Chapter 310: The Twelve Deliberations of Guardian Mountain

Each time Wang Cheng'an reported a sentence, another counting bead on the snow lit up.

One bead recorded one matter, and each matter pressed down one stroke of ink.

Tens of thousands of names fell from the white paper, yet could no longer force their way into the same master register.

Some landed in the column marked “origin,” some in the column marked “destination,” and some were temporarily assigned to “pending investigation.” Others were illuminated by Song Qinghe’s lamp, revealing two layers of handwriting, so they were placed separately under “corrections.”

The Gate Master pressed down on the white paper with both hands.

“The names under investigation are piling up. Sooner or later, someone will still have to make a final ruling!”

Wang Cheng'an did not even raise his head.

“If they cannot be investigated clearly, record that they cannot be investigated clearly.”

“The greatest taboo in bookkeeping is pretending to understand when you do not. Yet you people would rather fill the blanks with living people than write a single ‘unknown’ in the register.”

As the final two words left his mouth, the stone platform suddenly shuddered.

The wooden tablet for the Seventh Discussion, “Refugees of Three Generations Await Verification,” split apart from the center.

A mass of black energy surged into the sky and transformed into three layers of human figures.

At the front was a group of ragged refugees. In the middle were the children born beyond the Great Wall. At the back was an even younger generation. The three layers of figures were tied together by a long rope. No matter where the people in front went, the two layers behind them were dragged back to their original positions.

A child’s voice came from within the black energy.

“I have never passed through North Mountain Pass.”

“Why must I be verified too?”

No one answered.

A second voice followed.

“My father’s old records are gone. Does that mean I cannot go to school?”

“My mother changed her name. Does that mean I cannot register as a resident?”

“My grandfather’s origin is unclear, so is my origin unclear too?”

The questions came faster and faster.

A large mass of vermilion characters surged from the chest of the wooden figure representing the Seventh Discussion and desperately stuck themselves onto the foreheads of those figures.

“Pending verification.”

Lu Yuan stepped onto the stone platform. With a sweep of his broken blade, he cut down every vermilion character in the front row.

“Verify whoever came.”

“Wherever the next generation was born, record that place.”

“Investigate the old accounts of the ancestors through the ancestors.”

“Do not use them to oppress their descendants.”

The Gate Master said coldly, “If their ancestors used false names to occupy land, and the fields have already been passed down for three generations, should that not be pursued either?”

“Pursue the land accounts, not the names of the people.”

“The source of the land can be investigated. Who the land should belong to can be decided through deliberation.”

“But if the descendants did not use false names on behalf of their ancestors, then they cannot be treated as criminals first.”

Lu Yuan raised his foot and snapped the long rope.

The three layers of human figures instantly scattered.

The first layer remained where it was, waiting for their old names to be investigated. The second layer turned toward the villages where each of them had been born. The youngest layer ran away along roads extending in every direction.

The wooden figure representing the Seventh Discussion toppled backward.

When its wooden body struck the ground, there was no skeleton inside, only bundles of yellow paper covered with the words “three generations awaiting verification.” After many of the names on the papers, the records had already reached the fifth or even sixth generation.

Xu Erxiao kicked the yellow papers apart.

“Your three generations keep getting bigger the more you investigate them!”

The corner of the Gate Master’s eye twitched.

“The old debts remain unsettled, so naturally the investigation continues to the next generation.”

“You mean it’s convenient to keep passing it down?” Xu Erxiao said. “The first generation dies, and you look for the second generation. The second generation dies too, and you can still look for the third generation. As long as the debt is never settled, your altar can keep ruling forever.”

The wooden tablet for the Eighth Discussion suddenly lit up.

“Those without guarantors must remain within the pass.”

The old roads suppressed beneath the stone platform closed together at the same time. A short gate rose at every road entrance. Faces emerged before the gates, some familiar and some strange. All of them opened their mouths and asked the same question:

“Who guarantees you?”

Lin Zhaoxuan’s ink line was bitten by one of the faces and slowly dragged into the gate.

Zhou Heng hurriedly pinned down the end of the line with a copper coin.

The face transformed into a white-haired Daoist. He was none other than the steward who had disappeared from Green Pine Temple many years ago.

“Lin Zhaoxuan,” the white-haired Daoist said. “I can guarantee you.”

Lin Zhaoxuan stared at him.

“What is the price?”

“Join the Guardian Mountain Discussion Altar and leave behind a sect shadow under the Third Discussion.”

“What if I refuse to leave one behind?”

“Then you have no guarantor.”

“And what happens if I have no guarantor?”

“You may not pass.”

Lin Zhaoxuan suddenly released the ink line.

The white-haired Daoist fell into the short gate together with the end of the line. In the next moment, Lin Zhaoxuan drew another bundle of ink cord from his waist and snapped it directly against the gate frame.

“A guarantor is supposed to prove where I have been and what I have done.”

“If he cannot guarantee me, that only means he does not know my origins.”

“It does not mean I cannot be a person simply because he refuses to guarantee me.”

The ink cord struck the ground, and the short gate was uniformly stained with a black mark.

Zhou Heng pressed three copper coins into the center of the black mark.

“I guarantee that Lin Zhaoxuan and I came from Green Pine Temple.”

Song Qinghe said, “I guarantee that he traveled with me through North Mountain Pass.”

Lu Yuan said, “I guarantee that everything he said and did in Ma family gully was undertaken by his own will, and that he bears responsibility for it.”

Lin Zhaoxuan looked at the three of them.

“There is no need to guarantee my entire life.”

“Only prove what you have personally witnessed.”

The three of them nodded at the same time.

The white-haired Daoist before the short gate immediately transformed back into an empty skin. What he could guarantee was not Lin Zhaoxuan, but the origin that the discussion altar had fabricated for Lin Zhaoxuan.

The empty skin scattered, and the wooden figure representing the Eighth Discussion collapsed with it.

The wind in the valley suddenly grew fierce.

Eight of the Twelve Deliberations had fallen. The remaining four wooden figures rose from square holes in the mountain wall and descended step by step along the stone stairs.

Hanging on their chests were:

“Those who change their names may not return to their old ones.”

“Married households from beyond the Great Wall must be registered again.”

“Foreign Daoist records are temporarily confiscated for verification.”

“All names belong to the public.”

The four wooden figures walked behind the Gate Master and each placed one hand on his shoulder.

The Gate Master’s body grew taller. Sounds of compressed wood came from beneath his blue robe. The skin on his face began to split from the forehead downward. What showed between the cracks was not flesh and blood, but a layer of paper covered in names.

Song Qinghe raised the green lamp high.

“He is not a living person either.”

The light passed over him, but no human shadow appeared behind the Gate Master.

There were only twelve shadows of rules.

Lu Yuan said, “You are the Gate Master formed from the Twelve Deliberations.”

The Gate Master lowered his head and looked at his hands.

Beneath the paper skin, all five fingers were slender wooden strips.

“People die, but rules do not.”

“As long as people beyond the Great Wall still need their names investigated, their roads verified, and their land divided, someone will always have to preside over these Twelve Deliberations.”

“There can be someone to preside over them.”

Lu Yuan looked at the densely packed names beneath the paper skin.

“But the one presiding must have a name of his own and be someone whom people can hold accountable.”

“You do not even have a name. You only say that you are the Gate Master.”

“When something goes wrong, whom do we seek?”

The Gate Master fell silent.

“When the master altar is wrong, you say it was the Name Relocation Official.”

“When the Name Relocation Official is wrong, you say it was the old mountain rules.”

“When the old mountain rules are wrong, you say it was the Public Deliberation.”

“Now that the Public Deliberation is wrong, you say that rules cannot die.”

Lu Yuan pressed his broken blade against the edge of the black stone platform.

“From beginning to end, all you have done is create a group of people who never need to settle their accounts.”

The center of the stone platform split open with a thunderous crack.

The Gate Master suddenly swung the white paper. The wooden figure representing the Ninth Discussion lunged forward first. The words “Those who change their names may not return to their old ones” transformed into a long vermilion lock and shot straight toward Song Qinghe.

Song Qinghe did not dodge.

The instant the vermilion lock clasped around her wrist, the flame inside the bronze lamp suddenly split into two blossoms.

One was green, and one was white.

The green flame revealed her current name. Within the white flame, another blurred character appeared, followed by the character “Song,” but the two characters after it had been smoked beyond recognition.

The Gate Master said, “Song Qinghe is not your original name.”

Zhou Heng and Lin Zhaoxuan turned toward her at the same time.

Song Qinghe’s expression did not change.

“It is not.”

“You hold the lamp under a new name and entered the Dao under your old name. One person occupies two portions of the Dao.”

“So?”

“Erase the new name and return to the old one.”

“My old name died in that fire inside the pass.”

“If the person did not die, how could the name die?”

Song Qinghe lowered her head and looked at the vermilion lock around her wrist.

“When my master sent me out of the mountains, he changed my name for me.”

“He burned away the old one not so that I could impersonate someone else, but because he did not want those pursuing me to find me through my old name.”

The Gate Master said coldly, “Then you hid your name to escape verification.”

“I was escaping death.”

Song Qinghe raised the bronze lamp.

“My present name is me, and my new name is me too.”

“I remember my old name, but that does not mean you can force me to use it again.”

“I will decide for myself whom I am willing to tell.”

The vermilion lock suddenly tightened, and the white flame in the lamp trembled violently.

“If everyone could change their name at will, how could crimes be investigated?”

“Investigate what they did, and investigate what happened between their old and new names,” Wang Cheng'an said. “Changing one’s name does not mean one never did anything; using one’s old name again does not mean one can erase everything that happened afterward.”

Song Qinghe continued, “I do not deny my old name.”

“I will not return to my old name either.”

“The old one will remain as a correction, while the new one will continue along the Road.”

The green and white flames slowly merged.

No characters appeared within the heart of the flame. It only reflected Song Qinghe’s own pair of eyes.

The vermilion lock melted apart.

The wooden figure representing the Ninth Discussion ignited from the chest and turned into a heap of ashes in less than a moment. Hundreds of name-change records emerged from the ashes. Each one contained only “approved for change” or “change denied,” yet not a single one had asked whether the person involved was willing.

The wooden figure representing the Tenth Discussion followed close behind.

It did not pounce on Song Qinghe. Instead, it opened the wooden boards in its abdomen. Hundreds and thousands of marriage tablets, each locked to another, were crammed inside. Men’s names were carved on the fronts, and women’s names were carved on the backs. Many of the women’s names had been worn away until only their surnames remained. On some marriage tablets, one side was already blank, while the other side remained firmly locked in place.

The wooden figure spoke with a voice blending both male and female tones.

“Married households must be registered again.”

“Erase the old household and establish a new one.”

“Those who enter their husband’s family must have their old names removed.”

“Those who leave their husband’s family have no household to return to.”

Xu Erxiao saw one of the marriage tablets and immediately rushed forward.

His father, Xu Dashan, was written on the front.

Only “Liu” remained on the back.

He swung his sword at the wooden peg between the marriage tablets.

The peg was extraordinarily hard, and the short sword rang loudly from the impact.

“My mother has a name!”

“She was called Xu Liushi?”

Xu Erxiao’s movements stopped.

Song Qinghe said, “That was the name she was called after entering the Xu Family.”

“What was her name before she entered the Xu Family?”

Xu Erxiao opened his mouth, but could not answer.

He only knew that his mother’s maiden surname was Liu, and that she had lived in Liu family gully when she was young. His maternal grandparents had died early, and his mother had never told him her maiden name.

A shrill laugh came from inside the wooden figure’s abdomen.

“Those without an old name can only be identified through their husband’s name.”

Xu Erxiao’s eyes turned red.

“Just because I don’t know it doesn’t mean she didn’t have one!”

He gripped his sword with both hands and brought it down again.

“Wang Cheng'an, write this down!”

Wang Cheng'an immediately spread out a blank sheet of paper.

Xu Erxiao said each word clearly:

“My mother was from Liu family gully.”

“Maiden name pending investigation.”

“She later married into Little Stone Village, and everyone in the countryside called her Xu Liushi.”

“She could mend shoes, boil medicine, and sing a little tune I can’t remember completely.”

“She is buried west of the village.”

“Record these first.”

Wang Cheng'an wrote with incredible speed.

“Recorded.”

“What about her name?”

“Pending investigation.”

Xu Erxiao looked up at the wooden figure.

“Did you hear that?”

“If you don’t know, investigate it.”

“If you cannot find it, leave a blank space.”

“You don’t get to use ‘Liu’ to cover up her entire life!”

The short sword fell for the third time.

At the same moment, Zhou Heng pinned down both ends of the wooden peg with copper coins, while Lin Zhaoxuan tightened the ink line around the wooden tablets. The three of them exerted force together.

With a thunderous crash, all the marriage tablets split apart.

They did not separate the husbands and wives and send them down different roads. Instead, the names that had originally been pressed onto the backs turned over onto the fronts. Those willing to remain joined stayed connected by Red Cords, while the tablets with missing names fell separately into “pending investigation.”

The wooden figure representing the Tenth Discussion fell apart.

The tablet bearing Xu Dashan’s name and the tablet bearing “Liu” landed side by side at Xu Erxiao’s feet, still joined by an old Red Cord.

Xu Erxiao put both tablets into his robe.

“When I get back to the village, I’ll investigate it myself.”

The wooden figure representing the Eleventh Discussion had already reached Zhou Heng and Lin Zhaoxuan.

Its chest split open, and two wooden hands extended outward.

“Foreign Daoist records are temporarily confiscated pending verification.”

Zhou Heng drew out his damaged Taoist name tablet but did not hand it over.

“How long is ‘temporarily’?”

“Until this sect sends a reply.”

“Green Pine Temple has been destroyed. Who will send the reply?”

“Without a reply, it cannot be returned.”

“Then it is being confiscated forever.”

The wooden figure did not answer. It only repeated:

“Temporarily confiscated pending verification.”

Lin Zhaoxuan suddenly laughed.

“This line sounds the most like something a living person would say.”

“They never say they will not give something back. They only say to wait a little longer.”

“By the time the person dies, the item naturally belongs to you.”

He took out his own half of the Taoist name tablet and placed it beside Zhou Heng’s piece on the snow. Song Qinghe also took a corner of a burned piece of paper from beneath the lamp.

The three fragments could not be joined into a complete Taoist name tablet.

A corner was missing from the name, the Taoist name, and the magical seal.

Yet the wooden figure representing the Eleventh Discussion stopped.

It clearly did not know which piece it should confiscate.

Zhou Heng said, “All three are damaged, and each proves the identity of one person.”

Lin Zhaoxuan said, “We verify one another as fellow disciples. We are not to be combined into a single person.”

Song Qinghe said, “If the old sect is ever rebuilt, the surviving fellow disciples can decide then. The discussion altar has no authority to collect them in place of the sect and its master.”

The three of them each retrieved their damaged papers.

The wooden figure’s two hands hung in midair, unable to seize a complete piece. After a moment, it began to weather from the fingertips, turning into a pile of wooden dust without a single character on it.

Only the final discussion remained.

All Names Belong to the Public.

The wooden figure representing the Twelfth Discussion did not charge forward.

It stood behind the Gate Master and slowly inserted both hands into the Gate Master’s shoulders and back. The final layer of skin on the Gate Master’s face peeled away with it, revealing a face formed from countless names.

All those names were opening their mouths.

“Without a public register, how can we prove that we once existed?”

“If everyone leaves behind their own name, what happens when future generations cannot find them?”

“If a village register is destroyed, the Dao is lost, and the witnesses die, who will remember us?”

There was no threat in the voices.

Only fear.

Lu Yuan had just been preparing to swing his blade, but he stopped.

Wang Cheng'an also stopped moving the counting beads.

At last, they saw what the Twelfth Discussion was truly suppressing.

It was not a rule.

It was the thought of countless people terrified that they would be forgotten.

The Gate Master spread open both hands.

“You can dismantle the first eleven discussions.”

“But as long as people still fear that their names will be scattered and lost, all names must belong to the public.”

“Without a master register, names will eventually scatter.”

“Without a Total Name, future generations will eventually forget.”

Lu Yuan asked, “So you take this fear and use it to force everyone into the register?”

“I preserve their names for them.”

“And I decide how they will be preserved for them.”

Tens of thousands of names on the Gate Master’s face looked toward Lu Yuan at the same time.

“Then you tell me.”

“If they do not belong to me, where should they belong?”

The valley suddenly fell silent.

Even the wind stopped.

Wang Cheng'an looked at the several rows of counting beads he had separated on the snow. After a long while, he picked up one bead and placed it under “origin,” then picked up another and placed it under “destination.”

“They can be recorded anywhere.”

“The village can keep one copy, the Daoist methods can keep one copy, the family can keep one copy, and those who traveled together can keep another.”

“They can verify one another, and they can correct one another’s mistakes.”

The Gate Master said, “What if the records differ?”

“Keep them all.”

“How will future generations distinguish between them?”

“Let future generations examine the evidence.”

“They will argue too.”

“Arguing is still better than having you decide everything with a single stroke.”

Wang Cheng'an stood up.

“A public register can exist.”

“But it may only copy records. It cannot swallow the original registers.”

“It may only record what people say. It cannot speak on their behalf.”

“There must not be only one register, there must not be only one person holding the palm impression, and those who are not entered in the register must never be treated as nameless people.”

The names on the Gate Master’s face began to tremble.

Lu Yuan placed the two halves of the “Come” and “Go” seal at opposite ends of the stone platform.

A vast empty space remained between them.

“Origins are recorded.”

“Destinations are recorded.”

“The road in between must be walked by the people themselves.”

“You may establish a place where names can be preserved.”

“But you may no longer establish a gate that swallows names.”

The enormous character meaning “public” on the chest of the wooden figure representing the Twelfth Discussion slowly fell away.

Behind it was an even smaller character meaning “preserve.”

The Gate Master suddenly turned around and tried to press the character meaning “preserve” back into the wooden body. Xu Erxiao had already rushed onto the stone platform and sent the Gate Master’s hand flying with a flick of his sword.

Song Qinghe shone the lamp over it.

“The Public Deliberation was a false front.”

“Preserving names was the original rule.”

Lin Zhaoxuan’s ink line wrapped around the character meaning “preserve,” while Zhou Heng used a copper coin to support it from below. Wang Cheng'an took out a blank ledger sheet and made a neat rubbing of the character.

The Gate Master let out a shrill, furious roar.

“If preserving names has no authority, how can Guardian Mountain be protected?”

Lu Yuan swept his broken blade horizontally.

“Those who record names should never have the authority to use those names to oppress people.”

The blade fell upon the place where the Gate Master was connected to the Twelfth Discussion.

It was neither a neck nor a bone.

It was a private seal hidden deep beneath the paper skin.

Four small characters were carved into the seal:

“Acting on behalf of the public.”

The instant the broken blade touched it, the private seal shattered.

The Gate Master’s body suddenly froze.

The tens of thousands of names on his face slid down like flowing water, transforming into sheets of thin paper. Each sheet flew toward the stone wall, the old roads, the wooden tablets, and the scattered ledgers.

Some names remained where they were.

Some flew south.

Others circled around the six people once before falling into the “pending investigation” and “corrections” columns Wang Cheng'an had separated.

In the end, only a single sheet of white paper remained stuck to the Gate Master’s face.

There was no name on it.

Lu Yuan asked:

“Who are you, really?”

The Gate Master raised both hands and touched his blank face.

“I…”

He spoke only one character before his body began to collapse.

The wooden figure representing the Twelfth Discussion knelt down with it.

Beneath the black stone platform came the sound of chains snapping apart. The faceless wooden figures inside the square holes in the mountain wall turned into rotten wood one after another. The twelve old mountain rules did not disappear completely. Instead, they shrank into twelve ordinary wooden tablets that fell onto the snow.

A new line of writing had appeared on the back of every tablet:

“May be investigated, may be changed, but no one may act as master over another.”

By the time only half of the Gate Master’s body remained, he suddenly seized the back of Lu Yuan’s blade.

“I have no name…”

“When they created me, they gave me only twelve rules.”

“The rules have shattered. Where should I go?”

Lu Yuan looked at him.

“How many people’s names have you decided?”

“Thirty-seven thousand two hundred and sixteen.”

“Then first learn to choose a name for yourself.”

“What if I choose the wrong one?”

“You can change it.”

The Gate Master froze.

It was as if he had never heard those three words before.

After a long time, he used the only wooden finger he had left to write a stroke on the white paper.

The stroke was terribly crooked. It had only reached halfway when a bronze gong suddenly sounded from the northern side of the valley.

The gong’s sound was deep and muffled.

The names that had not yet completely dispersed beneath the snow all trembled at once.

The white paper on the Gate Master’s face was also violently torn away by an invisible force and flew northward.

Lu Yuan pinned down one corner of the paper with his blade, but could cut away only half of it.

The other half crossed over the mountain wall and vanished deep within the wind and snow.

Immediately afterward, an unfamiliar voice came from behind North Mountain.

“The Twelve Deliberations of Guardian Mountain are abolished.”

“The master ledger of relocated names is destroyed.”

“From this day forward, the gate of North Mountain will no longer recognize the old palm impression.”

Xu Erxiao had just breathed a sigh of relief when the voice continued:

“But the thirty-six villages beyond the Great Wall still recognize the daily register.”

“The six of you can dismantle the mountain gate.”

“But can you dismantle the gate inside people’s hearts?”

The bronze gong sounded again in the distance.

Among the names that had just returned to their respective places on the stone wall, thirty-six sheets suddenly turned red. Each red sheet bore the seal of a village.

Ma family gully.

Little Stone Village.

Liu family gully.

Wang family village.

There were also many place names the six of them had never seen before.

Wang Cheng'an quickly counted them.

“Exactly thirty-six, not one more or one less.”

The Gate Master’s remaining wooden body had already scattered completely, leaving only half a blank sheet of paper on the snow. At one corner was the half-stroke he had just written, resembling an unfinished character meaning “self.”

Song Qinghe picked up the paper and placed it beneath the lamp.

A line of old writing slowly appeared on the back of the paper:

“The mountain gate governs the roads of arrival.”

“The village register governs the roads of life.”

“To abolish the relocation of names, one must pass through the assembly of the thirty-six villages.”

Zhou Heng looked toward the area behind North Mountain.

“Were the people who struck the gong just now members of the village assembly?”

Lin Zhaoxuan shook his head.

“They may not be people.”

“The master altar has a Gate Master, North Mountain has a discussion altar, and the thirty-six villages should also have something they all acknowledge.”

Wang Cheng'an turned over one of the red sheets.

A round seal had been stamped on the back.

There was no name inside the seal, only a well.

Lu Yuan recognized that well.

It was exactly the same as the righteous well in Ma family gully.

Yet thirty-six small shadows stood around the mouth of the well.

Each shadow was holding a red register.

Xu Erxiao’s expression changed.

“Brother Lu, Little Stone Village is in there too.”

“Could my mother’s name be in that register?”

Lu Yuan gathered up the two halves of the “Come” and “Go” seal, then wrapped up the twelve wooden tablets bearing the new rules.

“Whether it is or not, we will go back and see.”

Wang Cheng'an asked, “Should we go to Little Stone Village first?”

“No.”

Lu Yuan looked toward Ma family gully, the first name to light up on the red paper.

The shadow of the well was slowly turning. Beneath the mouth of the well, a new line of writing emerged.

“The first village must register names.”

“With one of the six missing, the assembly cannot begin.”

The six of them looked at one another at the same time.

They were all there.

But only five shadows stood on the snow.

Song Qinghe turned around with the lamp in hand.

Wang Cheng'an’s shadow was gone.

The northern wind crossed the mountain pass and carried with it the distant sound of someone registering names.

“Wang Cheng'an.”

“Present.”

The answering voice came from beneath the righteous well in Ma family gully.