Xiang Xian raised his hand a second time, summoning his personal pouch. With a shake, he retrieved all his searched items and fastened the wooden plaque to his waist.
Wanyan Zonghan stared fixedly at Xiang Xian’s movements, face pale. Moments later, an idea struck him—he felt the urge to recruit him.
“Warrior!” Wanyan Zonghan sheathed his sword, bending with grace. “With such skills, why serve under others? I was blind earlier…”
Xiang Xian did not draw his sword but walked toward Wanyan Zonghan. In the next instant, his figure vanished!
The soldiers shouted in alarm. Then, the doors and windows of Buddha Palace Temple’s first floor shattered, and over a hundred personal guards were flung out from all sides. Xiang Xian flashed and appeared before Wanyan Zonghan.
“Weak Song, weak Song,” Xiang Xian’s voice said. “You keep calling it weak Song—let me show you what weak Song is really like!”
Xiang Xian did not unsheathe the Pei Sword. With empty hands, he assumed the Taizu Long Fist stance—a style Wanyan Zonghan had once learned from Han advisors. As he instinctively raised his hands to block, Xiang Xian’s punch was no ordinary mortal strike. It bore down with the force of a thousand jun, Mount Tai Pressing Top, impossible to block.
Wanyan Zonghan took a punch square to the face, the sound of cracking bones echoing. Xiang Xian shifted his fist form, sidestepped with a sweeping kick to lift him, then delivered a flashy spinning strike that sent the two-hundred-jin body of Wanyan Zonghan soaring lightly into the air. With a clang, he crashed into the great bell outside Buddha Palace Temple’s main gate.
Everyone cried out in terror. Xiang Xian retreated, arrows raining down like a storm, but he dodged into the Shakyamuni Pagoda of Buddha Palace Temple. Moments later, axe-wielders charged in, only for his figure to shoot out a side window.
“Great General?” Xiang Xian’s voice followed, returning.
Wanyan Zonghan’s eye socket had burst, his head bloodied. Personal guards helped him down from the bell; he was barely breathing. Thinking Xiang Xian would leave with a warning, Xiang Xian suddenly appeared beside him.
“You okay?” Xiang Xian asked kindly. “Look at your eye—it’s nearly falling out.”
The personal guards roared madly, charging to fight Xiang Xian to the death. With a snap of his fingers, Xiang Xian unleashed a shockwave, pushing all of Wanyan Zonghan’s guards away.
Wanyan Zonghan looked at Xiang Xian in terror, collapsing again, struggling wildly, his throat gurgling incoherently, face and head covered in blood.
He had never imagined he would die here one day.
Fortunately, Xiang Xian politely said, “Here, I have special medicine—red for internal, white for external.”
Xiang Xian handed him a small paper packet. Wanyan Zonghan was utterly bewildered.
“See you later.” Xiang Xian made a “goodbye” gesture and vanished like a shadow. Soon after, a great fire erupted in the Jin Army’s rear accounts, sparking fresh chaos.
Half a quarter-hour later, two muffled thuds came from outside Yingzhou’s city prison. The guarding Jin Troops slumped down, and Xiang Xian appeared at the prison door. He took the roster from the guard and checked it—this prison held Ying County officials from Liao Kingdom and monks from Buddha Palace Temple.
Xiang Xian bowed, pushed open the prison gates with both hands, and a beam of strong light poured in, blinding the prisoners.
“Everyone,” Xiang Xian said, “you’re free.”
The monks reciting sutras in the prison looked toward Xiang Xian. He said loudly, “If you want to live, leave quickly. I set fire in the Jin Army’s camp; it will only hold them for a while.”
Xiang Xian used the confiscated keys to open the cells one by one. The officials hurried out. Deep in the prison sat an old monk facing the wall.
Xiang Xian said, “May I ask, are you Master Liuyun?”
The old monk asked, “Thank you for saving our lives, benefactor. What’s the situation outside now?”
“Shuozhou has entirely fallen to Great Jin. Per the Jin-Song Maritime Alliance agreement, it will soon be handed over to Song,” Xiang Xian replied.
A monk clasped hands to him and went inside to help the old abbot.
“Has Great Liao fallen? Retreated where?” asked another young man in scholar-official garb who had escaped his cell.
Xiang Xian knew they had been imprisoned long, cut off from the world. He answered, “There is no more Liao in this world.”
The officials were stunned at first, then wailed bitterly. Only Abbot Liu Yun remained unmoved, facing away from Xiang Xian, softly chanting Buddhist invocations.
“Are you Liao or Song?” another official choked out. “What of His Majesty? Did he pass?”
“Does it matter?” Xiang Xian had come only to rescue Buddha Palace Temple’s monks. The officials crowded him with questions; finding it troublesome, he pushed them aside and entered the cell.
“Master,” Xiang Xian knelt behind the old abbot, hands clasped. “I am Great Song Exorcism Envoy Xiang Xian.”
Abbot Liu Yun had endured much torture and torment, his body covered in scars, draped in tattered monk robes, holding prayer beads. He said, “I know you, Deputy Envoy Xiang from Bianjing, the Sword Bearer…”
Xiang Xian said, “The Jin People are brutal and cruel, hunting everywhere for the Heaven’s Mandate Box. Buddha Palace Temple was ransacked, and the Imperial Jade Seal in the box is lost. To prevent it from falling into enemy hands and bringing calamity to the people, I beseech the Master, for the sake of the common folk, to provide some guidance.”
“Song People!” The officials about to leave the prison turned and roared at Xiang Xian upon hearing this. “It was you treacherous Song People! Colluding with Great Jin, slaughtering our Great Liao subjects, invading our Great Liao lands!”
Xiang Xian flared with anger. “Are you done?!”
His voice echoed through the prison. He turned to the old abbot. “Master, please wait a moment while this junior teaches these fools a lesson.”
Xiang Xian made to rise, and the officials fled like startled birds.
“Benefactor, if you care for the world’s people, why add to the killing?” Abbot Liu Yun said slowly. “The Exorcism Division’s mission is to protect the mortal world and must not intervene in worldly wars. The Heavenly Demon has yet to reincarnate; your burden is heavy—you are the one fated for this tribulation…”
Xiang Xian listened intently. Abbot Liu Yun continued, “Ying County was breached by Jin Troops a year ago. The box in the underground palace was entrusted to my lay disciple Gongsun Bang.
“I ordered him to flee to Xuan Yue Mountain and safeguard it, lest ill-intentioned people learn of it. If in danger, he should simply toss it into a mountain ravine.
“They call it the ‘Heaven’s Mandate Box’—he who gets it gains Heavenly Mandate. In my view, so-called ‘Heavenly Mandate’ is mere karmic ties. Plant the seed, reap the fruit; all things rise and fall by the Karma Wheel Turn. Benefactor Xiang, do not cling too tightly…”
Abbot Liu Yun’s voice grew faint and, moments later, a thread-like breath ceased entirely. He passed into nirvana in the prison.
The monks sat on the floor in the cell and chanted sutras in unison.
When the sutras ended, Xiang Xian said solemnly:
“The living are but travelers, the dead return home. Heaven and Earth as Transient Inn, Shared Sorrow of Eternal Dust.
“Merit Accomplished. Farewell, Master Liuyun.”
