Ch. 112 – Nine-Step Cliff

Led by Old Uncle Sun as he cleared the way with his sickle, the group made their way through the forest. This old herbalist who frequently ventured into the mountains with a medicine basket on his back moved no slower than someone decades younger than him.

But when Fang Yang saw this, he still took the initiative to shoulder the man’s medicine basket and use his sword to help hack through the vegetation blocking their path.

Old Uncle Sun’s fondness for Fang Yang immediately grew. They had yet to travel very far, but the two of them had already become as close and affectionate as grandfather and grandson.

Cao Zirui, with his more introverted nature, wasn’t as good at socializing as Fang Yang. Nevertheless, he stood silently on Old Uncle Sun’s other side and helped clear the path.

Feng Ye and Hao Chen walked behind the three of them, Hao Chen fanning himself.

The forest was still as hot and dry as ever, not much better than the day before. The sun was already climbing high into the sky, nearing the hottest part of the day. But this time, Hao Chen didn’t pretend to be dehydrated, nor did he attempt to get Feng Ye to carry him on his back again.

His dragon was injured, and needed to be cared for and nurtured.

Thus, Hao Chen took the initiative to say: “Do you want me to carry you on my back?”

He was simply repaying the favor.

But Feng Ye refused very decisively: “No need.”

He was also deliberately maintaining a certain distance from Hao Chen.

Now that he had realized Hao Chen’s feelings and could offer him no response, it was naturally best to keep his distance.

Hao Chen took in the distance between himself and Feng Ye, wide enough to fit another person, and thought, Sure enough. Not only does this dragon intend to reject me, he’s even staying away in order to avoid any appearance of leading me on.

Despite having fully expected this, Hao Chen still felt a faint twinge of regret. Perhaps he shouldn’t have confessed so soon. It would have been best to keep it to himself a little longer.

Until he was a little closer to Feng Ye. Until he learned a little more about his man’s past.

But that ship had sailed, and all he could do was gaze across that person-sized gap and sigh with helpless longing.

Heaving a great inward sigh, Hao Chen cast small, wistful glances toward Feng Ye every now and then.

Feng Ye was a little self-conscious at first, but as time went on, he simply ignored Hao Chen and slowly sank into contemplation.

His thoughts were not centered on Hao Chen, as such a personal issue could be set aside for the moment. What truly mattered right now was their imminent arrival at the site of the Living Soil.

The exposed ruins of the Royal City of Western Qiang could be found in many locations, but each site looked slightly different. The most conspicuous landmark at the site of the Living Soil was a large, exposed pit, which was indeed the place Feng Ye had originally inquired about with Old Uncle Sun.

Old Uncle Sun didn’t know anything about the Living Soil, but he had known of ruins with a pit such as the one Feng Ye described. Unfortunately, the map was not very precise, and Feng Ye had been forced to ask for directions when they unexpectedly ran into that mountain bandit duo.

Then, turning the tables on them, they had followed the bandits to those trap-filled underground ruins, where they experienced a series of unexpected events.

The ruins had been a trap, one the bandits had also been unaware of. They had lingered in the area solely for the sake of the treasure rumored to be found within.

Come to think of it, the supernatural phenomena they went through likely wasn’t the doing of Ling Yun and his demonic companion. Even if they had set a trap in advance, they couldn’t have arrived much sooner than Feng Ye and his companions, just after the debacle at Lingxiao Sword Sect had concluded.

Feng Ye fell deep into thought. Wang Wu had said they’d released a wild hare and a pheasant into the tunnel with a rope tied around their legs, but when they pulled them back out, all that remained were severed limbs.

This had a very simple explanation. It was likely the work of the skeletons trapped within the Grand Array. Powerful malevolent ghosts were not so easy to refine, and it was not the case that everyone who fell into the array ultimately transformed into one.

The Ghost Mask Priest of Western Qiang had practiced for decades, yet only managed to refine a total of eight.

Most of the time, the array failed. If not a single soul proved worthy of the title “malevolent ghost,” the array would remain sealed, and those failed specimens would be confined there forever, never to escape.

However, that Grand Array had decayed over the course of a millennium, and when their small group stirred it up again, the Ghost-Refining Array completely collapsed.

Now freed from the confinement of the array, those skeletons lay buried beneath the earth, and their resentment would slowly fade away with the passage of time. Their bones would turn to dust, and they would be reincarnated.

In a way, this was freedom.

Feng Ye’s thoughts shifted toward another matter: the bodies of the couple who had originally lived in that wooden cabin.

Wang Wu had said they’d buried the bodies in the hole at the entrance of the tunnel, but they had disappeared overnight, and the only thing remaining had been the gold bracelet on the wrist of the female corpse. There had been no footprints or signs of digging anywhere in the vicinity, and the soil over the burial site of the bodies remained undisturbed.

This was quite bizarre. Leaving aside the fact that the skeletons couldn’t escape from the array, even if they managed to do so, all they knew how to do was gnaw on the flesh of the living. It was highly unlikely that they would be able to execute such a complex series of actions, digging up the corpses and carrying them away, leaving the gold bracelet, and then erasing every trace of evidence.

Feng Ye’s brow furrowed. He was very experienced and knowledgeable, and had encountered plenty of bizarre beasts and dark creatures, but he was currently unable to make heads or tails of this situation. 

His gaze happened to fall upon Old Uncle Sun, who was chatting happily with Fang Yang at the front of the group. An herbalist who had spent years venturing into the mountains of Longqiu surely couldn’t be unaware of such supernatural phenomena. It was possible that Old Uncle Sun had more detailed information.

So Feng Ye cut into the conversation between the old man and Fang Yang to ask: “Old Uncle Sun, we just arrived and we’re complete strangers to this place. Would you be able to tell us a little more about it?”

Old Uncle Sun chuckled and acquiesced with ease: “No problem, ah. There aren’t many people who live around Longqiu, and the mountains and forests are vast. There are plenty of interesting places to explore.”

Before the old man could expound on the landscape of the area, Feng Ye cut in: “We’re particularly interested in stories about the supernatural. Will Old Uncle Sun tell us a few?”

“Stories about the supernatural, ah…..” Old Uncle Sun stroked his beard thoughtfully, then replied, “There are actually quite a few supernatural legends about Longqiu. It all pertains to the royal city buried underneath this very ground. You know about the Royal City of Western Qiang, right?”

All four of them nodded. While they hadn’t known about it originally, thanks to the information provided by those two mountain bandits and their own excursion into the underground ruins, they at least had a rudimentary understanding of the royal city.

“The royal city is roughly divided into four parts: north, south, east, and west. The north and south were home to the common people, but as for the east and west, the priests of Western Qiang resided in the western district. That’s the area you were in just now. From what I hear, that’s where the priests studied and practiced their arts.”

The priests of Western Qiang resided in the western district, so that was naturally where the ghost-refining array was located. Feng Ye already knew this, but he kept his silence and continued to listen.

“I was actually a little worried when I saw you were in the western ruins, because those ones are haunted. You can always hear sounds coming from underground at night, like something is trying to crawl its way out. You fellows spent the night there, you didn’t encounter anything like that, did you?” Old Uncle Sun asked.

None of them answered right away. The things shuffling around underground, trying to claw their way out of the soil, were precisely the skeletons they had encountered and battled against.

Neither Fang Yang nor Cao Zirui could lie worth a damn, so Feng Ye took the lead and answered with a smile: “We didn’t see anything. Just a few wolves.”

“That’s good.” Reassured, Old Uncle Sun continued: “As for the eastern district, those are the ruins we’re heading toward. We’re actually almost there. It’s the area where sacrifices to the gods were made, specifically the serpent god the people of Western Qiang worshipped: Naga.”

“You don’t hear any sounds beneath this place, but it’s even more terrifying than the others.” Old Uncle Sun donned an exaggerated expression and lowered his voice: “In the soil here…..are man-eating monsters.”

There were…..man-eating monsters in the soil?

Fang Yang and Cao Zirui exchanged a disbelieving look. There had been man-eating skeletons back in the ruins, and now there were more man-eating monsters in the soil? They looked down at the ever-present dirt beneath their feet, and suddenly didn’t know where to step.

Feng Ye frowned deeply. Could those man-eating monsters in the earth have something to do with the Living Soil?

Hao Chen also narrowed his eyes upon hearing this, waving his fan as he observed the soil around them. The vegetation growing upon it was lush and vibrant, teeming with life. There was absolutely no trace of resentful energy.

There didn’t seem to be anything unusual…..unless the entity’s power was greater than his own, allowing it to disguise itself right before his eyes.

But that was practically impossible. What sort of resentful creature could possibly rank higher than a righteous god of the heavenly realm?

Fearing that they didn’t believe him, Old Uncle Sun went on to add: “Back then, the tradition around here was to bury the dead. Deceased loved ones would be buried under the mountains and hills of Longqiu, and people would visit the tombstones from time to time to pay their respects.”

“There were never any problems with the custom of earth burial, because once something is buried, it isn’t dug up easily. But six or seven hundred years ago, somewhere around that time, there was a family whose old man passed away.”

“Their family was a prominent one, and had no shortage of gold, silver, and jade. So when they laid the old man to rest, they placed a considerable amount of wealth inside the grave as offerings. But in the short month after the old man was buried, the family business went from bad to worse. It’s hard to say whether this was due to mismanagement or another reason entirely.”

“But the head of the household listened to the advice of a feng shui master and was convinced that the family’s misfortune was entirely due to the ill-chosen location of the family’s ancestral grave. So even though he had only been buried for a month, they prepared to relocate the old man’s resting place.”

“Casually disturbing our ancestors is considered a terrible disrespect here, and no one had ever committed such an outrageous act as digging up a corpse. But solely for the sake of the family business, the family head steeled his heart and resolved to dig up his own father’s grave.”

“Everyone condemned him as unfilial, but they were unable to dissuade him, and everyone gathered to watch on the day the grave was to be relocated. But exhuming the grave turned up something completely bizarre: the corpse was already gone.” Old Uncle Sun spread his hands.

“How could the body have disappeared?” He had just reached the most exciting part, and Fang Yang urged him on.

Old Uncle Sun already regarded Fang Yang as his own grandson. He smiled warmly at him and continued unhurriedly: “The entire matter was simply outlandish. In addition to the corpse, even the nanmu coffin and the silk lining inside it had vanished completely.”

“Everything was gone?” Fang Yang asked at once. “Even the gold and silver?”

“I was just getting to that,” said Old Uncle Sun. “Everything was gone except for the gold and silver, which remained untouched exactly where it lay. That was the most astonishing part of the whole affair. When everyone first saw that the coffin was gone, they assumed it was the work of degenerate grave robbers.”

“But the gold and silver still lay buried, so it couldn’t have been grave robbers. What grave robber would leave behind perfectly good gold and silver, and make away with the corpse and coffin instead?”

“Nobody could make sense of the situation, so they reported it to the authorities. Government officials arrived to investigate, but they turned up nothing, and the matter became an unsolved case. But as luck would have it, not long after that incident, another corpse disappeared.”

“This time, the body belonged to a newlywed bride who died only a day after her marriage, and was buried with haste. The husband’s family claimed she had died of sudden illness, but how could her own family believe such nonsense? Their treasured daughter was gone so suddenly, so they ignored all taboos and had the coffin opened so that the authorities could examine the body and determine the cause of death.”

“Quite a large crowd gathered again on the day the coffin was exhumed, and what do you think happened? Just like the first time with the old man, the body and coffin had vanished completely. All that remained was the jade bracelet the bride had brought from her maiden home, still buried right where it had been left.”

“The body had only been buried for a day, and the fact that it had vanished so completely didn’t seem to be the work of human hands. Everyone grew more panicked the longer they considered this, and some went straight to their families’ burial grounds to dig open the graves and take a look.”

“And upon digging up the ancestral graves they paid respects to every year, they found that unbeknownst to them, they had all been emptied. The remains and the coffins of their ancestors were gone, leaving nothing behind but a few burial items.”

“More and more people began to dig up coffins, especially those buried in the western ruins of the royal city. The situation was the same everywhere: the bodies were all gone, but the gold and silver was completely untouched. There were no signs that the graves had been dug up before, but the corpses had indeed vanished.”

“The rumors surrounding the incident became more and more outlandish, and everyone claimed that some kind of corpse-eating monster lurked beneath the soil. Ever since that incident, no one has dared to bury their loved ones in the soil again, fearing that their remains will be eaten without a single bone left behind. That’s why we eventually switched to cremation around here. Being reduced to ash is far better than being consumed.”

Old Uncle Sun’s story came to a close, and nobody spoke.

Fang Yang and Cao Zirui were a little slower than Feng Ye to come to the same conclusion, but they soon realized that this matter was identical to that of the couple buried by the mountain bandits.

In both incidents, the bodies had vanished into thin air with no traces of being dug up, only gold and silver left behind at the scene.

Valuable gold, silver, and jade ornaments…..Feng Ye stroked his chin as he thought.

Wait. Perhaps he was focusing on the wrong aspect. The point wasn’t the value of the gold and silver, but the fact that such metals were difficult to digest.

The corpses, the wooden coffins, and even the silken shrouds covering the bodies were all easily consumed, but the gold and silver were not.

The hard metal was difficult to break down, so it was all left where it lay.

But that didn’t quite answer the question either. It made sense that it wasn’t eaten, but why leave it sitting there completely untouched?

Surely it should have been moved at least a little bit. What exactly was going on here?

Feng Ye stared blankly at the soil beneath his feet.

While he was lost in thought, Old Uncle Sun suddenly pointed to a pit in front of them and said: “We’re here. These are the ruins you’re looking for. The ones with the massive pit.”

They had covered quite a distance as they talked, and before they knew it, they had reached their destination.

The site of the Living Soil.

The Living Soil that replicated itself endlessly……

At once, a spark of inspiration flared in Feng Ye’s mind. The man-eaters may not necessarily be creatures lurking in the soil, but the Living Soil itself. Could it be that it was able to digest…..

Faintly suspicious, Feng Ye glanced toward the ruins ahead. And that glance left him rooted to the spot.

There was no longer any room for doubt. He was right.

This place was…..

“Nine-Step Cliff,” Old Uncle Sun introduced to the group.

Before them lay a pit around thirty meters in diameter. Judging by its smoothness, it was likely not a natural formation, but the result of manual labor.

This pit was about ten meters deep, much shallower than the ruins they had descended into previously. There was also no network of tunnels beneath the pit. It was simply a large indentation dug into the ground.

At a glance, one could see lush green grass growing at the bottom. A stone platform jutted out at the cliff’s edge, directly over the center of the pit below. It wasn’t wide, barely big enough for one person to walk across, and it only measured about six or seven meters long.

It would be a stretch to call it a bridge, as it only spanned a third of the way across the pit, leaving one wondering what it could possibly be used for.

“Nine-Step Cliff? Why is it called that?” Despite having just heard an incredible story, the sight of something new immediately snagged Fang Yang’s attention.

“As the name suggests, it’s because it only takes nine steps to the edge,” said Uncle Sun, gesturing to the protruding platform.

“Only nine steps? I’ll go try it out!” Fang Yang was both insatiably curious and profoundly adventurous. He wanted to see for himself whether it only took nine steps to cross that stone platform.

He was also very decisive, and had already darted forward before Old Uncle Sun could get a word in edgewise.

However, before he could set foot on Nine-Step Cliff, Feng Ye extended an arm to bar his path.

Fang Yang was caught completely off guard, and slammed into it with enough force to leave his chest aching.

He rubbed his chest and started to question Feng Ye, but Feng Ye wasn’t even looking at him. He was staring at Nine-Step Cliff, his expression inexplicably grave.

He seems to be familiar with this Nine-Step Cliff, Hao Chen thought.

He felt his own curiosity rise. What exactly was so special about this place?

Just then, Uncle Sun belatedly explained: “It’s a good thing he stopped you. You shouldn’t casually walk across Nine-Step Cliff.”

“Why?” asked Fang Yang.

“Because nine is the final number. In the worldview of Western Qiang, nothing lies beyond the number nine. After those nine steps to the edge of the platform lies a dead end, nothingness…..death.” Old Uncle Sun stroked his beard with a sigh. “What do you think this pit was originally used for?”

“Used for?” Fang Yang asked blankly, completely stumped by this explanation.

“It was a snake pit.” Old Uncle Sun sighed deeply. “The bottom is covered with green grass now, but a thousand years ago, it was teeming with venomous snakes.”

“The people of Western Qiang attached great importance to sacrificial rites. Their method of making sacrifices to the serpent god was to push the offerings onto Nine-Step Cliff. After nine steps, they would plummet to the bottom, and if they didn’t die from the fall, they would be bitten to death and devoured by venomous snakes.”

Push the offerings onto Nine-Step Cliff…..this meant that they must have been living offerings, and nine strides across the platform didn’t match the gait of four-legged beasts. So then…..

Fang Yang’s eyes widened in disbelief.

Old Uncle Sun confirmed Fang Yang’s guess: “Those pushed onto Nine-Step Cliff were all living people, ah.”

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Chapter 111 << Table of Contents >> Chapter 113