So, young Fatty, young Gyatso and young Seven were all here.
Su Bai couldn't tell whether it was Fatty's spiritual world or someone else's, or several spiritual worlds mixed up.
Then… would he also see a younger version of himself?
Looking around and seeing no sign of his younger self, Su Bai was a little disappointed. Because Gyatso was led here by his grandpa, Su Bai thought if his younger self was to show up, he might be led by his mother.
When the three kids looked at one another, Su Bai suddenly felt himself getting unbelievably lighter and lighter. He felt that he was floating up, higher and higher into the air.
Beneath him, the three kids were staring at him and seemed to be talking, but Su Bai couldn't hear anything.
When he reached the clouds, he saw a graceful lady holding a well-dressed little boy's hand, walking across the bridge.
His lips moved, but failed to say anything.
After all these years, Su Bai didn't expect to see her under such circumstances.
There was a thick mist above the clouds.
Soon, the wooden bridge appeared under his feet, with wooden handrails on both sides.
Su Bai was still haunted by the image of that lady leading the little boy and couldn't calm down for a long time. But he kept walking forward instinctively. He had gone a long way on the bridge before, but this time, after a few steps, he had crossed it.
Now, the gate of that palace with grey tiles was right in front of him. Su Bai supported himself against the rocky cliff with one hand, held his chest with the other, ground his teeth and kept breathing deeply in order to force his tears back.
It was not the right time for emotions. Even in the real world, he wouldn't shed a tear when he visited his parents' tombs every year.
Taking another deep breath to control his emotions, Su Bai turned around and saw the pier of the bridge. Something was written on the pier, but Su Bai couldn't read it. But looking over his shoulder, he could see rather clearly. This bridge could somehow record a piece of memory when someone went across, so Fatty, Gyatso and Seven must have passed it.
Were they in that palace right now?
First, there was the blank tomb, then the giant python in the lotus pond, and now the wooden bridge. This Taoist drill ground in Mt.Fulong had showed its uniqueness.
Now he was facing a place that was the most mysterious and most likely to have some treasure in it. But he felt more anxious than excited about treasure hunting.
The anxiety had resulted from what he had seen, especially those men and women on that terrace.
Because it didn't look like a real Taoist drill ground from any aspect. On the contrary, it looked even more esoteric than Esoteric Buddhism.
He stepped forward and approached the gate. But his anxiety was growing stronger and stronger.
He put his palm on the gate. It was high and huge and had been recently opened.
Pushing it open, he smelled a rotten dusty smell.
Just as he had expected, this palace was either abandoned or struck by some kind of bad accident.
"You're here."
Just then, he heard a weak voice.
There was a man in the hall, leaning against the gate. When Su Bai walked in, he was less than five meters away.
It was Gyatso.
Right now, he was even worse than he had been after that fight with Su Bai. His only arm was almost twisted backwards and was hanging beside his body, and there was a large, bleeding hole on his chest from which even his beating heart could be seen.
His legs were nailed together by a spear, like two pieces of marbled meat cut through by a bamboo stick.
Su Bai walked to him and crouched down.
"Haven't died yet? You're tough!"
Su Bai would never say something nice and sentimental, but he was rather good at speaking sarcastically when someone was down.
Gyatso was not in a mood for a quarrel because he had to concentrate all his spiritual energy on surviving. Ordinary people would be long gone if they were hurt so badly, but Gyatso was still struggling. This skilled monk from Tibet was as strong as a mountain.
At this moment, death might be a relief for him.
A guy in armor was lying beside him. His helmet was smashed and his head had exploded, but there was no blood. Su Bai could see that he used to be a Taoist armored genie, but it seemed that he was just a puppet zombie in the armor. Sacred and glorious outside, but filthy inside.
Su Bai reached out to take off that helmet and saw a horrible head. Both sides of that head were sunken, and it was empty inside with no brains but running mercury.
"A Mercury Evil Corpse." Su Bai.
Gyatso nodded. "Yes, a Mercury Evil Corpse."
A Mercury Evil Corpse was made by tying up a person who was extremely wronged and carried great hatred, then cutting a hole on the back of his head and pouring in mercury while he was alive. It was such an unimaginable torture that even if he died during the process, his soul would be sealed in his body and could be fixed inside with some special method. Eventually he would become a Mercury Evil Corpse.
When the Red-browed Army revolted and dug out the graves of Emperor Wu of Han[2] and Lyu Zhi[3], there were two Mercury Evil Corpses in Lyu's grave and caused great casualty to them. At last, in order to get revenge for their friends killed during the process, the remaining soldiers managed to get Lyu's body out and raped it one by one.
"What kind of Taoist drill ground is this?" Su Bai joked, "A Mercury Evil Corpse? What else, the king of all zombies is the Taoist master himself?"
"This is where the fox had felt something. The baby can't be too far ahead." Gyatso said.
"So Fatty and Seven have moved on? They just left you here?"
"Save your crocodile tears."
"Ha ha." Su Bai clapped his hands and smiled. "Should I wait here with you until they bring that kid out or follow them in?"
"You can stay here and protect me." Gyatso stared at Su Bai. "But I know you won't."
"Don't be so honest. It'll be difficult for us to stab each other in the back if we are on guard against each other."
Su Bai took out a small bottle and handed it to Gyatso.
"These are the red beads you gave me. Take some for blood supplement."
Gyatso didn't refuse. He swallowed all the beads and said:
"Don't worry, I won't die before you're back."
Su Bai shook his head, put the bottle beside Gyatso and headed inside.
It was a huge palace with only one entrance. After a while, Su Bai saw many statues of immortals.
Different from those rough ones Su Bai had seen in the real world, these were really lifelike.
After ten minutes, Su Bai arrived at the exit. There were many side halls and training rooms, but Su Bai entered none. It would be too arrogant to think about treasure hunting at this moment.
Out of the palace, there was a cliff. On the edge of the cliff there was a thatch.
It was the end of the way.
Su Bai had a hunch that the kid must be in that thatch.
However, it looked quite scary outside that thatch because there were broken bodies and body parts everywhere. They were all zombies. Even zombies were destroyed so throughly... there must have been a really intense fight.
A knife was stuck in the rocky wall beside the thatch. Fatty was nailed on the wall by that knife.
His eyes were closed and he had no breath.
Su Bai almost believed Fatty was dead when he walked by, but Fatty seemed to have sensed his arrival and slowly opened his eyes. Unexpectedly, Fatty was using a Taoist breathing method called Tortoise Breath[4].
"You're still alive?" Su Bai asked.
"Hardly." Fatty replied.
"If I were you, I'd walk out." Su Bai said.
"I'm not you. Beside, this knife has repressed my soul. If I force my way out, my soul would disappear even if my body could survive."
"Where's Seven?"
"In that room."
Su Bai pursed his lips. "For how long?"
"More than an hour." Fatty managed a smile, "It doesn't matter whether you came or not. We're all doomed."
"Let me have a shot."
"Join our club sooner."
Su Bai walked past Fatty to the thatch and opened the door.
The thatch was simply furnished in an ancient style.
Seven was sitting by a table.
On the other side of the table, there was a painting hanging in the air.
In the painting, there was the old man that Su Bai had met. This painting seemed to be no different from those in the downtown inns for warding off evil, but there was a lovely kid playing beside the old man's legs.
When Su Bai walked in, Seven didn't even look at him for a second, just kept chanting scriptures with his palms put together, as if he was discussing Buddhism with the old man in the painting. However, when Su Bai walked by behind him, he realized that Seven's back was wet with blood instead of sweat.
And there were several eagles standing on the chair behind Seven, pecking pieces of flesh off from Seven's back from time to time.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Red-browed Army: One of the two major agrarian rebellion movements against Wang Mang's short-lived Xin dynasty, the other being Lulin(literally Green Wood). It was so named because the rebels painted their eyebrows red. — Wikipedia
[2] Emperor Wu of Han (30 July 157 BC - 29 March 87 BC), born Liu Che, courtesy name Tong, was the seventh emperor of the Han dynasty of China, ruling from 141-87 BC. —Wikipedia
[3] Lyu Zhi(241-180 BC), courtesy name Exu (Chinese: 娥姁; pinyin: Éxǔ), commonly known as Empress Lyu and Empress Dowager Lyu, or formally Empress Gao of Han. She was the empress consort of Emperor Gaozu, the founder and first ruler of the Han Dynasty. They had two known children, Liu Ying (later Emperor Hui of Han) and Princess Yuan of Lu. Lyu was the first woman to assume the title Empress of China. —Wikipedia
[4] Tortoise Breath: A Taoist way of nursing oneself by breathing slowly as a tortoise.