Liu Zhen was still talking as he dug, and before his sour grumbling had even finished, his eyes went suddenly wide and he cried out in spite of himself.
His voice was trembling!
What he had been digging at was the very root Xu Yao had cut through with his blade—and before the root had even been dug free, he had turned up a piece of ragged cloth.
Hearing the shout, Buck Teeth came bounding over. The instant he saw the rag he froze, both eyeballs bulging outward, and in a heartbeat turned into a big buck-toothed frog.
His mouth split in a grin, a full set of buck teeth nearly biting into the cliff rock: "Holy hell... are the three of us in for great fortune today too? That I, Buck Teeth, actually have this kind of luck?"
"Less talk. Get to work—clear the area around it."
Liu Zhen put away his pick and said to Xu Yao, "At a time like this, we can't afford to care about the native soil, and Grade-A merit or Grade-C merit doesn't matter either. What matters most is that whatever is inside comes out whole."
He pulled the dagger from his hair, felt around, and then drew out of his hair, of all things, a strangely shaped hook, and began the work of clearing the soil with great care.
Little by little he widened it.
As it widened, more and more of the cloth came to light—and then several segments of bone, snow-white.
"Human finger bones!"
Liu Zhen's breathing grew more and more ragged, and his movements more and more careful.
Beside him, Buck Teeth was panting like an ox.
The rainstorm raging down from the sky—the three of them no longer seemed to feel it at all.
"Watch and learn. When you run into something like this someday, this is how it's done. Lucky for us I always carry a hook in my hair—otherwise this would be a real job to clear. And remember it yourself from now on: hide a hook in your hair. Even setting this aside, if you ever find a ginseng root, you'll have the tool to dig it out whole instead of ruining it."
Liu Zhen lectured as he dug.
Buck Teeth stood by, grimacing, wanting to shout "Mother Liu, haven't you nagged enough?" and not daring to.
So he started digging at a spot nearby—and digging down, Buck Teeth made a discovery of his own: "The soil's gone loose further in... a foot! Bones just like jade... This is a corpse pit, dug out on purpose. Captain! Captain! We've struck it rich..."
Buck Teeth was beside himself with excitement.
"Careful now! Don't leave a single mark from our tools on those bones. Mind the tempers of the great ones. If this is some important figure—if that figure's family comes to collect the body and finds marks from our tools, then this blessing might turn into disaster after all."
Liu Zhen warned them gravely, then looked at Xu Yao. "That goes for you too. Understood?"
"Understood."
Xu Yao said earnestly, "Bones like jade mean an important figure for sure. An important figure's family will be important too. We can't afford to offend them."
"Exactly. Old patrolmen like us are just after a reward. And if someday you dig one up..."
Liu Zhen's voice dropped low. "...and you dig it up alone, and there's some other treasure on the body, something you want—then take the root back, report the job done, and find a chance to come back on your own for the rest. It's not as if no one has ever done such a thing."
"But so long as there's a second person beside you!"
Liu Zhen's voice was heavy. "Never, never let greed take hold! Not even one copper coin that belonged to the dead may you keep for yourself! That is a catastrophe big as the heavens. Remember it. Remember it!"
Xu Yao nodded. "Understood."
And he fixed it firmly in his heart.
"Before now, on our patch, there were people who did just that. First: two went down, found something, and never reported it. Years later the two fell out with each other, the matter came to light, and both families were wiped out to the last soul.
Second: two went down, and after the discovery one of them killed the other, climbed back up, and killed the brothers waiting above as well. That one came to light even faster. Seven went out, one came back—where did the rest go? Run? Where could a stinking old patrolman possibly run to? One investigation turned it all up, and his whole family was sentenced to beheading on the spot!"
"And it was after those two affairs that the higher-ups made the rule: going down a cliff requires at least two together. If one goes missing, the entire patrol region is investigated at once. This is a matter of your life and your whole family. There is no room for the word 'greed.' Be sure you remember it."
"Yes."
As they talked, the corpse inside had already been laid bare for the most part. Liu Zhen pulled the tree root out and set it apart on its own, not tying it together with the other two roots.
Then he began the meticulous clearing, trying to shift the body outward.
It was a complete skeleton, whole from head to toe, every bone white as jade and hard past all reason.
Once the body emerged, the downpour scoured it, and the soil was soon washed away entirely.
The outer garment had all rotted to rags, but a sleeveless jacket underneath was still mostly whole, and extremely sturdy.
In the crown of the skull, three black tapered needles had been driven in deep. There were needles too at the soles of the feet and at the vertebra over the dantian. Several ribs of the chest were broken, and a broken sword tip was lodged inside the chest cavity.
Washed by the rain—though no one could say how many years had passed—that sword tip still glinted with cold light, without a speck of rust.
Beyond that, there was nothing at all that might prove who this had been.
The skeleton was small and delicate.
As Xu Yao gazed at the white jade skeleton, he only felt the clear qi in his eyes seem to stir—but when he sensed closely, none of that cool vapor came flowing in—nothing unusual at all. He puzzled over it a moment and let it go.
"Looks like it's a wom—"
Buck Teeth got only half the sentence out before Liu Zhen cut him off: "Don't say it, don't guess. Leave it to the people above! Our great merit is already in hand—not one complication, not one!"
Then he said, "You two stay here and watch. I'll go up and give word. Have two of them head back and bring the brigade captain and the others."
"Remember! Don't touch anything!"
Liu Zhen gathered up the three sections of mountain demon body root and tied them to his back, and, still uneasy, repeated his warning three more times.
Then he climbed up fast through the driving rain.
He handed the mountain demon root to Niu Sibao and Zhang Sanping. "You two have the fastest legs. Get back at once with the report. Tell them..."
And he laid it all out in detail.
Wild with joy, the two wrapped the root in their arms and shot away like a streak of smoke. They had always been fast, and now the prospect of a fat 'reward of silver' was whipping them on—in a heartbeat their speed was driven to its very peak. They didn't even bother walking down the mountain; they hugged their heads and rolled straight down through the floodwater, gone without a trace...
"Don't go getting yourselves killed... damn brats, both of you..."
Liu Zhen bared his teeth in fury.
The two were long gone.
The remaining three smiled up at him ingratiatingly. "Captain, sounds like we've struck it rich this time?"
"Whether it's a blessing or a curse, there's no saying yet."
Liu Zhen's face was grave. "Stay sharp. The bones are here—if the enemy is still watching this ground... it could cost us our lives."
"Yes, Captain. You're right." The three tensed.
The four split up and concealed themselves in four directions, guarding the clifftop, every nerve strung tight.
"If danger comes, we die! Those below the cliff live!" Liu Zhen's voice was low, but it was iron—stating the cruelty plainly.
"Yes." The three big men exchanged smiles, and then, silence.
Below the cliff.
In the pouring rain.
Xu Yao and Buck Teeth both watched the white jade corpse before them as the rain beat down on it.
Buck Teeth kept wary watch on their surroundings, and in his head he was tallying the reward: how much for the squad in all, how much for the three who went down the cliff, how much would land in his own hands—and if it came to ten taels or more, what could that do for home? New clothes for his daughter, money for her first lessons at school, the silver hairpin his wife had been wanting... and if anything was left over, should he finally have his old bad back seen to, or gamble it all on one throw and see to it after he'd won?...
Xu Yao stared at the skeleton, lost in thought.
He had never imagined that after death a person could have bones like this, like white jade.
To think such a thing was possible!
And he was turning over another question: to cultivate the bones of one's body to a state so incorrupt, like jade—what level of martial attainment would that be? And for someone at that level to be slain all the same—then what level was the one who slew them?
The rainstorm hammered madly at the white jade bones on the ground, water splashing on every side.
Even one whose power in life had reached through heaven and earth, a single roar enough to shake the world, could now only lie passive and endure the beating. Bare bones alone, and they still showed how overwhelming their owner had been in life—but dead was dead.
Xu Yao suddenly felt an inexplicable desolation.
The feeling came out of nowhere. He couldn't understand how he had come by so weathered a sorrow. Yet with strange clarity he felt it unbearable that one so strong should lie exposed in the wild like this, abandoned to wind and rain.
So he took off his own clothes and did his best to cover the body the downpour was battering.
His movements were very gentle.
The cloth clothes had trekked here through the storm, and they were certainly not clean—but they carried Xu Yao's warmth, and covering this skeleton, they passed on one thin thread of the warmth of the living world.
At the very instant he covered the bones, he seemed to feel a blur before his eyes: dimly, a white-robed woman flickered amid clouds and mist—her figure graceful, her face impossible to make out, eyes like autumn water holding a light sorrow as she gave him one grateful look.
But when he fixed his gaze and looked closely, there was nothing at all.
Still the rain fell in sheets, lightning weaving its net; still the white bones gleamed like jade, grim and chill.
But where, anywhere, was there any white-robed woman?
Chapter 5