Chapter 601: Mirror-of-the-Sky Blood (5)

They took the highway into the mountain path and kept on for a double-hour and a half.

Though they were mountains, there were almost no trees; even when there were, they were only waist-high scrub, so following the path by moonlight wasn’t difficult.

But then a small lakeside hamlet suddenly presented itself.

Qing’s brows curved into a sharp angle.

Naturally, not a good sign.

In a brutal midnight cold, if you stoke a fire for warmth, even the smallest hamlet announces itself ahead with smoke.

Yet we climbed the rise without even imagining a village would appear—because there wasn’t the faintest presence, much less smoke.

Qing strode in on long, quick steps, chewing her lip, and entered the hamlet.

At most twenty buildings—a tiny place. The search didn’t take long, and in the end we found no survivors.

A few corpses inside houses.

A few within the village, less gnawed.

Strangely, the number of bodies was far short—but where the rest were lay close at hand.

Behind the hamlet, along the lake, bodies were strewn.

Birds had been pecking and must have returned to their nests at night; thanks to that, the sight was even more wretched.

Well, it wasn’t a proper sky burial.

Without the gathering and laying that lets birds feed, the bodies had just been thrown out; this is what it looks like when they’re left half-eaten.

Qing examined fragments of something shattered and scattered among the dead.

“A lion mask.”

“Hm?”

Peng Daesan lifted a fairly large piece.

Seeing the pointed teeth stuck to the lips, Qing could at once recall what it was.

The lion dance.

At Spring Festival, you lash together a wooden frame for a big lion mask, cloth for the body, and several people climb inside to cavort—a Middle Kingdom custom.

There aren’t professional dancers; the locals usually pick people, drill the routine together, and perform it to welcome good fortune.

“Looks like they were preparing for Spring Festival.”

Qing looked over the debris nearby.

A dead campfire, spilled pots and scattered platters for tsampa, and a neglected wine jar.

The scene all but paints itself.

Those practicing the lion dance ahead of the festival.

With little to do in winter, the whole hamlet would have poured out to watch, toss in their coaching, and straight up bring food, light a fire, eat, and knock back drinks.

Qing looked at the bodies that came up to the chest at best.

Kids find fallen leaves fun, they say—how would a gathering to play not be joyous?

Clutching the cloth skirts of the lion’s body and giggling, begging and insisting they wanted a turn; some hefting masks much too heavy for them and straining while the adults burst out laughing, delighted.

“Let’s go.”

“Sis. Want me to carry you?”

At Qing’s leaden voice, Gyeon Pohee quietly caught her sleeve and asked.

“No. I’m fine; I’m healed.”

“Mmm-hmm. Then... want to feel my chest?”

Apparently Qing’s unbroken death-mask of a face weighed on her, and Qing gave a faint smile in return.

“I’m just mad, not... you know, sad or drained. If anything I’m surging. Those brats are not getting away with this.”

Even so, the dark mood was clearing fast—also, anyway, Pohee’s belongs to me; if I’m touching what’s mine, why would I need permission?

And honestly, I was newly glad we came together.

If I’d been alone, I’d have flipped my eyes white with rage and sprinted full-tilt, rampaging to catch the bastards.

They left the hamlet and followed the gravel road north.

Along the way a tent camp appeared, left half-collapsed.

Three tents, some dozen corpses.

Only a meal table left, uncleared.

“Looks like they ate breakfast here.”

The Lama Monks entered Chaka Village around midday.

And that night Cha Magyeong gathered the villagers’ bodies for sky burial—meaning the monks left before then.

Judging by the meal table at this tent camp—plain tsampa, already hand-formed into cakes—it was likely breakfast.

At midday and in the evening, tsampa flour comes out loose; several grain flours, sweet water, yak’s milk, and yak yogurt are set out, and people knead it themselves, enjoying various tastes.

Which means those bastards spent the night at that lakeside hamlet.

So after slaughtering the villagers, they calmly slept in the empty homes they made for themselves.

Of course, the Green Forest louts Qing killed in the past—who knows about the afterlife, but if it exists, the bandit rabble who are right now being roasted in hellfire and gnawed by hungry ghosts might feel a bit sore at heart hearing this.

As night deepened and neared its end, they passed another spot by a small stream where a hamlet—more precisely, where a hamlet had been—once stood.

From the last rise, with the sky slowly lightening to deep blue, a wide plateau spread again below between the mountains.

And far off, a fairly large, proper county-level town sat.

At that, the party looked at one another.

Cha Magyeong and Cha Namo had spent a full day in a salt kettle before they met Qing’s party.

The Lama Monks had massacred three hamlets while moving north; by the timing, they might still be inside that town.

“Let them be there.”

Of course, we can’t swear to it.

From Cha Magyeong’s account, they were looking for a traitor; they could have detoured another way.

Their goal from the start was likely not the hamlet slaughters but the search for that traitor.

Then why? Just incidentally?

What for, exactly?

We’ll know when we hear it.

****

Tianjun County, on the west of Qinghai Lake, lay in the middle of fertile farmlands that stretched on either side of the Pohap River flowing between two mountain spurs.

Because it lay between mountains, the climate was mild and the soil rich; it was one of the few places in Qinghai where you could see a respectable mountain of real trees.

With fertile fields and a clear river, a village naturally grows; that was why it prospered decently even without any major roads tying it to elsewhere.

“My, did you come over the mountains in the middle of the night? Weren’t you cold? Come on in!”

It wasn’t a city wall so much as a palisade gate; the middle-aged man guarding it looked down at Qing’s party and promptly opened up.

Times like this show how simple these locals are; in the Middle Kingdom they’d surely have said it wasn’t yet the double-hour for opening and told us to wait.

Granted, Middle Kingdom flexibility is world-class—toss a few coins and you can substitute for the trouble of opening.

“By any chance, did you see Lama Monks?”

“Ah. You mean the monks of the Ahabdalhaptak Temple? They arrived yesterday evening.”

At that, Qing looked to Peng Daesan.

When an unknown term appears, Qing’s head turns on its own.

Why look to Peng Daesan? Because Gyeon Pohee and Seol Iri are even more ignorant than I am...

True, Peng Daesan is the weakest among ringing intellects, but with a lineup that’s got nobody to use their head, what can you do.

—Blood Thunder Sound Temple. The sect the mad monk belongs to.

Ahab? Why is Ahab coming up?

Ah—he said he’d try to block the Tibetans’ plot; he may be late, but maybe he sensed the Blood Venom or learned of it by some means and came to stop it himself.

And then a thought struck.

Weren’t there several of Ahab’s disciples mixed among that bandit lot?

Was that truly individual misconduct?

If not—

If the mad monk’s sect itself had caught the same wind as that Tobon-whatever?

And then: the traitor.

Right. They said they were seeking a traitor.

Don’t tell me Uncle Ahab is being hunted?

Only at times like this did Qing’s mind spin.

Feigning ignorance, she steadied her voice and asked,

“Do you know how many came?”

“Sixteen.”

Sixteen of them.

The gate guard hadn’t trained in martial arts, so he wouldn’t know how strong they were.

“Then where are they now?”

“Oh, you came to find the monks? Hm, I don’t know which homes they went to. They could be at an inn, or someone might have offered them lodging as a meritorious act.”

It was a town that didn’t really connect to anywhere, so wanderers of taste rarely visited.

So even the inns—three, and not large at that.

“Mm, but they are inside the town, right?”

“I haven’t heard they went out at night. If they left by the east gate I wouldn’t know, but I don’t reckon they’d go out in the dark.”

The guard said that, then—ah!

“Since they’re here, won’t they give a morning sermon? If you wait in the square, you could see them.”

“Heh-heh. Thank you.”

Qing gave a thin, empty laugh while keeping her insides clamped shut.

Hard to believe, judging by what they’ve been doing.

Would men who beat fellow plateau folk to death bother to dispense a sermon so people can earn merit?

Which made it likely they were at an inn... or so.

In Ahab’s phrasing, “receiving offerings”: providing lodging is also an act of making merit.

Likewise, since they won’t want to bestow merit, they’ll be at an inn paying their way. Surely.

Or so I thought—

“Welcome! Out so early—my, it’s bitter cold, isn’t it? Shall I bring breakfast? Or a room?”

“Oh. Actually—we were wondering if the Ah-rab... mm, if the Lama Monks were staying here.”

“Ahh. You’re outsiders, eh? Why would such men of the robe come to an inn? People will vie to host them and ask for blessings; there’s no reason to remain in a guesthouse apart from the faithful.”

“Mm.”

So they weren’t staying at an inn.

Qing’s eyebrow twitched.

If Amukhablap was hiding here, he’d surely be receiving extravagant treatment in someone’s home.

Then the Lama Monks would have split up and entered homes across the town to inquire door-to-door, not the inn.

Qing flipped her conclusion in a heartbeat.

Which means this is our chance, no?

Sixteen men won’t all enter one house; they’ll be scattered.

But how do we know where?

You just get a little shameless, that’s all.

And Qing’s face is more than thick enough.

Thump, thump, thump! She knocked, and a man, roused at dawn, opened the door with a face half drowsy, half irritable.

“What is it?”

“Ah, the Lama Monks visited yesterday. I have something urgent to deliver, but I don’t know which house they’re in, so I’m sorry for the imposition—may I ask if they’re here?”

But the man’s angry expression naturally vanished and was replaced by awkward apology.

He’d hung a plateau folk ornament at his door, so he must be Zang; this is exactly how plateau folk feel about hosting monks.

Even woken at dawn and asked right out, they—those bastards who’d kill that child in an instant.

“A-hem, well then. Abong took in one of them—so, from that second lane over there—no, wait a moment, I’ll guide you myse—”

“No, it’s fine. I’ve trained, I’m quick on my feet. Just tell me where.”

She stopped the man who was about to dash inside to throw on clothes and took directions.

Go into the second lane on the left; at the fork, go left.

From there, the third on the right.

The house with the blue carpet ornament hung out front.

And so the party stood before the house.

Fitting for a cold town, not a sliding door but a heavy-framed swing door.

Qing carefully tugged the handle; a weighty bar held, hanging its mass.

It was highly likely the enemy was inside. No need to pound and rouse them.

But the door was locked. So how?

Qing reached for the hinges set into the wall on the side opposite the handle.

Add her peculiar monstrous strength to her near-Diamond-Indestructible minor attainment, and anything becomes an invincible tool.

How could primitive, ancient hinges—a groove carved to wedge in wood—stand against an invincible tool?

Like snapping twigs, Qing’s fingers went tok-tok; soon, hinge-less, the door settled its weight comfortably into Gyeon Pohee’s arms as she braced it.