An Ping suddenly snapped back to his senses.
The events of a hundred years ago, which he had witnessed in his dream, remained vivid before his eyes. They almost seemed to merge with the scene in front of him. He watched Wu Bi You dancing in the rain. If Mu Geshen hadn’t still been singing beside him, An Ping would almost have thought that this person was the Jade-Faced Wuchang from back then.
Tonight, the torrential rain was exactly like the one that had fallen all those years ago. An Ping could clearly sense some indescribable disturbance filling the air. The large drum Wu Bi You was dancing on had been placed at the far end of the long street. Although the surrounding environment had changed somewhat, An Ping could recognize it. This was the very street where the yin soldiers had run rampant.
Mu Geshen had said that after the yin soldiers were eradicated back then, some residual resentment remained, which had been sealed away again with Mountain Ghost Coins. But a hundred years had passed, and circumstances had changed. The seal had loosened, and no one could say what might emerge from the Yin-Yang Ladder. Besides, this was a busy urban area. If anything went wrong, the consequences would be unthinkable.
However, Mu Geshen seemed to have made arrangements in advance. The long street was silent and deserted, without a single person in sight.
Wu Bi You spun rapidly, his dance movements like a sword being drawn to break through an enemy formation. He was only a boy, yet an impassioned sword intent seemed to hover around him, sharp and spirited. The torrential rain pounded against the drum’s surface, as though ten thousand troops were charging forward to support him.
The rain was noisy, and the pipa music grew faster and faster.
The young man leaped and spun, almost becoming a blur. However, as An Ping listened to the pipa, he faintly sensed that Wu Bi You was beginning to fall out of sync with the melody.
After all, An Ping had personally witnessed that breathtaking dance which had toppled a city a hundred years ago. He could tell the difference between the two performances. Although Mu Geshen had only a single pipa, the power and momentum of his performance were no weaker than Song Wentong’s had been back then. But Wu Bi You was still young, and his performance of the General’s Nuo Dance was ultimately a little inferior.
Moreover, the General’s Nuo Dance a hundred years ago had not been performed by Wu Zixu alone. Wu Nie had been there too.
An Ping recognized the drum beneath Wu Bi You’s feet. It had been transformed from Wu Nie’s flower ball, and contained nearly five hundred years of the Tai Sui’s cultivation.
His dream had abruptly ended at the moment the city fell. He knew nothing about what had happened to the people he had known back then. Wu Nie had exhausted her cultivation. He still remembered that youthful face in the rain. It had been the first time Wu Nie had removed the makeup from her face. Her features had been as beautiful as a hibiscus, but her eyes were beautiful and old.
An Ping was somewhat lost in thought. He wondered whether, in today’s variety performances at the Ghost Market, there was still anyone who bent gracefully and played with a flower ball atop the Twelve-Tiered Case.
The string music suddenly became piercingly sharp, rising abruptly to its highest pitch before bursting apart.
Wu Bi You stumbled on the drum and immediately fell to the ground, splashing water everywhere.
Mu Geshen raised his hand and swept it across. All the strings snapped at once.
He set down the pipa, stood up, and opened an umbrella.
“You danced well. Unfortunately, you’re still lacking a little something.”
As he spoke, he handed the umbrella to An Ping.
“Help my girl into the temple. There’s hot brown sugar water on the stove.”
An Ping hurriedly took the umbrella and ran over to help Wu Bi You up, but the boy shoved him away. Gritting his teeth, he struggled to his feet.
“I can still dance!”
“Don’t fool around,” Mu Ge-sheng said calmly. “How old are you? Go back and get some sleep.”
Before he had even finished speaking, a violent tremor came from underground. The buildings along the entire street shook with it, as though something were about to burst out of the earth.
Anping had seen this kind of scene before. Back when the Yin Soldiers had charged out of the Yin-Yang Staircase, the commotion had been just as great.
Wu Bi-you’s expression changed at the sight. He cursed viciously and grabbed Anping by the arm.
“Damn it, come with me!”
Anping was dragged all the way back to the City God Temple. Wu Bi-you shut the door and locked it, then glanced at him.
“Aren’t you scared?”
Anping thought to himself: Not at all. I’ve seen something even more spectacular. I’m afraid I’ll scare you if I tell you about it.
The City God Temple seemed to act as a barrier. The tremors underground disappeared, and the lanterns beneath the eaves had somehow lit up again. Everything around them was peaceful and quiet. Even the falling rain seemed gentle and soundless.
Wu Bi-you, however, looked extremely irritable. He paced around for a while, then stamped his foot, unlocked the door again, and opened the temple entrance just a crack.
The torrential rain and thunder immediately rushed inside.
The two of them peered outside through the narrow gap in the door.
The worlds inside and outside the door were completely different.
Mu Ge-sheng stood in the middle of the street, with wind and rain raging above his head.
The violent wind tore the rooftops off the surrounding buildings. The ground split open, and countless fissures spread like writhing snakes, as though something underground were violently stirring.
The cracks extended all the way from the opposite end of the street to Mu Ge-sheng’s feet, but then seemed to encounter resistance.
With a deafening crash, the ground suddenly collapsed.
Yet Mu Ge-sheng remained standing exactly where he was, as immovable as a mountain.
With him as the dividing line, the long street had been split into two halves. One half was almost reduced to ruins, while the other remained completely intact.
A terrifying force was being forcibly held back by him. The two forces continued struggling against each other, while a vague, enormous roar came from deep underground.
A tiny green light flickered in the rain.
It was the Mountain Ghost Flower Coin in Mu Ge-sheng’s hand.
Anping watched with his heart in his throat.
“Can he hold on?”
“He has to, even if he can’t!” Wu Bi-you’s voice came from above his head, sounding as though he were squeezing the words out through clenched teeth. “The barrier protecting this entire street is being maintained by him right now. The moment he retreats, the resentment will break through the City God Temple, and the entire city will be finished!”
“Then what was the point of the General’s Nuo Dance you performed earlier?”
“I fucking suppressed half of the residual resentment inside the Yin-Yang Staircase! That’s why this upheaval happened so late!” Wu Bi-you roared so loudly that Anping’s ears rang. “But I didn’t finish the dance. The remaining resentment was directly provoked, so the counterattack that’s coming will be even more terrifying…”
“Wait.” His brows furrowed, and he grabbed Anping by the hair. “How do you know about the General’s Nuo Dance? Did that old bastard even tell you about this?”
Anping rolled his eyes from having his hair pulled.
“Y-Y-Y-You let go of me first…”
The two struggled and argued for a while.
Suddenly, a thunderclap exploded in the distance. The main gate of the City God Temple burst open with a tremendous bang, and both of them were immediately knocked to the ground.
Anping scrambled to his feet.
“What happened…? What’s that?!”
Behind him, Wu Bi-you kicked out, sending him sprawling back onto the ground.
“Damn it, they finally made it in time.”
Thick clouds covered the sky. A long, clear crane’s cry pierced the night.
In an instant, even the torrential rain seemed to freeze in midair. A ray of light pierced through the dark clouds.
Anping narrowed his eyes and strained to look.
Something was descending from the sky within that light.
It was a horsetail whisk.
Wu Bi-you shook the rainwater from his head, finally looking relieved.
“With those two here, we can sleep tonight.”
Anping staggered to his feet and looked at the figure appearing in the distant light.
“Who is that?”
“The current Changsheng Zi, the head of the Penglai Sect.”
“Lin Juansheng.”
Anping wanted to take another look, but Wu Bi-you unceremoniously closed the door.
He then brought out a large pot of brown sugar water from the side room. The two sat beneath the eaves, each holding an enamel mug.
The rain pattered softly.
Anping had wanted to ask about Lin Juansheng, but when the words reached his lips, he swallowed them again.
Wu Bi-you held his mug and gulped down the drink. The sound of him swallowing echoed along the corridor.
Anping secretly studied him.
He felt that the young man before him was an incredible contradiction. Whenever he saw Mu Ge-sheng, he would immediately start cursing, yet sometimes he was surprisingly obedient to the other man’s words.
A descendant of Wu Zi-xu’s bloodline, raised by Mu Ge-sheng, and having inherited Song Wen-tong’s Yeshui Zhuhua—Wu Bi-you had inherited a little something from each of the three.
His temperament closely resembled Song Wen-tong’s. He had a sharp edge, but lacked some of Song Wen-tong’s carefree boldness and unrestrained nature. As a result, that sharpness had turned into prickly thorns. Beneath his irritable exterior lay the lonely, stubborn straightforwardness of a young man who didn’t know where he belonged.
It seemed Anping had never seen anyone his own age around him.
Anping thought to himself that Wu Bi-you probably didn’t go to school.
The hardships that Mu Ge-sheng and the others had once faced together were now things this young man had to confront alone.
After all, it was impossible to find a second Ginkgo Academy.
Anping wondered whether Wu Bi-you would beat him to death if he called him his little brother.
There seemed to be something sleep-inducing in the brown sugar water. As a heavy drowsiness washed over him, Anping thought hazily:
He was still young, after all.
A young man was, ultimately, still young.
By the time Anping woke up again, it was already early the next morning.
After the heavy rain, the sky had cleared. He pushed open the window and took a deep breath. Several flowerpots stood in the courtyard, and a faint fragrance of grass and plants filled the air.
He remembered what Mu Ge-sheng had said the previous day:
“Once the rain stops and the sky clears, everything will go smoothly and all will be well.”
“You’re awake?”
Someone interrupted Anping’s thoughts.
He looked up and saw a person standing not far away.
It was Lin Juansheng.
The former eldest disciple of the Tian Suan Sect, now the head of the Penglai Sect.
Mu Ge-sheng had once said that the Penglai Sect pursued immortality and the Dao, and that its disciples were all half-immortals. Its cultivators possessed the appearance of those destined for eternal life.
As the Changsheng Zi, Lin Juansheng’s appearance had not changed over the years. He was still the same young man who had once played chess beside the water.
The only difference was that this young man was now wearing padded pants and a down jacket, and holding an enamel mug just like Mu Ge-sheng’s.
It was white with red lettering:
“Serve the People.”
Were immortals nowadays really this down-to-earth?
While Anping was still lost in thought, Lin Juansheng had already walked over. He handed Anping the enamel mug.
“Tofu pudding. Do you prefer it sweet or savory?”
Anping didn’t react immediately and answered instinctively.
“Savory.”
Lin Juansheng smiled, tapped the lid with his knuckle, and opened it again.
Inside was a steaming bowl of savory tofu pudding, sprinkled with chopped celery and sesame seeds.
Anping blankly accepted the spoon and took a bite.
It was fresh, fragrant, and delicious.
He couldn’t help thinking that being an immortal was incredibly convenient.
“I’ve heard my junior fellow disciple mention you.”
Lin Juansheng stood outside the window, his voice gentle.
“You and he share a certain fate. There have been undercurrents stirring lately, and the two of you have been through quite a lot of hardship.”
“You’re too kind, you’re too kind.” Anping nearly choked on a mouthful of tofu pudding. Coughing, he waved his hands. “I’m just dead weight. Please don’t laugh at me, Daoist.”
Lin Juansheng smiled and handed him a packet of tissues. “Don’t rush. Take your time eating.”
Anping had only seen Lin Juansheng once in a dream. He couldn’t figure out what kind of temperament this Changsheng Zi had, and he didn’t dare make up an excuse to slip away. He could only hold his enamel mug and nervously chat with him.
Fortunately, the young man had some of Mu Ge-sheng’s carefree, easygoing nature, but his presence was even more refreshing and pleasant.
“This ginkgo tree was transplanted here from the academy back then. It’s older than I am.” Lin Juansheng pointed to the ginkgo tree in the middle of the courtyard. “My junior fellow disciple has never been able to keep anything alive, but he’s taken very good care of this particular tree.”
The other man chatted about quite a few everyday matters. Anping gradually relaxed, and before long, he had finished the entire mug of tofu pudding.
“The first time I met the half-immortal, this tree was still golden yellow.”
He recalled what had happened when he had gone to deliver homework to Mu Ge-sheng.
“Even the yellow ox at the entrance cheated me out of my admission fee.”
Looking back on everything that had happened back then, he couldn’t help finding it both amusing and absurd.
Sure enough, Lin Juansheng laughed.
“The gatekeeper you’re talking about should be the City God here.”
“The City God?”
“City Gods are spirits and deities who protect cities and bless their people. You can think of them as local government offices established in the human world by the Underworld. The City God presides over all affairs within the city, dispels disasters, eliminates calamities, and bestows blessings and wealth.”
Lin Juansheng explained patiently, “If you’re interested, you can look up Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio or Extensive Records of the Taiping Era. There are quite a few stories about City Gods in them. Among the various ghosts and spirits, City Gods are considered relatively approachable. They protect the peace of the places under their jurisdiction.”
Anping remembered the dilapidated statue in the ancestral hall. Just thinking about how shabby and impoverished it looked gave him a headache.
“If he’s the City God, how did he end up working as a gatekeeper?”
“An unwelcome guest taking over someone else’s home.”
Lin Juansheng’s smile carried a hint of helplessness.
“My junior fellow disciple is the Tian Suan Zi. There’s no one who can reason with him.”
Anping: As expected.
“However, West City Street is the place where the Yin-Yang Staircase is sealed. My junior fellow disciple has his reasons for guarding this place.” Lin Juansheng changed the subject. “In recent years, the incense offerings have become scarce. If the City God were somewhere else, he might have already dissipated. The City God here has more or less relied on the Tian Suan Zi’s fortune to survive until now. That’s why he’s simply allowed my junior fellow disciple to live here without paying rent.”
As the two were talking, the main gate of the City God Temple suddenly opened.
The yellow ox, wearing a red armband, walked inside.
“Changsheng Zi.”
He bowed to Lin Juansheng, then turned to Anping and raised the plastic bag in his hand.
“We meet again, young master. Have you had breakfast?”
Anping had smelled the aroma of jianbing guozi from a long distance away. He thought to himself that these immortals and ghosts were really one more down-to-earth than the next.
“Did you put chili in it?”
“I did,” the yellow ox replied. “I also added sausage.”
Before he had finished speaking, another person walked in from outside.
This time, it was Wu Bi-you.
The other man was holding a helmet and wearing a food delivery uniform. He tossed a paper bag to Anping.
“Pay up.”
Inside the bag were custard buns and osmanthus porridge. There was even a delivery receipt attached.
Anping was utterly confused.
“I didn’t order takeout!”
“I ordered it.”
Wu Bi-you unlocked his phone and shoved the payment QR code in front of Anping.
“Part-time job. Help me boost my order count.”
Anping squatted in the courtyard and ate a whole pile of food until he was nearly bursting. Then he followed Lin Juansheng in practicing Tai Chi to help digest it.
Halfway through the practice, he suddenly remembered that he hadn’t seen Mu Ge-sheng today.
“Changsheng Zi, where’s the half-immortal?”
“My junior fellow disciple is upstairs. He hasn’t woken up yet.”
Lin Juansheng helped correct his posture.
“His constitution is special. He expended too much energy last night, so he’ll probably be sleeping for quite some time.”
Anping remembered that Mu Ge-sheng had once said he was already a dead person. His expression became complicated as he glanced at the room on the second floor, his thoughts running wild.
He wondered whether there was a coffin inside.
Fortunately, it was winter. Otherwise, perhaps the body would have started rotting.
Because the school building was undergoing repairs, City No. 1 High School had started winter vacation early. Anping spent most of his time living at the City God Temple. Sometimes he learned to play chess from Lin Juansheng, and occasionally he played online games with Wu Bi-you.
One day, he went to Yeshui Zhuhua to mooch a meal. As luck would have it, the business was packed, and he was roped into staying behind to help run the shop.
The An family had been in business for several generations. Anping had grown up watching and learning from his parents, so he casually helped Wu Bi-you sort out the accounts for the past few weeks.
From then on, he began his career as a free laborer.
Every day, he traveled back and forth between Yeshui Zhuhua and the City God Temple. Even in his dreams, he could hear the brainwashing sound of a calculator repeating:
“Reset to zero. Reset to zero.”
Later, Anping discovered that Yeshui Zhuhua was actually open around the clock. It was just that during the latter half of the night, the restaurant didn’t serve the living.
There was an elevator inside the shop. During the day, it couldn’t be seen, but after midnight, it would connect directly from the eighteenth basement floor to the main hall.
Its customers were all the assorted ghosts and monsters from Fengdu.
At first, there had even been ghosts who mistook Anping for an ingredient and nearly threw him into a pot to stew.
Later, after becoming a familiar face in the restaurant, he was finally able to welcome and see off customers without changing his expression, holding a stack of underworld banknotes in his hands for giving change.
Some of Yeshui Zhuhua’s employees were recruited from Fengdu, while others came from Yin-Yang families. Anping was easygoing and got along well with people, so he quickly became friends with everyone.
One day, during a casual conversation, someone suddenly mentioned that business had been much busier than usual lately.
“Business really has been booming.”
Anping felt this deeply. He was practically running around on his feet every single day.
But as he spoke, he suddenly found it a little strange.
“Was business usually bad?”
“Business was good, but lately, things have been rather unusual.”
A waiter from Fengdu interjected, “You don’t know this, but Yeshui Zhuhua only serves important and influential figures from Fengdu. Ordinary little ghosts can’t easily come to the human world. Normally, having a dozen or so tables occupied during the latter half of the night is already pretty good. When have you ever seen crowds on this scale?”
Anping remembered that he had indeed seen Cui Ziyu a few days earlier. Cui Ziyu had hosted the banquet himself and invited several large tables of guests.
Anyone who could be invited to a banquet by one of the Four Great Judges certainly wasn’t an ordinary underworld official.
Someone lowered their voice and said, “Didn’t something happen a while ago…? Even Fengdu has been swamped with work.”
“Could it be the year-end assessment?” Anping joked. “Do the ghost officials have to meet performance targets and calculate their year-end bonuses, too?”
Everyone burst into laughter and began explaining Fengdu’s rules and regulations to Anping.
Times had changed, and even the Underworld was keeping up with the times. Anping listened with great interest, and the conversation smoothly moved on to another topic.
Anping knew that, after all, he was a living person whose origins were unclear, so there were limits to how much he should involve himself in these matters.
But he could vaguely guess that what everyone was discussing was probably related to the disturbance at the Yin-Yang Staircase that day.
However, Mu Ge-sheng was still asleep and hadn’t woken up. This wasn’t something Anping could concern himself with, either.
Before long, the first lunar month arrived. Anping’s parents were overseas, busy with business and unable to return, so Anping simply decided to spend the New Year at the City God Temple.
The year-end festivities were one of the rare occasions when the City God Temple became lively. A temple fair was held on West City Street. The entire street was decorated with bright red lanterns, creating a festive atmosphere. The yellow ox counted the incense offerings every day with a delighted smile, and even the statue of the City God seemed to have grown considerably plumper.
There had been many visitors at the City God Temple lately. The front courtyard was filled with incense smoke every day, so Anping and the others had all moved to the rear courtyard.
The temple fair opened early every morning, and the entire day was bustling with activity. There were dragon dances, lion dances, traditional opera performances, and acrobatic shows. The whole street was lined with various stalls selling hand-pulled sugar figurines and painted sugar sculptures. There were even fortune-tellers setting up stalls nearby.
Anping found it amusing to watch. Mu Ge-sheng was still sleeping soundly. He wondered whether this counted as someone from the same profession coming to steal his business.
On New Year’s Eve, it snowed.
Anping was awakened early in the morning by the deafening sound of gongs and drums. Yawning, he went outside for a stroll. There were plenty of snack stalls at the temple fair, and he could easily buy something to serve as breakfast.
He bought several pieces of brown sugar glutinous rice cake and filled an enamel mug with lotus seed soup. Still half-asleep, he wandered back and pushed open the rear courtyard gate in a daze.
Then, without warning, he was given quite a fright.
A young man was standing in the courtyard. He wore a black overcoat and stood in the snow, holding a paper window decoration in his hand. His expression was very calm.
It took Anping quite some time to recover. Then he noticed that Spring Festival couplets had already been put up outside the gate. The man probably wasn’t a thief. Besides, he looked rather familiar.
Still sleepy and not entirely awake, Anping tried to remember who this person was.
Just then, a breeze swept through, carrying a faint, delicate fragrance.
Only then did Anping notice that the red plum blossoms in the courtyard had bloomed.
Their eyes met.
Anping shuddered and instantly snapped awake. He finally realized who the other person was.
Just as he was stammering, unsure what to say, the window of the second-floor room suddenly opened, and laughter drifted out.
Mu Ge-sheng was leaning against the windowsill with his chin propped on one hand. He looked just as drowsy, as though he had only just woken up.
“Well, well. Even a dead man like me was awakened by this fragrance.”
Then he looked at Anping and teased, “An Ping’er, do you know when plum blossoms bloom?”
Anping was so shocked that he couldn’t react at all.
“Huh?”
Mu Ge-sheng leaned against the railing and smiled. His lazy voice echoed throughout the courtyard.
“Plum blossoms bloom in the twelfth lunar month, when the coldest days arrive.”