Where Immortals Once Walked-Chapter 369: Soul Land

When He Lingchuan released Third Master Gan, he made himself perfectly clear that if Gan Laosan dared to spill any of this, the Grand Tutor of the State of Baoshu would absolutely avenge his son.

The entire State of Fu could not afford to offend the Baoshu King, let alone a tiny place like Wuze County.

Third Master Gan’s lips trembled a couple of times, then he slunk off with his tail between his legs. After brushing the gates of death so many times, he did not dare throw out threats anymore.

After all, even the Soul-Stealing Mirror, which was something that had once been his “master,” had been subdued by He Lingchuan. He was finally forced to accept a simple truth: a skinny arm could not twist a steel bar.

By then, the east was already growing bright. Roosters in the farmyards were clearing their throats to crow the hour. He Lingchuan and the other two made their way back into the county city.

Early risers were already bustling about, chasing their livelihoods. The real Wuze County was overflowing with everyday life—warm, noisy, and human in a way that no mirror illusion realm could touch.

The three of them found a random roadside stall and slurped down huge bowls of rice noodles, bowls big enough to cover a person’s face. The vendor had apparently thrown some kind of herbs into the pot and stewed them together; the broth came out bold and fragrant. He tossed in a handful of mushrooms and a pinch of pickled long beans, so the first hit was bright and sour, followed by a deep, savory weight. He Lingchuan also ordered a plate of peanuts, scattered them over his noodles, and had the vendor wrap up four big steamed buns.

All around them, people squatted at wobbly little tables and ate like a storm, sweating lightly at the temples, yet looking thoroughly satisfied.

After breakfast, Wu Jinsong went back to pack and prepare to lodge at Purple Bamboo Garden.

He also wanted to hurry back to Grand Tutor Sha’s estate as soon as possible, but He Lingchuan would not be leaving with the caravan for another two or three days. The two guards had no choice but to swallow their impatience and wait.

He Lingchuan returned to Purple Bamboo Garden with the Soul-Stealing Mirror tucked close. Most of the guests were still asleep. As he walked down the corridor, he could even faintly hear snoring from behind the doors.

He went to the bathing room first, soaked properly, loosened up, then shut the doors and windows tight and took the mirror out.

Yes, everything in the world had spirit, but for a man-made mirror to accidentally gain intelligence and become a monster, that was pure chance. This was not the type of thing that you could force. Plenty of divine artifacts never got such treatment. At most, they would develop a dim, half-aware artifact spirit, and that would already be remarkable.

But the mirror still did not have legs. It could not run off on its own, which was why it needed mirror-slaves to carry it around.

As for the evil ghosts, none of them could touch the mirror. Even the living creatures they controlled could not touch it, so they could not pick it up either.

Now that it had been forced to break its contract with Third Master Gan, it had no slave left. It could not go anywhere, so it could only behave and stay in He Lingchuan’s hands.

Only now did He Lingchuan learn that, after Sha Xinghai and Eldest Master Gan, Eldest Master Gan had hoped the spirit medium would quietly return the souls it took. That way, no one would be the wiser, and the Gan Family would not have to take on any risk.

However, the mirror refused to do such a thing.

The tasty food had already entered its mouth, so how could it be willing to spit it back out?

Now the mirror started pleading with He Lingchuan. “Please don’t hand me over. I’m willing to be your heart-protecting mirror.”

He Lingchuan was not afraid to meet its face anymore. He rocked it in his hand. “So you’re determined to stick with me?”

“Mm!”

He turned it left and right, inspecting himself in it. “Overwhelmed by my charm?” The guy in the mirror really is handsome.

“...Y-yes.”

He tapped the mirror twice. “Confess, and I’ll go easy on you. Otherwise, I’ll—”

Twist me into a fried dough twist, right? The mirror practically sounded eager as it cut him off, “I want to feel the aura of the City of the Dead. It would benefit me greatly.”

So it yearns for Panlong City? “How so?”

“You know I was born from wrathful souls. But after I devoured too many, their resentment and hatred from life never dispersed. It all piled up inside me with nowhere to go, so I was eventually forced to start ‘eating’ something else.” The mirror had troubles of its own. “The City of the Dead behind you is beyond imagination. Its capacity for grievance and hatred is beyond imagination. I want to learn from it.”

“You want to copy a tiger by drawing a cat?”

“Something like that.”

He Lingchuan rubbed his chin. “What do you need me to do?”

“Nothing, you just have to let me stay on you. By letting me stay with you, I can slowly study it.” Time was the one thing the mirror never lacked. “I can vaguely sense that the City of the Dead is especially powerful at night, and that your connection to it is very close.”

That part’s spot-on.

He could only enter Panlong City at night.

The mirror asked curiously, “How can you carry something so terrifying without being affected?”

“And what would the effect normally be?”

“The vast amount of yin qi and resentment should be gnawing at your very essence and qi, consuming your qi and blood, and leaving you exhausted and hollow. Before long, you should be sickly and in pain, and then dead. With a City of the Dead that large, killing a living man would take at most... maybe ten days?” the mirror said uncertainly. Then, it asked carefully, “How long have you been connected to it?”

“Half a year.” And I feel much better now than I did six months ago.

“?!” Half a year, and this man’s still this vigorous? “Even if your constitution is extraordinary, it wouldn’t matter. This kind of yin energy can drain even immortals dry! Forget the City of the Dead; even the spirit medium could not endure me clinging to her! That’s why I needed to sign them as mirror-slaves. Otherwise, I’d have to replace my carrier every few months, and that would be a massive hassle.”

It drew out a long, thoughtful “Oh,” as if it had discovered the truth. “So are you also a city-slave of the City of the Dead?”

“Fuck off!” He Lingchuan flicked the mirror with a finger, sending it spinning in his hand. “You think I’m as stupid as Third Master Gan?”

Once Third Master Gan signed the contract, he had to obey orders. He Lingchuan’s body and will were both free, with no one telling him what to do.

...I’m free, right?

He paused and actually thought about it. He had never signed anything. He only ever took a saber from that black flood dragon that Zhong Shengguang had transformed into.

That would have most counted as an agreement.

Wait, hold on.

The divine bone amulet could not be thrown away, and Fleeting Life would come crawling back no matter what. Uh...

Now that he was really thinking about it, he was not quite so sure anymore.

The mirror kept spinning and clicking its tongue. “How utterly terrifying and fascinating, I have to study this properly!”

What monster with awakened intelligence did not yearn for the Great Dao? But an object becoming a monster was exceedingly rare, and it had no established path to follow. In its case, it could only feel its way forward.

And it had achieved almost nothing.

Just as it was about to fall into despair, Panlong City appeared and pointed it in a direction.

That was its path, and possibly its future.

He Lingchuan snatched it up and held it close to his chest.

The mirror assumed he was testing where to place it as a heart-protecting mirror. But in truth, He Lingchuan was checking the divine bone amulet’s reaction.

Earlier, when they withdrew from Mochou Lake, the amulet had heated up to warn him that the treasure was still there.

Generally speaking, the divine bone only cared about things it could eat.

But this time was clearly different. The divine bone stayed quiet, neither heating up nor showing any interest.

Is it looking down on this heart-protecting mirror? Or could it be that it thinks that it would be hard to “bite”?

Was its earlier reaction simply a reminder for me not to miss the real culprit?

Even though the Generous Pot was not exactly his master, it really did keep a close eye on everything he did.

He Lingchuan looked at the cheerful mirror that was totally unaware that it had just narrowly escaped being devoured. “So what exactly is that battlefield inside you?”

It turned out that although the wrathful souls the mirror ate eventually disappeared, their hatred did not. The Soul-Stealing Mirror was not a Pixiu[1]; it did not have the ability to swallow endlessly without consequence. If things went on as they have, it could even burst from the pressure.

So it recreated the campaign from General You’s lifetime, giving those resentments a target, a place to go, letting them vent and slowly dissolve.

But it was like teasing silk from a cocoon. The process was painfully slow. In more than two thousand years, it had not “sent off” very many at all.

So the mirror realm had to remain, and it had to let them play out their war endlessly.

Now, though, it had discovered that the City of the Dead behind He Lingchuan held far more people than it did, as well as far deeper resentment, yet it was controlled perfectly.

It was practically a miracle that had presented itself right before its very eyes.

“A miracle?” The first thing He Lingchuan thought of was the Three Corpses Worms.

Panlong City used the Three Corpses Worms in a remarkably clever way. That was probably one of its methods for dissolving the dead’s resentment.

However, that was a secret that he could not speak aloud.

“Can I use you to capture people?”

“Not for the time being,” the mirror said miserably. “To stop you from escaping, I forced myself to interfere and change the rules. Now, that world is a mess. For a long time, I won’t have the spare capacity to pull living people in.”

“How long is a long time?” The mirror had existed for ages. Its idea of a long time and his were definitely not the same.

“At least four to five... ten years?”[2]

He Lingchuan rapped it hard with his knuckles. “Four or five years, or four or five decades? Speak clearly!”

“At least several decades!” the mirror wailed. “If it hadn’t been absolutely necessary, I never would’ve dared move you into the soul land!”

That was the second time He Lingchuan had heard those two words from it.

“And that isn’t just an illusion you made? You changed one rule; how big a deal could that be?” No wonder it had sent him first into a replicated Wuze County rather than straight into the battlefield.

“That’s not how it works,” the mirror said, sounding resigned as it explained. “Things formed by heaven and earth have their own logic. Soul lands are copied from history. They have to match perfectly with not a hair out of place. The moment you add even the slightest change, you introduce a flaw. The unreasonable parts multiply and multiply until the entire soul land can’t keep running and collapses. And then I... I’m the one who suffers!”

It had been counting on the wrathful spirits inside to kill the intruders quickly. If that happened, the “damage” to the rules would be small, and it could patch it later. But instead...

Even the Crimson Luan had been struck half-charred, and that was from it having twisted the rules to send down heavenly lightning. Because of that, the wrathful spirits inside had realized history had changed, and they had erupted instantly.

He Lingchuan hissed softly. “So a soul land can’t change at all?”

“It can’t,” the mirror said decisively. “Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely not! Not even a tiny bit!”

It was living proof. Its mirror realm had only just taken shape, and now it had been churned into chaos. Who knew when it would recover?

That serious? He Lingchuan rubbed his chin. Then what about him entering Panlong City every night? Reality and “history” were already diverging; why did that not seem to matter?

Before, he had been ignorant and treated it like something fun.

Now, after hearing the Soul-Stealing Mirror’s explanation, he suddenly felt the Generous Pot was terrifyingly impressive, like it could even bend the laws of the world.

“What does the City of the Dead you saw look like?”

“That...” The mirror struggled, then said, “Just look for yourself.”

In the next second, the mirror’s surface showed the outline of the City of the Dead that it had seen, though more like a reflection than an image.

He Lingchuan let out a soft sound of surprise. “Huh.”

1. A Pixiu (貔貅) is a powerful Chinese mythical creature, resembling a winged lion or dragon-like beast, revered for attracting wealth, good fortune, and providing strong protection against evil spirits. ☜

2. Ok, so the original line here is “至少得有个四五......十年?” 四五 is four to five or simply four/five, while 十年 is ten years, but when written like 四五十年, it becomes forty to fifty years. ☜