Marriage Alliance

"Thank you, Immortal Master, for saving our lives!"

"Here are eight hundred taels of silver, one hundred taels of gold, three jin of jade marrow. The Deng family has fallen on hard times, and this is all we have left for now..."

"And, and this chest of jewels and ornaments."

The candles in the mourning hall flickered. More than twenty people knelt on the ground, drenched in rain, while the family head, Deng Chicheng, stood before the threshold of the hall and performed a grand bow toward the person inside.

The old man's hair was grizzled, and his voice trembled faintly beyond his control.

Having just taken a trip through the gates of hell, anyone would have found it hard to remain calm.

Only now, he was even more nervous instead...

Because the young man in the coffin was far stronger than that great demon from before, by no one knew how much. He had casually plucked up a peachwood sword and killed it in an instant.

But judging by his features, this young man looked approachable, quiet and gentle, not like some cruel, savage embryo of slaughter.

If they offered their sincerity, along with gifts of thanks, they should be able to send him on his way.

"..."

The young man standing in the mourning hall had his back to everyone.

He paced slowly, as though pondering something, or searching for something.

A moment later.

"I don't need these things."

Xie Xuanyi stopped and slowly turned back. He had indeed been looking for something.

Something that had never left his side.

"If you have any orders, please say them!" Deng Chicheng answered at once, terrified and reverent.

Xie Xuanyi said mildly, "Did you see... my sword?"

The words left his mouth.

Sword?

Deng Chicheng was somewhat at a loss. By instinct, he looked toward the banyan tree behind him. The peachwood sword that had slain the great demon earlier had already been hung back up, and was now dripping demon blood in a patter of droplets.

"Or rather, did any of you... see my sword?"

Xie Xuanyi looked at the people kneeling before the hall.

When he woke in the coffin, he had found that he had been changed into plain white mourning clothes.

A person placed in a coffin was a dead man.

And since he was a dead man, his ties to the mortal world had to be severed.

After his "death," someone had bathed him and changed his clothes.

That person had taken his sword.

Amid the silence, a woman's weak reply suddenly sounded.

"The sword you're looking for... isn't here."

The door of a side room not far away was pushed open.

Deng Baiyi had changed into another set of clothes and redone her makeup to conceal her complexion, but her face was still haggard.

She leaned against the wall and stood there, her voice hoarse as she said, "After this coffin was sent into the Zhou Mansion, no one opened it. If you can't find what you're looking for, that means it was taken before you were put in the coffin."

Xie Xuanyi frowned and looked toward Deng Chicheng. "Where did you buy this coffin?"

"..."

Deng Chicheng froze, not knowing how to answer.

"Don't ask him. My father doesn't know anything."

Deng Baiyi said softly, "I was actually the one who bought this coffin. If you trust me, then come with me..."

With that, she picked up an oil-paper umbrella from the corner and walked out of the estate.

Jade Pearl Town sat beyond Jiayong Pass in the northern borderlands, remote and sparsely populated.

It was late autumn, and every autumn rain brought another chill. The slender woman led the way ahead, holding up an oil-paper umbrella, walking in small steps along the muddy road through the open wilderness. Xie Xuanyi followed behind her, strolling as if through a peaceful courtyard.

The north wind cut across their faces like knives, shaking the oil-paper umbrellas into crisp, rattling bursts. Just like that, the two oil-paper umbrellas moved one before the other, advancing against the wind.

Xie Xuanyi looked at the mountains on both sides, painted as if by splashes of thick ink, and offered a faint compliment. "The scenery here is not bad."

Deng Baiyi said faintly, "In recent years, demon disasters have broken out frequently around Jiayong Pass. Many people in Northern Radiance Prefecture chose to head south. There are hardly any people living here anymore... Places without people usually have good scenery."

"Demon disasters..."

Of course Xie Xuanyi heard the irony in her words. He frowned and asked, "Didn't the Great Chu Dynasty send a Garrison Envoy to be stationed here?"

"Garrison Envoy?"

Deng Baiyi felt as if she had heard the greatest joke under heaven.

She instinctively looked back at Xie Xuanyi, but when she saw his solemn, serious expression, Deng Baiyi froze for an instant.

He was not joking.

"Great Chu abolished the 'Garrison Envoy' system the year before last. The one hundred and eight Garrison Envoys who originally guarded the northern border were all dismissed and summoned back to the imperial city to await new orders." The woman was silent for several breaths, then lowered her eyes and mocked herself. "Where are there any Garrison Envoys now? The Jiayong Pass area has long been outside the bounds of legal control. In a few more years, this place will completely become a land of death."

"The Garrison Envoy system was abolished... Why?"

"Who knows? The emperor passed away, calamity swept the four borders, and in the Northern Prefecture especially, the vital energy has been drying up these past few years. Cultivators have no way to cultivate. Perhaps this place has already been abandoned?"

After a long silence, Xie Xuanyi asked again, "Then what about the Sword Palace? Did the Sword Palace not send anyone either?"

"The Sword Palace? You mean the Great Grain Sword Palace?"

Deng Baiyi turned back around, let out a long sigh, and asked with feeling, "Exactly how long were you sleeping in that coffin, old man?"

"The Sword Palace has been in a state of mountain closure for almost ten years now... All its disciples traveling outside were recalled. Lotus Peak withdrew from the mortal world. For a full ten years, sword cultivators under heaven vanished without a trace."

Hearing this, Xie Xuanyi was somewhat astonished.

He opened his mouth, still wanting to say something more, but in the end, he fell silent.

"Look... this is it."

Deng Baiyi stopped and brought Xie Xuanyi to a stretch of barren hills and wilderness. Wild grass grew everywhere here, and there was only a shattered wooden stele, its surface carved with hasty handwriting. Eroded by time, it was badly worn.

"This is where you bought the coffin?" Xie Xuanyi crouched down, looked at the wooden stele, and reached out to wipe away the mud.

"Half a year ago, several great demons came to Jade Pearl Town. One of them took an interest in me and wanted to marry me."

"I wanted to run... but after trying all sorts of methods, every one ended in failure."

"Just when my every thought had turned to ashes and I was preparing to take my own life, a wandering Daoist came to Jade Pearl Town."

Deng Baiyi crouched beside Xie Xuanyi, her gaze blank as she murmured, "That Daoist's fortune-telling was very accurate. He stated my birth date and hour, and he also saw through my thoughts. He asked me whether I wanted to keep living, whether I wanted a great opportunity. I said... I did."

"And then?"

"He asked me for three thousand taels of silver."

"And after that?"

"I gave it to him."

"The Daoist told me that if I didn't want to get entangled with the great demon, I should go 'marry the dead.' He pointed me to a place, this place right here. There was a coffin here, and there was a person in the coffin." Deng Baiyi slowly turned her head to look at Xie Xuanyi, her gaze sincere as she said with deep apology, "I'm sorry. Back then, I thought you were long dead."

And so came the story afterward.

A "naive" young girl spent three thousand taels to buy a Daoist's shabby fate-changing prophecy and brought a coffin back to her own home.

"You were cheated."

Xie Xuanyi looked at Deng Baiyi and said helplessly, "To cultivators, gold and silver are merely external things... If he were a true Daoist, how could he use money as a bargaining chip to exchange for the secrets of heaven?"

He paused.

Xie Xuanyi rubbed the space between his brows and said, "Besides, this whole matter of marrying the dead is utter nonsense."

"I know," Deng Baiyi said. "We haven't bowed to heaven and earth, nor have we kowtowed. We also haven't consummated the marriage."

"...Nor do we have the name of husband and wife." Xie Xuanyi said with a headache, "Between you and me, at most, it counts as having met once. Apart from that, there is no further relationship."

"According to Northern Prefecture customs, the moment the coffin is carried back into the hall, the ghost marriage is considered sealed. If a young woman enters a ghost marriage and is wed to the Underworld Lord, she may never remarry for the rest of her life, and after death, she must be buried together with him."

Deng Baiyi, whose figure and appearance were both of the finest quality, propped her cheek with one hand and looked seriously at Xie Xuanyi. "You don't have this custom where you're from? Or are you saying you dislike me?"

"Outdated customs..."

Xie Xuanyi's face was full of black lines as he said coldly, "I'm still alive, so this marriage is invalid. In the future, you can marry whoever you want. Where is my sword?"

This was barren countryside, with not a soul in sight. The coffin had also been dug out, yet he could not sense even the faintest trace of his sword's aura.

"You were cheated."

Deng Baiyi took a deep breath and said seriously, "I don't know where your sword is..."

Xie Xuanyi furrowed his brows, and a wisp of killing intent surfaced in his eyes.

"If you want to kill me, then kill me!"

Deng Baiyi closed her eyes, puffed out her chest, and put on the appearance of someone grandly righteous and generously going to her death. "These great demons of Jade Pearl Town will repay even a glare, and all of them have natal artifacts suppressing their souls. The moment Tu Fei's body perished and his Dao vanished, the other great demons received the news. If killing only me is not enough to vent your anger, I beg you to cut down all these evildoers so that the innocent will not be dragged into disaster!"

This was the reason she had brought Xie Xuanyi to this barren wilderness.

Xie Xuanyi slowly rose.

Although Deng Baiyi had her eyes closed, she still sensed the killing intent in the air, almost condensed into substance.

The rain poured in torrents.

After waiting several breaths, nothing happened.

Xie Xuanyi said faintly, "You are still too young."

Deng Baiyi froze for an instant, then opened her eyes in bewilderment.

The plain-clothed youth holding the oil-paper umbrella stood before the empty wooden stele and said in a low voice, "Taking three thousand taels of silver was indeed rather vulgar, and it does not fit the rules of the Daoist sects. But I believe that Daoist really did see through the secrets of heaven, because I truly was lying in the coffin. The reason you brought me here, and the reason you said those words just now, must also have been his idea, wasn't it?"

"..."

Deng Baiyi wanted to speak, then stopped. She had nothing to say.

"Give me the clue to that Daoist. I won't kill you. I can also guarantee that you'll live very well, and gain a great opportunity besides."

Xie Xuanyi said calmly, "How about it?"

Deng Baiyi hesitated a little.

"Think it over first."

Xie Xuanyi said with a smile, "Once I finish killing these 'fellows,' you'll need to give me an answer."

Deng Baiyi lifted her head in a daze.

Only then did she understand where the killing intent drifting through the air had come from.

"Rumble, rumble, rumble."

Thunder gradually rose. In the night over the remote, barren mountain swallowed by wild wind and driving rain, one dim, soul-seizing lamp after another suddenly lit up.

Of course, that was not light.

They were pairs of eyes.