Chapter 21: Tumulus (2/2)

With the help of Gao’e and the others’ explanation, everyone gradually became clear of what was going on. 

No wonder even after getting the required thirty-three “little boy” and “little girl” statues, the catacomb still appeared to be calm and peaceful, not seeming like some array had been activated. As it turned out, it was because the people weren’t right, and the north, south, east, and west sides still lacked celestial energy.

“So does that mean spirit-raising talismans really work? Can they actually revive a divine statue?” The cultivation disciple looked towards Yi Wusheng and asked, “Or else why would that immortal be trying so hard for his plan to work?”

“……” Even Yi Wusheng didn’t know how to reply.

“It’s no use.” Xiao Fuxuan’s voice suddenly sounded.

Wu Xingxue turned his head to look at him and saw him with the spirit-raising talisman that had been stuck on the little boy and girl statues between his fingers. He said, “This talisman is rarely seen in the mortal realm, but in the Immortal Capital, it’s everywhere.”

His words made it very clear, which idiot immortal from the Immortal Capital will use this thingy to revive himself?

“Then doesn’t that mean it must be a commoner from the mortal realm who doesn’t understand how these talismans work that is behind all this?” One of the little disciples guessed.

Xiao Fuxuan’s lips moved, but before he spoke, the little disciple shook his head immediately, rejecting his previous thought, “No, no, no, it can’t be, what type of ignorant person from the mortal realm would come a place as heinous as the Valley of Great Sorrow to assemble an array? Are they crazy?”

“Then what are these spirit-raising talismans for?”

“Yeah, these talismans fell off just by a gentle lift, and a lot of those little boy and girl statues were also shattered…” 

The disciples mumbled among themselves.

Talking about shattered, Wu Xingxue saw Xiao Fuxuan frown, and then he used the tip of his sword to prod at the broken clay shards on the ground.

Wu Xingxue also looked over, seeing those bloody claw marks that were inside the little girl statue that had held Gao’e before.

He stared at the bloodstains for a while, then suddenly noticed that something was off.

After Gao’e and the others turned sinister, their nails were as sharp as knives, allowing them to even cut metal like nothing. When their claws scratched the stone walls, it made grooves everywhere, so how come they couldn’t break the little boy and girl statue from the inside, ending up with such a battered mess of claw marks?

In addition, these commoners’ incidents had happened fairly recently, but these little boy and girl statues looked very old, maybe even as old as the divine statue inside the catacomb.

So before these commoners placed the spirit-raising talismans, what was the purpose of these little statues in the catacomb?

Xiao Fuxuan suddenly flicked the tip of his sword, and one of the pottery fragments landed in his hand. 

Wu Xingxue also took a look and saw that there were blood marks crisscrossed on the fragments. There also seemed to be another tiny mark, but because it was completely destroyed, one could not tell what it was at all.

“This is?” Wu Xingxue asked.

“Can’t tell,” Xiao Fuxuan paused, then said, “Most likely a worship mark.”

“Worship mark?” Wu Xingxue had naturally never heard of that before, “What is it for?”

“It’s to collect incense and worship.”

Wu Xingxue smiled, “Immortal, do I look like I understood?”

Xiao Fuxuan: “……”

He probably seldom explained this type of minutiae in detail to others. But as Wu Xingxue looked at him with a smile, he spoke again after a moment, “In the past, in order to collect the incense and offerings placed in each celestial temple of the mortal realm, the immortals of the Immortal Capital would leave a worship mark on their divine statues.”

Wu Xingxue remembered the Yun Hai that he had talked about before. In the end, it was because he was deprived of incense and offerings that he was stripped of his position as an immortal and struck back to the mortal realm.

“Then does that mean to all immortals, incense, and offerings are just like the food for humans? They can’t live without them?” Wu Xingxue asked.

Xiao Fuxuan corrected him, “Most immortals.”

Wu Xingxue: “There are exceptions?”

Xiao Fuxuan: “Mm.”

Wu Xingxue: “Like?”

Xiao Fuxuan: “…… Me.”

Wu Xingxue softly let out an “oh”. This was actually rather understandable. He was ordained to become an immortal, so he wasn’t under the jurisdiction of the Lingtai Twelve Immortals. He only managed punishment and forgiveness, so he wasn’t relevant to the common people of the mortal realm. It was very normal for him to be an exception.

He didn’t ask any further, only saying, “Then what are the worship marks on these little boy and girl statues for? This catacomb lies beneath the earth, so there’s no one who comes to pray. Whose incense is being collected?”

As Wu Xingxue spoke, he suddenly remembered the calmly shining ever-bright lanterns that covered the rock wall. He suddenly felt that the person who had first built this catacomb and put down these little boy and girl statues didn’t really intend to collect any incense. It was just like those lanterns, it was only a form of quiet, long companionship.

Gao’e and the others’ tattered clothing still had a few bundles of incense that were undamaged. Wu Xingxue bent down and pulled out three sticks. He used an oil lantern from the side walls to light them, then held those sticks of incense by the broken clay pieces and let them burn for a while.

The thin curling green smoke suddenly started to dissipate towards a certain direction.

“What’s wrong with this smoke?” The cultivation disciples looked over. One of them waved their hand and said, “There’s no wind in this catacomb.”

“Could it be pointing us a direction?”

Everyone looked at each other, then immediately started to follow the green smoke.

Along the way, they passed countless caves, finding nearly twenty little boy and girl statues. After opening each one of them, they would always find the corpse of the people who had tragically died. They all seemed to have clawed and struggled inside, causing bloody scratch marks to be everywhere.

Xiao Fuxuan had picked a broken shard from each one of those statues. Beneath the bloody marks on the shard, all of them had the worship mark that had been clawed to pieces.

***

After walking for a long long time, Yi Wusheng suddenly muttered, “I’m afraid we’ve already reached the Valley of Great Sorrow’s… end?”

Before he could finish his last word, they had followed the green smoke past a fork road and entered an enormous round room. Yi Wusheng suddenly didn’t know what to say anymore—

Because the round room was filled entirely with towering divine statues.

The cultivation disciples who were discussing among themselves just now immediately became quiet, and they all gasped at the sight.

They’ve been into ordinary celestial temples before. The divine statues there weren’t supposed to be this tall. There were also extremely tall ones placed at the entrances of some cities and ports, but not in such densities.

Most divine statues were sculpted out of wooden or rock columns; it was their first time seeing this kind of colossal statues lined up like trees in a forest.

The lingering sense of oppression made them afraid to speak, and even afraid to look at the statues for too long.

But they still couldn’t help but look.

“These divine statues are just like the one near the entrance of the catacomb… I don’t recognize a single one of them.” The cultivation disciple’s face revealed some astonishment, “I’ve never seen this many unfamiliar divine statues assembled together before.”

“Senior, what about you? Do you recognize them?”

Yi Wusheng shook his head. He looked up, moving his gaze across the face of each and every one of the statues. After a long time, he said, “I don’t know any of them.”

The moment Ning Huaishan and Fang Chu entered this place, they felt like they could throw up for three lifetimes.

Their faces were green like leaves, and their nauseous feeling grew more and more intense. But then, they heard their City Lord say softly, “You guys even want to throw up here?” 

Ning Huaishan pressed his lips together, trying to swallow down the upcoming vomit. He said after a long moment, “Are we not supposed to?”

Fang Chu was already bent over with one of his hands on Ning Huaishan’s shoulder. After trying to hold it for a long time, to the extent that even his eyes were turning green, he turned to Wu Xingxue and asked, “City Lord, I wanted to ask before, but how come these divine statues have no effect on you at all?”

He wanted to vomit, but he was also afraid that it would be disrespectful to the City Lord. So he quickly buried his face in Ning Huaishan’s shoulder.

Ning Huaishan quickly warned him, “If you dare to throw up on me I’ll kill you! For real!”

Wu Xingxue, on the other hand, appeared completely calm and composed, “How would I know why they have no influence on me?”

Ning Huaishan, with a green face, looked at him, then gave an “oh”. He said in his head, “City Lord doesn’t remember a thing, he probably forgot why as well, blargh—”

Fuck.

The two of them were already at their limits. They quickly crawled back outside on all fours.

Leaving Wu Xingxue in a completely puzzled state.

He asked Xiao Fuxuan in confusion, “You said before that Yun Hai wasn’t the only immortal here who didn’t have a peaceful end. I believe these divine statues are all the same?”

Xiao Fuxuan was looking at those divine statues.

His face didn’t show any sign of surprise, but he still scanned over each and every one of the statues. It was almost like… he clearly knew who would be here, but he was still looking for something.

After he finished looking over all of them, he withdrew his gaze, and then replied calmly, “Mm, all of them are.”

Then that’s strange…

Wu Xingxue murmured in his head — if they had all been sent back to the mortal realm like what happened to Yun Hai, then these people must’ve long been no longer considered as immortals.

Since they could no longer be considered as immortals, they had also been forgotten by the mortal realm. Then these statues shouldn’t have had that intense of an effect on those two little devils Ning Huaishan and Fang Chu.

After all, when they saw Yun Hai’s divine statue before, they didn’t have much of a reaction.

Just as he was about to speak, he heard one of the disciples exclaim, “There are words on the altar!”

Wu Xingxue looked over. Sure enough, there were indeed words carved on the altars beneath those divine statues’ feet.

“Sang Feng, in charge of the Immovable Mountain.”

“Huo Ge, in charge of the Snowy Pond.”

“Meng Gu, in charge of the Jing Guan.”

……

Wu Xingxue passed through the forest of divine statues, reading over the words on each altar. It had the names of each immortal along with the places that they were once in charge of.

For a split second, amongst the mass of divine statues, his footsteps suddenly halted. He felt like these immortals who didn’t get a peaceful end weren’t really that unfamiliar.

As if… he had once seen the way these faces laughed and chatted, and then they were gone, never to be seen again.

“They have marks on their backs!” Someone shouted.

Wu Xingxue was startled and came back to his senses. Looking over, he saw that the two nearest divine statues all had a mark on their back. The positions of those marks were directly opposite to the position of their names and they were in charge of. Wu Xingxue bent down, using an oil lantern to illuminate the area, and found that those marks were identical to the ones inside the little boy and girl statues.

“They-they were really supposed to be for worshiping these divine statues,” Wu Xingxue said to himself. He then looked up again and counted. The number of divine statues was precisely thirty-three—no more, no less, and also completely consistent with the number of little boy and girl statues.

It was as if the person who had first built this immortal tomb had hoped that, even though they were no longer immortals, they would still have people to accompany them, so they wouldn’t sit alone in silence.

But if that was true, then it didn’t make sense for why the commoners were ordained here.

Why would they stuff themselves inside the little boy and girl statues, and why would they claw apart the worship marks inside? It was almost as if… those worship marks didn’t actually bring about any comfort, but instead made something annoyed and agitated.

There weren’t many oil lanterns inside the round room, and the deeper it was inside the room, the more dark and dim it became.

Wu Xingxue could vaguely see that at the end of the forest of divine statues, there seemed to be something there. Its outline was shrouded in shadow and extremely indistinct, allowing him to see what it looked like.

A pavilion?

A jade tower?

He subconsciously thought that it was probably something from the Immortal Capital, the place where those immortals once lived. After all, the tombs in the mortal realm were also like so, with replicas of things like houses constructed inside the tomb.

Wu Xingxue held the oil lantern and walked towards that direction, planning to see it for himself.

But the second he raised his foot, he was grabbed by the wrist and pulled back.

“Don’t go forward.”

Xiao Fuxuan pressed his shoulder, his low voice sounding in his ear.

“Why?”

“There’s an array.”

“Array?”

“Mm,” said Xiao Fuxuan, “I checked just now, these thirty-three divine statues weren’t placed by random, they form an array.”

Just as he finished speaking, a terrifying scream reverberated inside the round room, “AHHHHH—”

That hoarse cry carried a sense of sorrow, containing both male and female voices—it was the sound of Gao’e and the others.

Wu Xingxue quickly looked over and saw that those broken arms and legs seemed as if they had been attracted by something, scurrying over towards that swath of darkness at lightning speed. Then, they started to shriek while struggling, and in the next moment, the smell of blood permeated the air.

Wu Xingxue could almost see droplets of blood splatter over to where he stood.

With his wrist being grabbed, he could only squint his eyes and turn his head. But he felt the pressure on his shoulders suddenly lighten, and just centimeters away, Xiao Fuxuan’s slim hand hovered in front of his nose, blocking off the blood that was about to splatter onto him.

Xiao Fuxuan withdrew his hand, coldly shook off those droplets of blood, and threw a lantern in a swath of darkness.

Immediately, the darkness erupted into flames. The roaring fire was blinding white with a hint of blue and as tall as the ceiling.

Burned by the light of the fire, Gao’e and the others regained a sense of clarity amidst their screaming. They retreated back with a swish, no longer throwing themselves towards that swath of darkness.

Yi Wusheng didn’t bother with polite remarks. He screamed above their piercing shrieks, asking: “What are you scrambling over there for!”

“Voice!”

“We heard the voice of that immortal again!” said Gao’e.

The “immortal” who had sent them a dream, saying that the north, south, west, and east sides were all missing some celestial energy?

Wu Xingxue squinted his eyes, trying to look through that patch of bright blue flame. When the light of the fire had slowly dimmed down, he finally saw the thing inside that swath of darkness in clarity—

It was a pavilion carved out of cold stone.

It wasn’t in the shape of those celestial temples commonly used for worship, instead, it looked more like someone’s residence. It was complete with a bed and a folding screen with stone railings and walkways. It was just like one of the Yao Palace from the Immortal Capital, except that yao palace was directly connected to a tall platform, that platform completely covered in carved words of prophecy.

The prophecies couldn’t be read clearly. On top of the palace, there was also a door plaque. There should have been words there, but for some reason, it was chiseled away. Only a corner of it remained, the rest of it lying in shattered pieces on the floor. Only the word “breeze” could vaguely be distinguished.

…… Seated Spring Breeze?

“Seated Spring Breeze.”

When those words flashed in Wu Xingxue’s mind, Xiao Fuxuan also happened to say them at the exact same time.

“Where is that?” Wu Xingxue calmly looked at that tall platform.

Xiao Fuxuan replied after a long silence, “A platform for abolishing immortals.”

Wu Xingxue gave a light “oh”.

Those immortals who had been abolished ought to have also once stood on this tall platform covered in carvings of prophecy. How come an immortal-abolishing platform had been given the name “Seated Spring Breeze.” Really… letting down the spring breeze for no reason.

The significance of this immortal-abolishing platform was very obvious. It was to warn a specific person.

Wu Xingxue remembered that there were thirty-three divine statues in this round room, making the lonely Yun Hai seem completely out of place.

Ning Huaishan and Fang Chu’s reactions to these thirty-three divine statues were extremely strong, vomiting, and feeling ill, meaning that these divine statues ought to have a bit of remaining celestial power. This was most likely due to the long-standing worship of those little boy and girl statues.

However, the Yun Hai divine statue had no effect on them, meaning that Yun Hai was truly no longer an immortal.

Judging from this, the person who this immortal-abolishing platform was meant to warn went without saying.

Wu Xingxue remembered what Xiao Fuxuan had said. Back then, Yun Hai had been devoured by devils and died in the Valley of Great Sorrow. This led Hua Xin to come down and slaughter all of the devils in the Valley of Great Sorrow. Then, he built this catacomb to worship Yun Hai’s divine statue, and afterwards, some other divine statues were also added here to be worshiped.

At that point, he was already a bit confused. Since the master-disciple pair had such a strong relationship, and since he wanted to worship his beloved disciple who had passed, why would he bury his grave underground, not letting any mortal come near?

Thinking about this now… this most likely wasn’t just a simple form of worship.

That blaze of bright blue flame was still burning, acting like a barrier between the crowd and that immortal-abolishing platform.

Beneath the flame, that immortal-abolishing platform looked like a tumulus, sitting heavily atop the thing lying inside.

Judging from the smashed door plaque, this tumulus had moved before.

The bright light from the flickering flames reflected off those thirty-three colossal divine statues, illuminating their half-lidded eyes, and making them appear, at first glance, as if their eyes had moved.

“Martial brother… how come it feels like those divine statues are looking at us?”

“Am I overthinking? That divine statue seems to be a bit more tilted forward than before.”

“Maybe it’s because of the light coming from the fire.”

Beneath the feet of those thirty-three divine statues, between the cracks of the stone floorboards, there seemed to be vague beams of interconnecting light, as if the array that had been placed here was slowly flowing.

“Xiao Fuxuan,” Wu Xingxue turned his head and said, “You said these divine statues formed an array. What does the array do?”

Xiao Fuxuan looked at the crisscrossing beams of indistinct light on the ground, replying, “It is used to suppress a devil, or to suppress a vestigial soul.”

After a second of silence, he continued, “So that they can never see the light of day again.”

Translated by: Under The Moon

Edited by: Tempest