Chapter Eighty-Eight: The Sharpest Enemy Appears

The sacred layout had to be arranged around the central terrace, with the pond marking its boundary, rising to the dome above and descending into an unfathomable depth below, Guan Wen answered in a rush.

Xiao Huo clenched his teeth and hissed again, The water is too deep. You can’t paint. Get on my back, get on my back! With a sweep of his arm, he lifted Guan Wen and flung him onto his own back.

Then let us fight with everything we have! Xiao Huo shouted, lunging forward and landing on the water. His shoes sank half an inch before he borrowed the force to spring upward again. His martial skill was indeed formidable; bearing Guan Wen, a grown man of some seventy kilograms, he still executed his water-skimming lightness skill and moved freely across the pond.

Fine, then let us fight! Guan Wen shouted too, bit through the tip of his middle finger, and used the blood on the end of his nose to draw the first stroke, wet and dripping, across the water.

Broad washes, little spaces left untouched. After the second stroke, he bit through his thumb, index finger, ring finger, and little finger in succession, then swept his left arm outward. Blood splashed over the water and spread swiftly into crimson blooms.

Fifteen steps to the left, quick brush, freehand style; twenty steps to the left-front, slow brush, outlining... Guan Wen kept calling out directions, and Xiao Huo immediately shifted as instructed. After more than a dozen rises and falls, the surface of the pond was already covered with vivid red streaks. Yet the fingertips, wrist pulse, and inner elbow veins of Guan Wen’s left arm had all been bitten open; every stroke had been laid down with his own blood.

This was the true essence of the skull sacred painting taught to him by Master Shu, Tsaidan Dorje, and the others. Sacred painting in Tibet was not the New Year prints of the Han lands, nor Western oil painting, but an art of praise that was sincere beyond sincerity, devoted beyond devotion, pure beyond purity, reverent beyond reverence.

The one who painted it must harbor a heart of boundless piety toward the Buddha, and every stroke must be filled with awe before the Enlightened One. There could be no slightest distraction, no irreverence or profanation. Just as Tibetan pilgrims prostrated themselves for thousands of miles, measuring the road to the monastery in full-body lengths, so too must body and spirit alike be opened before the Buddha, offered entirely to him, left for him to take away. Only thus could one reach the highest realm, where the painter and the sacred image became one, body and mind turned into the brush, moving heaven and earth.

When there was no more blood flowing from the wound in his left arm, Guan Wen passed the brush to his left hand, bit without hesitation through the pulse vein in his right wrist, and let the blood surge out as he painted a second time, with his whole mind utterly fixed.

After Xiao Huo had leapt and risen more than two hundred times, Guan Wen, lying on his shoulder, called out weakly, It’s done... it’s over...

The two men staggered back beyond the pond and collapsed in exhaustion, too spent to say another word.

Upon the water’s surface there emerged a scarlet image: pavilions and towers, hills and streams, trees and houses, and pedestrians in varied dress and motion, forming an ancient city of astonishing bustle.

Do not move. The sacred circle’s power will surely imprison the witch... she will have nowhere to flee... Guan Wen forced himself to hold on, allowing Gu Qingcheng and Bao Ling to help him to his feet.

Xiao Huo recovered astonishingly fast. A few minutes later he sprang up again, his eyes gleaming as he stared at the center of the platform.

Thank you, Xiao Huo... I can hardly believe it. Without you, how could I ever have painted this skull sacred image of the River and Capital Festival on the water... Brother, thank you... Guan Wen stretched out his hand to Xiao Huo.

No need to thank me. Xiao Huo smiled. What a River and Capital Festival! I waited so long, and at last I have seen the true art of the skull sacred painting. Guan Wen, I may not understand sacred painting, but while carrying you just now, I could clearly feel that you were painting with your life. At that moment, I truly should have bowed to you in worship.

He did not take Guan Wen’s hand. Instead he dropped to both knees, then suddenly burst into laughter. The laughter grew madder and madder, until he was pounding the ground with both hands, his whole body shaking as though possessed.

Xiao Huo, get up! Gu Qingcheng shouted beside him.

Hahaha... hahahahaha... ha... I love this sacred painting, I love the River and Capital Festival... Guan Wen, you really are formidable, transforming Zhang Zeduan’s five-meter masterpiece from the Northern Song into a circular sacred layout... Apart from you, no other painter could make such a heaven-shaking, age-shattering creation. You are formidable, too formidable... After striking the ground five times, Xiao Huo still could not stop laughing. He rolled over and over more than a dozen times, then hammered his chest with both fists, frightening everyone into retreat.

The River and Capital Festival is the timeless masterpiece of the Northern Song painter Zhang Zeduan. Using a scattered perspective composition, this more than five-meter-long scroll depicts over five hundred and fifty figures, fifty to sixty animals such as cattle, horses, mules, and donkeys, more than twenty carts and sedan chairs, and more than twenty boats of various sizes. Houses, bridges, city gates, and towers each possess their own distinct character, vividly recording the life of the people in Bianliang, the Northern Song capital of twelfth-century China.

Guan Wen did not want to repeat the fate of Songtsen Gampo of Tibet. He had to build for the witch an utterly unfamiliar world, one that would make her heart sway and her spirit reel, leaving her unable to tell east from west, so that an opening might be found.

Xiao Huo, how are you? he asked.

I only want to say thank you. Xiao Huo stopped laughing, slowly raised his head, and suddenly flicked his fingers.

Three faint hisses sounded, and Guan Wen, Gu Qingcheng, and Bao Ling each felt a sharp pain in the chest as a crimson sleeve dart, four inches long, struck them.

Thank you for painting the sacred circle. Leave the rest to me. I said I would obtain the power of the Rakshasa witch and become master of all things. Remember? The secret art I spoke of, the Eight Forms, Eight Births, and Eight Deaths of the Heavenly Dragon Eight Legions... Xiao Huo rose and walked up to Guan Wen, pinching his chin as he said, with utter seriousness and gravity, I have always believed we could cooperate very well, but the fruits of that cooperation can belong only to me. No second person may share them. You are my chess piece. No matter how important a piece may be, when the game is over, it is swept beneath the board. Now the game is over.

You are... you are... Guan Wen’s face changed drastically, pain of body and heart alike striking him at once.

I am Tang Jue. Xiao Huo smiled calmly.

You— Gu Qingcheng roared, but Bao Ling immediately held her back. In a situation like this, rash action would only mean a quicker death.

Guan Wen smiled bitterly. You deceived everyone.

At first, he had only believed in Gu Qingcheng, and by extension in Xiao Huo. After the journey to Nepal, he had come to trust this capable young man completely. But never would he have imagined that his true identity was Tang Jue, the sharpest enemy among the Eight Fierce Generals of the Tang Sect in Shu.

Exactly. Kaler was only a scapegoat. I arranged everything he did. The snake pit in the Palace of Summer Days, the soul-displacing art used to control Miss Bao Ling, and so on—those were all my arrangements. Likewise, only Tang Sect poison could instantly deal with the twin-headed water ghost snakes in this pond. Guan Wen, you are a clever man. You should understand why I so unwaveringly helped you excavate the Hidden Spring, open the black gate, and then carry you on my back as you painted this River and Capital Festival sacred circle. Because what I helped you do was precisely what I wanted you to do. Only you could paint the sacred circle and release the witch; no one else could replace you. Realizing this, I could not kill you too early in Nepal, or you would already have died a violent death in a foreign land under the secret art of the Heavenly Dragon Eight Legions. Tang Jue explained everything elegantly, like a director in total control of the production, describing the plot to all the actors.

For someone of Tang Sect, raising venomous snakes was an innate mastery, so no matter how many snakes bit back, they would only be poisoned to death. The scene of risking her life to save others in the Palace of Summer Days had been nothing but a carefully staged performance.

I was truly blind to have let a wolf into my home and treated a man like you as my brother. Gu Qingcheng sighed toward the sky.

It was she who had called Tang Jue here by phone, and that had led to today’s utter defeat.

Not brother. It should be sister. Tang Jue laughed until she bent at the waist. She raised both hands behind her ears and slowly peeled off a human-skin mask thin as a cicada’s wing, revealing the face of a ravishing woman. Then, with her little finger, she lightly hooked the corner of her eye and lifted away two ultra-thin eye layers, and her gaze instantly became seductive, alluring, soul-stealing.

I am a woman, so I will never truly fall in love with you, nor will I be drawn by the witch. By the same token, precisely because I am a woman, I am capable of controlling her and becoming one with her magic. The people of the martial world will never understand the meaning of the name Tang Jue. Only one who does everything to the uttermost is worthy of the character jue, meaning ultimate. And this time—she swept her gaze across everyone present and continued, word by word—I will become a demon.

Under her gaze, the men who had come with her stood stunned, dazed, and before they knew it, all were captivated by her beauty.

With a thunderous crash, the crystal platform burst apart. A black shadow shot skyward to the highest dome of the arena, circled three times, then dropped in an instant, hovering half a meter above the water. The black ribbons of her garment did not hang down but floated and writhed like black snakes of varying lengths, never still, never tame.

That was the true form of the Rakshasa witch who had plagued Tibet for a thousand years. In appearance, she was merely a thin ordinary woman, her face ghastly pale and bloodless, her eyes deeply sunken, her gaze bewitching.

Where... is this? Where is this? Who can tell me what kind of world this is, and why it is not what I imagined? Who can tell me—

Her voice carried an irresistible seductive force, and one of Tang Jue’s men could not withstand it. Drawn against his will, he walked toward the pond.

Everyone held their breath and watched as the stout young man opened his arms and stepped by step approached the water’s edge. Above the pond, it seemed as though an invisible barrier had descended, blocking his path. Then, suddenly, a gaunt ghostly hand crackling with lightning flew out from the witch’s side, seized the young man by the throat, and dragged him in.

The young man was nearly one meter eighty tall and weighed at least ninety kilograms, yet the ghost hand came and went like lightning, effortlessly capturing him.

What kind of world is this? Who can tell me... The witch pressed her mouth to the young man’s neck and bit down, greedily drinking his blood until all beneath his skin was drained away and he became only a light, fluttering human hide.

Ah... what kind of world is this? The witch waved her hand and cast the skin aside. Drops of blood still clung at the corner of her mouth and fell one by one.