Seeing that Ren Youyang had already spoken to this extent, Ding Songyan held nothing back and gave a small nod.
"I did eat it."
For now he did not say what he had eaten. He still did not know just what his own master had told the Zhenling Sect, whether he had mentioned Hundun's remains, and he was afraid of undercutting this elder.
Ren Youyang's dog ears twitched once, yet unexpectedly he did not press further. He flicked his right hand.
"Flower wine I don't care for, but I'm of a mind to eat and drink. Come on, let's find a tavern."
Ding Songyan rubbed his stomach, and for no clear reason thought of the sight of Yan Changqing being cut open, and at once lost his appetite.
He had been so tightly strung and keyed up back then that it hadn't turned his stomach. Now, just recalling it was almost more than he could bear.
But Brother Youyang wanted to eat and drink, so he would have to keep him company even at the risk of his life.
The two of them found a tavern nearby in the east of the city and ordered four hot dishes—spicy pig and lamb trotters, braised pork offal, steamed slices of goose and duck, and three-crisp soup—along with three cold dishes: sesame-tofu chicken skin, dressed lettuce, and braised beef; two desserts of carved candied fruit and red bean paste dumplings; and two jars of lychee wine.
Once all the dishes had been served, Ding Songyan raised a bowl of lychee wine and said to Ren Youyang:
"To gain one true friend in a lifetime is a blessing, and I've actually managed to meet two at once—you, Brother Youyang, and Miss Xiaoqing. That's worth three bowls of wine."
"Only worth three bowls?" Ren Youyang clicked his tongue with a grin.
"Aren't I just afraid you won't be able to hold your drink, Brother Youyang?" Ding Songyan would not lose face even as he lost the wager.
Ren Youyang gave a "heh":
"I'm a ghost deity and a corpse deity now. Mortal wine only adds a little fun—how could it ever get me drunk?"
Ding Songyan was quiet a moment, then said:
"My true qi dissolves the effects of wine, so I'm not afraid of getting drunk either."
Ren Youyang fell silent as well.
After a few breaths, he raised his wine bowl.
"Cheers!"
"Bottoms up!" Ding Songyan, recalling a phrase he had picked up when he used to go to Yangcheng to court investors, laughed and answered in kind.
Gulping down that bowl of lychee wine and filling it again, he glanced around, then quietly raised one foot as though pressing against something before him, while the other stayed planted firmly on the tavern floor.
At the same time, the four other legs hidden in the void each pointed up, back, left, and right.
Soundlessly, the air gathered, and around Ding Songyan and Ren Youyang there seemed to form a barrier invisible to the eye.
To the rest of the people in the tavern, their table grew quite still—only silently drinking and eating, with no further sound coming from it.
"Brother Youyang, there's something I'd like to ask you about." After eating a piece of spicy pig trotter to open his appetite, Ding Songyan spoke with a sincere look.
Ren Youyang picked up a piece of pork intestine and said with a smile:
"What matter still needs guarding against ears on the other side of the wall?"
He too had noticed the tricks Ding Songyan had played on their surroundings.
"Brother Youyang, if someone eats a divine monster or strange beast and ascends to heaven in a single step, then when others eat his remains, would something of the same kind happen?" Though both men knew exactly what was meant, Ding Songyan still did not speak it outright.
Ren Youyang laughed.
"In the high antiquity, yes. After the severing of Earth from Heaven it grew rarer and rarer, and these last two or three thousand years, it no longer works."
"Why?" Secretly relieved, Ding Songyan pressed curiously.
Ren Youyang picked up a chopstick and gestured with it.
"The realm falls short.
"Let me give you an example. If you ate a beast of Mystery Realm level, back in the high antiquity you might ascend in a single step to Dharma Realm, or even Heaven-Man Realm. And after that, if you could break through to Mystery Realm, then your remains would be the same as the flesh of a strange beast.
"If what you ate was a divine monster, you'd have to break through all the more, and by more than a single realm.
"And after the severing of Earth from Heaven, no one can ever again step from the Spirit Terrace Realm into Mystery Realm, so naturally the thing you describe can't happen."
Ding Songyan nodded thoughtfully.
"The weakest divine monster or strange beast is at least Mystery Realm? And after the Spirit Terrace Realm comes Mystery Realm?"
"Correct." Ren Youyang ladled out a bowl of three-crisp soup made from three kinds of wild grass, and while he blew the rising steam off it with his head down, said offhandedly, "It's taken from 'Mystery upon mystery, the gate of all wonders,' so after Mystery Realm comes the Realm of Myriad Wonders. A pity—we can only see from the ancient texts just how extraordinary those realms were."
Ding Songyan, content, brought the topic to a close, picked up a slice of braised beef, and said idly:
"The tavern actually sells beef right out in the open."
Aren't plow oxen precious?
Ren Youyang ate a spoonful of three-crisp soup and looked up with a smile.
"You still haven't remembered the old days? With the Grand Joy Sect around, how would Great Zhao ever run short of cattle? These years the harvests have been bountiful year after year, and cattle covering the land is one of the reasons for it."
"The Grand Joy Sect?" Ding Songyan knew it was one of Great Zhao's "Six Sects and Four Schools," long spoken of in the same breath as the Zhenling Sect, but he was not clear on what they had to do with whether cattle were plentiful.
Ren Youyang touched his dog ears.
"The Grand Joy Sect inherited from the corpse of Wang Ziye. Wang Ziye was the god of animal husbandry in the mortal world, and so, though the Grand Joy Sect is set in a southern realm, its ranching trade is still number one under heaven.
"When I was young, the sect I yearned for most was the Grand Joy Sect."
The corpse of Wang Ziye? Ding Songyan strained to recall the contents of The Esoteric Classic of Mountains and Seas.
After a moment, he brought the matching passage to mind:
"The corpse of Wang Ziye: both hands, both thighs, the chest, head, and teeth are all severed off to different places. Eating it tames the hundred beasts, aids breeding and growth, brings a thirst for pleasure, and, once sundered, one becomes a deity."
Sundered to become a deity? No wonder it's forever paired with the Zhenling Sect—it's the same trick as becoming a god after death, isn't it... And what on earth is this "thirst for pleasure"? Some kind of harmful trait? Ding Songyan weighed it a moment, then, full of a hunger to know, answered Ren Youyang's words.
"Why was it the sect you yearned for most?"
Ren Youyang's expression turned vivid all at once, as though his very eyebrows might fly up.
"Besides the Hundred Beasts Precious Scroll, they have another secret canon called the Grand Joy Rhapsody on the Union of Heaven and Earth, of Yin and Yang, and that's where the Grand Joy Sect takes its name. Tsk—there isn't a single lecher under heaven who doesn't long to be taken in by the Grand Joy Sect. What a pity I've already become a ghost deity..."
At the end, Ren Youyang's face was all regret, and even his dog ears drooped a little.
A martial art created on the strength of that "thirst for pleasure" trait? It must fold in "aids breeding and growth" and "sundered to become a deity" as well, right? Ding Songyan raised his wine bowl to console his friend.
"One day of yours, Brother Youyang, has always been worth a year of another man's. Cheers!"
Ren Youyang had already come to terms with things, and picked up his bowl to clink against Ding Songyan's.
As the wine warmed them, Ren Youyang said all at once:
"Your cut-rate big brother Li Zhi—his corpse is at the Linjiang County yamen. Want to go have a look?"
So Big Ox is dead... His real name was Li Zhi? Ding Songyan went blank for a moment, then said:
"To meet would be worse than never to meet."
Ren Youyang gave a small nod.
"Li Zhi was a great bandit of New Yu, savage by nature. After death he will surely turn into a vengeful ghost and linger among the living, bringing ruin to a whole region, and our Zhenling Sect has the Ghost-Commanding Arts, one of its foundational martial arts. If we could take this vengeful ghost, it would let quite a few disciples make gains.
"What are your thoughts on that?"
Ding Songyan was silent a moment, then gave a bitter laugh.
"When a man dies, his debts are cleared. Better to let Big Ox return to the Netherworld."
"Done." Ren Youyang agreed without a moment's hesitation. "Tonight I'll go and let him return to dust and earth."
"Thank you, Brother Youyang." Ding Songyan raised his wine bowl, gratitude welling up beyond words.
Because of this, he thought of Yan Changqing. That great grandmaster's resentment and stubborn will must have been deep before he died; had he not been annihilated by yin thunderbolt, there was a strong chance he would afterward have become a vengeful ghost.
Then Ding Songyan recalled Hundun's "quell demons and dispel evil" trait, and felt that Yan Changqing, who had eaten that stuff, probably could not turn into a vengeful ghost after all.
Over this meal, Ren Youyang and Ding Songyan ate and drank until the moon climbed above the willow tops, and all through the city bright, vivid lanterns had been hung.
The one paying was Ren Youyang again, saying it was to congratulate Brother Ding.
This Zhenling Sect disciple, a little drunk, said to Ding Songyan as they went down the stairs:
"You may have ascended to heaven in a single step, but the Xiaoming Sect's martial arts are not to be left unlearned.
"Before the severing of Earth from Heaven, you might have had vast divine power and boundless magic, and no need for such mundane techniques. But in the present world, whether it's the Heavenly Emperor's secret canon or a Mystery Realm strange beast's inheritance, at most it reaches the Spirit Terrace Realm, and you can't tell one from another in rank. Setting mutual restraint aside, the exquisite martial arts and secret methods extended from the various traits are far more useful both in fighting and in ordinary days. They must be learned."
"I mean to go one step at a time." Ding Songyan thought the very same.
Out of the tavern, on the street, feeling the river breeze that still carried a warmth, Ren Youyang turned his body and said to Ding Songyan:
"Tomorrow, when I head back to Danzhou, there's no need for you to come see me off."
"Why?" Ding Songyan had been planning to give Brother Youyang a lively send-off.
Ren Youyang sighed.
"I lost two of my guards over the business at Zhen Manor. One of them practiced the Ghost-Commanding Arts, and that evil ghost has to be carried back to the sect. If you came to see me off, it would have no way to flee and would most likely be scattered to nothing.
"Besides, some of my other guards practice the Chapter on the Dao Following Nature, and are keenly sensitive to shifts in their surroundings. They might notice your peculiarity, and you seem unwilling to expose this matter before others."
The Zhenling Sect disciple's gaze brushed across Ding Songyan's face, but he did not ask by what method Ding Songyan concealed the strangeness of his appearance.
"I don't want to, for now." Ding Songyan answered honestly, then said with a smile. "I can see you off from the city wall, the way I did today."
Ren Youyang's face darkened.
"Quite unnecessary."
Only after he said it did he notice that Ding Songyan's face was all a teasing grin, plainly making fun of him, with no intention of actually doing it.
"Heh." Ren Youyang said no more, only sighed and lifted his hand in farewell. "Since you've already ascended to heaven in a single step, we'll meet again in the jianghu another day. For now, here is where we part."
He turned without a trace of reluctance and slowly strolled into the bustling lanes. Because of his unusual looks and the green snake at his ear, many passersby of their own accord opened a path for him.
Ding Songyan shook his head and smiled, and headed for where Chengyu Lane lay.
Along the way, for the first time he took in the night scene with his body and mind at ease. His gaze swept over the vivid, bright lanterns one after another, over the opera masks, theatrical props, and swords and blades set out along the street, over the girls each blooming with her own charm like spring orchids and autumn chrysanthemums.
All around these were the laughter and chatter of passersby at his ears and the gentle evening breeze brushing his face, and for a while he felt as though he had wandered into a dream.
Back at Chengyu Lane, Ding Songyan found that the neighbors idly chatting by the well all shied away from him a little, with only some greeting him.
Had word of the trouble at Zhen Manor already spread here? Not much caring, Ding Songyan returned home, meaning to leaf through The Esoteric Classic of Mountains and Seas and hunt for just whose inheritance Juesheng Dao corresponded to.
With the "summaries" of the path of divination, deceiving others and oneself, and sensing heaven and responding to earth, he thought it would not be hard to fix on the target.
And yet all this time he had gone and overlooked the matter, plainly because he had been influenced.
No sooner had he opened the wooden box than Ding Songyan's gaze froze.
Inside was an extra book, a plain, thread-bound booklet.
Puzzled, Ding Songyan picked it up and flipped it open for a closer look. What met his eyes was beautiful, familiar handwriting in a delicate, flowery small regular script. The words copied there were the detailed Legend of the White Snake he had told outside the Temple of Dangkang and on a few nights before sleep.
Chapter 63