Chapter 128: Song of the Twin Gods pt. 9

This was far from good.

Ming Zhou’s spiritual energy was blocked—totally shackled within the body. He promptly decided to seize the front of little Luo Xu’s lapel, and in a manner verging on unreasonable rudeness, hauled little Luo Xu toward himself.

Little Luo Xu was unguarded, his head collided with the centre of Ming Zhou’s abdomen as he said, “The fragrance has become so strong. He is surely coming toward us—“

He had hardly finished his words when the back of his head felt heavy as he was pressed into Ming Zhuo’s embrace.

Little Luo Xu had rolled around in the clouds of the Heavenly Sea, he had also seen vicious demons and wicked spirits. Again, during dangerous situations he had also been able to keep a cool head, so this situation now was too strange—he could only let Ming Zhuo press him and all his habitual calmness crumbled, broken and chaotic. In his mind there was only one sentence remaining: he is going to get hurt!

Wind blasted his face, Ming Zhuo didn’t blink, he fixed his gaze straight ahead and said, “As it turns out, you exchanged my thread of fate with the Imperial Lord, not going mad, but rather waiting for this moment.”

Before them, emerging without foundation, was the half likeness of a god. It was as tall as several people, resembling a bamboo pole coming into view as clouds melt in the wilderness. It exuded the foul odour of decay. Its head was incomparably huge with a blank sheet of paper spread out over Its face. Whatever Its four beautiful features, which appeared unexpectedly gentle and agreeable, it was obvious that they were merely painted on as the ink had yet to dry.

“Ya,” the Fragrant God gestured as if pinching a flower as It spit out human words, “This plan has come to fruition. You already clearly see the target of these mysteries—indeed it’s not so simple. The minds of mortals are always so unclever. You’re this way—is it because you were born of Hui Mang?”   

Its mouth hooked into a smile, Its voice mellow, the lines of ink around Its mouth melted into the shape of a mole.

Ming Zhuo said, “You can speak the language of mortals, and yet you don’t know our affairs? I am born of my mother.”

Wenle covered Its mouth as it laughed, “Your mother’s body was ordinary and blind, what good thing could she give birth to? If not for her destiny to run into Hui Mang, I’m afraid that the you here and now would be a blind, stupid person in this life. Because Hui Mang established you with this great skill, yet you order Him around like a brute. This work runs counter to human decency.”

Ming Zhuo also laughed. Wenle was surprised and said, “You think this situation a good laugh? Is it your mother who’s so laughable or is it Hui Mang?”

“It’s you who’s so funny. All you gods are incapable of human feelings, yet here you are talking to me about human decency.” Ming Zhuo’s smile was icy, his manner disdainful. “Actually, Hui Mang is not the only one who I treat like a beast—there’s also you, ah.”

Wenle also listened without annoyance, and on the contrary said, “In the end, you are only half a god. You speak and do all things with the stench of a human. In this world, does there exist anything more arrogant than a human? Your lives don’t extend a century, you’re weak and sickly, from the beginning with Hundun and up until now falling back on the support of deities to tend to you. Nowadays gods should understand human nature too, what great self-importance this is!”

It meandered about in a calculated manner, its gaze piercing through Ming Zhuo as if It was looking at another person.

“In those years, all living things bowed to deities. We ate what we wanted to eat. But now, if we want to eat a few people, we are mad, worse than the jackals, wolves, tigers, and panthers in the countryside.(1) You say, this is all whose mistake?”

This question was like a cotton-padded robe with water and ice between both sides, covering a person’s body with gloomy coldness. The wind unwittingly stopped, and that wicked scent was like an unseen snake, coiling tightly around the two of them.

Little Luo Xu held his breath, enraptured. Because his head was held down, naturally he could not see Wenle’s appearance—he could only hear the sound of Wenle’s voice. Ming Zhuo didn’t know of this matter, all along not letting him go. He guessed that among these must certainly be something suspicious, yet, for the time being, the cause had not yet occurred to him. He had no other option than contentedly maintaining motionlessness as the Monarch’s “little dog”.

Ming Zhuo took Wenle’s measure. He was accustomed to being a monarch, and yet, he had earnestly sized up very few people before. This was because those going to the Divine Palace were not worth the merit of his scrutiny. He looked for half the day before slowly saying, “You ask whose mistake this is? Inevitably, it isn’t mine.”

Little Luo Xu heard Wenle laugh again. This time, the sound of that laugh was enormous, but moreover, it grew larger and larger.

“Not yours, yet you can not shed responsibility. Your surname is Ming. In this world, all who are surnamed Ming are damned.” Wenle twisted and turned Its head, the ink marks had already fed themselves into the shape of a dumpling and the sounds of its voice became shrill, “Were it not Ming Yao— “

This name was the same as a prohibition, the words came out of Its mouth in that instant and It’s face seemed to bubble and wrinkle in a cascade all down its skull.

“Were it not for Ming Yao, that lowly—“ Wenle spoke as if It were insane, “that lowly thing, ordinary creature, reversing the universe, scheming against gods! Leaning on wagers to cheat us into entering Order Incantations, using our names to confine each and every one of us—how else could we have degenerated into circumstances lower than beasts‽ Gods, what is a god? It is a thing bound to a temple nameplate generation after generation!”

Little Luo Xu's ears both trembled, Wenle’s shout certified Ming Zhuo’s words hadn’t been lies. The names of gods were all chains used by the Ming’s to imprison and control Them—merely one kind of thousands upon thousands of Order Incantations. Therefore, in accordance with the rules of worship set by the Baiwei Dynasty, everyone had to call out the names of the gods before offering incense, lighting fires, bowing, and praying!

The ground violently trembled, Wenle suddenly raised up half Its body. Its face covering fell off, exposing Its striking resemblance to a moth. That back swelled, a twisted, withered feather wing sticking out—this wasn’t Wenle’s true face. The God of Fragrance was originally invisible. This was probably the body of the God of Wind, Qingying. Those two had become one, each belonging to each other and it was no longer possible to tell who had eaten who—who had eaten who alive.

Wind and fragrance billowed in waves, Ming Zhuo’s sleeves fluttered in the wind as he quietly watched the God. His figure, in the face of It, was so small it was like a puppet before a statue. Little Luo Xu was stuck to his abdomen, listening to his smooth and steady heartbeat, between the commotion, Ming Zhuo seemed to sigh out a breath. Only, this breath was too light, too unlike him, that Little Luo Xu doubted himself and wondered whether he had heard wrong.

“The world’s most tedious thing is this,” Ming Zhuo clasped the back of Little Luo Xu’s head and whispered into his ear, “Man eats God or God eats man. Ultimately man must also eat man. Luo Xu, if the big you were here, I would be happier because you’d always have to keep yourself from death. It’s too bad we've all been made fools, and now it has to be this way.” 

Little Luo Xu’s heart hung as he asked, “Has to be what way?” 

Ming Zhuo cast his eyes down, meeting the youth’s gaze and called out again, “Luo Xu.”’

Dīng!

On the other side, the big Luo Xu, as if sensing something, looked over sideways. However, it was pitch dark and his gaze wasn’t able to reach anything.

Ming Zhuo slightly lifted a hand, two fingers curved and said, “Grant me an open path!”

Those words fell, and little Luo Xu’s spiritual energy immediately flowed out, surging toward Ming Zhuo as if being sucked away. His hand, which was originally clutching the silver beast's tail involuntarily loosened and he stuck Ming Zhuo‘s abdomen in vain as he parroted those words, “Open!”

The manji between Luo Xu’s palms dimly glowed, and the spiritual energy that had just stopped actually broke through his prohibition and surged back into little Ming Zhuo.

“If you wanted to borrow the hand of the Imperial Lord to seal my spiritual energy, you shouldn't have left me another small one. The only one in this world who can undo this prohibition is naturally himself.” Purple light crackled between Ming Zhuo’s fingers. From a distance, he lifted into the air two Ying Yang Coins. “Ming Han, you have been dead too long. You forgot this name Luo Xu, was also given by Ming Yao?”

Since Ming Yao could use his name as an Order Incantation, then in addition to the gods, the Imperial Lord of the Heavenly Sea was also driven by him. She had given the young Imperial Lord his name early on, both so that the Ming clan could control the Tianhai Imperial Lord for many generations to come and so that he would be the little solider of the Ming clan swimming within the Heavenly Sea.

Wenle’s degeneration into madness was like a face change during a performance at the Sichuan Opera. Just before, It had been chattering as if enchanted, but then after hearing the two words, “Ming Han”, It only twisted Its face around, turned back, and put on a fresh mask of newly painted white paper onto its face.

“Ya,” his two pairs of beautiful eyebrows curved slightly, as if feigning surprise. “You, without rhyme or reason, call for your Jiujiu to come? However, you’ve been away from the Divine Palace too long—you miss your Jiujiu, right? You have to take a closer look at what similarities there are between your Jiujiu and me.”

Ming Zhuo didn’t feel like lifting his eyelids, fumbling with his sleeve until he at last located the handkerchief from little Luo Xu. He causally wiped the blood from his hand and said, “White paper mask puppetry technique. You didn’t even wipe the ink clean. You clearly wanted me to know this fallen God is nothing more than a puppet you're playing with.”

This was Ming Han’s consistent defect—set up a game and leave a few holes. It must only be that the other side wasn’t familiar with his own antics. He felt delighted, just as he had with Lin Changming, he also felt with Ming Zhuo.

Wenle slightly smiled. When It smiled, that expression was even more terrifying than when one was chilled to the bone. Those pair of fine eyes watched Ming Zhuo as if satisfied. “No matter what, if meeting as a Jiujiu or a Shifu, it is fortunate to meet a remarkable child. If you do as you’re told, we two will become ever-victorious and fearless of anyone.”

“Your nature is cowardly, and when you were the monarch, you feared the oppression of the clans, so you curried favour with them, only to have them look down on you even more. You even ended up riding a donkey through Jianling Hall.” Ming Zhuo had not finished wiping his hand, “Now that you are not the monarch, you only dare to manipulate puppets—showing up to play some devious tricks month the clans and sects to make them resent and kill each other. However, I don’t know what kind of ending you’ll get this time if you’ve bothered to put in this kind of effort.” 

“You say that I am cowardly, but it is precisely that you’ve seen too little.” The dot of ink on Wenle’s lip once again opened, but It did not sense this. It only answered, “You, from childhood, waited in the Divine Palace, not seeing the outside world. You don’t know how many despicable cowards are in the world. Compared to them, I at best only know what’s right and can plan well. The three mountains came to the capital to humiliate me in the temple, how are they now? They are dead! Insane, mad! A few Heavenly Pillars will be extinguished. Is this not thanks to my planning? Someone has to be eaten in this world—either us or someone else. You search your heart, Xiao Zhuo, will you willingly be the one eaten?” 

Ming Zhuo did not pay attention. He was pinching and squeezing that handkerchief between his fingers until, at last, it turned into an extremely ugly little dog. 

Wenle continued speaking, “Your mother plucked the pipa and never did pass through a god. In fact, she was smarter than me as a youth, but what a pity, what a pity, she thought all the beings in the world were as beautiful as flowers, plants, and trees. This kind of thinking turned her into a weakling and made her miserable for the rest of her life. Ai, ai—people can not be the sacrificial knife, they can only be the flesh of fish!(2) This bitter lesson is surely also obvious to you, ba? If you were to be softhearted towards the Imperial Lord today, you would not be able to manipulate him as a puppet, and if you were not able to manipulate him like a puppet, you would only be able to let him seal off your spiritual power.” 

The ink on Its lips was congealed, Its smile was pitch-black, seemingly able to annex conscience and morality—utterly bizarre. 

"To manipulate a mere white paper face requires only borrowed qi, but to control the Tianhai Imperial Lord, it costs lives. Even if you can bear it, I wonder how long the smaller one can hold out? You are clever, but not clever enough. Your greatest mistake was letting Hui Mang consume that part of the Fragrant God’s body. Now what will you do?"  

Ming Zhuo snapped his fingers: "You think you're guaranteed victory, but that's only because you've seen too little." 

Wenle said, "With me, this fallen god, holding down the fort, if you still wish to summon thunder, you'll have to expend even more—"

Little Luo Xu commanded sharply, "Yin Yang coin!"

Two copper coins fell back into Ming Zhuo's palm one after the other. Little Luo Xu said resolutely, “Ask!” 

Ming Zhuo tossed the two coins into the air and said, “Where is Ming Xi? Come out and do your job!”

In the sleeping hall on the other side, little Ming Zhuo’s feet turned icy cold, and his fingertips stung as if pricked by needles. He gritted his teeth and endured the excruciating pain of spirit energy surging into his body, saying to Luo Xu, “Someone… someone has reversed Yin and Yang, summoning a Great-Grandparent as a puppet…” 

The area behind the curtain, where the Ming family’s ancestral tablets were placed, trembled. The tablet bearing the name Ming Xi fell, its red characters shattered into several fragments. The sleeping hall instantly felt like an ice cave. Apart from the few tablets in the front row that remained steady, the rest quivered violently, as if huddling together in fear.

The two Yinyang coins flew high into the air before plummeting down. Just as they were about to fall back into Ming Zhuo's palm, a clean, slender hand with distinct joints intercepted them.

“Lost on the path of Heaven,” a clear female voice rang out, reading the words inscribed on the coins as if it were terribly dull, “An unworthy descendant dares to reverse Yin and Yang and borrow spirits to disrupt my lifeline.” 

She held the coins between her fingers and lightly tossed them back at Ming Zhuo. Lightly—only in appearance. The two coins suddenly shot forward like hidden arrows, aimed straight at Ming Zhuo's eyes.

This move was both ruthless and vicious, showing not the slightest trace of familial sentiment!

The Author Has Something to Say

The process for resolving V will be completed by next week at the latest. I’ve already communicated and reported this to the editor. For now, everyone can enjoy the compensation package today. Thank you for reading!

Foot Notes

1. 豺狼虎豹 (Cháilánghǔbào) is an idiom which means “nasty, cruel people”.

2. 鱼肉 (yúròu), or "fish meat", can figuratively mean “victims of oppression” or the “cruelly oppressed”.