They were also waiting for the Jidu Shrine to appear.
The heavy rain continued for another seven days.
Cui Jiuyang had recovered. His cultivation, now approaching ultimate unity, had already transformed his constitution, and many of his injuries healed rapidly as spiritual energy circulated through his body.
Every day, Ninth Lady cradled the iron box containing her Ji River ghost masks, examining one Nuo Mask and stroking another, unable to put them down.
Cui Jiuyang could tell, however, that Ninth Lady's soul had become deeply entwined with the Nuo Masks. It could now be said that the masks were Ninth Lady, and Ninth Lady was the masks.
When Old Man Xiang was not speaking, he liked to stand in the covered corridor and gaze out at the long street, often for an entire day.
Only after asking Meng Da and Meng Er did Cui Jiuyang learn that he was looking toward the Fuxiang Commercial Association.
The Turtle Chancellor had nothing to do. Each day, he merely counted off the days on his fingers. With the Jidu Shrine about to appear, he seemed somewhat nervous.
When he lay on his back snoring, Cui Jiuyang sometimes heard him talking in his sleep, saying things like "This old servant is ashamed" and "My lord is wise."
During those seven days, Abe finally gave birth to an evil ghost on the sixth day-this was the Demon Horned Imperial Guard Reincarnation Method.
By entering a woman's body and being born anew, the Shikigami could deceive the underworld's cycle of reincarnation and draw upon its boundless yin energy to recover. It was the fastest method of restoration Abe could devise.
The battle with the Giant Softshell Turtle had almost shattered the Demon Horned Imperial Guard. Without this method, they would have no strength to fight when the Jidu Shrine appeared.
That Chinaman named Cui possessed mysterious spells, and they still could not tell which school he belonged to.
The woman wearing a ghost mask was a Nuo Mask priestess. They had witnessed her abilities at the Water God's cenotaph that day, and she was no ordinary opponent either.
Abe's vitality was now severely depleted, but she willingly accepted it for the chance to serve the Emperor of Japan, even feeling excitement and fervor.
Togo finally suppressed the rampaging insects and returned most of them to dormancy...
But his body was already riddled with holes.
A fat, two-headed leech had replaced his heart, its two heads drawing in and pumping out blood to maintain his circulation.
Two enormous silkworm pupae had replaced his lungs. As they expanded and contracted, they exchanged air and kept him breathing.
His other organs had likewise been replaced by enlarged or specially mutated insects. Togo was now an Insect Person through and through.
Layers of bandages wrapped his entire body, leaving only his eyes, mouth, nose, and ears exposed. Now and then, an insect took a wrong turn, crawling out of his ear before crawling back through a nostril.
At last. At last.
If not for the black clouds covering the sky, tonight would have been a full moon.
Twenty li outside the city, beside the ancient bed of the Ji River, now filled with water, an austere and mysterious shrine appeared in the torrential rain.
Chapter 43: The offering ritual
The instant the Jidu Shrine appeared outside Jining City, the Turtle Chancellor woke from his sleep.
"The Jidu Shrine! It's the aura of the Jidu Shrine!" The Turtle Chancellor leaped three feet into the air from Cui Jiuyang's belly.
Cui Jiuyang immediately sat up, threw on his clothes, and hurried outside to knock on Ninth Lady's door next door.
Ninth Lady answered from inside. Still fastening his buttons, he went to fetch Old Man Xiang.
As he rounded the corner of the covered corridor, he saw a dark figure standing there, his eyes like a pair of bright stars. It was Old Man Xiang.
He was fully dressed, without a trace of sleepiness on his face, as though he had never slept at all...
"Is it tonight?" Old Man Xiang's voice was slightly hoarse, but he could not conceal his eagerness.
Cui Jiuyang answered quietly, "Yes, tonight. We're leaving right away."
Meng Da and Meng Er were on night watch at the guild hall. Seeing the three of them come downstairs, they gathered straw rain capes, rain gear, and their weapons, then followed.
The roads were difficult to travel at night in the downpour. Along the way, they saw collapsed homes, a sight too wretched to bear. Every patch of high ground in the city was crowded with people lying on it.
As they left the city, soldiers of Jining Prefecture patrolled back and forth atop the walls. The enormous floodgate holding back Lake Taibai was especially busy, with soldiers patrolling throughout the night.
Bright windproof lanterns atop the floodgate illuminated the surroundings. They could clearly see that Lake Taibai had risen to just below the top of the wall and floodgate.
After ten days and nights of heavy rain, water from all the surrounding rivers and streams had poured into Lake Taibai. The lake now hung above the surrounding land. The slightest failure at the floodgate would inundate Jining City in an instant.
Hurrying as fast as they could, Cui Jiuyang and his companions reached the Jidu Shrine first.
The ancient bed of the Ji River was filled with water. Standing on the bank, they could faintly glimpse the surging grandeur of the mighty river from a thousand years ago.
When the mysterious, ancient shrine appeared before them, everyone stopped in place. They gazed at the Jidu Shrine, unable to describe what they felt.
The ancient shrine, silent for a thousand years, was built from enormous blue-black stones. Translucent patterns of breaking waves appeared around its foundations, making the entire structure seem to float upon the tides.
The eaves swept upward like flood dragons riding the waves, and the fishbone wind chimes hanging from their corners were covered in flowing-water motifs.
A hazy mist enveloped the entire shrine, while reliefs of rolling waves flickered into view upon its walls.
The reliefs depicted the Hundred Clans of the Ji River paying homage to the Water God: priests wearing Nuo Masks held Bronze Sacrificial Vessels aloft, the Turtle Chancellor led Shrimp Soldiers and Crab Generals in prostration, and a wave crest supported the spectral image of the Water God wearing a Beaded Jeweled Crown.
The plaque above the shrine's doors bore four seal-script characters reading "Qingyuan Jidu." Its door knockers were two coiled flood-dragon heads, their eyes inlaid with Luminous Pearls that gave off a faint blue glow in the darkness.
"My lord! This old servant is ashamed! This old servant deserves death!"
Wailing with tears streaming down his face, the Turtle Chancellor dropped to his knees and shuffled forward on them. Ninth Lady followed, and turtle and woman kowtowed respectfully before the doors of the Jidu Shrine.
Ninth Lady looked at the shrine's doors. Though she had never seen them before, a sense of familiarity and closeness welled up from deep within her heart.
It was like... the stirring feeling of a wanderer returning home. It echoed through her heart, and the iron box of Nuo Masks in her Treasure Bag trembled too, as though it had come home.
After a long while, Cui Jiuyang went over, picked up the Turtle Chancellor, who remained prostrate and refused to rise, and placed him on his shoulder. "Lord Chancellor, don't grieve too deeply. Rather than crying at the door, why not go inside and look? What if we open it and find the Water God smiling at you from behind it? Wouldn't your thousand-year wish be fulfilled in a single moment?"
Cui Jiuyang climbed the nine steps and approached the doors. He looked up once more at the plaque reading "Ji River, Clear Source," took a deep breath, and pushed hard against the doors, which felt icy beneath his hands.
Heavy.
Cold and unyielding.
Slow.
The doors opened little by little, mist flowing through the gap.
Cui Jiuyang could only open a gap wide enough for one person to enter. No matter how hard he pushed after that, the doors would not budge.
He went first, and the others filed in behind him.
Standing inside the shrine, Cui Jiuyang was met by the damp scent of moss. Streams of water wound through empty air around the blue-black stone walls, filling the chamber with the sound of flowing water.
Dim blue lights filled the air, sometimes becoming schools of fish gathering before the divine statue, sometimes scattering like duckweed.
One moment, the lights became two bulging-eyed goldfish taller than a person, swimming slowly past the group; the next, they transformed into a ferocious Aquatic Fang Beast that lunged across the altar.
None of them had ever witnessed such a miraculous sight. They all stood transfixed in wonder.
At the center of the shrine stood a divine statue wearing a jeweled crown hung with strands of pearls. Its entire body was carved from translucent water jade, and a deep blue glow could faintly be seen circulating within its chest, like an ancient river's lifeblood sealed inside.
Three channels extended from beneath the statue's feet, winding like riverbeds, just as the Ji River had once vanished underground and resurfaced three times.
Clear spring water flowed through the channels and gathered beneath a blue-stone altar in front of the statue.
Broken clam shells, pearls, and agates lay scattered across the altar...
An ancient shrine of the gods-truly wondrous.
After marveling at the mysterious sights within the shrine, Cui Jiuyang asked the Turtle Chancellor, "What steps does the offering ritual require?"
The Turtle Chancellor said, "Anyone wishing to become the Chief Sacrificer must first present an offering to my lord."
To prevent the Japanese from obtaining the position of Chief Sacrificer, they only needed someone on their side to claim it first.
As for the candidate... Ninth Lady, who had received the Hundred Ghost Nuo Masks of the Ji River, was naturally the most suitable.
But...
Ninth Lady's soul was already bound to the Ji River Nuo Masks. If she also became the Chief Sacrificer of the Jidu Shrine, her spirit and soul would henceforth be united with them, all serving under the Jishui Qingyuan Water God.
The Water God had been dead for a thousand years. The Turtle Chancellor's claim that a spark of his spirit remained was only conjecture.
If the Turtle Chancellor was wrong, Ninth Lady would spend her whole life laboring fruitlessly in the Jidu Shrine, kowtowing, kneeling, and making offerings day after day before a soulless statue of water jade. Would that not be utterly miserable?
Even if the Turtle Chancellor was right, how lonely would it be to cultivate and gather spiritual energy for countless millennia, all to resurrect a god whose return was so uncertain?
Everyone fell silent, but Ninth Lady gave a gentle smile. "I was wretched and alone from childhood. Only after the troupe master took me in did I have a place to stay.
"But relationships within the Nuo Opera Troupe were complicated, and as a woman, I often faced difficulties.
"That day, Lord Chancellor thought well of me and bestowed the Ji River ghost masks upon me.
"Today, upon entering the Jidu Shrine, I naturally felt a sense of closeness."
She glanced at Cui Jiuyang. "If I could become the Chief Sacrificer of the Jidu Shrine, I would be happy and willing."
Cui Jiuyang sighed, took out a black pearl, and placed it in Ninth Lady's hand. "Do you still have the things Mama Liu gave us in the underwater cave?"
Ninth Lady took a withered piece of White Lotus Root from her Treasure Bag and placed it beside the black pearl.
Her expression was as calm as water. Without the slightest hesitation at surrendering the rest of her life, she solemnly placed the White Lotus Root and black pearl upon the altar.
Two streams of pure energy, one black and one white, drifted from the offerings. They circled the towering statue within the watery space several times, as though draping it in two brocade ribbons.
The deep blue light within the statue gradually brightened, releasing a faint radiance that sought to resonate and merge with the two streams of pure energy.
Just then, a perfectly round brown bead flew through the shrine's doors and landed on the altar.
A dark, rippling water vapor rose from the demon core, drawing even more attention than Ninth Lady's two streams of pure energy combined.
The Turtle Chancellor ground his teeth. "That's the demon core of that so-called son of mine!"
Chapter 44: Before the god
Mist surged within the Jidu Shrine. Abe and Togo stood just inside the doors, the woman's pale face looking faintly ghostly in the dim blue glow.
The Demon Horned Imperial Guard that had crawled from her womb had already shed its infant form. Black armor encased its ten-foot ghostly body as it stood before Abe, blood-red light blazing from its eyes.
"Good evening, everyone." Togo stood beside Abe, wrapped from head to toe in bandages with only his black eyes exposed. He looked even more like a ghost than the Demon Horned Imperial Guard.
They're here, Cui Jiuyang thought.
When Old Man Xiang saw the two Japanese he had spoken of day and night appear before him, his expression did not change. Only the hand gripping his Compass tightened until it turned white.
The demon core continuously released water vapor, actually driving Ninth Lady's two streams of pure energy away from the statue.
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