The Season's Calamity

Within the pavilion, the Emperor of Great Liang listened to the Chief Astrologer’s report. “No matter how the National Preceptor and I calculate, we cannot determine whether the Dice is alive or dead.”

Gao Zhijian began to walk slowly along the long, rain-shrouded corridor, the Chief Astrologer at his side. “Let me see for myself what really happened back then.”

The Chief Astrologer nodded. He reached out a bony, skin-and-bone finger, pulled something from his own shadow, and then hurled it into the sky.

As the patch of darkness swallowed everything, the heavens and the earth changed color in an instant. The Chief Astrologer and Gao Zhijian were simultaneously transported back to the fierce battlefield of that time.

Gao Zhijian saw his Senior Brother Li. He stood in the center of a blood-soaked battlefield, and before him was the Dice, now in control of the Dragon Vein.

Though only a single mouth remained on Senior Brother Li’s face, he was still standing there, stubbornly alive.

For some reason, Gao Zhijian felt that if Senior Brother Li still had a face at that moment, the expression on it would have been perfectly calm and unruffled.

Senior Brother Li scratched at where his head should have been, floating in the air, and then began to approach the Dragon Vein.

The Dragon Vein Dice seemed to want to flee, but no matter how fast it flew, it only drew closer to Senior Brother Li.

If it flew fast, Senior Brother Li moved fast. If it flew slow, Senior Brother Li moved slow.

It was as if Senior Brother Li wasn’t approaching it step by step, but rather in proportion to the distance between them.

Finally, Senior Brother Li reached the tail of the Dragon Vein. He reached out, grabbed the golden chains coiled around it, and began to climb, hand over hand.

He climbed slowly. An old man of sixty would have been nimbler. And yet, no matter how desperately the Dice thrashed its body, it could not shake Senior Brother Li off.

The emperors of past dynasties tried to drive their dragon claws into Li Huowang’s body, but their limbs grew stiff, as hard as stone.

“This is impossible! Absolutely impossible! I am the Dragon Vein now! Where I am, that is what is real!! You can’t restrain me!” The Dice’s voice was thick with furious unwillingness.

During this time, the Dice’s Dragon Vein had not stopped attacking Li Huowang, but it could not move. The entire Dragon Vein had become stiff, unable even to writhe.

“Isn’t it said… that the Dragon Vein, the mandate of Great Liang… cannot be affected by other supernatural powers?” Gao Zhijian asked.

But the Chief Astrologer had no answer to this question.

Soon, Li Huowang reached the top of the Dragon Vein. He looked left and right, then reached out and grabbed for Gao Zhijian’s head.

Then, as if performing a decapitation technique, he twisted and screwed Gao Zhijian’s head right off. Throughout the process, the head did not die; it even kept on lying.

Li Huowang acted as if he hadn’t heard. He reached into the head and pulled something out.

“Right there… can we zoom in?” Gao Zhijian suddenly said.

At the Chief Astrologer’s thought, Li Huowang in the distance was instantly pulled close before them.

But what troubled Gao Zhijian was that, although Senior Brother Li was clearly pulling something out, his hand was empty. It was as if he had only made a grasping gesture.

It was then that the Chief Astrologer suddenly spoke. “Perhaps something was there at the time. But that object was extraordinary. With my level of cultivation, I cannot manifest it.”

Gao Zhijian thought for a moment, then asked again, word by word, “Have you really… checked again… to see if there’s anything else… in my head now?”

“Your Majesty, rest assured. I can stake my head on it. There is absolutely no Dice in your head now.”

“Furthermore, to prevent the same thing from happening again, the National Preceptor, Zheng Boqiao, and I have jointly placed a prohibition on your dragon robe. This will never happen again.”

Hearing this, there was no joy on Gao Zhijian’s face. He continued to watch Senior Brother Li.

Li Huowang’s actions continued. He held up what he had taken from the head toward the sun and smiled, a look of joy on his face.

And right at that moment, the entire Dragon Vein seemed to have its spine ripped out. It went limp and collapsed from mid-air to the ground.

“Brother Li! Is Great Qi saved?” Zhuge Yuan asked from the side.

Li Huowang looked at him, his voice calm and unhurried. “Great Qi is saved.”

Hearing this, an expression of relief appeared on Zhuge Yuan’s face, and he vanished completely from where he stood.

At that same moment, Bai Lingmiao, along with the Chief Astrologer, the National Preceptor, and the military commanders, all converged on Li Huowang.

Whether their goal was the Great Qi Dragon Vein or Li Huowang, who stood upon it, went without saying.

“Senior Brother Li! Are you alright!” Bai Lingmiao, who now had two upper bodies, looked him over anxiously.

“I’m fine. I’m very well now. My illness is indeed cured. Don’t worry,” said the headless Li Huowang, his voice perfectly calm.

The next moment, something like a kind of otherworldly haze began to emanate from within his body.

These things drifted out from Li Huowang, rose into the sky, and vanished in an instant.

“What… were those things? That came out of… Senior Brother Li?”

“Probably the work of Doumu. I was right in thinking that she had her eye on him.”

“Since the Dice betrayed Yin-Yang Doumu, I had planned to use Doumu’s hostility toward the Dice to make them fight each other first. But Yin-Yang Doumu didn’t make a move. It was it that acted instead.”

“Who is it?” Gao Zhijian pressed.

“The Unspeakable. A rather special Siming. It was the one who taught me the art of illusion. You see, in this mortal world, supported as it is by a few Dragon Veins, Siming ordinarily cannot descend. But this one is different.”

“Although it granted me the art of illusion, it never paid me much attention. It pays no attention to anyone else, either.”

“Even two hundred years ago, when Great Liang’s edifice was about to collapse and I was willing to give up everything to beg for its intervention, it never so much as cast a glance at me.”

Gao Zhijian was getting dizzy. Not only was it all shrouded in mist, but it also contradicted what he had heard from the Dragon Vein. “Didn’t they say… there are no Siming?”

“If they taught Your Majesty that, then Your Majesty should listen to them. If they say there are no Siming, then there are no Siming.”

Hearing this, Gao Zhijian stopped pressing the issue. “Senior Brother Li… should be doing better now. Let’s just go over and ask him directly. If he says it himself… it should be clearer.”

The Chief Astrologer did not object. He followed Gao Zhijian toward Li Huowang’s residence.

Li Huowang’s dwelling was not far away, intended so that Gao Zhijian could visit him easily at any time.

Soon, they saw Bai Lingmiao walking back, carrying a food box.

When Bai Lingmiao saw the Chief Astrologer beside Gao Zhijian, her eyes widened in shock, her white lashes trembling slightly. “What’s going on! How is there another one!”

“What? Another… one?” Gao Zhijian asked, tense.

“I was just feeding him his porridge, and another Chief Astrologer had already gone inside!”

At this alarming news, the Chief Astrologer was quick to act. All three of his hands reached out and began forming hand-seals at once. His body shot forward, leaving afterimages, straight for the heavily guarded door in the distance.

Before he even got close, the Chief Astrologer could hear voices from inside. Someone was really in there.

When he pushed the door open and saw Li Huowang sitting on the bed, his head now made of lotus root, turning to look at him, the room was empty except for him.

“Who were you just talking to?”

Li Huowang frowned, thought hard for a long while, and then answered, “Ji Zai.”