HCAW 92

Chapter 92: Ghostlight On A Cold Night

The night was deep and dark. A cold wind brushed by, and a thousand sounds rustled through the leaves in the forest as phosphorescent lights scattered and flew.

A group of assassins wearing wide-brimmed rain hats, wielding long halberds and crescent shovels, moved swiftly, slicing through the monks traveling the road at the waist. Once the monks’ limbs were severed, they could not be restored. Wails burst from mouths like sludge. The monks struggled to gather their own severed limbs from the ground, only to be further dismembered by the assassins.

Yet the assassins seemed to have another purpose. One carried a large water-drawing tub, and after dismembering the monks, they used wooden ladles to scoop up the black-mud-like flesh and pour it into the tub.

But these brigands were poor fighters. Before long, they were routed by Fang Jingyu and Chu Kuang. Chu Kuang circled behind them, bow drawn, loosing arrows swift as wind; Fang Jingyu’s sword flashed skyward like a soaring dragon and startled phoenix—he took down a swath of them in the blink of an eye.

The moment Chu Kuang picked up a bow, he seemed to change completely. His eyes filled with red threads, lips twisted in a grin, baring a sharp canine tooth—like a fierce demon whipping the clouds—unlike the gentle submissive man from the bed earlier. Even after downing the assassins, he wasn’t satisfied; he grabbed the thick hunting knife Fang Jingyu had sharpened and rushed forward, ready to skin and flay the corpses.

Fang Jingyu had to struggle mightily to hold him back. Chu Kuang’s eyes were bloodshot with rage as he shouted, “Why are you stopping me?!”

Fang Jingyu frowned. “I was about to ask you the same! Do you have some bottomless grudge against them? Why are you in such a rush to kill?”

“Look at their gear, and you still don’t get it?” Chu Kuang said. “They’re all disciples of the Da Yuan Dao. They’ve been laying traps in Penglai, ruining entire villages. These people deserve to die!”

His eyes were blood-red and terrifying, his strength that of an untamed beast. Fang Jingyu was startled—was this one of the lingering side effects from eating the meat slices? Chu Kuang was becoming harder and harder to control.

Still holding his hand firmly, Fang Jingyu said, “Ease up. I need to question them. If you kill them all, how am I supposed to interrogate anyone?” Only then did Chu Kuang release his grip and slump down, realizing he’d lost control. He dragged himself over to a tree and squatted beneath it, hugging his knees like a lonely, abandoned dog.

Seeing Chu Kuang quiet down, Fang Jingyu walked over to the assassins, tightly bound them with hemp rope, and lifted their rain hats. Each had two eyes, ears, a nose, and a mouth—human features, not like the monks. He let out a sigh of relief. The assassins, no longer as arrogant as before, were now scrambling and pissing themselves. Fang Jingyu pressed them:

“Who are you?”

The assassins looked at one another and refused to speak. So Fang Jingyu called over a monk, seized one assassin’s jaw, and signaled for the monk to drive his inky-black tentacle into the man’s throat. In a calm voice, Fang Jingyu said, “If you won’t talk, I’ll let the monks enter from your mouth and drill all the way to your rear.”

The assassins turned pale. Being gutted by these dark, muddy horrors must be excruciating—and slow to kill. One tried to bite off his tongue, but Fang Jingyu was quicker and snapped his jaw clean off, then shoved a monk’s tentacle into his mouth. The monk let out a joyful shout—“鉸瀜!”—and dove in.

The other assassins were terrified. One shouted, “I’ll talk! I’ll confess!”

Fang Jingyu released his grip and signaled the monk to pull back. Reluctantly, the monk withdrew his tentacle. The assassins began blabbering like overturned bamboo tubes, confessing everything. Fang Jingyu asked one of them, “Where are you from?”

The assassin sobbed, “We’re—we’re from Daiyu!”

“Daiyu?” Fang Jingyu frowned. In the distance, Chu Kuang called out, “Your Highness, this isn’t Fanghu—it’s Yuanqiao! The Xian Mountains shift places—we’ve drifted into Yuanqiao! And Daiyu is Yuanqiao’s old enemy!”

Under threat and coercion, the assassins poured out everything. Fang Jingyu learned that Fanghu, Yuanqiao, and Daiyu were three opposing Xian Mountains, but they still had some dealings. Fanghu was a great lake; Yuanqiao, rugged mountains; Daiyu, the most prosperous, full of bustling streets and markets.

The assassins had come because a rumor in Daiyu said that these reclusive monks were actually inauspicious freaks who crept out of the forests to kill people. Recently, strange phenomena and deaths had indeed occurred in Daiyu. The Gu Bi Guard who commanded Daiyu issued a bounty: anyone who retrieved the monks’ limbs would be rewarded with their weight in silver. Greed drove people to hunt the monks.

Though the monks had strange strength and grotesque forms, they were dim-witted and fell into traps. There was only one rope bridge between Yuanqiao and Daiyu—steep and natural, but poorly guarded—so Daiyu residents often crossed mountains to track the monks. Once able to wander freely, the monks now had to hide in the forest’s edge just to survive.

Hearing this, Fang Jingyu glanced back at the monks—these sludge-colored creatures cowering behind him, yet curiously peeking out like toddlers of three or five. He couldn’t help feeling a little pity. Now he understood—they were like ivory, prized and hunted.

Still confused, he asked the assassins, “I saw you wearing clothes with peach patterns. Why? What’s your relation to the ‘Da Yuan Dao’?”

One of the more defiant assassins glared at him. “Mind your tongue! The ‘Da Yuan Dao’ is the holy faith of the Xian Mountains! You’re just a crude hillbilly—don’t you even know that?!”

The Da Yuan Dao was the holy faith? Fang Jingyu was stunned. In Penglai, the Da Yuan Dao was considered a heresy—its disciples condemned as threats to the nation, with Emperor Changyi determined to wipe them out. But here among the Three Xian Mountains, it was treated as a state religion?

He pressed further, but the assassins offered no more. So Fang Jingyu stripped them bare and handed them over to the monks for execution. The dark figures gleefully surged forward, drowning the assassins like a black waterfall. Tentacles burrowed into every orifice. Under the hook-shaped moon, owls hooted, screams rose and faded. Fang Jingyu silently mourned them, then went to find Chu Kuang.

Chu Kuang was squatting under a Chinese pistache tree, happily playing with a slick severed tentacle. Fang Jingyu came over and handed him the assassins’ rain hat and cloak. “Keep these. We’ll need disguises to sneak into Daiyu later.”

“Sneak into Daiyu?”

“The storm that broke the ship was powerful. If Xiao Jiao and Zheng Deli didn’t sink into the sea, they might be somewhere on one of the Three Mountains. A few disguises will give us more options. Even if they’re not in Daiyu, it’s a good place to start. It’s full of shops, people, and news—makes searching easier.”

Chu Kuang took the clothing gloomily. “Your Highness, I’m tired today. And filthy. I’d like to wash up first. Let’s talk about Yuanqiao later.”

Fang Jingyu looked down. Chu Kuang was indeed covered in grime and blood from the earlier fight. Odd—this man usually didn’t care about filth. Why the sudden need to be clean? He noticed Chu Kuang limping and found it even stranger. But given how often Chu Kuang’s madness acted up, it wasn’t entirely surprising. Fang Jingyu looked at himself—also stained with blood—and decided to go with him to the lotus pond.

The auspicious pool was too cramped for their last wash. The lotus pond was spacious and refreshing—though the group of multi-eyed monks swimming nearby was distracting. Chu Kuang didn’t mind. He stripped and waded in confidently, scrubbing himself with a gourd sponge. Fang Jingyu, blushing and hesitant, lingered at his collar, reluctant to undress.

“What are you shy about?” Chu Kuang glanced sideways. “You already did it on the table earlier. They’ve seen everything. Acting modest now just seems petty.” Only then did Fang Jingyu begin undressing, still uncertain.

The water was cold and clear. The monks swam over, eyes wide and staring, making Fang Jingyu extremely uncomfortable. He nudged Chu Kuang and whispered, “What are they doing?” Chu Kuang said, “Probably grateful you saved them. They want to offer you orchids and peonies!”

Fang Jingyu broke out in goosebumps. Who’d want gifts from living filth? Then the monks began chanting strangely. One opened a bloody maw, making Fang Jingyu jump. But they simply stuck their own slimy tentacles down their throats, rummaged inside for a moment, then pulled out a sticky, soaking bouquet of red arrow flowers and offered them to him.

This surprised Fang Jingyu. He’d expected them to yank out a dripping heart and liver and force it on him. But even so, he was uncomfortable—unsure whether to take it. In the end, he reluctantly accepted the flowers. The monks cried out joyfully, “Good friend!” Chu Kuang gave him a teasing look. “They think you’re a good man now.”

The two remained in the water. Suddenly, Fang Jingyu saw Chu Kuang stand, reach behind himself, and after some struggling, pull out the artifact of the Joyful Buddha. Immediately, the thick fluid from earlier gushed out, dribbling down his thighs. Fang Jingyu lowered his gaze in shame—he finally understood. Chu Kuang had insisted on washing because he wanted to safely remove the artifact now that the monks no longer meant harm.

Then, a thought struck him.

“I just realized something.”

Chu Kuang looked over. Fang Jingyu said, “These monks treat us kindly now because we saved them. So if we’d waited just half a day longer, rescued them from the assassins, then maybe we wouldn’t have needed to ‘fuse’ with them at all?”

Chu Kuang froze, then turned pale. Fang Jingyu continued, “What a waste, Laborer Chu. Or did you just really want to pluck my flower, so you went for the worst solution?”

After a long silence, Chu Kuang suddenly lunged like a rabid dog, bit Fang Jingyu on the shoulder, and yelled:

“Shut up—just shut up!”