ATEG Chapter 134.2

The middle-aged man spoke as they walked forward. The road was not long, yet time seemed to stretch. The middle-aged man had said nearly everything he could say, and still no sign of the Yellow Springs Inn appeared.

The more Bai Qingya heard, the heavier his heart became.

For an inn like this—if Bi Dongdi was trapped inside—did he truly have the ability to rescue him? As Yang Cang had warned him, this place was very likely a dangerous trap. Yet he was going in regardless.

“Fellow cultivator Li Quan.” Bai Qingya called out suddenly. He looked at Li Quan with great seriousness, and spoke earnestly, “This Yellow Springs Inn may well be no pleasant place. Though fellow cultivator is beset by the tribulation of the Five Declines, it appears to be in its early stages—there is no urgent need to seek refuge here just yet. You have helped me. I am willing to make a promise: if I one day find a way to resolve the Five Declines of Heaven and Man, I will surely share it with you.”

Li Quan smiled. “Thank you for your kind offer—but I also have my reasons for going to the Yellow Springs Inn.”

Bai Qingya was silent for a moment, then said, “I am anxious to rescue someone, and may well come into conflict with the innkeeper. Traveling together as we are, I fear I may implicate you. If you have any concerns, you may act as though you do not know me.” Inwardly, he couldn’t help but give a silent sigh—even Li Quan could not resist the draw of what the Yellow Springs Inn had to offer…

As they walked further, the road on both sides became a scene utterly devoid of life—covered in thick dust, no vitality anywhere, only dead things. Dead sparrows and stiffened insects began to appear at the roadside, and even human bones that had been dug up by wild dogs.

Corpses, naturally, were also dead things.

The deeper they went, the more such remains there were—heaped atop one another, buried beneath layers of thick dust like silent burial mounds, crowding ever higher on both sides of the road and pressing in on the travelers. It was as though every creature that had ever died was being dragged out from the depths of time and deposited here, telling you—death is a common thing, and a terrible one.

Through this dim, eerie mist, the increasingly oppressive road stretched on—and so when a change finally appeared ahead, the travelers could not help but feel a flicker of anticipation and relief.

Two dull yellow glows appeared in the mist ahead, like a pair of eyes. The middle-aged man let out a breath. “That’s the Yellow Springs Inn.”

The closer they drew to the inn, the thinner the surrounding mist became. Gradually, the grey, looming outline of a three-story inn took shape through the haze—like a giant beast crouching in the mist, its open doors a black void, waiting for prey to walk willingly into its maw.

The middle-aged man led the two of them eagerly closer.

It was a remarkably “clean” inn. Compared to the dead things at the roadside, all layered in dust, this place was clean as though a great rain had washed it from inside out—not a single speck of dust clung to it.

The inn appeared to be built of stone and wood. The neatly cut and stacked stone bricks were greyish-white, while the timber was a pale, faded grey-yellow—a color that inevitably put one in mind of bone.

The plaque above the door was like a crimson tongue, four ghastly white characters written upon it: Yellow Springs Inn.

Each of those four characters oozed a deep, heavy death-qi. Each one seemed to move, writhing on the plaque as if struggling in a sea of blood—yet each writhing motion also seemed to be a smile, a welcoming grin for arriving guests.

The dim yellow glow seen from a distance came from ginger-yellow lanterns hanging on either side. The firelight inside filtered through the lantern skin, turning a murky yellow—but this yellow light carried no warmth; it only felt stiff, cold, and uncanny.

The light made Bai Qingya uneasy, and he couldn’t help but look more closely. What he saw on the surface of the lantern skin made him frown even deeper—it was covered in dense pores and the fine texture of the skin between them, along with a few patches of slightly darker color.

The longer he looked, the more the lanterns gave him an illusion—as though the dim, murky light was slowly seeping out from within the pores like oozing grease.

When that light fell on him, it was as though that grease were dripping onto him too—clammy, slick, and revolting, crawling over his skin, even darkening his divine consciousness.

Suddenly, a cold laugh rang in his ears. The sound was like meltwater fresh from ice—cold and sharp, as though it had poured over him and scraped and washed away all the filth on his body, calling back his senses just as they were sinking ever deeper.

Bai Qingya gave an involuntary shudder, and instinctively turned to look at Li Quan.

Li Quan was looking at the inn, his gaze deep and his expression very cold. But that chill scattered in an instant; when Bai Qingya looked again, Li Quan had already, with perfect composure, taken a step forward and mounted the stone platform before the inn.

This was the second time Li Quan had come to his aid. A white deer spirit beast, with an innate spiritual perception of its own. When Bai Qingya had first set eyes on Li Quan, he had felt an instinctive goodwill—and had since confirmed that this was no illusion wrought by the dim mist. The eerie road’s mist exerted its influence on a cultivator’s mind; he had walked it for too long, and had grown imperceptibly oppressed, which was why he had just been affected by those skin-lanterns. But Li Quan, all along this road, had appeared entirely at ease.

Could a cultivator like this truly wish to seek refuge in the Yellow Springs Inn because of the Five Declines of Heaven and Man? Or was there some other reason?

Bai Qingya lifted his foot and also entered the inn. As he stepped onto the stone platform, his gaze sharpened.

Now that the dim mist no longer blocked his sight, he could see every brick and tile, every stone and plank of this inn, all covered in pallid, resentful souls flowing across them. Their twisted, agonized faces struggled ceaselessly against the surface of the structure—yet no matter what they did, they could never break free of their bonds.

This Yellow Springs Inn had been forged from resentful souls! How many resentful souls had been smelted into this single inn?

The living could not exist in the Underworld; the living could not cross the River Yellow Springs. That this inn could be built within the Underworld and provide cultivators afflicted by the Five Declines with a refuge from their tribulation was because resentful souls could enter the Underworld, yet due to their attachments were not drawn by the Yellow Springs into reincarnation. The heavier their resentment and suffering, the more stable this inn built within the Underworld would be, and the safer its guests. To stay in this inn was to forge a profound karmic bond with these resentful souls—the guests could evade their decline tribulation and live on precisely because of the immense suffering endured by these resentful, grief-stricken souls who could find no release!

Bai Qingya’s expression darkened as well. He looked at the resentful souls tearing at one another within the walls—his heart a mixture of compassion and fury. Driven mad by their suffering and full of hate, these resentful souls lashed out at everything within their reach, but this could not lessen their torment; it only made their anguish worse.

At the same time he could not help but feel even more anxious for Bi Dongdi. He knew Bi Dongdi well—Bi Dongdi would never choose to take up lodgings in such a place merely to evade a tribulation. Yet he had not come back. What had happened to him? Was he trapped here and unable to leave? Or had he already…met with misfortune? Could one of these resentful souls imprisoned within be Bi Dongdi?

Stepping inside the inn, the most prominent sight directly ahead was a stone screen. Dark ink flowed across it, displaying the remaining time left on each guest’s paid lodging.

The middle-aged man’s gaze swept over it, and his expression changed.

He had taken the highest-grade room, and the cost had naturally been considerable. The dim eerie road leading to the Yellow Springs Inn warped one’s sense of time; even as a cultivator, after spending so long out there, his perception had gone somewhat astray. The time he had been gone was far longer than he had realized, and without having secured anything for his return, his remaining lodging time was already alarmingly short.

The great hall on the ground floor was furnished much like any ordinary inn—a counter with a bookkeeper inside, a menu board hanging on the wall, tables and chairs arranged in orderly fashion. Three or four tables were occupied by scattered guests, drinks and food set out before them.

The moment the three newcomers stepped in, hidden gazes immediately latched onto them.

The middle-aged man and Li Quan sat together at one table; Bai Qingya sat alone at another. He did not sit fully—he hovered slightly above the chair, not letting himself settle against it. The resentful souls on the tabletop were tearing at each other, ripping away pieces of each other’s spiritual forms with teeth and claws and swallowing them, only to be torn apart and swallowed in turn by others. They reformed, clashed, shattered, and reformed again—without end and without pause, soundless and savage.

There was only one attendant in the inn, who could not attend two tables at once. The bookkeeper, meanwhile, stayed behind the counter—even though no one was approaching to settle any accounts, he continued with his head bent, flicking at his abacus beads, paying no mind to anything happening on the floor.

The attendant came first to Bai Qingya’s table. He was dressed with his waist cinched tight and his sleeves bound close, a towel draped over his shoulder—no different in appearance from an attendant in the mortal world.

“Will the guest be eating or lodging?” The attendant wore a smile, its arc stiff and exaggerated, as though it had been painted onto his face with a colored brush by a paper craftsman.

“I’m here to ask about someone,” Bai Qingya said.

The attendant’s smile did not change. “Will the guest be eating or lodging?” he asked again.

“I’d like to ask—has anyone here seen a person called Bi Dongdi?” Bai Qingya could already tell something was wrong, but he pressed on. He had only come here to find someone; that remained his sole purpose.

The attendant’s smile grew, the arc of his mouth on his face stretching ever more grotesquely, and in the same unchanging tone he asked again. “Will the guest be eating or lodging?”

A strange atmosphere was gradually thickening in the hall. The resentful souls struggling on the floor, the tabletops, the walls, the pillars—though their faces remained twisted with agony, their eyes all began imperceptibly drifting toward Bai Qingya.

“I am neither here to eat nor to lodge,” said Bai Qingya. His aura was ethereal and diffuse; the malicious gazes and eerie presences pressing in on him were like things falling into a deep, empty mountain gorge—finding no target, drifting hollowly about with nowhere to land.

The inn fell utterly silent. Only the sound of the bookkeeper’s abacus beads came intermittently. No one else spoke; they all watched this side, their gazes variously cold or faintly curious.

The attendant’s smile grew wider still, and menace crept into it. “Guest…”

“How is the eating priced? How is the lodging priced?” Li Quan’s voice cut in suddenly. The tense atmosphere was abruptly, jarringly, dispersed.

The attendant seemed only then to notice that another guest had come in. He bowed and walked over, pointing to the board on the wall with a grinning laugh. “It’s all written on the board, guest. Will you be eating or lodging?”

Li Quan cast his gaze over the board on the wall, then asked, “Why is there only food—no tea?”

The attendant paused, then piled on a smile. “We have tea, we have tea. Tea is complimentary.”

“Then bring two cups of tea first.” Li Quan extended a hand toward Bai Qingya. “And one for him as well.”

The attendant nodded and smiled at once. “Right away, right away.” He seemed entirely unbothered by this behavior that rather looked like squatting in the establishment without ordering anything.

Before going to fetch the tea, the attendant glanced at the middle-aged man and said amiably, “Guest, your lodging time is nearly up. Would you like to pay for another stay, or check out?”

His tone was gentle and warm, but the middle-aged man’s forehead broke out in sweat. His expression shifted several times—and at last he clenched his jaw, stood up, and said, “I… I’ll pay for another stay!”

If he checked out, the Five Declines would descend on him immediately. That would kill him.

“Very well. Please follow me.” The attendant beamed with delight, and led the middle-aged man to the rear courtyard. His voice filtered through the cloth curtain that separated them. “Please wait here. The next group will be arriving shortly.”

An old man–looking cultivator who had been in the inn earlier edged over to Li Quan, gave a slight bow, and indicated he wished to share the table.

Li Quan nodded and gestured for him to sit. The old man settled in close and said in a low voice, “You should send the tea back. Order some food and drink instead.”

“Is there something wrong with the tea?” Li Quan asked.

“What’s free doesn’t mean it has no price,” the old man advised. His gaze flicked over to Bai Qingya at the other table. “If you know him, talk him out of it—order some food, eat, and leave. Don’t think about finding anyone.”

Li Quan smiled. “With such a kind heart to warn others, how is it that you yourself can’t let go—and remain here in this inn?”

This cultivator also wore the appearance of great age inside the inn, a sign that his third decline was in its late stages. He was not lodging in one of the top two grades of rooms—he was only staying in a lower-grade room, barely managing to extend his life by the inn’s decline-averting effect.

The old man gave a dazed, drawn-out sigh. “How could I let go? If not for this great calamity, my Five Declines should never have descended at this time…”

He seemed about to say more, but a small noise came from behind the courtyard screen. He immediately went quiet, rose, and left—returning to his previous seat.

Not long after, the attendant lifted the curtain and came back out, a teapot in hand.

Bai Qingya’s expression changed sharply. In the instant the curtain had been drawn aside, a faint trace of the rear courtyard’s aura had seeped through—and within that mingled aura, he had sensed the presence of Bi Dongdi!

“Why not come sit together, fellow cultivator?” Li Quan said suddenly.

With those words, Bai Qingya—who had just risen to his feet—involuntarily turned and walked toward Li Quan’s table, sitting down.

He looked at Li Quan with anxiety and fury in his eyes, mouth opened as though to speak, yet unable to make a sound. He had never imagined Li Quan’s cultivation to be this deep—without a ripple of movement, lightly and effortlessly, he had brought him completely under control. Bi Dongdi’s aura had been chaotic and faint, even tainted with the qi of death; he was desperately worried about his friend, yet no matter what he did, he could not break free.

Once Bai Qingya sat down, the attendant also came over, setting a cup of tea before both Li Quan and Bai Qingya.

The tea was a pale grey, as though a layer of ash had been dissolved into it, held in cups that were likewise forged from resentful souls. The anguished faces of the resentful souls writhed and twisted across the surface of the cups, making the pale grey tea appear all the more uncanny.

Li Quan lifted his cup and gave it a light swirl—and with that single swirl, a heavy death-qi rose off the tea. The essence within it drifted open: at once desolate and still, yet disordered and chaotic. This was tea made from the water of the Yellow Springs River; the Yellow Springs River itself had no physical form, yet here its very nature had been violated and inverted.

Tea like this, if one drank enough of it, would likely transform the living into something caught between life and death—never able to leave this place again. In its own way, that would also be an avoidance of the Five Declines.

“Why aren’t you drinking, guest?” The attendant still wore that grotesquely wide, enthusiastic grin.

Li Quan sighed and set his cup back on the table. “The tea is cold.”

“It’s supposed to be cold tea,” the attendant said, still smiling. “Don’t waste it, guest.”

“And if I don’t want to drink it?”

“Guests come to stay at the inn—the tea is there to drink or not drink as you please.” The attendant’s smile spread back into that menacing expression of before.

The atmosphere in the inn grew heavier than it had been. This time, even the clicking of the bookkeeper’s abacus beads behind the counter went still. The resentful souls drifting through the walls of the building slowed their tearing and clawing, craning their necks in eager, frenzied anticipation, pressing as close as they could to this table.

“I’m not here to check in,” Li Quan looked up, his eyes blazing like twin suns.

“I’m here to wreck the place!”