Chapter 12: Peace Talks: Animal Cultivation Is Hard—Life Deserves Reverence!

Chen Lihua brought the noodles out to the table one by one—three bowls of small-rib noodles, paired with a few pieces of crisp, glossy-fresh Shanghai greens, plus an extra fried egg added for each of them.

Lu You truly was starving. He shut the window and came to sit at the table. “It smells wonderful. Thank you for the trouble.”

“What trouble? I’ve been cooking my whole life.” Chen Lihua smiled. “My son’s loved my small-rib noodles since he was little. You young people all have similar tastes, so I made yours the same. No dietary restrictions, I hope?”

Lu You answered, “None.”

He Zhuchun also came over and sat beside him, yet for a long while didn’t pick up his chopsticks.

Chen Lihua asked him, “Why aren’t you eating?”

He Zhuchun had just heard about Chen Zhuzhuo’s grandfather, and now his head was full of nothing but scaled skin, rotting corpses, and a stench that filled the sky. His seven apertures were uncommonly keen, and his imagination, riding along with them, uncommonly vivid—the only pity was that his psychological endurance hadn’t kept pace. He was nauseated clear through.

He gave an embarrassed smile. “I’ll let it cool. The doctor says my stomach’s weak—I can’t eat anything too hot.”

Chen Lihua nodded, understanding. “The stomach does love its warmth. Eating scalding food all the time really isn’t good for you—and it’s hard on the esophagus too.”

He Zhuchun agreed at speed: “Right, right, right.”

Lu You unhurriedly finished an egg at the side. Chen Zhuzhuo had come to sit too, but touched neither chopsticks nor bowl—he simply stared at Lu You, unblinking. It was an odd picture, a man not eating while watching another eat, and Chen Lihua looked over as well, puzzlement plain on her face.

He Zhuchun, seeing him stare at Lu You, felt his temper rise, and asked, bottled-up, “What’s with staring at him nonstop?”

Chen Zhuzhuo said, “There’s something weighing on my mind. I can’t eat.”

He Zhuchun knew he was fretting over his father and his daughter and couldn’t very well say much, so he picked up his chopsticks, worked around the pork ribs, and took a bite of the Shanghai greens.

Chen Lihua asked him, “And what’s weighing on you?”

Chen Zhuzhuo sighed and glanced at Wang Jianguo.

Wang Jianguo looked even more miserable than his son—face full of gloom, sighing at intervals.

Chen Lihua had only been out of the living room a little while, and now both father and son wore the same clouded look. She asked again, “What’s happened here?”

Chen Zhuzhuo glanced at Lu You, then repeated the whole affair to Chen Lihua.

Chen Lihua went “Ah,” her face filling with worry. She said, “So you knew about Grandpa’s matter too—I did as well.”

Chen Zhuzhuo: “So I was the only one who didn’t know. Right.”

“You were in school back then. Your father feared it would affect your studies and forbade me to tell.” Chen Lihua glanced at Wang Jianguo. “Then what you mean is—your father’s illness and your grandfather’s…”

She stopped mid-sentence and looked toward Lu You too.

Lu You drew out a paper tissue, spat a bone into it, and only then said, “It can be resolved. Don’t worry.”

A pair of chopsticks reached over from the neighboring bowl, laid two small ribs into his, and withdrew. Lu You turned an inquiring look on He Zhuchun.

He Zhuchun said, “I can’t quite stomach meat right now.”

Lu You lowered his head and went on eating his noodles.

He finished the bowl beneath the extraordinarily anxious gazes of the three parties involved, wiped his mouth, and only then said:

“Let’s try peace talks first. After all, it’s your family that owes the immortal a karmic debt—negotiation, if it can be managed, is the best outcome.”

Chen Zhuzhuo wanted to ask what would happen if the talks failed, decided it was too early for that, swallowed the question back down, and asked instead, “How do we hold peace talks?”

Lu You: “We invite it up to talk, of course—do you have an incense burner and incense at home?”

Chen Lihua said they did, hurried off to the second bedroom, rummaged a while, and produced a porcelain incense burner, triangular, with twin dragon handles, an earthy brown—and inside it, a burner brimming full of plant ash. In her palm she also carried a handful of incense: very old-fashioned Lotus Incense, without even incense sticks, each small sheaf bound with a ring of red paper, ten sheaves to a bundle. It was the kind of incense the older generation mostly used.

“This is what we used when we enshrined the God of Wealth. Later a fortune-teller said we shouldn’t keep him, so we took the statue down and sent it to a temple—but we kept the burner and everything.”

She set it all out on the table and asked, “Will this kind do?”

Lu You said, “It will.”

He looked into the incense burner and asked, “Plant ash. Where did you scoop it from?”

Chen Lihua: “From the cooking stove back in our old home. That was ages ago—we brought the burner along when we moved, and all these years it’s stayed with us, never thrown out.”

City incense burners these days were mostly filled with sand or the Five Grains. Back when Lu You had first offered incense, he’d meant to find some plant ash for his own burner too—but other matters had gotten in the way, and in the end he’d simply filled his with rice and gotten on with things, and the idea had slipped his mind.

Now, seeing this burner, he remembered it all over again, and answered, “Not bad.”

Chen Lihua set her heart at ease.

Lu You tidied the table simply; the three noodle bowls were carried off to the kitchen by Chen Lihua, and once the table stood empty, he arranged the incense burner, drew out a sheaf of incense, and asked Chen Zhuzhuo, “Does your father drink?”

Chen Zhuzhuo: “He does. He loves a tipple with his meals whenever there’s no reason not to.”

Lu You asked again, “Is there liquor in the house now?”

Chen Zhuzhuo looked to Chen Lihua, who hurried to say there was and ran off, returning with two bottles of Chinese Baijiu—both of them high-proof.

Lu You said, “Pour for your father, then. Enough to get him drunk.”

With that, he peeled away the red paper ring on the incense and lit the sheaf with a lighter, flame moving from the center outward.

Chen Zhuzhuo and Chen Lihua exchanged a look, then took out the cup Wang Jianguo usually drank from and filled it brimming to the edges.

Wang Jianguo accepted it and asked, “Drink it neat?”

Chen Lihua: “Shall I fix you a couple of side dishes to go with it?”

Wang Jianguo shut his eyes and downed the whole cup.

While they poured him cup after cup on that side, Lu You held the incense high, bowed once toward each of the four directions—east, west, south, and north—then planted the incense in the burner. He watched the burning tips converge into a roaring flame, drew a cigarette from the pack, lit it, and held it between his lips.

He Zhuchun asked, “What’s the incense for?”

“No idea.” Lu You kept the cigarette in his teeth. “We’ll see once it’s burned a while.”

Firelight played across his cheek; his gaze drifted out the window, and he began murmuring something under his breath.

Lu You’s voice was a fine one—he possessed a truly distinctive tone: clean, crisp, and carrying the steadiness that came of genuine skill. Muffled now by the thing between his teeth, his chanting came out blurred, and strung together it gave the illusion of a low, humming song.

He Zhuchun leaned in close and listened carefully for a while—and confirmed, once again, that what Lu You chanted was no human language.

The incense tip kept burning, and Lu You kept chanting, until the last thread of flame guttered out, trailing off into a wisp of pale smoke; the incense burned down into long columns of ash that hung, poised on the edge of falling, shaping themselves into a most particular form.

He Zhuchun looked over, seemed to understand, and explained with a natural-born knack: “The black one on the left is that vengeful enemy. The white cluster on the right is your Household Guardian Immortal. Now each holds one side, facing off. Am I wrong?”

Lu You stared at the ash and said, “Clever.”

Over on the Chen mother-and-son’s side, Wang Jianguo had half a bottle of liquor down; the drink had climbed into his face, and his cheeks burned scarlet, his neck barely managing to hold up his head, tilting gently to one side.

Chen Zhuzhuo turned back and asked, “Keep pouring?”

“No need.” There was little expression on Lu You’s face, but his voice had gone somewhat cold. “It’s here.”

” What’s here?” Chen Zhuzhuo froze—then felt a chill race up his spine, as though something dangerous had drawn very near indeed. The survival instinct bred into every human being blared its warning, and a layer of goosebumps crawled from his waist all the way up the side of his neck.

He turned his head—and saw Wang Jianguo, dead drunk only moments ago, now sitting bolt upright and perfectly straight in his wheelchair, staring hard at him. That familiar face of Wang Jianguo’s, seen now, was like him and yet not him—the features unchanged, and yet somehow scaled down in perfect proportion, the gaze that swept over him dark and murky.

Chen Zhuzhuo’s mind went white; he stumbled back several steps under the horror of that stare before understanding, as if waking from a dream, what Lu You’s words had meant.

It’s here. Who’s here?

—The vengeful Python Immortal had come.

In the blink of an eye on Lu You’s side, the shape of his pupils had again drawn close to vertical, the color tending toward pale green. He Zhuchun found it familiar and knew this was still that Python Immortal on rotation—Mang Tianqing.

Mang Tianqing had taken Complete Aperture Possession, and when Lu You spoke again, even his voice had changed—pitched extremely low and deep, carrying the cold clarity of a snake’s cold blood. The first thing he said was, “Long time no see.”

Where Mang Tianqing’s voice was clear and cold, the one dwelling in Wang Jianguo’s body was far more rasping and sinister. He spoke slowly: “Mang Tianqing. Truly, long time no see.”

Mang Tianqing said, “Years since we parted—and who would have thought that at our next meeting, you’d have cultivated yourself crooked.”

The one wearing Wang Jianguo gave a snorting laugh. “Fellow townsman, there is nothing wrong with my cultivation. It is that my children and grandchildren were slaughtered and devoured by human hands—with a hatred this towering, how could I not take my revenge!”

Mang Tianqing let a long sigh escape. “You’ve already taken his father’s life. Why refuse to spare the descendants? Why ruin your own Dao Attainment—harming others without benefiting yourself in the slightest?”

“How is one life enough?” The one in Wang Jianguo abruptly grew agitated, sneering coldly. “One cheap life—how could it console my son’s century of cultivation hardship! How could it avenge my grandson’s death in the flower of his youth!”

“My son had scarcely achieved Human Transformation; my grandson was still young. Why did they meet this calamity—body and soul leaving nothing behind—!”

As the one in Wang Jianguo spoke, tears fell without warning. “Brother Tianqing—you know everything, yet this alone you do not know: my son and grandson, two lives, didn’t even leave whole corpses under that beast’s hands. Both were cooked and eaten by this family! My son cultivated with such diligence, on the very point of passing the Celestial Child and Wheel Track trials both—he only went to their house for his Seeking Enfeoffment. How did he come to such an end!”

For animals, cultivation meant grinding through the Heavenly Barrier Trial: the first gate was the Celestial Child Trial—being toyed with and trampled by young children; pass unharmed and undeathed.

The second gate was the Wheel Track Trial—crushed beneath cartwheels; endure it on flesh body and spiritual power alone; pass without dying or being maimed.

The third gate was Seeking Enfeoffment: meet a human and ask whether one looked human or divine. Should the human point out some place where one’s cultivation fell short, all attainment was forfeit and one began again from nothing.

From time immemorial, animal cultivation had been the hardest road of all. Never mind the first three gates—nine deaths for every life—even those who scraped through to some small ability could not rest: for as long as they remained a single day in the mortal world, Heavenly Thunder watched them at every moment, and one misstep meant the soul scattered and fled.

The one in Wang Jianguo wept blood with every word: “Now the life-debt is theirs to pay. I come before the karma of Heaven and Earth to collect it. Cry to Heaven, and Heaven may not interfere; call to Earth, and Earth must answer. I wound them, I kill them—they deserve every bit of what they suffer!”

Mang Tianqing sighed out a breath. “There are a thousand ways for a vengeful enemy to collect a debt. Why choose the most extreme of them? And if nothing else can be managed—have this family set up an altar and make offerings to you, keep making them until you attain the true fruit. That would be a fine path too!”

“Save your breath.” The one in Wang Jianguo’s eyes had gone blood-red. “This feud I will avenge—him, his son, his grandson: I will have blood for blood from every last one of them!”

As he spoke, his gaze swung to Chen Zhuzhuo: “You—I cannot touch you for the moment. But just you wait. One day, sooner or later, like your father and your son, you will descend to the Netherworld with me and mount the judgment bench!”

Mang Tianqing’s tone was helpless. “Since you’re obstinate to this degree, I have no choice but to intervene.”

The one in Wang Jianguo whirled toward him, teeth clenched to the root: “Why?!”

Mang Tianqing said, “Whatever my disciple must handle is my business. Out of our many years of fellowship as fellow townsmen, I advise you: negotiated surrender beats blunt resistance by far.”

“Then let’s try it.” The one in Wang Jianguo split his face in a grin. “Test Dao Attainment, or duel in Shamanic Verbal Sparring—send whatever heaven-defying disciple you please, Mang Tianqing. I’ll see this through to the very end!”

The tall-standing black ash in the incense burner snapped all at once at the root, arcing over the burner’s rim to scatter a patch of black ash across the table.

The windows were still shut, yet from who knew where a wind arose; at the other end, the white ash wavered—and collapsed in clumps into the burner’s bowl.

In a blink, Lu You’s pupils returned to normal. He stared at the patch of black ash on the table, brow knotted tight, his heart far from settled.

The peace talks had failed.