Ning Que had run about among hunter villages while carrying Sangsang on his back, had fought bravely against beasts and hunters, had smelled the abhorrent stench of Yan military massacring villages, and had watched Xiao Zhuozi leave with the cultivator. Later, he had headed towards the City of Wei with Sangsang, and then enlisted in the Military Ministry to battle in wars.
He saw the beautiful and tranquil Shubi Lake, himself charging forwards and shouting loudly with fellow soldiers, the savage and cruel horse gangs fleeing like startled rabbits, and golds, silvers, and other trophies that had been looted from horse gangs being wheeled back to the City of Wei serving as their military supplies.
One day that winter when hogs were to be butchered, Ning Que had gone to the hog lot very early in that morning, listening to the desperate screeches of hogs and watching the surging blood gurgled from their necks. He had even assisted to blow some air off under the hogs’ skin with a bamboo pipe under a butcher’s guidance, and had busied himself with it throughout the whole night.
Gazing at a dead hog that was to be put into a boiling pot to dispense with hairs, Ning Que, in a squatting posture, had raised his head to look at Sangsang, who had been standing next to him, and asked, “Does it look like how we killed Old Hunter?”
Sangsang replied, “The hog was dead before boiling, and Old Hunter was boiled first.”
Ning Que thought about it and felt that there was indeed a distinct difference between them.
Ning Que had freed two lambs under Sangsang’s entreaty before they left the Old Hunter’s hut after killing him.
…
…
Ning Que was standing on the trail surrounded by mist of the night and was submerging himself in reflections of the past.
Each stone step of the long winding mountain trail represented one of his past days. Therefore, he had gone through the first half of his life all over again while mounting it. This was not some surreal dream but vivid recurrence. His life was ridden with too much blood, death, bodies, and was merely interwoven with few joyful moments. How would it feel like when seventeen years of joys and sorrows turned up overnight?
The heavy trauma made him forget that he was climbing the mountain. His face twisted in pain and his eyes unfocused on somewhere faraway. He slowed down gradually.
He eventually stopped and his pupils turned normal steadily. He stared at the night mist, and said, “Wait and see, I’ll kill them all.”
Having finished his words, he went on to mount, step by step. He stretched out his right hand into the gauze-like misty night and grabbed the hilt of a long and narrow sword. He then took out the sword and stabbed into the void in front of him.
Numerous horse gangs’ heads were cut off by the sword, and the Shubi Lake was red again. Scouts of Tribe of Savages were beheaded and fell off the back of horses, and the autumn grass were coated with blood. Familiar or strange faces were halved into unrecognized mash, then disappeared.
In the night mist, he slayed and killed all the way up the trail, from Min Mountain to the grassland and back to Chang’an. He killed the beefy censor, the Sword Master in the lakeside small house and the old deputy general in the blacksmith.
All men and objects standing on his way were cleaved and destroyed by his sword, be it the enemies who had brought him torturous memories, or the fellow soldiers who had fought with him yet had had cold feet on battlefield, or the war horse which had charged deep in grassland and saved his life.
The rain pattered the Spring Breeze Pavilion, and he silently slayed with his sword.
The rain drenched Lin 47th Street, and he saw the little swarthy face resting against the gray wall.
Ning Que finally felt fatigued and weary. He dropped his hand which held the sword tightly slowly and looked ahead along the trail into the darkness of night, and murmured to himself, “It’s already hard to live, and torturous enough to live one life, why on earth would you make me relive it all over again?”
He inclined his head and looked at Sangsang with a frown. He said in pain, “I know these were all illusions, of which I wasn’t afraid. Yet I couldn’t prove this was unreal, so I’m really in pain. Just like the pain we used to be in.”
…
…
Prince Long Qing walked along the trail serenely, with his two sleeves billowing in the air. Yet a bit of exhaustion could be discerned in his eyes.
He had been perfectly aware that everything he was going to see was illusionary before he had set his foot on the first stone step and walked into the mist. He could have availed himself of Taoist Heart to look through all this and ascend the mountain.
Only when he started ascending did he realize that he had overlooked the difficulty of the Second Floor of the Academy, and that these illusions felt real and existent if you couldn’t look through them, no matter how well your Taoist Heart was honed and hardened to a crystal clear state by West-Hill Taoism.
Prince Long Qing’s memory darted back to his youth when he was immensely favored by everyone and frolicked around freewheelingly. During that period of time, he had considered his father as the most powerful man on earth and his mother the most powerful woman, until one day, a conversation he had heard by accident had entirely torn apart his innocent fantasies about his parents.
A heavy drought had hit the north that year, from the faraway wasteland to the northern part of Yan kingdom and Tang kingdom, uprooting countless refugees who lived off trees and leaves. At that time, a Tang ambassador to the Yan kingdom had been summoned and had a conversation with His majesty.
“Your majesty of Yan kingdom, I sincerely hope your country could at least do something about it! I do not expect your impotent fortress military to guard those refugees from entering in our Tang kingdom, nor do I count on your competence to solve the livelihood problem of your people. But could you at least give us an estimate number of refugees when our Tang starts to alleviate the disaster?”
The goatee of the Tang ambassador was quite long, wafting in air and somehow encouraging his arrogance, and he continued, “Our relief supplies would reach our capital in about ten days, and you might well do something about it before your people died off completely. And please do not expect us to address all your problems! Though our Tang majesty places the welfare of people as his priority and regards everyone as the same as Tang people, it does not mean that your Yan kingdom is part of Tang. And it would make even less sense if we gave our saved emergency food to your refugees for free.”
When he finished his soliloquy, the ambassador of Tang left deftly with a pair of sleeves billowing in the air. The young Prince Long Qing had gawked at his silhouette and realized for the first time that his father was actually not the most powerful man on earth and that some ambassador of Tang could reprimand his father without restraint.
He had run towards his father and asked naively, “Father, why not send your guard and have that disobedient ambassador killed?”
Upon hearing his words, his affectionate father turned furious dramatically and suddenly, for the first and only time in his life, he got slapped.
…
…
Standing on the trail, Prince Long Qing was perusing over the characters carved onto the boulder erected outside the woodshed, and said ironically, “A decent man shall not compete? How could it be possible to not compete? One who doesn’t compete would be buried underneath, and I wonder, how on earth could a dead man be decent? ”
…
…
The endless trail was like one’s life whose end could not be predicted.
Prince Long Qing’s life, if without the shinning coat of prodigy, could be regarded as monotonous and plain. Some wondered if the prince’s temperament had changed astoundingly due to the slap from his father or from things he had learnt growing up. It was noticeable that he stopped goofing around and acting naively as a child and that he gradually became quiet and started to study hard. As time passed, he mastered how to conceal his feelings and stay aloof from everything.
His mother’s odd-eyed cat had stolen a pastry and died. As the result, all handmaidens had been flogged to death. He sat on his mother’s lap and listened to the horrible cries of the handmaidens who had been struck, Prince Long Qing was cracking shells of melon seeds while consuming them nonchalantly, as if he had been entirely unaware that the poisonous pastry had been meant for him.
As time went on, batches of servants had died in their palace. No one knew how many servants had been changed for his elder brother, who was the crown Prince, no one knew how many cats had died. No one knew how many of his handmaidens had been killed or others’ handmaidens had been killed by his mother. Overall, all those deaths seemed not be able to disturb him, as if they were irrelevant to him.
One day, Prince Long Qing started to reveal his talent for cultivation, and was prized by a priest of West-Hill Divine Palace who had stationed in capital. He decided to take him back to Revelation Institute to study. During the course of heading toward Revelation Institute, he had stopped by Yuelun kingdom and South Jin kingdom where he had witnessed many horrible things.
Such as a lily flower in Yuelun Palace being watered by someone with boiling water, and the gardener who was in charge being dumped into a big boiling pot by Aunt Quni Madi; one of disciples of Sage of Sword Liu Bai in South Jin kingdom had been expelled from then school and then disemboweled on the street, with his intestines gushing out all over the place.
Prince Long Qing had watched all these undisturbed and expressionlessly. In his view, he was neither indifferent nor cold-blood, but was merely maintaining his Taoist heart clear enough, which was one of necessary qualities for obtaining heavenly power.
…
…
In the night mist, looking at the increasingly near mountain crest, Prince Long Qing gave out a derisive laugh, and said loftily, “Nothing in this world could frighten me but Haotian Taoism, and nor could I sympathize with anything. Then, how would it be possible for this mountain trail to stop me?”
…
…
Mounting the trail slowly, Prince Long Qing relived his previous life where he had been to the Revelation Institute, and it was there that he had been picked on and endured prejudices and ill-usage during the first half year as his favorite priest was defeated in a power struggle.
He was now able to stay absolutely calm when reviewing those past moments that had angered him then as they flashed before his eyes again. Compared with life in Revelation Institute, he now could emotionlessly return back to the other party either defeat or death.
He had entered Judicial Department and started to hunt those apostates and heresies.
He stood still and watched expressionlessly as a girl was flogged by a spiked whip, tearing and cutting into her smooth back.
One student had bad-mouthed a hierarchic behind his back, and was found guilty of apostate. He was sentenced to a lifetime in a dark water prison. Prince Long Qing had pushed him into the water prison himself despite of their close friendship, and listened to his horrid wailing and curses while walking out of the prison into the warm daylight, with a straight face as usual.
An elderly and weary man in Devil’s Doctrine, who had lived in a mountain in seclusion for sixty years, had been captured by Judicial Department. Prince Long Qing had tied him to a wood pillar while carefully avoiding his cuts which had been inflicted during torturous inquisition, and then he set fire to the wood under the pillar.
Opposite the roaring fire, an officer of the Judicial Department had snatched a baby from a young mother and had the mother beaten to death. The baby had been hurtled on to the ground into a mass of mash. He had watched all of this emotionlessly.
Cultivation was to cultivate otherworldly Taoism, and if he had watched all earthly things from the outside world, then how could they disturb him? What he served was Haotian Taoism, and what he punished was sins and wrongdoings. He firmly believed that whoever he killed deserved it, then why should he show mercy to them?
…
…
It was already deep in night. Many had left after the opening of the Second Floor, leaving behind figures such as the Prince of Tang, Princess Li Yu and priest Mo Li who waited patiently for the results. Only two were still on the mountain trail. Since the result had little to do with other kingdoms, why would those envoys want to stay and wait for so long?
Certainly, students of Academy didn’t leave, and they gazed at the mountain trail in silence, mixed expressions on their faces.
Zhong Dajun looked at Xie Chengyun who was supported by Jin Wucai by one hand. His face was lost and gutted as he heaved a sigh and said, “Chengyun, let’s go, there is nothing to look forward to. There is no chance that Ning Que could beat Prince Long Qing!”
Jin Wucai glanced at Xie Chengyun worriedly. She knew well that this man was mild-looking outside, but lofty and arrogant inside. Today, he already took tremendous hit mentally when compared with Prince Long Qing. What troubled her more was that he now found that even Ning Que was better than him, and wondered whether Xie Chengyun would ever be able to collect himself.
Xie Chengyun shook his head, peering at the blurred back mountain of Academy, and said, “I want to see the result.”
All of a sudden, someone exclaimed loudly.
No one noticed when clouds lifted and the mist around the mountainside vanished. As starlight shone on the winding mountain trail, stone steps became visible in sight.
The mist and cloud get together again after a short while and blocked the mountain trail completely again.
Yet in this short passage, many could see two silhouettes on the steps of the winding trail, one was already close to the crest. Judging from the figure, that was Prince Long Qing. The other lagging behind should be Ning Que, who was struggling halfway up the mountain, a distance away from the top.
Out of some odd mentality, a large number of students heaved a relief sigh, and murmured, “Good to know that Ning Que is still behind Prince Long Qing.”
Chang Zhengming glanced coldly at the one who spoke, and said, “I now seriously doubt that if I have made the right decision to study here with you instead of working for the Yulin Royal Guards. I did think before that Ning Que was useless and had moral problems, but it doesn’t mean that we should gloat about his failure to alleviate our humiliation.”
He continued with a cold face. “Do not forget that Ning Que is a Tang too. He is one of us and part of this Academy. However, Prince Long Qing is Yan, and belongs to West Hill. I now feel ashamed of myself, yet your unashamed manner makes me even more embarrassed.”
…
…
The earlier situation which was lighted up through starlight didn’t evade from eyes’ of priest Mo Li and instructors.
Since Ning Que started mounting, jeers and ridicules about his inability to cultivate never stopped, but steadily abated when he overtook one after one young cultivator. Now, a long silence descended upon them when they were informed that he entered the mountain mist successfully and was the only one left to compete with Prince Long Qing.
“Judging from the lad’s speed from this morning until now, it’d be highly likely for him to take half of a month to reach the crest. And now Prince Long Qing is almost there, why not just announce that Prince Long Qing has been accepted into the Second Floor? Why waste our time waiting for Ning Que?”
Standing up and pushing his chair back impatiently, priest Mo Li who appeared confident and calm at first felt somewhat disturbed and irritated out of no reason.
Lee Yu didn’t even bother looking at him. She said mockingly, “If you are in hurry, you could ask Prince Long Qing to fly straight to the top. And as long as he reaches the top, who would care about Ning Que? But before that happens, no matter Ning Que scramble or hop, or how long he may take, I think you’d better kept your doubt in your stomach.”
Furious, yet with nowhere to give vent to his anger, Priest Moli returned to his seat reluctantly.
…
…
On this starlit night, Sangsang squatted on the meadow next to one side of road, spinning the Big Black Umbrella lightly out of boredom.
At the moment, the monk named Wu Dao came out of the Academy.
He noticed the squatting Sangsang, and his eyes lit up suddenly. His body seemed frozen like a stone statue and he couldn’t move anymore. He gawked at Sangsang silently, infatuated.
A long while passed.
Gazing at Sangsang’s little swarthy face and a few wisps of yellowish hair hanging in front her forehead, the monk put his palms together devoutly and started to speak in his most gentle voice and reverent manner, “You look astonishingly gorgeous!”
Leaning on the Big Black Umbrella, Sangsang stood up and looked around baffled, and realize after a while that the monk was praising her. Frowning in doubt and squinted at him and returned in earnest, “Please do not be sarcastic.”
Wu Dao smiled lightly, putting his palms together and bowed, saying, “You are mistaken. I have a wisdom eye and can spot a jade inside a stone.”
A shade of red crept up her face upon hearing “a jade inside a stone”. Sangsang reminded him again earnestly, “Even though I might look good to you, please do not praise someone like so again, as these words are used to scold someone in Chang’an.”
“How could it be?” Wu Dao asked disbelievingly.
Sangsang didn’t feel very comfortable with his fervent looks, and turned back to look at the Academy, ignoring his existence.
Wu Dao walked around to stand in front her, and inquired politely and gently, “May I know who are you waiting for?”
“My young master.”
Wu Dao said in a serious tone, “No one in this world but I deserve your time to wait.”
Giving him a quick glance, Sangsang responded, “Given that you have already descended from the mountain, and yet my young master is still up there, I presume that you are not as good as my young master.”
“I just didn’t want to walk in that mist.” Wu Dao explained earnestly. As if something clicked in his mind suddenly, he asked confusedly, “The young master you are waiting for. Is he the student Zhong Dajun?”
Looking at him and staying silent for a while, Sangsang returned, “Right.”
Wu Dao straighten his face and said, “Good, I already said I’d kill him before mounting, now it seems justifiable to kill him.”
Sangsang turned her head away from him, ignoring him completely.
“Upon seeing your beautiful countenance like this velvety night, a love poem just occurred in my mind.”
Intoxicated, Wu Dao gawked at her profile, and slowly recited, “For woman I adore, if you wish to learn Buddhism, I am willing to return back to a young man, mounting on that floating mountain, and accept tonsure despite of scars left on my head. Woman I adore, if you wish to learn Taoism, I am willing to return back to a young man, go to the shabby temple at the back of peach mountain, and wash shoes for those who carry wooden swords.”
Sangsang didn’t pay attention to what he said, but stared attentively at the back mountain of Academy, frowning as she seemed to feel the exact pain and torture Ning Que was going through now.
“I couldn’t wait any longer while you are waiting for him in pain. I shall take you away to the remotest corners of the earth and accompany you to see the ebb and flow of the sea, would it be alright?”
Upon finishing this, he face turned solemn. He didn’t wait for Sangsang’s response and stretched out his hand toward her neck.
All of a sudden, the hand he stretched out caught on fire turning his monk sleeve into ashes which flew high in the wind, leaving his bare arm exposed without cover.
Shrieking, the monk retreated miles away as quickly as a fleeting shadow, staring at the meadow warily. He asked through gritted teeth, “Who’s there?”
A sudden clip-clop of a horse broke the night silence, and an eerie-looking black horse carriage emblazoned with intricate patterns was dragged uphill by a strong horse effortlessly. There was no dust rising beneath its hooves, as if it was galloping in mid-air.
Yan Se, the Divine Talisman Master of Tang, drew back his hand from the carriage window. Yet the talisman he drew in mid-air lingered. The grass on the both sides of the road withered and yellowed rapidly.
“Wu Dao, you obscene monk, if you dare stay any long in Tang, I swear I’ll dismember you bit by bit using my talisman charm.”
Knowing who was inside the carriage, Wu Dao’s face turned gloomy. He placed one hand in front of his body in defense, explaining himself, “I am not an obscene monk, surely Master Yan wouldn’t use your seniority against me?”
“You came from remote wasteland, and how many could use their seniority against you?”
As he alighted slowly from the carriage, Yan Se looked at the young monk aloofly. He said, “You are some nobody from nowhere and didn’t even learn properly the rules of temple. Now remember that, this is the Tang Empire. This here, is Chang’an. If I catch you misbehaving again in front of the Academy, no one in the temple will make a fuss if I were to kill you.”
Finishing this, he turned and looked at Sangsang who held the Big Black Umbrella tightly. He frowned and said, “Are you Ning Que’s handmaiden?”
Sangsang nodded her head.
Yan Se said, “Why did you wait outside?Come with me and wait inside.”
Sangsang replied, “I heard that I’m not allowed to go inside.”
Upon hearing her words and knowing Ning Que still up on the mountain trail, Yan Se felt irritated and scowled, “Come with me! I’d like to see who would dare to stop me in the absence of the headmaster!”
…
…
Prince Long Qing walked out of the mountain mist.
Ahead of him was a large flat plain and at the mouth of the trail stood a tremendous boulder.
Climbing on that boulder should be considered as the success of mounting.
As he was preparing to get going, something clicked his heart. He tidied up his clothes, turned around, and bowed deeply towards a tree in the distance.
Under the starlit sky, the crest looked as though it was bathed in daylight, and the water-like mountain mist shrouded the mountainside.
Sitting under the tree was a man, his face could not be discerned from a faraway distance, yet he didn’t seem to be too old. He wore a quaint robe and a high hair piece, looking grand and grave.
Prince Long Qing didn’t know who he was, but he did remember that before leaving West-Hill Divine Palace, the hierarch lord had reminded him that students in back mountain were not ordinary and should be dealt with extreme caution. The man’s status could be very distinguished, as he could sit under the tree on the crest and wait for mountaineer.
The man under the tree said peacefully, “My rank is No. 2.”
There was no change on Prince Long Qing’s face upon hearing this, though, his heart was pounding fast. He remembered the legendary stories the woman told him, in which the second eldest brother was the most arrogant and yet most powerful figure. He bowed at the man again, deeper this time.
The second eldest brother said plainly, “Of course, You are good, good enough to enter the back mountain of the Academy.”
Prince Long Qing, though as noble and grand as he was, couldn’t suppress his joy, thinking about the praise that was from the second eldest brother.
“As long as you mount on that boulder, you’d be considered as qualified and successful. However, there’s another fellow mountaineer still in the mist, you could choose to go ahead or wait for him. It seems rather unfair to ask you to wait for him, but I have to say that the boulder is extremely hard to mount on, harder than anything you’d gone through. So you’d better have some rest first before continuing.”
Prince Long Qing now knew there was another fellow mountaineer and frowned slightly. In his mind, there should be no one making it to the top except that monk, but he couldn’t enter the mist given the inconvenience of his identity. As for the other ordinary people, they couldn’t even reach the mist. Then who could follow and even catch up with himself?
Second eldest brother said peacefully, “The choice is in your hand, you can go without delay.”
Prince Long Qing pondered for a moment, and bowed once more. He then sat cross-legged on the ground, giving his answer.
…
…
On the misty mountain trail, Ning Que saw Zhuo Er sitting against the gray wall, drenched, his chest undulating slightly. Ning Que watched his near-death aura in his pale face and eyes, and said after a long pause, “I could kill you with one swing of my sword, but why should I? You are already dead, why come and stop me again, I can help you with your business only when I reached the top.”
Zhuo Er leaned against the gray wall, watching him with a faint smile. His chest rose and fell deeply, and he made a hissing sound between his lips.
“Fake, these are all fake, but how can I prove them so?”
Ning Que lowered his head in the mist and found that he was standing on Lin 47th Street with that spring rain falling hard.
Suddenly, lifting his head, Ning Que said, “Sangsang, where are you?”
Sangsang stood next to him, lifting her little head and looking at him, asking, “What’s wrong, young master?”
Looking in front, Ning Que continued, “Sangsang, get out all silvers and find darkie a nice cemetery, and made him a nanmu wood coffin. Let him die in joy.”
Sangsang replied, “Well, fine… but young master, darkie is already dead, you can’t get him to die again in joy.”
Ning Que continued, “Since he is alive again, why not let him die again.”
With this, he walked up to the gray wall and raised his sword. With a whooshing sound, Zhuo Er’s head rolled and hit the gray wall which was soaked in the rain. The illusions cleared and the steep trail towards the top showed up.
He looked over his shoulder and found Sangsang nowhere to be seen.
“I’ve said that these were illusions and wouldn’t scare me off.”
Looking ahead at the real mountain trail in front him, Ning Que said towards the end of night mist, as if explaining to them. “In my memory, Sangsang was a perfect handmaid, yet the real Sangsang isn’t like this. Maybe you could trigger my mind to create a life-like situation, yet you didn’t know that my memories weren’t all real.”
A baffled sound wafted from the mist, “I don’t know what’s going on in your mind though, how did you know that Sangsang wasn’t real?”
“Sangsang is kind and benevolent, but she definitely wouldn’t spend all our silvers on a dead ma. Not on Zhuo Er, not on herself, even not on me.”
Ning Que beamed, then lifted his sleeve to wipe the bleed oozing out from the corner of his mouth, walking up toward the crest.
…
…
The crest shone under the silvery light. Instead of Chen Pipi’s favorite date trees, old-resistant needle-leaved trees scattered hither and thither.
Prince Long Qing sat on the grass, closing his eyes tightly, and adjusted his breath.
A faint sound wafted from behind a distant tree, saying “Elder brother, thanks.”
Second eldest brother sat cross-legged in front the tree, looking serious and serene. He said emotionlessly, “You can ask for such trivial favors occasionally. Furthermore, Prince Long Qing took advantage of taking one step ahead than Ning Que, so it’s fair to ask him to wait.”
As the saying of the Academy went, “Rules are made by the stronger fist. The fairness of the examination of the Second Floor depended on who was looking at it.”
Prince Long Qing did start mounting a period of time earlier than Ning Que, yet he waited longer than a period of that time.
Stars moved slowly in the night sky, with time ticking by.
No one knew how long it took, and the mist was disturbed and cleared down the trail.
Prince Long Qing opened his eyes and looked in that direction.
Walking slowly out of the mist was Ning Que, shattered and shabby. His face was haggard and visibly bruised as if he was a beggar who had been chased by some fierce dog, bedraggled and dejected.
Prince Long Qing considered his face and recalled who he was. He stood up slowly with this right hand clenched fist tightly.
Ning Que fished out pastries wrapped in cloth, stuffing them in his mouth while walking towards the top, muttering in a vague voice to the person under the tree, “I’m terribly sorry about being late, sorry.”
When he noticed it was Prince Long Qing under the tree, Ning Que said in surprise, “It’s wonderful that you’re here.”
Then passing him a pastry, Ning Que asked, “Fancy a pastry?”
Staring at the crushed pastries wrapped in cloth, Prince Long Que lost his words.
…