Chapter 630: Kunlun Sect vs Blood Thunder Sound Temple (6)

Sining, greeting the Spring Festival, overflows with life.

Many cultures hold their New Year in the middle of winter because there’s little else to do—idle hands and boredom.

Not only farmers, but with the ground frozen even construction falters, and with few winter tourists even those who host guests have a slack season.

Woodcutters might at least work up a sweat, but in Qinghai trees are scarce to begin with—and cutting is forbidden by state law besides.

In that sense Tibet’s custom of welcoming the New Year in spring is unusual.

Spring is busy to death—what festival? Their New Year is in fact kept rather modestly.

Qinghai’s greatest city, Sining, does not greet the year as splendidly as the Central Plains.

Unlike the Central Plains’ Spring Festival with its dazzling padded coats in every color, here people wear dull, overstuffed furs with fur hats pulled down.

With Qinghai’s distinctive face-covering fur hats pulled over, they look like bandits with only slits for eyes and mouth.

Even so, the city teems with spirit.

Their exposed eyes smile so much the corners drag down with the weight, and the corners of their mouths rocket upward, teeth flashing bright.

Children careen about with that high, chirping laughter—somewhere, drums and gongs crash and roll.

On the square a lion dance is in full swing.

Red lanterns strung everywhere light the early night; the lion mask tosses its head, flirts its tail, and performs a maddeningly pert, impish dance.

Then: proper night-market exploration.

Qing links her arm through her master’s and roams the stalls.

Everywhere stout greetings of “Happy New Year!” abound.

For this moment merchants and customers alike raise their voices like inn boys; it’s as if the entire market is wishing you fortune.

Qing buys a gourd flask of cheap yak-milk liquor and sips.

Gourds are a symbol of blessing—you see them everywhere as a Spring Festival snack vessel.

Ximen Surin’s brow twitches.

“How can you, in a woman’s body, drink as you go, out in the open? How can you carry on so frivolously?”

“Hehe, Master. Men stroll and drink freely, yet only women are told to feel shame because others can see? The real problem is the bias. Since the world’s heart leans that way, when a man is a drinker they praise him as bold and heroic, but when a woman enjoys spirits they wag fingers, calling it frivolous and scolding her. Your disciple thinks the world is narrow, so as a woman expert I should take the lead and act as if it were natural.”

Ximen Surin’s still-lovely hand balls into a fist.

Is the long-absent Rod of Wrath rising tall again?

“What on earth are you saying—my disciple’s words—my disciple’s words are... hm. Highly rational and well-ordered.”

Seomun Qing has poisoned the Central Plains again!

“Yes, my disciple speaks truly. A woman who likes drink pretends not to and nibbles two cups before withdrawing—what an absurd injustice. As you say, it’s a matter for woman experts to change by acting differently.”

Qing only wanted to sip and stroll the night market.

So master and disciple, arms linked and gourds in their free hands, sip as they wander the Spring Festival night market.

They eat lamb skewers, yak skewers, pork skewers; and since all that grease leaves you wanting something bright, they eat tanghulu—hawthorn candied in syrup—and yuanxiao cakes. Huh—why they sell yuanxiao cakes at the Spring Festival I don’t know, but sweet is sweet and they tasted good.

The night is long anyway, and Sining is one of the proud great cities known in the Central Plains.

The Spring Festival is a time of play, but it’s also when each person gets a small chance to pocket some winter cash—the stalls stretch without end.

Only—the stalls are all the same.

Selling the same things, over and over.

So even when you drain a gourd, there’s always another stall nearby selling “ambush liquor.”

The empty gourd count goes one, two, three, four...

“Mm, my disciple. Look at this—what lovely workmanship. The threads are dried and braided with such care. Child, how much for this ornament?”

“Uh, that’s...”

The kid peddling a tray of ornaments rolls her eyes.

A pretty sly look—can I fleece them a bit?

Then she sees Qing: a woman bare-faced but for a light mask, hat off in the cold night—

Hairpins stacked on hairpins, each hung with a dozen dangly ornaments; beyond that her whole head is festooned with trinkets—she looks warm enough without a hat just from the clutter.

You can tell how many jewelry stalls they’ve already shaken down.

A perfect mark.

“Uh—fifty—”

“Aaagh!!”

A passing man suddenly shrieks, spins about five times, and crashes to the ground.

Ximen Surin taps him with a toe, and pouches of every color tumble from his sleeves and bosom.

How do you just nudge a flank and make the pouches cascade out?

Even watching from the side, Qing can’t tell.

One pouch floats up and sails meekly into Ximen Surin’s hand.

“Tsk, tsk. Thieves swarm even on feast days. Now then, child—how much did you say?”

The girl gulps.

Her eyes whirl like a coiling dragon wind as she looks back and forth between the sprawled man and Ximen Surin.

“Ten coins. Ten.”

An ornament seller who suddenly recovered her conscience.

“Do you? With this much care, isn’t that too cheap? This one, and this—yes, this, and—this too is pretty.”

Ximen Surin plucks out only the well-made pieces and presses coins into the girl’s hand.

“No need for change,” she says, and the child’s face blooms bright.

With a dopey smile entirely unlike her usual dignity, Ximen Surin starts hanging yet more pieces in Qing’s hair.

Her head’s already crammed full, so with no space left she begins dangling them from the bangs.

“Master? I can’t see like this.”

“With your master by your side, what’s the problem? Come along. How is my girl so skinny? I heard you spent time reflecting in the Repentance Hall—did that Cheon Bija not even feed you? Your face is half its proper look. First eat, then regain some strength.”

Who knows where she’s seeing “skinny.”

One thing, however, is clear.

Ah. Master. You’re a lightweight...

Still—if Master says so, then so it is.

Let her enjoy herself.

A top expert like Master can blow away a drunken spell in an instant and clear her head whenever she wishes.

Drawn by her teacher’s arm, Qing steps on.

With all that fur there’s little skin exposed to the wind; Accumulation’s spatial sense barely works in this weather—but it’s enough to find her footing.

“Welcome—are you sisters? Oh my. Hm.”

The snack-seller’s face goes “uh-oh.”

Of course—an arm-linked woman coming along with her face hidden under a swaying curtain of ornaments.

Tsk tsk, how did she end up like that.

The vendors pick out their biggest piece, or press on freebies—lavishing unusual generosity.

Street musicians pluck strings, blow pipes, and sing—savoring one of the few peak seasons of the year.

Through the blurred swaying fringe of ornaments before Qing’s eyes, Ximen Surin’s smile seeps in.

Only—hm, perhaps a bit too much drink?

If she gets too tipsy, she’ll pull the alcohol out of her system herself, right?

One way or another, the night deepens.

It’s a Spring Festival night in full bloom.

——

Ahablapdalhaptak Temple of the Unbelievers—otherwise Blood Thunder Sound Temple—stood on Ahablapdalhaptak Mountain.

This is also a source of the Yangtze, and since olden times (Qinghai was originally Tibetan land) a sacred mountain.

A sacred mountain—holy ground.

So lately the abbot of Blood Thunder Sound Temple, Lhundup Rinchen, has been in a foul temper.

Several dozen obvious louts have set foot on this holy ground.

They grate on the nerves near daily; even if it is Potala’s will, he can’t help but take offense.

Behold—even now:

“[You wretches! How dare you stand before the Original Honored One with your shoes on—]”

“[What? We came because the Celestial Sovereign summoned us. You want us to go barefoot in this cold?]”

“[Y-you—how can you—]”

“[You over there wear thick foot-wraps (socks) and tell us to bare our feet?]”

“[What kind of bastards...!]”

Veins bulge all over Lhundup Rinchen’s bald head.

This cannot stand.

Not only in Tibet but even in the Central Plains, when you enter a temple to face the Buddha you remove your shoes and compose yourself.

But what even are these men!

Such men—how could they serve the Great Work—no. No.

Lhundup Rinchen breathes out, huu.

The veins sink down, shh, shh.

Only—that is not because his anger cooled.

Today I’ll open the precept of killing if I must, and teach a lesson to these boorish, ignorant curs.

His wrath has reached the brink; what steadies him is the mind to kill.

He joins his palms.

He stretches both hands to rend this brutish ignoramus into meat—when—

—[Now now, Abbot. Restrain yourself a little.]

A voice booms from every side.

Six-Directions Voice Transmission! A refined technique that is a voice-transmission yet presses in from all sides (plus above and below), leaving the speaker’s position unknown.

—[They are indeed men who deserve death—but they’re only shields to be spent in the fight with the Central Plains. Think on the Great Work and the Greater Meaning; quell the killing-heart.]

This is why such ignoramuses are treading holy ground.

Lhundup Rinchen barely masters the killing intent he had resolved upon and suppresses it within.

Then he heads into the innermost chamber of the Buddha Hall.

Within, behind a head, a brilliant golden nimbus: the Great Pagoda Celestial Sovereign.

A radiance wondrous no matter how many times he sees it—the light of enlightenment shed by an early-Translucent Buddhist adept.

“[Celestial Sovereign, how long will you have us put up with those uncouth dogs? The Central Plains’ Spring Festival is only five days off. Shouldn’t we clear out those irreverent Baldies of Kunlun before then?]”

“[Fool. Though Kunlun’s doctrine is false and seduces the world, their years cannot be ignored. Marching on the Kunlun Sect is the worst of the bad plans. How many uncanny defenses do you think they have woven into their nest?]”

“[You mean you will not clear out the Baldies—]”

“[This is entirely your fault. I hear the ‘yahippa’ you let slip has already reached the Kunlun Sect.]”

“[Yahippa ran to Kunlun!? Celestial Sovereign, then the Vajra adepts pursuing him—]”

“[From what I hear they were killed cruelly and hung up, so even beasts wouldn’t eat them, and they were denied the last charity of alms. Is that not because your skill is wretched?]”

Lhundup Rinchen clamps his mouth shut.

The Great Pagoda Celestial Sovereign clicks his tongue.

“[They’ll be on tight guard by now. In the art of war, do you charge an enemy who is prepared?]”

“[Then what—if Yahippa told them our Great Work, won’t the Kunlun dogs come attack us?]”

“[Yes. Exactly. That coward likely believes there is only one expert here—you. After the Spring Festival they’ll lead disciples and come straight here.]”

“[Then this temple’s losses—]”

“[Silence! Fool—what is there to fear from mere Kunlun! There is no true expert in Kunlun. A few in Harmony—so what!]”

Then the Great Pagoda Celestial Sovereign smiles a smile coarse and wicked, reeking of blood—ill-suited to that radiance—and speaks.

“[For I, the Honored One, am seated right here. We are strong, and they are in the moment of carelessness. So do not be afraid. The instant those loathsome Central Plains invaders reveal their true colors will be the very moment they are judged for their accumulated sins.]”