Nightfall

It was cloudy tonight. There was no stars or moon but only pitch darkness above the small town. Some lonely and dim lamp light spread out from the drawing and calligraphy store at the end of the street. When it came to the liquor store it could barely light up people’s faces.

The Drunkard was dust-stained. But there was no blood on him. Obviously he had been to many places in the past few days. Yet he was not anxious. Because he even took a bath and changed his clothes.

Helan City was ruined. Right before the transmission array was activated, he applied Immeasurable and managed to disturb the turning of the Qi of Heaven and Earth. He knew that neither Haotian nor Ning Que was able to return to Chang’an. Therefore he had nothing to worry about. He believed that throughout the long journey no one could run faster and travel longer than him because of his Distanceless State. Just like in the everlasting journey of cultivation, no one could live longer or travel further than he did.

However he was a bit pale and tired. He was sneak attacked by Ning Que, lost a hand and severely wounded. Even someone like him could not recover soon.

“I’ve been looking for you,” the Drunkard looked at Sangsang and said. The dim light from some distance was reflected horrifyingly in his eyes, and made him seem like a wandering nocturnal beast in the wild.

“But I never expected that you would come to my home.”

Sangsang asked indifferently, “Why are you looking for me?”

The Drunkard said solemnly, “You make me fear. Therefore I have to kill you as soon as possible.”

Sangsang replied, “You never made me fear. But I want to kill you too.”

Upon hearing this absurdity the Drunkard burst into laughter.

Now she was merely a nominal Haotian without any divine power, nothing more than an ordinary woman.

By the side of the saddle on the big black horse, babies’ cries were heard all of a sudden. Sangsang looked at them and frowned. She was not expecting the babies to get hungry so soon. It seemed she should no longer feed them with rice paste.

The Drunkard was startled, then laughed wildly. “Indeed, congratulations!” He laughed impudently and sounded scorning and sympathetic, “If Haotian’s followers in the human world ever know that you delivered a baby for a human being, what would they say?”

Sangsang said nothing and recalled the divine priests and deacons she med in the capital of Song.

Then the Drunkard stopped laughing. He frowned and seemed confused, “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did you have to become a human? It was not about the Headmaster, or Ning Que or even Ye Su. Like the Abbey Dean said, if only you did not wish to become a human being, it would never happen.”

Sangsang said, “I never planned for it. But since I am already a human being, it seems not too bad.”

The Drunkard pulled out a sharp sword from his flagon, stared at her and said, “Even if it’s pure happiness to be a human being, even if all other sufferings seem enjoyable to you, there is an ultimate suffering that you could never be freed from.”

Sangsang asked, “What?”

The Drunkard replied, “Human beings die.”

Sangsang paused and said calmly while staring at him, “You will die too.”

The Drunkard smiled and asked, “How? To be killed by you? Could you?”

Sangsang looked toward somewhere in the darkness.

“You think you can threaten me with her life?”

The Drunkard held his sword against the charming liquor sales girl who had spent countless happy nights with him, and asked indifferently.

When he said so, a sharp yet invisible sword intent pierced through the darkness. Before everyone including the indigo lion and the big black horse could even react, it cut the throat of the liquor sales girl.

A tiny blood line was made on her jade-like neck.

The liquor sales girl gazed at the Drunkard with the sword. She wanted to say something but never made a sound. In the next moment a head fell into the liquor jar, and kept rising and sinking in the liquor.

Sangsang looked at the floating head of the liquor salesgirl and kept silent. It seemed that she was pondering on something.

“What you are trying to do, Li Manman had tried too… The so-called most virtuous and moral Eldest Brother of the Academy could even go so far as to threaten his enemy with the innocent sister-in-law. Don’t you think it’s indeed funny?”

The Drunkard killed the woman he liked with his sword, and didn’t seem disturbed. He held the bloody sword from the flagon, stared at Sangsang and said, “I said nothing back then. But it did not mean I would ever be threatened. You thought you could also try that? You already fell into the human world. The divine kingdom will become our eternal paradise. We will enjoy eternity, immortality and endless worship. The meaning of life lies in eternity. Nothing could be compared with this. Not even love.”

He ranked highly in the human world, or even throughout the human history. For ordinary people he was a living god. But now with the bloody sword in his hand he seemed more like a devil.

Sangsang used to think that for human beings there had to be something more important than their own lives. Now it seemed to be her misunderstanding. Or perhaps because the people she knew well previously were all from the Academy, the City of Wei and Chang’an. And they were born different.

No matter what kind of person the Drunkard was, or whether he no longer regarded himself as a human being, she had to kill him tonight. She took out the abacus and started counting.

It was very simple movements. She pushed up and down the beads on the abacus with her slim fingers. They made clear and melodious sounds, not like the zither nor the war drums. It sounded more like a frame drum.

The clouds thickened above the small town. Then some chilling wind came from the north. The moisture in the clouds was transformed into water drops and a storm was formed.

Heavy rain fell. Rain fell in the small town and washed the houses already robbed by refugees. It washed the greasy cloth in the butcher shop. Perhaps the cloth was too greasy and the rain got annoyed. The rain drops turned into sharp knives and cut the cloth into pieces. Then the building of the butcher shop was smashed and collapsed in a few seconds. The blood stains and grease on the ground for years were cleaned by the pouring rain. It flowed into the crack that the Butcher chopped accidentally and reached deep down toward the underground river.

Following the butcher shop, the liquor store was the next to be destroyed. The distiller’s yeast stored in the back was smashed by the rain. The rain fell into the liquor jar and diluted the not so strong liquid. The head of the liquor sales girl disappeared in the diluted liquor. Upon a crack the liquor jar broke into pieces. The liquor splashed in the store and eroded whatever it met in the house. In a blink the house collapsed.

The storm in the chilling night was generated by the abacus in Sangsang’s hand and formed by her will, Haotian’s will, hence the Heaven’s will. Now she could no longer use her psyche to drive the Qi of Heaven and Earth and turn it into storm to help her fight. She no longer had the divine power. What she was doing now was imitating. She tried to write talismans like Ning Que did, turn her will into psyche and convey to Heaven and Earth.

She applied the divine plan to imitate some skills of human cultivators. As long as she could calculate, she could make the perfect imitation. Therefore once she learnt how to write talismans like Ning Que did, she made a divine talisman. After all, she used to be Haotian. She could easily surpass human beings either in learning or cultivation. The horrifying storm once hit Chang’an. The talisman she just wrote was the same as what Yan Se and Ning Que wrote previously. It was the legendary Well Talisman.

The mighty talisman enveloped the small town in the storm. The only street in the small town lay in parallel with the line of thickest clouds in the sky, crossed in space and created the Chinese character of well.

The Drunkard stood by the ruins soaking wet. His previously clean clothes were ragged. His grey hair fell off and his bald head was revealed. He seemed as miserable as a stray.

The butcher shop was destroyed, so was the liquor store. He was indeed homeless now.

The storm gradually ceased. The flagon the Drunkard held seemed to have become heavier. The rain fell onto him and mixed with blood. He seemed severely wounded but never fell.

The Well Talisman was divine. But he had the flagon and Immeasurable. Although Sangsang demonstrated her incredibly gifted learning and cultivating skills, she could never defeat him. It was because she could never surpass the Five State through learning and imitating.

Some wet hair blocked his vision while he stared at Sangsang miserably and vigilantly.

He did not care about being homeless. Because his future home would definitely be an awe-inspiring hall in the divine kingdom. As much as he wished to kill Sangsang, he had to figure out something else first.

Where was Ning Que?

What really bothered the Drunkard was that Ning Que never showed up. He was severely wounded by Ning Que. Although Ning Que was also wounded, he knew that he could recover much faster than himself.

Like what the Academy had always predicted, his body was already very rotten. Rotten but still alive. Yet it was almost impossible for him to recover from a wound or any other matters. Therefore he had always been anxious.

Where was Ning Que?

Sangsang had no idea of his whereabouts now. Nor did she need to know. When they left the Helan City, no matter where he was delivered to the Front Gate of Devil’s Doctrine, Chengjing, the West-Hill, or even Chang’an, he would come here eventually.

Because she was here. Even if he could not arrive soon, his arrow should.

The sounds of the rain and the beads on the abacus ceased. It was nothing but quietness throughout the small town. Previously the indigo lion lifted a forepaw to shelter the two babies from the rain. And now it proceeded gradually into the darkness together with the big black horse.

“One nine eight nine, zero three zero nine,” Sangsang suddenly uttered two series of numbers. She lowered her head and looked at the abacus and the shape formed by the beads. Her voice was very tender yet distinctive. It was carried away by the wind toward somewhere far away in the north.

Two days ago when they were facing a sea of flowers in the cliffs outside the Helan City, she said the same two series of numbers when she tried to help Ning Que shoot the Abbey Dean. Now she said them again obviously for Ning Que. But why? They were exactly the same with the numbers she said two days ago. Why was that?

The Drunkard’s pupils constricted while he whistled and disappeared via the Qi of Heaven and Earth toward some hundreds or thousands of miles away.

In the next moment he returned to the same spot from hundreds or thousands of miles away.

He seemed to have never left nor did anything.

Upon a whiz, something passed behind by him. The arrow came behind him. He escaped from that arrow.

He seemed slightly stunned when he saw an arrow pinned on a broken door of the pawnshop. The tip of the arrow did not go deep into the door. After swinging the wind for a few seconds it fell onto the ground.

…