Lanke Chess Edge
Chapter 85: Do You Think I Am Haunted?

After Ji Yuan sat down by the fire, they briefly introduced themselves to each other, giving their names and places of origin.

Ji Yuan didn’t dare say that this journey had all been him running like crazy. Instead, he gave the excuse that he had been traveling with a group of merchants, and they had separated at a fork in the road, each going to different destinations. Subsequently, he had accidentally taken the wrong road.

Ji Yuan even disguised his eyes to make them look normal. Otherwise, wouldn’t it be frightening for a half-blind man to have run so far in the mountains?

The hunters were obviously not very interested in exactly how Ji Yuan had gotten lost, but instead asked about the current affairs of Chunhui City.

“Has this gentleman ever been on the Chunhui City’s large ship? We’ve been there twice, but have never been on board. And the Qianrichun from Yuanzipu, I heard that it’s a wine recipe brewed by the emperor, and that it tastes as good as immortal wine!”

“Yes, yes, Sir looks so elegant, he must have traveled on the ship and drunk Qianrichun, right?”

Ji Yuan laughed along when he heard their words.

“I’m afraid you may be mistaken. How could the Emperor of Dazhen brew wine himself? It was only because the wine pleased the Emperor that year that he bestowed it with a name and a plaque.”

“Oh, so that’s how it is!”

“That’s right, how could the emperor brew wine for others to drink!”

Ji Yuan waited for them to finish speaking before continuing.

“I have never been on the ship, but I have tasted Qianrichun. The flavor is indeed just like its name, sweet and pure like spring lingering on the tongue.”¹

It wasn’t that he hadn’t thought of taking out the remaining half-pot of wine and letting these four people have a taste. However, in this wilderness, he was a stranger freely giving wine to others. The vigilant hunters would be in a dilemma over whether or not to drink it. After finally starting to get along with them, it would be better not to cause them any embarrassment.

Several people expressed their yearning for Qianrichun and the prosperous Chunhui City, and also chatted with Ji Yuan about the latest developments of Chunhui Prefecture.

As hunters in the countryside, even if they obtained goods, they would mostly sell them to the county towns. Only when there were really good years and large quantities of game would they go to the provincial capital a few times.

As they chatted, the chicken and rabbit meat finished cooking. A hunter took out a knife, cut off a rabbit leg, and handed it to Ji Yuan. After they began eating, the atmosphere of both parties became much more harmonious.

At this time, Ji Yuan took the opportunity to inquire about the situation of the man named Fang Qiu, who was the one who had previously called out for him to stay.

“Brother Fang, I see that there is some swelling and some black spots under your eyes. Have you not had a good rest recently?”

In fact, several hunters were a little tired. It was impossible for them to sleep peacefully in the mountains. Ji Yuan was simply taking advantage of this situation.

“Hey, Sir, you are right. I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately, and even when I do fall asleep, I’ve been having nightmares. It’s been going on for almost a month. My mother was worried that I might have offended some evil spirit, so she went to the temple to ask for a string of beads for me, but in the end it has been lost.”

“He just doesn’t have a wife!”

A hunter teased to the side.

“Go away, you don’t have a wife!”²

“How truly amazing, hahaha!”

The hunters in the group were all obviously on good terms with one another, and they started making noise while joking around. The man who made fun of Fang Qiu said that he would help him find a matchmaker.

It was only then that Ji Yuan realize that the man named Fang Qiu was only twenty years old, despite looking like he was thirty.

“Can you tell me what you saw in your nightmare? Although I am not good at interpreting dreams, I have always been interested in it.”

After the commotion subsided, Ji Yuan and the others continued to ask Fang Qiu about the matter, but the latter didn’t take it seriously.

“It’s just nightmares. They’re either monsters or ghosts. Anyway, I wake up in a cold sweat and then they fade away during the day.”

“Oh… so, is the dream different every time?”

Hearing Ji Yuan’s question, Fang Qiu also recalled it carefully.

“I’ve forgotten most of it, but it seems that sometimes I can see a pair of bloodshot green eyes…”

Ji Yuan frowned, noticing that when Fang Qiu mentioned this, goosebumps appeared on his exposed arms.

“Brother Fang, have you ever gone to pray at the City God Temple?”

“The City God Temple? Our Qingshui County is so small, we don’t have a City God Temple. We only have a Land God Temple and a Mountain Buddhist Temple.³ I’ve gone to the Mountain Buddhist Temple to worship the Mingwang Buddha.”⁴

There was no City God Temple!

Ji Yuan frowned. Indeed, many small counties did not have City Gods. This was mostly because there had never been any great figures worthy of remembrance, and no one from the imperial court had conferred titles upon them posthumously. Additionally, no one in the village had taken the lead in building a City God Temple based on any past virtuous elder.

Since the City God underworlds rarely crossed the borders, counties without City Gods were mostly governed by the City God of the prefecture. The prefecture’s capital was densely populated and there were many things to do, and it was possible that half of the area covered by a prefecture was occupied by counties like these. It would already be good if patrols could be carried out here once every few days; one could imagine the resulting level of supervision.⁵

The so-called Buddhist temples were actually more worrying. It was not that Buddhism was powerless, but rather that there were few temples that practiced true Buddhism.

This world had neither celestial beings nor Buddhas. Most of the Buddhist statues in the temples were widely-circulated statues of eminent monks or enlightened monarchs, which were similar to Shinto objects. However, they faced the same problems as conventional Shintoism, and perhaps to an even greater degree, owing to the fact that Buddhist temples had no boundaries to the established land around them, and were spread all over the world. Even if the eminent monks and enlightened monarchs had many incarnations, it would not be enough to cover all of them.⁶

After chatting for a long time with no results, Ji Yuan had to give up for the time being.

When night fell and everyone had fallen asleep, Ji Yuan, who was sleeping by the fire, opened his eyes, looked at the hunter taking watch who was dozing off, and then looked at Fang Qiu, who was sweating profusely. He stretched out his hand, gathered a trace of spiritual energy with his internal power, then lightly tapped Fang Qiu’s forehead. The latter’s expression quickly relaxed.

‘It’s a pity that I don’t know how to enter dreams yet. ’

. . .

The next morning, Ji Yuan followed the hunters to check several traps. Although they had only caught one musk deer, it was not a complete loss.

After everything was packed up, the small group of people took Ji Yuan along and headed home. Around noon, they arrived at the fork in the road from which they could see their village.

Strictly speaking, the village was still in the mountains. From a distance, there was only one road leading to the outside world. There didn’t seem to be any fields around. Ji Yuan didn’t know whether all of the villagers were hunters, or if there were fields on the other side.

The small group stopped at the fork in the road, and Fang Qiu simply pointed the way to Ji Yuan. After all, Ji Yuan wanted to head to Qingshui County in a hurry.

“Mr. Ji, if you go east for four or five li⁷ along this road, you will see the official road. Then, if you follow the official road south, you will definitely reach Qingshui County before dark.”

“Alright, thank you all for your care. However, I would like to go to the village to buy a farmer’s lunch. Is it convenient for you?”

Ji Yuan naturally wouldn’t just leave like that at this time.

“What convenience, just come to my house to eat!”

“Yes, Mr. Ji can also come to my house!”

“What’s the trouble? Let’s go together. Isn’t musk deer venison perfect?”

“Let’s go, let’s go together!”

“Okay, then, sorry to bother you!”

“Hey, no need to be polite. It’s rare to see a learned man here!”

The small group of hunters were very enthusiastic and took Ji Yuan to the village with them.

As he entered the mountain village, Ji Yuan tried his best to observe his surroundings as much as possible.

The scale of this mountain village was larger than Ji Yuan had imagined. There were residences on every corner. It could be estimated to be more than 200 households.

There was no wall surrounding the village, perhaps because the area was too large and scattered, but every residence had a fence or an earthen wall. When the four men returned from hunting, many people came outside to watch the fun. Upon hearing that Ji Yuan was a scholar, they all greeted him enthusiastically.

The originally-planned lunch was prepared in a lively manner at the home of the hunter named Ding Xing. The preparations lasted until the afternoon, and it directly became a dinner party. The four families ate together in the hunter’s yard, with the main dish being musk deer venison.

In the warm atmosphere, Ji Yuan took out his treasured aged Qianrichun. Each person drank a small cup, finishing most of the wine. He felt a bit distressed after pouring it all out, and continued to drink the local wine in the village. Those who had drunk the Qianrichun felt proud, and thought to themselves that they would have more topics to brag about in the future.

By the time everyone had eaten and drunk their fill and the crowd had dispersed, it was already getting dark. Several families invited Ji Yuan to stay temporarily, so he naturally went to Fang Qiu’s residence, where only the mother and her son lived together.

As the mother and son of the Fang family walked along the dim village road, Ji Yuan lagged behind and observed them carefully. The red light around Fang Qiu’s vital fire had been covered by a layer of black gas, and although his mother’s vital fire was weaker, there were no signs of an evil spirit.

“Meow—“

A shrill cat’s meowing sounded nearby. Ji Yuan turned around and saw a black cat lying on the roof. It did not have any evil or aggressive aura. It was just an ordinary animal.

The Fang family was just an ordinary family in the village, and, relatively speaking, it was not too poor. They had a two-bedroom main house, a side room, and a firewood shed. Ji Yuan temporarily stayed in the side rooms.

It was the dead of night.

“Meow—“

“Meow—“

“Auuu—“⁸

…

The meowing of cats sounded. Ji Yuan, who was already a light sleeper, suddenly opened his eyes. He sat up and looked towards the main house through the half-opened window.

There were at least a dozen wild and domesticated cats squatting on the roof. They were all obviously ordinary animals, but seeing them made Ji Yuan’s scalp feel a little numb. He endured the pain and gradually opened his eyes by 70%, and actually saw, in the window of Fang Qiu’s room in the main house, a small burst of gloomy green aura had spread without him realizing.

‘What the hell going on?’

Ji Yuan quietly sat up, stretched out his middle finger, and lightly touched a drop of lamp oil from the oil lamp in his side room. His internal power seeped into the oil on his fingertips. Then, he bent his middle finger, clasped his thumbs together, and shot it towards the main house of the Fang family.

Whoosh~

The oil droplet silently flew into the main house, and hit the oil lamp inside the room.

“Boom!”

At least two dozen drops of lamp oil suddenly splashed out of the lamp and flew around the room in a strange slow motion, before disappearing.

Seeing that the combination of martial arts and water control techniques was effective, Ji Yuan narrowed his eyes, opened his flame stick, and blew on it gently. A tiny spark lit up and he covered it with his sleeve.

When Ji Yuan stretched out his left hand from his sleeve once more, there was a little black ash with sparks on his hand. However, due to the effect of his concealment technique, no fire could be seen.

Since he only knew four magical spells, he naturally had to use all means available to him to master them.

“Hooo…”

With a gentle breath, a handful of black coal ash containing sparks flew out from the side room. After the span of three breaths, it dispersed into the main house of the Fang family.

Ji Yuan narrowed his eyes slightly. The fire in the alchemy furnace in his spiritual world suddenly rose, and the gray of his eyes seemed to flash with fire for an instant.

“Boom!”

The Fang family’s main house was suddenly filled with flames.

“Aaahh—“

A creepy, terrifying scream rang out, and a dark green gas wrapped in flames flowed out of the window and fled.

“Humph! With just this little, are you really planning someone’s death?”

1. In case you forgot, Qianrichun translates to “Thousand Days of Spring” ↩︎
2. The Chinese equivalent to “Shut up, your MOM’s married–” or “Shove off, your FACE has a wife,” basically childish insults ↩︎
3. 座 (zuò): classifier for buildings, mountains and similar immovable objects; 卧 (wò): to lie down/to crouch; 山 (shān): mountain/hill; 寺 (sì): Buddhist temple. I debated leaving this as Woshan Buddhist Temple, but it seems to be a classifier for a kind of Buddhist temple, not the name of the temple itself, so I translated it ↩︎
4. Could refer specifically to Dapeng Jinchi Mingwang, a guardian deity in Mahayana Buddhism, or more generally translated as “Wisdom King” or “Vidyarāja,” class of fierce protective deities in Esoteric (Tantric) Buddhism. I assume the latter, but I will keep it as “Mingwang Buddha.” ↩︎
5. i.e. they can’t manage an area effectively enough if they only patrol it once every couple of days, especially if they’re busy with the capital ↩︎
6. i.e. they’re spread too thin to be as effective as the City Gods who have one designated territory to administrate ↩︎
7. 2-2.5km/~1.25-1.5miles ↩︎
8. Yes this one is different in the raws. Maybe that cat is just ~special~ ↩︎