Entering the Game with One's Own Body

"Anything else?"

Yan Changqing thought for a moment.

"Go take a look around Potter's Field at the end of the you hour and the beginning of the xu hour. Don't stay too long."

Leave the city... Ding Songyan's first reaction was that it might be a little dangerous. But then he thought of how he was already surrounded by danger, so he didn't mind adding a little more. Perhaps it might even create some variables.

Besides, he was no longer someone who couldn't even truss a goose. As long as he didn't encounter anyone who could defeat him in more than two strikes, he could count as half a master.

Since he couldn't escape his desperate situation anyway, he might as well think in a positive direction:

Fortune was sought amid danger!

He agreed at once, and Yan Changqing ended the exchange.

After advancing the story to Lady White being forever sealed beneath Leifeng Pagoda, Ding Songyan ended today's storytelling session and left Zhen Estate.

He didn't go straight to Dangkang Temple to offer incense. As usual, he wandered around the market outside, listening to other storytellers recount martial-arts anecdotes and strange tales from the martial world.

After a long while, he saw Li Wu patrolling past with a group of constables.

Ding Songyan's heart stirred. He went over and lowered his voice.

"Brother Li, it seems someone has been following me recently."

"How did you discover that?" What puzzled Li Wu more was this question.

Ding Songyan had prepared his answer long ago. With a hint of relief, he said, "I made the acquaintance of Ren Youyang, Young Hero Ren of the True Spirit Sect. He has the bearing of an ancient knight-errant and specifically warned me about this."

"Ren Youyang?" Li Wu glanced at Ding Songyan in surprise.

He hadn't expected Second Brother Ding to have such luck.

After pondering for a few breaths, he also lowered his voice and said to Ding Songyan, "We'll keep an eye out for you. You're also a clue we attach considerable importance to."

Having achieved his aim, Ding Songyan thanked him repeatedly before returning to the storyteller's stall where he had just given two coins as a tip.

His main goal wasn't actually to have the official forces expose the Moth God Sect's people. Of course, if they did uncover them, that would be excellent. More importantly, he wanted the official forces to secretly "monitor" him, so that they would discover Zhen Estate had also sent an Attendant to follow him and begin to regard Zhen Estate with suspicion.

Only by entering the game himself could he drag all those harboring evil intentions into the water and expose them halfway beneath the sun!

That conversation suddenly reminded Ding Songyan of something:

Ren Youyang seemed to still be waiting for him at Cuiliu Tower on Hongxiu Street to "drink flower wine"!

And he had already been waiting for an entire afternoon...

"Startled by the Vermilion Moth incident, I rushed home to verify it. Later, I got busy going to Zhen Estate to 'check in,' and completely forgot about Brother Youyang..." Ding Songyan felt somewhat guilty. All he could do was hope that Ren Youyang was capable of doing more work than most and would drink his share of the flower wine as well.

After listening to more tales of the martial world, he entered the yellow-walled, brown-tiled Dangkang Temple and arrived before the main hall for the first time.

Inside the hall stood a huge pig-shaped divine statue. It was painted with blue-green lacquer, its tusks thrust outward and its ears flared wide. It was imposing and powerful, yet also possessed a measure of broad, gentle warmth.

The Temple Host here likewise had large, piglike ears. His belly bulged beneath his robe, his nose was thick and large with a slight forward jut, and on either side were teeth that were longer and sharper than normal.

For a moment, Ding Songyan seemed to see Bajie. But the Temple Host's face was still human, his nose far less exaggerated, and his teeth were different as well.

A master, indeed. To possess abnormalities in so many places— even if he wasn't a Martial Grandmaster, he probably wasn't far off... Ding Songyan steadied himself, spent three coins on three sticks of incense, and lit them over the censer's flames.

Within the gradually curling blue smoke, Ding Songyan closed his eyes, emptied his thoughts, and earnestly began to pray.

As long as it could help his current predicament, he was willing to believe in it and worship it with all sincerity!

After bowing three times, Ding Songyan inserted the three sticks of incense into the censer and turned to leave Dangkang Temple.

With his current sensory perception, he had no way of knowing whether anyone had spied on him during the process.

After finishing this matter, Ding Songyan hurried toward Beili Ward. Being late was still better than not going at all.

Before he even entered Hongxiu Street, he saw Ren Youyang squatting by the roadside with his dog ears standing upright. Though he wore a feathered robe and tall crown, he didn't care about his image in the slightest.

Why did it feel as though he was perfectly suited to squatting by the roadside...? Ding Songyan muttered as he approached.

"Second Brother Ding, you finally came!" Ren Youyang sprang up, making no effort to conceal his complaint.

He really had been waiting for me... Did this count as a promise worth a thousand pieces of gold...? Ding Songyan apologized at once, then said to Ren Youyang, "Brother Youyang, I discovered something and hurried off to verify it. I forgot about you here."

Before Ren Youyang could speak, he leaned toward the doglike ear and lowered his voice.

"The person following me seems to be a 'Mothman' from the Moth God Sect of Feng Kingdom, controlled by the 'Moth Father' or 'Moth Mother.'"

"How do you know?" Ren Youyang had no impression of the Moth God Sect at all, so he couldn't help feeling startled and uncertain.

His attention was thus drawn away from the dissatisfaction and restlessness that had built up while waiting for so long.

"I went to Zhen Estate and heard it from someone there." Ding Songyan spoke in fragments, afraid he would "forget."

It was the truth, but he had reversed the order of events.

"Zhen Estate..." Ren Youyang repeated the words.

Ding Songyan took the opportunity to repeat everything he had told Miss Xiaoqing: whether Zhen Estate had been delaying things all along, whether they might be waiting for the right moment, and whether what they wanted to exchange might not be silver at all.

Ren Youyang drew in a breath.

"This Zhen Estate is shrouded in mystery."

Brother, you're absolutely right! Ding Songyan hurriedly said, "Though I'm half a son of Zhen Estate, I feel the same way."

He had to distance himself from the relationship in advance.

"I need to go back and discuss this with someone." Ren Youyang turned his gaze toward Ding Songyan.

He hesitated, then added with slight embarrassment, "I truly didn't notice anything wrong with that person following you earlier. The martial art I practice isn't very suited to this sort of matter."

"Which divine art does Brother Youyang practice?" Ding Songyan asked casually, without expecting Ren Youyang to answer.

If the other man really gave him an answer, he could take it into consideration when making plans or improvising later.

Ren Youyang suddenly fell silent. Just as Ding Songyan was preparing to say, "I was too presumptuous. Brother Youyang needn't trouble yourself," Ren Youyang let out a long sigh.

"Useless Divine Art."

"Uh..." Ding Songyan was somewhat bewildered.

What kind of lousy name was that? It was impossible to tell what it excelled at or what it didn't. It felt as though it excelled at nothing at all—and it actually called itself a "divine art"!

Ren Youyang gave an awkward smile.

"You can't judge a person by appearance, and you can't judge a martial art by its name."

"I'll head back first. Next time, I'll treat you to flower wine."

At that, he sighed with lingering trepidation.

"You didn't come in the afternoon, so your elder brother had to handle it alone. By the end, I could barely hold my ground."

Surely someone who practiced martial arts shouldn't be that weak, right? Ding Songyan watched Ren Youyang head into the distance with suspicion.

After eating dinner in Chengyu Lane, it reached the second quarter of the you hour. Ding Songyan found an excuse to look for Xu Chang'an and left the Ding family courtyard alone.

He first found Xu Chang'an and reminded him to help cover his lie. Then, taking advantage of the summer days growing dark late, he left through the nearest city gate and headed toward Potter's Field.

The entire route was under the surveillance of the Watchtower. Some passersby hurried along, while others were quite leisurely, as though they had just returned from an outing in the countryside.

By the time Ding Songyan reached Potter's Field, the sky had darkened considerably. The trees here were lush, their dense branches casting streaks of black shadow and refusing to let the setting sun, still lingering beyond the horizon, spill its radiance over the land.

As he walked among them, Ding Songyan sometimes felt the slightly chilly evening breeze and sometimes saw white bones scattered through the grass and beneath the trees. He wasn't overly frightened.

First, he had the "qi" given to him by Yan Changqing at his side. Second, he had already opened his Yin Eye and witnessed the sights of the Netherworld, so he was no longer as afraid of Potter's Field.

As he walked, Ding Songyan clenched his teeth and deliberately entered the rear hills.

He wanted to see whether leaving the Watchtower's surveillance would lure anything out.

The rear hills grew increasingly gloomy as night drew closer. Wild beasts howled from time to time, and faint whiffs of rotting stench drifted through the air.

Suddenly, mist blending into the darkness appeared before Ding Songyan's eyes once more, revealing rows of wavering ghostly figures drifting forward.

His Yin Eye had opened on its own.

"Was it stimulated by the yin energy and deathly aura gathered in the rear hills of Potter's Field?" Ding Songyan made his guess while looking around.

Trees and shallow graves were shrouded in mist and separated from one another. Near some of them, solitary ghosts and wild spirits still wandered.

One ghostly figure was particularly strange. Its body extended into countless phantoms, and from time to time, those phantoms exchanged places with its body.

Ding Songyan suppressed the fear he couldn't avoid and moved a little closer.

As the distance narrowed, he heard the strange ghost, almost dispersed into the void, muttering blankly and hollowly.

"Blocked me nine times...

"Killed me nine times..."

What was it talking about? Did it have that many lives to be killed? Nine times...? Ding Songyan desperately racked his memory of the Secret Classic of Mountains and Seas and finally found something that barely fit.

"'The Heluo Fish: eating it grants ten lives; it has a hundred hands and brings no ill omen.'

"'It has one head and ten bodies. Its voice is like a dog's bark, and it can cure ulcers.'"

Ten lives and nine lives were more or less the same... Had it already lost one life? Relying on the "qi" in him, Ding Songyan asked the strange ghost with great interest, "Who killed you?"

The ghost repeated its earlier muttering, completely ignoring Ding Songyan. It didn't come over to harm him, either.

Ding Songyan thought for a moment. While his Yin Eye remained open, he moved the clear, misty "seed" in his Sea of Consciousness to his throat.

Perhaps he needed to rely on this to activate it, just as before.

Ding Songyan opened his mouth once more, his voice taking on a hint of chill and ethereal drift.

"Who killed you?"

The ghost answered blankly, "Sect Master..."

"Which sect are you from?" Ding Songyan blurted out in astonishment.

The strange ghost gave no answer and repeated its earlier words.

Ding Songyan changed his question, but still failed to obtain any further information.

He had no choice but to suspect that the ghost had been dead for too long. Perhaps because it had been a moderately powerful martial artist in life and possessed an unusually deep obsession, a remnant soul had survived until now—but only this tiny bit of memory remained.

At this thought, and at the thought of Potter's Field's location, several ideas suddenly arose in Ding Songyan's mind.

His original body had died in a ruined temple on the way to Potter's Field, and today was exactly seven days plus one or two hours later.

There was a saying that the soul returned on the seventh day after death... It was also almost night now... If I went to that ruined temple or opened my Yin Eye at home, might I be able to see the original body's ghost and exchange a few words with him?

If he could learn what had truly happened to him and discover who had killed him, many mysteries would be unraveled and his enemy would become clear...

Ding Songyan narrowed his eyes slightly, swiftly turned around, and headed toward the ruined temple between Potter's Field and the city gate.