COPPER COINS

Chapter 77: Funeral Stop (I)

  It wasn't like Xuanmin hadn't helped him before –– but, whether it was because the copper coins were still sealed, or because Xuanmin hadn't had as many of his memories, the power that he had unleashed had never been enough to cast doubt in Xue Xian's mind. Xue Xian had only thought that the monk was an exceptionally skilled mortal.
    Last time, at Wen Village, Xuanmin had also helped Xue Xian to repress the earth while he extracted his dragon bone, Xuanmin's magical power had already been much stronger than before –– but his hand had split open, and Xue Xian's entire attention had been on the wound, so that it had not occurred to him to question how Xuanmin had become so powerful.
    But this time was different. The bones buried in Mt. Lianjiang were much more difficult to extract than at Wen Village, and the tremors caused by Xue Xian putting all of his strength into summoning the bones had also been far more violent, yet, as Xuanmin maintained pressure on the earth to hold it all together, he had additionally been able to hold onto Xue Xian's hand and inject even more magic there.
    Based on what had happened back at Wen Village, let alone a wound, Xuanmin's entire hand should have fallen right off. But Xuanmin seemed totally unhurt, and even appeared not to be that tired.
    Which was very weird.
    In this world, there were very few mortals that could actually be of any help to Xue Xian, and even fewer who could have accompanied him all this way. Besides, if it was really related to the seals on the copper coins, then it was even more shocking, because there were five coins, and only three of the seals had been broken so far, and Xuanmin was already this powerful. What would he be like once all five seals were broken?
    But Xue Xian wasn't worried about any of this –– rather, he was simply curious, so had asked Xuanmin in a casual manner.
    Xuanmin frowned when he heard Xue Xian's question. "In fact, I also have some questions about this. But the memories that I have regained so far are not enough to explain it."
    As he spoke, he met eyes with Xue Xian, and seemed really to look deep into Xue Xian's eyes. He added, "If I remember, I promise to tell you in all honesty."
    This response was both expected and utterly unexpected.
    From their previous conversations about the topic, Xue Xian knew that Xuanmin was not the type of person to omit or hide anything –– he wasn't sure how Xuanmin was like with others, but he knew for sure that, with Xue Xian, the monk spoke frankly.
    So when Xue Xian had asked, he'd expected Xuanmin to say something like that. But he was taken aback by Xuanmin's gaze and tone: compared to before, his words now sounded profoundly earnest and sincere.
    Xue Xian was slightly overwhelmed by the way that Xuanmin was looking at him. For some reason, in that moment, he got the feeling that, with his normally carefree personality, he was unable to handle the solemnity of Xuanmin's gaze. In his daze, he even forgot how to speak.
    So it was only after some time that Xue Xian abruptly broke eye contact and waved his hands dismissively. "No worries," he said. "Don't be so serious. I was just asking."
    Then, before he could start overthinking it, he closed his fist on the pendant and leaped onto the branches of the tree, where he leant against the trunk and swiftly began to focus on absorbing those new pieces of bone.
    The process took all night.
    Stone Zhang and Twenty-Seven were ordinary mortals, and naturally did not have the abnormal physicality of Xue Xian and Xuanmin. After running around all night, being flown, shaken, and swung about, they were exhausted, so, while Xue Xian was healing, they went to sleep.
    Xue Xian had absorbed three bones in one go this time. Inside his body, he could feel the fragmented bones building up his spine once more, and the prosthetic threads receding to accommodate the new growth. As the threads became shorter, they folded into thicker and more rigorous threads, and seemed to be able to last a bit longer than before.
    When he awoke from his meditation, the first thing he heard was the cry of a bird circling above him somewhere far away. The bird's cry was melodious and crisp, which made him feel refreshed. But before that bird's echoes had faded, another familiar sighing noise rose.
    Xue Xian suddenly opened his eyes and saw that Xuanmin's black bird was hovering in the branches across from him, with a large cloth bundle clutched in its beak.
    Xue Xian had no idea where this bird had originally come from, but it had a savage, untameable personality. When they'd made their way from Dustpan Mountain's hollow to the village on its sunny side, he'd thought the bird would begin to follow Xuanmin everywhere, but as soon as they'd approached the Fang compound, the bird had flapped its wings and flown away –– it seemed not to enjoy being trapped in such a small and crowded place.
    As the group had left the compound, Xue Xian had even scanned the courtyard for the bird, but had not found a trace. He'd thought the bird had gotten lost, but here it was now, somehow having caught up to them.
    "You actually know where to go," Xue Xian muttered. His hand shot out to grip the bird's body and he tugged the bundle from its beak. As he fiddled with the bundle's knot, he glanced down at the foot of the tree, where Xuanmin, sitting cross-legged. Xuanmin had heard noise in the tree above, so was looking back up at him.
    In the pale morning sun, Xue Xian smiled down at Xuanmin. Wagging his chin, he said, "Morning. Your goblin bird committed a crime. It stole some crispy cakes for you. Here––"
    He tied the bundle back up again and dropped it lightly from his hand. Beneath the tree, Xuanmin tilted his head and caught it.
    "Get down," Xuanmin said as he worked the knot.
    Automatically, Xue Xian made to bound down from the tree, but saw that the black bird flew down first and stood obediently in front of Xuanmin, looking extremely docile.
    Xue Xian realised that Xuanmin had been talking to the bird.
    So he drew back the foot that had been about to land on the ground and, rolling his eyes, leant against the tree trunk once more. He bent one knee and let the other leg swing idly from the branch.
    Beyond the small peak to the east, he could see the horizon and the new sun above it.
    Then he looked down at Xuanmin sitting on the ground below, and that faithful black bird by his side. Suddenly, Xue Xian thought, If every day was like this, that would be nice. Not too lively, and not too lonely, all that empty space comfortably filled.
    If he could wake up each morning and see what he saw at the foot of that tree, he would never tire of it, not in a hundred years.
    Perhaps it was because that crisp morning air in the mountains was very pleasant to take in. Xue Xian found that he felt content.
    "It was not stolen," Xuanmin said mildly. "The Fang family must have seen the letter. They sent us these provisions."
    As he spoke, he stood up, and that white monk's robe remained ever spotless.
    He was holding the note that the Fang family had slipped into the bundle between his fingers, and waved it at Xue Xian. Then he raised the crispy cakes and asked, "Hungry?"
    Xue Xian swung his legs and lazily said, "It's best if you don't provoke my appetite. Or else I'll swallow you whole alongside the cakes and still not feel full."
    Xuanmin glared at his swinging legs as though disapproving of his posture. He turned and placed the bundle of food next to Stone Zhang and Twenty-Seven, who were just rousing. "The Fangs were very kind to send us these," he said. "We mustn't let them go to waste."
    Then Xuanmin walked back to the foot of the tree and patted Xue Xian on his shin. Softly, he asked, "What do you want to eat? We can go to the next town later and buy some."
    Xue Xian looked down at him from the branch. Xuanmin's black eyes were dimly illuminated by the morning light, which made them seem pleasantly luminous, with a sense of warmth seeping through, like melting frost.
    That lazy, content feeling surged brighter within Xue Xian's heart and he suddenly had the urge to half-joke, Once you get your memories back, if you don't have anything urgent to tend to, what do you say we partner up?
    But just as he opened his mouth to blurt it out, before he could speak, he was interrupted by a faint noise coming from somewhere.
    Kacha––
    It sounded like a twig snapping beneath someone's step.
    In an instant, Xue Xian's languid form disappeared from the branches. From the movements in the mountains, he had already determined where that noise had come from, and was lightly leaping through the forest toward it.*
    In another instant, he was back by Xuanmin's side. He opened his fist and a hip ornament made of wood dangled from his finger. "Look familiar?" he asked.
    Frowning, Xuanmin reached into his pouch and extracted the other wooden hip ornament, comparing the two. "Exactly the same," he said.
    The ornament that Xuanmin held had been taken from that man who had cast the "Hundred Soldiers Push the Flow" spell and whom they had found dying in the stone room beneath Xuanmin's bamboo building. According to that man, the ornament was made of peach tree wood, and had been gifted to him by the Daoist wizard named Songyun, as a marker of discipleship.
    With a hardened face, Xue Xian gestured into the woods with his chin and said, "I followed the sound, but the person instantly disappeared. They must have prepared a transportation spell. From afar, I tried to grab onto them, but all I got was this thing."
    But it was enough. Just this item could tell them where that person came from.
    Initially, he had assumed that the noise had been created by someone coming to pick medicinal herbs or gather firewood. But now it was clear: that person had not had good intentions.
    If they had the hip ornament, then they were associated with the wizard Songyun, and definitely had something to do with Xue Xian's dragon bones. Xue Xian suspected that those spider silk-like lines from last night had alerted Songyun's people, and someone had come to investigate.
    Xue Xian took the first ornament from Xuanmin's hand, then walked to where Twenty-Seven was sitting and crouched down. "Could you please try to see who's touched these ornaments before, and where they are now?"
    Although Twenty-Seven generally behaved insolently, when it came to important moments, he was straightforward. Without a word, he put down the cake he'd been munching on and brought out his bundle of sticks. After some time spent scribbling on the ground, he pointed west and said, "Straight ahead, there's a mountain whose peak looks like the head of a horse. On one side of the mountain are five small peaks clustered together, and on the other side is a temple pagoda with six stories."
    "I see. You should put the rest of that cake away. If you eat too much, you might throw up." Xue Xian then made a quick gesture at Xuanmin, grabbed Stone Zhang and Twenty-Seven's collars, transformed into a dragon, and flew into the pink sunrise, toward the west.
    Although Twenty-Seven could not divine the place name, his descriptions were enough, so that as Xue Xian flew, he soon came upon that "horse head mountain".
    Here, the sky was overcast, so he picked a secluded place in which to land. Twenty-Seven immediately did another divination and said, "They're still in the mountain and haven't left yet. If you go halfway up this hill–– oh, weird."
    "What is it?"
    "They suddenly disappeared," Twenty-Seven said, confused.
    "Disappeared?" Xue Xian frowned. "Are so lucky as to have them run away again?"
    "No," Twenty-Seven replied, shaking his head. "By disappear, I don't mean that they disappeared from the hill, but that... they disappeared from the divination."
    Even as he said it himself, he seemed not to believe it. He cleared away the dust and calculated again, but still frowned and said, "It's still like that. I can't find them at all anymore."
    Hearing this, Xue Xian looked over at the hillside and laughed coldly. "Alright, never mind the divination. I'll go find them myself."
    He sensed from the strangeness of the situation that it was likely dangerous, so he cut open his fingertip and dotted some blood on the backs of Twenty-Seven and Stone Zhang's hands. In order to make sure the spell worked correctly, he chose places where the two had not been injured and their skin remained clean.
    Then, he gestured into the distance with his chin. "If you take that path that leads toward the nearest town, I saw a tea stall not far from here. You can wait there, or you can go directly into the city. With dragon blood protecting you, nothing can happen to you, and later it'll be easy for me to find you. The bald donkey and I are going up to see the mountain."
    Stone Zhang and Twenty-Seven knew what they were worth, and did not try to insist on being a burden to Xue Xian and Xuanmin. Hearing Xue Xian's instructions, they simply nodded and said, "Be careful." Then they took the mountain path and began to walk toward the nearest county seat.
    Xue Xian and Xuanmin exchanged glances, then both leapt up to the hillside.
    As they leapt into the air, they were able to see a large swath of their surroundings, and noticed that, hidden deep within the forest, on a relatively flat slope, there as a trail of stone steps, and the steps led to a hut with its door ajar. It did not look like an abandoned temple, nor like a pagoda from which people could rest and admire the view.
    As a breeze blew by, Xue Xian sniffed the air and frowned in disgust. "The smell of dead bodies."
    Without any hesitation, the two strode up the stairs and stood before that open door.
    "The smell is absolutely everywhere..." Xue Xian said. As soon as he'd approached the door, he'd felt the stench slam into him. "What kind of creepy place is this?"
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