Chapter 264: Altar Guard |
After Lu Yuan finished speaking, Lin Zhaoxuan's expression tightened:
"Meridian picking? Isn't that used to detect the course of an active meridian?"
Lu Yuan nodded and said:
"Yes."
"You can use it to probe a vein opening in the mountain, and you can probe a vein opening in a person's body."
"This isn't a casual nail; it's testing whether this path is still open."
He said so, then raised his hand and gently tapped the rim of the nearest earthen pot.
When the knock landed, a thin ring of ripples slowly rose in the black water.
In the next instant, a blurry face appeared on the water's surface.
Xu Erxiao was standing at the back. Seeing his own reflection appear in the water, he nearly jumped, stumbling back two steps, his voice cracking as he cried out:
"I-I didn't touch it!"
Lu Yuan didn't turn his head and barked right away:
"Don't retreat!"
But he was half a beat too late.
When Xu Erxiao stepped back, his heel landed on a partially loosened red cord, the cord's end snapped back, and a nearby torn paper talisman fluttered.
Almost at the same moment, the copper needle on the wooden plaque gave a faint, sudden hum, as if something had bitten down along the name.
The face in the black water froze still.
Then the face slowly lifted its head, and the corners of its mouth curled up little by little, turning into a silent smile directed at the group.
Zhou Heng sucked in a cold breath and nearly dropped what he was holding.
Lin Zhaoxuan's eyes darkened as he already fished out a talisman for suppressing evil.
The face in the black water shattered in an instant, like a smashed mirror, and the ring of ripples in the basin was severed as well.
Lu Yuan's face was as cold as iron:
"They were borrowing a face to test the gate."
"Someone is watching from behind that narrow path."
"That earlier move wasn't calling someone, it was recognizing someone."
Song Qinghe's heart tightened as she asked:
"Recognize who?"
Lu Yuan said:
"Recognize who loses it first."
"Whoever panics first is easy to be recorded."
He paused, then turned to look at Xu Erxiao, his tone still calm:
"You almost sent yourself in with that step."
"Stay close to the rear and don't retreat chaotically."
Sweat stood on Xu Erxiao's forehead. He nodded repeatedly, utterly meek.
Wang Cheng'an hurried closer beside him, lowering his voice:
"Stick close, and don't step on anything again."
Lu Yuan stopped watching them and instead fixed his gaze on the three black earthen basins, saying slowly:
"These are not offering basins, they are reflecting basins."
"Made specifically to reflect human shadows, soul shadows, and vein shadows."
"That face just now wasn't Xu Erxiao's real face. When he panicked, his aura was reflected."
Lin Zhaoxuan asked, "So what do we do now?"
Lu Yuan took three small copper coins from his bag and placed them on the rims of the three basins.
He then drew three short talismans and pasted them respectively to the east, south, and west positions, murmuring under his breath:
"Let the basin not reflect people, let the mirror not become a demon."
"Money clamps the mouth, talismans sever the bridge."
"Above not to the heavens, below not to the earth."
"One basin one lock, close your resurgence."
"Urgently, urgently, as by the law's command, close the reflection."
When the talismans settled, the water in the black earthen basins calmed.
The mirror-like reflection dispersed, and the black water returned to a dead, dense inkiness.
The copper needle on the wooden plaque quit buzzing. The entire earthen mound fell suddenly quiet.
But the silence felt a bit too complete.
Lu Yuan stood in place, squinting slightly.
Something felt wrong to him.
Normally, when the meridian-picking needle tests the gate, if someone is guarding beyond the gate there should be at least some reaction.
But apart from that single borrowed-face test, there was no other movement, as if the other side was deliberately letting them step inside.
"An empty gate?" Lin Zhaoxuan whispered, noticing the oddness.
"It's not an empty gate," Lu Yuan said.
"It's drawing us in."
He bent to pick up a small bit of black soil from the ground, rubbed it between his fingers, and found flecks of torn red paper and white bone dust mixed in.
"This path has baited thoughts buried along it."
"As soon as people enter, their hearts are easily led astray."
Hearing this, Zhou Heng's scalp went numb and he whispered:
"So do we still go in?"
Lu Yuan looked toward the darker depths of the narrow passage.
It was pitch-black down there, as if even lamplight could not reach. The darker it was, the more it suggested something waited ahead.
"Go."
"Since they've opened the gate, we can't just stand at the entrance."
"From now on, mark one sign every ten steps."
"If anyone gets separated, find them by those marks."
"Don't trust footprints, don't trust echoes, trust only what you leave behind."
Lin Zhaoxuan nodded and produced a short charcoal stick from his sleeve, casually drawing an inconspicuous horizontal mark on the wall.
They continued forward.
A breeze began again at the end of the narrow way.
It wasn't mountain air. It felt like a push of dampness from deeper earth, carrying old moisture and an indescribable chill of iron and rot.
The flame of Lu Yuan's oil lamp tilted as the wind hit it. When it illuminated ahead, it revealed a partially collapsed stone stair.
Only five or six steps remained. Above them stood a low wooden door.
The doorboard was very old, blackened with age. A thick wooden bar lay across it, and three red cords had been tied around that bar.
The red cords had faded but still bit into the wood like three bundled tendons.
On the ground before the door sat a tiny tile bowl.
Half a bowl of black rice filled it, with three broken incense stubs planted in the rice.
Lu Yuan stared at the bowl for a moment before saying slowly:
"We're here."
Zhou Heng couldn't help asking:
"What kind of gate is this?"
Lu Yuan didn't answer right away. He held the lamp forward and shone it on the center of the door.
Two crooked characters were scrawled on the board in ashy-white chalk.
Return Mountain.
Lin Zhaoxuan's gaze turned cold:
"The Return Mountain Gate?"
Lu Yuan whispered:
"Yes."
"This mountain outside isn't called Return Mountain by accident."
"Behind this gate is where the mountain road is truly fed to life."
He finished speaking, then pressed his hand to the wooden door. As soon as his fingertips touched it, an extremely yin chill crawled up through his palm from within the board.
It felt as if something on the other side was pressing its ear to the wood, listening to their words.
Lu Yuan's expression did not change. He flipped another copper coin in his other hand and pressed it onto the center of the door, then quietly intoned:
"The mountain gate has gates, beneath the gate there is a root."
"I borrow the coin, not the door deity."
"If the gate recognizes the path, it will recognize me first."
"If the gate does not respond, then sever your soul."
"Urgently, urgently, as by the law's command, open the gate."
As the words "open the gate" left his mouth, the three red cords across the bar slackened slightly.
From the depths of the doorboard came a very faint "aiya" sound.
As if someone inside had eased the door open half a finger's width.
Lu Yuan's eyes sharpened and he immediately lowered his voice:
"Everyone take a half step back."
At the very instant a slit opened in the door, a cold, stabbing incense aura burst out. A heavy wooden fish knock sounded within it.
DONG.
The sound felt like it hit a person's bones.
Following that, a pair of eyes slowly lit in the gap.
Not human eyes.
Two extremely narrow points of white light embedded in the darkness.
They silently watched them from behind the door.
The two white glints had barely appeared when the wind in the narrow passage seemed to be wiped away by some hand and stopped altogether.
Lu Yuan stood at the front, the coin still pressed to the door.
With his fingertip he could distinctly feel that chill seeping from the board, as if a living thing pressed to the wood and breathed.
He did not move immediately, only staring at those white lights.
They weren't sclera.
They were more like two cold sparks scraped clean from incense ash, hanging unmoving through the gap.
"Don't stare too long," Lu Yuan hissed.
"This thing will borrow your spirit."
Lin Zhaoxuan immediately shifted his gaze half an inch away. Zhou Heng lowered his head and even slowed his breathing.
Song Qinghe's face paled, but she clenched herself to avoid making a sound.
Wang Cheng'an and Xu Erxiao behind them looked like two little wooden posts, craning their necks but frozen.
The two points of white light in the door wavered, and then a faint laugh came from within.
The laugh was neither male nor female, squeezed out from many mouths at once, muffled against the boards.
"Arrived in a neat group."
"You even brought nails."
Lu Yuan's brow tightened.
The voice sounded familiar to him.
Not some wild mountain sprite, nor ordinary hostile breath.
It was something cultivated by humans.
And cultivated deeply.
"Who is inside?" Lin Zhaoxuan asked in a low voice.
The thing beyond the door did not answer directly, instead saying slowly:
"Those asking for the way have reached the gate."
"If you want to enter the mountain, report first."
Lu Yuan sneered:
"When did the mountain change its rules?"
"Do we have to report to you before entering?"
The voice in the door paused, then deepened with amusement:
"The rules have always been there."
"It's just that you outsiders often don't acknowledge them."
As it spoke, the white glints in the gap inched upward, as if something had brought a face closer to the slit.
Thin moisture began to bead across the doorboard, and ghostly characters slowly formed in the damp.
Borrowing passage, leave one life.
Zhou Heng's scalp prickled and he nearly blurted out, but Lu Yuan's quick hand smacked the doorboard and scattered the moisture.
"Quit the theatrics," Lu Yuan said coldly as ice.
"If you want life, I want passage too."
"Open the door first, then we talk."
Silence fell on the other side for a moment.
Then the voice slowly replied:
"You can open the door."
"But first pass a test."
No sooner had the words fallen when the wooden door trembled lightly.
The black rice in the tile bowl trembled though there was no wind, and the three incense stubs all flared for a heartbeat.
A faint white smoke rose from the bowl and crawled straight into the door slit.
As the smoke slipped in, rapid little footsteps sounded from within, like someone pacing anxiously.
Then the slender slit in the board suddenly widened half an inch on both sides.
A stale, cold incense-saturated air rolled out.
Beyond the door was not a room nor a corridor.
It opened into a larger underground chamber.
In the center of the chamber stood a ring of black wooden racks hung with paper banners, copper bells, red cords, and rows of small round mirrors.
Each mirror faced outward, directed toward the entrance.
Every mirror reflected a human figure.
Lu Yuan scanned the scene and his pupils pinched.
Those reflected figures were not the people standing before the door.
They were others.
Some looked like women, some like old men, some like children of adolescent age — all bowing their heads, standing behind the mirror as if awaiting someone to call their names.
"Soul-reflecting mirrors," Lin Zhaoxuan said in a low voice.
"These are used to reflect the living's three hun and seven po."
Lu Yuan made no sound. He withdrew a pinch of incense ash from his bag and scattered it forward.
When the ash hit the floor, the nearest round mirror's empty figure space slowly resolved into an outline.
That contour was not a stranger — it resembled Lu Yuan himself.
Only the "Lu Yuan" in the mirror looked down, while the corners of that mirror-Lu Yuan's mouth curled up bit by bit into a smile.
Seeing this, Zhou Heng nearly stepped back in fright.
Lu Yuan's expression didn't change. He pulled a short talisman from his sleeve and flicked it; the paper slapped against the mirror surface.
"You keep reflecting yourself, I'll go my way."
"The mirror-people are not real."
Once the talisman stuck, the reflection shredded like wind-blown paper and the outline vanished.
But the next moment all the round mirrors in the chamber turned slightly as one.
Dozens of mirrors swiveled to face the doorway.
The figures inside the mirrors lifted their heads together.
For an instant the entire underground chamber felt as if countless pairs of eyes had turned to look.
Lu Yuan stood at the threshold staring at the ring of mirrors, then said:
"This is a borrowing-reflection formation."
"Using mirrors to borrow vitality, borrowing and borrowing until people become offerings."
Lin Zhaoxuan's eyes darkened:
"So the thing behind the door really is a living opening within the offering array."
Lu Yuan shook his head slightly:
"Not necessarily a living opening."
"Could be a replacement opening."
"A replacement that guards the main altar."
As he finished speaking, a faint wooden-fish beat sounded from the deep of the chamber.
DONG.
Leisurely and unhurried, as if someone sat in the very back keeping time with slow knocks.
But mingled in the chanting was a thin wheeze of breath.
Lu Yuan's gaze went to the further shadows at the chamber's end and his face darkened considerably.
"There are more people back there."
"Not just one."
He spoke as he stepped over the threshold.
The instant his toe touched the floor, the closest mirror at the door suddenly thrust out a ghostly white hand that reached straight for his ankle.
Lu Yuan had anticipated this. He twisted his foot sharply and pressed the coin down. It wedged against the mirror frame.
A crisp "cling" rang out.
The pale hand recoiled as if burned.
But all the other mirrors in the chamber flared to light at once.
Mirror-glare flashed; the chamber turned briefly ghost-white then sank to darkness.
In that flash Lu Yuan clearly saw a figure sitting behind the last row of black racks.
The person wore a gray-black long robe, sitting with their back to the door in steady posture, fingers idly flipping a string of old prayer beads.
In front of them sat a half-human-high black altar covered with a yellow cloth.
On the yellow cloth, a character seemed written in blood.
Lu Yuan caught sight of it and his heart plunged.
The character was not anything else.
It was the word "offering."
That single character burned into his eyes like a red-hot iron.
Lu Yuan did not rush forward. He stood just inside the threshold and scanned the entire chamber first.
The black racks, round mirrors, paper banners, copper bells, red cords were arranged with ritual neatness, like an old expert's formation.
The person furthest in sat with their back to the door, the grey-black robe hanging to their ankles. The old prayer beads moved slowly between their fingers, their rhythm not fast yet perfectly overlaying the wooden fish knocks.
DONG.
Each beat sounded as if echoed up from even deeper underground.
Lu Yuan fixated on the figure's back and did not speak. Instead he wiped his finger along the door frame and found a thin coat of dust on his fingertip.
The dust smelled of incense oil and faint earth rot.
"They've plastered incense mud on the door," Lu Yuan murmured.
"This is someone who sits guard year-round."
Lin Zhaoxuan stood just behind him at a slant, his gaze on the black altar as he lowered his voice:
"A yellow cloth covering the altar looks like a check to prevent whatever is inside from venting."
Lu Yuan nodded:
"If the altar mouth opens, qi can escape and the path will let in people."
"This cloth pressed on top is basically nailing the threshold shut."
He spoke and yet kept moving, taking another slow step forward.
The round mirrors in the chamber continued to face the doorway, the reflected figures all quietly standing as if waiting to see who would lose composure first.
Lu Yuan didn't look at the mirrors. He looked only at the black altar.
It was larger than the smaller earthen one outside, glossy black. Around the altar mouth's rim a thin white hemp rope was coiled.
Knots were tied on the hemp every inch. The knotting pattern was strange, not the common Han binding style but like the old frontier corpse-sealing knots from beyond the wall.
Three small bowls sat before the altar on the ground.
They held rice, salt, and soil.
The rice had turned grayish, the salt crusted, the soil black with a blue sheen, as if dug up from a grave in the night.
"Rice, salt, soil," Lin Zhaoxuan glanced and his expression was grave:
"Anchor, guard, press."
Lu Yuan nodded:
"Yes."
"But these aren't to repress people, they're to set the altar's boundary."
"Rice sets the path, salt separates the yin, soil presses the root."
"If it can still sit stable, that means the thing inside has more than a single breath to it."
Hearing this, Zhou Heng's spine tightened and he whispered:
"Is this... the main altar?"
Lu Yuan shook his head:
"Not yet."
"This is the altar guard."
"The real main altar will be further in."
No sooner had he spoken than the innermost person stopped turning the beads.
Silence pressed down hard in the chamber.
Then that person slowly spoke, their voice hoarse like old paper rubbing:
"Since you have come, why stand at the gate?"