Chapter 22 Everlasting Tower

No one slept soundly that night. Since the Dong village was very small, Old Man Zhang didn’t dare enter the village, and so the group stayed on the outskirts. When they got close to the entrance of the village, the rest of the group split from Qi Tiezui and Lieutenant and went into the terraced fields. The ten thousand acres of terraced fields in Xiangxi were endless, and there were some barren forests and graves in the middle that were suitable for hiding.

Qi Tiezui and Lieutenant casually entered the village, borrowed a gourd ladle from a woman, drew water from the well beside the village’s ancestral temple, and washed up. Once they were done, they felt more refreshed. The sun was shining overhead as Qi Tiezui looked at the surrounding mountains, did some calculations, picked a direction, and then set off.

As soon as Zhang Qishan had left, Lieutenant found that the look in Qi Tiezui’s eyes was heavy, and he spoke less. When he looked at people, he gave off a natural feeling of being detached from the world. Lieutenant couldn’t help but wonder: “Ba Ye, you look like you’ve been possessed by your ancestors. It’s like you’ve got the aura of a true immortal. If you always act like this, how could you still be single?”

Qi Tiezui ignored him and said quietly, “Fo Ye was here. He was in charge of the scene, so all I had to do was beat on the drums. Now that Fo Ye isn’t here, someone has to support the scene.” He finished the sentence with a smile, as if to say, “Should we rely on you?” Lieutenant also smiled, knowing deep in his heart that Qi Tiezui definitely wasn’t a simple fortune teller among those in the Nine Gates. He pressed the brim of his hat, bowed his head, and said, “Yes, Ba Ye, it’s as you say.”

The two of them followed the ridge by the village entrance until they reached a high slope that overlooked the canyon and the cliff where the opposite relay station was located. Qi Tiezui seemed to be carelessly checking the whole way, but he had already scanned all the places they could see.

As he stood there on the slope, his expression seemed somewhat displeased. When Lieutenant asked him what was wrong, he hesitated for a moment before saying, “This is a small Dong village with only one or two hundred people, but six or seven houses have white window grilles. Fo Ye’s worries are probably justified. Some of the grilles have been there for a while, and based on the faded color, I’d say it’s been at least half a year. If the villagers started dying that early, the disease should have spread long ago.”

He then pointed to the terraced fields in the distance, where a spire poked out of the treetops of the barren forest about a mile away. “Do you see something strange over there?”

Lieutenant squinted and immediately realized that it was the spire of an ancient pagoda. He took a deep breath. How could there be a pagoda in this kind of place?

“Why don’t I ask what’s going on? There are Han people nearby, after all, and it’s also possible that monks entered the mountain to build a temple.” Lieutenant offered.

Qi Tiezui shook his head. “There was some Taoist activity here in the early years. It’s not a pagoda, but an everlasting tower. There’s a Taoist temple in this forest. You see, the spire of this tower is similar to male yang, which is very different from the pagodas we’ve seen before.”

Everlasting towers were rare, so Lieutenant was skeptical. Qi Tiezui hesitated for a moment, sighed, and then said, “I’m not good at explaining it. If I rush your fate later, Lieutenant, don’t blame me. The position of this Taoist temple is very, very wrong. Something may happen later.”

Lieutenant laughed and said: “Ba Ye, worry about yourself. Sooner or later, I will die on the battlefield with Fo Ye.” The two men tied their donkey and horse off to the side and then walked across the fields. After a short period of time, they gradually went into the deserted forest. When they looked closely, they saw that there were ruins in the depths of the forest, which were from an abandoned Taoist temple. There were three tiled roof halls inside, and half of the tiles had fallen from the eaves and were stepped on. The gate walls had practically collapsed, leaving only the foundation.

Before Qi Tiezui entered the main hall, he noticed that the plaque that should normally be there was gone, and figured it had rotted away after nearly a hundred years. There weren’t any shrines or Buddha statues inside, leaving only some rubble and fallen leaves on the ground. Lieutenant wanted to go in, but Qi Tiezui shook his head and pointed to the overgrown courtyard behind the main hall where the everlasting tower was. He took out his compass and told Lieutenant, “There must be a bixie (1) within nine steps of us.”

Bixies were an ancient mythological animal that some people thought were a variant of Qiongqi (2). Lieutenant bypassed the main hall and went into the courtyard to find it. Sure enough, he found the Bixie carving on a bluestone slab beside the stone tower.

“Take five steps and follow the Bixie’s front paws. There should be a hidden well.” Qi Tiezui continued. Lieutenant complied and found that there was a bluestone slab at the end of those five steps. The two men went over, lifted it up, and found that there really was a hidden wellhead.

“Ba Ye’s reputation is well-deserved.” Lieutenant murmured as he looked down the well shaft and saw that there was no discernible bottom. Qi Tiezui’s expression suddenly became very ugly.

“What’s the matter?” Lieutenant asked.

“Why is the wellhead round? Qiongqi…Qiongqi should be square. This isn’t right. I… I can’t explain it.” With that said, he pinched his fingers and immediately started calculating. Lieutenant was puzzled. He turned back and took out a flare, but as soon as he turned his head, he suddenly felt a gust of cool wind come up from the wellhead.

He felt his heart thump and thought to himself, are the railway tracks below? Just as he was about to probe further, however, a yellow-haired claw stretched out from the wellhead and latched onto his collar.

Qi Tiezui took a step back in horror and dropped his compass as he watched Lieutenant get dragged down in an instant. He obviously didn’t expect this to happen and didn’t even have time to yell.

He immediately heard the sound of gunfire coming from underground. Qi Tiezui took a deep breath, pinched his fingers to finish the calculation, cursed, and then jumped in.

The well was about fifty feet deep and he fell very fast, eventually landing in water. The stench of rotting leaves in the water assaulted his nose as he struggled to get out. He noticed stone steps under the water on one side, so he quickly made his way over and climbed up. Once he was out, he saw that Lieutenant was missing his shirt and was covered in blood. He didn’t know if he had been injured or if the blood belonged to the thing that had just attacked him.

“What about that thing?” Qi Tiezui asked. He breathed a sigh of relief once he saw that Lieutenant was alright.

Lieutenant lit a flare, which bathed his body in a red glow. He pushed Qi Tiezui behind him as the area all around them lit up and they both froze. In front of them was an abandoned stone room, inside of which were countless intersecting strands of insect silk that covered the walls and floors. Amidst the silk screen, they could see one earthen jar after another, which were all covered in Taoist talismans. The talismans were pasted on as thick as a quilt, and even though the innermost ones had rotted to dust, they could still make out what was written on the outer ones.

Qi Tiezui looked around, but didn’t see the owner of that claw. Lieutenant asked him, “What does it mean if the wellhead is round?”

“A square one means a corpse is sealed below. A round one means a demon.” Qi Tiezui answered. “That hand just now had yellow hair. Was it the weasel spirit from before?”

“Since the weasel spirit helped us back then, why would it attack me?” Lieutenant asked. Qi Tiezui shook his head, unable to answer. He looked at all the earthen jars and talismans, squatted down to look more carefully, and took a deep breath before saying, “I see.”

“What’s the matter?”

“These bugs aren’t the key to what’s harming people. They were raised here to seal something else underground.”

<Chapter 21> <Table of Contents><Chapter 23>

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TN Notes:

(1) Mythical lion-like animal that wards off evil

(2) A powerful creature of chaos, known to punish the good and encourage the wicked, to devour the loyal and righteous, and to award the malicious. It looks like a winged tiger.

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My face when all 3 of my translation sites said the well was 5 feet deep and I remembered you need to bury a body at least 6 feet

Thank god for dictionaries lol