"Pfft—hah!"
Buck Teeth snorted, nearly bursting out laughing. Every time he heard the brigade captain's nickname, he simply couldn't hold it in.
Chen Chong turned his head and shot him a vicious glare.
The laugh jammed in Buck Teeth's throat. Eyes down, head drooping, he went meek as could be. Done for, done for — he'd get a beating when they got back...
Over on that side, the white-robed trio was examining the skeleton with great care.
Xu Yao's clothing lay covering it, untouched. Only when they needed to see beneath did they gently lift the cloth, look, then lay it back over the bones. They were taking care to protect the dead's last dignity.
They checked it from head to foot, and their faces grew heavier and heavier, edged with sorrow.
The leader of the trio gazed at the three nails in the corpse's skull and the gleaming sword tip in its chest, saying nothing, though a fire of rage was rising through him, beginning to surge.
He saw the two nails at the dantian driven deep into the spine, and one nail in each sole, left and right.
Every one of them lacquer-black and gleaming.
The middle-aged white-robed leader could contain his fury no longer. "Seven-Star Soul-Sealing Nails! Not even death is allowed to bring peace here — this seals the soul shut inside the corpse so it can never pass on! What a vicious, vicious method!"
Then the three of them dug open the corpse cave, and carrying some disc-shaped object, probed every corner of it. Then, from the mound of dirt and mud, they fished out some tiny fragments of something — and glanced once toward Xu Yao and Buck Teeth.
Buck Teeth broke out in a full-body cold sweat on the spot and couldn't help giving Xu Yao a look of heartfelt gratitude.
Xu Yao's face never moved.
After searching the cave through, the leader actually brought out a pack as well, and stuffed into it every last bit of dirt and stone from the cave.
What an enormous bundle it made.
He had the whole cave swept clean, then went back in to search every inch of the rock walls, hunting for who knew what.
A long while passed before he came out again, his face grim.
It was as if an invisible shell covered him from head to toe; the driving rain could not land on him at all.
He walked up to the corpse, holding back the curtain of rain.
Gazing down at it, he slowly sank into a crouch. Tears seemed to fall as he murmured, "Senior Sister... Senior Sister... it really is you... oh, Senior Sister..."
He took hold of the right-hand bones of the white jade skeleton, his body trembling faintly, overcome for a time by feelings he could not master.
After a while, he brought out a length of snow-white cloth and wrapped the skeleton up with the greatest care — folding Xu Yao's clothing inside the wrapping as well.
Then he clasped it tight against his chest.
Turning to Xu Yao, he nodded, his voice hoarse. "Little brother — my thanks!"
"I only did what anyone should!"
Xu Yao answered hurriedly, doing his best to look overwhelmed and deferential.
"Let's go back."
The middle-aged man in white nodded. With the skeleton held in both arms and no visible effort at all, his white robe flashed — like a white crane soaring into the sky — and he rose up through the pelting rain to the top of the cliff.
Then the other two white-robed men carried Xu Yao and Buck Teeth up to the cliff top as well, and the Demon Suppression Bureau officials went up after them.
Atop the cliff, the three in white and the two Bureau officials flew off then and there. Chen Chong had time for one sentence only — "Hurry back, all of you. Be careful on the way" — before he too was carried off through the air.
Flying!
Xu Yao stared, eyes gone wide with shock. People... people could actually fly?!
Once more, left behind on the spot were all seven of the Third Squad plus Xu Yao — eight in all.
The same old team.
Only now did the heart Liu Zhen had kept suspended this whole time finally settle. "Move, move, let's get back fast. This rain's about to drench me to death!"
Then she added: "Not one word on the road back. No discussing anything. Once we're home, for the first ten days, no idle talk about any of this inside the compound — and even after ten days, keep it to yourselves as much as you can! The gag only comes off after a year. Understood?"
Her voice was very stern.
"Understood, Sister Liu!"
Everyone chimed in one after another.
The low ranks have their own logic for staying alive, and Liu Zhen's way of doing things was the best method there was for keeping everyone safe. Not one of them failed to understand.
The party trudged down the mountain through the pouring rain, silent the whole way.
Just as they came down off the cliff, the rain began to slacken, little by little.
"Watch your footing!"
Xu Yao was still faithfully handing out his warnings, as ever.
They reached the Mountain Guard Compound. The sky was already pitch black.
The leaders who had returned ahead of them were nowhere to be seen — they weren't here. Even brigade captain Chen Chong was gone.
Everyone changed into dry clothes, went to the canteen to eat the meal that had been specially set aside for them, and then headed home.
A few of them lived just near the compound. Of those living in Peach Blossom Valley, Xu Yao was the only one — and it wasn't far.
Peach Blossom Valley, as its name suggests, lay on one slope of a valley pinched between two mountains. Mountain forests closed it round on every side, thick with countless wild peach trees.
Every year in the third month of spring, one sweep of the wind and you could lift your eyes and see no sky at all — nothing but peach blossoms flying, the whole of heaven and earth perfumed. It was like stepping straight into a dream.
Beneath the clustering shrubs, from somewhere far down, came the murmur of flowing water — a little river in the deepest part of the valley, the watercourse for this whole stretch of mountain forest.
Over one low hill, and in less than a quarter of an hour, Xu Yao was pushing open the brushwood gate of his own home.
"Big Fatty?"
His mother Liu Taohua's voice rang out, delighted. "I just finished stewing some meat broth for you. You're home just in time to eat."
His father Xu Dashi — swarthy, gaunt — kept his head down, muttering under his breath. "Warmed it three times over... still not allowed to touch it, and she can still say 'just in time.'"
His mother — pretty of feature, slender of figure — came out beaming, looking at her son as though he were a treasure, her husband's grumbling entirely ignored. "The whole family's been waiting for you to eat. Come, come — you must be starving."
Xu Yao patted a stomach already swollen full from the meal he'd eaten at the compound and put on a face of delighted surprise. "Wonderful! I'm so hungry my belly's growling."
That made Liu Taohua happier still. "I told you he'd be hungry..."
Liu Taohua's father was a physician, superb in both his medical skill and his medical ethics, and the family was naturally well-off. She couldn't quite be called a daughter of a great house, but she could just barely pass for a refined young miss of a modest one.
As for her husband, Xu Dashi had likewise inherited that physician's mantle, together with the family practice — and had even inherited the junior apprentice-sister too.
Liu Taohua had been spoiled by her father as a little girl, spoiled by her husband once she married, and now that her son was grown, spoiled by her son in turn. Her days passed most contentedly, and so, naturally, she didn't show her age.
Aside from her hands, a little roughened by work, she looked soft, round, and pleasantly plump — nearly twenty years younger than the village women of her own age.
The table was spread, and watching her son wolf down the food with such relish, Liu Taohua's face smiled just like a peach blossom.
"So good!"
Xu Yao hiked up his shirt to show his round little belly and slapped it for his mother to hear. "Ma, listen to this — doesn't it sound just like a watermelon gone ripe?"
"My boy's had his fill," Liu Taohua said with a satisfied smile.
Your boy's about to be stuffed to death, more like! — Xu Dashi, head down over his bowl beside them, quietly rolled his eyes.
Xu Yao wiped his mouth, fished the demon peach out of his bundle, and set it on the table with a gleeful little grin. "Dad, Ma — have a peach, the two of you."
"Where would a peach come from, this time of year?" Liu Taohua eyed it doubtfully. "It really is fragrant, though."
At the sight of the peach, Xu Dashi started, and his face turned grave at once. "You went up the mountain with them?"
"Mm," Xu Yao answered.
Xu Dashi gave a huff. He seemed about to say something, then swallowed it and held his tongue. To Liu Taohua he said, "It's the boy's filial heart. You eat it."
Only then did it dawn on Liu Taohua too, and her face went a little pale. "So this is the legendary demon peach and ghost apricot?"
Xu Yao made no attempt to hide it. "It is. I got lucky this time and came away with one. They say it does the body good, so I brought it home."
A flicker of worry crossed Liu Taohua's eyes. What other people saw was a treasure that strengthened the body; what a mother saw was how much danger her son had braved for this one peach — and her heart clenched itself into a knot.
She forced a laugh and pushed the peach off to the side. "I've never cared for peaches, not since I was small. One bite and I itch all over — I can't stand peach fuzz to save my life. You and Big Fatty have it."
"I've no liking for them either," Xu Dashi said, his face full of distaste. "Peaches all over this mountain, year after year — I ate my fill long ago."
Neither parent would touch it.
Xu Yao thought for a moment, carried the peach outside to wash it, and brought it back in. He took up the kitchen knife, cut it into three pieces, and ate the largest piece himself, crunching it down and swallowing. Then, brow knitted: "This peach — you're right, it itches you all over like mad once you've eaten it."
As he spoke he scratched at himself with both hands, his face full of astonishment. "Huh. This peach really does prick and itch. I'll go out and rinse off. If you two aren't eating your pieces, just toss them."
And with that he turned and walked out.
Husband and wife sat staring blankly at the two pieces of peach.
"Can it truly make you itch?" Liu Taohua said doubtfully.
"Try yours and find out." Xu Dashi's eyes rolled slyly, and he arranged his face into an expression of lofty distaste. "Maybe it really does itch."
"Heh heh — then let's eat ours together."
When the peach was eaten, both husband and wife felt currents of warmth moving slowly through their bodies. Flesh worn down by years of toil seemed, astonishingly, to flush with new life; their spirits lifted. There was not half a hint of itch anywhere.
And those currents of warmth were still at their work, going on and on.
"That boy — he's learned to play tricks on his own mother now," Liu Taohua chided with her mouth. But her eyes brimmed with contentment, and the corners of her lips had curled happily upward.
Chapter 7