The skies darkened at the menacing formation of a pillar-like enormous cumulonimbus cloud above Mount Bei. A blackish aura manifested below the thundering clouds where several lightning zipped, striking anywhere.
Within the aura, eyes formed from a pair of bright reddish malicious glowing orbs as the hair grew out to the waist, as the aura moulded the face.
The face was now that of a very handsome man. Dressed in a black gown of ancient Lingyu. The waist length black hair fluttered messily in the strengthening gale. A creeping bluish colour lightened the hair as two small plaits worked themselves around while tresses flowed. Two loose fringes fell at the sides of the face as it glittered with a strange energy.
With a flash of lighting, the transformation was completed. The deity entered the cavernous mouth of a large limestone cave and walked towards a strange glowing object. An irate expression appeared on his face.
A damn toy of a spirit vessel in a vat form was hopping around haphazardly on its own. It hit the rocky granite wall without breaking. Plastered on its clay like glaze were several talismans sealing its victim inside.
So that's the emergency which they had sent him to - to extract one of their own from what he deemed as a couple of waste paper stickers and a container which was easy to smash.
"Kanghui, come to see the show as usual?… Wait, you are not him. Xiangliu? Why are you here?" Zaixing's disembodied voice asked.
With corners of his lips lifting into a sly grin, Xiangliu replied, "Kanghui wants to know if you wish to wage a destructive war on the ascended planes for this situation and everything under their planes."
"Um no."
"Then there is no need for him to come…," Xiangliu answered dutifully, as instructed, and continued, "Just flood the vessel with xuan qi. Those vessels can only contain at most an ascended deity, not a primordial. There's a limitation to how much these things can contain."
"Heh, well I need a shield to contain the impact."
Xiangliu rolled his eyes in exasperation.
Zaixing, who is far more powerful than him, shouldn't give a damn about impact. This clown of a primordial deity could destroy planetary systems with the palm of his hand. What was a spirit vessel to that kind of vast power?
Mortal lives didn't matter, as far as Xiangliu was concerned.
Then again, Xiangliu could feel the effects of being infected with the human traits.
Like being judgemental about how Zaixing could even be a primordial deity of Calamity. Plus the envy growing within the material body of the powers which another held. This deity of Calamity was a calamity on itself, and everything or entity around it.
Damn the disease of mortal affliction, Xiangliu thought.
The urgency of returning to the yin celestial planes increased for Xiangliu. The less time he spends in the mortal realm, the better. Being in flesh and feeling everything, including emotions, did not suit him well.
Luck would have it, he drew the short end of the stick. All the others made excuses to slip away. None of them wanted to babysit Zaixing.
Not even Kanghui or the five Scourges.
After all, it wasn't the first time Zaixing was caught in some stupid vessel created by some ascended deity of mortal origins. He had a feeling that this wasn't the last either.
"Very well." Xiangliu pointed a finger upwards.
An instant large, thick translucent purplish energy dome of xuan qi appeared around them. The ground rumbled as the force-field encircled the bottom.
"Free yourself now."
Zaixing's voice interrupted him. "Wait, why don't you remove the seals on the spirit vessel?"
Xiangliu sighed. Frustration was just an emotion he did not need to feel. What bright ideas did Zaixing have now?
Manually removing the talismans was so mortal. Especially for his fingernails to scratch those pieces of paper out from the disgusting vat. If xuan qi was used, it could blow the entire mountain apart, given that Xiangliu still had trouble controlling its strength.
"It's faster if you break through than have me go through all that trouble," he insisted.
"Well, it will destroy this body," Zaixing grumbled.
What was so important about that damn mortal body? It was not like Zaixing could not construct another.
***
Bright flashes of lightning zipped through the pinkish clouds. They almost resemble sweet cotton candy. The moist earthy smell hit my nose - the sign of heavy rain was about to arrive. Then a sonorous boom across the skies. And the faraway sounds of the thunder rolling in for another loud booming outburst.
Day two. No appearance of Zaixing. Peace was more terrifying, especially when he could pop up at any time.
Towards the last twenty pages, the Book of Yuedu was tempting me with a warning on a faded page about a certain ritual on the next. Something about a cursed something. The writing had faded away. Then the next legible word was 'death'.
Oh yeah, so scared.
Like a warning could hold me off.
If dire warnings work, Philip Morris, one of Earth's tobacco conglomerates, would have lost all their Marlboro customers.
Yet, their headquarters in Switzerland still existed, despite the photographs of lung cancer and blackish fungating gangrene, as a warning, gracing their packaging in a couple of countries on Planet Earth.
Especially when I flipped happily to the next page. That's like a smoker flipping away the warning graphics and tucking into the cigarettes.
On that page was a detailed step-by-step procedure to perform the ritual. Mark out the symbols sequentially in a circle. And then place the book in the middle.
Time to smoke this one. The instructions were fairly straightforward. Blood letting to draw symbols - easily done. Grabbing a paring knife for some f**ked up reason, my next action was the unimaginable. With one quick slash, my finger was dripping copious amounts of blood. Or rather Ji Feng's finger. Maybe that was a bad idea - do they have tetanus in Lingyu?
I blame his 13-year-old body and po for this impulse, as well as the stinging pain on my poor finger. Like a smoker blaming the nicotine for lung cancer.
Still, it was enough blood to scribble the symbols on the floor.
Back and forth, my eyes compared the symbols on the book to the ones drawn on the floor. Counter checked, double checked and triple checked. Everything looked ready.
I placed in the book in the middle of the blood drawn symbols. For a moment, it felt like some black magic ritual on earth. But who cares? There's no devil to drag my soul into hell. Now for the excitement of the wait.
Heavy rain was starting. The heavy pitter patter of rain drops and a sudden flash of lightning distracted me for a second.
Only for that one simple second.
Real life sucks. Nothing ever happens like in movies. In movies, books hold the secret top martial arts manual and the protagonists become invincible over a short duration of time.
Well. Nothing happened at all.
Xuan qi isn't activating. Zero. Zilch. Nada. No glow, no feeling, no flow. Tap is dry. Check.
No third entity. Check.
This book is a dud. The author must have written those instructions down as a prank. I was the joke at his expense.
The book was starting to stink of an off putting stench. That was growing in intensity, to the point of me choking badly.
Did the author include a magic stink-bomb as well? The bast***. Worst five silver coins ever spent.
Even the decomposing smell of a rafflesia on earth can't compete. Those beautiful parasitic flowers, in the jungles of Southeast Asia, give off the scent of rotting carcasses to attract.... flies. Not to eat. But to reproduce.
Wonder if this world has dentists. Or gum mints. For stinking mystical astronomical books.
I rushed to open my door for the much needed fresh air. No avail. The doors failed to open.
Stuck with an overpowering stink-bomb in my room and desperation, I ran towards the open window. Hope remains… until my body bounced back from the impact of trying to jump out of it. My ego and my bum were bruised, not to mention my sense of smell.
There was some invisible force field on my window.
An eerie, crystalline melody could be heard. Like wind chimes, but softer.
I had heard something like this on Earth - in a Shinto Shrine of a wooden hut on Iki island when my previous life involved doing crazy shit like visiting deities in the middle of the night. Don't ask me why.
That shrine belonged to Tsukuyomi-no-Mikoto, the Kami of the moon and celestial nights. Unlike its grander cousins in Kyoto and Ise, it remained humble as his very first shrine.
The chiming started into a pleasant soothing symphony as though heralding a person or entity of great importance.
The malodorous, noxious stench had completely vanished.
So did my room.
Some mysterious force teleported me to a dark clearing with the clear skies. Stars could be seen. It could be nowhere near Mount Bei and Youdu where a massive thunderstorm is taking place.
Looking down on my feet, ripples of the night sky's reflection could be seen. Was this another deity's realm?
"Hello?" I called out.
"Hellooooo… Hellooo..... hellooooo."
An echo greeted me.
Here in the middle of the night. In the middle of nowhere.
Out of the blue, a shimmering white aura appeared in front of me, swirling around to form a figure taller than me. Then with each burst of illuminating light, it transformed into a drop dead gorgeous looking man with silvery hair, wearing a plain hanfu.
Yet his presence was very familiar.
Not Zaixing, for sure. This one was a thousand light years better looking despite the hair colour and the plain hanfu. Zaixing was flamboyant with his styles.
What's with deities and good looks?
The feeling emanating from him was calming as he slowly walked past me.
Am I invisible?
"Yoturuki," he commanded with a musical, crystalline tone. Despite being loud, the tone was still gentle and pleasant to the ears.
That didn't sound like Lingyu language or even Chinese.
Emerging from beyond the ripples was a shiny silver metallic sword.
Like freaking Excalibur.
Did King Arthur port over from Earth to Jinshi? Am I about to meet the Lady of the Lake? Nothing surprises me anymore. Flying mo beast of a dragon, magic… what's next? Lord Voldemort of Harry Porter?
Glowing circles of a purplish energy formation appeared and started to rotating around it. There's xuan qi around it. My itching impulsive hand reached out for it.
Kids, touch nothing that looks magical.
A touch and something zapped, causing me to withdraw at an instant. My fingers now stung painfully, like a jolt of static electricity went through them.
"Hitotsu no kangae," he uttered the words, totally ignoring what I did there.
Japanese for 'one thought' - that's the meaning. Heck, if Zaixing can move inter dimensionally, so could other deities. I won't be surprised if he was Tsukuyomi.
With one graceful wave of his hand, the formations disappeared. The stinging disappeared.
"Are you Tsukuyomi-no-mikoto?" I asked.
No answer.
He didn't even look at me.
Guess that my existence is so inconsequential that I am still invisible.
The sword rose in front of me, rotating around as though displaying itself for my pleasure. Too dark to see any detail, and its bright shimmer made it worse.
"The seal on Yoturuki-no-Tsurugi is undone," he whispered to me in Lingyu's language. "Yoturuki means the night's sword."
Then everything vanished.
I was in my room again. Sitting on the chair with the sword on the table in front of me.
Its blade had exquisite markings of the moon phases. The handle had two snakes entwined around it, reaching for a small jade-like white moon on the top of the handle.
There's a 90% chance that it was Tsukuyomi.
But what did he want with me?
More importantly, is the sword some magical treasure with super powers?