ATEG Chapter 133

“The Divine Court will send down the Thunder Tribulation upon the world.” Heavenly Maiden Wuyou’s eyes sharpened with resolve as she made her decision.

When aberrations emerge in the world, lightning and thunder must descend from the heavens.

The White Emperor resides in the Divine Court, and the power of thunder and lightning has always been under the Divine Court’s control. In the past, however, the Divine Court’s duties were more focused on managing the destiny qi of heaven and earth, and there were few occasions requiring the power of thunder and lightning. The Gold Thunder Pool within the Divine Court served more as a place for the White Emperor to rest and recuperate.

The White Emperor commands the golden thunder — it is the constant within impermanence, the most stabilizing force in heaven and earth, fierce and unyielding. He enters meditative stillness within the Gold Thunder Pool, preserving himself, allowing his power to be channeled through it. This supremely firm and stabilizing force will also be the power most capable of exterminating aberrations.

The existence of aberrations falls outside the reckoning of destiny principles, and Taiyin cannot use her divine power to directly locate all aberrations in the world. But through the Divine Court’s seal, all gods of the Divine Court may see them and slay them!

Li Quan smiled and raised his hand toward Heavenly Maiden Wuyou. “This avatar of mine — I’d like to make use of it a little longer.”

There was no need for many words. Heavenly Maiden Wuyou, in perfect understanding, raised her hand and clasped his. As yin and yang cycled and flowed, the workings of Heaven abruptly grew obscure.

Since the affair with the Xuanqing Sect, this avatar Li Quan had already fallen within Hundun’s sight. Moving about elsewhere was of no consequence, but if he were to go somewhere under Hundun’s control, he feared the avatar would be directly exposed to Hundun’s gaze. By now borrowing the cycling of yin and yang to once again conceal the existence of this avatar, he could continue to make use of this body.

Hundun walked a path utterly his own — his Dao had no room for any living being other than himself. As he schemed against all sentient beings, naturally all sentient beings would strike back.

He was nothing more than an enemy — an enemy who had made many enemies.

****

At the summit of Daqing Mountain, the morning sun had already leapt above the clouds, scattering golden radiance everywhere.

From within the golden sea of clouds, a great bird clothed in blazing fire burst forth. Golden-red tidal waves of cloud rolled in its wake as it flew toward the deity standing at the peak that held up the sun.

Changyang smiled.

“A great dream of tens of thousands of years……”

A figure in vivid feathered robes descended upon the mountain summit, its gaze warm and bright.

“High God, it has been a long time.”

Xuanniao had returned. Though Xuanqing had fallen silent, the Mingdeng Sect carried on its flame; though the bloodline had been severed, the spirit of the Tang people remained unchanged. The people of a totem exist through their bloodline — there are no longer any Tang people in this world. Yet even after countless cycles of reincarnation, the wandering souls who looked up to the heavens still ignited with an undying fire, still remembering the feeling of wings spreading from both shoulders.

The Mingdeng Sect, the Great Yin Dynasty, Hundun… there were still many matters to be dealt with, many arrangements to consider. But why rush? They had already waited too long in suffering.

One hundred and twenty thousand years ago, Xuanniao had witnessed with its own eyes the fall of the deity who had promised it reincarnation. This totem, whose causal threads had all been severed and who had long since lost the will to live, had nonetheless forcibly kept that sect — which had lost its deity — alive. One hundred and twenty thousand years later, the revived deity saw Xuanniao again in a dream, but upon waking found only a cave full of venom corroding away the remnants of bones, alone imprisoning a forlorn and bewildered wooden figure.

Such being the case, now that they had met again, why rush to speak of things that would only exhaust a heart already long weary? Why not, upon these golden tidal clouds, amid the clear wind at the mountain summit, speak of what they had wanted to say during this long stretch of time?

It was not until the sun was about to set that they finally brought up other matters. Everything that needed to be said had been said; all the arrangements that needed to be made had been made.

Xuanniao’s gaze remained fixed upon Changyang, never having left.

“Don’t linger here with me — go, go.” Changyang laughed.

Go and meet that soul who, separated by over a hundred thousand years, still pursues the flame and wings it no longer even remembers; go and meet the Mingdeng Sect, which has inherited the last wishes of Xuanqing, and the other deity who sheltered their passing down of the flame; go and lay to rest that name which was stolen and twisted, returning it to the peace it deserves.

……

The great calamity cycles ceaselessly; heaven and earth are a furnace, the tribulation its charcoal fire, placing all sentient beings within it to be tormented. The arrival of the Five Declines of Heaven and Man is like a sudden gust of wind feeding the flames.

At some point, legends of the Yellow Springs Inn suddenly began to appear in the mortal world.

The legend said that at the boundary between dawn and dusk, in a place where yin and yang are unsteady, there would appear a murky fog and an eerie path leading to the Yellow Springs Inn.

This inn was hidden in the gap between life and death, and could — allow one to avoid the Five Declines of Heaven and Man.

Bai Qingya’s journey this time was precisely to find the Yellow Springs Inn. He sought it not for himself, but to find a friend.

The Five Declines of Heaven and Man had descended upon the world suddenly and indiscriminately, making no distinction between the high or low in cultivation, nor between the pure or turbid of character. It was as if Heaven had casually scattered a handful of dust, and all sentient beings touched by that dust found themselves caught off guard by the tribulation. Both Bai Qingya and his friend Bi Dongdi had been touched by this dust.

Bai Qingya brushed off the hem of his sleeve — in just the short while he had been sitting cross-legged in meditation and regulating his breath, dust carried by the wind had already settled on him. He had a refined and youthful face, but his eyebrows and hair were white as snow, even his eyelashes the color of frost and ice, like a thin and delicate snowflake. This was not due to the third among the Five Declines of Heaven and Man — the decline of physical decay. Bai Qingya was a spirit deer in human form; his coat was frost and snow, and upon taking human shape it had become this pure white hair color. Although both he and Bi Dongdi had abruptly been struck by the Five Declines of Heaven and Man, they were still only at the level of the first decline, and it was not severe. The white deer is spiritually attuned and the black rhinoceros wards off dust — when this first tribulation descended upon them, it presently only manifested as a tendency to pick up a little water or light dust. As their original forms were both long-lived spirit beasts, barring any other changes, it would be at least another thousand years before they reached the point of exhausting their lifespan at the end of the fourth decline.

But with the Five Declines of Heaven and Man upon them, it meant their present forms had begun their journey toward extinction. Since the current situation was not severe, they should be making preparations all the sooner.

Some days prior, Bai Qingya had received a letter left for him by Bi Dongdi. The letter said that Bi Dongdi had by chance learned of a method that might allow them to circumvent the tribulation of the Five Declines. He intended to go and try it, and if what was said proved true, he would invite Bai Qingya to come as well.

That letter was the last communication Bai Qingya ever received from Bi Dongdi.

After that, he contacted Bi Dongdi several times but never received any reply, which left Bai Qingya deeply uneasy. It was only after he set aside what was at hand and began searching for Bi Dongdi that he gradually learned of the Yellow Springs Inn.

No one knew who was running this so-called Yellow Springs Inn behind the scenes. All that was known was that it had sprung up like mushrooms after rain at around the time the Five Declines of Heaven and Man descended — in the nations, in mountains and rivers, in the wilderness… it seemed that people everywhere had entered this mysterious inn at one time or another.

Yet news of it circulated only within an extremely small circle, and some had deliberately gone looking for it, but in the end found nothing.

At this moment it was the boundary between dusk and dawn. The golden-orange disc of the sun had already sunk below the earth, leaving only a sliver of afterglow dyeing the western sky a deep violet, while the newly-risen moon in the east was concealed behind a layer of hazy thin clouds, its light dimly scattered in a ring around it.

Bai Qingya walked into a small path through the thickening mist. Though this path had never been particularly bustling, it had once had tea stalls and small peddlers selling fruit. But after the great calamity, the path saw no more pedestrians, and gradually, the small peddlers disappeared as well. With no trace of human life, the path had gradually died. Through the misty fog drifted withered branches, fallen leaves, wild overgrown grass, and scattered dust.

On such a cold and dry winter night, there ought to have been no fog. Yet this narrow little path was shrouded in a layer of mist, and the deeper one went, the thicker it grew — thick enough to render even the moonlight above increasingly indistinct. This fog was like the fuzzy halo surrounding the moon, as though it were itself emitting a faint, cold light, but rather than illuminating the path, it only made the surroundings darker.

Bai Qingya furrowed his brow. This yin-cold mist slid across his skin like the mucus of some creature — damp, sticky — and the chilling, deathly power within it attempted to seep into his body.

Beyond that, the mist also obstructed his divine consciousness. His probing awareness sank into it as though mired in a cold, viscous, sticky mire — not only was the range of his perception greatly impaired, even his senses grew numb and dulled. In such an environment, if there were someone lying in ambush in the dark, it would be very difficult for him to react in time.

Bai Qingya raised his hand. A lantern lit up in his palm — its flame warm and clear, cutting through a clean and bright space in this eerie mist.

So this was the murky fog and eerie path leading to the Yellow Springs Inn at the boundary between dawn and dusk, in the place where yin and yang were unsteady. That Bai Qingya had been able to find this place was thanks to the shared information network within the Mingdeng Sect.

Ever since that fellow disciple ghost cultivator known as Yang Cang had, with the aid of the Flame Lord’s power, established an interconnected platform, they — the cultivators of the Mingdeng Sect — had gained an extraordinarily convenient and trustworthy channel. This channel was known among them as the Mingdeng Platform. Upon it burned tens of thousands of lamp-flames, each point of light representing a cultivator who practiced the Bright Lantern arts. They had illuminated this Mingdeng Platform — entrusted to the Flame Lord’s path — until it blazed like a white night full of stars.

The Mingdeng Platform was divided into several major areas for commerce, cultivation exchange, information sharing, and so on. Although the platform imposed no task requirements on the cultivators who participated, it had swiftly united the scattered forces of Mingdeng Sect cultivators throughout the land.

Heaven and earth are vast, all sentient beings are small, and cultivation is a solitary path. Yet with the Mingdeng Platform, when there is confusion in one’s cultivation, the Platform provides answers; when debates on the Dao arise there, they do not prevent the various cultivators from remaining fellow travelers with the lamp of the heart burning bright; when one is beset by circumstances, the Platform offers assistance, for where one person’s strength is meager, the many fellow travelers are abundant. Even cultivators long accustomed to walking alone, after obtaining the Mingdeng Platform, would find their hearts more settled; each time they entered the Mingdeng Platform, they could clearly perceive that though heaven and earth are vast and all sentient beings are small, the path one walks and the things one seeks are not lonely in this world.

There were now many cultivators in the Mingdeng Sect keeping watch on news of the Yellow Springs Inn, including Yang Cang, who had established the interconnected web. He seemed to have other channels — much of the information about the Yellow Springs Inn had come from Yang Cang, and he had also been continually correcting errors in circulating reports.

In order to journey to the Yellow Springs Inn, Bai Qingya had also sought Yang Cang’s guidance. Yang Cang strongly discouraged the cultivators of the Mingdeng Sect afflicted with the Five Declines of Heaven and Man from entering the Yellow Springs Inn and taking such a path to circumvent the tribulation, considering it an extremely dangerous trap. But this was precisely why Bai Qingya was all the more determined to go — if what Yang Cang said was correct, then Bi Dongdi had now stumbled into such a perilous place. How could he not go and save him?

Bai Qingya directed his divine consciousness into the warm lamp-flame and transmitted what he was seeing and hearing to the Mingdeng Platform, hoping it might be of help to others. Although the flame of the heart-lantern could dispel the murky fog on the eerie path, it too was being considerably suppressed — the deeper one went, the worse the suppression became. He worried that if he continued further inside, he might lose contact with the Mingdeng Platform altogether, and thought it better to relay his observations immediately as they arose.

He held aloft the lantern and walked ever deeper into the mist, until his figure was completely swallowed up.

On the Mingdeng Platform, the flame representing Yang Cang flickered, urgently transmitting to Bai Qingya a piece of news he had only just confirmed.

Within the murky fog on the eerie path, Bai Qingya’s lantern-flame burned steady and bright, with not the slightest change to indicate that any message had been received.

The deeper he walked, the more he sensed the strangeness of the mist, and a gradual understanding dawned in his heart of what it meant for this inn to be hidden in the “space between life and death.”

He had entered this small path from the world of the living, and beneath the concealment of the mist, it was as though he were gradually moving toward another world. Because of the growing separation from the world of the living, Bai Qingya noticed that the Five Declines of Heaven and Man progressing on his body seemed to be faintly slowing in their advance — no wonder the legend had spread that the Yellow Springs Inn could allow one to avoid the tribulation.

But Bai Qingya felt no joy at this. On the contrary, his heart grew more guarded. Since ancient times, the Underworld had not been a place the living could tread. It was the realm where the souls of the dead awaited reincarnation — save for great and mighty beings who had transcended the cycle of life and death, or individual cultivators with exceptional divine powers, even ghost cultivators could not easily set foot here. By what means had the one who established the Yellow Springs Inn enabled so many ordinary cultivators to enter the Underworld? And what effects would the living who entered the Underworld be subjected to?

Gradually, aside from the dense and icy mist, nothing at all was visible on any side — only the heart-lantern lit a short stretch of the path underfoot. And that stretch of dark earthen road went on unchanging, making it impossible to tell how far one had walked. In this place without any variation, as time passed, one almost began to doubt just how far one had come, whether the end could ever be reached, or whether one was in fact treading a circular, repeating path — like an insect trapped in a maze.

Bai Qingya counted the time in his heart. The slowly drifting fog seemed to have a peculiar effect on divine consciousness, creating the sensation that one had been walking here for several hours — yet by his inner reckoning, it had been no more than half an incense stick’s time. This produced a strange and disorienting sense of inversion.

The surroundings were silent to the point of near-deathly stillness. While the mist cut him off from the world of the living, it also seemed to devour all sound. It flowed and writhed slowly, like the viscous throat of some great beast, and he was walking toward its belly.

At some point, the path finally began to change. The mist on all sides seemed no longer quite so dark — the cold light contained within it began to truly illuminate the surrounding environment.

In the light of the mist, Bai Qingya suddenly saw a figure lying face-down on the path ahead. Disheveled clothing obscured the face; only a head of white, tangled hair was visible, seemingly belonging to an aged person.

Who was this person? Why were they lying on the path?

Bai Qingya slowly drew closer, only to sense that this person had no breath, no sound, no ripple of a soul — clearly already a corpse. He drew still closer, moved to a different angle, and finally saw the person’s face. That face… looked exactly like his own!

Could the one who had died actually be himself? Then who was the one now walking this path?

The corpse lay soaking in the mist, as though steeped in the digestive fluid of a beast. The white hair grew ever more withered and ruined; the clothing on the body fell apart in tatters; then the skin began to dissolve, exposing dark-red flesh and sinew beneath; then the flesh and sinew too were eaten away, until all that remained was a skeleton soaking in turbid liquid.

Bai Qingya felt no dread or distress, nor did he halt his steps. He walked forward another pace, drawing that skeleton lying across the path into the light of his lantern.

The mist enveloping it was dispelled by the lamplight; the corpse on the ground twisted and contorted, then transformed into a fallen branch lying across the road.

Bai Qingya stepped over the branch and continued walking. He saw Bi Dongdi’s severed head; he saw a garment covered in blood-written words; he saw a decrepit, ancient skeleton…

But when these were drawn into the light of his heart-lantern, their true forms were revealed — they were nothing more than a stone by the roadside, a tattered streamer banner, and an overturned bench.

Bai Qingya stilled his heart and focused his mind. The illusions conjured by the murky fog and all manner of horrors were like reflections in the mirror of his heart; all appearances slid past within the mirror, yet could not disturb the clear mirror itself.

After another indeterminate stretch of time, the illusions ceased to appear, and the mist seemed to begin thinning; he could gradually make out the trees and shrubs on either side of the path.

It was the dead of winter, yet the plants on either side were putting forth lush branches and leaves — though on every one of those leaves lay what appeared to be a thick layer of dust, coating everything in grey.

Besides the plants, there were great boulders smoothed by travelers resting on them, carrying poles left leaning nearby, oilcloth stalls spread on the ground with goods laid out upon them… everything was covered in dust, yet there were no people, no birds, no insects, no serpents.

These stones, baggage, benches, and other such things appearing along the path were all images from before this road had fallen into ruin — scenes from when it had still known life. It was as though they had been taken from that time and left stranded here ever since, accumulating months of dust.

If these scenes corresponded to reality, then he had not in fact walked very far along this path — which was consistent with his inner reckoning of time. All the strange phenomena before had been nothing more than the effects of that peculiar mist.

Walking further, a tea-stall appeared by the roadside — equally blanketed in dust. The stall was built of bamboo and wood; a streamer banner hung despondently limp; on the table sat rough clay tea bowls and pastry dishes, the bowls with tea in them, the dishes with pastries; a half-eaten confection had rolled to the side of the stove used for heating tea. The charcoal within the stove had only burned halfway through and still held a flame, yet even that flame was frozen and still, a thick layer of dust having settled upon it — and that congealed, rigid charcoal flame struggled feebly to push a glimmer of light through that thick blanket of ash, mingling with the mist, until it too turned ice-cold.

Bai Qingya faintly heard a sound.

It was the panicked breathing and heartbeat of a person. He looked in the direction of the sound — it came from something huddled beneath one of the tables inside the tea-stall.

It was a middle-aged man with grey-white hair, gripping a worn wood-chopping blade with both hands, his expression one of terrified tension. There were many scattered pieces of firewood inside the stall; unlike the other objects in the mist, these had only a thin layer of dust on them — these were things brought in from the world of the living.

Was this a mortal who had stumbled in by mistake?

Bai Qingya walked over, deliberately making his footsteps a little heavier, and asked, “Who are you? How did you come to be here?”

The middle-aged man gave a start, let out a great cry of “Ahh!” and swung the wood-chopping blade straight at Bai Qingya.

Bai Qingya deflected it and the blade flew away.

The middle-aged man scrabbled backward in a panic, shrieking in terror. “Don’t come near me! Help! A ghost!” He seemed nearly frightened out of his wits, incapable of hearing what Bai Qingya was saying.

Bai Qingya performed an art to calm the spirit and settle the soul. Only then did the middle-aged man gradually quiet, hunching in on himself and asking tremulously, “Are you — are you a person or a ghost?”

“I am not a ghost — I am a cultivator passing through this place.” Bai Qingya replied patiently. “Who are you? How did you come to be here?”

The middle-aged man said timidly, “I — I came out to chop wood and was on my way — my way back, and then I got lost… I want to go home…”

His voice grew quieter and quieter as he spoke, and at the last, amidst his fear there was a glimmer of hope, as he looked at Bai Qingya with anxious, searching eyes.

Bai Qingya had been observing him all along. The light of the heart-flame now enveloped him — he was indeed a living, breathing person, not yet another illusion conjured by the mist. An ordinary mortal without any cultivation, if left here too long, might never be able to return.

So be it — it would not take too much time in any case.

“Come with me,” said Bai Qingya. “I’ll take you out of here.”

The middle-aged man nodded hastily. He cast a reluctant look at his scattered firewood — knowing he could not take it with him, he moved to retrieve his blade.

Bai Qingya looked at the thin layer of dust settled on those objects and could not help frowning. He stopped the middle-aged man: this place was strange, and whatever might have settled on those things was unknown — it would be better to leave them. The middle-aged man looked at his belongings with reluctance, then steeled himself and followed Bai Qingya out of the tea-stall.

Once they had stepped back onto the small path and taken only a single step in retreat, Bai Qingya went still for a moment.

The path leading back would not be so easy to walk.

On his way in along this path, he had sensed the decline-tribulation on his body growing ever more sluggish. But now, having turned to walk the return path, he found that the tribulation which had previously been slowing now began to accelerate again — as though trying to make up all at once for the decline that had been deferred.

Even though Bai Qingya considered his Dao-heart to be fairly firm, at this moment he could not help feeling a surge of dread. The great matter of life and death was something he had not yet reached the level of viewing with ease.

Bai Qingya steadied his state of mind and led the mortal who had wandered in here back the way they had come, while at the same time keeping a portion of his divine consciousness on the middle-aged man at all times. The place was far too strange — he had not lowered his guard.

On the return path, none of the illusions he had encountered on the way in appeared again. Yet every step taken in retreat was a trial of the cultivator’s Dao-heart. At the boundary of life and death lies the greatest terror, and here, each step backward brought a clear and palpable sense of life ebbing away, the unmistakable awareness that one was drawing closer and closer to death.

After retreating only a short distance, Bai Qingya suddenly stopped.

He saw that on the path ahead, a figure was hidden within the mist.

A new illusion? Another wandering mortal? Or another cultivator who had come seeking the Yellow Springs Inn to evade the Five Declines of Heaven and Man?

Bai Qingya halted his steps. The middle-aged man also cowered to a stop behind him, looking visibly unsettled.

But while they had stopped, the figure hidden in the murky fog did not — it drew closer and closer toward them.

Bai Qingya fixed his attention and heightened his guard.

The figure stepped out of the mist, gradually coming within the range where Bai Qingya could see clearly.

It was a cultivator dressed in cyan robes, a qin case strapped to his back, his bearing easy and unrestrained, a smile on his face — as though he were not walking through this dark and eerie cold-fog wasteland at all, but through a bamboo grove beaded with morning dew in the mild wind of early spring.

Such a bearing. Bai Qingya felt an involuntary sense of joy arise at first sight — yet this also made him raise his guard all the more. The mist was extraordinarily strange; all the illusions that had appeared on the way in had taken the form of his heart’s deepest fears and anxieties. Now that he was going back the other way, it was not impossible that the mist might manifest what his heart found pleasing.

The cyan-robed qin player sauntered into the light of the heart-flame and smiled at him. “Fellow cultivator — are you also heading to the Yellow Springs Inn?”

Bai Qingya nodded. “I am Bai Qingya. May I ask how this fellow cultivator is called?”

“Li Quan.” Li Quan’s gaze shifted to the middle-aged man behind him and asked, “And this is…?”

“I encountered this mortal who wandered in by accident along the way — I was intending to see him out first.” said Bai Qingya. Drawn in by Li Quan’s words, the attention he had focused on Li Quan shifted back in part to the middle-aged man. Inwardly he found it somewhat curious — it seemed as though this cultivator, Li Quan, whom he had only just met, was paying an unusually keen amount of attention to the middle-aged man.

“I see…” He watched as a hint of a smile played at the corners of Li Quan’s lips, and Li Quan said without hurry, “Fellow cultivator may not know — within the Yellow Springs Inn, only cultivators bearing the Five Declines of Heaven and Man can make their way inside.”