu Erniang took a swipe at Panlong’s troops, the Red General showed no inclination to be gentle.

“Counting General Nanke’s setback, we lost plenty of men around Guizhen Stone Forest. I heard that the Red General’s original plan was to burn the whole forest clean.”

He Lingchuan had crawled through Zhu Erniang’s den himself and knew the tunnels below were one vast ranch. With the outside threat now checked, if Panlong City truly wanted to stamp out the spiders, it would be difficult but hardly impossible.

Zhu Erniang had a massive brood and a sprawling enterprise. In the wide-open Panlong Wasteland, where else could she find such a perfect habitat? That was why she likely bent in the end.

“However, Panlong City has to deliver winter stores before deep winter sets in: five hundred camels, two thousand goats, a hundred roosters, and seven hundred hens.” The sparrowhawk clicked its beak. “In exchange, the spiders will increase their monthly output of spider silk for trade with Panlong City. The spider silk is a prime material for refining magical artifacts, so it’s a fair trade. They’ll also supply extras they never parted with before, namely glowspores, fungal carpets, aphid dew, and other things. From now on, those can only be sold to Panlong City and no longer to private merchants.”

“They asked specifically for hens?” He Lingchuan was taken aback. “What for? Eggs?”

The more he thought about it, the less absurd it seemed. Those spiders already farmed fungus like ants and kept aphids, running a giant ranch. In that case, why not keep hens for eggs?

The spiders had taken heavy losses between Baling and Panlong’s fighting. Without other food, they might well start on human travelers.

Going forward, Panlong City would become the exclusive broker of spider specialties.

Then, is Zhu Erniang’s fury because the Red General had forced the price way down?

But she’s the loser, and it’s the losers who pay the price.

“How should I know? I’m off.” The sparrowhawk swallowed the last bite of meat and shook out its wings. “Oh, one more thing. Both the Red General and General Nanke praised your courage. I also heard General Nanke wants to recruit you into his guard. Are you interested?”

He Lingchuan sighed. “So the Red General appreciates me, but he isn’t planning to pull me into the Gale Army?”

He had hoped that, with such a big merit on the books, higher-ups might grant him an express lane for promotion.

“Escaping that den alive took wits and luck in equal measure, but you’re too young, and you need more experience.” The sparrowhawk cocked its head. “That’s a direct quote from the Red General.”

He Lingchuan straightened unconsciously.

The Red General had personally evaluated me?

Just then, a door creaked open in the neighboring courtyard.

Is Sun Fuling back?

He raised his voice, “Ms. Sun?”

“Mm.”

Just a single syllable, and he knew it was her.

He was the patrolman, forever ranging north and south. By rights, he should have been the one rarely at home. Yet somehow she was the elusive one.

Since their first meeting, he had entered the dreamscape three or four times, and the little courtyard next door had been empty every time.

He hesitated, then decided to seize the chance. “The writ of remission that was stolen, did you get it back?”

“I did,” Sun Fuling replied through the wall. “The authorities delivered it to me yesterday. Liu Tailai was arrested and interrogated.”

“Good, good.” He cleared his throat. “I have a question for Ms. Sun.”

Sun Fuling did not reply.

He wondered if she was already losing patience and touched his face. Am I not fair enough? In Dunyu these last two days, more than a few maidens and young wives had been batting eyes his way.

But then he heard a creak and scrape—wood on wood, or bamboo—and Sun Fuling’s figure rose into view atop the wall.

Well, her upper half, anyway.

“What is it?” From on high, she looked down at him, still wearing her veil.

So she set up a ladder.

“Did you get a new bird?” She had noticed the sparrowhawk in the yard.

“No. It serves in the Gale Army.”

The sparrowhawk had finished its magpie appetizer and hopped onto the wall, padding two steps toward Sun Fuling and tipping its head to eye her.

She paid no heed to the meat crumbs at the corner of its beak and reached out to rub its head.

He Lingchuan opened his mouth a second too late, half-afraid the sparrowhawk would jab a hole in her hand with that beak.

Thankfully, it did not do so.

She kneaded twice, and the sparrowhawk closed its eyes, plainly enjoying the attention.

“This monster doesn’t seem that fierce,” Sun Fuling said, scratching its neck. “So, what did you want to ask me?”

“Oh, I wanted you to take a look at something.” He drew a sheet of paper from his chest and held it up over his head, spreading it for her to see.

He was tall; one stretch put his hand at the top of the wall—proof that this wall deterred gentlemen, not thieves.

“Do you recognize this script?”

He had once taken a rubbing in an immortal’s cave—one of only two relics that the unknown “immortal” had left behind. The other, of course, had been the cave abode’s core, which the divine bone had devoured.

“What ugly handwriting.”

He Lingchuan gave a sheepish smile. The rubbing was a physical item, so he could not bring it into the dreamscape. He had had to memorize the shapes character by character, then copy them out again once he was in the dream.

Luckily, his spirit had grown more solid through cultivation. Memorizing an ancient text he could not read was a lot easier than it would have been before.

“But I do recognize it,” said Sun Fuling, causing his heart to leap in expectation. “Mm, let me see—”

“What subjects do you teach at Shumin State Academy?”

“Arithmetic and state history.” Her gaze tracked the lines. “Where did you get this?”

“A cave in the wilds.” He did not give the precise location, but he described the immortal’s cave abode as he had found it. “I heard that it was an immortal’s cave abode. Was the skeleton that was left in there truly an immortal?”

“Not necessarily. But there’s surely some connection to the immortals of antiquity. Just as a mouse hole isn’t only ever home to mice.” Sun Fuling explained, “This script was common two or three millennia ago, and it was a written form of the immortal language. Our modern script actually evolved from it.”

“The immortals taught it to humans?”

“Legend says they taught us more than just this.” Her eyes never left the page. “Hm, this cave abode’s master calls himself Perfected Dongli, the two hundred and twenty-seventh-generation direct-line disciple of the Grand Return Sect, of the lineage of Venerable Muling. He died at the age of seven hundred and sixty-seven.”

“This Perfected Dongli lived to seven hundred-plus?” He Lingchuan blurted, frankly envious. He would be content with a couple of those zeroes.

“He wrote it himself, so who knows if he exaggerated,” Sun Fuling said, cool as ever. “It goes on to say he heeded his master’s teachings and once served as teacher to mortals, enlightening the ignorant and urging them to remember their origins. But the tides of the world proved irreversible—mortals and immortals diverged, growing farther and farther apart. As spirit qi waned day by day, even he could not preserve longevity. His hair went white, his face wrinkled, his flesh slackened; suffering without recourse, he fell to the demonic path, worshiping gods and demons alike in pursuit of immortality. Because of that, he committed many wrongs, and only at the very end did he fully repent.”

“He worshipped gods and demons?” He Lingchuan thought of Sun Fuping and Nian Songyu, then of Hong Xiangqian. All of them believed in “gods and demons.” Nian Songyu had even offered his body as a vessel, begging a divine descent.

None of them had met a good end.

Are they exceptions? Or the rule?

His thoughts flicked to the Red General. The world knew Zhong Shengguang worshiped the heavenly god, and that Panlong City revered Mitian.

Will this city, these people, share the same fate?

Sun Fuling pulled him back. “It says only then did he truly grasp the heart method his master had left behind, and he revised the Flowing Water Anthology. That book was originally a divination classic passed down by Venerable Muling, but in the latter age of declining spirit qi it had drifted off-course and missed more than it hit. Perfected Dongli reworked it, even changed the name, and had it engraved in a golden book, leaving it for whoever was fated with it.”

Upon hearing “divination classic,” He Lingchuan sat up. Then, he remembered that he had scoured the cave top to bottom and never found a third usable item. When he had been there, he had not seen a golden book anywhere.

Sun Fuling asked, “Have you seen the Flowing Water Anthology?”

He Lingchuan shook his head. “An old turtle monster took it. No wonder it seemed to have such a good grasp of the Dao. It wasn’t like an ordinary guardian spirit at all.”

So that old turtle actually got an immortal’s treasure.

“Perfected Dongli says time is like water flowing away—once gone, it does not return. In an age of dwindling spirit qi, those with foresight are like fish in the water; with all their might they can, at rare moments, leap up and glimpse what lies ahead, but only ever a fleeting glimpse, never the whole.”

“...I see.” Disappointment tugged at He Lingchuan’s heart.

If even the one who had revised the Flowing Water Anthology believed this, then his own hope of changing his fate seemed that much thinner.

Sun Fuling exhaled softly. “That’s just how immortals disappeared. Perfected Dongli’s death was painfully ordinary.”

“Hm?”

“You could call it seated transcendence if you’d like, but to me, it sounds more like he simply died of old age, just like a mortal.”

“...”

So in the end, immortals still died of old age?

“What an utterly boring ending.”

“However strong a fish, keep it out of water long enough, and it dies,” Sun Fuling said. “He asks that whoever reads this testament carry his token to the former site of the Grand Return Sect at Mount Shou’an[1] and place it in the Guihua Pagoda[2]. Although the Grand Return Sect no longer exists, he still wishes to return to his origin, just as fallen leaves return to the roots.”

1. This is a completely different place from Mount Shou, by the way. ☜

2. Guihua (归化) can also be translated literally to naturalization or adopting the customs of something or somewhere. I think the keyword here is return (归), though. ☜