Chapter 72: Outside Lumen City Lies the Deer Platform (10)
After returning to actual reality, Bai Chunsheng still felt a little dazed. His eyes were misty with a faint layer of moisture, and his whole being seemed to remain immersed in the overwhelming fire that had nearly swallowed him whole. He couldn’t quite tell whether it was the fire that had nearly taken his breath away—or the kiss he had shared with Yan Yi that had made him forget how to breathe at all.
Yan Yi glanced at Bai Chunsheng, who was still in a trance, and couldn’t help himself. He turned Bai Chunsheng’s face toward him again, intending to steal another kiss.
That startled Bai Chunsheng so much he practically flipped over backwards. He tumbled and scrambled away, transforming into a small duckling with a puff, and waddled off with heavy, panting breaths. Only after putting some distance between them did he dare to return to his human form, shrinking into a corner and leaning against the wall. Bai Chunsheng wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, spat twice in quick succession, then pointed at Yan Yi’s nose and scolded, “What do you think you’re doing? I only allowed you to kiss me once! Who gave you permission to grope me again?”
Yan Yi raised an eyebrow and teased, “Then when will you allow me to do it again?”
“How would I ever tell you that?” Bai Chunsheng rolled his eyes. “Tell me how you got here first, then I’ll tell you.”
There wasn’t much to hide, so Yan Yi began to explain: “Yesterday, before I stepped into the formation, I saw you being dragged away by the Lingyu Mountain puppet, and I knew something was wrong. I figured you’d been taken to Changliu Mountain, so I followed into the formation. The current Bibo Spirit Realm is in utter chaos—I had to put in quite a bit of effort to find an area still inhabited by conscious demon beasts. On the way, I ran into a rather strange monk.”
“A monk?” Bai Chunsheng had been listening with keen interest, but the mention of “monk” immediately brought to mind the Huayan Temple in the Western Region.
Those monks were all a bit mysterious. Bai Jianghai never got along with them and constantly warned Bai Chunsheng, saying those monks were nothing but powerless frauds. If anyone ever tried to preach karma to him, he should just treat it as nonsense.
That’s what he’d been told, but over a hundred years ago, Bai Jianghai had dragged Bai Chunsheng to the Huayan Temple in the Western Region to meet the temple’s elderly abbot.
The old monk had looked much older than Bai Jianghai—his skin was as shriveled as a sun-dried tangerine peel. Anyone could tell he didn’t have many years left.
“It’s been lively lately, yesterday, I met a young banefactor, and today comes another.” the abbot had said with clear yet aged eyes as he smiled at Bai Chunsheng. “When you turn four hundred, you will encounter a great calamity.”
Back then, Bai Chunsheng was only a bit over two hundred, still at his most spirited. Yan Jingqiu had already gone into seclusion, and there were few others in the world who could compare to Bai Chunsheng. He was full of confidence, even a bit arrogant.
Bai Chunsheng hadn’t believed a word. Yan Jingqiu had been so spooked by him that he’d gone into seclusion and stayed there. What in the world could possibly stop him now? By the time he reached four hundred, surely things would only be better.
So he had asked, “Will I survive it?”
The old abbot smiled and replied, “You will, but…”
The moment he heard that, Bai Chunsheng assumed the monk was just talking nonsense to scare him. He scoffed proudly, “If it’s a calamity I can get through, how is it even a ‘great’ calamity?”
The abbot had paused, then smiled kindly. “If that’s how you think, young benefactor, then that is for the best.”
—When they returned, Bai Chunsheng had been thoroughly scolded and beaten by Bai Jianghai, and made to run errands back and forth several times in the Star-Plucking Pavilion.
It remained fresh in his memory to this day.
Now that he thought about it, Bai Chunsheng was about to turn four hundred, and sure enough, everything had been going terribly for him lately. That old abbot might’ve been right after all.
Still, monks were all over the world. The one Yan Yi encountered might not have been from Huayan Temple.
Yan Yi continued, “He was probably a monk. He had no hair and wore a threadbare kasaya patched with cloth all over, looking utterly down and out. He asked if I was looking for Changliu Mountain.”
“I told him I wasn’t looking for Changliu Mountain itself, but for someone trapped within it.”
“The old monk laughed—laughed for no apparent reason. Then, after he finished laughing, he said he had come at someone’s request, for the sole purpose of telling me one thing.”
“He said, if I wanted to find Changliu Mountain, I had to confuse my sense of direction and time. All I needed to do was close my eyes and keep walking southward—without counting, without thinking—just walk south, and I’d find it. As for how I would know I’d arrived… once I got there, I would just know. But there was one thing…”
Bai Chunsheng became anxious. He furrowed his brow and asked, “What thing?”
Yan Yi spread his hands. “That’s it.”
“He disappeared before he could finish his sentence.”
“When I entered the ruins, there was this jade slip hanging right above the main gate.”
As he spoke, Yan Yi walked over and handed the jade slip he was holding to Bai Chunsheng.
Inside, it not only detailed how to reach Changliu Mountain, but also described the traps and mechanisms throughout the mountain, as well as the treasures scattered across the gardens. In smaller writing to the side, there was a note: When entering, remember your purpose. When leaving, do nothing but that.
“Don’t forget why you came.”
Bai Chunsheng carefully flipped through the jade slip and found that even the illusions encountered after opening the main hall—ones that were nearly impossible to escape from—were all recorded in detail.
As for why only after passing through the illusion and breaking the seal on the jade figurines would a person be able to recover, the jade slip didn’t say. It simply stated that if one wanted him to live, this was the only way.
Strange. Utterly strange.
Bai Chunsheng rubbed his chin seriously. How could it be that just when he needed a pillow, someone handed him one? That monk had supposedly come at someone’s request to tell Yan Yi the exact location of Changliu Mountain—just so Yan Yi could come rescue him?
Who in the world had made such a request?
As he pondered, Bai Chunsheng suddenly felt something was off. He realized that ever since Yan Yi had arrived in these ruins, he hadn’t put his mask back on. Clinging to a last shred of hope, Bai Chunsheng asked, “Did that monk ever see your real face?”
Yan Yi: “I don’t remember. Probably, yes. He even called out my identity directly. He referred to me as ‘Benefactor Yan,’ and that’s the only reason I bothered listening to his nonsense.”
Bai Chunsheng nearly choked on his own breath and almost fell over backward. This was bad. Someone had discovered that Yan Jingqiu was still alive. And anyone who recognized Yan Jingqiu’s face definitely wasn’t some ordinary low-level figure.
This was really, really bad.
Yan Yi didn’t understand why Bai Chunsheng looked like he was falling apart. Seeing how pale his face had gone, he chuckled. “Stop pretending. I’ve known all along.”
Bai Chunsheng had just managed to get back on his feet when he heard this. His legs gave out, and he slumped back down to the base of the wall.
No wonder. No wonder.
Bai Chunsheng closed his eyes, bracing himself like a prisoner awaiting judgment, and prepared to hear Yan Yi’s final verdict.
He heard Yan Yi say, “I’ve known all along that you were my Dao companion.”
“…?”
Huge shoutout to @_nyanmaru_ on Discord for commissioning this! The chapter will be posted regularly, show your support for Ciacia at Kofi.
