ATEG Chapter 91.2

Ding Qin shook her head.

“I didn’t see any problems either.” Bai Hong sat before the small table, one hand propping up her chin, slender white fingers taking turns tapping her cheek, her elongated, upturned eyes half-closed lazily, looking quite bored and languid.

She had been out with Ding Qin for some time. Though they’d resolved the issues along the Jiuqu River in those villages and regained their freedom, life afterward hadn’t been so easy. During the great calamity, everything was different from a thousand years ago. The spiritual essence was chaotic, severely suppressing her. Fortunately, she cultivated the ancient demon path and didn’t rely too heavily on magic arts, or she would have been quite irritable.

They had both examined those nine lamps and found nothing noteworthy. Even the oil lamps and candlesticks weren’t uniform in style—clearly cobbled together. One even consisted of just a nail driven into a wooden board to hold a candle as a makeshift candlestick.

“But this young woman doesn’t seem to be lying. I can see she’s truly terribly frightened.” Bai Hong murmured, her slender phoenix eyes narrowed.

Ding Qin thought the same. Liu Yetao wasn’t lying. But a normal person wouldn’t suddenly become this frightened of a few ordinary flames. She and Bai Hong had both examined her—Liu Yetao was just an ordinary person with nothing wrong about her. As for her ability to sense the alternation of day and night, perhaps her consciousness was simply more acute.

Mortals didn’t cultivate consciousness, but that didn’t mean they lacked it. Some people were naturally sensitive. When their surface awareness hadn’t yet realized something, their deeper consciousness had already perceived certain subtle details ordinary people wouldn’t notice. Changes in air, transitions in color, differences in music… These most minute changes—when a person’s dull, crude surface consciousness hadn’t yet cognized them—their deeper consciousness had already captured this information and integrated it with past experience into a vague feeling, feeding it back to surface consciousness and letting them sense a certain result.

And this perception based on the five senses was only the most basic part of consciousness recognition. This was already enough for Liu Yetao to sense the alternation of day and night. Beyond this lay even purer, more subtle perception—perception of spiritual essence changes.

Just like perception of yin-yang energy changes between heaven and earth. Even cultivators dwelling in sunless stone caves could distinguish the four seasons and eight solar terms through yin-yang energy changes. If this perception reached a cruder level, it could be exemplified by the baleful energy mortals occasionally encountered. When facing soldiers who had killed many on battlefields, or tigers, leopards, wolves, and lions that hunted for blood, ordinary people often felt fear.

Beyond this lay yet deeper perception—karmic destiny. When two people with extremely close relationships faced danger to one, the other would feel panic and unease—this was a corresponding example. Even cultivators rarely saw karmic destiny clearly. For ordinary people to sense even crude karma was already quite good.

In fact, individual karmic destiny was most deeply connected to oneself and most easily sensed by oneself. Like silk thread tied to one’s wrist—others would have to strain to find it, but oneself only needed to feel where the pull came from to naturally know where the thread was tied and where it led.

However, most people were foolish and deluded, their eyes often obscured by greed and anger. When their desires blazed fiercely, even if their consciousness and innate nature warned them ceaselessly, they would often ignore it, persisting in their actions. By the time evil consequences manifested, regret came too late.

Liu Yetao herself was an extremely sensitive young woman. Her terror of those nine lamps—was it because she sensed something?

And Liu Chuanyu, who demanded she must light these nine lamps—what was her purpose?

And that Mingdeng Sect… Ding Qin thought carefully. She had truly never heard such a name. Yet relying on nine utterly ordinary lamps to make an ordinary person know what happened wherever the lamplight shone—such methods were truly bizarre and extraordinary.

Since arriving at this estate yesterday until now, except for Liu Yetao’s own inexplicable terror, she and Bai Hong had seen no problems.

If Liu Yetao could muster the courage to refuse her sister once more, or agree to extinguish the lamps at night to see what happened, perhaps they could find some clues from the changes. Only, though Liu Yetao possessed such a face with distinctive presence, her character seemed too timid and soft.

Ding Qin was thinking deeply when the divine seal on her forehead suddenly rippled. Before her eyes, ethereal, thin white mist seemed to rise, like mountain mist at forest sunrise—about to disperse but not yet, cool and soft. From within she sensed familiar clarity and purity, as if returning to that seemingly eternally peaceful mountain estate.

“High God?”

She didn’t see Li Chi, but already felt a familiar gaze like sunlight falling upon her.

The white mist rippled gently. Suddenly she saw Liu Yetao, slumped exhausted on the bed. Though already fallen into sleep, her brows remained furrowed.

“All worldly karma arises from the delusions of the seven emotions.” The deity’s will appeared in the mist. “Now that you have observed many seven emotions, you may also try to observe karma.”

The seal in Ding Qin’s eyes suddenly shifted—structures that the world’s most skilled craftsmen couldn’t design. Old structures rotated and interlocked at nearly impossible angles, lines transforming into new runes. From inside out, seals changed layer by layer, opening yet re-locking, until the outermost layer rotated and changed but didn’t close.

When Ding Qin looked at Liu Yetao again, everything she saw became utterly different.

She saw excessively thick mist, like snow too heavy, covering everything in vast whiteness.

Something gently guided her gaze, like a teacher holding a child’s hand to guide writing. Her gaze thus penetrated that overly thick mist. She finally discerned it wasn’t thick fog or heavy snow, but densely packed silk threads. From the beginning, born, accumulated, entangled—finally forming this thick whiteness in the world.

“Karma…” she murmured.

Her gaze followed the karmic threads on Liu Yetao’s body, involuntarily falling upon one thread, catching a glimpse of an old scene.

Noisy, bustling streets, crowds like woven fabric and lamps like daylight. A turbaned man played a flute—the sound had a strange, exotic flavor, yet wasn’t unpleasant, possessing its own distinct taste. Before the man sat an open round bamboo basket, from which emerged a snake’s head and upper body, swaying to follow the flute’s melody.

This was a very beautiful snake. Its head was long and rounded, not appearing fierce. Its eyes weren’t the cunning, cold bright yellow common to snakes—darker in color, nearly black in dim light. Its body was pure black, every scale clean and orderly, reflecting some blue-purple light in the sunlight.

When it danced to the flute’s melody, this brilliant color flowed even more magnificently.

The surrounding crowd grew larger, cheering each time the snake’s body twisted dramatically to the flute’s melody. After the flute slid through a long modulation, the snake suddenly lowered its body. It crawled from the basket, scales reflecting gorgeous cold light, winding on the ground into a flowing, meandering black river.

The flutist continued playing, even closing his eyes contentedly. The flute sound relaxed, and the snake leisurely crawled a circuit on the ground. The watching crowd retreated a few steps, but the snake didn’t approach—seemingly completely uninterested in people. The snake circled once and crawled back to a small compartment enclosed by curtains behind the performance area.

When the snake reached the compartment, a slender white soft hand suddenly extended from the gap, reaching down to the ground. The snake flicked its tongue and climbed up this hand. But no matter how far up it climbed, it always remained outside the curtain.

The more it climbed upward, the more of that arm emerged from the curtain, finally revealing an entire white, soft arm and a shoulder draped in bright red gauze.

Everyone was captivated by this beautiful arm and the snake climbing upon it.

The snake climbed onto the slender shoulder. From the curtain walked out a young woman, her bare feet stepping to drum beats, soles and palms dyed red, anklets and bracelets bearing bells. Her body danced to the flute’s melody, and the bells rang with it.

This was an extremely beautiful young woman. Her eyes were large and bright, lighter in color than normal—like amber-colored fine wine. Her hair was black and soft, its luster no less brilliant than the snake’s scales. Her skin was smooth and fair, almost gleaming like fine silk in the sunlight. Her lips were bright red, even more vivid than the gauze on her body. The corners of her mouth held a soft smile, yet that smile, like the snake climbing on her, felt both beautiful and cold.

Bright red gauze, pure white skin, black snake—all equally soft, all swaying together. These gorgeous, soft colors crashed into everyone’s eyes. No one could help but be captivated by this scene.

Thus when the flute fell silent and the young woman landed her final dance step, letting the gleaming snake rest on her white, soft arm, applause and cheers resounded.

Liu Yetao—her face with its strange charm was most suited to precisely this expression and bearing.

As people cheered, someone set down their drum, took a basin, and circled the performance area collecting tips from the crowd.

This was also a young woman, but she wasn’t beautiful. Against Liu Yetao’s backdrop, she even appeared quite ordinary—so much so that no one had noticed that in this performance, besides the snake-charming flutist and the young woman dancing with the snake, there was also another young woman playing drums.

The only noteworthy point was that this drum-playing young woman bore three parts resemblance to the flutist, enough to let people guess her identity—Liu Chuanyu, the flutist’s niece, and Liu Yetao’s non-blood sister.

Ding Qin was watching intently when this scene suddenly faded like losing color, people’s voices also receding. Finally, along with this fading scene, it all merged back into thick karma, and then this thick karma also dispersed from her eyes, restoring her vision to its original state, leaving only the cool, soft mountain mist that had initially risen from the divine seal.

Later, even this mountain mist dispersed.

Ding Qin blinked. She still remained in the room. Bai Hong still tapped her cheek, looking quite melancholy.

A giant red-crowned crane with long legs and elegant neck, wings black and white like ink wash, only a touch of bright red atop her head. Manifested in human form, she possessed ice-like skin and jade bones with an ethereal immortal air, her feathered robe clear and elegant, setting off skin like snow, with only a touch of red mark on her forehead, vivid and eye-catching.

Unfortunately, though this crane deity appeared cold and aloof like a Nine Heavens immortal, her inner activities were quite agitated and gloomy.

Human arms really aren’t useful. I want to use big wings.

What is this Mingdeng Sect about? Can we just fight directly?

What exactly is it when the wind doesn’t move…

Ding Qin blinked. The crane deity seemed completely unaware of what had just happened. She focused her gaze and the layers of thick, complex karma appeared once more.

But Ding Qin didn’t examine closely, quickly dispersing her vision. Without the deity’s guidance, she discovered this was truly an exhausting matter. Karma was so intricate and dense that finding a particular karmic thread was already difficult as finding a needle in the ocean. Though each karmic thread was thin as silk, it carried thick, rich information. Even finding the thread one wanted to see didn’t mean one could immediately find what one wished to know.

“What’s wrong?” Bai Hong keenly turned to look. Ding Qin’s gaze just now had made her vaguely sense something.

“The High God just unsealed another part of the seal in my eyes.” Ding Qin said.

“What did you see?” Bai Hong asked with great interest.

“When the High God guided me just now, I saw Liu Chuanyu and their master.” Ding Qin seemed somewhat hesitant, weighing her words before recounting everything she had seen.

Having finished, she added, “I don’t want to be biased, I…”

“But your feelings may not be wrong.” Bai Hong interjected, looking at Ding Qin while propping up her chin. “You were born with such spirit eyes, your consciousness far more acute than many cultivators. Your feelings aren’t necessarily like the story of ‘suspecting your neighbor of stealing the axe.’”

Ding Qin pressed her lips together. “I feel that Liu Yetao is far better at handling snakes than her sister Liu Chuanyu. She and that black snake are very familiar.”

Bai Hong looked thoughtful. “So she learned snake handling better than Liu Chuanyu?”

For this to occur, either their master had withheld knowledge when teaching Liu Chuanyu but devoted more effort to Liu Yetao, or Liu Yetao simply had much better natural talent in this art than Liu Chuanyu.

But the former possibility was unlikely. Liu Yetao was only adopted, with no blood relation to the master, while Liu Chuanyu was his blood relative. Even assuming he liked Liu Yetao more and favored her somewhat, it shouldn’t reach this degree. Moreover, if he truly favored Liu Yetao so much, Liu Yetao shouldn’t fear Liu Chuanyu’s anger so greatly.

Therefore, Liu Yetao simply had better natural talent in snake handling than Liu Chuanyu. She was beautiful and talented, popular with audiences. Of the many tips they could receive, the greater part was her contribution. In this performance, their master played flute to guide the snake, Liu Yetao’s dance captivated all eyes—but Liu Chuanyu? She played drums. Few noticed the drum sound, and few noticed her when throwing tips into the basin. Would she mind these things?

Bai Hong thought for a while, began to get a headache, and decisively gave up, continuing to ask, “Did you see anything else just now?”

Ding Qin shook her head. “What I can see myself is still very limited. I planned to save my strength for Liu Yetao, so I didn’t look closely just now.”

“That’s good too.” Bai Hong nodded. She herself wasn’t skilled at and was too lazy to puzzle out those strange, convoluted methods or schemes. If Ding Qin could see what was really happening, that would be best.

Liu Yetao had left many things unclear and needed further questioning, but she looked truly too exhausted. Better to wait until she woke.

……

When the sun was about to reach its zenith, sounds came from next door. Liu Yetao had finally awakened. She was still very tired—these few hours of sleep hadn’t been restful either—but she couldn’t rest anymore. She wasn’t a young lady of leisure; there were many things to do.

She barely roused her spirits and simply tidied herself. But just stepping outside, Liu Yetao saw Ding Qin and Bai Hong. They stood in the courtyard, looking as if they were waiting for her.

Liu Yetao paused as memories slowed by sleep surfaced, making her recall yesterday and last night’s events. She greeted the two.

“We have some more things to ask you.” Ding Qin said.

“Alright.” Liu Yetao said. “Here, now?”

Ding Qin shook her head, pointing to porridge and side dishes still warm on the stone table. “You haven’t eaten, have you? Eat something first.”

It was nearly noon now. From last night until now, Liu Yetao still hadn’t eaten anything.

Liu Yetao hesitated, then sat down and only scooped two spoonfuls of the broth from the porridge, barely taking any rice grains. “I’m not hungry.”

She wasn’t being polite but truly not hungry, just somewhat thirsty. After drinking two spoonfuls of porridge broth, she recovered some spirit. But this shouldn’t be a young woman’s appetite. Two spoonfuls of thin porridge—even unweaned children ate more than her.

Ding Qin saw she had truly eaten her fill and couldn’t help asking, “Has your appetite always been this small?”