Su Yan and Yuan Qi smelled meat from a distance. Their empty stomachs twisted with hunger.
Strange figures sat eating and drinking in the tavern. Su Yan glanced sideways. What he saw turned his blood cold.
Skeletons. White bone skeletons sitting at tables, feasting on human hearts and brains.
They walked past under the skeletons' curious gazes.
"Where are they going?" one skeleton asked.
An old ghost replied, "The Terrace of Longing."
"They shouldn't go further. Past the terrace, you see your homeland, and you can never return to the living world." The old ghost murmured, "They should stay here with us. Let us eat their flesh and blood. Become ghosts like us, instead of walking to their deaths..."
The fog ahead thickened. Through greenish mist, Su Yan saw gray tiles and white walls. A wide street lined with old shops.
The street felt familiar. Yet he had never been here.
Children's voices drifted from a schoolhouse. Su Yan looked through the window. Twenty children recited texts, heads bobbing. The teacher was a young man, not yet thirty.
Su Yan studied his face. Familiar, somehow. But when had they met?
Class ended. Children poured out, laughing and shouting. A woman emerged in a white dress, gentle and quiet. She patted several children's heads fondly.
Su Yan felt the same strange familiarity. He couldn't place her either.
The woman noticed him. "Young man, who are you looking for?"
Su Yan shook his head. "Just passing through. Do you know how to leave this place?"
She pointed the way. Su Yan thanked her and walked on.
"A-Yan, don't run too far! Lunch is ready!" she called after a mischievous child.
"I know, Mother!" The child ran past Su Yan, bumping his leg.
Su Yan froze. He turned slowly.
The schoolhouse and street dissolved like dust.
The child had stopped and looked back. The face was Su Yan's own, years ago.
The child smiled and vanished like smoke.
Tears streamed down Su Yan's face.
"A-Yan, what's wrong?" Yuan Qi asked.
"I saw my parents." Su Yan stood there, voice cracking. "But I didn't recognize them. I couldn't recognize them..."
He dropped the bell and crouched, sobbing into his hands. "I can't remember their faces. I can't remember their names. I just saw them, but I didn't know them..."
Yuan Qi pressed against him and patted his shoulder. "A-Yan, we need to keep moving."
Su Yan rose silently and walked in the direction the woman had pointed.
The road ahead was treacherous. A narrow, difficult path. Beside it lay a broad, easy road. Su Yan took the hard one.
"Stop!" A group of gods had pursued them to the tavern's vicinity. A gray-clad man spoke sharply. "Ahead lies the Terrace of Longing. We go around!"
The gray man was extraordinarily tall, over thirteen feet, with dragon horns on his forehead and sharp claws instead of nails. Definitely not human.
"Elder Shilongzi, what happens inside?" one god asked.
Shilongzi was a stone dragon from Ningyuan's Confucian Temple, a sacred being who had absorbed four centuries of incense offerings. He and three fellow stone dragons had cultivated golden bodies.
"The Terrace of Longing lies outside the underworld court's jurisdiction," Shilongzi said. "Extremely mysterious. They say you see your homeland there. It exists between life and death. One misstep, and you never return. You become a wandering ghost."
A voice laughed. "I've heard that some near death hide in the Terrace of Longing, placing themselves between yin and yang, neither alive nor dead, neither aging nor perishing. Entering their territory is dangerous. They'll do anything to survive."
Shilongzi turned. Magistrate Zhou Yang approached with his officials.
Their eyes met, then looked away.
"Su Yan entered the Terrace of Longing. He won't come out alive," Shilongzi said. "Magistrate Zhou can report his success."
Zhou Yang replied coldly, "He broke the law. I need him alive or dead."
Their eyes locked again. Smoke coiled behind Shilongzi's head as his golden body activated. Golden light suffused his form.
Zhou Yang smiled calmly. "Underworld golden bodies are slightly inferior to my Zhou family's Vajra Invincible Body. I happen to have cultivated it to the second level."
Shilongzi's pupils shrank. At the first level, he could win easily. At the second level, the outcome was uncertain.
A fight between them would likely end in mutual destruction.
Zhou Yang didn't want open conflict. "Since Su Yan's fate in the Terrace of Longing is unknown, why fight? Shilongzi, let's go around and wait for him ahead."
Shilongzi nodded. "Whoever catches him, let fortune decide." He departed with his followers.
Zhou Yang watched him go, then gazed at the fog-shrouded terrace. "The Terrace of Longing. They say it's a place between life and death, hiding terrifying experts who entered when their lifespan ran out. But once inside, you can never leave..."
He had thought it legend until hearing a story from his clan. Their ancestor had faced a fatal calamity and considered entering the terrace to survive. Instead, the ancestor used his genius to overcome the crisis and extend his life. Only then did Zhou Yang realize the legends were true.
Inside the terrace, fog grew denser. The path became more treacherous, with an abyss below and knife-sharp rocks overhead. One slip meant death.
They crossed a log bridge spanning two fortress-like peaks. Su Yan removed his shoes and walked barefoot, sensing every shift in pressure, moving forward inch by inch.
Below, green water bubbled. Rotting corpses floated on the surface. Each bubble swelled into a human face, growing larger until it drifted upward.
"Young man, where do you come from?" A bubble formed a maiden's face, smiling seductively.
Su Yan ignored her.
Yuan Qi blew at the bubble. The maiden's face twisted in horror. "I'm dying! I'm dying!"
The bubble popped, splattering green water across Yuan Qi's face. He shuddered and followed Su Yan across.
They passed a man standing by the road with three legs. Up close, they saw he was nailed to a stake.
"Save me..." the man groaned.
"How?" Yuan Qi asked.
"Give me two years of your lifespan!"
Yuan Qi turned to Su Yan, but suddenly the trees on both sides rotated. They weren't trees. They were three-legged people rooted to the ground, their bodies fused with wood. They all cried out: "Give me two years! Save me!"
Yuan Qi scrambled after Su Yan, never mentioning rescue again.
They passed more horrors. A man sitting by the road with flowers growing from his mouth. Another like a scarecrow, branches sprouting from his body, his visible heart beating between his ribs.
These people had used strange nuo techniques to extend their lives, turning themselves into plants.
Finally they saw a house. Before it stood a normal man, a burly warrior with a thick beard. He examined Su Yan and Yuan Qi with surprise.
"You came from the living world? Who guided you here? This is the only living path through the Terrace of Longing. Without an expert's guidance, you wouldn't have made it!"
Su Yan hesitated, then explained about seeing his parents.
The bearded man grew even more astonished. "The Terrace of Longing shows your homeland. What you saw was your childhood. Your parents saw your future self years ago and guided you to safety. Remarkable parents. Truly remarkable."
Su Yan was stunned. His parents had died in the Sujiaping fire. They were ordinary people. How could they be experts?
He tried to recall their faces. But his memory grew hazy. Their faces became blank sheets of paper, featureless.
The bearded man said, "I can send you out, but my enemy is coming. We fought in life, and now he has come to the terrace for our appointed duel. Rest inside while I deal with him."
Su Yan and Yuan Qi entered. The bearded man stood before a sword case as tall as a man, one hand resting on it.
Soon, storm winds howled. Lightning split the sky. A towering divine figure stood in the dark clouds.
"Yuan Tiangang!" the figure roared. "You severed my dragon neck on Panlong Mountain and ruined my cultivation! Today I take my revenge!"
The bearded man laughed. "I acted under the Emperor's orders to cut your dragon vein and prevent you from causing chaos. That was duty, not personal! But if you want to fight, I accept!"
Light leaped from his sword case. The storm vanished. Clear blue sky stretched overhead, as if they had returned to the living world.
Yuan Tiangang soared upward, sword in hand. The giant transformed into a stone dragon dozens of li long. But Yuan Tiangang's sword flashed like a rainbow, severing the dragon's neck in one stroke.
The dragon's head crashed down before the house, blood flowing like a river.
Yuan Tiangang landed. "This dragon was born from a mountain vein. I slew its mother body years ago. Now the child came for revenge. Bathe in its blood. It will heal your wounds."