Chapter 12 — The Mutation

Zhang Qingyue stared at the bead for a long while, his breathing gradually settling. But apart from noticing that its color and luster had dimmed somewhat, he could make nothing else of it, and so he tucked it back against his chest. He turned to look at Tian Lingsu beside him. She was still unconscious, but color was slowly returning to her face; her condition had improved considerably.

He picked up the amber-red silk and examined it closely. It was the first time he had looked at this treasure from so near, and he found it soft to the touch, quite pleasant. Recalling the graceful figure Tian Lingsu had cut as she rode the air, he felt a pang of envy.

After watching it a while, he mimicked Tian Lingsu's gesture with his hand and cried, "Rise!"

The amber-red silk lay there like a dead snake, paying him no mind, not stirring in the least.

"Chee chee chee chee!" The gray monkey off to one side was clutching its belly, collapsed on the ground, convulsed with laughter.

Zhang Qingyue glared at it, but having just shared danger with the creature, he could not help feeling a certain fondness for it, and the last of his hostility melted away. He stuck out his tongue and made a face at the monkey, then ignored it, laid the amber-red silk beside Tian Lingsu, and let his gaze drift to the pool in the clearing.

It was a small pool, modest in extent, with no visible source—likely fed by an underground spring. The water was a deep emerald green, and from where he stood its depth was impossible to judge. On the western side there was a gap through which the water flowed out, gathering into a brook that wound away into the distance.

At the center of the pool lay a heap of broken rocks, of every size and shape, a few of them breaking the surface. Among the rocks a short black rod was thrust at an angle, a foot of it above the water, the rest submerged. It was black through and through, and what material it was made of he could not tell; it was thoroughly ugly.

Zhang Qingyue paid it little mind. He only felt that the place was strange beyond measure and that it would be best to leave quickly. Yet though Tian Lingsu beside him had grown calm, she remained unconscious and would not wake no matter how he called. The gray monkey, by contrast, was full of energy—scratching its ears and cheeks, grooming itself for lice, never still for a moment. Now and then it darted up into the trees and came back with a few wild fruits, of which it tossed two to Zhang Qingyue; then it plopped itself down on the ground and began eating with relish.

Zhang Qingyue took a bite of the wild fruit and found it sweet and full of juice; his appetite flared at once. He had set out for the mountain at dawn and had been chasing about ever since; it was now nearly noon and he had not had so much as a drop of water. He was already famished. He ate one fruit in two or three bites and was reaching for a second when he suddenly shook his head and set it gently beside Tian Lingsu.

With the fruit in his belly, Zhang Qingyue's hunger eased a little and his spirits improved. He stood and stretched, then looked around. Ancient trees stood dense and dark, a brook murmured nearby—the scenery was quite lovely, in fact. Who would have guessed such strangeness lurked here?

Just then Zhang Qingyue felt a warmth at his chest, and in the next moment came several muffled cracks—"kakaka"—as though something were splitting apart. Startled, he hastily pulled the bead from his breast and was badly frightened by what he saw: the whole bead blazed with surging blue light, and within it the blue vapor churned like wolves and tigers, battering desperately against the bead's wall. And the "swastika" mantra that held it in check was growing ever more fragile, ever more dim, and by the look of it would soon fail.

How could Zhang Qingyue know that this bead, seemingly so plain and unremarkable, was in truth the most baleful object under heaven, renowned throughout the world: the Blood-devouring Bead. Its origins were unknown, but it possessed an uncanny property—it fed on the vital blood of living things. Should any living creature draw near, within a quarter of an hour the Blood-devouring Bead would drain it of blood and essence and leave nothing but an empty husk. It was a demonic thing of the most terrifying kind. More than a thousand years ago the bead had fallen into the hands of the Black-hearted Elder, an elder of the Demonic Sect, who, seeing its power to drain essence and blood, forged it into a magical artifact. For a time it swept all before it, and there was no telling how many men of the righteous path it killed; its fame spread far and wide, and it became one of the Four Treasures of the Demonic Sect. After the Black-hearted Elder's death the bead vanished, and from that day its whereabouts were unknown.

By chance, thirty years ago, the Divine Monk Puzhao of the Brahma Sound Temple had come upon this baleful bead in the Great Western Marsh. At that time, for ten li in every direction, bleached bones lay piled and no living thing remained; it was a scene of utter desolation, resentment rising to the heavens. Puzhao's heart was moved to great compassion, and he took it up by the power of the Buddhist dharma. Thereafter, every night, he worked upon it the secret demon-subduing rites of the Buddha, quelling its evil power, without a single night's interruption for thirty years, and he strung it together with the supreme treasure of the Buddhist faith, the Emerald Prayer Beads, so that their pure, clean aura might withstand the bead's blood-devouring malevolence. At last he pressed that baleful spirit down, bound it tight within the bead, so that beneath layer upon layer of Buddha-power it could never again see the light of day.

But who could have foreseen that in the battle at Willow Temple Village, Puzhao would be struck again and again by the mysterious man in black and left all but spent, his lamp of life guttering? Though the man in black had also fled wounded, Puzhao knew he had not suffered any mortal hurt, and he guessed that the man was determined to have the Blood-devouring Bead. Having swallowed a Three-day Death Pill, he had only three days of life left to him by force of will. In that hour he took a desperate gamble: he gave the Blood-devouring Bead to Zhang Qingyue and charged him never to show it before others, and at the first opportunity to cast it into some deep valley or off some cliff. It might yet harm a few innocents, but that was far better than letting it fall into the hands of that demon.

What Puzhao had never imagined was that Zhang Qingyue, mindful of his kindness, would keep this most baleful of objects as a memento. Deprived of Puzhao's suppression by the Buddhist dharma, and with no Emerald Prayer Beads to hold back its power with their pure aura, the malevolent spirit began little by little to erode the seals. Yet the demon-subduing rites of the Brahma Sound Temple were no common thing; though masterless, those layered seals had kept faithful watch and held that baleful spirit in check for fully three years. But as time wore on they could not hold forever; their strength waned by degrees, and on this very day the Blood-devouring Bead stood on the verge of breaking free of its bonds to bring calamity upon the world.

Zhang Qingyue knew nothing of these tangled histories, but in his heart he had already sensed that something was wrong. In the battle at the thatched temple years before, when Puzhao and the man in black had fought, the swastika mantra had appeared many times; young as he was, it had imprinted itself deeply on his memory. Now, seeing the danger on the bead grow more desperate by the moment, he grew anxious, and steeling himself, he gripped the bead tight and set in motion the little he knew of the crude Great Brahma Prajna, pouring it into the bead.