The three of them crossed three mountains, three streams, and three villages. Calling them villages was a bit generous—they were really just a few thatched huts clustered together. Dried chili peppers hung in front of the houses, chickens and ducks pecked at the mud, and every now and then an old person squatted on a doorstep, watching them pass with cloudy eyes. Tangbao’s hooves clacked crisply against the road, and it was still chewing on half a stalk of sugarcane it had snatched from the roadside, crunching away noisily.
Chen Yu carried the book chest on his back and held the brass lantern in one hand, a thin sheen of sweat beading at his temples. He looked up ahead, his gaze sweeping over the rolling hills, and finally saw a majestic city standing at the far end of the plain. Its walls rose more than three zhang high, built of bluestone. Every hundred paces along the battlements stood a flag embroidered with runes, snapping loudly in the wind. The city’s main gate was broad enough for four carriages to pass abreast. Above the gateway hung a massive plaque bearing the two characters “Tianfu,” the strokes powerful and vigorous, faintly glowing with golden light.
“We’re here.” Wu Wei let out a breath of stale air, his voice carrying both relief and undisguised tension.
Chen Yu narrowed his eyes and watched the endless stream of people at the city gate. There were cultivators with long swords hanging from their waists, herb gatherers carrying baskets of medicinal plants, farmers driving ox carts, and merchants from the Western Regions leading camels. Hawkers’ cries, shouts, and the braying of mules and horses all blended together into one noisy flood.
“This is Tianfu Capital?” Chen Yu asked.
“Yeah.” Wu Wei nodded, his expression complicated. “It’s a city directly governed by the Celestial Talisman Sect. Everything within three hundred li is my sect’s territory.” He paused, then added, “When I left the mountain, I climbed over the wall to get out.”
Tangbao snorted loudly, spraying the chewed-up sugarcane pulp all over Wu Wei’s trouser leg.
Wu Wei glared at it, but Tangbao merely flicked its tail, looking for all the world like it was saying, You asked for it. Chen Yu held back a laugh and patted Wu Wei on the shoulder. “Come on. We’re already here. It’s not like we can drag you back.”
The three of them followed the flow of people toward the gate. Only when they drew closer did they see that two long lines stretched along either side of it. Mortals and merchants stood on the left, while cultivators queued on the right. Mortals paid in copper coins; cultivators had to present their sect tokens. Wu Wei fished a wooden token from inside his robe. A crooked character for “talisman” was carved into it, and one corner was chipped off. The moment he handed it to the cultivator guarding the gate, the man took one look at it and his expression changed drastically. He was just about to say something when a strange shout interrupted him.
“Make way! Make way! Urgent dispatch from the Celestial Talisman Sect!”
Everyone turned toward the voice. A round, rolling figure was rapidly approaching from inside the city. The man was riding a bamboo horse—or rather, what was technically just a bent bamboo pole carved into the shape of a horse’s head at the front, with two little wheels attached underneath. Every push made it go clack-clack. The rider was a short, pudgy middle-aged man with a round face, a red nose, and a topknot sticking straight into the air. He looked utterly ridiculous. Yet he rode that bamboo horse at an astonishing speed, alternating between kicking off the ground with his legs as his whole body bounced and weaved through the crowd like a ball. In the blink of an eye, he reached Wu Wei and slammed on the brakes.
The bamboo horse’s wheels scraped two white marks across the stone pavement, leaving behind a line of shallow pits. Panting, the man pulled a yellow envelope from inside his robe. It was swollen like a frog’s belly moments before it burst, sealed with red wax and a talisman pasted over the wax.
“Wu Wei?” he asked in a shrill voice, firing off the words like a machine gun. “Wu Wei, courtesy name Shouzhuo, forty-seventh-generation disciple of the Celestial Talisman Sect, Spirit-Drawing stage, born in the Jiazi year on the fifteenth day of the third month, with a red mole behind your left ear?”
Wu Wei froze and instinctively touched behind his ear. Seeing that, the man didn’t wait for an answer and continued, “Is there a hole in the sole of your left shoe? And did you take a piss under a tree last night?”
“I… How do you know?” Wu Wei’s expression shifted.
“What a stupid question. I’m the courier!” The man rolled his eyes and handed over the envelope along with a charcoal pencil. “Sign for it!”
Wu Wei took the pencil and scrawled a signature on the back of the envelope. The courier shoved the envelope into his hands, then, without waiting for him to say anything, climbed back onto the bamboo horse. With two kicks, he shot away like a cannonball and vanished into the crowd, leaving only a trail of clack-clacks and shallow pits fading into the distance.
Chen Yu stared in the direction the man had disappeared for a long moment before coming back to himself. Then he looked down at the envelope in Wu Wei’s hand. It was puffed up round and plump, with a talisman pasted across its surface. A faint yellow light seeped from it, and it was still twitching slightly.
“What the hell is this?” Chen Yu leaned closer. “Why don’t you open it?”
Wu Wei answered automatically, “Of course I can’t. This… this is spell communication! It’s unique to our Celestial Talisman Sect! When one of the elders wants to send a message, they write one of these letters and cast a speech-sealing spell on it. When the recipient says the word ‘open,’ it unlocks itself automatically!” He sounded perfectly natural as he explained—but in the next second, Wu Wei’s face changed drastically. He tried to throw the envelope away, but he was a step too late.
The talisman on the envelope suddenly burst into a ball of white light. Scraps of paper flew everywhere, and a sharp female voice exploded from the smoke, making all three of their eardrums buzz.
“Wuu—Weii—!”
The voice was full of force and packed with fury heavy enough to crush Mount Tai, as though it could reach across a thousand miles, grab someone by the collar, and beat them senseless. Wu Wei stood frozen in place. The envelope in his hand had already exploded into scraps, leaving behind only half a torn sheet.
“You little bastard! You snuck down the mountain! And you’ve got the nerve not to answer my messages! Are you trying to piss me to death?” the woman’s voice roared in a machine-gun barrage. “Where are you right now? Report to the Celestial Talisman Sect’s station immediately! Fourth and Fifth are already waiting there for you! If you dare run again, I’ll be there tomorrow and break both your legs!”
Wu Wei opened and closed his mouth, unable to get a single word out. The voice cursed him out a few more times, then coldly tossed out one final sentence: “I’ll be there in a day.” Only then did it dissipate into the air.
The city gate fell completely silent.
Every cultivator and mortal nearby turned to look, their gazes filled with sympathy and gleeful schadenfreude. Wu Wei held the ruined envelope in both hands, his face an iron gray, as if he had just been struck by lightning.
Chen Yu stared blankly for a moment, then burst out laughing. Tangbao went even further, spraying sugarcane pulp all over Wu Wei’s shoe before throwing its head back and braying, “Hee-haw,” as if openly mocking him.
“What are you laughing at?” Wu Wei demanded, his face flushed red.
“How should I know?” Chen Yu laughed so hard he could barely stand upright. “Nobody said anyone except the recipient wasn’t allowed to talk! You explained it and gave the secret away yourself!”
Wu Wei was struck speechless. He really had been trying to explain, but the letter had exploded before he finished. Who could he blame? His own rotten luck, that was who.
“All right, all right. Let’s get into the city first.” Chen Yu patted him on the shoulder and reined in his laughter. “Who was that woman?”
Wu Wei sighed like a deflated ball. “My Third Senior Sister, Han Susu. She ranks third among the third-generation disciples of the Celestial Talisman Sect and is the vice hall master of the Discipline Hall. She has a vicious temper and hates people violating the sect rules more than anything.” He grimaced. “When I left the mountain, she was the one who chased after me the hardest.”
“Sounds like you’re screwed,” Chen Yu said, his schadenfreude obvious.
Wu Wei glared at him but didn’t argue. The three of them silently passed through the gate and entered Tianfu Capital.
The streets inside the city were broad, and the bluestone roads had been polished smooth by the years. Shops stood in rows on either side, their tavern banners waving in the breeze. Every so often, a cultivator in a Daoist robe passed by, a talisman pouch hanging from their waist or a peachwood sword strapped to their back. Mortal vendors shouted themselves hoarse selling candied hawthorn, wontons, talisman paper, and all sorts of other things, blending into one lively scene.
Chen Yu looked left and right, his eyes shining. Tangbao’s ears stood straight up, and it sniffed eagerly, drooling at the aroma of roasted sweet potatoes from the roadside. Wu Wei, however, kept his head down and marched forward with the expression of a man walking to his execution.
“Hey,” Chen Yu caught up with him. “Is your Third Senior Sister really going to break your legs?”
“She says what she means and does what she says.” Wu Wei’s voice was muffled. “Last time Fourth Senior Brother secretly ate the osmanthus cakes she’d hidden, she chased him around the training grounds eighteen times before kicking him into the pond.”
“Damn, she really is vicious.” Chen Yu clicked his tongue twice. “But aren’t you a genius? How does she dare hit you?”
“Genius, my ass!” Wu Wei ground his teeth. “In her eyes, I’m the biggest troublemaker of them all! When I broke the sect record by reaching the Spirit-Drawing stage at twelve, she praised me to my face, then told my master behind my back, ‘That brat is definitely going to cause trouble someday.’ Turns out she was right.”
Tangbao gave an “mmph-heehaw,” its eyes clearly saying that his senior sister had it exactly right: he was overdue for discipline.
Chen Yu held back another laugh and asked, “What about the two senior brothers she mentioned?”
“Fourth and Fifth? They entered the sect one generation before me. One’s fat and the other’s skinny, and neither of them is good for anything. They especially love wandering around doing nothing. Fourth is Zhao Yuan. He’s mild-mannered but impatient when he gets to work, and he’s good at making talismans. He can draw three hundred a day, but they’re all low-level water talismans. The only advanced talisman he knows so far is the water-arrow talisman from the water element. Every other element’s talismans are complete garbage. He’s water-element through and through. Fifth is Li Yan. He specializes in earth-element techniques. He’s mild-tempered too, but whenever he gets drunk, his personality changes completely. After sobering up, he often finds himself buried in a cave and goes around looking for whoever buried him. In reality, he dug the hole and buried himself. While digging, he even kept saying, ‘I shall sleep with the earth.’ His earth-element talisman scripts are actually pretty decent.” Talking about his senior brothers seemed to put Wu Wei slightly at ease. “They must have been caught by Third Senior Sister while wandering around near Spirit Fox Valley, but somehow they failed to notice that the person they were supposed to be supervising had disappeared.”
“So what are you planning to do?” Chen Yu asked.
Wu Wei stopped and fell silent for a moment. Then he suddenly turned to Chen Yu, a strange determination in his eyes. “Chen Yu, I need you to do me a favor.”
“What favor?”
“When we get to the station, tell my senior brothers that I invited you here as a guest. Don’t say I ran away with you.”
Chen Yu stared at him. “…When did we run away together?”
“Whatever, that’s the idea!” Wu Wei sighed again. “Third Senior Sister hates me associating with mortals, especially a weirdo like you who dropped out of the sky. If she finds out I took you and ran, she’ll be even angrier.”
“Hey, what makes me weird?” Chen Yu objected. “I’m a paladin, at least.”
“A magical knight? Some kind of magical person?” Wu Wei asked with an entirely serious expression.
“Sacred! Knight! Fine! Just think of me as some kind of elemental martial artist,” Chen Yu said helplessly.
“But that lamp of yours burns rapeseed oil, right? What kind of elemental martial artist uses that?” Wu Wei rolled his eyes.
“It’s olive oil!” Chen Yu corrected him.
“Same thing!” Wu Wei waved his hand. “Anyway, just play along and don’t say anything stupid.”
Tangbao lifted its head, its eyes sparkling. “Hee-haw? (What about me?)”
“You?” Wu Wei looked down at it. “You’re just a low-grade donkey. Nobody cares.”
“Hee-haw! (Screw you!)” Tangbao got angry. “Hee-haw! Hee-hee-haw-haw-haw! (You’re the low-grade one! Your whole family is low-grade!)”
“My master is a seventh-realm powerhouse. My First Senior Brother and Second Senior Sister are both sixth-realm cultivators, Third Senior Sister is fifth-realm, and Fourth and Fifth are both fourth-realm.”
Wu Wei argued back with complete conviction. One man and one donkey started bickering by the roadside, and no one could say how they even understood each other.
Tangbao opened its mouth and was about to bite him when Chen Yu hurriedly intervened. “All right, all right. Let’s find the station first.”
Wu Wei pointed east through the city. “Come on. The station is on Fulai Road in the eastern part of the city. It’s not far from here.” With that, he led the way forward. His steps were lighter than before, as if he had made up his mind to grit his teeth and face the coming storm.
Chen Yu followed behind, holding the brass lantern in his hand. The wick swayed faintly, casting a small pool of warm light. He looked up at the towering eaves of Tianfu Capital. Stone carvings of spirit beasts crouched along the roof ridges, silently gazing down through the dusk as if they had long since grown accustomed to every absurdity in the human world.
He suddenly felt that this world was getting more and more interesting.
And Wu Wei’s troubles were only just beginning.