The Wind Rises

After three days, the villagers finally scraped together eighteen children. The choice of candidates could not have been more obvious—orphans like Ye Jingxuan, whose parents had both died and who lived under another's roof, or abandoned infants whom kind villagers had picked up and brought back years ago, became the first choices.

They had always had no one to rely on in the village. Faced with the villagers' persuasion, laden with the "kindness of support," they did not even have the nerve to refuse.

Then came the children from large families, the ones nobody cared much about. Old Zhang, the village chief, went door to door with silver in hand, his tone half pleading and half coercive. "Bring some silver into the household. It'll count as accumulating virtue for the child, too. The Immortal will remember your family's kindness."

To make up the numbers, several villagers even went to the ruined temple in town and half coaxed, half tricked a few ragged little beggars away. They gave them a flatbread and promised them new clothes after the sacrifice, then sweet-talked them back to the village.

There were also a very few whose faith in the Immortal was devout enough that they willingly sent their own children. Stroking their children's heads, they comforted them, "To save the Immortal's life is your blessing. It'll make this whole life worthwhile."

On the appointed day, the sky gradually darkened, and the moon had just climbed above the treetops. The eighteen children were led by their families or other villagers to gather beneath the old locust tree at the eastern end of the village. Red silk ribbons left over from last year's Immortal sacrifice still hung from its trunk, fluttering in the mist like a smear of eye-searing blood.

The Daoist had been waiting there