Perhaps it was because death was near — a jumble of chaotic memories suddenly surged through Chang Rong’s mind all at once.
He thought of Pear White Lodge in Prince Lan’s estate, the residence of the late princess consort. The princess consort had loved pear blossoms most dearly in her lifetime, so every spring the courtyard of Pear White Lodge was filled with pear blossoms in full bloom, their blossom-laden branches reaching out over the courtyard walls. Viewed from a distance, they looked like five-petaled snow — a breathtaking sight.
In the memory, young Chang Rong was sprawled on top of the courtyard wall, peering stealthily inside.
In the courtyard, a small Lin Xiao sat with perfect posture at a writing desk beneath the covered walkway, copying out his lessons stroke by stroke.
White pear petals were carried drifting and swirling by the late spring breeze, falling upon the young lord’s shoulders and dusting them snow-white.
Inside the room, it seemed medicine was being brewed; the fragrance of the pear blossoms in the courtyard was disturbed by the smell of medicine, leaving a faint trace of bitterness amid the delicate sweetness.
The princess consort’s coughing reached Chang Rong’s ears intermittently. “Cough, cough — Dalang, rest after you’ve copied a little more. Skill doesn’t come from just one moment of effort. If you find yourself bored later, have Uncle Wu take you and Chang Rong to play cuju.” The princess consort’s voice sounded somewhat weak.
The young lord quickly set down his brush on the desk and ran to the doorway. “Mother, I don’t want to play cuju. I want to stay with you.”
The princess consort laughed, her voice warm and pleased. “Silly child, haven’t I told you — Mother’s cough has flared up again. I’m afraid I might pass my illness to you.”
Funu, the princess consort’s attendant, also came to the doorway to hold back the young lord, smiling as she said, “Our young lord has grown up and knows how to look after his mother now. Young lord, set your heart at ease — the princess consort’s illness has been nursed along for some time now, and in a few more days she’ll be quite recovered. Then the young lord can be close with her again.”
Lin Xiao tilted his head and thought for a moment, then asked Funu, “Then — when Mother gets well, will she soon be able to give me little brothers and sisters?”
Funu’s eyes crinkled into slits with her smile. She reached out to straighten Lin Xiao’s collar — dark inkstone-grey crinkled gauze with a hidden qilin pattern — and said, “But of course. By then our household won’t only have Dalang, but Erlang, Sanlang, Silang, Wulang… all little brothers the princess consort will give you. Our household will be such a lively place!”
Lin Xiao, satisfied with this answer, let out a cheer, spun around, and went padding away outside.
Chang Rong quickly jumped down from the courtyard wall and waited patiently for Lin Xiao.
Lin Xiao found him at the courtyard gate. “Let’s go — cuju!”
Then he suddenly remembered that Chang Rong had refused to admit defeat yesterday and had beaten him by several goals. With a certain vengeful air, Lin Xiao declared, “I’m going to have a little brother soon. When that happens, I won’t want to play with you anymore!”
Chang Rong felt a twinge of anxiety. He couldn’t understand why the young lord would stop playing with him once he had a little brother.
He watched Lin Xiao run ahead and quickly lengthened his stride to catch up, pulling out from inside his collar an oil-paper packet he’d been keeping there for some time. “Young lord, these are sesame cakes my mother made. They’re so delicious. I’ll give them all to you — please don’t stop playing with me.”
Lin Xiao turned his head around proudly to look at Chang Rong, and sure enough, there he was holding a packet of sesame cakes and standing right in front of him.
The golden-brown sesame cakes had been kept warm inside Chang Rong’s collar for a while, and the pastry had crumbled somewhat, scattering all over the front of Chang Rong’s clothing.
Chang Rong watched him with careful eyes, his clear pupils full of unease.
Lin Xiao felt a sudden prick in his heart, though he couldn’t say why. He stared at Chang Rong for a moment, then silently accepted the sesame cakes Chang Rong held out, took a bite, and nodded. “All right. As long as your mother makes me sesame cakes every day, I’ll still play with you.”
A wide grin broke across Chang Rong’s face.
The increasingly heavy stench of blood dragged Chang Rong’s consciousness back to reality.
The saber he was swinging could pose no threat whatsoever to the enormous serpent. Death had never been this close to him before.
What would it feel like to be swallowed into a serpent’s belly? he wondered, not without fear, and felt something of a grievance at the same time. He was not yet seventeen, hadn’t even taken a wife — if he absolutely had to die, could it not be in some way less suffocating and wretched than this?
A tremendous force came rushing in, dragging the serpent’s massive head — which had been closing in right before Chang Rong’s eyes — forcefully backward.
Chang Rong’s eyes flew open in shock. He saw that Lin Xiao had thrown himself recklessly onto the enormous serpent, seized it by the throat, and rolled to the ground with it — man and serpent instantly tangled together.
Chang Rong stood frozen. The young lord had risked his life to save him. His chest swelled with feeling, his eyes stinging.
Seeing the great serpent still writhing and already gaining the upper hand, he wiped the corners of his eyes, let out a great shout, and hacked toward the serpent: “I’ll fight you to the end!!!”
The Fire Dragons the girl had summoned seemed effective only against demon creatures, so even though Lin Xiao and the serpent were grappling at close range, the flames did not touch Lin Xiao’s body — yet the serpent’s belly had already been burned through in one gaping place by the Fire Dragons.
“Stab its internal organs!” Seeing Lin Xiao pinned fast beneath the serpent’s massive body with no way to break free, the girl called out anxiously.
She urgently roused the last remnants of her inner force to burn the three Fire Dragons brighter. She knew she could not hold on much longer. This was their final chance — if the serpent could not be subdued now, everyone present would be devoured by it.
Sweat kept dripping into Lin Xiao’s eyes, and his vision, which had been clear, was gradually blurring.
He groped about, trying to drive his sword into the serpent’s belly, but the blade was too long, and pinned as he was beneath the serpent, he could not get any leverage no matter how he tried.
Fortunately, Chang Rong and Wei Bo and the others ran around behind the serpent and, following the technique Lin Xiao had used moments before, let out a great shout and together seized the serpent by the throat.
The serpent had been wholly focused on dealing with Lin Xiao, and caught off guard by the brute force of Chang Rong and the others yanking it backward, it was actually pulled into an involuntary arch — exposing the belly that had already been torn and burned wide open.
Not a moment to lose! Lin Xiao leapt upward in a single bound. With a sound like a blade passing through flesh, he drove his treasured sword unerringly into the serpent’s vital spot.
A harsh, piercing screech tore from the serpent. Its enormous body began to convulse and thrash, and even the entire cave seemed to shudder with a rumbling like the earth shaking.
Seeing this, the girl quickly formed a hand seal and chanted an incantation aloud. The three Fire Dragons seemed to take on a human-like awareness; one after another they dove into the vital point where the serpent had been split open, and in an instant reduced the serpent to a heap of ash.
“Return!” The girl called out sharply, and the three Fire Dragons answered the summons, transforming into three spheres of flame that flew back into the golden bell in the girl’s hand.
Everyone let out a long breath of relief.
Chang Rong and the others had not yet caught their breath, still staring dazedly at the pile of ash that had been the serpent. The fierce battle just past could not be overstated — it had truly been a brush with death. No one knew what manner of creature this monster had been, to possess such tremendous demonic power. If it hadn’t been for the combined force of the female Daoist’s magical instrument and the young lord’s treasured sword, everyone present would likely have ended up torn apart and devoured by it.
Lin Xiao steadied his erratic breathing, rose, and walked over to check on Tan Qi and Wang Xingzhi.
He found that the dark, purplish hue had entirely left both men’s faces, and their breathing had grown much steadier.
He turned back to look at the girl and said quietly, “Thank you.”
The girl smiled tiredly. “If we’re speaking of thanks, I owe you gratitude as well. If your treasured sword had not helped, with my level of cultivation alone, how could I have been any match for that serpent demon?”
As she said this, she seemed to remember something. She rose and walked to the pile of ash that had been the great serpent, covered her nose, and began searching for something. In a short while, she held in her hand a pale grey medicinal pellet.
Lin Xiao understood at once — it must be the serpent’s inner alchemy core.
The girl wrapped the inner core in a piece of fine silk, tucked it into the pouch at her waist, and turned to address Lin Xiao and the others. “This serpent demon is the very source of the evil corruption that has been causing disaster here for three years. Now that the evil has been eliminated, you may all descend the mountain with peace of mind.”
She then pointed at Tan Qi and Wang Xingzhi, who had yet to regain consciousness. “There is still residual poison in their bodies. They will need a month or more of recuperation before they fully recover — but fortunately they were treated in time and their foundations have not been harmed, so there is no need for excessive worry.”
Lin Xiao saw that she was no more than fourteen or fifteen years old, yet she handled everything with such thoroughness and possessed both courage and resourcefulness — utterly unlike the accomplished young ladies of noble families he encountered in ordinary life. He was privately full of admiration, and was just about to ask her name when Chang Rong jumped in and interrupted: “This… female Daoist, I had eyes but failed to see the greatness before me — my earlier words offended you in various ways, and I hope you will not hold it against me.”
In his heart, however, he was thinking: From the young lord’s manner, he seems to have taken quite a liking to this female Daoist. If the two of them become entangled one way or another, what then — is he to take a female Daoist as a concubine? Never mind that His Highness the Prince would not agree; even the palace would never sanction it. Better to nip the young lord’s ideas in the bud before something comes of this, and save him from heartache later. And so he placed particular emphasis on the words “female Daoist.”
Lin Xiao inwardly frowned.
The girl, however, simply laughed. She was clever, but there was no way she could have guessed what Chang Rong was truly thinking at that moment. Seeing that Chang Rong was apologizing to her with genuine sincerity, she said, “It’s nothing — I didn’t take it to heart.”
Chang Rong looked at her with curiosity, recalling the strange situation when they had first encountered her, and couldn’t help asking, “Now that I think about it — why were you washing your hair by the stream that night? It was deep in the night, on a mountain so dreadful as this — we were all given quite a fright and nearly took you for a ghost.”
The girl lifted her graceful brows and replied without any embarrassment whatsoever, “I had come rushing overnight from Chang’an to catch the demon, and hadn’t had a proper chance to wash up for several days. That night I noticed the stream on the mountain was reasonably clean, and couldn’t hold out any longer, so I let down my hair and gave it a wash.”
Chang Rong and the others were completely floored. That… that was the reason? This female Daoist truly was no ordinary person.
Even Lin Xiao, who ordinarily kept his feelings off his face, couldn’t hold back at hearing this, and the corners of his mouth curved upward in a smile.