Chapter 37: Chapter 35: An Enlightening Walk

Li Baobao walked in silence with Liu Xie. Knowing he was walking alone with such a storied individual made him nervous suddenly even though they had been traveling together for a while now. He would occasionally sneak glances at Liu Xie who seemed to be following some predetermined path. Sometimes he would stop, mumble to himself, and slightly turn on his heel to take them along another path that still went southward. He wanted to break the silence but the words that came from his mouth immediately faded into nervous 'hmms' and 'hawws' and he would look around the crowds instead.

He could feel eyes on them. People would warily glance at them or at each other. He tried to watch the people as unobtrusively as possible while staying within arms reach of Liu Xie. Sometimes people would shove each other or yell. Despite the general volume of the crowd Li Baobao could still make out the accusations of kidnapping, murder, and demon worship being thrown around. Twice he witnessed a group of men suddenly chase down another man, yelling at him about missing women.

The entire city seemed to be teetering on the brink of violence.

They went past one building which looked like a temple that shady people went in and out of. He could see nothing that suggested who it would belong to. There were no placards outside, or streaming ribbons in certain colors, the walls themselves seemed to be oddly anonymous. If it were not for the shape and the faint scents of incense coming from it he would not have known it was supposed to be a temple. “What is that place?” He asked, raising his voice a little in the hope Liu Xie could hear him.

“...A temple to the Headless God.” Liu Xie said.

Li Baobao’s eyes widened, “...maybe that has something to do with the disappearances and Zhu Er! The Headless God’s not a good deity!”

Liu Xie stopped to look over his shoulder, “do you know much about the Headless God?”

“He’s in charge of the Fourth House, the White Flame, where all evil spirits and wicked creatures draw strength. He also killed the Last Emperor and ruined the land of the Ancient Dynasty, which is why the gods had to raise up the Silent Mountains to keep it from spreading,” Li Baobao rattled off what he remembered being told when he was younger. “But my mother also once told me he’s actually a god of curses and punishment while I did read a book once about how-”

“That’s not what the White Flame is,” Liu Xie said. “Although the misconception is common.”

“Ah?” Li Baobao did not want to second guess an immortal, especially the one who taught Lady Gu herself, but he could not think of a single good thing about the White Flame. Everything he had ever read about it said it endlessly spawned monsters which in turn fed upon it. “What do you mean?”

“Once we get further out I can tell you,” Liu Xie answered cryptically although he was smiling faintly. Li Baobao felt his ears burn slightly.

They walked together in silence for a little while longer while Li Baobao witnessed a few more incidents of yelling and accusations. After a moment they walked on a bridge that crossed over a bone-dry canal that Liu Xie stopped suddenly at. He looked over the side. “That’s odd, isn’t this fed directly by a major river nearby?” He muttered.

“When the Black River flooded, maybe it ruined the patterns of other rivers too?” Li Baobao suggested. He could see trash and fish skeletons littering the canal’s bottom, as well as tossed statuettes of the Lady of Calm Waters and a few other lesser water gods he could not recognize. “Or maybe it dried up because people were throwing images of deities in here? My mother said that the Lady of Calm Waters is the most popular but she’s very temperamental.” As he glanced back down at the placidly smiling statuettes, shattered in a thousand different ways. Some of them still had their arms connected, extending outwards for offerings... or maybe to grab him. He shuddered.

Liu Xie snorted, breaking the merchant's son from his thoughts as he spoke, “sounds right. Maybe it’s a mixture of both? Or maybe the stream was cut off somewhere else. Regardless, lets keep going. I have a feeling staying still would be bad for your health.” He gestured slightly at a group of wary looking men who were eyeing up the two out-of-towners with suspicion and anger.

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After another short walk they finally passed through the city gates and stood right outside, where nearby a dead forest stood forlornly. Li Baobao watched Liu Xie shuffle his boot around in the dirt for a moment before picking up a rock and a small animal skull. “What are you going to do with those?”

“A demonstration,” Liu Xie explained. He held the objects in his palm before Li Baobao, “you are not incorrect to say that malign spirits and ghosts crave White Flame, but they also tend to crave certain forms of qi too, but nobody would say that qi, by itself, is evil. But they are both connected.”

“I don’t understand,” Li Baobao admitted.

“It’s better to think of qi as warmth, while White Flame is the fire that produces that warmth,” Liu Xie said. “Everything in existence is, in some form, connected to the White Flame. But not everything has qi in whatever form it’s manifested or labeled as. For example, this rock.” He held it up a little higher. “This rock is not alive and does not have qi, but it does have a small amount of White Flame in it. If I take that away-” the rock began to crack as thin white lines formed on it, faintly pulsing with light. Then a chunk shattered, its pieces falling inwards. The shattering continued, encompassing the entire rock as it fell in on itself and vanished to nothingness. Li Baobao’s eyes were wide as he stared at Liu Xie’s empty palm.

“Not even dust…” he muttered in amazement.

“On the other hand,” Liu Xie let his empty hand drop to focus on the one holding the tiny pointed skull. “This skull also has a very tiny bit inside it too and has the potential to hold qi. If I bring it to spark it can grow-” as he spoke the skull’s whitish color began to yellow and ripples of muscle began to expand outwards, there was a soft crunching noise as a spinal column snaked out and ribs flowered with meat and veins wrapping around blooming organs. Li Baobao took an unconscious step back as the little creature’s flesh coated over its flensed looking body and grew fur. “-into being a rat.” The rat jumped out of Liu Xie’s hand and immediately made a break for freedom.

“You… you just resurrected that rat!” Li Baobao gawped, “that’s amazing, that’s-”

“That’s not what I did,” Liu Xie said, “I just used the skull to make a new life, we don’t have the time to find a woman to do the same with.”

“So, what you’re saying is that white flame creates life?”

“If that’s how you want to understand it,” Liu Xie was walking again towards the dead forest. “The reason why people fear it, I think, is because it’s always in very miniscule amounts normally. The other flames are much more prominent, and when it’s used in larger concentrations it can be quite dangerous.”

“So why is it associated with demons then?”

“Because they can’t sustain themselves properly anymore. Many choose to feed on humans because humans are an easily available source of it and they taste good. They could just suck it out of rocks or the air but that’s much more difficult. I only know of one who ever did so regularly, and he eventually became a mountain,” he looked up to the sky as though a thought had just occured to him after a long unanswered question. “Maybe that’s what he wanted though.”

Li Baobao felt like he suddenly had many more questions but none he could put words to. There was nothing besides the crunching of dirt beneath their feet as they walked.

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