COPPER COINS

Chapter 54: Ancient Drumbeat (I)

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All of this zuzong’s scales stood on end and his entire body seized up in embarrassment. When he saw that the wound on Xuanmin’s hand was quickly beginning to heal, Xue Xian finally came back to his senses and said, "Look, you're not bleeding anymore. Shouldn't you thank me now?"
As Xue Xian said this, he began to talk to himself in his head, and concluded that his actions had been entirely logical and reasonable. Reassured that he had not completely, irreversibly humiliated himself, Xue Xian’s spirits lifted again.
   
But then Xue Xian realised that Xuanmin had not moved since he’d opened his eyes. He hadn’t even put down his hand, which was still held up in a Buddhist greeting –– nor had he put away the coins, the seals of some of which were now successfully broken. When Xue Xian spoke, Xuanmin didn’t even glance at the wound that Xue Xian had licked...
Now this was weird.
   
Xue Xian's head rested at too awkward an angle to be able to see Xuanmin properly. It seemed that, when he'd transformed back into a dragon, in order to avoid burying Xuanmin alive, Xue Xian had adjusted his size into something smaller. But this was still his original dragon form, and, despite the adjustment, he was still massive. Xue Xian pondered this, then tilted his head ever so slightly and lowered his neck so that he could observe Xuanmin while half-propped against the ground.
Now that Xue Xian had changed his point of view, Xuanmin’s strange behavior became clearer. His brows were slightly furrowed and his lips were pursed, and, although his eyes were open, his gaze was shrouded by a black mist that let through not a hint of light. He seemed not to be staring at anything at all, but instead submerged in some kind of dream state.
   
The most startling part was that the mole on the side of Xuanmin's neck was unusually prominent –– it now looked like a bruise-colored [a] spider's web that crept from his neck all the way into his robe collar, looking particularly ominous against his pale, smooth skin and the pristine white fabric. The overall effect was that of something evil and ominous. [b]
Even Xue Xian, who barely considered his own flesh dripping off his body as a serious wound, was now stunned by the sight of the spider's web. He reached out a claw and shifted part of Xuanmin's robe aside so as to see the mole better.
Xue Xian hissed with surprise. The blood vessels had spread across Xuanmin’s entire shoulder, and even some of the muscles across his back seemed to brim with the hints of more zigzagging veins.
   
"What the hell is this?!” Xue Xian murmured as he pushed Xuanmin's collar back to its place. At this rate of infection, half of Xuanmin's body would soon be completely covered in such markings, turning him from a high priest into a yao-monk.
   
No matter which way you looked at it, there was something deeply wrong with Xuanmin. But if Xue Xian suddenly woke him up now, would that harm him?
Contemplating this, Xue Xian waved a claw in front of Xuanmin's face. There was no reaction –– Xuanmin did not even blink, and that thick blackness continued to cloud his eyes ominously.
   
How had Xue Xian gotten the bald donkey to open his eyes earlier?
Right, he had licked his wound.
But had it been because Xue Xian had disturbed the wound itself, or had it been the dragon spit...
   
Xue Xian thought for a while, then used the tip of his tongue to lick Xuanmin's half-healed wound again.In response, Xuanmin's fingers twitched.
Xue Xian: “...” Do I have to fucking lick him back to life? What kind of impression does that make?
   
This was nonsense. If Xue Xian didn't know Xuanmin well enough to know that Xuanmin had absolutely no sense of humor, he would think that he was being played. It was fortunate that this was Xuanmin; if it were anyone else....
Xue Xian tried to imagine himself licking someone and thought he might vomit with disgust.

He gathered himself together and squinted at Xuanmin. If you don't wake up now, I'm going to give you a ‘shower’...
Just as Xue Xian opened his jaw and tried to estimate the best angle from which to approach the wound again, the web of blood vessels across Xuanmin's shoulders suddenly receded. Like the sea pulling back a great tide, the web quickly vanished back into that small mole on the side of Xuanmin's neck.
   
And in that precise moment, the murkiness in Xuanmin's eyes disappeared too, and, as though suddenly wiped clean, his black eyes regained pools of light.
Then, he frowned, and the hand holding the copper coin pendant dropped. Xuanmin was truly awake.
   
As Xuanmin came to, he saw something move against his head in the corner of his eye and glanced over. He came face to face with a certain someone who had been about to head in for another ‘mouthful’.
Xuanmin: “...”
Xue Xian: “...”
   
For a long time, neither of them said anything. Finally, Xuanmin asked, "What are you doing?"
Xue Xian: “...”
Could I maybe say that I was planning to eat your meat for dinner? [c]
Or… using your head as a mirror to admire my teeth?
No, Xue Xian couldn't be that much of an asshole. Although Xue Xian didn't mind mocking people and in fact relished it, when it came to Xuanmin, he couldn’t be so callous. After all... in a way, the bald donkey had been born to vanquish the likes of Xue Xian.

The niezhang quickly ran through all of the options in his panicked mind, then awkwardly said, "Are my yawns your business too?"
Normally, Xuanmin would glare at him coolly with a face that said Do whatever nonsense you like. But now, there was something profound in Xuanmin’s expression, as though he had not fully returned from whatever vision he'd just experienced.
   
"Why the tragic face?" Xue Xian asked. "What happened just now? You weren't responding to anything."
Xuanmin's gaze fell upon the pendant in his hand, and he absent-mindedly rubbed those two shiny coins with his thumb. After some contemplation, he hooked the pendant back onto his hip and said mildly, "I remembered some things."
   
"What things?" Xue Xian asked immediately. Then he casually added, "Of course, it's the usual rules. If you don't want to tell me something, you can just say that it's not part of what you remembered."
   
In reality, even such a perfunctory question was highly unusual coming from Xue Xian. He was normally far too self-absorbed to pay attention to other people's issues, especially their private issues –– good, bad, sad, happy, he could never get himself to care. If people wanted to tell him about it, he would listen, and, depending on his mood that day, he might actually become interested and let them continue speaking, or end up becoming irritated by their rambling. And if people didn't want to talk about it, he would never consider asking.

But Xuanmin was different –– when it came to Xuanmin's past, Xue Xian constantly harbored a desire to investigate. The conversation they'd had back at the inn had been instigated deliberately, since, at the time, Xuanmin's past had had a direct connection to their situation with the poster. But this time...
   
This time, there had been no real reason to ask Xuanmin anything. Xue Xian had only asked because he genuinely wanted to know more about Xuanmin. It was only when he'd already asked the question that Xue Xian realised: Xuanmin probably did not want to talk about it at all. So Xue Xian had added on that second part, to provide a way for Xuanmin to step away from the conversation without being rude or dishonorable.
   
But Xuanmin did not take the way out: he seemed uninterested in maintaining that aloof, intimidating, and cautious aura around Xue Xian. Xuanmin gazed into the distant fog for a while, gathering his thoughts. After some time, he calmly said, "Not much. The memories are extremely fragmented. Much of them are of copying sutras at a desk as a youth. But..."
   
"But what?" Xue Xian asked. Xuanmin had paused and begun to frown, as though remembering something unhappy.
A faint sense of loathing crossed Xuanmin's face. "Two images flashed by, in which I was holding something in my hand."
"What were you holding?" Xue Xian said.
Xuanmin paused again, then said, "It looked like human skin."
"... What?"
Xuanmin glanced at Xue Xian and repeated, "Human skin –– pieces of it. Smaller than my palm, but bigger than an elm seed. Two of the pieces were thicker, and the others were all paper-thin."
   
Xue Xian tried to think of the things Xuanmin would possibly hold in his hand –– such as a muyu, [d] a talisman, a book, an inkwell, or maybe even potentially an alms bowl –– but human skin? Now that was unbelievable.
"Human skin?" Xue Xian asked. "You're sure of it?"
Xuanmin nodded.
"And... Do you remember why? Or what you did with it? Maybe you found it somewhere," Xue Xian suggested.
But that was really unlikely. Could you just come across several pieces of human skin on the street somewhere?! What a sight that would be! But to think of Xuanmin somehow obtaining human skin... There was no way he'd have gotten it in an innocent manner.
Although Xuanmin's attitude was indeed different from that of ordinary monks, it was also hard to believe that he would ever do something so evil...
   
But no... Xue Xian recalled what Xuanmin looked like with his robes drenched in blood and then recalled that, a very long time ago, before Xue Xian had become so close with Xuanmin, he himself had told Jiang Shining: There's something indescribable about Xuanmin. He's like the sharp cutting edge of a sword wrapped up inside white hemp cloth. Beneath the cool demeanor is something incisive, as though, if it came down to it, he'd be willing to commit murder… [e]
But that was also different from being inherently evil. [f]
   
Xue Xian had zoned out pondering all this, and when he came back, he found that Xuanmin was staring at him. There was something strange in Xuanmin’s gaze, as though he were waiting for Xue Xian to say something. Xue Xian faltered, then changed the tone in his voice to something more casual and asked, "When is the memory from? Also your youth?"

"Mn," Xuanmin said.
Now Xue Xian was really confused. "Are you sure? If you don't know what had happened before and after you were holding the skin, how could you know you'd been young at the time?"
Xue Xian spread his hands. "Young hands look different. Besides, I was sitting in front of a desk, which had sutras that I'd been copying."
Xue Xian: “...”
Clutching human skin while copying sutras? Do you want to blaspheme your Grandpa Buddha [g] to death?
   
In all seriousness, now that Xuanmin had asserted that the memory was from his youth, Xue Xian found it completely impossible to explain the memory. Clearly Xuanmin had not obtained the skin through killing spirits. [h]
But there had to be some other explanation, right?
Finally, Xue Xian injected a lazy singsong tone into his voice and said, "Well, there's no point in randomly guessing. We'll have to wait until you remember more. You've managed to remember something just from breaking the seal on two coins, so maybe when you break the next one, more memories will come. Perhaps when you break the seals on all five coins, you'll be able to get all your memories back."
   
That sounded rather reasonable. Both of them were straightforward people who naturally didn't want to waste too much time trying to make sense of something that refused to make sense.
Xuanmin reached out his hand and patted Xue Xian's divine dragon chin, then said, "Let's go."
   
Xue Xian was stunned for a second, then suddenly remembered that he was still coiled around Xuanmin's body. If he didn't transform back into a human, then Xuanmin couldn't move either. Xue Xian cleared his throat and summoned a gust of wind to put his wheelchair upright, and then a white light surged forth and covered him as he put his clothes back on and sat back into the chair.
As he arranged his robe, Xue Xian saw Xuanmin walk over to where the dragon bone had been buried and extract a handful of copper nails and talismans from the earth. Xuanmin tore off another piece of white cloth and wrapped the items inside, then put them away. It was only then that he came over to the wheelchair.
   
Having learned his lesson, Xuanmin now knew not to let Xue Xian go off on his own again. He gripped the wheelchair's handles tightly as he got ready to push Xue Xian back to the Xu compound. But as Xuanmin’s gaze passed across the wound on his own hand, he paused.
The skin between his forefinger and thumb, which had been angrily torn apart earlier, was almost healed and was already beginning to form into a scab. It seemed that, within half a day, it would go back to normal, with no hint of having been damaged at all.
Xuanmin only needed to think back a bit to realise how Xue Xian had managed to treat his wound.

The only problem was... Dragon saliva... Was that really a substance to be used so casually?
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