Little Grove Town. Zhao Rucheng and Du Yehu had both lost their battle strength, and Ling He was carrying Zhao Rucheng on his back, which meant that on the road back to the Central Palace there was no one who could strike but Jiang Wang. Fortunately he had by now grown rather practiced at dealing with those wandering souls, and his Sword Art of Purple Qi from the East grew ever more fluent through the unbroken fighting.
His stamina was of no great worry either. Since his return from Tangshe Town he had been cultivating his meridian until now, and the Dao essence he had set aside came to over seventy orbs. True, each orb spent before a Dao Spiral was formed could not be recovered, one less each time; but when it truly came down to the decisive moment, every orb could give him feedback enough to sustain combat of this intensity without too much strain. In truth those Dao essence orbs were the hidden card that had decided him to bring the four of them to break the Xun Palace in the first place — he had simply not expected Zhao Rucheng to run into sudden peril, nor Du Yehu to be so resolute.
"I say, can the lot of you stop wearing such long faces?" After walking a while, Zhao Rucheng could no longer hold his tongue. "It's only Vital Qi spent beyond the pale, that's all. It's not as if there's no way to make it up."
"What way?" Before Du Yehu had even opened his mouth, Ling He was the one getting worked up, clutching at the hand of Zhao Rucheng, who lay in reverse, and shaking him without cease. "Tell us at once."
Jiang Wang, clearing wandering souls aside, could not help stealing a glance at him, and truly wanted to give him a couple of sword-thrusts. The young scoundrel — if he had a way all along he should have said so before, keeping the trick bottled up on purpose all this while.
"Oi, oi, oi, you're shaking my handsome head dizzy." It took real effort for Zhao Rucheng to calm his "temporary mount," and then he went on: "As it happens, I've heard that a few days ago someone purchased a Root-Sealing Pill at a high price from Yun Kingdom and was just about to resell it. That pill works wonders for nourishing Vital Qi and steadying one's foundations. Some sons of noble houses take a Root-Sealing Pill on purpose before opening their meridians, so that the true spirit of their Dao meridians comes out all the more lively after! Let alone the mere matter of Tiger here spending a little of his Vital Qi."
"Though I don't know..." he even curled the corners of his mouth, "whether some people would be willing to buy it."
Only after a pause did Du Yehu reply in a muffled voice: "I don't have any money."
"You can borrow from me. By trade custom, lend nine and take thirteen in return." Zhao Rucheng said, all smiles.
"Loan-sharking is fine. Brother Tiger likes loan-sharking." Du Yehu broke into a smile that looked almost simple and honest.
"Enough, enough." Jiang Wang's forehead crawled with black lines. In all of Fenglin City, whoever dealt in usury knew that Du Yehu was famous for borrowing and never repaying. As Tiger himself put it, every last one of these usurers was a rotten sort anyway, and any wine money he could cheat from them was wine money gained. Had he not come of the Dao Academy, he would long since have been tossed into the city's moat.
"Fifth, who's that person? How much silver will they take to sell?"
Jiang Wang had already decided in secret that no matter what price that person named, he would find a way to scrape together the money.
"The fellow who bought the Root-Sealing Pill turns out to share my surname, Zhao. What a coincidence, don't you think?" Zhao Rucheng heaved a sigh of pure affectation. "Still more of a coincidence — he turns out to be a man of my own household! How terribly convenient!"
Jiang Wang drew a deep breath and reminded himself that the Fifth Youngest was badly wounded and could easily be beaten to death. Only so did he keep himself from the urge.
The young scoundrel had gone round and round in long circles, when all he meant was to say that there was a Root-Sealing Pill in his own home that could make good Du Yehu's losses. For a single sentence like that, he had kept several elder brothers on tenterhooks for the space of half a stick of incense.
Even the forbearing Ling He found the ache starting in his very teeth.
Still, with that assurance in place, everyone felt a good deal steadier. And even as they spoke, they had already returned to the Central Palace.
Li Jianqiu and Zhao Lang had long been waiting there, deep in some discussion with Wang Changxiang. There were also a few other senior and junior brothers present, none of them in fine form. Wei Yan had gone off to reinforce the Dui Palace, the only array point that had yet to fall.
"Junior Brother Jiang acquitted himself well." Li Jianqiu greeted him casually.
Wang Changxiang gave a nod in his direction as well.
"I'm ashamed to say it all rested on Brother Yehu and Rucheng's outbursts." Jiang Wang said with a wry smile.
Before the principals he made way for the credit without hesitation. All that mattered at this stage was that they open their meridians successfully. The reason he made no mention of Ling He was that Du Yehu and Zhao Rucheng's condition made for the more persuasive story.
Ling He himself was not one to quibble over it.
Men of Li Jianqiu's ilk had been through a hundred battles; one glance told them the state Du Yehu was in, and the might of his Vital Qi left them privately shaken.
"When Wei Yan returns, we go straight into the heart of the Central Palace." Wang Changxiang said. "This time everyone fought the demon bravely, and the conduct is above reproach. Fenglin City will not forget your contributions, the Dao Academy will not forget your merits."
"Indeed!" Even as he spoke, Wei Yan stepped out of the thick fog, behind him three Dao Academy disciples — while two others never appeared at all, beyond all hoping now.
The savage battle had not ended at the Xun Palace alone. Apart from Wei Yan and Li Jianqiu, who had solved their array points almost without loss, every other squad had taken casualties among its dead and wounded — eleven dead in all, a death rate close to half! And of those who lived, almost every one carried some wound. Even Zhao Lang had only narrowly avoided being ripped wide open, a hideous gash left across his belly.
Had not Wang Changxiang, holding the Central Palace, deployed his forces in time, this squad action might well have failed altogether.
Wei Yan spoke with solemn gravity: "If we live to return from this battle, my petition for rewards for you all will be the first thing I do."
"The danger of this battle was more than I had expected. But at this hour Fenglin City's fighting strength lies hollowed out, and only you all are still fit to wage the fight." And here he even bent at the waist in a bow. "On behalf of the innocently slain souls of Little Grove Town, on behalf of the common folk of our Fenglin City, I thank you for fighting in their blood."
"Brother Wei's words carry too much weight." Said Li Jianqiu.
All those present shifted aside, unwilling to receive such a bow.
"What sort of talk is that, General Wei? You are a man of Fenglin City — as if the rest of us were not born and raised here?" It was Du Yehu who objected, not at all pleased. "Spare us the empty courtesies here. This is no time for delay!"
Even in such a weakened state, the fellow could not hide his fierce heroic mettle.
Wei Yan gave him a long, deep look, then took up his blade and turned. "This junior brother speaks truly. All of you, charge at my side! Let us see for ourselves what manner of demon spawn it is that works this poison on our fellow townsmen!"
The eight palaces broken, the wall of mist that hedged the Central Palace lost its foundations as well, and dissolved silently, no longer barring the way. Only the thick fog remained undispersed, still veiling all sight.
Wei Yan took the lead; Li Jianqiu and Wang Changxiang shielded his flanks; and Zhao Lang, wounded though he was yet largely whole, brought up the rear. The whole band pressed forward toward the Central Palace with every guard up and senses strung.
By now the peril of Little Grove Town needed no further telling. Having lived through the danger of cutting down wraiths in the other eight palaces, everyone had shaped some imagining of the fiendish horror of the Central Palace.
Whatever those demon cultivators who had wrought evil in Little Grove Town were after, they would surely be at this very center.
This company might be said to represent all the youthful hope of Fenglin City. Were they to die here to the last man, the entire Fenglin City Dao Academy would be left without a single capable successor for a generation.
But not one of them spoke of turning back. The road ahead was perilous to be sure, and terrible — yet this was the land of their birth, their home.
It was here they were born, here they grew, here they learned, and here they were willing to die.
Besides Zhao Rucheng and Du Yehu, three more Dao Academy disciples had lost their fighting strength, and Little Grove Town being so dire a place, they could hardly be left behind. So Ling He still carried Zhao Rucheng as the column advanced, while Huang Azhan, Du Yehu's old drinking companion, kept guard at his side.
Unlike Du Yehu, who was almost entirely spent, Huang Azhan was full of vim and vigor. In the earlier fighting he was likewise one of the few to come through untouched; clearly he had a measure of real ability about him, and was not all hot air and show.
As the column moved on, Huang Azhan suddenly stopped in his tracks. He drew a long, deep breath through his nose. "I smell something."
The column halted with him.
He said again: "A woman's rouge... no, it's a scent of the flesh."
All eyes turned on him.
He added: "A beautiful woman's."
Du Yehu snapped, out of sorts: "What are you, a bloodhound?"
"Ah! A ravishing female ghost!" All at once Zhao Rucheng worked himself into a lather. "I said there was such a thing, didn't I? Tiger, you owe me my romantic encounter!"
No one paid the two jesters the least heed, for they had reached the very center of Little Grove Town, and seen the tremendous whirlpool that spun there.
Beyond it, the whole Central Palace held nothing else.
The red-robed woman, the white-haired elder, the black-robed cultivator — as if they had never existed at all.
Not merely that they were gone. There was no one here, no livestock, not a single brick or tile — save that endlessly unspooling dense fog, there was only this strange, lonely great whirlpool.
"Where has the government office gone? What in the abyss is this whirlpool?"
No one could answer that. Only Wang Changxiang stared wide-eyed, shaken beyond words!
"Brother Wang recognizes it?" Wei Yan asked in a low voice, blade held in wary guard.
But his question was soon answered on its own.
For out of the profound darkness at the whirlpool's heart, something black began to emerge, slowly. To see blackness emerging out of darkness was a strangely awkward way to put it. Yet that was how it was.
The black thing, amid the darkness, yet seemed the very center of the dark, such that every eye could clearly make out its shape. As it rose inch by inch within the whirlpool, its full form gradually unfolded before them all.
It was an archway of stone, and not of any grand scale — the pattern of three bays, four pillars, and seven roof-tiers. Were one to overlook its black substance, and overlook the scene of its appearing, it would differ in no way from the archways men see in their daily lives.
But the tablet set at the very center of the archway already told of the extraordinary.
On it were written three characters, which none present recognized as script; yet the moment each man's eyes fell upon them, their meaning was clear to him.
— The Gate of Ghosts!