Nightfall

The city gate opened slowly, revealing the figure of Ning Que.

He carried the iron cutlass on his back, with the iron pestle in his hand, looking outside of the city through the gate.

He said, “Senior Brother, he’s here for me, so I’ll talk to him.”

Jun Mo hesitated for a moment. His eyebrows were like the lake cast by the shadow of willows, so peaceful.

The straight and broad iron sword was slowly shoved back into the sheath.

He saluted the man by the carriage again and went back to his own carriage.

The carriage drove into Chang’an City and stopped by Ning Que.

Jun Mo looked at him and said, “If you insist on talking, make it a nice one. Though the Headmaster has left the mortal world, we still have the Academy supporting us. Cowards like them are no trouble to us at all.”

Ning Que saluted and said calmly, “I understand.”

He looked at the dirty carriage outside the city gate, the dust on it blown away by the spring breeze, and he looked at those familiar runes; he then turned to the man standing by the carriage.

“Second Brother is the only one in the world qualified to call this man a coward.”

Ning Que was muted and thinking to himself because he seemed to know the man ignoring the rule of time. The man had once been noted by the Headmaster, and had shown up in one of his dreams.

He once had a dream in which he was in the Wilderness. All the people on the Wilderness were looking at the sky where light and darkness had a clear boundary. He saw the Headmaster in the sky, as well as the Drunkard and the Butcher. Later he had a dream again in which the Headmaster grabbed the Drunkard’s wine bag and sipped, then he bit the pork leg on the Butcher’s bag.

The Headmaser once mentioned two powerful cultivators who had survived the last Everlasting Night. They were no one else but the two breaking into his dreams, the Drunkard and the Butcher.

When he took Sangsang to the Wilderness on the black carriage last year, he ran into the fierce battle between the West-Hill Coalition Army and the Desolate, and that was when he had realized he was actually at the place that was once in his dreams.

When dreams became reality, behind the clouds in the black and white sky, Ning Que saw the Kingdom of God, the giant Golden Dragon’s head and the Headmaster who was as tall as he had expected. He hadn’t seen the Drunkard or the Butcher until this day.

The Drunkard and the Butcher had pulled through the Everlasting Night and lived a near-eternal life under Haotian’s watch. That meant they knew ways to encounter Haotian, or as the Headmaster once said, cultivation is all about living longer, which was to say that the two had reached a state that ordinary people could hardly imagine.

As in the Headmaster’s words, the two were no longer mortal.

Among those Ning Que had known, nobody else had met the Drunkard and the Butcher except the Headmaster. So the only one who was able to find them was the Headmaster. They had turned into legends for as long as they lived.

The man might have a flagon, but he had no pork leg on his back. He was not the Butcher.

Ning Que was no ordinary person, yet he was still shocked and cautious when seeing the man. It took him a while before he calmed down and asked, “Sir. Drunkard, what can I do for you?”

The Drunkard looked at him and said with a hoarse voice, “I was sent here by someone else to give something back to you.”

His voice was still not likable. Every word of his carried the touch of the ancient emperors’ tomb and the smell of silk rotting on corpses.

Ning Que frowned slightly.

He quit asking because Second Brother had asked enough questions. Watching the carriage that had accompanied him for years and the traces behind it reminded him of what had happened by the Sishui River.

Sangsang showed her identity as a real god by the Sishui River. She was the dark night walking in the light with her lotus-like feet. She asked the Headmaster to ascend to heaven, to enter the Kingdom of Haotian. At that time flowers showered and the whole world shook.

The Headmaster and Sangsang then left him by the Sishui River, so did the big black horse, the black carriage, including the Primordial Thirteen Arrows and the Big Black Umbrella in it.

Ning Que had sent people there to look for the two. By the windy riverside, there wasn’t a single trace of the Big Black Horse, the black carriage, or those things in the carriage.

Finally, one thing had come back from Heaven to the mortal world today. Then, where were the other things and people? The Arrows, the Umbrella, the funny horse, the Headmaster and Sangsang?

Ning Que felt uneasy. It took him long to calm down and concentrate on what was really happening. Who was keeping his stuff? Who was able to find the Drunkard and let him send the message?

“Who is it?” He looked at the drunkard and asked directly.

The Drunkard’s answer was direct. He did not answer at all. The Headmaster was no longer in the mortal world, so if he didn’t want to talk, nobody could force him to.

Spring breeze blew in Ning Que’s face, bringing him not a bit of warmth. It felt chilly, or he felt cold, inside and outside, which cooled down the spring breeze passing by him.

By the Sishui River, he saw the Headmaster and Sangsang ascend to Heaven and explode into shooting stars shimmering all over the sky. He was sure that Sangsang had died, or she had gone to the Kingdom of Haotian; either way, she was no longer in the mortal world now because if she were, he would’ve felt it.

“Then who has taken away the Big Black Horse? Who picked up the Arrows? Who’s holding the Big Black Umbrella now? Who’s giving the carriage back to him? Why is the carriage in the Drunkard’s hands?”

Ning Que was trying to figure it out.

“Those perturbing me shall be left behind.” He chinned up and looked to the dim sun hanging in the spring sky. He fell into silence for a moment and continued, “Those leaving me shall be forgotten.”

He looked at the Drunkard and said, “Please come in.”

The quiet southern gate turned tense after his welcoming. The tension flooded at the foot of the city wall and burst high into the sky.

The Drunkard watched the magnificent city wall of Chang’an and asked, “Why would I?”

Ning Que said, “Every guest should be introduced inside.”

The Drunkard said, “Not if he was an unwelcomed one.”

Ning Que said, “Being welcome or not, he is, after all, a guest, and a guest has to agree with the host.”

The Drunkard found him interesting, so he said with a smile, “Then I am no guest at all.”

Ning Que smiled but inside he felt the contrary.

Because one could either be a guest, or an enemy.

He looked at the Drunkard and asked with sincerity, “How can you give my things back to me if you don’t come inside?”

The Drunkard looked at him as if he were looking at a naughty kid, and he said, “I am an old man. I’ve already walked so far, do you really want me to finish the last a few steps all by myself?”

Ning Que said, “Even if it’s only a few steps away, you still haven’t come.”

The Drunkard said, “You can come out.”

Ning Que said with a smile, “You can come in.”

The drunkard looked at the mottled city wall of Chang’an and fell in silence for a moment, then he said, “Maybe someday in the future.”

Ning Que responded immediately upon hearing those words, and he said, “How about today?”

That was an invite as well as a gamble. Or to be specific, he was gambling with his life, with the future or Chang’an, with the vicissitudes of the Empire, and with the destiny of the mortal world.