Chapter 6: A Woman? Then I’ll Be Off
Xuan Xia kept the posture of holding her mobile phone, but her peripheral vision glanced toward the pond.
Unfortunately, one bubble was really too insignificant for such a vast pond.
But if a few more bubbled up, that would be different.
One “gurgle,” two “gurgles,” three “gurgles”…
The pond in front suddenly boiled like boiling water, or like a pool of reagents undergoing a chemical reaction, starting to bubble up one after another.
Even the sky began to change.
Originally, the setting sun at the horizon cast a light orange hue, but as the pond water churned, the setting sun in the sky also boiled like it had been heated, truly becoming “setting sun like blood”.
The gurgle sounds were incessant, like they would explode the next second.
Xuan Xia’s first reaction was to retreat, away from that pond.
She retreated more than ten steps in a row, until her heel bumped into a hard object.
Xuan Xia looked down and saw that blocking her retreat was a toppled stone statue.
It was a statue of a figure, but not carved very finely, somewhat like the Han dynasty carving style.
The statue reached to her knee bend in width, with a pair of eyes like lines, in a smiling eye shape, but the more Xuan Xia looked, the more she felt that those eyes seemed to be gazing back at her.
A term from the notebook suddenly flashed in Xuan Xia’s mind—illusionary scenery.
The so-called illusionary scenery, by Xuan Xia’s own understanding, should be a kind of illusion.
However, this kind of illusion was formed by resentment, evil spirit, and so on, a series of emotional energies left in the mortal world, and it was 100% accompanied by danger.
Taking herself as an example, if she really died as foretold in the dream, she would definitely be filled with resentment, utterly unwilling, and her resentment could definitely create an illusionary scenery.
And she would become the evil spirit within the illusionary scenery, and anyone entering her illusionary scenery wouldn’t get out alive—she’d devour one if one came, gnaw a pair if a pair came!
And those devoured by her would naturally generate various resentful evil energies, which could further strengthen her illusionary scenery.
But the problem was, she didn’t want to be the one eaten, nor did she want to become nourishment to strengthen someone else’s illusionary scenery.
In that moment, Xuan Xia thought of many things, thinking most about the dream foretelling her future.
She even thought that since she had already peeked at heavenly secrets, not only would she live on, but she would live to a ripe old age, with a brilliant life.
If something jumped out now to say “give me your life,” Xuan Xia was confident she could outdo that thing which wasn’t even a thing.
With this ebb and flow, after gaining this awareness, the emotion of fear instead dropped to insignificance.
With her mind settled, Xuan Xia suddenly discovered that the pond that had been acting up earlier was no longer churning and bubbling, returning to its initial calm state without ripples.
As if what happened earlier was all an illusion.
But speaking of illusions, Xuan Xia felt a cool breeze brush over the back of her neck.
Just like someone deliberately blowing on the back of your neck, except this breath was chilling enough to make one’s hairs stand on end.
Xuan Xia clenched her fist.
Probably because Xuan Xia took no action, after a few seconds, another cool breeze came.
This time, it wasn’t just blowing on her neck; the chilling cold wind also poured into her ear, making her ear itch and her heart restless.
Xuan Xia thought to herself, is this challenging my bottom line?
At the same time, a segment of incantation came to mind: “Know the constant and be clear, the Way is in all directions, the Way illuminates all directions, responding to nothing.”
That was the most frequently appearing passage in her great grandfather’s notebook, at least in the few she had read.
According to the explanation in her great grandfather’s notebook, this was an incantation to dispel illusions, which could also clear one’s qi and brighten the spirit, and after revisions by predecessors, this incantation no longer needed hand seals to take effect.
With the scene so eerie and strange at the moment, Xuan Xia didn’t care about anything else and directly murmured it once.
Unexpectedly, this incantation actually seemed to work.
The chilling chill at the back of her neck vanished without a trace, no more wind came, and even the blood-red setting sun in the sky normalized somewhat.
But after a few seconds, ripples rose again in the calm pond.
As the ripples spread, in the empty scene, someone suddenly spoke in a drawn-out opera singing style.
“Deities are the most heartless…”
“Counting you as heartless too…”
“Hoping for you to come, yet you come to teach me detachment…”
Each phrase circled Xuan Xia’s ears, like 360° surround sound.
The opera singing style ended with a “splash,” the water surface broke open, and a figure leaped out from the water.
Xuan Xia had already anticipated in her heart that something might emerge from the pond, but when a person actually leaped out, she was still startled.
Fortunately, she held back and didn’t cry out; aside from her eyebrows raising high, her expression remained calm.
From the figure and costume, it could be judged that the one emerging from the water was a woman. She wore a plain white ancient-style long skirt, with disheveled hair.
Because her head was low, her features couldn’t be seen clearly.
The woman first emerged from the water in a eerie posture, then rose straight up segment by segment like suspended by wires, stopping only when she was an adult’s height above the pond surface.
Then the woman with disheveled hair suddenly lifted her head, her pitch-black eyes staring straight at Xuan Xia.
Xuan Xia sharply inhaled, this person had no whites in her eyes!
Yet her mind inappropriately thought: ridiculous, how could there not be a single duckweed clinging to her body.
Just as she was inappropriately distracted like this, the woman spoke.
“Not him. Did he call you to see me? Why didn’t he come?” Her voice was like weeping and complaining, fortunately not in that drawn-out opera singing style.
Xuan Xia didn’t want to ask or know who “he” was, and casually said: “Then I’ll go.”
If it weren’t for that fallen stone statue behind her blocking the way, she really would have left.
Woman: “…”
After a second.
The woman’s water sleeve shook, drawing a sleeve wave in mid-air, and the interrupted opera singing style resumed.
“You taught me to revere deities, yet deities are heartless, making you and me part in life…”
“I only see the high platform, deities seated there, but not you…”
“…”
The drawn-out tones rose and fell, but fortunately allowed Xuan Xia to understand what was going on.
In summary, this woman had been with a man, but later the man went to serve a deity, so they broke up, but she couldn’t let go, waiting daily for the man to return, perhaps even went looking, but she couldn’t wait or see him, so her resentment grew day and night, hating not the man but the deity.
She understood the story, but Xuan Xia didn’t understand why she appeared here.
Was she related to this woman, or the man? Or just unluckily drafted.
If choosing among these three options, she couldn’t help thinking of her great grandfather again.
Did becoming a Daoist priest fit this woman’s story?
But on second thought, it didn’t fit. It was said her great grandfather formally became a Daoist only after her great grandmother passed away, so there couldn’t be any parting in life or waiting for the man’s return.
After figuring this out, Xuan Xia breathed a sigh of relief.
Looking at the woman again, Xuan Xia thought she should do something. Maybe flip through the notebooks she brought out to see if there were similar situations and usable incantations. Like the one just now.
Thinking of the effect of that incantation just now, Xuan Xia subconsciously recited it again: “Know the constant and be clear, the Way is in all directions, the Way illuminates all directions, responding to nothing.”
At the same exact moment, another voice rose along with her recitation.
The words overlapped: “Brightly it exists, darkly it is absent, foul impurities dissipates.”
A breeze like warm spring wind brushed by.
Xuan Xia followed the wind and looked over, seeing that the stone statue originally blocking her path was gone, and the road she came from reappeared.
At the end of the road, there was now a person sitting in a wheelchair.
