Divine Talisman

Lady Snow.

Su Che muttered the name and finally remembered who she was.

Looking at this pretty female ghost with skin like congealed cream and pale violet lips, Su Che remembered who she was.

Her identity was rather special.

There were three waterways around Shanyin County. One of them originated in Guobei County, flowed east into Shanyin, then passed through two more counties before turning north and flowing straight into the great river.

The court's official name for this water system was White Cang River, while ordinary folk called this stretch of river the White Cang River.

Mountains had mountain spirits; waters had water monsters.

This Lady Snow was a water monster of the Guobei-to-Shanyin stretch of the White Cang River.

In the records kept by the court's mounted secret police, Lady Snow's file fell under Guobei County: a water monster dwelling in Guobei.

Su Che remembered that the dossier had deliberately or casually mentioned one line.

She aspired to the Divine Path.

Xue Fu looked at the two little fellows who called themselves disciples of the Yin-Yang Dharma King.

She had attained the Dao long ago. A hundred years earlier, she had cultivated a Profound Yin Sharira and reached the Fifth Grade of the Ghost Path, the realm of "Impermanence." Her ghostly lifespan was long, and she could be called a ghost king of one region.

But every household knew its own affairs. Of all cultivation paths, Ghost Path cultivation was the most difficult.

The Daoist scriptures' saying, "An underworld spirit needs ten thousand kalpas to enter sainthood," described precisely the hardships of ghost cultivators.

And Xue Fu herself had been stalled at the Fifth Grade for far too long.

If a thousand hardships and ten thousand obstacles lay ahead, that would have been fine; at least there would still be a road ahead to fight through.

But for Lady Snow, what lay before her was not a mist-shrouded path, but layer upon layer of iron walls blocking her way.

Cultivation emphasized the harmony of yin and yang. Ghosts belonged to yin; if they could not cultivate true yang, all hopes of further cultivation would remain forever out of reach.

Thus, for ghost cultivators, their former corpses were extremely important. Within the corpse lingered a trace of their original true yang. Though what remained after death was infinitesimal, that last surviving trace was still the foundation of everything in their future.

It was like some youthful female specter, as lovely as light clouds veiling the moon and as graceful as a flowing wind returning snow. Once she was controlled by a tree demon, even if she met a scholar or monk she admired, she still had to find the jar holding her spirit bones before she could break free of her restraints.

For over a hundred years, Xue Fu had constantly sought chances to visit famous mountains, seek immortals, and inquire after the Dao, all in hopes of finding a way to take one more step forward.

At last, she had found a possible path to the next step.

Change paths.

Though the Ghost Path was difficult, there was a great road beside it. It could not lead to heaven, but it could still let her advance further.

She would gather the incense offerings of ten thousand people and use the smoke and fire of the mortal world to restore her utterly depleted true yang, transforming from ghost monster into deity.

Lady Snow had set her sights on this road and resolved to press onward.

Occupying the waters of the White Cang River to claim the position of River God was only one part of her scheme. To step from the Ghost Path into the ranks of Orthodox Gods required far more painstaking effort.

The first requirement was to condense a Divine Register.

The Divine Register was the core of a god. With a register, one was a god; without a register, one was a monster.

It was said that in ancient times, there had been Daoist sects capable of enfeoffing and summoning gods. With one sheet of register paper, their disciples could instantly rise from ordinary mortals to divine positions, possessing immeasurable majesty.

Lady Snow was now sorting out the spiritual veins of the White Cang River and having temples built in Guobei County, all to use incense offerings to remold her dharma body, condense a Divine Register, and transform herself into a god.

The thousand hardships and ten thousand obstacles within this, the countless dangers and perils, naturally could not be explained to outsiders.

Her visit to Withered Forest Chan Temple today was for precisely this matter.

Every year, on the eighth day of the eighth month—the day Withered Forest Chan Temple's entire order had been wiped out—a Buddhist pagoda in the stele forest behind the temple would blaze with light. Ghosts who received its radiance could increase their yin energy and raise their cultivation.

What was more, an ancient Buddha would flicker in and out of existence within the radiance, expounding the Dharma.

The monk ghosts of Withered Forest Chan Temple were normally suppressed by One-Eye, the monster entrenched here. But on this day, that One-Eye monster would retreat three hundred paces, while the monk ghosts emerged in all directions chanting sutras, adding yet more wonder to the occasion.

Likewise, the great ghosts of Guobei County who understood its mysteries would form groups and travel to Withered Forest Chan Temple, seeking their own opportunities.

Ever since Xue Fu had learned of this from the Yin-Yang Dharma King, she had never missed a single Ghost Buddha sermon on the eighth day of the eighth month.

She glanced at Su Che and Lin Jiugong.

These two little ghosts did not seem to possess much yin energy. Perhaps they had received guidance from the Yin-Yang Dharma King and had already begun turning toward the Divine Path.

This Yin-Yang Dharma King was strange indeed. He refused to turn toward the Divine Path himself, yet he did not forbid those under his command from taking that road.

Thinking of this, Xue Fu felt like laughing.

He had clearly died once already, yet the Yin-Yang Dharma King still could not cast off his Daoist habits, regarding the path of incense offerings as poison wine.

"You two, come with me. Walk a little farther ahead; there will be benefits soon."

Su Che and Lin Jiugong exchanged glances.

Ghosts surrounded them on all sides. If anything went wrong, unless Brother Zhongyuan came sweeping in with a flick of his sleeve, they would surely die ten times over with no chance of life.

"Thank you for Your Ladyship's favor. Our cultivation is shallow; we will be fine outside."

Su Che responded.

This place was full of great ghosts. The deeper they went, the more likely trouble would arise. In the current circumstances, talk of finding One-Eye's true body was complete nonsense.

Su Che felt it was better to act cautiously for now.

"You two little ghosts."

Lady Snow smiled instead.

"It is precisely because your cultivation is shallow," she said, looking ahead. "Once you truly cultivate to my realm, you will understand how difficult it is to abandon your previous accumulations and take another road."

Was changing to another path truly so difficult?

Su Che could not help thinking of someone.

That was Lion Azure Lotus Perfected Tathagata, who had founded the lineage of Withered Forest Chan Temple.

He had entered the Dao from demonhood, then become a Buddha from the Dao.

He had changed paths three times in succession. What had he sought?

The possibility of taking one more step forward.

By that reasoning, when he had left the Western Land and come east to spread the Dharma, he could only have had one purpose.

To seek the possibility of reaching a higher realm.

Perhaps the same was true when he later left the previous dynasty and headed for the Eastern Sea.

During his tenure as the previous dynasty's National Preceptor, he had obtained what he wanted, so he chose to vanish.

What could allow a Third Grade powerhouse to advance another step?

Su Che thought again of the mysterious Zhongyuan.

Was Zhongyuan's close attention to Old Lion's mortal remains also related to this thing?

Interesting.

The Mount Zhong Association did not even have a single expert at the Fifth Grade, yet it was already coveting something of this level.

Was Lord Zhongyuan not being a little too impatient?

Su Che and Lin Jiugong followed Lady Snow deeper and deeper into the yin mist.

Lady Snow seemed to have found the place she was accustomed to. She quietly sat cross-legged, floating in midair.

Ahead lay a Pagoda Grove. The small pagodas, only one or two meters tall, stood there like sturdy grave mounds.

Several hundred headless monks sat cross-legged there. Clumps of ghostly green mist curled above their necks, and light flickered out from within that mist, spreading in waves.

They ceaselessly chanted the Three Refuges mantra, stirring inexplicable waves of irritation in Su Che's heart.

"Monks from the Western Land used pagodas as graves. The largest pagoda among them is the cenotaph built for the patriarch when Withered Forest Monastery moved to Shanyin County."

Lady Snow pointed it out to Su Che and Lin Jiugong.

Withered Forest Monastery seemed to have a deep connection with that Old Lion.

Su Che knew intelligence that Lady Snow and the others did not possess.

The Mount Zhong Association was utterly certain that the remains of Lion Azure Lotus Perfected Tathagata lay within Mystic Mountain.

The chanting of the Three Refuges grew louder and louder.

Changes gradually began to appear within that patriarch's cenotaph.

The bricks on the pagoda's body slowly turned azure, and faint azure rays shone out from it, merging with the surrounding yin mist.

Then a sixteen-foot golden-bodied Buddha appeared within those rays. His head was that of a lion, his fangs like swords, his entire body azure. Each of his six arms held a dharma implement.

"Thus have I heard: Buddha Virocana converted immeasurable heavenly demons upon Great Snow Mountain. Of these, seven were lords of the Dharma-ending age. Transformed by the Buddha Dharma and receiving the Buddha's transmission, they immediately attained the status of Bodhisattva Mahasattvas. Their names were Vajra-Hand Bodhisattva, Vajra-Wisdom Bodhisattva, Vajra-Guard Bodhisattva..."

Old Lion chanted the sutra, and a faint scent of sandalwood unexpectedly arose in the yin mist, refreshing the heart and calming the soul.

Had ghosts not been surrounding them on every side, Su Che would have thought himself back at Rooster-Cry Temple outside Jiankang City, listening to some great monk expound the Dao.

As the lion recited the sutra, the surrounding great ghosts listened as if drunk and entranced, as though it contained some fundamental secret that could complete their cultivation.

Su Che and Daoist Lin, however, could only stare at one another with wide eyes.

Suddenly, Old Lion's chanting voice grew lower and lower, while his radiance shrank smaller and smaller.

In the space of a moment, he vanished completely, and even the yin mist blanketing the surroundings gradually thinned.

In an instant, a bell seemed to ring faintly between heaven and earth. Su Che felt a clear current surge through his body, nourishing him from his niwan palace to every part of him. It was indescribably pleasant.

His wrist suddenly grew heavy. At some unknown moment, something had appeared upon it.