Among the straw, a severed arm was quietly placed. Li Ang’s pupils slightly constricted—the material of the arm in the box was neither flesh, gold, nor wood. Starting from the fractured surface, it exhibited a deathly pale gray that transitioned into a waxen yellow at the fingertips. It was as if the entire arm had petrified starting from the break.
"Shixing Monk’s right arm..." Ya Jiu said evenly, picking up the arm from the straw through a layer of white cloth and turning it over.
The severed arm appeared as solid as a stone sculpture. On its back was a dense cluster of black text. It was neither Han characters nor the script used by West Jing or Nanzhou, nor any language seen in the books of the Academic Palace.
A thought struck Li Ang. Shixing had been a highly revered monk in Chang’an a hundred years ago. He was born in a small town at the border of Jing Country and Yu Country and had shown remarkable innate wisdom from the age of three or four, believed to be a reincarnation of a sage. The then-abbot of White Horse Temple in Chang’an, a monk named Chuming, had made a special trip to bring him back to the temple for careful mentoring.
Shixing Monk was handsome and profoundly learned. By the age of thirteen, he could debate and leave his counterparts speechless in religious discourses. By fifteen, he had reached the Cloud Patrol Realm, almost breaking the cultivation record set by Su Zi two hundred years earlier. In ink painting, string and bamboo music, even the tea ceremony, poetry, and natural history, Shixing Monk showed exceptional brilliance. So much so that the then Academic Palace Master, Chou Zhibai (also the teacher of the current Mountain Master, Lian Xuanxiao), wanted to make an exception and accept him as an Outer Disciple. However, Shixing Monk refused. His reason was, "I wish to serve the Buddha for three lifetimes."
Under normal circumstances, Shixing Monk would have become the youngest abbot in the history of White Horse Temple. However, no one expected that he would discover a copy of the Great Cloud Scripture from the Beiliang period among the vast collection of Buddhist texts, reannotate it to compile the "Great Cloud Scripture," and present it to the Holy Empress.
The "Great Cloud Sutra" recorded a tale of a woman becoming King and achieving ascension to Buddha, emphasizing the theme of the Holy Mother Divine Sovereign being commanded by Buddha and Haotian, strongly implying that the Holy Empress ought to change the dynasty. With Shixing Monk’s revered status and the tacit approval—or even active support—of the Holy Empress herself, the "Great Cloud Scripture" was released. Immediately, a large number of faithful men and women, along with Buddhist monks, voluntarily requested to make copies. The Holy Empress was pleased to see this and ordered that Great Cloud Temples be constructed in every prefecture to house this scripture. The ultimate result was that songs of praise for the Holy Empress echoed throughout Yu Country, assisting her in rightfully ascending the throne.
For initiating this, Shixing Monk was rewarded with numerous titles, including a noble rank and a Purple Kasaya. This legitimized his right to enter the palace and preach—although this role led some to suspect he was the Holy Empress’s concubine.
For ten years, the Holy Empress lavished favor upon Shixing Monk. Then, one day, she suddenly decreed his execution by the brutal torture of dismemberment by chariot, killing not only him but also his disciples at White Horse Temple.
The sudden shift in the Holy Empress’s stance remains a topic of dispute. Some say she was disgusted by the excessive wealth accumulated by the Buddhist monasteries and wanted to make an example of Shixing. Others say that after reading a book left by a Sword Immortal, Shixing Monk, like that Sword Immortal, went mad and spoke delirious, heretical words to the Holy Empress, frightening her into ordering his immediate execution. Some even suggest that Shixing Monk, being an incarnation of Buddha, had foreseen his own demise and simply used the Holy Empress’s hand to hasten his return to the cycle of reincarnation.
Regardless of the possibility, the fact that Shixing Monk was torn apart by chariots is profoundly mysterious—he was a cultivation prodigy, reaching the Cloud Patrol Realm by fifteen and the Candle Cloud Realm by his thirties. A cultivator of the Candle Cloud Realm, even when faced with several foes of the same level, would not die so silently. Yet, Shixing Monk simply surrendered, allowing the Holy Empress’s men to bind, imprison, and execute him by chariot. He died with a serene smile on his face.
Shixing Monk died seventy years ago under mysterious circumstances, and the whereabouts of his body and grave are unknown. How did the Zhao Ming Organization find this severed arm? What do the texts on the back of the arm mean? Why did Ya Jiu tell me to stitch up the wounds? Could it be that someone wants to transplant Shixing Monk’s severed arm? Is he Venus?
Li Ang’s thoughts raced. The case of Shixing Monk was full of doubts and involved the mystery of the Holy Empress’s rule. Even the Academic Palace had little information—after all, the Holy Empress’s rise to power had much to do with the then Academic Palace Master Chou Zhibai’s neutral stance, a fact that was not particularly honorable in the present day.
"Put your clothes on properly."
Ya Jiu shot Wu Huo a glance. The latter snorted, lazily adjusted his clothes, then lay down on the bench, feigning drunken sleep. Li Ang, too, played the part of a guest on the pleasure boat, exchanging pleasantries and toasting with Ya Jiu’s puppets.
The pleasure boat smoothly passed the Qujiang Pool checkpoint, sailed out of Chang’an City, and stopped by the riverside. Ya Jiu’s other puppets were already there with carriages, waiting by the riverbank.
Li Ang and Wu Huo each boarded a carriage and traveled eastward, arriving at a valley. In the valley, the shadows of trees loomed, and the intermittent strange calls of birds and roars of beasts echoed through the air.
Unperturbed, Wu Huo hopped off his carriage and proceeded directly to the riverbank. He casually lifted a human-sized boulder, revealing a pitch-dark cave entrance below. The Chang’an Ghost Market extended in all directions; to say it was a warren with a thousand burrows for cunning rabbits would not be an exaggeration.
Ya Jiu, abandoning his other puppets and disguised as a pleasure boat attendant, carried the iron box containing Shixing Monk’s severed arm and descended into the cave. Li Ang quickly followed. After hopping down into the cave, Wu Huo moved the boulder back to its original place.
Ya Jiu flicked his fingers, igniting a tiny flame at his fingertips, and proceeded to wade along the twisting riverway. He seemed extremely familiar with the terrain of this area. He navigated through several corners and crossed over what seemed like insurmountable waterfalls. Suddenly, the rock wall above rose steeply. The air no longer felt stifling, and even faint, dense firelight appeared.
That was...the real Ghost Market.
Li Ang squinted slightly. The terrain dramatically opened up before him. The rock wall towered a hundred meters high, and the riverbed extended over one hundred feet wide. The broad riverbed calmed the turbulent Dark River, making it as placid as a lake on the surface. On either side of the riverbed, neatly laid bluestone slabs lined the ground, and Long Burning Lamps were set into the walls.
Countless figures moved under the flickering candlelight. Vendors sat in low huts constructed from wood and bamboo, hawking their wares just like ordinary merchants in Chang’an’s markets. Except...
"Sheep Demon meat, fresh Sheep Demon meat—"
"Anchovy demon, one thousand strings of coins, no bargaining!"
"Bull liver sight-enhancing meat! Eat it to brighten your eyes!"
A robust butcher at a meat stall swung his cleaver, splitting a three-eyed sheep head in two. Nearby, a soup vendor casually plucked a vibrant, two-headed snake from a cage full of poisonous snakes. He deftly slit open its belly with a Dagger, picked out the gallbladder, washed it in boiling water, minced it, and added it to a bubbling pot to make Snake Gallbladder Soup. The vendor selling birds and beasts shouted his wares while striking an iron cage with a bamboo stick, causing the caged, dog-like demon beast inside to bark loudly, coughing out a gout of dark flame.
The moist vapor mixed with the scents of spice, food, and animal odors, creating an eerie, indescribable smell. The entire Ghost Market was crowded, noisy, and dirty, yet it exuded a strange sense of order—there was even a patrol of soldiers in armor resembling that of the Imperial Guard, wearing ghostly masks, patrolling along both sides of the river to maintain order.
This was a scene utterly different from Chang’an City and the Academic Palace. Li Ang, following behind Ya Jiu, could vaguely sense that most people here were cultivators, with varying levels of Cultivation. Many people wore masks for disguise. Those without masks either covered their faces with thick straw coats or were simply disheveled, their real appearances unclear.
"Young master, would you like to buy some flowers?"
An old, hunched woman carrying a flower basket approached Ya Jiu. She slowly lifted her face, revealing a countenance that was half aged, half youthful. Her basket contained a layer of black soil, out of which grew gray-white flowers with delicate, spread petals. They exuded bursts of a fragrant aroma and were quite pleasing to the eye. But upon closer inspection, what was planted in the soil was not flowers at all, but clearly a collection of withered human hands. The so-called delicate petals were nothing more than overly grown, elongated fingernails.
Ya Jiu coldly refused and strode past.
As Li Ang passed by the old woman, he glanced at the basket, shook his head, and muttered softly, "Nasty case of onychomycosis... and it’s catching."