After the Immortal Disappeared

The smoke churned without any wind, as if something inside was about to take form.

If the Hee Brothers were here, they’d probably be shocked, never expecting their father to know such fancy tricks.

But just then, the candle flame sputtered and flared.

The steward, Old Mo, immediately felt the atmosphere shift. He watched helplessly as the green smoke slowly dissipated, returning to nothing, no matter how many times Hee Chunhua repeated the chant.

Clearly, the spellcasting had met some obstruction and could not proceed smoothly.

Old Mo looked on anxiously from the side and couldn’t help but ask, "What happened?"

Hee Chunhua wiped the sweat from his forehead. "It refuses to answer the summons. It says there is a more powerful presence nearby."

Old Mo was astonished. "A more powerful presence?" This was just a small county town; what kind of extraordinary being could possibly be here? "My lord, what do you plan to do?"

"We’ll find another place before midnight passes. To the east would be best."

Old Mo packed up their things while Hee Chunhua threw on his greatcloak, and they hurried out the door.

However, they had only descended two steps when Madam Ying woke up. Eyes bleary with sleep, she came out and asked, "Ah, where are you going so late?"

"I’m just stepping out to handle something. I’ll be back soon," Hee Chunhua said in a low voice. "Go back to sleep. Don’t worry."

When he spoke in that low tone, it meant the matter was not up for discussion. Madam Ying was familiar with her husband’s ways, so she didn’t press the issue, simply saying, "Be careful," before returning to her room.

...

Hee Lingchuan, who was sound asleep, rolled over.

He knew he was dreaming again, but this time he didn’t go straight to Panlong City. Instead, he returned to the moment several months ago when he’d fallen into the Pool Well in the ruins.

Back then, in the Panlong Ruins, the Hee father and son, along with Sunx Fuping leading the Black Water City Army, had captured prey from the Desert Sea and bled it into the pool.

After the Heroic Spirit of the Great Wind Army appeared, Hee Lingchuan had accidentally fallen into the pool. There was water everywhere.

Dark red, bloody water.

This was no well; it was clearly a bottomless, dark abyss.

Hee Lingchuan floated in the water, completely baffled. Above, a flash of green light seemed to bore down into the water.

At least, Hee Lingchuan thought the very top layer of the pool’s water had turned a pale green.

This pale green color spread rapidly downward.

But just then, Hee Lingchuan noticed the water beneath his feet begin to churn.

He looked down and saw a massive red figure moving in the depths of the pool.

With its every movement, enormous whirlpools formed in the water.

The calm, deep pool was instantly filled with countless, interacting torrents and undercurrents.

The bit of green light at the surface was instantly shattered and vanished completely.

Hee Lingchuan swam downward, wanting to seize the chance to see the red figure’s true form. After several months away, he had almost forgotten about the behemoth lurking in the outermost layer of his Dream Realm.

’What in the world is it doing here?’

The closer he swam, the more immense it seemed.

But the light grew dimmer and dimmer, and soon he couldn’t see anything at all.

When he opened his eyes again, he was standing on a bustling street in Panlong City. A jewelry vendor carrying his wares on a shoulder pole stammered a smile at him. "Cus... cus... Young, young master, care to buy a pearl flower for... for someone?"

...

The small town of Ru County had no curfew. The night was deep, the watchman had just made his rounds, and there wasn’t even a stray dog on the streets.

It was now the first month of the year, and the ground was often covered in a foot of snow.

It had started snowing again tonight; no one would be up to sweep the streets until morning. Thanks to the light reflected by the snow on the ground, the surroundings weren’t completely pitch-black. Hee Chunhua and Old Mo headed east, their boots crunching on the snow.

They had brought no attendants.

The farther east they went, the sparser the houses became.

Eventually, Old Mo pointed to a dilapidated house. "This one has the deepest snow piled up by the door. It should be empty."

The snow was piled almost to the height of the door latch, a clear sign the door hadn’t been opened in at least half a month.

"It’s several hundred yards from the post station. Let’s try it." Hee Chunhua nodded, and he and Old Mo climbed over the courtyard wall.

The courtyard was also full of snow. The trees and crops had long since withered and died, and the door to the house stood ajar. There was no sign of life.

In such troubled times, there were a hundred reasons for a house to be abandoned.

The two men entered the small house and closed the door and windows.

The cracks in the windows were large, and a cold wind still whistled through, making a low moaning sound like the howl of a Rock Wolf. Old Mo had to stuff them with straw. The wooden door was slightly warped; it took both of them to force it shut, and they braced it with a millstone.

All this took some effort. Hee Chunhua rubbed his hands together and said, "Hurry. The double-hour is almost over." Missing the window meant waiting another day, and they didn’t have extra time to waste in Ru County.

Hee Chunhua righted an overturned table, relit the green candle, and began to chant the Mantra.

Old Mo also took out the Shoushan stone paperweight, gripping it tightly.

This time, the green smoke took shape smoothly, finally coalescing into a blurry image. It was hard to tell if it was the face of a ghost or a dog, but it had a nose and a mouth.

The temperature in the room plummeted again, and frost began to form on the tabletop.

Although the face only had two empty sockets for eyes, both men could sense it observing them with faint, malevolent intent.

As expected, the next second, the face lunged at them without warning.

Old Mo, having been instructed beforehand by Hee Chunhua, didn’t move a muscle.

Just as the green smoke was about to cross the table, Hee Chunhua flicked his left hand, revealing the Society Command in his palm.

The fortune of the state can suppress all evil!

The green smoke recoiled in alarm, rapidly retreating to a distance of at least four feet from him.

Since it couldn’t touch this man, it turned and went for Old Mo instead.

Old Mo was a loyal servant of the Hee Family, not an appointed official of the Royal Court, so naturally he had no Primordial Qi to protect him. But the paperweight in his hand suddenly glowed with green light. The carved kite’s head turned, its pair of red eyes fixing on the green smoke.

Held by its gaze, the green smoke froze in mid-air, nearly dissipating.

After a moment, the smoke gathered itself again. The ghostly face became clearer, staring intently at Hee Chunhua. It tilted its head as if in question, its expression no longer one of casual contempt. Hee Chunhua said grimly, "I am offering you a delectable meal, but he is protected by an Amulet and an Array. You may not be able to find him."

He held up the slip of paper with Li Zhao’s birthdate written on it and lit it from the candle.

"These are his birth characters."

The paper met the flame and quickly burned to ash. The green smoke rolled across the tabletop, sucking up all the ashes until not a speck remained.

The candle flame trembled violently, showing its keen interest.

Hee Chunhua asked, "Can you find him?"

The green smoke did not react.

Just as he’d thought. The birth characters alone weren’t enough. Li Zhao was under the protection of a Spell, preventing evil spirits from tracking him directly.

Only then did Hee Chunhua take out the fingertip-sized porcelain vial.

The stopper was surprisingly tight; even Hee Chunhua had to use some effort to pull it out, a testament to the deep disgust of the person who had collected the specimen.

Steward Qian had been right. After "brewing" for two or three days, the liquid that poured out of the vial was yellow and reeked of piss and filth.

Pinching his nose, Hee Chunhua dripped two drops onto the candle’s wick, careful not to extinguish the flame.

To be honest, though, the smell was nowhere near as overwhelming as the "fragrant balls" homemade by the Sand Bandits of Red Cliff Road. Now *that* stuff was a true biochemical weapon.

With a SIZZLE, the candle flame shot up high, its color turning a deep green. It cast a sickly green pallor on the two faces by the table, a truly frightening sight.

The green smoke grew more solid, and eyeballs sprouted in its sockets—three vertical pupils in each, with a shimmering, unfixed light within that defied close inspection.

For its eyes to see was to have a target and a direction.

"He’s done no shortage of evil deeds, both in public and in private. He should be your favorite kind of prey," Hee Chunhua reminded it. "When he was young, he was caught in a flood. He abandoned his own brother, leaving him to drown. This incident is likely a deep-seated trauma for him. You would do well to start there."

The three vertical pupils on the ghostly face suddenly merged into one. The face itself grew very distinct, and its mouth slowly stretched into a smile.

But the mouth opened too wide, to a hundred and forty or fifty degrees, stretching the cheeks, eyes, and even the corners of the forehead. The muscles twisted and wrinkled, looking like a wax figure about to melt.

More terrifying than seeing a ghostly face was seeing that ghostly face laughing maniacally and silently at you.

A chill ran down Steward Old Mo’s spine as he watched, and goosebumps erupted all over his skin.

Hee Chunhua, however, remained unfazed. "Found him? Go, then. Before the sun rises."

The ghostly face glanced at the two men one last time, then abruptly turned and floated away, its form growing fainter and fainter.

It vanished before it even reached the door.

The candle went out at the same time.

Steward Old Mo blinked, as if waking from a dream. Looking around the room, it seemed different from a moment ago, but he couldn’t say how.

’Hmm, the eerie atmosphere seems to be gone.’

Hee Chunhua turned to him and said, "You fell asleep just now."

’Fell asleep? How is that possible? I was acting as Protector for my lord just now, completely focused.’

Seeing his disbelief, Hee Chunhua pointed to the corner of his mouth.

Old Mo reached up and touched it. It was wet.

He had actually drooled, a long trail of it, and had been completely unaware.

In other words, he really had been in a daze.

"My lord, did you also see the green smoke?"

"Of course. We were in the same Dream Realm." Hee Chunhua pointed to the Kite-shaped Paperweight cradled in his hands. "If it weren’t for the protection of a treasure like this, you wouldn’t have woken up at all."

Old Mo shuddered. "How terrifying. I didn’t even realize when I fell under its spell."

’And that was while I was consciously on guard. What about Li Zhao, who is dozens of miles away?’

"Li Zhao has a Magical Artifact for protection. Ordinary evil spirits can’t get near him, or I wouldn’t have needed to go to such lengths." The green candle had burned down to a small stub. Hee Chunhua put it away. "This is its ration. Why else would it answer my summons? A shame these candles are so hard to come by. There isn’t enough left to perform the ritual again."

Old Mo asked him, "My lord, why did you only mention that one particular trauma of Li Zhao’s?"

"He wouldn’t care about the incident with the two lives in one body." Hee Chunhua waved his hand dismissively. "A mere concubine. If she’s dead, she’s dead. Does he look like he’s short on women or heirs?"

At this, he recalled something and his brow furrowed. "But, what was the deal with the post station? What could possibly be near there that could suppress my magic?"

...

Elder Master Li was once again dreaming of that unforgettable summer.

He hadn’t had this dream in a long time. His older brother was being even nicer than usual, giving him a particularly beautiful belt. The children tossed their shirts on the Stone Beach and jumped into the river to play, the cool water routing the scorching summer heat.

Just as everyone was having fun, a voice called out from the distance.

Li Zhao looked up and saw a young woman with a medicine basket on her back. She was standing halfway up the hillside, waving frantically and shouting at them.

They were too far away, and with the roar of the water, no one could make out what she was saying.