Late Night Tales Of The Capital

Grey bricks, red roof, and a thirty-feet-tall censer.

Ye Que was overcome with deep surprise as he stared at the nearby hall. There was a faint voice calling for him.

This voice once appeared in the underground cave at the ley lines of sovereignty in the Imperial Mausoleum, underneath the Divine Tool, River Soldier. He had found a page of the Divine Book after a search back then. Now, the same voice was coming from the imperial palace of the Glorious Tang Empire. To think that it was right under his nose all along.

Ye Que ignored Li Jianqi and made a beeline for the hall.

“Didn’t you say you’re leaving? Why are you so fixated on that hall? Did you discover a treasure? You’re really a hypocrite! Leave, I dare you!” Li Jianqi mumbled to herself as she watched Ye Que walk away from her. Even an idiot could tell that he must have discovered something. Earlier, he looked utterly dumbfounded.

“Hall of Incense Offerings?”

When he reached the hall, the faint smell of incense wafted to his nose. He quietly read the words written on the board.

Soon, Li Jianqi caught up with him. She looked up at the board and said, “This is the main temple where my family offers incense to our ancestors. The Emperor must come here every time there’s a great disaster or calamity in the country. Imperial Grandfather was consecrated here a few days ago, but I’ve never entered this place. Do you think there are treasures inside?”

Thanks to Li Jianqi, the imperial bodyguards in front of the hall didn’t stop Ye Que from entering.

The Hall of Incense Offerings was empty. Ye Que entered with his hands clasped behind him and scanned the place. In the depths of the hall, memorial tablets were placed neatly in rows that covered an entire wall. There was a censer in front of the wall of tablets.

Li Jianqi quietly closed the doors behind her. The bright Hall of Incense Offerings gradually dimmed, with only ten or so oil lamps left to illuminate the place with their murky yellow glow.

Basked in candlelight, Ye Que looked up and around him.

Besides the tablets, portraits also lined the walls.

From the Founding Father of the Tang State to Li Chunzhi’s father, there were a total of twenty-seven portraits of past Emperors. Each was painted with a vivid resemblance.

Ye Que stood in the center of the Hall of Incense Offerings in silence. He closed his eyes, feeling for the voice earlier. Strangely, the voice had disappeared without a trace. It was as if he was hearing things earlier. However, he was certain that the voice wasn’t an illusion; it was drawing him to this place.

“There’s surely a page of the Divine Book inside this hall, but where could it be?” Ye Que wondered.

A curious Li Jianqi stood next to him. It was her first time here too. “What did you find? A treasure?”

Ye Que shook his head in silence. He continued to keep his eyes closed as he sensed his surroundings.

Pin-drop silence descended on the hall.

Not even a wisp of wind flew in. Perhaps the only audible sound was the sound of Ye Que and Li Jianqi breathing.

He finally opened his eyes after a deep exhale. He began walking back and forth the hall, going from the memorial tablets to the portraits and carefully observing all of them. He even reached out to remove the portraits and checked if there were hidden compartments behind them.

“Must you take this so seriously? Who’d really hide a treasure in our ancestral temple? Even if it’s true, who’d dare to make a secret compartment behind our ancestors’ portraits? That’s an act of great unfilialness.” Li Jianqi felt gratified when she saw that Ye Que was finally taking their treasure hunt seriously.

Within fifteen minutes, however, her expression fell.

Ye Que was searching the hall so carefully that he looked like he wouldn’t be content with anything less. He looked like he wouldn’t give up unless he found something.

“Can you do it?”

“You’ve combed over the entire hall. Found anything?”

“We’re in the ancestral temple, after all. Can we show a little respect?”

“Ye Que, that’s my Grandfather’s portrait! Be careful not to damage it!”

Li Jianqi stood there with one hand clasped over her face and the other grabbing onto her hair. She looked like she was ready to part with this world, but she was quite the friend for not stopping Ye Que.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to.

She was just too proud. She had promised that she would give Ye Que anything that caught his eye in this palace. How could she stop him from looking around? Wasn’t she doing the same earlier?

It was darkening outside the hall.

The mist was becoming denser and it was getting harder to see. In the end, bodyguards who were just ten meters apart couldn’t even get a clear look at each other’s faces.

It was the first time for such a thick fog to shroud Luoyang in the middle of winter. It was as if heaven was signaling the fate of Tang State was enveloped in uncertainties.

Gradually, time slipped and the sky began to darken. The fog finally penetrated the Hall of Incense Offerings through the crevices in the doors. The fog moistened the atmosphere and brought quite a chill.

The entire city of Luoyang sank into darkness before the sun had even set. The night market was mostly deserted. Even the wine shops that operated round the clock were fairly deserted today.

Ye Que was seated on the praying mat in front of the memorial tablets, frowning as he contemplated. He had carefully searched the hall, even rapping every brick on the wall, but found nothing out of place. He even swept the hall with his Divine Energy more than ten times in vain.

Li Jianqi sat on a neighboring praying mat with her hands supporting her face. She looked like she was about to fall asleep.

“Where could it be?”

“Why can’t I find it?”

“Shouldn’t there be a clue no matter how deep it’s buried?”

Ye Que got up from the praying mat, feeling ill at ease. He once again walked around the hall but slower and more attentive this time.

“What exactly are you looking for?”

“I think we’re wasting our time.”

“Why are you so sure that there’s something inside the Hall of Incense Offerings? Are you sick in the head? Don’t tell me you’re possessed.”

Li Jianqi stood up after speaking her mind and took out three incenses from the drawer of the sandalwood table under the memorial tablets. She ignited the incenses using the candles nearby and casually placed them in the censer in front of the wall of tablets. She murmured, “Dear ancestors in the heaven above, please forgive this young man’s rudeness.”

Three incense sticks were just the right amount for the small censer.

The smoke rose from the incense sticks in spirals.

The moment she inserted the incense sticks into the censer, Ye Que abruptly whipped around to look at Li Jianqi. His gaze finally fell on the censer next to her.

“I heard the voice again!”

“It’s coming from the censer!”

He was certain about it. He could clearly sense that voice. Even the page of Divine Book inside him began to emanate a faint milky-white glow, illuminating his Spiritual Sea.

That censer was undoubtedly a magic treasure.

It was a strange, mystical magic treasure.

How curious that it was able to seal the aura of the Divine Book and only crying out when incense sticks were inserted in it.

Now that he thought about it, this censer had been sitting here unassumingly for several hundred years without anyone ever finding out about the page of Divine Book hidden in it. Perhaps this was fate and only fated people would be able to hear the cry of the Divine Book. Ye Que was indeed the Destined One cultivating the Divine Book, perhaps the only one in existence. The first three pages of the Divine Book of Cultivation Techniques weren’t even in the Human World.

Were it not for Li Jianqi’s whim pushing her to light incense sticks for her ancestors, Ye Que would have left this place empty-handed. This was the Hall of Incense Offerings, after all. He couldn’t very well take everything away.

Looking calmly at the censer in front of Li Jianqi, Ye Que exhaled deeply and then made his way over. “You said I can take away anything I like in this palace?”

Li Jianqi looked up at him. “Of course, as long as it’s not an outrageous request. For example, I’ll absolutely not hand you the Dragon Throne in the throne room. It’s not up to me to decide, and I don’t think my Father will agree either.”

“I don’t need the Dragon Throne. I’ve already decided what I want,” Ye Que said with certainty. His gaze shifted to the thing in front of Li Jianqi.

Besides the censer, there were rows of tablets there.

Li Jianqi looked worried after following his line of sight. “Don’t tell me you want to take away one of the tablets here. No way. These are my ancestors’ memorial tablets that we use for worshipping purposes. We can’t lose any of them. Never mind taking them away, my Father will give me a harsh scolding if I damage even a single one.”

Ye Que laughed when he saw how pitiful she looked. “What do I need a tablet for? It’s useless to me. I want that.”

He pointed to the aged censer on the table.

“This one?”

“Censer?”

“You sure?” Li Jianqi’s expression was full of disbelief. “That’s what you choose spending an entire day searching the place? A shabby censer? What fetish is this?!”

Li Jianqi didn’t give her immediate agreement. She grabbed the censer and looked it over. She even tried pouring her Spiritual Force into the thing but gained nothing. Her appraisal indicated that this was nothing more than an ordinary censer, whose value lay in being an antique.

This censer might have been sitting in the Hall of Incense Offerings for several hundred years.

From appearances alone, she could tell that this censer was old.

“No matter how old it is, what good will an antique bring a cultivator? It’s not like he needs the money!” Li Jianqi murmured. “Is he a collector of censers? Did the smell draw him here?”

“Then what was all that earlier? The censer is sitting in the hall all along! He should’ve said something if he likes it! What’s he doing, wasting time looking around?”

“So, are you giving me the censer or not?” Ye Que asked impatiently. There was a hint of contempt in his gaze on Li Jianqi as if he was saying, “Are you going back on your word? Are you going to embarrass yourself?”

Li Jianqi’s eyebrows twitched. “Of course!”

“It’s just a shabby censer!”

“Take it if you like it!”

“I really didn’t think you’d like something like this. It’s not even a magic treasure or Divine Tool.”

Ye Que ignored Li Jianqi. He snatched the censer out of her hand after getting her agreement, turned away, and walked out of the Hall of Incense Offerings. He didn’t forget to add, “I’m more than happy to take this.”

The fog outside the hall was thickening. When they pushed open the doors, they couldn’t even get a clear look at the guards outside. Unexpectedly, they saw the Chief Councillor of the Grand Council instead.

Huang Shan stood in front of the doors in silence, looking like he had been waiting for them.

“Lil Ye, have you decided what you wanted?” Huang Shan looked amicable. Even the way he addressed Ye Que sounded friendly.

“Yes.” Ye Que lifted the censer in his hand.

Huang Shan wasn’t at all concerned about what Ye Que took. There were countless precious treasures in the palace. Never mind taking one, Ye Que taking a hundred or even a thousand treasures wouldn’t make much of a difference.

“Here are the keys to the General’s Manor as well as 74th to 94th buildings on the Yong’an Street.” He handed Ye Que a little wooden box. Judging from those clanking sounds, there ought to be a pile of metal objects inside.

Ye Que frowned.

“His Majesty knows that you and Shuxiao have established a sect called the Divine Sect Seminary. He has high hopes for it and hopes that you can spread your teachings so much. He wants to see everyone in Luoyang, even the entire Tang State, become a cultivator.”