Chapter 2: The Ancients Truly Did Not Deceive Me

The hidden arrangement inside the chain gave Master Dao a faint sense that something was wrong. From within the Guanyin statue beneath his feet came the subtle sound of movement. He yanked the bronze mirror free of its loop. Before he could jump down from the statue’s shoulder, a loud series of clacks and grinding noises erupted beneath the floor of the underground palace. This mechanism was far more violent than the one he had triggered earlier. The ground hummed and trembled, and the entire chamber began to shake violently. Master Dao, who had nearly leaped down, hooked one arm around the statue’s head and swept his flashlight over the surroundings. Blundering around at a time like this would be asking for trouble. Something began pattering down from above. He raised the beam and saw cracks spreading across the vaulted ceiling.

“Monkey! The ceiling’s coming down! Get out!” Master Dao roared as he sprang from the statue’s shoulder. His luck was bad. A massive falling stone struck him out of the air and smashed him to the ground. When he finally lifted his head, coughing blood, he could dimly make out the wiry man darting through the rain of crashing stone. With a quick roll, the man shot into the passage through which they had entered. Then Master Dao’s vision went black, and he lost consciousness…

His mind was a jumble. When the splitting pain in his head finally receded like a tide, he slowly opened his eyes. The light was dim, firelight wavering around him. His gaze moved from side to side until he found the source: a torch wedged at an angle into a pillar. He seemed to be inside an old, dilapidated temple with an unmistakably ancient style. He had no idea where it was, but he guessed that Monkey, having escaped, must have rescued him. He could still remember the sensation of being smashed to the ground. Judging by the weight of that rock, he should have been lucky to survive at all, much less come through unscathed. Experience told him that a badly injured person should avoid violent movement. The fact that he felt no pain did not necessarily mean he was unharmed; his nerves might simply have gone numb.

He moved his fingers first. All ten responded normally. Nothing wrong there. Then he moved his hands and arms. Everything worked smoothly. Still nothing wrong. He lifted both feet, bent his knees, and extended his legs. Again, nothing seemed wrong.

Delighted, he planted both hands on the floor and was about to test the rest of his body when a smiling old face suddenly appeared above him and blocked his view. A hairpin, a topknot, and clothes of an old-fashioned cut. An old man dressed like someone from ancient times. “Young fellow, you’re awake?” the old man said with a smile. “It seems my luck truly is good.” He reached down, shifted Master Dao by the shoulder, and helped him sit up.

Master Dao remained faintly wary. He tried to circulate his internal force in preparation, only to discover that he could not bring it forth at all. Presumably that was because of his injuries. Yet after sitting up and twisting his body a little, he still found nothing seriously wrong. Only the back of his head ached faintly, as though it had suffered a heavy blow. He looked around the ruined temple, then turned his eyes back to the old man. “Old brother, this is…” The moment he spoke, he realized something was wrong with his voice. It sounded immature, almost boyish. Perhaps that was another result of the injury. He coughed once and continued, “Where is this?”

“Old brother?” The old man froze for a moment, then suddenly chuckled. “Quite a way for a youngster to address me. Very well, old brother it is. I like a little character. As for what this place is called, I don’t know exactly. I haven’t had the strength to investigate. In any case, it’s somewhere in a mountain hollow within Ziyun Commandery of the State of Yan.”

Ziyun Commandery of the State of Yan? Master Dao stared blankly for a moment. What was all that supposed to mean? He could not help looking the old man up and down. There was a large patch of blood across the clothes covering his chest and abdomen, and the metallic scent of blood lingered faintly in the air. His face was somewhat pale, as though he had been injured, but his eyes remained clear and bright.

“May I ask your honored name, old brother?”

The old man smiled. “I am Dong Guo Haoran, a disciple of the Shangqing Sect.”

Master Dao froze again. He had heard every word perfectly clearly, yet somehow none of it made sense. He looked the old man over once more. Ancient clothes, old-fashioned speech. Had this fellow gotten too deeply into character? If you were going to pretend to be an ancient, at least make it convincing. What ancient man spoke perfectly standard Mandarin? Suspecting someone was playing a joke on him, he turned his head and shouted around the temple, “Monkey! Monkey…”

The old man was taken aback as well. “I only just arrived here myself. I haven’t seen any monkeys. Are there monkeys in the nearby mountains?”

No answer came from Monkey. How he had ended up here was a mystery, but anyone capable of getting him out of that ancient tomb was certainly no ordinary person. Master Dao’s voice sank.

“Old brother, what path are you on?”

The old man smiled. “The Shangqing Sect naturally walks the righteous path.”

Master Dao gave a cold laugh. “Old brother, if you keep this up, there’s no point. Let’s speak plainly.”

“Very well.” The old man nodded. “I have been gravely wounded and do not have much time left. You may not understand what I mean, but you need only remember one thing. The Shangqing Sect is also in Ziyun Commandery, a little over three hundred li from here. There is a river not far below this mountain. Follow the current downstream. When you reach a waterfall plunging from a sheer cliff, stop there. The Shangqing Sect lies in that place of rare natural grace. Have you remembered?”

When he finished speaking, the old man straightened into a cross-legged posture. One palm turned gently before his chest, then pushed outward. Master Dao’s face changed instantly. An invisible force seized him, locking his entire body so completely that he could not move. Then he floated gently up from the floor. The shock in his heart was difficult to describe. He had never imagined that anyone in the world could possess internal force this profound. It was so deep that it exceeded anything he could conceive. He had always believed his own attainment made him one of the foremost experts in the jianghu. Now, by comparison, he was like a pearl the size of a grain of rice trying to rival the brilliant moon. There was always a heaven beyond heaven, and a man beyond man. The ancients truly did not deceive me!

The old man suddenly struck himself in the chest with one palm and spat out a mouthful of blood. The blood gathered into a sphere and floated in midair. He thrust a finger into the blood sphere suspended before him and stirred rapidly. One blood-red talisman glyph after another sprang from the sphere, floated outward, and began circling Master Dao’s body. The bizarre, miraculous sight left Master Dao deeply shaken. Such exquisite control of internal force was beyond even his wildest dreams. More and more glyphs emerged as the blood sphere steadily shrank. At last it vanished completely, leaving thirty-six blood-red talisman glyphs revolving around Master Dao.

The old man abruptly began moving both hands. Master Dao, still suspended in the air, started rotating with them, turning up and down, left and right. The old man struck out palm after palm. Every blow landed on one of the spinning blood-red glyphs. Each glyph contracted instantly into a streak of red light and shot with unerring precision into one of Master Dao’s acupoints and meridians. The sensation of something boring alive into his body was so painful that cold sweat poured from him. When all thirty-six blood-red glyphs had been driven into his body, the old man’s flying hands came to a halt, one palm standing upright. Master Dao slowly descended and settled cross-legged on the floor opposite him, staring at him dumbstruck.

The solemn look on the old man’s face softened into another smile. The light in his keen eyes, however, had dimmed, and his voice was weak.

“Using a secret art of the Shangqing Sect, I transformed what remained of my lifelong cultivation into the Thirty-Six Protective Talismans and placed them within you to guard you and ward off evil. If you follow the route I gave you, they should be enough to see you safely to the Shangqing Sect. My injuries are too severe. My life is at its end, and I can no longer return to the sect. To meet you, young fellow, at the very end of my life is my good fortune, and also the Shangqing Sect’s. For you to meet me is likewise your good fortune. We may take it that there is a master-disciple affinity between us. Becoming my disciple is surely better than staying in this mountain hollow as some common villager in a chaotic age. I imagine you have no reason to refuse. When you reach the Shangqing Sect, tell them you are my disciple. The protective talismans I placed inside you are proof. They will believe you.”

Master Dao blinked at him, trying to digest what he had just heard. The old man reached into his robe and took out a bronze mirror, which he handed over.

“I have all but lost my life for this object. Tang Mu, Sect Leader of the Shangqing Sect, is my senior brother. Take this to the Shangqing Sect and give it to him. Remember this well: you must not show it to anyone else. It may only be handed to my senior brother in person. Under no circumstances can it fall into anyone else’s hands. Do you understand?”

Master Dao nodded almost unconsciously. He accepted the bronze mirror and turned it over in his hands. His thoughts churned with uncertainty. This… this looked very much like the ancient bronze mirror he had removed from the Guanyin statue. He could not be sure. He had not examined it closely at the time. But the mirror in his hands looked extraordinarily similar. He raised his head and looked at the old man. What he had just witnessed had made him begin to believe something beyond reason, yet this bronze mirror dragged him partway back toward reality.

He wanted to ask a question. But the moment he opened his mouth, the old man closed both eyes, still smiling, and toppled cleanly forward onto him. “Old brother! Old brother…” Master Dao called to him twice and patted him, but there was no response. He put a hand beneath the old man’s nose, then checked the pulse at his neck. Dead. After repeatedly confirming that the old man truly was dead, Master Dao sat there stunned for a long while. If this was someone fooling him or playing a joke, there was no need to make it this convincing. The man was genuinely dead.

He slowly laid the old man’s body flat and looked again at the bronze mirror in his hand. Only then did he notice that he, too, was wearing ancient-style clothing. His palms were not shaped like his own hands. Something felt strange on top of his head. He reached up, touched it, then gave it a tug. Pain! It was a real topknot.

He scrambled to his feet and looked around. Just then, a harsh caw sounded outside, like the cry of a crow. Master Dao quickly headed for the door, wanting to see what lay outside and confirm something for himself. He pulled back the bolt, opened the doors, and stepped onto the stone stairs beyond. Mountain ridges rolled away beneath a bright moon. Cold stars filled the night sky. Another harsh caw came from a large tree outside, drawing his attention. It did indeed seem to be a crow. Yet its eyes were clearly visible in the darkness, faint red light glowing from them. And it seemed to be staring at the bronze mirror in his hand.

The red light in the crow’s eyes flared. Its wings spread, and its body burst into a cloud of black mist that rushed toward him. The front of the mist condensed into a human shape, one arm swinging a gleaming broad saber down at him. Master Dao had never heard of anything so bizarre, much less seen it. Startled badly, he dodged on instinct, but this body seemed unable to keep pace with the reactions he was accustomed to. The saber was about to take his life. In sudden panic, he threw up an arm to block it by reflex. A stream of heat surged down that arm and burst from his palm. His palm burned fiercely. A streak of red light shot out and transformed into a gigantic blood-red talisman glyph, slamming head-on into the crow creature charging him.

Boom! A sound like muffled thunder rolled through the night. The instant the crow creature struck the blood-red glyph, it was blasted apart into drifting smoke. The blood-red glyph vanished with it. Master Dao remained frozen for a moment, one arm still raised, his waist bent sideways. Had he done that? He could not help remembering what the old man had said after passing on the secret art. Damn. Outside looked a little dangerous. Master Dao spun around and sprang backward into the temple. He shut the doors at once, then quickly extinguished the torch inside…

[End of Chapter 2]