Entering Spirit City

The carriage traveled for three days.

Ning Buhui leaned against the carriage wall and read the documents Deacon Sun had given him over and over, until the corners of the pages grew frayed. The Soul Ancestor deacon escorting him was surnamed Zheng and spoke little. Apart from having him get out to stretch his legs at set times each day and tossing him dry rations and water, he hardly ever spoke of his own accord. Ning Buhui was happy for the peace and quiet. Now and then, he lifted the curtain to look at the road, fields, and villages outside. When he tired of looking, he closed his eyes and pretended to sleep.

As the carriage passed a mountain he couldn't name, he got his first real look at a Soul Beast forest in this world.

Deep in the valley lay a swath of green so dark it was nearly black, sharply set apart from the grayish-yellow barren slopes around it. Flocks of birds occasionally burst into flight above the forest, sweeping across the sky in dark masses before suddenly wheeling back, as though something inside had driven them out. Ning Buhui stared at it for a long time. In his previous life, he had read about the dangers of Soul Beast forests, but reading the words and seeing that sea of trees for himself were two different things. The danger wasn't a color or a sound. It was a faint, elusive trace of blood in the air, drifting all the way from the bottom of the valley to the road.

"Have you seen enough?" Deacon Zheng asked from outside the carriage.

"I have." Ning Buhui lowered the curtain.

"That's a branch of Mount Atu. There are quite a few thousand-year Soul Beasts in there. Farther north, we'll be outside Nuoding City's jurisdiction." Deacon Zheng paused, then added, "Don't even think about going in."

Ning Buhui smiled. "I won't. I'm still young."

Deacon Zheng said nothing more, and the carriage continued on.

On the evening of the fourth day, they reached Spirit City.

When Ning Buhui glimpsed the city in the distance through a gap in the curtain, he suddenly fell quiet. Nuoding City's walls were dull gray, low, and practical, like a worn-out garment of coarse cloth. Spirit City's walls, however, were white, gleaming from end to end. Built from great blocks of smoothly polished stone, they gave off a cold sheen in the gathering dusk. The gate towers rose high, banners fluttered, and the angel emblems on them could be seen from far away. The walls stretched out to either side, farther than the eye could see, like a giant white-scaled python lying across the land.

This was the true center of power in this world.

The carriage passed through the city gate. The streets were wide enough for four carriages abreast, and the buildings on either side all had white walls and gold roofs, their heights uniform. The wheels of carriages had polished the bluestones paving the roads to a shine, and the pedestrians wore brightly colored clothes, hardly a patch in sight. Ning Buhui watched through the curtain the whole way, silently measuring the difference between this city and Nuoding City. He arrived at a fairly simple conclusion: Spirit Hall's roots on this continent ran far deeper than he could have sensed from reading the books in his previous life.

Deacon Zheng drove the carriage to a stop in front of a side hall. Someone came down the steps to meet them, spoke a few words to Deacon Zheng in a low voice, then turned to glance at Ning Buhui. The look was sharp, as though putting his identity through an initial screening.

"Get out," Deacon Zheng said.

Ning Buhui got out and slung his bedding over his back. The man who had come down to meet them was a young deacon in a white robe with silver patterns and regular features. The first thing he said on seeing him was, "You're Ning Buhui, the one reported from Nuoding City?"

"Yes."

"Come with me. First, we'll verify your identity."

Ning Buhui followed him into the side hall. It was very quiet inside, with the doors and windows all closed. Only a few Soul Power lamps were lit. Their light was dim, yet it illuminated the way ahead with perfect clarity. After walking for a while, the two entered an immense hall. The floor was made of light gray stone slabs, polished smooth as a mirror, reflecting the cold white light of the Soul Power lamps overhead. Three people were already standing at the far end.

One was an old man, the other two middle-aged men. All three wore white robes, distinguished only by the patterns on their collars. The old man stood at the front with his hands tucked into his sleeves, his eyes lowered as though he were dozing. When Ning Buhui entered, he didn't look up, merely lifting his chin slightly. A middle-aged man beside him stepped forward. His voice wasn't loud, but it rang clearly through the entire hall.

"Release your Martial Soul."

Ning Buhui set his bedding down by the door and walked to the center of the hall. He needed no instruction. He closed his eyes and felt the warmth in his right hand. It was as though something had been suppressed for so long that it could hardly wait any longer.

He opened his eyes and spread his palm.

Black and white fish surged from his palm, circling up and down around him. Then the pagoda rose from the ground, its nine stories suspended above his palm as the yin and yang fish circled it. At the same instant, a black-and-white taiji diagram spread beneath his feet, rotating silently, its projection covering half the hall. There was no wind, yet the hem of his clothes whipped and fluttered, as though countless currents of air were surging outward from the pagoda.

The old man who had kept his eyes lowered jerked his head up.

The two middle-aged men also took an involuntary half-step back. The Soul Power lamps in the hall dimmed all at once, as though something had sucked away their light. Ning Buhui stood in the center of the hall, the nine-story pagoda hovering above his right hand. Black and white intertwined, casting half his face in white and half in black.

The dead silence lasted for some ten breaths.

"That's enough," the old man said. His voice hadn't changed; if anything, it was even softer.

Ning Buhui closed his hand. The pagoda turned insubstantial, and the taiji diagram dispersed like smoke. The lamps in the hall brightened again, as though nothing had happened.

The old man walked up to him. This time, rather than looking down at him, he crouched to meet Ning Buhui at eye level. Only at that distance could Ning Buhui see his eyes clearly. Beneath gray-white brows, his irises were very pale, as though veiled by a thin film, but the light shining through them was sharp.

"Your surname is Ning," the old man said. "What relationship do you have with the Ning clan of the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect?"

"I'm a descendant of the Ning family, a collateral branch of the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect," Ning Buhui said. "My father's name was Ning Yuanshan."

The old man's brows twitched almost imperceptibly. His gaze slid from Ning Buhui's face to his right hand, then returned to his eyes. "The Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Pagoda is the Martial Soul passed down through the direct line of the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect for generations. Your pagoda... nine stories, black and white, with yin and yang fish circling it. It's completely different from the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Pagoda. Though there is a trace of it." He paused, and at last the faintest hint of astonishment entered his voice. "Before you awakened, did you know what Martial Soul you would have?"

"No," Ning Buhui said.

"Then yours is-" The old man stared at him, enunciating each word slowly. "A mutated Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Pagoda?"

"I don't know." Ning Buhui gave the same answer. He truly didn't know. The pagoda itself had told him the name Nine Hell Soul-Suppressing Pagoda. As for precisely what lay between it and the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Pagoda, his knowledge from his previous life offered no answer.

The old man looked at him for a long time. At last, he slowly stood, turned around, and raised a hand toward the two middle-aged men. "Record this. Ning Buhui, Martial Soul: nine-story pagoda, mutated from the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Pagoda lineage, pending Pope Hall's judgment."

The two middle-aged men hurriedly began writing. Ning Buhui saw one man's pen tip tremble, and a drop of ink fell onto the corner of the paper.

"Rest for now. Tomorrow, Pope Hall will summon you." With his back to Ning Buhui, the old man had returned to his earlier, even tone. "But let this old man give you a word of warning. Spirit City isn't like Nuoding City. Here, a tower's height is nothing beside the water's depth. If you can sleep tonight, you've won half the battle."

Ning Buhui looked at his back and said softly, "Thank you."

That night, he was given a room in the guest quarters behind the side hall. It was small but clean. The bedding on the bed had been freshly changed, and there was a pot of hot water and a few white-flour flatbreads on the table. He washed his face, ate the bread, and lay down under the covers. The mattress was soft, worlds apart from the drafty little house in Nuoding City. But he lay awake with his eyes open for a long time.

Outside the window, the footsteps of patrolling deacons passed at intervals, like a night watchman counting the hours. Moonlight filtered through the paper window, casting a small patch of brightness on his right palm.

He thought of the old man crouching down. A man in Spirit Hall whose very speech could make the lamps dim had been willing to bend down to ask about his relationship with the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect. That detail, more than any words, made Ning Buhui certain that his background was no secret in Spirit City. At least, it wasn't to the old man.

He thought of Bluestone Town. Of Nuoding City. Of Shitou. He remembered how the boy's eyes had shone like a promise when he said, "I'll go." He didn't know whether people would keep mocking Shitou after he left, or whether the few things he'd taught him to say about slimes would help at all. But he had done what he could. The rest was up to the boy himself.

Late in the night, he heard a bell toll in the far distance. It came from the direction of the city center, deep and distant, as though all of Spirit City had trembled with it.

Ning Buhui pulled the corner of the quilt up a little, turned over, and went to sleep facing the wall.