85: She Has Arrived

Sometimes, you have to force yourself forward.

Looking at Xu Buhuo lying on the floor, his face smeared with blood, I knew there was no retreat. Grinding my teeth, I drove the needle into the point beneath his nose.

The pain made me cry out despite myself.

The door to the ward was shoved open, and Li Yao rushed in. When she saw what I was doing, her eyes widened in shock.

That point beneath the nose has always been tied to life itself.

When it hurts, it can kill.

Enduring the searing pain, I formed the seal with both hands.

Ordinarily, when I cast such a secret art, I could determine in advance how much of my lifespan it would cost me—like the last time, when I used years of life to search for Brother Li's body. But this time, saving Xu Buhuo, I had no idea how much it would take.

And after all Xu Buhuo had done for me before, I could hardly bring myself to count the cost.

With the seal complete, the flame of the life lamp at Xu Buhuo's brow seemed like the valve on a lighter slowly opening bit by bit, the fire growing larger and larger.

That flame was an indirect sign of Xu Buhuo's condition.

Once it steadied, it meant his state had begun to stabilize. I took three incense sticks, lit them from the life lamp at Xu Buhuo's brow, and used the burning incense to perform the incense art.

In the quiet room, a wind suddenly rose.

The blue smoke from the three sticks, under the invisible control of the spell, scattered in all directions and settled over Xu Buhuo's birth seals.

Smoke coiled.

The birth-charms began to tremble.

About a minute later, the eight charms bearing Xu Buhuo's birth details slowly stood upright, one by one.

Standing beside me, Li Yao was still frightened by what I was doing; I could tell from her eyes.

By the time the three sticks of incense had burned down completely, the eight charms were fully standing.

"Return."

I gave a low command, tilted my head back, and tore the needle from the point beneath the nose, then rose and began the stepwork of the ritual again.

Each footfall landed upon one of the eight directions.

The charms, as if drawn by some force, rushed quickly toward the oil lamp above Xu Buhuo's chest. The moment they touched the flame, they erupted at once.

Xu Buhuo, lying on the floor, convulsed violently as if struck by electricity.

After the charms were completely consumed by fire, his eyelids twitched. Then, slowly, he opened his eyes, his gaze still blurred and unfocused.

As the spell ended, I collapsed onto the floor.

Even though I was weak all over and in terrible pain, the misery almost unbearable, seeing Xu Buhuo finally wake made it all worth it.

With my own hands, using years of my life to pull a dying man back from death, the mystery of the occult once again deepened my understanding of this world.

At the same time, a thought in my heart reminded me that although I had promised my mother I would step away from this path when the time was right, I knew I had already sunk too deeply into it.

The day I can withdraw, I do not know.

Perhaps that day will never come at all.

After taking away the life lamp and the rest, Xu Buhuo slowly sat up, his exhausted eyes fixed on me.

"You did all that. Was it worth it?"

Worth it?

So many things have already been done. Why ask now whether they were worth it?

I smiled and said, "For you, nothing is not worth it."

Xu Buhuo seemed about to say more, but in the end there was only a sigh.

Nothing is better than waking up. Xu Buhuo went off to wash up, while I, supported by Li Yao, went to have the wound on my hand treated. When we returned to the ward, the attending physician was standing blankly at the door.

Before, he had taken all this for superstition. Now that he saw the terrifying signs on Xu Buhuo's body gone and the man himself looking as though nothing had happened, his attitude toward me changed completely.

The end of science is the occult.

The mysteries of the occult are by no means something ordinary thought can comprehend.

Saving Xu Buhuo had consumed my lifespan.

At times, I even wanted to calculate exactly how many years I could still live, but in the end I forced myself to abandon the thought.

Some things, once unknown, are actually for the best.

After leaving the hospital, Li Yao arranged for us to stay at a quiet mountain lodge. By then I could no longer hold on, and I fell into a deep sleep. When I woke again, two days had passed. Only Li Yao was left at the lodge; Xu Buhuo was nowhere to be seen, and I could not help feeling anxious.

Li Yao said that after I fell asleep, Xu Buhuo had left without a word. She did not know where he had gone or what he was doing, because in the Sixth Division she was far below him in rank and had no right to ask.

For an ordinary person, one could divine safety and whereabouts by casting lots, but not for Xu Buhuo. He was one of us, a man who walked this same road.

So all I could do was wait in peace.

By evening, Xu Buhuo returned with a wooden box in his hand.

I was wondering what was inside when I saw liquid dripping from the box onto the floor. Going closer, I discovered it was blood.

Looking at the box, I thought of certain scenes from television dramas and wondered whether it contained a human head.

Curiosity made me open my heavenly sight without thinking.

Around the wooden box, thick yin energy and resentment swirled. In an instant I was certain Xu Buhuo had gone out this time to take a life, and that he had even brought back the person's head in the box.

"Old man, is that inside the woman from the cave's..."

I did not finish the word head, because I knew Xu Buhuo would understand what I meant.

"No."

Xu Buhuo shook his head. "After I chased after that woman, I lost her very quickly. Just as I was about to turn back, I ran into the man who killed my younger brother. For the past half-year, I have been fighting him in open and hidden ways."

So it was not that woman, but the killer of Xu Xue's grandfather.

If so, then the person who had nearly killed Xu Buhuo completely was the one who controlled paper figures to kill others. Thinking back to the scenes I had dreamed of earlier, I could not help feeling confused.

Dreams reflecting reality. It was precisely the unease in my dream that had urged Old Sun to hasten the search for Xu Buhuo. Then I found him, saw his wretched state, and had assumed all along that it was the woman's doing.

I could not make sense of it. If someone else was responsible for what happened to Xu Buhuo, why had I dreamed of that woman choking him?

"What is it?"

Perhaps sensing that something was wrong with me, Xu Buhuo stared at me.

Dreams are strange things; even occult explanations can hardly make sense of them. I had not intended to say anything, but after hesitating, I still told him about the dream.

After hearing me out, Xu Buhuo also fell silent. About three minutes later, he said, "After I was injured and passed out, it seemed like she appeared."

"What?"

I thought I had misheard him.

"At first, I thought I was imagining it, but after hearing what you said, I think the fact that I didn't die had something to do with her."

Xu Buhuo went on to explain that he had been locked in fierce battle with that fiend. He was injured by accident, and judging from the severity of the wounds at the time, Xu Buhuo said that even he knew he was going to die.

Yet he had never expected me to arrive and save his life.

Xu Buhuo was already something like a living corpse. He said that man had seen through this long ago and broken the secret art on his body, leaving him with almost no chance of surviving.

With the spell broken and his body collapsing in grievous injury, Xu Buhuo said he faintly felt someone approach. It was very dark then, and he could only make out vaguely that it was a woman.

At the time, he felt the woman touch him several times, then put something into his mouth.

After he woke, he had thought it over carefully, but the memory of what happened then remained blurry, so he had not taken it seriously. Now, after hearing about my dream, he was certain that the person who had appeared then was indeed that woman.

Xu Buhuo made it very clear: only if that woman had intervened could he have been left hanging by a final breath until I arrived. If she had not stepped in, he would already have been completely dead.

"She could reach so far as to make me dream of you?" I could not help asking.

Before this, I had not really thought that mysterious woman was all that formidable. But after hearing Xu Buhuo's account, I found her to be almost frighteningly powerful.

Still, it made sense. If she were merely human, how could she have survived for countless years in a sealed cave without dying? And if she were not capable, how could she have made my grandmother's personally refined father suddenly turn on her and tear off one of my grandmother's arms?

Xu Buhuo gave a bitter laugh. "You know how mysterious the occult can be. Making you dream of me is nothing. I can do that too."

At this point, I was certain that the woman who came out of the cave had not only saved Xu Buhuo, but also used the dream to notify me, so I would know where he was and rush in time to save him.

Why would she do that?

By rights, we should have stood on opposite sides. Why would she act to keep Xu Buhuo alive by the barest thread?

While I was thinking it over, Li Yao suddenly came in and said, "Ziwu, there's a young woman outside. She says she's here to see you."

A young woman looking for me?

I didn't know anyone in this place. How could someone know I was here? Just as I was about to ask what she looked like, Xu Buhuo suddenly cut in and asked, "Was she wearing a long purple dress, looking a bit like someone from ancient times?"

I saw that when Li Yao nodded, Xu Buhuo's face turned deathly pale in an instant, and he even staggered back two steps, unable to stand steadily.

She had come.