Chapter 55
Chapter 55
Once every other possibility had been eliminated, only one remained: something alive lay inside the coffin.
Even by the definitions of the esoteric arts, neither corpses nor ghosts counted as living things.
Yuan Fei rubbed his chin. “Could someone be raising forest sprites in there? Perhaps the Dry Immortal that possessed your classmate escaped from this coffin.”
It was possible. Sinister though a Dry Immortal was and capable of spirit possession, it was itself alive.
“Enough guessing,” Old Cao said. “We’ve dug up the grave and the coffin is right here. Let’s open it.”
Yuan Fei and I agreed. Opening coffins was Old Cao’s profession, so he was the obvious choice.
He felt the head of the coffin, patted its foot, and, after confirming nothing was wrong, drove the shovel into the seam beneath the lid and heaved.
Creak…
The coffin opened.
Old Cao retreated beside us, and all three of us peered inside warily.
A decayed skeleton lay within, presumably the grave’s original occupant. It was entirely ordinary.
But a bizarre plant had grown from inside its skull.
About a foot tall, it had a straight green stalk as thick as a thumb, threaded with exquisite strands of gold. At the top bloomed a flower the size of a bowl.
It had three petals, each a different color: red, white, and black.
The plant was as beautiful as it was uncanny. One glance was enough to know it was extraordinary.
Yuan Fei stared. “So someone changed the feng shui, laid a formation, and gathered the energy of a hundred graves to nurture one coffin. Their true purpose was cultivating this strange plant.”
I suddenly understood why a forest sprite like the Dry Immortal had appeared here. This plant had drawn it.
Folklore held that rare treasures attracted strange creatures from the mountains to live nearby, perhaps as a kind of indirect protection. The Dry Immortal had traveled from a remote forest because of the plant. Wang Dachun and Zhao Zheng’s nighttime wager had simply put them in its path. They were innocent bystanders–albeit ones courting trouble.
Solving that mystery revealed a larger one.
I stared at the tricolored flower. “Old Cao, Uncle Yuan, what is this plant? And who went to such lengths to cultivate it?”
Both men shook their heads ruefully.
“Obviously, Xiao Wu, we can’t answer either question,” Old Cao said.
Yuan Fei nodded. “I’ve never seen it, even in books or legends. As for whoever created it, no one in Lianghe Town, the neighboring towns, or perhaps even the county seat should possess such skill. Right, Master Cao?”
They were both respected locally and knew the region’s esoteric practitioners. For now, the mystery would remain unsolved.
“Whatever it is, we can’t leave it here,” Old Cao said. “Whoever exploited this grave hill is plainly no good. We ought to take the result of their work.”
Yuan Fei and I agreed. I thought Old Cao should keep it. He and I had taken the lead, while Yuan Fei merely happened to join us. Between the two of us, Old Cao was older and stronger.
To my surprise, he refused.
“I don’t even know what this is. Keeping it might invite disaster. Take it to Immortal Lady Qin. She’s seen everything and her powers are unfathomable. She’ll know this flower.”
“But what if it’s a treasure? Wouldn’t you be giving up a priceless opportunity and letting Master benefit?”
He laughed. “How good can something raised on dead men’s graves be? Even if it is a treasure, it’s useless when I don’t know what it does. Enough. Take it to the Immortal Lady.”
That settled the matter.
Old Cao sent me down to the supermarket by Lianghe Bridge for a large burlap sack while he and Yuan Fei carefully extracted the plant from the skull. I did not see the process.
By the time I raced back as if chased by a mad dog, they had already reburied the cheap coffin. Old Cao studied the flower and determined it was neither poisonous nor hallucinogenic.
We placed it in my sack and tied the opening securely. Losing it on the road would have been absurd.
Old Cao patted my shoulder. “Take it home and let the Immortal Lady examine it. Tell me what it is when you return Monday. I’m curious, that’s all.”
“Me too!” Yuan Fei added quickly. “I’ll make a special trip to the coffin shop next week to hear the answer.”
I readily promised.
Then I grinned. “Old Cao, Uncle Yuan, do you think whoever cultivated this flower will faint from rage when they discover all their hard work is gone?”
Ten minutes later, I started home with my schoolbag on my back and the burlap sack in hand.
Old Cao worried that uprooting the flower might alert its owner, who could intercept me on the road. He offered to escort me to Wujia Village, but I declined.
It was only four in the afternoon. If I walked quickly, I would reach home before sunset. Nothing would happen in broad daylight.
And if the hidden mastermind did appear? Most harmful arts were difficult to use beneath the sun. I would fight him face-to-face. Why should I be afraid?
Making Old Cao travel all that way and back would only burden him.
As expected, I returned safely to Wujia Village with the tricolored flower. I raced home shouting, “Mom, Dad, I’m back!” tossed down my schoolbag, grinned at my parents, then sprinted to Master’s house.
“Master! Master!”
“I’m not deaf, Ah-Zhong. There’s no need to shout. Come in.”
I rushed into the main room. Master sat at the table pouring tea.
I sniffed. “That smells wonderful. What tea is it?”
A smile touched her beautiful face. Without answering, she motioned for me to drink.
I drained a cup. Warmth flowed pleasantly into my stomach, then streamed toward my lower abdomen and merged with my meager qi.
“Master, this tea…”
She nodded. “It’s precious and will strengthen your foundation. I have little left, and you haven’t practiced long enough to drink much. Excessive reliance on outside aids would force your growth and ultimately harm you.”
I nodded eagerly, opened the sack, and placed the flower on the table.
Before I could speak, she exclaimed, “A Golden-Thread Netherbloom? Where did you find this?”
“You really do know it! No wonder Old Cao worships you. Master, I defeated an evil entity myself this week!”
I told her everything: Wang Dachun’s wager, his encounter with the Dry Immortal, how I destroyed it, and our expedition to the grave hill.
Master clapped and laughed. “When the person who altered that hill’s feng shui and painstakingly cultivated this Golden-Thread Netherbloom checks tonight, they may faint from rage at finding all their work wasted.”
Her laughter was like a spring breeze and nearly left me staring. I coughed, lowered my head to hide my embarrassment, and hurriedly asked, “What exactly is a Golden-Thread Netherbloom, Master? What does it do? From your reaction, it must be extremely valuable.”
“It is.”
She explained its origins in detail.
A Golden-Thread Netherbloom began as a Crimsonfire Nightbloom. That flower had three bowl-sized crimson petals like burning flames. It grew above ten thousand feet in remote solitary-yang terrain.
Both The Classic of Dwellings and The Book of Burial described solitary-yang terrain as a bare, treeless elevation rising high above its surroundings. Though prominent, it lacked barriers to shelter wind and gather energy. If no water lay nearby, excessive yang energy created fire baleforce.
Hence the name solitary-yang terrain.
The Crimsonfire Nightbloom grew in rocky cracks there and was precious in its own right. Sap from its stem and roots treated physical weakness and severe injuries, while the flower repelled evil.
Even an ordinary person with no training could injure a yin entity by wielding it. A weaker ghost would be annihilated by a touch from its crimson petals.
Ground into powder and mixed with talisman ink, the flower added the power of fire to talisman arts.
If carefully uprooted and replanted in a place of extreme yin, however, yin energy could nurture and moderate its excessive fire baleforce.
After years of harmonizing yin and yang, the plant transformed. Golden threads appeared inside its green stalk, and two of its three red petals gradually turned black and white.
The Crimsonfire Nightbloom then became the rarer and more precious Golden-Thread Netherbloom.
Master raised three slender fingers. “This wondrous flower has three principal uses.”