When the stars first appeared, we stopped in the sky above Wangchuan. The familiar city twinkled beneath our feet with its own lights, resembling a mirror laid upon the ground, capturing all the light from the sky within. I asked the reason for the sudden halt.
"Look at the city under your feet." Zimiao looked at the ground in silence, his moon-white robe glowing faintly in the air.
I lowered my head, seeing the city below for the first time from such a height and detail. I couldn't discern anything peculiar. "What's so special?"
A glint of bright lake-blue floated over. Jiu Jue brushed aside his tousled hair and reminded me, "Look carefully! I suggest washing your eyes with spiritual power. What does this city resemble?" I widened my eyes and infused my tired eyes with spiritual energy.
The lights of Wangchuan gradually blurred and dimmed, but an outline became as clear as a prominent boundary line. It meandered through the city beneath me, connecting and enclosing. This "boundary," which couldn't be defined by any substance, outlined Wangchuan and wrapped it up, presenting before me an odd shape.
"See it?" Jiu Jue asked again.
I raised my head, answering uncertainly, "Tortoise?"
The "boundary" visible only with spiritual power had vividly "drawn" the city of Wangchuan below into a gigantic creature with a tail and all four limbs intact, crawling motionless on the vast ground.
"It's the divine beast Xuanwu[1]," Zimiao corrected.
"Xuanwu?" I was taken aback. "Didn't that creature perish in the great disaster thousands of years ago?"
It is said that as early as in ancient times, the Supreme Goddess Nüwa once used a divine beast with a turtle's body and a snake's tail as a mount, which became Xuanwu. After the death of Goddess Nüwa, this divine beast wandered everywhere, and was later brought under the control of the Emperor of Heaven. However, because Xuanwu only liked darkness, the Emperor of Heaven dispatched it to man underground in the human realm. It is said that any place protected by Xuanwu's divine power will be impregnable. Even if mountains collapsed, the earth split, or floods ravaged, they would not bring any harm. However, after the great flood that almost wiped out all life[2] thousands of years ago, Xuanwu disappeared without a trace. The most widely circulated theory is that it was too old and drowned in the flood.
"Its death is just 'they say,'" Zimiao smiled. "Xuanwu is just the title of this creature; it has its own name." He paused. "It's called Wangchuan."
"Wangchuan?!" I looked again at the city below my feet. The boundary that outlined the giant turtle gradually faded away. I pondered for a moment. "So, the missing Xuanwu is beneath Wangchuan City?"
"It should be said that this giant turtle carries the entire Wangchuan City on its back." Jiu Jue clicked his tongue, "Only it can endure for so long."
"It shouldn't have met this fate. It's all because it met someone it shouldn't have back then," Zimiao shook his head with a sigh, heading down.
"You mean that dragon girl?" Jiu Jue followed him, "What happened to her later? You never really told me."
"Nothing, she gave up her dragon form and went to the village saved by Xuanwu to live to a ripe old age in conjugal bliss with her sweetheart," Zimiao said indifferently.
The wind whistled past, and I couldn't quite catch what they were talking about. Annoyed, I grabbed the two of them and demanded loudly, "What are you talking about? Why have I never heard you talk about Xuanwu before?"
"My dear, it's a fact that we're much older than you, so naturally, we know a lot more than you. But we're not storytellers. We don't have the time to tell you everything we know," Jiu Jue flicked my head. "Who knew this old turtle would suddenly pop up. It confused me too."
"Everything happens for a reason. You probably know the whole story, right?" Zimiao glanced down at the cinnabar mark on his palm, then looked at Jiu Jue, "After the battle between the Third Princess and it at Duan Lake, I'm afraid things will be a little tricky."
"It hates those who break their promises the most," Jiu Jue sighed. "So it's clear that the girl has attracted big trouble."
"You..." I stomped my foot.
"Don't be anxious," Zimiao smiled gently. "You'll know what you need to know in due time."
The three of us flew towards the ground, the sky getting farther away. The closer we got to Unceasing, the harder my heart pounded. Facts proved that my rapid heartbeat was indeed a harbinger—
It was the first time I saw "Unceasing" in such a sorry state. Furniture and objects were overturned and shattered, everywhere was scorched by fire, water on the ground flowed haphazardly like a stream, there was a cacophony of voices outside the shop, firefighters cautiously carried out the aftermath work amidst the lingering smoke, and the sirens on the fire trucks spun rapidly. The old lady from the grocery store next door, the eye-catching man who often sold insurance nearby, and others gathered outside the shop, gesturing and discussing animatedly.
The three of us concealed our figures and stood amidst the walls that looked like burnt rice cakes, gazing up at the sky—it was very convenient to see the night sky now, since we didn't know where the ceiling of the hall had gone. In just half a day since leaving Wangchuan, "Unceasing" had experienced a terrible explosion. I picked up a small piece of charred wood and noticed a faint blue glow around the edge of the wood. I said to Zimiao and Jiu Jue, "Only the Samadhi True Fire spat out by Ao Chi would leave such a blue light."
"This boy returned to the East China Sea with his first wife? He must have been angry with you for leaving without saying goodbye, so he set fire to your shop!" Jiu Jue speculated with a mischievous grin.
"Impossible!" I immediately vetoed his guess. Ao Chi is hateful, but not nasty. Zimiao was on the other side, observing carefully, "Perhaps the debt collector came knocking, but it's hard to say."
I searched everywhere in Unceasing, but Ao Chi didn't leave any traces except this fire. He had disappeared again, and also in such a sudden manner. I tried hard to hide my panic.
"It doesn't seem like arson; it looks more like a fierce battle," Zimiao said as he moved aside a pile of boards and bricks, revealing a crack as thick as an arm on the ground, stretching right through the hall.
Jiu Jue stood in the middle, closing his eyes and murmured something, concentrating for a while before shaking his head. "Apart from the three of us, there's no one else's scent here. With just my spiritual power, I can't find out where Ao Chi is."
"Why bother finding him? It's better if he's dead[3]!" I kicked away a chair that was only half intact.
"You're acting like a child again," Zimiao shook his head with a smile, then became serious. "If we don't find him and the Third Princess as soon as possible, the entire Wangchuan City could be in trouble."
I snapped back to reality.
"Give me the dragon scale," I reluctantly held out my hand to Jiu Jue.
My spells, for the most part, were taught by Ao Chi. He also taught me that to track a dragon, all I needed was to obtain one of its scales. By casting a spell, I could then learn its whereabouts. He even, in a self-flattering gesture, gave me one of his dragon scales as a gift, saying that if he ever disappeared, I could use it to find him. But I only told him, "If I were to search for you because of your sudden disappearance, then I wouldn't be myself anymore. If you choose to leave, don't leave behind any lingering memories. I respect all your decisions." After I said this, he angrily took back the gift, cursed me for being ungrateful and heartless, and finally said, "If you don't want it, then don't. I also don't want to give it up. Anyway, I'll always be here and won't disappear. The one who disappears may be you."
That day, as I watched his melancholic figure depart, I quietly smiled. Not accepting his dragon scale wasn't because I didn't care, but because I believed. I believed that he wouldn't suddenly "disappear." Of course, I didn't tell him that in the twenty years that he left me, I regretted it many times to myself. If I had his dragon scale, I wouldn't have spent twenty years without finding him. It wasn't until later that I realized what he wanted to give me at that time wasn't just a dragon scale, but an unbreakable rope. He loved being alone and unfettered so much, yet he was willing to tie a rope around himself and hand me the other end. Even if we were to be separated worlds apart, it wouldn't let me lose him. Things change with the passage of time, and now, who has lost whom?
Just as I took the dragon scale handed to me by Jiu Jue, a huge tremor surged from the ground beneath. The walls began to shake, broken bricks and rotten wood fell down, and there were loud cracking noises.
I could imagine how many screaming humans and collapsing buildings were in the streets and houses outside the store. All of this was surely related to the gigantic turtle below the city.
I placed the red dragon scale in my palm, reciting the incantation Ao Chi had taught me. I drew circles on the scale with my fingers, then put my hand on the ground, and the dragon scale transformed into a sharp light that shot out from the ground, leaving a faint red trail pointing straight ahead.
The three of us followed along the trail of light, and we found its end in Unceasing's kitchen. This small place had been thoroughly wrecked by a powerful external force, with the stove and cabinets reduced to thick shards scattered all over. A large chunk of cement slab lay toppled in the middle, and the red light of the dragon scale pierced through it.
Zimiao stepped forward and lifted the cement slab with a palm. After the rising smoke and dust disappeared, a black hole with a diameter of over two meters was revealed. Standing at the edge of the hole, I leaned in to look. Inside the hole, there was no source of light, only darkness, and no strange odor, just a suffocating pressure that seemed to stifle my breath emanating from the opening.
"If Ao Chi is still with his first wife, then they must be down there," I remarked, tapping the edge of the hole with my foot. As soon as I finished speaking, a hand suddenly emerged from the hole, grabbing onto my ankle. From the seemingly bottomless darkness, a faint cry for help echoed. Before I could react, I felt my body plummeting, dragged down into the hole in a daze.
A rush of icy, damp air swept past my body. I couldn't see anything, and the hand gripping my ankle exerted a force so strong it felt like it would crush my bones. It was like a surge of power that only explodes when one grasps at a lifeline. I couldn't estimate how deep the hole was; all I knew was that I was falling endlessly, as if there was no end in sight.
Footnotes:
[1] Xuanwu is usually depicted as a turtle entwined together with a snake. It is one of the Four Symbols of the Chinese constellations, representing the north and the winter season. The Four Symbols are mythological creatures and viewed as the guardians of the four cardinal directions. These four creatures are also referred to by a variety of other names, including "Four Guardians", "Four Gods", and "Four Auspicious Beasts". They are the Azure Dragon of the East, the Vermilion Bird of the South, the White Tiger of the West, and the Black Tortoise (also called "Black Warrior") of the North.
[2] Sounds like the Genesis flood narrative to me.
[3] This line translates more closely to "It's clean only after (his) death." This expression implies that a problem or a troublesome situation can only be resolved or cleared up completely through someone's death. It's a way of expressing frustration or extreme dissatisfaction.
No comments:
Post a Comment