Fu Yan was talking to the two bigger flames, who Xu Yejing could now see as well.
To her surprise, they were exactly black and white impermanence she had seen in books or stories. Apart from some minor details, their appearances were more or less the same (1).
The two impermanence seemed to be bowing towards Fu Yan.
"Your excellencies are working too hard," Fu Yan said, avoiding their greeting, "Shouldn't it be Niu Tou and Ma Mien(2) who are tasked to escort souls to the underworld?"
"Sir is jesting." Bai Wuchang, the white impermanence, did not seem to have any difficulty speaking despite his long hanging tongue, "When we heard Sir's whistle, we knew the soul is someone special."
"But I don't seem to see anything special with this woman's soul," Hei Wuchang tilted his head to the left and to the right, causing his tongue to sway along. Despite his otherwise-creepy skinny figure, it caused him to look comical.
"You're so stupid!" Bai Wuchang jabbed Hei Wuchang's ribs with his wooden plaque, "It's not the woman ghost who's special. It's that young lady there!"
Xu Yejing felt the two pairs of dead eyes looking at her direction, causing her to feel unnerved. Just a week ago, she was as far away as could be from these ghosts and figures she could only find in story books.
Fu Yan, "Xie Bian and Fan Wushe. The both of you are very talkative now, aren't you?"
"We don't dare!" The two Wuchangs immediately retracted their gaze and bowed once again.
"Five minutes will do," Fu Yan said.
"We understand."
Fu Yan walked to Xu Yejing, his gaze was somewhat soft, "Scared?"
She mulled over her answer, "Just a bit... surprised." She smiled at him and thought, "With you by my side, I will never be scared."
"Good, I'll leave her to you then," Fu Yan spoke, "After all, you're the one who had seen what she wanted and felt when she was living. In five minutes time, the two hell guards will take her soul away."
"Hell... ," Xu Yejing was worried, "She doesn't deserve to be in hell... ."
"Hell is just a term for the underworld. All karma and whether or not one's soul must undergo punishment is not for us to decide."
Sighing, Xu Yejing nodded and walked towards Man Zui. She lightly pulled him up, "Listen to what He Xiang wants to say."
Man Zui could not hear or see He Xiang, thus Xu Yejing had to relay her words to him.
He Xiang could no longer shed any tears, but her voice was heartbreakingly sorrowful, "Please tell him, my death is not his fault. Our son's death is not his fault either."
Although he was unable to see He Xiang as something else than floating flame, Man Zui could see the demon infant. At the moment, it was giggling affectionately towards the blue flame, its form was too hideous and deformed to resemble a living baby. But he recalled the demon infant's cry during that snowy cold night, "Da.... D-da... ."
Was it not trying to call him 'dad'?
A beloved woman who could no longer be by his side, a beloved son who could not start living. Even after they had died, both were still worried for him. Compared to the sin from three years ago, the current feeling of helplessness gnawed at him more.
"In this lifetime, my fortune is to have met him. The last three years were the best three years in my life," He Xiang sighed, "Now that he's safe, we must go." She then paused, "It's a pity... we have never really gotten married."
There had never been a red wedding dress, there had never been twin candles and wine.
"Perhaps, that's why we're not blessed. We were already sinful, and we dared to wish to be happy... ," He Xiang lamented.
Upon hearing her words through Xu Yejing, Man Zui fell to his knees again. His hand gripped onto Xu Yejing's sleeve, his words were choked out in anguish as he said, "Tell her.... tell her, I am kowtowing to the heaven and earth."
He Xiang's voice was caught in her throat as she knelt as well, "I heard him. I heard him. I... am kowtowing to the heaven and earth."
First bow towards the heaven and earth; second bow towards the relatives; third bow towards each other.
Two souls, joined by the red thread, promising to never be apart.
But this sacred vow between the two of them could only be made when one was no longer living. The wishful hope to grow old together, until both hairs turned white, was just an impossible dream.
Bai Wuchang whispered towards his black-robed friend, "I have lived... err... died for hundreds of years, but this is the first time ever I have received kowtow as a relative to a wedded couple."
Hei Wuchang nodded, "Un... a pretty novel experience, don't you think?" He spoke to Fu Yan, "Sir, five minutes are almost up. Any longer than this, the higher-ups down below will want to see a full report."
Man Zui looked at the demon infant and asked Fu Yan and Fu Chun, "Can I... hold my son?"
"No," Fu Yan spoke resolutely, "Although your son has already gained his yang's souls, he had not come to full term yet when he was born. Thus, his seven yin souls are incomplete. If he came to contact with a living person, his soul will never be able to reincarnate."
Fu Yan took his whip again and let the cerulean sparks danced in the crisp air. He walked slowly towards He Xiang and the demon baby, "Do not be afraid."
The pair of ghost-mother and demon-baby looked at him in acceptance, their eyes showed nothing but trust.
With a flick of the whip, the blue bolt was aimed towards the two. In a blink of an eye, Xu Yejing could no longer see He Xiang's soul flame. The demon infant toppled silently to the ground.
Man Zui staggered to his feet, "Where... where is she?"
Fu Yan's whip retracted back to its baton, and two silver orbs floated towards his palm before gently lying there. He handed the two souls to Heibai Wuchang, "Troubling Your Excellencies to escort these two souls to the underworld."
"We don't dare. It's no trouble at all," the two impermanence shook their heads and their tongues. "This man would call our names directly if he felt the slightest bit unhappy. Now he's feeling alright, he acts all humble."
"And this," Fu Yan took out a pouch and took out another orb and handed to him, "You may as well take this one to the underworld and let the hell judges decide his karma."
It was Xiao Yang's.
"Mmmm?" Bai Wuchang took the soul and was intrigued, "This soul is fragmented. Granted, there're ten complete parts, but there's fissure... .Did the owner split his soul?"
It was Hei Wuchang's turn to jab his friend, "Shut up. Don't talk about splitting souls in front of Sir."
"Alright, the both of you may go now," Fu Chun waved her hand towards the two hell guards.
"Of course, after we receive our payment.... ," the two Wuchangs' tongues seemed to tremble.
"This time, you'll have to make do with my blood," Fu Chun made another cut on her palm. She squeezed her fist, letting blood trickled from her wound.
"Tsk~! And I thought I could taste Sir's blood once again... ," Heibai Wuchang grumbled, but their tongues flew even faster than Fu Yan's whip, lapping Fu Chun's blood before the red droplets could hit the ground.
As soon as they tasted the blood, they disappeared.
From the beginning to the end, only Xu Yejing, Fu Yan, and Fu Chun knew the entirety of these two's presence, as well as what had transcribed between He Xiang and Man Zui.
The two guards were dumbstruck in their fright, completely unable to utter a single word.
*** *** ***
The babies corpses found in Shuyi city when He Xiang was still living were a mystery, but it was not a major wonder. With how Xiao Yang was able to split his souls, he could create clones of himself to seek for abandoned babies or corpses. It was even easier to dump those babies in the waterways.
Perhaps, it was merely meant to torment He Xiang and Man Zui. Fu Chun also found the hallucinants he had used in Man Zui's residence, which explained the ghost sightings He Xiang, Man Zui, and the townsfolk had seen. After all, Xiao Yang was on friendly terms with the townspeople as well; it was easy for him to pass on the drugs masked with tea he sometimes gave to some of them.
Xu Yejing asked, "Splitting a soul... Why does this seem to be a taboo?" Even Heibai Wuchang's expression was unusual when they mentioned it.
Fu Chun coughed, "Cultivation by itself already goes against the law of heaven and earth. Prolonging one's life and fleshly body by cultivating is not the normal way of life. Any living being must experience birth, life, then death. Flesh must return to the earth, soul must undergo the cycle of karma. But with cultivation, death is delayed, sometimes even become near impossible in the natural course of way. A person generally keeps their ten souls intact from birth until death."
Fu Yan added, "To split one's soul and disperse them, retain one's life in all those dispersed souls. Without a certain repercussion, this soul will never find peace."
Xu Yejing thought, "Great, now I'm more confused than ever." There was definitely something Fu Yan was hiding in this matter, and he refused to talk about it. Even as Fu Chun touched the slight surface of the matter, he immediately put a stop to it. "Whatever, I still have a lot of time to find out."
Feeling her question would not be answered by these two, she asked Man Zui, "Laoban... I mean, Man-ge. What do you plan to do after this?"
"I will return to Duhan," Man Zui said, "I will accept whatever punishment the Empress Dowager may bestow me for causing the death of the Emperor three years ago."
Fu Yan lowered his head in silence, before taking out a brocade talisman from his qiankun pouch, "If you're really heading there and meet the Empress Dowager, give this charm to her. She's not an unreasonable person. I think, part of the reason she has been hunting for you, is to find out exactly what happened."
Man Zui took it and kept it in his bosom, "I will just pack a few belongings and head to Duhan straight away. Thank you for your kindness."
"In the end... what made Xiao Yang do what he did?" Xu Yejing sighed softly. Her question, however, was heard by Man Zui. The man's face was calm as he told his story,
"At the time, the Duhan Emperor suddenly wished to engage in war with Khorin. As part of both Duhan and Khorin, I served as the Duhan Left General, to ultimately bring peace to both territories. But the Emperor was hell-bent in expanding Duhan, and it finally touched the nerves of the tribe leaders in Khorin."
He sighed, "When tigers and dragons fight, the small ones suffer. Surrounding the border, not a single village or tribe was left intact after the soldiers ravaged them for food and war resources. The Duhan Emperor has always been reasonable, who knew what had gone over his head to suddenly want to be bigger than who he already was. For him back then, just Duhan was no longer enough."
"But although I have Khorin's blood, I had been living in Duhan most of my life and was a citizen of Duhan. At the time, I thought I had done good to negotiate with the ten largest tribe leaders of Khorin. They would yield some of their territories to Duhan, and I will renegotiate with the Emperor for future leeways. The Duhan Emperor agreed to it as well, allowing the tribe leaders to camp in Duhan's territory for formal negotiation. The tribes were nomads, they had brought their immediate families as a show of goodwill to the Duhan Emperor."
"The night before the negotiation were to take place, the Duhan Emperor suddenly ordered for us to slaughter the tribe leaders and their families in their sleep. Anyone who refused to do it was deemed a traitor. I knew then, this was not the person I had chosen to serve. Something had happened to him, he was no longer a worthy Emperor."
"But he was still the Emperor. I pleaded all I could, but all he gave me was a blade pointed towards my neck. If I were to die, what would happen to those ten tribe leaders and their wives and children? What would happen to Duhan and Khorin in the future? If I died, the Emperor would still kill them; if I didn't die, I would be ordered to kill them or would die anyway in the future as a traitor."
"So, I chose the latter and became one."
Fu Chun, "You killed the Emperor?"
"In the scuffle, I evaded him and his guards. I did not have any means to warn the Khorin tribe leaders back then, so I set fire to Duhan's camp," Man Zui spoke, "The Emperor was said to have perished in the fire I had started. A lot of Duhan soldiers died in the fire as well. The Emperor and some of the generals brought their own maidservants. Xiao Yang's sister... might be one of them."
"But a mere soldier's or maidservant's brother should not be able to obtain such a method to split his soul," Fu Chun said, "Even in the upper realm, it's not a common thing."
"There's someone else in the background," Fu Yan gently set down his tea cup, "We just don't know who yet."
*** *** ***
*** *** ***
Notes:
(1) Hei Wuchang and Bai Wuchang. Hei = black, Bai = white. Collectively, they are known as Heibai Wuchang. They are known in folklore to be the guards to escort souls to the underworld. Bai Wuchang's name is Xie Bian; Hei Wuchang's name is Fan Wushe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heibai_Wuchang
(2) 牛頭 = niútóu (Ox-head); 馬面 = mǎmiàn (Horse-face). True to their names, they really have ox-head and horse-face as their heads, but normal man's physique. Both are also guards of the underworld, and sometimes also portrayed as the escorts of the newly dead to the underworld.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ox-Head_and_Horse-Face