No Maze Can Withstand a Demolition Crew
As for the “illusion” now shrouding the cities of Yao and Wei, its origins can be traced back to the day the Flower Children Temple was destroyed.
Lingxiao City was descended from an ancient divine-bird clan. As the clan leader’s son, Ling Fengqing naturally enjoyed access to the finest education and resources, and was consequently well versed in all manner of unorthodox arts—both righteous and wicked.
That said, he rarely had any need to fend off enemies himself, so his martial skills were rather mediocre. The disciples under the various elders, on the other hand, had attained a fair degree of proficiency in such arts.
After all, the Young Master could become an immortal without working too hard. Even if he failed to cultivate successfully, he could always turn around and inherit a vast family fortune. But if ordinary disciples accomplished nothing, all they could do was go home and sell sweet potatoes.
This time, it was several dozen disciples under Elder Kongtong and Elder Shengyang, all of whom were skilled in formations. Acting on Ling Fengqing’s instructions, they avoided Lord Yao’s notice and set up a massive formation around Yao City.
As for the formation’s eye, it was naturally the “vengeful ghost” in Yao City’s Flower Children Temple—the spirits of the Hua brothers, who had died a thousand years ago.
Their arrangements in Wei City were far from thorough. Quite a few infiltrators had been caught and killed by Si Fei and Old Jiao. However, Yao and Wei had always been closely linked, and the Flower Children were a shared burden of karma and object of faith for both cities. Thus, the effects of the spell cast in Yao City could spread to Wei City as well.
Of course, according to the Young Master Ling’s intentions, the disciples were supposed to wait until he had escaped before activating the formation…
But the disciples could not afford to worry about so much.
They had always lived under Ling Fengqing’s authority and were already as nervous as startled birds. Mistakenly believing that Yao City intended to wipe them out and fearing that its people would catch up and cut them down one by one, they simply activated the formation without a second thought, scattered like birds and beasts, and fled home to sell sweet potatoes.
If Ling Fengqing were still alive, he would probably have been furious enough to cough up three pints of blood.
But he was dead, so this minor matter no longer mattered.
…
“What is this…?”
When Jiang Xuesheng and Shu Fu arrived at Yao City, they saw the entire town shrouded in an eerie mist. The fog had a muddy, dark-yellow tinge, rather like the smog that blanketed modern cities.
Looking down from above, they could vaguely make out several glimmers of golden light shining through the thick mist. Like Wei City, Yao City was probably using its defensive formations to resist the illusion.
“Sir.”
There was no time to lose. Shu Fu turned to Jiang Xuesheng and asked, “How do we break this formation?”
Jiang Xuesheng had seen and experienced much, so he could naturally discern the key to it. “This formation is called ‘Returning Souls.’ It isn’t particularly difficult to understand. It draws upon the resentment of a vengeful ghost and overlays the ghost’s memories from life onto reality. Yao City and Wei City have been the objects of the ghost’s hatred for a thousand years, and their karmic ties to it have been further entwined through the faith surrounding the Flower Children. That is why the formation has produced such an effect.”
“So, that means…”
“It means that anyone caught in the formation will be dragged into the Flower Children’s ‘memories’ and forced to experience, again and again, the pain of the moment when they died. If the formation is not broken and the resentment is not dispelled, they may never awaken.”
Shu Fu was startled—not too much, but enough. “Never?”
How dare those disciples from Lingxiao City activate it?
Were they hoping Ling Fengqing would die…? No, forget it. He was already dead anyway.
“Exactly.” Jiang Xuesheng nodded. “This formation is dangerous and insidious. It goes against the natural order and consumes an enormous amount of fortune. Even in ancient times, few people used it. If Ling Shanhai found out, he would probably try to stuff Ling Fengqing back in.”
Shu Fu’s lips twitched stiffly. Once again, she was astonished by the Young Master Ling’s extraordinary ideas. “Then how are we supposed to break it?”
“Enter the formation.”
Jiang Xuesheng’s answer was concise. “It requires cooperation from both within and without to break. Since Xie Fangnian is working from the outside, we will enter the formation and investigate from within. As long as we locate the formation’s eye and release the spirit trapped inside, the illusion will naturally disappear.”
“That sounds difficult.”
Shu Fu could not help muttering.
The corners of Jiang Xuesheng’s eyes curved in a smile. “Don’t worry. It won’t be any more difficult than the illusion you encountered during the entrance trial. For you, compared with pain, embarrassment and awkwardness are probably more terrifying.”
Shu Fu: “…Huh?”
Wait, what did you just say???
What entrance trial? What illusion???
But before she could press him for an explanation, Jiang Xuesheng had already taken her hand with effortless ease and leaped with her into the mist-shrouded town.
It was an incredibly strange sensation.
It was as though they had sunk into a cool pool, yet felt neither wet nor short of breath. All around them, the scenery appeared like a landscape beneath the water, wavering and unreal as the light refracted through it.
Then the scene changed.
Just as Jiang Xuesheng had said, the Flower Children’s memories—or, more precisely, the “Yao City” of a thousand years ago as it existed in those memories—crossed the vast and distant span of time and transformed into a tangible, thin film. Like an old, yellowed photograph, it spread over the prosperous streets of the present-day city.
At that moment, Shu Fu and Jiang Xuesheng had fallen into the world within that old photograph.
Yao City a thousand years ago was nowhere near as prosperous and lively as it was now. It had only recently endured the devastation of a demonic calamity, and the city was bleak and dilapidated. Few people walked the streets, and ruins and desolation could be seen everywhere. Some of the shattered walls had not even been cleared away.
Along those cold, deserted streets, two little boys in coarse cloth clothes came bounding past hand in hand. Their skin was as fair as carved jade and sculpted snow, and their delicate features made them look like young immortals.
Shu Fu noticed that each of them held a flower. The blossoms were as large as peonies—one yellow, the other purple. They were the famous “Bonding Flowers” of Yao and Wei.
“Oh, right. Aunt Luan told me that the first people to discover the Bonding Flowers were the Hua brothers…”
Shu Fu pondered this, momentarily forgetting to continue questioning Jiang Xuesheng—and also forgetting that he was still holding her hand as naturally as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world.
“Indeed. The Hua brothers were born sensitive to spiritual energy and should have been rare talents in cultivation. Unfortunately, that very gift brought about their deaths.”
Jiang Xuesheng gazed into the distance, a trace of regret in his expression. “Fu’er, let’s follow them and see.”
No one in the illusion could perceive their presence, so the two of them followed the Flower Children all the way home.
The Flower Children had yet to develop any understanding of human emotions, and their minds were like those of three-year-old children. Full of excitement, they held the flowers up to their parents.
“Papa, Mama! Flowers! Flowers!”
The Hua parents were an utterly ordinary couple from the common folk. Yet the instant they saw their children return with the flowers, they showed no delight. Instead, they were utterly horrified, as though the children had brought home a venomous snake.
The mother’s hand trembled, and she dropped a chipped tea bowl onto the floor. Tea splashed everywhere.
The father’s expression darkened as he harshly scolded them.
“Didn’t we tell you not to bring this strange nonsense home anymore? Do you have any idea how, because you’re always doing bizarre things, people have started saying you’re the reincarnations of demon cultivators? Your mother and I have lost all our dignity because of you. We can’t even hold our heads up when we walk down the street!”
The father seemed to have been driven beyond endurance. After unleashing a rapid-fire tirade, he still did not feel satisfied. He grabbed the two flowers and hurled them at the children’s heads.
Shu Fu winced at the waste. She couldn’t help letting out a little “yikes.”
If this had happened in the modern world, those flowers they’d smashed wouldn’t be flowers at all—they’d be a house within the Third Ring Road of Beijing, Shanghai, or Guangzhou!!!
The Hua mother hurried to stop him. “What are you doing? Other people’s wagging tongues are their problem. Why take it out on the children?”
Looking at the two brothers again, one had stubbornly lifted his chin, his face full of anger and indignation, yet two disobedient tears were sliding from his eyes. The other had tears glimmering in his own eyes as well, but he was still thinking of his parents. He carefully tugged at his mother’s hand and called softly, “Mother, don’t be angry.”
They couldn’t understand their parents’ anger and fear, but they had already keenly realized that the world did not welcome them.
For no reason, with no justification—simply because they were “different from us.”
Shu Fu had no trouble imagining what happened afterward.
Once the Hua father’s fury had finally subsided, he belatedly realized that the Bonding Flowers were brimming with spiritual power and were anything but ordinary. In an effort to secure the Hua family a little more room to survive, the parents brought their two innocent, bewildered children and voluntarily offered the Bonding Flowers to the city lord, hoping to exchange them for a measure of protection.
The city lord accepted them with delight. He soon discovered that the Bonding Flowers possessed a remarkable use, and immediately began cultivating them with great care, treating them as a treasured family heirloom.
Yet the exclusion and bullying suffered by the Hua family in the city did not lessen in the slightest.
“…”
Such dark and depressing memories left not only Flower Children themselves, but even Shu Fu, feeling stifled and furious.
She tried to shift her attention elsewhere, such as to the Hua parents’ discussion of the Bonding Flowers:
“I heard one of the cultivators from the city lord’s residence say that these flowers seem to have an effect rather like the legendary dragon clan’s ‘Heartguard Scales.’ Apparently, it was the Dragon God who told the previous city lord about them…”
“Heartguard Scales? What are those?”
“They say they are the two scales on a dragon’s body closest to its heart. When the dragon’s emotions fluctuate, they grow hot, gathering spiritual energy and keeping inner demons at bay. If one of them is given to one’s bonded partner, it can connect their feelings, allowing them to share joy and sorrow. Though separated by a thousand miles of mountains, their hearts remain as one…”
Shu Fu: “…”
She was inside a vision, but all the items she carried were present as usual.
Under Jiang Xuesheng’s abruptly shifting gaze, Shu Fu slowly slipped a hand into the front of her robes and pulled out the necklace bearing one large scale and one small scale.
Naturally, she hadn’t forgotten that Jiang Xuesheng had given it to her as a welcome gift when she joined the sect. At the time, he had claimed they were “merfolk scales.” Yet the two scales—one large and one small, one gray and one white—clearly didn’t look as if they had come from the same fish.
But Shu Fu hadn’t thought much of it back then. She had simply assumed that her Third Senior Brother was some kind of silver-gray gradient fish, like those cats called silver shaded.
Now she finally knew what that large, white (?) scale really was.
Holding up the necklace, Shu Fu waved it meaningfully before Jiang Xuesheng’s eyes. “Sir, Heartguard Scales, hmm?”
Jiang Xuesheng: “…”
He hadn’t intended to keep it hidden for long, but being exposed by an ancient person from a thousand years ago in the middle of a vision was still somewhat unexpected.
Which raised the question: between him and Shu Fu, who was more embarrassed right now?
Fortunately, a sudden change within the secret realm broke the awkwardness.
The Flower Children’s parents quarreled repeatedly, parting in anger each time. Each took one child and returned to their own home. The Flower Children couldn’t bear to be separated, so they secretly kept two Bonding Flowers with them, preserving a small connection between them. Although they were not bonded partners, they were twin brothers and could still use the flowers to communicate their thoughts.
Later came the severe droughts in Yao City and Wei City. At some point, someone shouted, “This must be the work of demonic cultivators!” The cry stirred the crowd into a frenzy, like a violent wind and a surging tide that refused to subside until the Hua brothers had been devoured.
The ringleader’s eyes were bloodshot, his mind unhinged. In the end, he barged into the Hua family’s home without a word, dragged the two children out separately, and forcibly shoved them into an underground palace saturated with demonic energy.
The Bonding Flowers, which would later be worth a fortune, were trampled beneath countless feet. In the end, they crumbled into the mud, and no one could tell what color they had originally been.
A flower abandoned by the world and buried beneath lies would never retain its former fragrance.
…
“…Do you understand now?”
After the memories within the vision came to an end, the surrounding scenery once again dissolved into thick fog. The light grew hazy, and even Jiang Xuesheng’s figure could no longer be seen clearly.
Shu Fu stood alone amid the dim shadows. Then a child’s voice rang out beside her ear:
“Everyone in Yao City and Wei City is descended from those brutes. Their veins carry the blood of sin. They deserve to die.”
“That’s true. I support you in taking revenge.”
After a moment’s thought, Shu Fu decided to reason with him first. “But the people who committed those crimes back then are already dead and rotting in the ground. They’ve been reincarnated seventeen or eighteen times by now. You couldn’t even find their names on the ancestral tablets. The people living in those cities today know nothing about what happened, let alone the children you killed. Some of them couldn’t even speak yet. What could they possibly know…?”
“Shut up!”
The clear child’s voice erupted in anger. “You don’t understand what my brother and I went through. It’s only because this has nothing to do with you that you can say such things so easily. Your honeyed words are nothing more than using someone else’s generosity to try to make me spare them!”
“Then I’d like to see whether you can still say those things after experiencing what I went through yourself!”
Before the voice had even faded, Shu Fu’s vision blurred. It seemed the illusion had undergone yet another transformation.
Then the stage lights came back on.
She stood alone in the middle of a street. Before her was the same dilapidated, crumbling town, the same deserted roads, the same tightly closed doors of every household…
However, Shu Fu realized that she had suddenly become much shorter. Her eye level had dropped considerably, as though she had changed from another race into a Lalafell in Final Fantasy XIV and was now running along close to the ground. It was not a particularly comfortable sensation.
The next moment, she felt a sharp pain in the back of her head, as though someone had struck her with a hard object.
At the same time, piercing shouts rang out behind her:
“Monster! Demon! Get out!”
“Get out, you stupid, evil thing! It’s all because of you that Yao City has become like this!”
“…”
There was no need to ask. These were clearly the little brats who, after listening to the “earnest teachings” of the adults in Flower Children’s memories, had bullied the Hua brothers without restraint.
This scene feels familiar somehow. I’ve seen it in plenty of scripts before.
Thinking this, Shu Fu covered the back of her head and turned around. Facing the children holding broken stones, bricks, scraps of metal, and other assorted debris, she pursed her lips and smiled faintly.
“What the f*** are you talking about, you little bastards?”
The boys: “??????”
They were merely NPCs within the vision. Their ability to react was even worse than that of the “Jiang Xuesheng” Shu Fu had married back then. They had probably never even heard such a profanity, much less knew how to respond to it.
“‘People die when they get their heads bashed in.’ You’re all old enough to know better, and some of you are even taller than your own fathers. You should at least understand that much, right?”
“You knew someone might die, and you still hit me that hard. That makes it attempted murder, doesn’t it?”
“If that’s the case—”
Before they could react, Shu Fu casually snatched up a brick at her feet, raised it high, and swung it down toward the forehead of the seventeen- or eighteen-year-old boy leading them.
“Even if someone turns around and beats you to death, you damn well deserve it!!!”
“Ah!”
“Whoa!”
“What’s wrong with her?! Somebody help! Help!”
Unbeknownst to Shu Fu, Po Yueqin was in tears—
A brick. An actual brick! She was finally using a real brick as a weapon instead of using me as one!!!
