Nightfall

The precipice wouldn’t allow Ning Que to look at it, but Ning Que insisted. He stared at the fog clusters between the precipices, and those vague stone windows. Then, he felt more and more prickling on the eyes, which later turned into the stabbing of thousands of swords. He couldn’t bear it any more and started shedding tears, looking extremely sad, and when he opened his eyes, the eyes had already swollen like peaches.

He didn’t know the name of the array between the precipices, but he had felt its magic. He thought to himself that Haotian Taoism was surely the greatest power in the world now. Its foundation was so strong that not a single trace of declining could be found around the West-Hill Palace, even though it was declining these years.

The array between the precipices were to block those who tried to peep into the You Prison. And it wouldn’t do terrible damage if one kept far away from it, or stopped staring at the fog.

Ning Que wasn’t afraid. Judging by the powerful array here in the West-Hill Palace, the one set in the Zhishou Abbey must be more powerful. Eldest Brother wouldn’t have broken into the Zhishou Abbey so easily without the tricks Chen Pipi played in advance, not to mention the Tomes of the Arcane which had trapped the Abbey Dean for such a long time.

He wondered how Chen Pipi was doing, and missed all his other friends while watching the drifting clouds and the red sun. Then he remembered Chen Pipi’s father, the Abbey Dean, who had been chopped by him with thousands of cutlasses. It had been long since the Tang Empire and the West-Hill Palace had heard about him. They weren’t even sure if he was alive; they wondered if the great man had been back to the Zhishou Abbey, or if he had died on his way home, ending up as a cold corpse wrapped in a straw mat.

Ning Que never had the chance to meet his Youngest Uncle, so the Abbey Dean was the most powerful people he had ever seen after the Headmaster. He still held awe everytime he recalled the fight on the snowy street in Chang’an. He would gladly accept it if a powerhouse like the Abbey Dean disappeared quietly in history, and at the same time he would feel regret.

He left the precipice and went back to the Book Hall through the peach flower woods. He collected and read all those repairing records of the Divine Hall, looking for information about the array on the precipice, only ending up in vain. It was still early when he woke up from the piled books, and he felt hungry. Then he remembered that he hadn’t eaten any breakfast today. He saw the rice and vegetables in the kitchen, but he didn’t want to cook for himself.

He seldom cooked since Sangsang had grown up. Now he was in the West-Hill Palace, and he felt even more annoyed every time he stood before the hearth and looked at the splendid Divine Palaces.

However, after all, men needed to eat. There shouldn’t be any problem if he didn’t eat for ten days given his current cultivation state, but he needed satisfying, both mentally and physically. He missed the delicacies the Headmaster took him and Sangsang to eat as they passed by the West-Hill Palace last summer.

A running stream and a stone bridge made for a beautiful scenery outside of the small town. One could raise his head and easily see the Peach Mountain located twenty miles away. But there weren’t many Haotian believers here because the place was off the main road.

In the shop facing the Taoist Temple, there was a wrinkled old man. Several metal buckets sealed with yellow mud were set beside the door, brimming with a sweet fragrance. The old man was drinking. From time to time, his hand, with calluses all over, would send several peanuts into his mouth. The wrinkles on his face were filled with black ash, it seemed like it could never be washed away.

An ordinary carriage stopped in front of the shop. The girl in white stared at those metal buckets and felt curious, wondering how could the sweet potatoes baked in there taste so good and smell so nice that people would like to eat them in the hot summer, even their saintess would leave the Peach Mountain for this.

They were here a little bit late, and the well-cooked potatoes earlier had been bought by the two deacons of the Divine Hall of Revelation. Therefore, they had to wait outside the shop, which made them bored.

Sangsang was sitting inside the carriage. She wasn’t feeling bored because she thought that only boring people felt bored. Time meant nothing to her but the order of things happening. Moreover, she always put all her time into use, for example, when she was watching the steam and smelling the fragrance of the baked potatoes, she was actually feeling the rules of heat, or in other words, she was feeling herself. Someone might accuse her of narcissism, but actually, narcissism was also a kind of emotion, and she didn’t have any.

Ten more Papal Cavalrymen were guarding a priest. They passed the small town. Judging by their direction, maybe they were crossing the stream, and going back to the Peach Mountain.

That priest was He Mingchi.

He Mingchi was taught by the Nation Master of Tang, Li Qingshan. He was the most crucial person the West-Hill dispatched to the Tang Empire. He was the one who initiated the night of fire and blood in Chang’an. The key point was that he had damaged the God-stunning Array. Just like what the Hierarch had said when rewarding him, He Mingchi played a more important role than all other cavalry soldiers had done together.

The West-Hill Palace knew that He Mingchi was the one that the Tang Empire and the Academy wanted to kill he most. Therefore, they didn’t list him out when negotiating with the Tang Empire, because they knew clearly that the Tang Empire, especially the Academy, would never accept it. For the safety of He Mingchi, the West-Hill Palace sent him to the south to stay away from the trouble, and they didn’t let him return until today.

Sangsang looked at He Mingchi through the curtain. She was expressionless on the outside but inside, she felt an extreme disgust. She knew the man was loyal to her second to none, and he was a close confidant of the truckling Hierarch, which meant that he would be promoted to a important position as soon as he was back in the Divine Hall, but she just hated him.

She hated the ant dressed in a red robe for no reason, or she did have the reason, but she just couldn’t accept it. Therefore, she thought she didn’t know the reason.

The sweet potato was finally baked. The old man narrowed his eyes and picked up three of them. He wrapped them with papers and gave them to the girl in white before his shop, and it seemed he didn’t care about the burning heat on his fingers at all.

The girl in white took money out of her waist pocket and put it down. Then she went back to the carriage with three hot potatoes in her hands. She lifted the curtain and handed in one of the three, then she gave the other two to her companion.

After a whipping the wheels started rolling, and suddenly stopped.

Irresistible power of will was coming out of the carriage, forcing the girl to halt the carriage. Then she and her companions sat in the front of the carriage quietly, waiting for things to happen.

Seconds later, a man in servant uniform from the Divine Palace walked to the shop. He asked the old man, “Is this really a one-thousand-year-old shop?”

Ning Que didn’t care much when seeing the ordinary carriage outside the shop. Only the two girls in white reminded him of his little dark skinned maid.

The old man squinted and said, “It was my grandpa’s grandpa’s grandpa’s…”

Ning Que stopped the pedigree reciting, and he said, “I’ll have three.”

The old man said, “My sweet potatoes are bigger than usual, three would be too much for one person.”

Ning Que said three subconsciously. One for the Headmaster, one for himself, and one for Sangsang. He didn’t realize it until he heard what the old man said, then he replied, “Give me two then.”

The old man picked up the sweet potatoes with his bare hands, and handed them to him. Then, he accepted the copper, and immediately resumed his drinking.

The Headmaster once noted that potatoes should be eaten when it was hot in summer, like eating ice in winter so as to find the extreme in the extreme, and to feel the stimulation out of the stimulus.

Ning Que wasn’t a purely filial student, and he had forgotten many of the Headmaster’s words, but he had never forgotten a single word the Headmaster said about food. Therefore, he insisted that the title “the greatest gourmet in the world” suited the Headmaster better than “the greatest man in the world”.

He held the sweet potatoes and sat on the threshold. He pinched and slightly tore the potato skin with his fingers, then the yellow and soft flesh was revealed, steamy and sweet. The sweet fragrance spread all around him.

He ignored the heat and started on the flesh. The flesh was so hot that he couldn’t help sticking out his tongue at times.

Sangsang looked at the man eating potatoes on the threshold through the curtain. She was still expressionless and cold, too cold to notice that she had crumbled the sweet potatoes in her hand.

She frowned in disgust, and lifted her hands to take a bite of the steamy potato. She kept eating, and she didn’t feel any of the heat.

The small town was so sultry but so quiet in midsummer. Cicadas were chirping on the trees behind the yard, celebrating their reunion after the half-an-hour separation during the afternoon nap.

He was eating sweet potatoes on the threshold.

She was eating sweet potatoes in the carriage.

With the thin curtain in between.

The sweet potato shop was quiet. After a few cups of wine and some peanuts, the old man was tipsy and he started humming, with his dusty fingers hitting the bucket as the beat.

Ning Que sat on the threshold and listened to the humming. As simple as the melody was, it was touching, especially the meaningful lyrics. Ning Que was gradually absorbed.

“With the chopper in hand I move forward, in fear of awakening the mountain ghost. Rain pattered on the banana leaves, washed down the cicada slough falling on the shoes. On the vines high into the clouds, monkeys are mocking. The long unused pottery mould under the rotten leaves were covered with dirt. The swan landed in the winter land, their prints were the burden of the snow. On the sky, the past dispersed like smoke and clouds.”

Ning Que was holding the sweet potatoes, saying, “That’s interesting.”

The old man turned prouder after he heard the praise. The humming grew louder, but the key turned peaceful all of a sudden, as if people in the countryside were talking.

“Chop firewood as the fence, three peach trees planted inside. Harvest crops for rice, then making two jars of light wine. Pick flowers for the color, painted the middle spot of the bride’s eyebrows. In resounding firecrackers, crying of new babies pleased the old house. In the deer’s calling, the maid picked up plums and warmed wine. Nobody threw the wine cups away when recalling childhood lovers.”

Ning Que remembered last summer when he was in front of the shop, with the Headmaster and her beside him. Now he was all on his own. He couldn’t help feeling sad.