Qingshan Town.
The town's main road was broad enough for three carriages to travel abreast.
The bluestone road was covered in thick snow, crunching beneath their feet.
The faint sound of gongs and drums drifted from afar, standing out sharply in the silent, snowbound town.
Xie Hongchen suddenly raised a hand, catching a piece of spirit money drifting toward him between two fingers.
Its edges were scorched yellow, as if singed by fire, and twisted runes had been drawn upon it in cinnabar.
"A funeral procession?" he asked with a frown.
"Doesn't look like it." Chu Jiang looked toward the source of the sound. "It's a ritual sacrifice."
The group followed the sound.
The closer they drew to the town center, the more spirit money scattered through the air, fluttering like a snowstorm flying upward against the wind. The rule-force of the Barren Heaven Secret Treasure suppressed their senses; only after passing through the final alley did they see the square.
Several hundred people knelt in the snow.
Dressed plainly, they threw fistful after fistful of spirit money into the air. Their eyes burned with fervor, their lips moving swiftly as they recited indistinct prayers. Their concentration bordered on madness.
At the head of them stood a man in a purple ritual robe, holding a Bronze Bell. Each time the bell rang, the kneeling crowd bowed in unison, their foreheads touching the ice and snow.
At the center of the square stood a stone pool three zhang wide. It teemed with venomous snakes, scorpions, and centipedes, tangled together and tearing at one another, their stench assaulting the nose.
Strangely enough—the altar above it held nothing.
There were no sacrificial animals, no five grains, none of the offerings that should have appeared in a ritual.
"The surviving clans of the ancient