Chapter 152
Chapter 152
The voices in the black mist drifted, ethereal and elusive, as if coming from across a vast, hollow distance.
The brighter the speck of light, the clearer the voice.
Following the sound, Qin Ying reached out to touch those specks of light. In the next instant, she saw a series of flat gray lines.
They were like uncolored stick figures, people moving across blank gray paper.
Inside a simple, dilapidated home, a gaunt woman knelt in the dark.
Before her was a rough, low offering table. The gray-haired woman knelt on a rush mat, hands pressed together as she murmured under her breath.
Qin Ying tilted her head and listened closely, catching half of the prayer.
O god above, someone forbade us from worshiping you and smashed your shrine. But you saved our lives, and my son and I will remember that kindness for as long as we live. Tonight, in secret, we kowtow to you.
She said more after that, but a crackling hiss interfered, and Qin Ying could not make it out clearly.
After the old woman knocked her head to the floor several times, she lowered her voice and called toward the door.
The young man keeping watch outside came in and also knocked his head several times with audible thuds.
On the offering table, a bowl of thin porridge, nearly empty, trembled slightly.
Qin Ying drew in a deep breath and closed her eyes.
It would be a lie to say she was not happy or moved, yet she also felt a little ashamed.
It had only been a bit of rice water and medicine. How could it possibly deserve such loyal worship?
As she was thinking this, another speck of light suddenly flickered.
A somewhat familiar voice came from within.
It was this voice that kept taking the lead in shouting things like “restore our virility” and the like.
Qin Ying stirred the speck of light with her consciousness, and several flat images unfolded.
As if watching a comic, Qin Ying saw many figures made of gray lines moving and speaking.
An old man lay sprawled on a rush mat. The room he was in was so crude it could not even keep out the wind.
His back was covered in filthy blood. He had clearly been tortured.
But clutched in his hand was a Peach Wood Amulet, with a few words carved into it.
“Regain your confidence and display your virility.”
He kept repeating the words in a voice as faint as a thread, like delirious muttering on his deathbed.
The smile vanished completely from Qin Ying’s face. She stood to the side like an outsider.
This was the Chief Clerk Li Han Lie had mentioned, the one who had been punished with a beating by the rod.
He was a shriveled old man. Twenty strokes had been enough to take half his life.
Qin Ying seemed to see his life draining away at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Just then, what could no longer be called a door shifted aside: the wooden plank leaning crookedly in the doorway.
The Old Physician who had once treated the sick in the Commandery slipped in, glancing left and right like a thief.
He set down the medicine chest in his hand. Seeing Chief Clerk Li like this, his eyes filled with pity.
He took the bottles and jars out of the chest and was about to change the dressing for him.
Chief Clerk Li paid him no mind. As if talking in his sleep, he continued reciting the slogan that sounded somewhat ridiculous to a modern person.
“The god exists. She is no Monstrous Beast. She will surely save us and return to the world.”
As he unwrapped the cloth bandages from Chief Clerk Li’s back, the Old Physician turned his head away in grief.
The injury was still worsening. He had no good medicine on hand, and saving the man would be terribly difficult.
Standing outside the gray-white lines, Qin Ying suddenly opened her eyes. Sitting beside the fire pit, she had only watched for a little while longer, yet her head already hurt as if it were about to split open.
But she had made a decision.
Qin Ying pinched a fruit from the Yao Grass in the wooden box and swallowed it to ease her headache.
Then she took one of the plants and clenched it tightly in her hand.
She wanted to try opening a door to deliver medicine, and save her Believers.
Qin Ying took down the short dagger hanging at her waist. The dagger was only as long as an index finger, and was usually used as a book knife.
She swiped a finger, then used the blood that welled up to draw an infinity symbol on the hem of her skirt.
As the black mist churned, she returned once more to Chief Clerk Li’s side.
Perhaps because the medium for this spirit communication was Qin Ying’s blood this time, the image solidified, gaining a faint trace of color.
Qin Ying struggled to shuffle forward.
She had never been a god before, nor did she know what she was supposed to do. Every movement was an experiment.
In her mind, she silently recited: Open the door.
As she reached out with her fingers, ripples like water appeared before her.
Her palm pressed against a transparent, invisible membrane.
Instinct told her that as long as she broke through this membrane, the “door” would be considered open.
She pressed her hand against it and, ignoring the fact that her head felt as if it were about to explode into fireworks, forced strength into her arm.
At last, with a soft pop, she tore open a small slit. The Yao Grass in Qin Ying’s hand slipped through the opening and fell.
It landed, real and solid, on the ground, its branches and leaves swaying.
In Yunwu County, Chief Clerk Li and the Old Physician, who had been driven out of the Commandery Governor’s Mansion, witnessed a haunting in the pitch-black night.
They saw a handprint suddenly bulge out of thin air: no body, no shadow.
The handprint had long, delicate fingers. From the look of it…
“Mother of mercy, a female ghost!”
Chief Clerk Li, whose faith was firm enough to believe in gods, naturally found it easy to believe in ghosts as well.
“What evil spirit dares appear here!”
With a sharp shout, he held the token in his hand upright in front of him like a protective talisman.
The Old Physician was quick-witted enough to have already ducked behind him, muttering under his breath, “Supreme Deity, protect us. Supreme Deity, protect us.”
At this moment, Chief Clerk Li no longer felt the pain in his back, nor was he dispirited. Like a priest exorcising evil, he barked, “Why don’t you… get lost?”
“Huh?”
Before he could finish speaking, the woman’s hand that had appeared out of nowhere loosened.
The air seemed to split open with a tiny tear, and something dropped out.
Before they could recover their senses, a sweet fragrance filled the room.
The Old Physician started. “It’s Yao Grass!”
A medicine that could revive the living dead and grow flesh on white bones was more than enough to treat an external wound.
He could not help staring at Chief Clerk Li in shock. “A ghost or god delivering medicine?”
Before he could finish, he heard Chief Clerk Li suppressing a low roar. “What did I tell you!”
“What did I tell you?”
“The Supreme Deity would save us!”
He staggered over and hugged that stalk of Yao Grass to his chest.
His movements were a little too forceful. The filthy bandages on his back split open, and dirty blood mixed with medicinal powder began to seep out.
He choked back his voice, laughing and crying at the same time. The sound drifted eerily from the abandoned house not far from Corpse-Dumping Alley, carrying a long way into the night.
In the Chixia Desert.
Qin Ying fell from the little stool and sprawled beside the fire pit, blood pouring from her mouth, nose, and eyes.
Han Lie, who had been washing rice and cutting beast meat outside, strode back into the tent.
At the sight, it was as if he had been struck by a brick. He rushed to Qin Ying’s side and lifted her into his arms.
At a complete loss, he wiped the blood from her face, then looked toward the wooden box nearby.
He wanted to take the Yao Grass and have her swallow it.
But Qin Ying held him back, tugging at his arm. “Don’t worry. I’m fine.”
As she spoke, blood bubbled from the corners of her mouth. Qin Ying wiped the blood from her face with her fingertips.
Compared with how she looked right now, her words held absolutely no persuasive power.
She took a deep breath, used Han Lie’s arm to push herself upright, then rested her head against his arm for a while.
In a low voice, she said, “Do you know? Just now, for one instant, I opened the door.”
At the same time she spoke, in the imperial city of Luoyang, the Imperial Observatory descended into chaos.
On the enormous Bronze Nine-Dragon Instrument, all nine luminous pearls held in the mouths of the dragon heads fell at once.