Radiant Blade of the Wilderness

Chapter 300: The Fire God and the Kitchen King

The bitter winter wind of the deep night howled outside the shrine, but it couldn’t blow away the warmth and light inside.

Ding Songyan’s complexion had returned to normal, and he felt that some of his judgments about Zhurong’s incense deity had been correct.

No real intelligence. It had only reacted under stress. It ran on instinct, with no follow-up.

He shook his head and saw through the window a squad of guards coming to relieve him and the others.

Li Baima, Wu Mo, and Fan Chunlin returned to the area by the main door. Before leaving, they faced the Zhurong statue and bowed with great reverence, murmuring, "May the hearth burn bright and the household prosper."

"May the hearth burn bright and the household prosper," Ding Songyan echoed, bowing to Zhurong as well.

When he lifted his head, he saw no change in the statue. The hearth fire in the bronze cauldron swayed faintly as always.

Still a lifeless thing.

The next afternoon, Ding Songyan headed straight for the Cheap Wine Shop’s back courtyard and found that Twelfth Madam Luo had already set up the Go board and was waiting.

Twelfth Madam, you’re just an itsy-bitsy competitive... Ding Songyan didn’t mention last night’s events for the moment. He sat down, picked up the teapot, refilled Twelfth Madam Luo’s tea, and poured himself a cup too.

Twelfth Madam Luo didn’t pull rank. She grabbed a handful of white stones and had Ding Songyan guess odd or even to decide who would play black to go first.

"I can tell how many there are with my eyes closed," Ding Songyan said, not naming the Chaos Realm outright.

Twelfth Madam Luo replied with a half smile, "If you really guess by martial arts, I’m no slouch either."

More than no slouch... Could she make one of the pieces vanish without a trace the instant she opened her hand? Ding Songyan had only been joking a moment ago, but now he really wanted to make an attempt at seeing Twelfth Madam’s methods.

He sensed carefully, then took out two black pieces and placed them on the board.

That meant even.

Twelfth Madam Luo raised her eyebrows slightly and opened her palm, letting the white pieces drop one by one.

Ding Songyan counted rapidly in his head, and at the end he froze.

Why is there one more?

Where did it come from?

The corner of Twelfth Madam Luo’s mouth curled, her brows and eyes relaxed.

"Without a name, reality is hidden."

"Twelfth Madam, you were guarding against me from the start!" Ding Songyan suddenly understood.

When Twelfth Madam Luo grabbed the pieces, she had already tampered with them, using the Way of Name and Reality to hide one, which fooled the Chaos Realm.

Twelfth Madam Luo shook her head slightly.

"This is called preventing trouble before it happens. If you hadn’t used martial arts to guess, that piece would never have lacked a ’name.’"

With a smile, the shopkeeper reminded Ding Songyan, "There’s no martial art that’s impervious to cracking or without a counter. The sensing ability of your Chaos arts is formidable, but it can still be evaded. Pay more attention in the future."

"I’ve learned something." Ding Songyan clasped his hands.

Twelfth Madam Luo didn’t stand on ceremony either. She took the black pieces instead and made the first move.

Compared to yesterday, she had adapted much better to Ding Songyan’s style and routines. Ding Songyan’s Go was only so-so to begin with, and without Manifesting the Way and its Virtue he couldn’t even apply many famous joseki flexibly. He played slower and slower and gradually began to make longer contemplations, too.

After a fierce fight, both sides entered the endgame.

In calculation, Ding Songyan had a new brain, and his spirit had been boosted by martial arts and external aids, making him far stronger than he’d been at thirty in his previous life. But Twelfth Madam Luo was better, in fact by more than a step, and in the end she won the game by two and a half points.

"Not bad, right?" Twelfth Madam Luo asked with a smile.

Ding Songyan said earnestly, "I thought you’d need three or four games to adapt before you could beat me, Twelfth Madam."

That scratched Twelfth Madam Luo right where she itched. A bit of pride showed on her face as she smiled.

"I spent a long time reviewing the game last night."

As expected of Twelfth Madam, who has to do her best at everything she learns... Ding Songyan didn’t express his approval directly, but deliberately said, "It looks like starting tomorrow, I’ll have to use Manifesting the Way and its Virtue."

Twelfth Madam Luo’s mouth fell slightly open, and she scolded, both annoyed and amused.

"Use it if you want, but do you have to announce it so shamelessly to my face!"

"Otherwise, I think I might not win a single game out of ten," Ding Songyan explained seriously.

What he didn’t say was: I’m flattering you, Twelfth Madam. Using Manifesting the Way and its Virtue shows my greatest acknowledgment and respect for your Go skills.

"Suit yourself." Twelfth Madam Luo rolled her eyes upward, the corners of her mouth curling slightly.

Only then did Ding Songyan tell her about last night’s experience at the Zhurong shrine, along with his guesses and judgments.

Twelfth Madam Luo nodded slowly.

"Zhurong’s incense deity has indeed existed since ancient times. It dies every eight hundred years and is born again amidst the incense.

"As you guessed, it doesn’t have enough intelligence. It’s more like something formed from incense. That’s actually good in a way. It acts on instinct and so won’t go against the wishes of the incense and suffer backlash."

Twelfth Madam Luo pondered a moment and added, "However, incense deities aren’t as powerful as you imagine. They can act from afar through their own statues wrapped in incense, but it’s not something they can do whenever they want. Sects and temples without deity-invoking arts have to go through complicated rituals to get an incense deity to send its power down, which often takes too long to be of any use. Prefectures, counties, and villages mainly rely on yamen martial artists, guard soldiers, and wandering heroes in the city.

"Mm, the stronger the incense and the closer to the incense deity itself, the stronger the power it can summon, up to roughly the level of a newly minted Heaven-Man. But the ritual might take most of a day.

"Someone like Hong Jingyuan can rely on the status of his bloodline to simplify the ritual and get a response in the time it takes to drink a cup of tea."

"I see..." Ding Songyan had many doubts cleared up.

Twelfth Madam Luo took a sip of tea and looked north.

"Zhurong’s legacy has two branches, the Hong clan and the Kitchen King Order. Since Zhurong’s incense deity has no intelligence, a split appeared. The Fire God is in the Forbidden Palace and the Kitchen King is at the Kitchen King Order’s headquarters. Each has power close to the Spirit Platform Realm."

The same incense deity splitting into two because of who worshipped it... Without intelligence, problems come easily... Ding Songyan thought for a moment and asked, "Then which side do the Summer God, the Red Emperor’s minister, and the manifestation of Mars belong to?"

These were all descriptions of Zhurong. Mars was the red planet in the night sky, standing for calamity, death, and war.

"The Summer God, the Red Emperor’s minister, and the Fire God are one. The manifestation of Mars shows up on both sides," said Twelfth Madam Luo, who knew a lot about this.

That makes sense. Fire brings calamity. And in folk legend, the Kitchen King goes up to heaven every year to "report on his duties." If he says good things, the Celestial Thearch blesses that household, and if he says bad things, misfortune arises... Ding Songyan gave a self-mocking laugh.

"I really never expected the Chaos Four Wings to attract the attention of Zhurong’s incense deity."

That must have been the Forbidden Palace’s Fire God, not the Kitchen King.

"It’s Dividing the Four Seasons after all, and Summer is one of the four seasons," Twelfth Madam Luo chuckled. "It’s only because no one took the chance to invoke the deity that you didn’t have to fight that statue to get away. It wouldn’t have been a mere clash of spirits."

Remembering the Shamanism Order, Ding Songyan asked thoughtfully, "If a statue that’s been worshipped is moved away from its local area, does it gradually lose its original incense and have to build it up again?"

During that process, it presumably couldn’t carry an incense deity’s descent anymore.

"Right, statues can’t be moved wantonly." Twelfth Madam Luo nodded. "Groups like the Shamanism Order look for people who are compatible with a deity, have them practice secret arts to withstand the descent, and briefly gain great power. After a maximum of three times, they have to switch people. The True Spirit Sect, on the other hand, uses martial arts to train themselves into suitable vessels, and when needed they can summon a deity to possess them and fight enemies with the deity’s help. Mm, shamans themselves can use witchcraft to do something similar, but it’s not as powerful as a specific person invoking a deity."

That’s a bit like spirit possession... Ding Songyan looked puzzled.

"Why would the Shamanism Order invoke a deity so early?"

Wasn’t that wasting the vessel’s "uses"?

And in the end, they failed anyway.

Twelfth Madam Luo said with amusement, "If you ask me, who do I ask?

"Maybe they’re in a hurry to do something and invoked a deity to help."

Ding Songyan didn’t ask further. He got up and left the Cheap Wine Shop, heading for the Treasure Market.

This was his routine check to confirm Ge Heng was still alive and hadn’t had any mishap.

Ge Heng lived in a courtyard shared with four households. He wasn’t there at the moment, still busy with Ghost Yu Way business. Through the Chaos Realm, Ding Songyan observed his room from a distance and concluded that he had been there that morning and nothing was wrong.

Too dedicated, out early and back late every day, sometimes not even coming home at night so as to keep watch... Ding Songyan expressed his appreciation for Ge Heng’s professionalism.

He seriously considered whether to give him a raise.

Lost in thought, Ding Songyan strolled back to the side courtyard of the Prince’s estate and saw Wu Mo and Fan Chunlin already waiting eagerly, while Li Baima wiped his two short swords, looking rather helpless.

From now on, what he enjoyed would no longer be one-on-one instruction.

Teaching and learning fed each other. While giving the three pointers, Ding Songyan also sorted out some of his own martial arts, either breaking them down again in preparation for folding them into the Unified Way Sword, or trying to improve them.

When the sky darkened, Wu Mo stood in the middle of the courtyard, silent for a long time.

It was as if he had only today understood his own sect’s Ruyi Scripture.

"What’s wrong?" Ding Songyan glanced at him.

Wu Mo sighed.

"I used to think I already knew how strong you were, Brother Ding. Now I realize that was only the tip of the iceberg."

He was simply awestruck!

Fan Chunlin and Li Baima both strongly agreed.

Especially Li Baima. Every time he improved, he thought he could roughly make sense of Brother Ding’s swordsmanship and judge how strong he really was, but every time he was astonished to find that he understood even less and could hardly imagine where Brother Ding’s limit lay.

Well said. Sincere praise always makes people happy... Ding Songyan got a taste of how Twelfth Madam felt.

Before he could speak, Wu Mo said flatteringly, "I only regret not being a woman, so I can’t pledge myself to you in return."

Ding Songyan looked at Wu Mo’s appearance and sneered.

"All you can do is work like an ox and a horse for me."

So for the next few days, Ding Songyan stayed in the Prince’s estate. Besides guarding the shrine every night and playing one game of Go with Twelfth Madam each day, he studied martial arts and trained hard, occasionally wrote some of Journey to the West, and waited patiently for the day Divine Monk Dazhi would give another Dharma talk.

As the day off approached, Ding Songyan was playing Go with Twelfth Madam in the Cheap Wine Shop’s back courtyard when he saw Chef Shi come over, set a slip of paper beside the board, and say in a low voice, "There’s news of the Returning Abyss Order."