The snow has not stopped for a day before and in a blink of eyes, it was already the new year day in the mortal world. I remembered those few decades when I was still living in the mortal world; I had never truly enjoyed this festival at all. The inn was filled with red lanterns and snow kept falling non-stop from the sky, covering the ground. The swaying lanterns looked like warm light in the wind.
Kids were running around the snow-filled ground and they looked exceptionally clumsy in their thick clothing, but they looked extremely happy. This was the purity and happiness all kids would have. Sometimes Yue Shen and Huang Tuo would stand at the door, and out of curiosity, the kids would come over to look at them. It’s because their hair was pure silvery white and they flees down their robes like mercury. Yue Shen and Huang Tuo would always squat down to play with the kids. Looking at the warm smile on their face, it’s hard to imagine these two adults were the most powerful characters in Ren Xue Cheng, especially Yue Shen. But when I saw the smile on Yue Shen’s face, I felt warm all of a sudden. I have never seen her smile before and have never expected her smile to be so gentle and soothing.
Chao Ya loved playing with the owner’s son and everytime I looked at the boy, he would remind me of Ying Kong Shi when he was still a kid. While we were on exile, I always felt like I was Shi’s father because when I reached adulthood that time, Shi was still a little kid. His eyes were big and beautiful like girls. I would always carry Shi in my arms and walked on the street one after another. I would smile unknowingly when I saw his excited look. Many years later, when we were back in Ren Xue Cheng and when Shi has become a handsome prince that time, he came to tell me, “Ge, actually the thing I missed most would be your smile when we were still in the mortal world. Your eyes were narrowed when you smiled and your eyelashes would be filled with snowflake; your teeth were sparkling white and the arc of your smile was so gentle yet tough.” And then he would lean forward to kiss my eyebrow with his hair covering my face.
—
The customers in the inn started to get lesser and lesser because many of them had already set off for home, or even if they didn’t have a home, they would find somewhere that was homely enough for them to settle down. If not, it would be very lonely and empty to stay in the inn especially when you woke up to a snowy night.
For me, I was already used to such lifestyle for several hundreds years; I would be pacing around the grave-liked city; sitting at the roof to watch the stars; sitting by the Ice Sea to listen to the young singing mermaids and reminisce the past.
The inn has a new waiter joining and he was an ordinary and honest man who grew up in the mortal world. He was in a shock when he saw people with such long silvery white hair.
Since new year was jus round the corner, the smile on everyone’s face has become calmer and warmer. I was able to feel the kind of calm happiness. When we were in good mood, the few of us would stand at the empty land in front of Ting Zhu Xuan to display our illusion skills: Chao Ya would use her zither to summon countless of b.u.t.terflies to hover above the inn; Yue Shen would break her moonlight into pieces and hung them around the bald tree branches, making them look like stars hiding within the tree. And I would also sweep the snowflakes up from the ground and turned them into pink cherry blossom petals. The waiter was stunned by our skills but he enjoyed watching us. He even brought his wife and kid over to see us. In their eyes, these few person/ in white robe were the greatest G.o.ds.
This was the first time I felt such simple and bright happiness; I’ve realized that illusion skill not only would it bring killing, death, blood but also hope, righteousness and dignified soul.
But the night when new year arrived, the shadow of death continued to loom over us. Those painful memories got triggered back again and they were like a never-ending nightmare to us.
That night, we were sitting at the table in the main hall and we heard Ya Zhao’s scream coming from outside of the house. Both Yue Shen and Huang Tuo’s faces darkened at the same time. “Wu Ya.” Huang Tuo said.
But when all of us rushed out that time, Ya Zhao was standing in the middle of the courtyard; his hair was messy, his eyes were eerily blue and he was topless; his hand was holding his unique purple ice sword and the smile on his face was like an eerie shadow.
Shang Lie took a step forward to ask him. “Ya Zhao, what are you doing?”
Ya Zhao didn’t reply; his eyes were filled with infinite snowflakes but they still couldn’t hide the blue shadow in them.
Just when Shang Lie was about to walk over, Chao Ya’s voice came from behind, so airy and empty. She told him to step backwards because Ya Zhao has been controlled by a dream and she was the only one who could manipulate dream.
Chao Ya’s music was rapid and intense. In a split second, countless of silvery white lines started flying all over the place and then numerous b.u.t.terflies started materializing from those lines. I knew Chao Ya was trying to manipulate the dream; she has to lead Ya Zhao out of the scary dream to the one she created.
Ya Zhao’s hair flew upwards all of a sudden like there was a strong wind swirling around him but when I looked back at Chao Ya, she has already started to have blood gushing out from her mouth and when the white blood hit the black ground, they turned into countless of broken b.u.t.terflies. Huang Tuo quickly rushed over to put her within his protection enchantment.
Chao Ya started to zone out. “My king, it seems like I cannot control the dream because the creator is too strong.” This was what Chao Ya told me before she went unconscious.
Ya Zhao’s death was a tragic; he held his purple ice sword up and stabbed it through his chest. The moment when the cold ice sword went through his chest, I could hear the sound of tearing of flesh and then his eyes turned from shadowy blue back to white, I knew he had already come out of the dream. But when he was out, he has to face his death.
He started to fall backwards and right before he fell to the ground, he looked towards Shang Lie and I. “My king, Taizi, please be careful of icy blue…”
But he didn’t manage to finish his sentence and his eyes were already looking at the pale blue sky, losing all expressions from his face.
New Year has arrived in a mournful way.
I have never felt so cold before.
Snow has started to fall, one after another, filling this entire world.
A lamp was on the table; the light from the oil lamp traveled gently throughout the house, and it has greatly reduced the depression of this winter.
Chao Ya was still in bed and Huang Tuo’s protection enchantment was still covering over her.
Yue Shen was standing by the window. The wind came by and blew her hair up.
“My king, what do you think about Ya Zhao’s death?” Huang Tuo asked.
“I could only say that it’s done by Wu Ya.”
Yue Shen turned around. “Not necessary. Maybe the West Guardian has already appeared.”
“Then who could he be?” I asked Yue Shen.
“Anyone can be possible.” She said. She looked towards Chao Ya and back at me. “My king, can you step out for a moment?”
The winter in mortal world was much colder than that in Ren Xue Cheng. Even though it was New Year, those naughty kids had already gone home after a day of playing. The street has become exceptionally quiet and cold with all remaining of fireworks and used lanterns.
Yue Shen stood in the wind and said. “My king, I have to tell you this seriously. Firstly, I suspect Chao Ya; secondly I suspect Huang Tuo. One of them is the West Guardian.”
My body felt weak all of a sudden. “Why?” I asked weakly.
“Let me ask you. Right after the fight with Die Che, what do you think about Chao Ya’s skill of dream manipulation?”
“She has already surpa.s.sed the spiritual power of the top astrologer.”
“How about when it’s being compared to me?”
“To be honest, her skill should be above yours.”
“Correct. Chao Ya’s ability to create dream is already higher than me and in other words, she has already become an outstanding astrologer. Dream manipulation is one of the dark a.s.sa.s.sination skills that I had learnt and Ya Zhao did die under such skill. But my king, do you know that I could easily break the dream that Ya Zhao was in? It’s just that Chao Ya has already started to take action; I thought it would be a piece of cake for her so I didn’t do anything. But little did I expect her to be injured by the dream and when I wanted to take action, Ya Zhao was already dead.”
“You are saying…”
“I am saying…” Yue Shen looked up at me. “that Chao Ya totally has the ability to break the dream but she didn’t save Ya Zhao and she pretended to be hurt.”
“Then what about Huang Tuo?”
“Since Chao Ya is faking her own injuries, Huang Tuo would have discovered it but he didn’t say anything. It’s obvious that he is acting with her. Moreover there are a lot of unexplainable things on Huang Tuo, I cannot tell you specifically because it’s just my intuition.”
The wind blew from Yue Shen’s back and it was like sharp ice sword, cutting my face one after another. I looked at Yue Shen, feeling the kind of despair that I had never experienced before.
I have to admit that this West Guardian had been the most formidable opponent that I had ever met. He didn’t even need to appear physically and he was able to kill the people around me with ease. And I could only stand in the middle of the snow ground, watching them die one after another.
That night when I went back to the inn, the lights in both Chao Ya and Huang Tuo’s rooms were out.
I lied on my bed, unable to sleep because nightmare came pressing on me one after another. Those, who had died, were talking at my ears, smiling and feeling upset. The memories of the past came gushing at me, taking over the peace that I could have in the dream. Everything got shattered and came collapsing down. And I was standing among the ruins, standing on those withered cherry blossoms, crying.
At the end of the dream, fire red lotuses started sprouting out from the ground just like the time when Shi died several hundreds years ago. The sky started raining red lotuses like lava. In the end, it drowned everything and anything.
Fire soared up to the sky…
—
The second one who died from dream manipulation was Yu Po. Just like Ya Zhao, he used his three-spines sword and stabbed through his chest. It was still the same eerie blue eyes and shadowy smile.
When we reached Yu Po’s side, he had already pierced the sword through his chest. No one came in time to break the dream, not even Yue Shen or Chao Ya came in time to help him.
After that, the third one was Tong Xie.
Shang Lie didn’t say a single word while looking at Tong Xie’s body. He just kept looking at the sky. After a long while, he finally spoke something. “All my men are dead. The next one will be me.”
New Year was finally over but this new year was filled with too many death news. We didn’t tell the new waiter about the deaths because he’s a pure and simple person and in his life, he would never encounter such weird death or eerie a.s.sa.s.sination. He was just a simple and blissful mortal who was satisfied with his life till the last day on earth. Sometimes I really wished to live like him and not a powerful king who has indefinite locks on him, living in loneliness forever.
The waiter was as busy as before and the owner’s son continued playing with his icy blue ball, and asking us to play with him. The mortal world continued operating in its routine without any unusual event.
But the death aura was still looming over our heads like thick heaving dark clouds. They would never get dispersed.
No one knew how did Ya Zhao and Yu Po got controlled by the dreams and judging by their spiritual powers, they shouldn’t be controlled so easily unless they had let down their guide at the very beginning and then falling into the dream, unable to get out. But after so many strange deaths, Ya Zhao and Yu Po should have been more alert unless the person who killed them was someone they would never suspect before. This was what Yue Shen told me after everything, and I didn’t say anything. Neither did Huang Tuo because we weren’t sure of what to do. We have lost our direction and we could only wait for Wu Ya and the West Guardian to continue killing people.
“My king, do you all still remember Xing Gui’s third dream?” Huang Tuo asked suddenly.
Yue Shen’s eyes brightened suddenly. “Of course. Xing Gui told us to open it when we have no clues to our current situation.”
That dream was a long yet extremely simple dream because it’s about my brother, Ying Kong Shi. In the dream, Shi was running from somewhere far away. Cherry blossoms and snow kept falling on the track that he just ran by. He was reverted to his child look and he was standing on the horizon line, smiling at me. Snow was falling into his hand and forming into a s...o...b..ll, and then I heard his voice traveling from afar. “Gege, are you happy?”
I didn’t understand why did Xing Gui give such a dream to me, was she trying to make me recall about Ying Kong Shi? Or was there another meaning? If she just wanted me to remember Ying Kong Shi, why would she tell us to open it when we were all clueless?
Suddenly I remembered the dream that Xing Jiu gave me in the past; that was the dream where my brother and I took our illusion test and this dream may be the same as that one. We may have missed out something.
Hence I went into the dream again and observed every single detail in the dream and at the end of it, I’ve finally discovered the secret that Xing Gui wanted to tell us.
The snow had already stopped except the green bamboo leaves still have thick layer of snow on them. They would scattered to the ground like falling flowers as the wind blew.
Chao Ya was playing her zither at the courtyard; Huang Tuo and I were in the room, not speaking to one another.
After that we heard Chao Ya’s scream suddenly, I could see Chao Ya’s eyes turning blue from the corner of my window. Her hair and robe flew upwards all of a sudden and her zither was hovering above her head with her spiritual power when countless of white b.u.t.terflies were forming from the chords, surrounding her.
“Same as what you have predicted, my king.” Huang Tuo nodded at me.
When Huang Tuo and I came to the courtyard, Chao Ya’s hair was in a mess and the colour of her eyes have turned darker blue. The owner’s son was standing beside her, crying. “Jiejie, what happen to you?”
I walked over and knelt before the child, touching his hair. “Nothing is wrong with jiejie, it’s just that you have controlled jiejie with your dream.”
The boy looked at me, not know what was I talking about. “Gege, what are you talking about?”
I raised my hand suddenly and a sharp and short ice blade flew out, cutting the black string tied around his hair. And then his hair fell to the ground; his hair was extremely long, even longer than all the people in this world, including Shang Lie. As compared to the boy, Shang Lie looked more like a kid.
Chao Ya’s hair fell peacefully back down, flowing smoothly along her robe. Her eyes had reverted back to white colour. “Little boy, I’m fine. I merely got controlled by your dream that’s all.”
After that the kid’s face changed from confused to arrogant, he looked at me without saying anything but from his eyes looked cold and sharp.
“Wu Ya, you can stop now.” I said.
Wu Ya looked at me and said. “It’s impossible that you will know I am Wu Ya. Impossible.”
“Right. It’s impossible but I still know it.”
Wu Ya looked at me and then to Chao Ya. “You guys have been acting. Chao Ya was never controlled by my dream?”
“Yes, I was just acting. But I have to admit that you are the best dream manipulator that I had ever met. I almost got drowned by your dream and if I didn’t prepare myself for your attack, I guess I would have strangled myself to death by the chords.” Chao Ya replied.
“How did you get suspicious of me?” Wu Ya asked, looking at me.
“When Yi Zhao died that time, Feng Huang was in the main hall drinking with Shang Lie, so the person who killed Yi Zhao is definitely not Feng Huang Hua Xiao and the West Guardian will not do it personally so Wu Ya is the one who killed Yi Zhao.”
“Then how did you suspect that I am Wu Ya?”
“Because we saw the wound on Yi Zhao’s throat, the wound was cut from downwards to upwards and it would mean the killer is much shorter than Yi Zhao and is also someone whom she would never think of.”
“And then?”
“For Pian Feng’s death, Huang Tuo mentioned that the killer was still in the house. We hadn’t seen anyone coming out from the room, but in actual fact there was someone that came out of the room and that person was you. Because you are very tiny in size, we didn’t manage to see you since the fence blocked you off. When we watched Hua Xiao from that angle, it would look like an invisible man walking out of the room.”
“So this is why you know that it’s me?”
“No. We just thought that it’s something strange but what made us suspect you more was because of what Yue Shen said.”
“What did she say?”
“Do you still remember the day when all of us were being poisoned, and someone was there to lure Yue Shen out? That day when we opened the door, you were at the corridor, looking towards the direction of Ting Zhu Xuan in a shock; Yue Shen went out for a chase but when she was going towards that direction, she said the murderous aura faded out and then I thought of you all of a sudden. The aura came from you when you’re at the corridor; you are a professional a.s.sa.s.sin so creating such aura is an easy task for you. By the time Yue Shen came back, you withdrew it and then no one would be suspicious of you.”
Wu Ya looked at me with an angry and hateful expression. “Continue.”
“And then it would be Xing Gui’s dream, the dream’s about Ying Kong Shi and he was still in his child form, just like you. He was holding a ball in his hand but its colour was white unlike yours. At first I didn’t know what it mean, but after that I’ve finally understand. I remembered when I first met you in this world, the ball in your hand was white but now, your ball had turned to icy blue and then I remembered what Ya Zhao told me before he died. ‘My king, please be careful of icy blue…’ That time I didn’t know what he meant by that, but now I’ve final understand. He wanted me to be careful of your icy blue ball. After that I asked Chao Ya, she told me that a powerful dream manipulator was able to materialize a dream into a shape and that would be your ball. Anyone, who touched the ball, would be swallowed by the dream so we told Chao Ya to give it a try. In the end, it was as per what we have predicted, the ball is indeed the dream that you used to kill others.”
Wu Ya looked towards Chao Ya. “So you weren’t even controlled by my dream, you have been acting all along.”
Chao Ya nodded. “Yes, Huang Tuo had already casted an enchantment on me so no illusion skill is able to enter my body and don’t forget, I am also a dream manipulator.”
Wu Ya stood among us with his head hanging low. He looked just like an obedient little boy and no one would expect him to be a professional killer right after the West Guardian.
Huang Tuo’s enchantment had already frozen the entire surrounding and Chao Ya has also summoned her zither chords out; Wu Ya just stood in the centre, I wasn’t sure what was he thinking about but the colour of his eyes kept changing non-stop.
Moments later he smiled and walked towards me. “Ge, can you hug me?”
Right at that instant I felt my surrounding air started stirring; for one moment I saw Ying Kong Shi standing before me, his crystal white hair was scattered to the ground and his cute obedient face was smiling at me just like the sleeping child in my arms several hundreds years ago. I started seeing big white halos appearing before my eyes and my whole mind was filled with my brother’s voice. “Ge, can you hug me? Please hug me, okay?”
And then Shi tiptoed to touch my face with his outstretched hand, but the moment when his hand was about to touch me, the enchantment that Huang Tuo had set on me appeared all of a sudden. I got enveloped into a crystal clear ball and Shi was sprung away by the enchantment. He was lying on the ground, crying out loud. “Ge, why are you ignoring me?”
My heart hurt so much like a knife was cutting it open. “Shi, don’t be scared. Ge is always by your side.” I walked over, wanting to carry him up.
The moment I bent over, Shi changed to Wu Ya sudden and the illusion around us disappeared. I saw Wu Ya’s eerie blue face and a icy cold white light appeared in his hand. And then in a flash of lightning, he aimed the light at my throat. It was too late for me to dodge and I just went frozen at that moment.
But just before Wu Ya’s sharp ice blade appeared in front of my throat, the smile on his face went frozen all of a sudden and his ice blade could no longer come any closer because I saw a ray of moonlight came piercing through his chest. I looked up to see Yue Shen standing behind him; her face was cold and glowing with light.
After that I saw Wu Ya fell slowly to the ground in front of me, and right before his body touched the ground, I heard his whimper. “Ge, why don’t you hug me? Why?”
Suddenly, huge cherry blossoms came falling down from the sky and the surrounding turned into red colour just like the blood of a mortal. I heard the rumbling of the ground like low and heavy sound of the thunder in the sky.
I looked up to the sky and my tear slid silently down my face. I heard Shi’s voice from the sky. “Ge, please be free…”
