TSBIRBV Ch 90

Chapter 90 Heaven above, Suzhou–Hangzhou below (2)

There was a place in Hangzhou’s back alleys concealed even within concealment. A man lived there, known by word of mouth for cleanly handling bodies whose origins could not be traced. He conducted his trade in secrecy, yet not a day passed without customers.

Moonlight filtering through the single window was dim, and so a candle was lit to take its place; it danced, casting long, ominous shadows upon the opposite wall.

Two among the living, and one among the dead.

Their shadows tangled as if one body, keeping vigil through the long night.

When the shaggy‑haired man spread a mat over the last corpse, he wiped the sweat from his brow.

“Jinpal, thanks for calling me again today.”

After watching the porter, who hauled goods for three bronze cash, gather up the matting, the man lifted the curtain and stepped into the back room.

Today’s work was done.

Inside, there were no windows; a dark, musty odor lingered. Perhaps its source was himself, who had been handling a corpse moments before.

By habit, he took out a bottle of liquor and raised it to his mouth, then sat against the wall. Once, he wouldn’t have put to his lips such cheap rotgut—now it seared his throat.

It had been ten years since Jinpal had hidden himself in Hangzhou’s alleys to tend the dead.

All his life he had handled human bodies, but knowing nothing of how to mend them, he could not be a physician—and if he had used the knowledge learned from his master, his tail would have been stepped on and he would have been murdered.

Thus he chose to handle not the living, but the dead.

At first, it had been hard even to earn a day’s food for a day’s labor. But once word spread that he could neatly put back together even bodies crushed in strife among the heterodox, he could at least drink rotgut daily.

“To live at all, even like this…”

Eyes reddened by sleeplessness blinked a few times. The reality of still being alive drove Jinpal into insomnia. Though daily he faced the deaths of others, the fear that his turn would come would not leave him.

As he gauged when sleep might finally come, the shaggy‑haired man fainted outright.

When he opened his eyes again, his head was unnaturally clear. As Jinpal wondered why, he realized he was not alone.

“H—h—huh—!”

He could not even scream.

A fair, handsome man in white stood before him. If the place had not been Hangzhou’s back alleys, he might have thought him an immortal descended from some lofty height; such refinement clung to him.

This was no hallucination. In Jinpal’s visions, the other was always a low, crawling vermin—or a red‑eyed, ravening ghost.

“It has been a while.”

Not the harsh, iron‑tinged rasp—rather, a voice deep and mellow.

Even that poured terror into the shaggy‑haired man. That a being so utterly ruined in these rivers and lakes had returned in such wholeness could mean only one thing:

Rebirth and transformation.

“Do you remember this sovereign?”

“I—I—I, I…!”

Struggling to push out a few words, his vision blurred with tears. Ancient fear—his lived past—pressed Jinpal down.

They say resentment trails a long tail that cannot be shaken even across the Central Plains. Though he had come all the way from far Xinjiang to Hangzhou, he had, in the end, been overtaken.

“M—mercy…”

The shaggy‑haired man struck his head to the floor. Even as he spoke, he knew there was no such thing as mercy here.

He had watched every step of the trampling and breaking that left not a shred of goodness in that man—and at times, lent a hand.

All to forge a blade solely for the cult!

“From the look of you, you remember. Good.”

How could he forget?

Je Haryang—the man who had crawled from the lowest state to become, at last, a Heavenly Demon.

Jinpal remembered the young Taoist of Kunlun. Among the prisoners seized from Kunlun, he had stood out by far.

Wei Ji‑Mugang, proclaiming he would dedicate the glory of victory to the Heavenly Demon, conducted a splendid triumph, lining up prisoners to display his feats.

Among the Kunlun Taoists—aged and youthful—arrayed in a row, one man stood out.

The nape of his neck reddened by the desert sun, yet his skin pale; hands and feet bound, yet not cringing—somehow detached. Even with his robes stained by sandstorm, blood, and sweat, he looked neat—and so the eye was drawn to him again and again.

A man in whom not even defeat could be glimpsed—like a pine evergreen in all seasons.

If snapped clean, would he break?

“You have quite an eye, Eighth.”

Seeing his disciple stealing glances at a prisoner, the master stroked his beard.

“The Kunlun Cloud‑Dragon. The finest spoils our cult has obtained this time.”

Je Haryang.

The young dragon of Kunlun, named whenever one discussed the greatest post‑purchase talent of the age and a future world number one.

“This will be amusing for a while.”

The demonic physician, having looked down upon the prisoners, laughed and went to see the cult master—to obtain permission to “use” both the Kunlun Cloud‑Dragon and his senior brothers.

Wei Ji‑Mugang fumed at the demonic physician’s request for his spoils, but in the end the Heavenly Demon favored the master. Thus, Je Haryang, the Kunlun Cloud‑Dragon, and the Kunlun martial artists were placed under the demonic physician’s charge.

As the demonic physician’s eighth disciple, Jinpal, tasked with tending the prisoners, gained the chance to watch Je Haryang up close.

At first glance, he was obedient. He did not refuse the demonic physician’s harsh demands to test human limits, and even while his fellows refused meals, he doggedly took his.

It was to save his disciple, who had come upon Je Haryang’s back across the desert.

To save his dying fellow, the Kunlun Cloud‑Dragon obeyed the demonic physician’s orders, and with the time thus gained, circulated his qi to gather inner strength.

At first, Jinpal thought it was a frenzy to escape and watched Je Haryang closely.

“A man in shackles of black iron cannot possibly escape the Sun and Moon Divine Cult with that trickle of gathered inner force.”

He sneered inwardly. But Je Haryang poured the inner strength he had gathered into the body of the dying fellow.

No “spiritual healer” could possibly save him; yet he fought to chain a brother whose breath faded with each day to this world.

An intriguing desperation.

While others, exhausted, slept, the man who carved his own flesh and blood to share it bore, by day, his comrades’ naked blame.

“How can you, failing to defend Kunlun, become a running dog of the demonic cult to preserve a paltry life—licking their toes?”

Even as he received raw anger whole, Je Haryang never offered a single explanation.

Jinpal found that delightful.

The next day, Jinpal received a pouch of medicine from his master.

“Feed it to the Kunlun Cloud‑Dragon.”

“Would he not take it if simply given?”

“Eighth—think of something more amusing. I trust your wit.”

At his master’s words, Jinpal conceived a “fun amuse­ment.”

“You there.”

He called Je Haryang, who was returning to where the prisoners were confined.

“Since my master has his eye on you, I give you this.”

It was a rice ball wrapped in bamboo leaf.

“It would be a pity if a special experimental subject broke too soon. It contains a tonic to bolster your strength—eat it alone.”

With a smile upon his lips, he spoke; the other accepted silently and tucked it into his breast. As he bowed his head and withdrew, Jinpal was pleased.

For the sake of an experiment, he had been feeding him only one meal a day for several days. Je Haryang never touched the food Jinpal offered, as if hunger meant nothing.

Late that night, Je Haryang tore off small pieces of the food Jinpal had given and placed them into the mouth of his fellow—little more than a walking corpse.

“Disciple, try to eat this, hm?”

Even as half was spat back out and half swallowed, the Kunlun Cloud‑Dragon never once grimaced. Perhaps due to such devoted care, the Kunlun Cloud‑Dragon’s disciple remained bedridden, but alive—barely.

But now, it would change.

After eating the “special” rice ball Jinpal had given, the Kunlun Cloud‑Dragon’s disciple rose the next day, and on the second day, stood on both feet.

“Senior brother, I see Kunlun.”

And on the third day, could not open his eyes. The words he had babbled in fever on the second day became his last.

“…Disciple.”

Je Haryang, holding the body from which warmth had gone, murmured vacantly,

“Disciple Mun.”

Without a single tear shed, in a voice moist and trembling, Jinpal smiled sweetly.

“Senior brother. Please let him go.”

“Sehyeon endured long enough.”

“Senior brother…”

Those senior and junior brothers who, terrified by being dragged to the demonic cult, had blamed Je Haryang, gathered to comfort him. The youngest‑looking one, at his side, wept torrents of tears that Je Haryang could not shed.

Je Haryang was the first to gather himself. Approaching Jinpal, he bowed his head.

“Please—see that this child can be buried.”

“That is not for me to decide.”

The master had said he wished to make a jiangshi.

To that offhanded addendum, Je Haryang knelt.

“Please. I beg you—sir.”

“I will consider it.”

With that bit of swagger, he left the prison. He saw the senior brothers swarming to Je Haryang’s side.

“Rise, senior brother,” “The ground is cold,” “You must find strength,” “At least Disciple Mun’s soul will return to Kunlun.”

Hearing their soft murmurings, Jinpal’s lips curled.

“As if.”

They were the very ones who, desperate to live, terrified by being dragged to the demonic cult, had eyed Je Haryang—who seemed specially treated—with suspicion and blame. Yet when the disciple for whom the Kunlun Cloud‑Dragon alone had struggled died, only then did they feel guilt—how loathsome!

Still, this would suffice to fulfil the master’s command. Light of heart, Jinpal sought the demonic physician.

“…Now, if we tell the subject what was in that rice ball, guilt will devour him. He will neither discard it, nor give it to another.”

As he wrote for a while in his journal, the demonic physician spoke without turning.

“You sound most entertained.”

Jinpal did not deny it.

So what if he was the greatest among the post‑purchase talents of the age, spoken of as a future world number one?

Here he was, crawling on the ground, begging for mercy beneath the feet of the demonic physician’s eighth disciple—nothing at all.

“The Kunlun Cloud‑Dragon already knew his disciple would die. He simply could not let go; what he feels now is only the residue of what he could not relinquish.”

The master seemed not especially moved.

“Eighth, watch what your master does.”

The demonic physician’s whisper left a baleful aftertaste.

“It will surely be amusing.”