ATEG Chapter 116

For a cultivator, a sudden premonition was not to be taken lightly. Feiying pondered at length, yet could not identify the source of his unease.

This was not because he felt himself safe and free of danger — quite the contrary. There were simply too many things that could pose a threat to him, and he could not determine which one had shifted to cause his soul to issue this wordless warning from the depths of the unseen.

Feiying thought on it for a while and then let it go. Too many lice, and you stop feeling the itch; too many debts, and you stop losing sleep. Surviving in this world was already no easy thing, and to pursue cultivation on top of that made it harder still. He had walked to this point in his own way, and he would continue walking forward in his own way. Compared to that premonition of unknown origin, the Xuanqing Sect was his most pressing concern at present.

He had sought out the Xuanqing Sect for the sake of his cultivation path. Back in Taiwu County, he had been tricked by that female ghost and was forced to split off a blood-shadow to escape — yet after falling into grievous injury because of it, he had by a twist of fate made contact with the Xuanqing Sect, which he had spent years searching for without success.

The Xuanqing Sect he had glimpsed then matched what he had pieced together over years of following scattered traces. The Xuanqing Sect operated without restraint, and so they would not care that he was a demonic cultivator. The Xuanqing Sect used Gu-refinement techniques in an attempt to combine the divine powers of various dream-realm aberrations into one, artificially forging a dream-realm deity. That they possessed such capabilities and dared to dream so boldly meant there was a possibility — the possibility Feiying had been searching for — of continuing a new path where his severed cultivation road had broken off.

The Xuanqing Sect’s people had saved his life and brought him to the Liang Kingdom. After he had recovered well enough, Feiying discovered that the Xuanqing Sect in Liang was not the same as the Xuanqing Sect in Lu. The Xuanqing Sect on Liang’s side had already begun to step into the open.

The Xuanqing Sect’s reputation among the Liang people was excellent. In the eyes of Liang’s common folk, the Xuanqing Sect had delivered them from suffering and disaster, and unlike the powers that had come before — those that either imposed crushing taxes and hard labor, or used humans as sacrificial offerings — the Xuanqing Sect was different.

Because what the Xuanqing Sect needed was not a dead land. A place with people in it was a country. Liang was riddled with wounds right now and in dire need of recuperation. Even an ordinary person had the patience to wait a year to harvest a crop’s fruit; the Xuanqing Sect, as a power that had endured for at least several thousand years, would naturally not lack the patience to drain the lake just to catch the fish.

Though the Xuanqing Sects in Lu and Liang differed greatly, he had originally assumed this was simply a matter of real practice versus a public-facing image. But gradually, he had begun to sense faint traces of something discordant, something unsettling…

Feiying furrowed his brow in thought. When he had joined the Xuanqing Sect, he had not expected to achieve his aims quickly. He had joined late, and someone who already possessed cultivation before joining a faction was generally understood to have ulterior motives — this was something both parties tacitly understood, a cooperation of mutual benefit. But before they gave him what he wanted, the Xuanqing Sect would inevitably withhold their trust; only after a period of observation would they give him the opportunity to access their true inner circle.

He had not been in a hurry at first. Since he had already joined the Xuanqing Sect, he would eventually get what he wanted. But if there were hidden troubles within the Xuanqing Sect that might interfere with his plans, he needed to find a way to probe the matter…

Two soft knocks sounded at the door. Feiying’s train of thought was interrupted, and his expression involuntarily turned dark and vicious.

A young, childish voice came from outside. “Zhenren, it is time for the sacrificial rites.”

This was a page boy he had taken on here in Liang. With Liang in such chaos, there was no shortage of children with nowhere to go. The Xuanqing Sect had taken in a batch of them, and picking out a few clever ones to serve as page boys was very convenient.

“Understood.” Feiying relaxed his expression, and by the time he opened the door he had already assumed a gentle and amiable appearance.

He looked down at the page boy. Judging by bone age, the child was about fourteen, but his frame was no bigger than a ten-year-old’s — arms and legs thin as sticks, which made his head look disproportionately large. His features were coarse, his manner timid, and he was honestly not a pleasant sight.

“Youji, stay close to me for the next couple of days,” Feiying said. He had already worked out how to probe the matter.

Youji’s eyes went wide all at once. He stood there dazed and flustered, overwhelmed by the unexpected honor, stammering out “Yes — yes.”

By the time Youji came back to his senses, Feiying’s figure had already vanished. The boy clenched his fists and pumped them twice in front of his chest, then broke into a grin.

Youji had not always gone by that name. He couldn’t even remember his proper given name — all he remembered was that his mother had called him Ah Bao. After the locust plague, he had been separated from his family and didn’t know if they were alive or dead. Ah Bao had wandered alone in the wilderness, surviving by digging up roots and staying hidden from people — a child as small and solitary as him could easily be knocked down and eaten to fill someone’s belly. Later, the Xuanqing Sect took control of the region and sent people to round them all up. Ah Bao had thought he was going to die, just like the villagers who used to be taken away back home — those people never came back, and everyone said they had gone to serve the immortals. But his mother had whispered to him once that those people were all dead. He used to envy them, but after hearing that, he no longer did.

After the Xuanqing Sect took them away, they gave them food to eat and clothes to wear. He and the other children were assigned work together, and when the work was done, they could eat their fill.

He and the other children whispered to each other and agreed that the Xuanqing Sect must be true immortals — not like the fake immortals from before who made people’s lives miserable. Later, when the true immortals of the Xuanqing Sect were choosing page boys, everyone wanted to be selected. If you stayed close to an immortal, maybe someday you could become one too!

And even if you couldn’t become an immortal, at least you’d never go hungry again!

He had eventually been chosen by Feiying Zhenren, and everyone was tremendously envious. The Zhenren gave him a courtesy name: Youji. Others told him that ji meant “good fortune” — after meeting an immortal, his days had gotten better. The good fortune he possessed had been given to him by the Zhenren, and so from now on he was Youji.

The Zhenren had been cold and distant with all of them before, and Youji had assumed the Zhenren thought them all stupid. But now that the Zhenren was willing to use him, he would work hard — maybe someday he could ask the Zhenren to help him find his family!

Youji kowtowed in the direction Feiying had left, then scrambled to his feet and hurried off to attend the sacrificial rites. Today was the Cold Clothes Festival, and everyone was to offer sacrifices. Youji didn’t know exactly who this sacrifice was for, but since it was a sacrifice, it was surely for the immortals. He wanted to ask the immortals to bless him and his family, and to bless the Zhenren as well — he wanted to go on being “Youji” for a long time to come.

****

Beside the great bronze cauldron used for burning offerings stood two mountains of paper tributes — cut from five-colored paper. In addition to these, at the very center stood a large paper boat painted with nine black markings along its hull: the emblem of the Ferryman of the Yellow Springs.

The Cold Clothes Festival was also called Yin Shadow Festival, a holiday for honoring the dead since ancient times. Offering sacrifice to the Ferryman of the Yellow Springs was a custom particular to the Great Yin. Feiying had once traveled through Yin years ago and had witnessed firsthand how the people there observed the Cold Clothes Festival. In Yin, this festival was a major holiday of great importance, and every being connected with the dead held a grand ceremony on this day: ancestors, ghost deities, and the Ferryman of the Yellow Springs all received major offerings on this date, with sacrifices on any other day considered minor ones. The rites in the Yin were far more solemn than this hastily arranged ceremony in Liang.

Three tolls of the ceremonial bell rang out. The singers intoned a long, ancient melody, and Feiying cast the paper offerings into the cauldron’s flames as the words were chanted. Rising fire and swirling paper ash drifted down as the people below kowtowed devoutly. They did not know that this crude ceremony was, in truth, useless — most of the dead had long since been reincarnated, and offerings to the Underworld spirits would not protect the living. Yet within this ritual, their grieving hearts seemed somehow to find comfort.

Liang truly needed a ceremony like this to settle the people’s hearts right now.

Once the last paper boat was lifted onto the bronze cauldron, the people below all knelt with bowed heads, and Feiying took the opportunity — standing openly in the midst of the sacrificial rites — to let his mind wander.

The order for this ceremony had come directly from the Sect Master, Dují. It was said that Xuanqing Sect Master Dují was a rare and prodigious talent who had risen to the position of Sect Master within just ten years of joining the sect. He had swept through Liang by riding the momentum of the great calamity, and now even the Luo Sect — once a dominant regional power — had declined. What else among the remaining factions was worth mentioning? By now, only the Disciplinary Bureau, backed by Liang’s national fate, was still struggling to hold on.

But the Disciplinary Bureau’s decline was already inevitable. They relied on Liang’s national fate and were equally constrained by the King of Liang — and this newly enthroned king had no goodwill toward them. The transition of Liang’s throne had not been a peaceful one, and Feiying suspected the Xuanqing Sect had a hand in it. Their ease of operation within Liang owed no small part to this.

Though he had now become the head of one of the sect’s bases, what he dealt with day after day was nothing but mundane affairs. He could not achieve what he wanted by staying at this level. He had originally planned to gradually work his way into the Xuanqing Sect’s more important activities in Liang — matters like the change of kings — and then from there find his way into operations like those the Xuanqing Sect ran in Lu Kingdom. Once he had reached that point, what he sought would be nearly within reach.

But the problem was that Feiying now had a nagging sense that the Xuanqing Sect he was currently part of seemed to run contrary to the Xuanqing Sect he had observed in Lu — almost as though they were two entirely different factions. And yet he had undeniably been brought here by Xuanqing Sect members from Lu.

So what exactly was Sect Master Dují thinking?

****

The capital of Liang.

Colorful scraps of paper drifted through the air, their edges flickering with sparks, settling to the ground and fading into specks of white ash. Tongues of flame rolled beneath the boat’s hull like waves. The devout prayers of the people rose with the smoke — and quickly scattered. Incense smoke with no one tending it could not last long.

The sacrificial rites had ended, and the people returned to their homes.

Beneath an old ginkgo tree, a carpet of golden fan-shaped leaves covered the ground. A pot of osmanthus yellow wine warmed over a brazier, sending out a rich, mellow fragrance into the autumn chill.

Dují, draped in violet robes, sat across from Li Quan.

Warm wine slid down the throat. Kindling crackled beneath the brazier. Distant voices drifted over — people talking about the grand ceremony they had just witnessed.

“Such rites accomplish nothing.” Dují flicked away a leaf that had fallen toward his cup.

“And yet people’s hearts are settled by exactly such rites.” Li Quan said.

“Indeed.” Dují replied.

Those clothes cut from colorful paper meant nothing to the deceased. Even the sacrifice offered to the so-called Ferryman of the Yellow Springs was a hollow gesture — the cycle of reincarnation turned on its own. When a soul entered the Yellow Springs, the Yellow Springs guided it back into the cycle; what need was there for a ferryman?

Yet people chose to believe it served a purpose. Half from foolishness, half from love. The dead were gone; the living remained. Memories of the past became a fiery liquor — every sip warm, every sip painful. Something one longed to taste, yet dared not. Whatever one had still wished to do had already become nothing. Because the one who was gone was gone.

And the living remained. If they could not find some small thing they were able to do, how were they to face this cup of wine that only grew more bitter with time?

What grounds could one have to mock the foolishness of people?

The autumn was deep, the cold heavy. Wind-stripped and withered leaves fell. The wine that had been warmed over the fire dropped into the stomach.

This ceremony had settled the hearts of Liang’s common people. They would take root in one place — no need to panic, no need to wander. The newly established order would be accepted by them and, with time, carved into their hearts. But this was not enough.

“It is not enough.” Dují murmured. “People are foolish. Foolishness can be exploited.”

He tilted his head back and drank a full mouthful of wine. The warm liquid carried the fragrance of osmanthus blossoms and slid down past his bobbing throat into his stomach. When he set down the cup, his eyes had been washed wild by the wine, and he spoke with a reckless, ruthless abandon:

“Liang alone is not enough.”

This world was not just Liang. Common people alone were not enough — this world was home to more than common people. He wanted Sui as well, and Lu, and the great Yin Empire… until it extended to encompass everything.

It was a preposterous ambition.

“That would be very difficult.” Li Quan said.

Dují looked at him in surprise. Li Quan had stated it so calmly, as though what he had just said were not the words of a madman but a feasible goal.

And so Dují burst out laughing. “I know.”

This was very difficult. The great calamity was rising — he might not know where its roots lay, but he knew what he wanted to do: bring the chaos back into order. And to his astonishment, he felt as though he had heard, in Li Quan’s words, a recognition of this mad ambition.

The shallow remnants of wine at the bottom of the cup reflected the ginkgo tree overhead. Li Quan poured, and the golden wine — the same color as the ginkgo leaves — shattered the reflection in the cup.

“Heaven and earth are already in disorder.” Li Quan stated.

“And I will set new order over the disordered parts.” Dují ground out the words one by one through his teeth, voice thick with wine.

All of it would become his foundation. He would coexist with all of it.

****

When the moon was full and the frost lay heavy across the sky, all affairs had been completed. Xu Huan sat alone by the well in a deep courtyard.

Wine brewed from mortal ingredients would not intoxicate him, yet the long, flowing ancient melody the head officiant had sung during the ceremony earlier had unexpectedly continued to echo in his mind.

…..

Dim and dark, the Nine Springs below; the Ferryman, steadfast, grips the pole. 

Rare-colored treasures laid in full; please descend and hear my plea. 

My wandering kin are my grief; my tears fall bitter, heart in pain. 

Many hardships marked their lives; I pray that you show mercy and compassion.

…..

The ancient sacrificial words stretched long and slow, rising and falling with the rhythm of their meter, filling the vast open space with solemnity and stillness — a reverent, earnest petition to a deity.

In the darkness flow nine rivers of the Yellow Springs; the steadfast deity ferries souls upon the waters. 

With rare and colorful treasures as offering, please descend and hear my words. 

The wandering souls are my kin; I weep until my heart aches with grief. 

Their lives were burdened with hardship and suffering; I beg you to grant them your compassion and mercy.

….

…No sorrow is greater than the parting of the living and the dead.

Xu Huan leaned against the well with half-closed eyes, fingers resting on the rim of the well — nearly as cold as the deep-autumn stones beneath his hand.

He remained there for a while, then slowly opened his eyes and left the courtyard.

Illusory comfort would always be only illusory.

****

Within the Underworld, small coffin-like boats rose up from beneath the Yellow Springs.

Wisps and threads of incense smoke materialized from the void, coiling around the sealed boats. The underworld was everywhere and pervasive — incense smoke that entered it was like smoke dissolving into empty air.

The coffin-boats seemed to breathe. A few thin threads of incense were drawn in through the gaps in the lids. After that smoke-like incense seeped inside, a coffin lid suddenly shifted open a crack, revealing a sliver of dark shadow. A pale hand reached out from the darkness and rested on the edge of the coffin.

****

Beneath Shekou Cliff, the calm, rippleless black water pool suddenly surged with violent waves. Xie Zhi leaped up in alert, gaze fixed on the lake, the single horn on his forehead emanating a faint spectral glow.

Amid the churning waves of the black pool, the Ghost King’s figure appeared abruptly — black hair flying loose, phoenix eyes carrying their authority, the bone blade radiating fierce murderous energy.

Seeing it was the Ghost King, Xie Zhi let out a breath of relief. The ghostly light faded from his horn, and he asked, “What happened?”

“You were right. There is indeed a hidden faction lurking within the Underworld.” Nu Xu said coldly.

After she had broken through the obscuring barrier, she had been steadily clearing out the vermin infesting the Yellow Springs, but all she had found until now were minor foot soldiers — the likes of that white-faced evil spirit playing the ferryman on the Jiuqu River, nothing worth taking seriously. Yet the one pulling the strings behind it all had dared to use the earth’s veins as a casual gambit; if their presence within the Underworld amounted only to that level of scheming, how could it possibly match their boldness?

Nu Xu had long suspected another force lay hidden within the  Underworld, yet she had never been able to find even a trace of evidence. She truly did not know the Underworld very well — if one counted honestly, it had been only a few months since the High God had given her the method to enter it. The Underworld was vast and its conditions strange; she could not help but find the situation troublesome.

Xie Zhi’s arrival was timely. He had traveled back and forth through the Underworld far longer than Nu Xu had and was far more familiar with the nine rivers of the Yellow Springs.

After coming here, Xie Zhi had shared everything he knew about the Underworld without reservation. He had long had a vague feeling that there was another faction within the Underworld, though he knew little of their specific situation — only that he had occasionally glimpsed such cultivators passing through, and had never spoken with them. At the time, he had not yet understood that someone was scheming behind the scenes in the Underworld and had simply assumed they were a unique lineage that had obtained a method for entering the Underworld. But after the catastrophe Xie Zhi himself had suffered, looking back and thinking it over carefully, he felt it was entirely possible that this unknown faction had played a role.

After he had informed Nu Xu of this, she had been searching the Underworld for clues according to what he had provided — but had found nothing until now.

“They certainly know how to hide. By some unknown method they have refined these coffin-boats and sunk them in the Yellow Springs to conceal themselves.” Nu Xu said with a cold laugh.

These people had long since noticed her searching for them and had deliberately stayed hidden, planning to turn the tables and catch her instead. She had been caught briefly off-guard and suffered a minor setback, but had managed in the process to trace their origins.

Nu Xu put away the bone blade and held a wisp of incense smoke cupped in her palm.

Xie Zhi leaned in and listened to the intention carried within the incense smoke. His expression shifted to one of astonishment. “The Ferryman of the Yellow Springs?”

Nu Xu nodded. “Several grand ceremonies were held in the mortal world for the Cold Clothes Festival. This incense smoke suddenly appeared in the Underworld. I was startled for a moment, and they seized that opportunity to try to capture me.”

Xie Zhi understood. “So that’s how it is.”

Mortals feared death and often held rites for the Underworld spirits, but since the cycle of reincarnation moved of its own accord, these ceremonies were empty offerings — the power of the incense smoke dissipated in the mortal world before it ever reached anywhere.

He had heard before of people offering sacrifice to the Ferryman of the Yellow Springs, but he had treated it the same as any other yin-spirit offering and thought nothing of it. Yet it turned out they had exploited the special quality of the Underworld — its omnipresence — so that the incense did not dissipate into the void but flowed directly into the Underworld itself. And those cultivators lay hidden within the Underworld, openly spreading their faith through the mortal world and growing their power.

But since they received the incense of these sacrificial rites, the mortal world’s understanding of and prayers to the Ferryman of the Yellow Springs could serve as a reference.

The Ferryman of the Yellow Springs — in mortal belief — was understood as the existence that conveyed the souls of the dead to the far shore of the Yellow Springs so they could enter the cycle of reincarnation. Since the Underworld was cold and desolate, the Ferryman was also understood as the deity who ferried the dead’s souls out of that icy, lifeless suffering and allowed them to re-enter the mortal world. Consequently, the Ferryman could move freely through the Underworld — and those who boarded their boats naturally had to obey their direction.

The white-faced evil spirit on the Jiuqu River earlier had perhaps been one of their methods for recruiting members. The spirit himself had not known of the Ferryman of the Yellow Springs’ existence. If he succeeded, good; if not, he was simply a cultivator who had stumbled onto an opportunity. Their members perhaps also had another means of intake — carrying the Ferryman’s name, they could simply choose from among the souls of the dead who entered the Underworld, could they not?

Nu Xu thought of how she had previously seen the white-faced spirit’s method of remaining afloat on the Yellow Springs — he had used the water-ghosts of those who had died unjustly to hold his boat aloft. Only souls with deep, abiding grievances could remain on the surface of the river. What material had been used to forge those coffin-boats that allowed the Ferrymen to travel freely through the Yellow Springs was not, it seemed, very difficult to guess.

The Ghost King’s expression grew colder and more stern. She said to Xie Zhi, “Regardless of what happens, do not enter the Underworld again. I am going to see the High God.”

****

The foremost summit of the Daqing Mountain Range.

Changyang sat cross-legged at the mountain summit. The long night was nearly spent. Among the thin, scale-like clouds, a great sun rose slowly; the scaly clouds turned translucent as jade under its light.

“The Mingdeng Sect.” He said. “Their heart-flames can illuminate the Underworld.”

Nu Xu withdrew from the summit of the mountain. Since the deity had set foot here, this mountain peak had grown day by day, its imposing presence ever heavier. She was a ghost cultivator, and even with the High God’s permission, remaining on the mountain for too long was difficult for her to bear.

The High God had said little about the existence of the Ferrymen of the Yellow Springs — as though he had anticipated it all along — and had only directed her to seek the assistance of the Mingdeng Sect. Against the Ferrymen, who had existed for an unknown span of time, her own foundations were still too shallow.

The Ferrymen of the Yellow Springs — this was Chaos’s arrangement. He dared not enter the Underworld himself, so he had concocted these things to explore it on his behalf. He wanted to know: had Changyang truly concealed the Underworld Court within the Underworld back then? Was the Underworld worth the risk of his personally venturing inside?

When Changyang had fallen and the Underworld Court had disappeared, Chaos had spent twelve ten-thousand years searching for it. Though he had never obtained the Underworld Court itself, he had not come away entirely empty-handed. The Divine Court of Taiyin bore the traces of the Underworld Court — but at most it was only half an Underworld Court. The Divine Court and the Underworld Court; destiny principles and principles of karma — though they shared similarities, they were also entirely distinct. Knowing Changyang’s temperament, after he had realized someone was scheming against him from behind the scenes, he would not have staked all his hopes on Taiyin alone. That would have pointed Chaos directly to his next target, and would have placed both Taiyin and the Underworld Court in danger simultaneously.

With another half of an ownerless Underworld Court dangling as bait, the half of the Underworld Court held by Taiyin — which was not easy for anyone to seize — would not be something Chaos was absolutely driven to obtain.

Taiyin held only half an Underworld Court. She had used the framework of the Underworld Court to establish the Divine Court and to channel and order the threads of destiny. Now that the Divine Court had fully taken shape, obtaining it would be deeply troublesome. As for the other half of the Underworld Court — where, then, was it?

TL/N:

Been using ‘Chaos’ instead of the pinyin ‘Hundun’ 混沌 (hùndùn).

In literal / Classical Chinese – “chaos,” “primordial disorder,” or “undifferentiated mass.”

In creation myths, it refers to the formless, pre-cosmic state before heaven and earth were separated.