Unsheathed

Chapter 145(2): Traces (2)

In the upstream region of the Embroidered Flower River 100 or so kilometers west of Red Candle Town, there rested a small and lone mountain in the middle of the river. This was Steamed Bun Mountain, and it only received a passable amount of offerings and incense.

A short man "walked" out from the clay god statue that was suffering from a severe case of peeling paint. After landing on the floor, he reached over and plucked a red-clothed child from the censer. This child was only as tall as a palm, and he was the only remaining incense boy in this mountain lord temple. The man placed this boy on his shoulder before leaving the temple and directly striding across the churning river.

Lying on the man's shoulder, the sleepy boy in red immediately let loose a torrent of abuse. "Fucking hell, why did you disturb my sleep?! You've been acting a bit strange ever since coming back from that failed battle. Are you feeling frustrated because you saw those seductive boat hostesses in Red Candle Town yet were too poor to spend a night with them?"

In a rare turn of events, the short man decided against teaching the incense boy a lesson. His voice was deep and solemn as he said, "We went to Red Candle Town and found that carp spirit. We gifted him a snake gall pebble from Jewel Small World, and he'll soon become the river god of the Rushing Tranquil River. If you want to, you can stay with him in the future. A river god shrine will definitely receive more offerings and incense than a tiny mountain lord temple like mine..."

The incense boy was dumbfounded at first, but this quickly transformed into rage. He jumped up and started to furiously slap the short man's face. However, he was only as tall as a palm, while the short man was a genuine mountain lord, after all. Thus, his slaps were nothing more than tickles to the short man. The incense boy stomped around and roared, "Fucking hell, don't try to insult me like this!"

In the end, the incense boy dejectedly slumped down on the short man's shoulder and choked up with broken-hearted sobs.

The short man cracked a grin and said, "So be it if you don't want to leave to enjoy a good life. If you prefer to suffer here, then you can continue to stay here and await death in this desolate mountain. I couldn't care less about what you choose."

The incense boy in red immediately wiped away his tears and broke into a smile upon hearing this. "There's no place better than home, after all. Oh, don't misunderstand me. I have no attachments to you and your crappy temple. I'm simply attached to that censer!"

The short man didn't say anything.

The incense boy fell silent for a moment before quietly asking, "You're the longest-serving mountain lord in our continent, and it seems like your past colleagues from the same generation as you have all been promoted to the position of city god at a minimum. Your relationship with them is clearly pretty good, and many of them want to come to this desolate mountain to visit you. So why are you so unwilling to see them?"

The short man remained silent, and it was evident that he didn't want to talk about this matter.

However, the incense boy who lived together with him was clearly unwilling to let his owner off the hook so easily. "Our neighbor, that coquettish woman from the Embroidered Flower River, always has love hearts in her eyes when she secretly steals glances at you. Even I'm barely able to resist her, so why?do you insist on remaining so stone-hearted?

"If her subordinates knew about your good relationships with the others, would they still dare to pick on you all the time? Those sentient beings in the river always spit water at us for absolutely no reason at all. How bloody infuriating!

"Because of this, the other members of my species are never willing to play with me when I go to the city. They all say that my background is bad and that I'm a poor little bumpkin. It's all your fault!"

The short man was in a fairly good mood, and he chuckled, "Children never think of their parents as being ugly. Tsk, only you speak the most nonsense."

The incense boy rolled his eyes and humphed, "I've heard many rumors these past few years, and some people say that you offended a powerful figure from the Ministry of Rites of the Great Li Empire. Not only did you fail to properly place their incense and offerings when they came with their family to this desolate mountain, but you were even impolite during your interactions with them.

"Others also say that you soiled the beautiful daughter of some immortal clan, causing her to struggle in her relationships. This ultimately delayed her cultivation. The clan leader put pressure on the imperial court of the Great Li Empire, and they asked that you be forced to stay as the mountain lord of this crappy temple for all eternity.

"And then some people also say..."

The short man chuckled and said, "Okay, okay, these are all old and inconsequential matters that I've already forgotten about. What are you speculating for? Why is the eunuch even more worried than the emperor[1]?"

The incense boy jumped up and slapped the short man across the face, exclaiming, "Who are you calling a eunuch?"

The short man paid no heed to the incense boy's disrespect. He suddenly retrieved a sparkling and crystal clear green pebble from his clothes and placed it on his shoulder. "This is a legendary snake gall pebble. Here, have a look. Beings from the water, especially those who are related to flood dragons, can advance their cultivation base in leaps and bounds if they ingest such a pebble and are able to withstand its power without dying. Moreover, there won't be any drawbacks if they succeed. In other words, snake gall pebbles are equivalent to the most top-notch immortal pills."

The incense boy hurriedly raised his hands to stabilize the "gigantic boulder that was half a person tall".

"Who gave it to you?" he asked in curiosity. "Why didn't they directly give it to that carp who goes by the name Li Jin?"

The short man shook his head and replied, "I couldn't be bothered asking at the time, and I can't be bothered speculating now."

The incense boy held his cheeks in his hands and looked as if he were about to cry. "Good heavens, how did I end up with such an unambitious master? Oh, have pity on me, good heavens. As compensation, can you please give me a lively and adorable, knowledgeable and polite, stunningly beautiful and noble-born young woman as a wife?"

The short man took away the snake gall pebble and said with an amused expression, "Such an incredible woman for someone like you? Maybe in your next life."

The incense boy angrily climbed onto the short man's head and sat among his disheveled hair. After remaining still for a while, he started to squirm around back and forth.

"What are you doing?" the short man asked.

"Your words were too hurtful just then, so I want to take a shit on your head!" the incense boy huffed angrily.

"You really can't go three days without a beating, huh?!"

The man furiously plucked the incense boy from his head and threw him toward the opposite bank.

The incense boy chortled with delighted laughter as he hurtled through the air, and he shouted, "Wow, I feel like I'm flying through the air on a sword like those powerful immortals!"

"Little bastard thing," the short man chuckled in anger as he continued to stride across the river.

————

A burst of black smoke rose from the ground and appeared before the residence that had the plaque "Beautiful Water Noble Wind" hanging before it. The black smoke slowly condensed into the shape of a human.

Hundreds upon thousands of lanterns suddenly lit up in the large residence that was initially dark and lifeless. A red glow soared into the sky.

A deathly pale woman flew out from the residence and hovered to a stop in front of the plaque. There was sternness and fury on her face, and she interrogated, "Why are you here again? What, you're still not satisfied after almost destroying the root of my mountains and the source of my rivers in a fit of wild frenzy just then? Or is there something else that you want?"

For some reason, the female ghost Lady Chu was no longer wearing that bright red wedding dress.

"Do you want to leave this place?" the Yin god asked. "If you do, then you need to pay a hefty price. For example, allowing me to become the new owner of this residence."

Lady Chu placed a hand on her belly and roared with laughter. "Crazy... You've genuinely gone crazy this time."

The Yin god was expressionless as he said, "You know that I'm not kidding around. Don't you want to go to Lake View?Academy to retrieve that corpse from the bottom of the lake? Don't you want to search for clues and exact revenge for him? It's already been so many years, so if you wait any longer, the culprits behind his death will probably start to peacefully enjoy their final years before passing away from old age one by one."

Lady Chu suddenly fell silent.

She then asked a critical question, saying, "Even if I'm willing to hand this residence over to you, how will you convince the imperial court of the Great Li Empire to acknowledge your identity?"

"I naturally have my own methods; there's no need for Lady Chu to worry," the Yin god replied in a perfunctory manner.

The hovering female ghost turned around to look at the plaque before turning again to look at the mountain path in the distance.

Once upon a time, it was over there that a skinny scholar had stumbled forward during a rainy night with an old and worn-out bookcase on his back. Perhaps trying to muster his courage, he had been loudly reciting the teachings of the Confucian classics.

There had been a bright glimmer in the impoverished scholar's eyes as he had traveled to the capital to take the imperial examination.

Lady Chu gracefully descended to the ground and asked, "Is it possible to not change this plaque?"

The Yin god nodded and replied, "Of course. In at most 100 years, I'll return this residence to Lady Chu in the exact same state that you handed it to me."

Lady Chu slowly walked forward, brushing past the Yin god and eventually arriving in the distance.

"An encounter in the mountains, yet a reunion never again," she murmured to herself.

She turned around and said with a smile, "The residence is controlled through the plaque. I've already relinquished my control of it, so it's all up to your own abilities regarding how much fortune of the mountains and rivers you can absorb."

"You don't resent the Great Li Empire?" the Yin god asked in puzzlement. "They purposely hid the truth from you because they wanted you to continue guarding the fortune of this land."

The female ghost remained silent as she gracefully drifted far away.

————

There was a villa hidden in the mountain forests in the north of Yellow Court Nation. This was a treacherous area, yet there was a never ending stream of visitors due to the obscure and difficult-to-understand cliff carvings on the mountain face by the riverside. Each character was as large as a bamboo hat.

There was also a wide mountain path built beside the villa, and this was a path that was wide enough to accommodate horse-drawn carriages. Thus, the villa couldn't be considered as off the beaten track. Visitors would occasionally rest or stay the night in this villa.

The owner of this villa was a hale and hearty old man who was over 70 years old. He enjoyed a relatively lofty status, and he was the former assistant minister of Yellow Court Nation's Ministry of Revenue. The old man had always been hospitable, and he would warmly welcome his guests regardless of whether they were officials, wealthy nobles, villagers, or woodcutters.

The moon was full on this night, and the mountain forest and river water were both bathed in a soft yellow glow.

In some small jetty that no one ever visited, there stood an old man holding a dim lantern and with an ancient and yellowing book under his arm. He had left the villa alone and descended the mountain to come to this jetty that didn't have a single boat. He retrieved a figure of a small wooden boat from his sleeve, one that was only as big as his thumb.

He lightly tossed it toward the inlet, and when the small boat reached a height three meters above the water, it suddenly started to expand in size. In the end, it became just as large as an ordinary boat. It landed in the inlet with a splash, sending countless droplets of water shooting into the surroundings. The loud splash was especially prominent in the deathly silent night.

The old man boarded the small boat which had no oars to push it forward.

He then raised the lantern in his hand before letting go of it and grabbing the old book from under his arm. The lantern should have fallen, yet it eerily hung in the air, emitting a soft and pure white glow.

The old man sat down and crossed his legs, holding the old book in one hand and flipping through it with his other. The small boat drifted out of the small inlet by itself and steered toward the large river that the inlet was connected to.

The old man flipped through the book extremely slowly. The river was surprisingly calm tonight, and the small boat experienced almost no rocking at all.

Only when the old man arrived below that mountain face did he raise his head to look at those ancient and mysterious characters that no one could understand.

In fact, someone had indeed given the right answer not long ago. That was a white-robed young boy from the Great Li Empire who had looked?to be around 15 or 16 years old. However, he had managed to decipher those obscure characters in a single glance, and he had claimed that the engravings had been made by the Heavenly Lord of Lightning, and that it contained a warning from the Heavenly Emperor to a flood dragon.

Even though the old man had witnessed countless flourishing springs and wilting autumns, his mind had still been filled with churning waves at that moment. He had simply kept his emotions hidden and maintained a calm and composed facade.

The old man retracted his gaze. Filled with mixed emotions, he let out a soft sigh.

The tree longed for calmness, yet the wind refused to subside[2].

Suppressed by the small boat, almost all of the fish and underwater creatures prostrated at the bottom of the river and trembled in terror.

The old man put away his lantern and book. Standing on the small boat, he showered in the soft glow of the tranquil moon.

He then grabbed a flagon of wine from thin air. However, he was in no hurry to drink, and he instead took in his surroundings before sighing, "Blowing out the candle used for study, what drapes over me is the soft glow of the moon[3]."

However, he then remarked, "Forgotten the sages all will be; remembered are those great at a drink[4]. Haha, it's time for a drink!" The old man laughed heartily as he started to drink, gulping mouthful after mouthful of wine from the small flagon. The flagon looked like it was only large enough to hold a liter or so of wine, yet the old man had already enjoyed at least a hundred entire mouthfuls.

The old man eventually became dead drunk, and he casually tossed the flagon into the river as his head bobbled back and forth. He then fell back with a thud and directly lay down on the small boat. He was already fast asleep.

The small boat continued to drift upstream. At some point in time, however, the nose of the small boat suddenly tilted slightly upward and left the water. After a while, the entire boat left the water and hovered into the sky.

It rose higher and higher.

The small boat pierced through layer after layer of clouds, and before long, the great river had already become nothing more than a thin thread behind it. The entire Yellow Court Nation looked like a soybean, and Eastern Treasured Vial Continent looked no bigger than a vase that measured an inch in length.

When the old man woke up leisurely, the small boat had already traveled heaven?knows how far away from the land, and heaven knows how close to the sky.

The small boat rocked lightly.

It had arrived in another river. However, in contrast to the rivers in the mortal world, this was as if this river had neither a beginning nor an end. Clusters of stars shine brightly, and this was a scene that was as splendid as could be.

"Where's my wine?" the old man murmured, with his lips trembling and an aggrieved expression on his face.

The old man in his seventies lay down on his back and shut his eyes. His face was filled with pain, and it was as if he had recalled some of his worst memories. "Where's my wine? Where's my wine? Where's my wine...?" he continued to murmur.

Drunk, one knows not that the heaven is merely afloat in the water; a boat filled with sweet dreams presses onward over a river of stars[5].

————

A carefree Confucian scholar stood atop the stone cliff by the riverside and waited for that small boat to return.

He was none other than Lake View Academy's Cui Minghuang. As one of the two most renowned noble Confucians[6] in Eastern Treasured Vial Continent, he had once been personally involved in the "endgame" stage of Jewel Small World.

After receiving two secret letters, Cui Minghuang had hurried to this place to make a deal with that old flood dragon for Imperial Preceptor Cui Chan and Old Man Yang from the small town.

This was because the Great Li Empire now possessed the last remaining half of a True Dragon in the entire world.

This was their greatest bargaining chip. In fact, this was also their only bargaining chip.

————

Inside the Autumn Reed Inn that was located at the old address of the city god pavilion...

There were two young boys, one at the top of the well and one at the bottom.

They appeared similar in age, yet their positions and statuses couldn't be any more different.

Chen Ping'an lightly stepped onto the wall of the well and peered down at the bottom. "Cui Dongshan," he called.

Cui Chan looked up and smiled with squinted eyes, asking, "What, you've finally thought things through?"

"What did you call yourself the first time we met?" Chen Ping'an asked.

The young Cui Chan instantly became alert. His skin crawled, and his mind exploded with apprehension.

Immediately afterward, a ray of snow-white light crashed down from the top of the well!

Like a crashing waterfall, the burst of sword qi filled the entire well.

1. This refers to observers being more worried than the person involved. 👈

2. This means that the development of a situation won't bend to a person's subjective will. 👈

3. An excerpt from Sun Yushi's (Chinese Professor from Peking University) book, 'Blowing Out the Candle Used for Study'. This means that when a scholar decides to sleep, it is already deep into the night. When they finally blow out the candle, the only light that replaces it is the glow of the moon. 👈

4. An excerpt from Li Bai's poem 'Invitation to Wine'. This refers to the fact that sagely people are often overlooked and unable to leave a lasting mark, while those who understand wine are still celebrated long after their passing. This line can be viewed as a reflection of Li Bai's mindset at the time. 👈

5. A line from Tang Gong's (poet from the Yuan Dynasty) poem, 题龙阳县青草湖. This symbolizes one's attachment to their beautiful and elysian dreams, and how they are intoxicated by such dreams. However, the fact that it is merely a reflection (illusion) makes their disappointments in real life even starker in contrast. 👈

6. A reminder that there are seemingly three "ranks" in?Confucianism: sage, noble person, and virtuous person. This wasn't explicit in the early stages of the novel, so was used interchangeably. 👈