Chapter 488: The Fate Sealed in the Poplar Forest

When Nanling Rao Hua was very young, her grandfather told her that guarding Yumen was the mission of their Yumen Desert lineage.

As long as Yumen existed for a single day, one among them would inevitably find their final resting place in that endless stretch of gobi.

Her grandfather also told her that Martial Uncle Bai and Martial Uncle Lu would not be coming back, so only she could guard Yumen.

The so-called Yumen was not the existing ruins of Yumen Pass, that small earthen fortress built from yellow loess, barely over six hundred square meters in area.

Everyone knew that the Yumen Pass recorded in history was as famous as Yang Pass, with envoys and merchant caravans coming and going in an endless stream, but that little earthen fort could never live up to the name of a grand pass.

However, Nanling Rao Hua knew that the real Yumen only appeared during the annual super sandstorm on the gobi desert.

When the raging winds swept tens of thousands of tons of yellow sand into the sky, blurring the boundary between the heavens and the gobi in the storm, the city walls stretching for miles would emerge in the blinding sand.

Accompanied by the thunder of decayed war drums, evil spirits clad in rotting armor would charge out from the city, leaving not a trace of life in their wake.

Every year at that time, her grandfather would disappear for a while, returning covered in wounds.

From then on, Nanling Rao Hua understood that her grandfather and her martial uncles were guarding a “Yumen” on the gobi desert, just like this illusory Hua City–a special space constructed by high-tier haunting legends, using their own power as a medium, consuming vast amounts of psychic energy and alchemical materials.

So, on the second day after Nanling Rao Hua arrived in this special space, she saw through what this place was, and then, after just over a week, she retrieved her true self from the fabricated memories.

However, in her understanding, a special space constructed by a high-tier haunting legend could never achieve what this illusory Hua City did–drawing projections from the real world to give birth to two closely connected yet relatively independent entities.

That was already bordering on the realm of creating life.

——–

Nanling Rao Hua had come to this illusory city a little over three months ago.

That day, the Night Parade of a Hundred Ghosts in Hua City had just ended, and it was Christmas Eve.

Although she wasn’t particularly fond of this foreign holiday, out of sheer boredom, she still went out into the streets to experience the festive atmosphere.

When she was very young, she had heard about Christmas Eve from a group of backpackers passing through next door, and after asking Martial Uncle Lu, she learned about the haunting legend of Christmas Eve.

According to legend, every Christmas Eve, an old man dressed in a crimson robe, with hair and beard as white as snow, would set out from a land frozen year-round, riding a sleigh pulled by a monster with a horse’s face, a deer’s antlers, a camel’s neck, and a donkey’s tail, embarking on a hunt across the world.

He would pick out obedient children, and his eerie figure would slip into their homes late at night through the chimney or the attic window, leaving behind “gifts” made of unknown substances, exuding an ominous aura.

Those ominous “gifts” would be mixed in with many normal presents, waiting for the next morning when the chosen, unfortunate children would open them.

The Nightfall Alliance, a special organization abroad similar to The Midnight Watchers Society that handles hauntings, would spend enormous manpower and resources every year hunting Santa Claus, trying to intercept him in that perpetually frozen land–sometimes succeeding, sometimes failing.

This was quite similar to the Nian beast; every year, The Midnight Watchers Society would also expend vast manpower and resources to deal with the Nian beast, which could appear in any city across the country.

……

Nanling Rao Hua had once asked her Martial Uncle Lu, “What exactly are the ominous gifts?”

Martial Uncle Lu pondered for a while and replied, “Probably ‘Five Years Simulated Exams, Three Years College Entrance Exams.'”

Nanling Rao Hua asked again, “What is ‘Five Years Simulated Exams, Three Years College Entrance Exams’?”

Martial Uncle Lu, growing a bit impatient, pointed at the classics and spell formation scrolls on the desk that the Old Man of Nanling made Nanling Rao Hua study every day, and said seriously, “Super extra homework!”

……

After hearing Martial Uncle Lu finish telling this haunting story, the young Nanling Rao Hua was so frightened that she tucked her little feet into the sheepskin rug, firmly declaring she didn’t want any gifts, and secretly rejoiced that her home was a cave dwelling with no chimney, and she wasn’t an obedient child anyway.

To prove to that elusive Christmas Eve haunting that she wasn’t an obedient child, that night she put an eastern sand python in Martial Uncle Bai’s bed.

And then…

She was given a sound beating by Martial Uncle Bai, who had a snake hanging from his butt.

On Christmas Eve, snow was falling lightly over Hua City. It was a bit warmer than winter on the gobi, but the weather was still exceptionally cold, and the sky was so gloomy it looked like dusk. Although it was a foreign holiday, all kinds of merchants, eager to make money, spared no effort to use the festival as an excuse to launch various “discount” events.

Nanling Rao Hua came out onto the street, and every corner she passed was filled with the festive atmosphere.

Upbeat songs floated through the air, and almost every mall had a Christmas tree decorated with wind chimes, stars, or colored lights.

Nanling Rao Hua knew about those Christmas trees. Martial Uncle Lu had said it was a custom, much like using fireworks to drive away the Nian beast, and had the effect of warding off evil.

By placing lots of gifts under the tree, you could confuse Santa Claus, making him think he’d already left presents once, so he wouldn’t leave any ominous gifts.

She saw people dressed as Santa Claus handing out presents to children. She couldn’t quite understand what kind of twisted sense of humor made those adults dress up as hauntings to scare kids on the holiday.

One word for it: perverse!

Later, she went to a restaurant to try the roast turkey she’d been looking forward to.

The turkey was dry, the chunks of meat were bland, and it was nowhere near as delicious as she’d imagined. She came in excited and left disappointed.

But for some reason, the couple at the next table, who looked like students, were eating happily.

Throughout the meal, they wore syrupy sweet smiles, making Nanling Rao Hua wonder if their turkey was different from hers.

When the couple left, she took advantage of the moment before the waiter cleared the table to sneak a taste of the half-eaten turkey they’d left behind, only to find theirs was just as bad.

Sitting in the restaurant, chewing the dry turkey, Nanling Rao Hua couldn’t figure out why that couple could enjoy something even worse than roasted long-clawed sand rat. She just felt a vague discomfort in her chest, as if something was stuck there.

Night.

Nanling Rao Hua lay on the bed Lu Yibei used to sleep in, staring blankly at the ceiling, recalling everything that had happened since she left the gobi, her heart full of troubles.

When she left, she’d left a note for her grandfather saying she was going to find Lu Yibei. At first, she really did set out with a young girl’s longing for love.

But in reality, after leaving the gobi, she hadn’t seriously looked for Lu Yibei.

The outside world had so many things to do, so many interesting and enticing things, far more than the endless yellow sand, poisonous insects and fierce beasts, and all the ghosts and monsters of the gobi desert.

In the past few months, she’d seen many new sights, met kind people who gave her rides, and also encountered villains controlled by hauntings, hunting people at a remote gas station.

After arriving in Hua City, she’d only searched for Lu Yibei for less than two weeks before her attention was drawn elsewhere.

It was like when she happened to meet that elementary school teacher who was a psychic, and they hit it off and became close friends. She then spent nearly a month, crossing more than a dozen cities to help her search for students abducted by hauntings, even helping to destroy a criminal gang trafficking people with hauntings.

After that, introduced by her friend, she got involved with a haunting bounty website.

From then on, Nanling Rao Hua had more and more things to do, and for a while forgot why she’d left the gobi.

Until that Christmas Eve, when she returned to the Lu Family old mansion, tossing and turning on the bed, unable to sleep, she unconsciously remembered a day many years ago…

——–

Many years ago, after Lu Ming and Bai Kai left the gobi desert, the first time they returned to that dilapidated cave dwelling, it made the then not-quite-four-year-old Nanling Rao Hua yearn for the outside world.

Back then, faced with her grandfather’s earnest teachings, she didn’t understand what “mission” meant at all. She just stared at him with big watery eyes and asked, “Then why doesn’t Martial Uncle Lu have to stay on the gobi to guard it?”

“Because he’s a rebellious disciple! I’ll expel him from the sect tomorrow!”

Nanling Rao Hua looked at her grandfather, who was gnashing his teeth, thought for a while, then took his hand and said seriously, “Then Grandpa, expel me from the sect too, okay?”

And then…

Her grandfather gave her a good scolding, then punished her to copy the Commentary on the Yumen Incantation Classic ten times. She wasn’t allowed to sleep until she finished.

The Commentary on the Yumen Incantation Classic, as the foundational text for the Yumen Desert lineage, contains a total of 6,572 characters. Copying it ten times might not seem like much.

But on the gobi desert, paper, pens, and even water for grinding ink are all luxuries. Naturally, when Nanling Rao Hua was punished to copy the Commentary on the Yumen Incantation Classic, she couldn’t possibly use real brush, ink, paper, or inkstone.

Her “paper” was the compacted blocks of saline-alkali soil found everywhere on the gobi desert, hard and heavy like stone slabs. Her “pen” wasn’t a brush either, but a small sword made of a special metal, surprisingly heavy.

Using stone as paper and a sword as a pen, just copying the Commentary on the Yumen Incantation Classic once would leave an ordinary adult’s wrist aching and fingers refusing to work.

Even with a certain degree of psychic energy to help, copying it ten times was still an arduous and extraordinary task for the young Nanling Rao Hua.

Her grandfather, who was usually “all talk and no action,” was especially strict that time, showing no leniency at all.

So Nanling Rao Hua could only copy while crying.

When she got to the third round, Martial Uncle Bai appeared, comforting her, “It’s okay, don’t cry, copying scriptures is also sword practice!”

“When I was little, I was always copying scriptures too. Not only did I copy the Commentary on the Yumen Incantation Classic, I also copied the much longer Spell Mountain of the Desert and the Source Canon of the Yumen Incantation Classic. That’s why my swordsmanship is so good now!”

“If you finish copying it seriously, you’ll definitely become just like me! Keep it up!”

Nanling Rao Hua stared at Bai Kai with big, watery eyes. Thinking that she might become as dull and silly as him in the future, practicing swordsmanship all day, she burst into even louder sobs.

Seeing the little girl crying her eyes out, Bai Kai was at a loss for words, stood there awkwardly for a while, and then slipped away.

When Nanling Rao Hua was on her fifth round, Martial Uncle Lu was drawn over by her nonstop crying. He patted her head and asked seriously, “Ah-Hua, do you want to stop copying? Do you want to leave here?”

Nanling Rao Hua looked at Lu Ming with teary eyes, nodding her head like a pecking chick.

In that moment, she believed in her Martial Uncle Lu more than anything, because among all her “family,” only Martial Uncle Lu always had a way to persuade her eccentric grandfather.

“Alright! Then we won’t copy anymore!” Lu Ming smiled. “I’ll go talk to your grandpa right now.”

With that, he left the cave lit by dim candlelight and headed toward the bonfire pile in the twisted, eerie poplar forest.

Driven by curiosity, Nanling Rao Hua secretly followed Lu Ming into the poplar forest, watching him walk up to her grandfather by the bonfire, and then she heard a conversation she would never forget.

Late at night, with only the distant howls of wolves from behind the earthen hills, by the bonfire in the poplar forest, the flickering firelight illuminated the thin, shriveled figure of the old man, wrapped in a sheepskin coat that seemed to have seen many years.

Lu Ming stopped in front of the Old Man of Nanling, cupped his hands respectfully, and said, “Shifu, I pay my respects.”

The Old Man of Nanling lifted his eyelids and shot Lu Ming a glare. “Scram!”

Lu Ming paused for two seconds, then, without chanting, formed a spell formation at his fingertips. He bowed again to the Old Man of Nanling, “Shifu, I pay my respects.”

The Old Man of Nanling glanced at the light cluster at Lu Ming’s fingertips–at the very least, a forbidden spell formation–nodded, and said, “Mm, if you have something to say, just say it. No need for formalities.”

Seeing this, Nanling Rao Hua, hiding in the distance, pursed her lips and clenched her little fists in excitement.

Hearing this, Lu Ming dispelled the light cluster with a counter-spell, then sat down beside the Old Man of Nanling and smiled, “Shifu, do you really intend for Ah-Hua to stay on the gobi desert her whole life?”

“……”

The Old Man of Nanling was silent. He took the pipe from his waist, packed it with tobacco, lit it, took a deep drag, and exhaled smoke as he said quietly, “Of course I don’t want that, but it’s not up to me.”

“What if I said I have a way?” Lu Ming asked.

The Old Man of Nanling glared fiercely at Lu Ming, his tone tinged with anger. “Don’t you dare use your crooked tricks on my granddaughter, or I’ll break your legs!”

“Shifu, you’ve got it wrong. This time it’s really not a crooked trick!” Lu Ming said seriously. “How could I joke about my dearest son and niece?”

Hearing Lu Ming mention Lu Yibei, the Old Man of Nanling frowned. “What do you mean?”

Lu Ming smiled and cupped his hands. “Shifu, what I mean is, since we’re so close, why not let the two kids form a marriage bond and become even closer?”

Hiding behind a crooked poplar tree in the distance, Nanling Rao Hua blushed at these words. She didn’t quite understand what “becoming even closer” meant, but she vaguely felt it was something embarrassing.

Maybe, just like when Sister Anarguli the shepherd got married, she’d have to kiss a boy!

“You mean…” The Old Man of Nanling pondered for a few seconds, then his face suddenly darkened as he waved his hand. “No, absolutely not! There’s a three-and-a-half-year age gap between them!”

“An older girl is a golden treasure!” Lu Ming said slyly. “That’s a huge win!”

“Shut up! That blockhead son of yours, don’t I know him? If any girl ends up marrying that unlucky brat, there’s no way she’ll have a good life!”

“What’s more…” The Old Man of Nanling smacked his pipe, slowly exhaling smoke. “If we do that, maybe Ah-Hua can leave this place, but that child, I’m afraid his fate still can’t be changed.”

“I know that!” Lu Ming gave a bitter smile. As he spoke, he sneaked a glance in the direction of Nanling Rao Hua, then leaned in close to the Old Man of Nanling and whispered a few words.

Nanling Rao Hua didn’t catch what Martial Uncle Lu said, only remembered that after her grandpa heard it, he was furious, his face turning ashen, brows drawn tight, grabbing his pipe and knocking it hard on Martial Uncle Lu’s head.

“You little bastard, with this, you still have the nerve to say what you’re doing isn’t crooked sorcery?”

“You’ll be the death of me, the death of me! When I taught you the Harmony Technique back then, was it for you to use it like this?”

“I’ve lived almost a whole lifetime, and this is simply the most crooked of all crooked sorcery I’ve ever seen!”

The burning hot pipe knocked on Lu Ming’s head three hundred and sixty times, each strike crisp and loud, the gusts stirred up rustling the branches of the poplar trees.

But Lu Ming just hunched over, like a boulder, neither dodging nor hiding, quietly enduring Shifu’s “lesson.”

When the three hundred and sixty strikes were done, Lu Ming, his head full of bumps, the corners of his mouth slightly upturned, knelt before the Old Man of Nanling, and after the disciple’s salute, performed a deep bow with unprecedented solemnity.

“Thank you for your guidance, Shifu. Then about Ah-Hua and Yibei’s engagement…”

Faced with Lu Ming’s question, the Old Man of Nanling neither agreed nor refused, only squeezed out a single word through gritted teeth.

“Scram—-!”

Lu Ming stood up, bowed again, “Thank you, Shifu.”

With that, he staggered away from the poplar grove, heading toward Nanling Rao Hua, who was hiding behind the crooked old poplar, gently picked her up, and walked toward the cave dwelling.

“Ah-Hua.”

“Mm?”

Nanling Rao Hua, who was carefully rubbing the big bump on Lu Ming’s head, tilted her head.

“You don’t have to copy scriptures anymore, and you don’t have to carry out that so-called mission either,” Lu Ming said with a smile.

“Really?”

Nanling Rao Hua’s eyes widened with excitement.

“Really, when has Martial Uncle Lu ever lied to you?”

“Last week!” Nanling Rao Hua pouted, rubbed her little belly, and said seriously, “You told me the watermelons in the desert were edible, and then I got diarrhea!”

Lu Ming frowned, “Besides last week, when else did I lie to you?”

“And, last month you said rams also have milk, I pestered Grandpa for it and got a beating, and the month before that, you said…”

Nanling Rao Hua, as if reciting a treasure list, counted every trick Lu Ming had played on her since she could remember at three and a half years old. Lu Ming’s mouth twitched, falling into silence.

He really couldn’t be blamed for this. Who doesn’t like teasing little girls?

Sometimes Lu Ming thought, if his child was a daughter, her childhood would definitely be especially “tragic.”

Lu Ming took Nanling Rao Hua out of the poplar grove, coaxed her to sleep, and not long after, Bai Kai also arrived at the poplar grove.

As soon as he saw his Shifu, Bai Kai foolishly asked, “Shifu, why did you hit Senior Brother for no reason? You beat him so badly he got internal injuries. As soon as he came back to the room, he vomited blood all over me.”

“You blockhead, what do you know!” The Old Man of Nanling glared fiercely at Bai Kai.

“If you don’t tell me, how do you know I don’t understand?” Bai Kai scratched the back of his head and muttered.

The Old Man of Nanling glanced sideways at Bai Kai, then said in a deep voice, “Then bring your ear over here, let me enlighten you.”

Bai Kai foolishly leaned in, and was immediately beaten soundly by the pipe wrapped in surging psychic energy, so badly he couldn’t get out of bed for three days.

However, the Old Man of Nanling didn’t know if, perhaps that time, he had enlightened Bai Kai a bit too much.

After Bai Kai followed Lu Ming back to the gobi desert for a short stay, and then returned to Hua City, he was tricked by the woman he thought was his destined one, lost his wits, and then walked a path of wild abandon, a sight too pitiful to behold…

——–

The Old Man of Nanling didn’t refuse Lu Ming’s proposal, so Lu Ming took it as tacit approval.

From then on, Nanling Rao Hua knew she had a fiancé, Martial Uncle Lu’s child, named Lu Yibei, who lived very, very far away.

Someday in the future, Lu Yibei would come to the gobi, take her away, end the mission that their Yumen Desert line had to guard Yumen for generations, and her endless days of sword practice and homework.

But she waited a long, long time, and Lu Yibei still never came.

Sometimes, she even wondered if Martial Uncle Lu had forgotten to tell Lu Yibei that someone was waiting for him on the gobi desert.

So, she ran away from home and headed for Hua City.

However, what she didn’t know was that, even though she had skills far beyond her peers, if her grandpa didn’t want her to leave, she could never have walked out of that gobi desert.

On the day Nanling Rao Hua left the gobi, the Old Man of Nanling stood on a mound, watching his granddaughter’s departing figure, and remembered what Lu Ming had said to him more than ten years ago.

Lu Ming said, “Who decided that a person can only form one marriage bond?”

“Shifu, Ah-Hua doesn’t really have to marry Yibei. In the future…”

“When she leaves this place, everything will begin to change.”

——–

On Christmas Eve that night, Nanling Rao Hua recalled her original reason for leaving the gobi.

On a sudden whim, she decided she would seriously seek out Lu Yibei, drag him along to eat roast turkey together, and taste for herself what was so different about couples sharing a meal.

So, that very night, she went through the things Martial Uncle Lu had left behind, and then, not knowing what change she had triggered, she ended up here and found “Lu Yibei.”

After entering this city, as a flood of memories–ones that had never existed before–poured into her mind, Nanling Rao Hua suddenly understood why she hadn’t found Lu Yibei in Hua City.

She hadn’t expected that, in order to protect Lu Yibei, his mother had constructed for him an almost entirely real “city”!

Allowing Lu Yibei to grow up in this city, completely unharmed.

What delighted her even more was that she had already met Lu Yibei before, and the Lu Yibei she had met was not the oddball she had once imagined, but rather the very boy who had appeared atop the tower, sharing her interests.

She had once, because of a faint liking for that boy, struggled with her feelings for quite some time.

So…

She decided to stay, to empty herself, let her original memories sink into silence, let the new memories take over, and accept her new identity.

The “dream” Qi Nanzhu had woven for Lu Yibei was too beautiful–there was “the boy riding a bamboo horse, circling the bed teasing the green plums,” and “the low thatched eaves, green grass by the stream. In drunkenness, the Wu dialect sounds so sweet, whose old couple with white hair”…

Perhaps life carried a touch of bitterness, but after the bitterness always came endless sweetness.

Even she, this “supporting character,” had unknowingly become immersed in the story, in the silhouette of that silly boy who took beatings for her, in the spring, summer, autumn, and winter on the back seat of the bicycle, in the past, the present, and the visible future.

Now, Nanling Rao Hua no longer needed to drag Lu Yibei to eat roast turkey; she already knew the taste of the roast turkey that couple had talked about that day.

Although she had always known that everything she saw here was fake, what did it matter if it was fake?

The world is so vast–not everything is real, and not everything fake is necessarily bad.

Besides, if a beautiful dream could last a lifetime, what difference would there be from reality?

When a person accepts a certain set of values and living environment, they no longer care about the problems that exist within it.

But now…

Something unknown had happened in this city, and hauntings had appeared!

And these were obviously aggressive, ill-intentioned hauntings.

Such changes could very likely bring devastating destruction to this special space, and to its blueprint–Hua City–perhaps even turning Hua City into a wasteland unfit for human survival.

Just like the area within hundreds of miles around Yumen Pass.

Legend has it that west of Yumen, passing through Kucha, Ruoqiang, Loulan, Jingjue, and the other thirty-six kingdoms, all were once extraordinarily prosperous.

The reason for their destruction seemingly overnight was, most importantly, the annihilation of that special space called “Yumen.”

The only difference was, after Yumen’s destruction, its fragments turned into endless yellow sand falling from the sky, while how the fragments of this false Hua City would appear in Hua City was still unknown.

Nanling Rao Hua could hardly imagine, if one day Lu Yibei woke from this “beautiful dream” and faced a devastated Hua City, what he would become.

So, Nanling Rao Hua was silent for a long time, gripping the long sword in her hand a little tighter.

“This sort of thing must never be allowed to happen!”

She had to think of a way, find the source of the trouble, and deal with it.

She absolutely could not let this city–at least the city as Lu Yibei saw it–be destroyed, Nanling Rao Hua thought.

She wanted, for Lu Yibei and for herself, to preserve this “beautiful dream.”