Chapter 201

In the time it took to be stunned, the cracks in the crystal spirit plate had already expanded to their limit; even if one walked lightly on the top of the demon tower, it would shatter it. Just now, Uncle Ming said there was an ancient curse in this crystal plate, so everyone's hearts were in their throats, yet they had to suppress it as much as possible, not daring to let it beat too fast—perhaps even a slightly louder heartbeat could shatter this piece of crystal. Compared to vicious traps, this invisible curse could make one suffer without recourse.

Shirley Yang stepped forward and gently knocked the spirit-cover crystal plate into countless fragments. I knew she was always cautious; doing this at a moment when no one was certain, she must have been absolutely sure, so I put my mind at ease.

After the disc-shaped glacial ice crystal shattered, indeed nothing happened. Pangzi kept complaining that Uncle Ming was overreacting—this kind of startle could easily give someone a heart attack, which was far more deadly than curses or mechanisms.

Shirley Yang said to us: "Uncle Ming is correct, but this crystal plate on the top level is fake; the truly cursed crystal plate lies deepest down. This demon tower enshrining the crystal corpse of an evil god was also mentioned in the long epic chant of the Treasure Pearl Demon King: the silver demon slave, the White Wolf King, named Crystal Free-and-Easy Mountain, who serves beside the evil god at the tower's base. Once someone approaches, the demon wolf army will descend from heaven and swallow the intruders."

The wolf god "Crystal Free-and-Easy Mountain" is a demon slave of the Demon Kingdom; this also appears in the earliest Tibetan mythological system. "Crystal Free-and-Easy Mountain" was, in life, a giant white wolf, the ancestor of all evil wolves on Kunlun Mountain, but this title was earned only after death. Legend says that after being killed by Master Chan Hua, its corpse turned into a huge glacial ice crystal, hence the name "Crystal Free-and-Easy Mountain."

Within this "Crystal Free-and-Easy Mountain," formed from the corpse of the white wolf demon slave, lies the vicious curse of the demon slave's vengeful soul. Anyone who dares to approach will die without a burial place. The Demon Kingdom worships abysses and caverns; as the symbol of the evil god, the glacial ice crystal corpse must certainly be at the very bottom of the nine-story demon tower. When digging to the deepest point, one must be careful not to damage the "Crystal Free-and-Easy Mountain" and invite fiery retribution.

This glacial ice field at Dragon's Peak was once a vast lake, and the demon tower's location, according to our judgment, was probably right on the island in the lake's center. The area around the demon tower is frozen soil or rock, beyond which lies thick glacial ice, and its lowest layer might even connect to the ice abyss where "Snow Maitreya" hides. The deeper one digs, the more dangerous it becomes.

We deployed orderly, digging layer by layer. Here there were no burial victims, only a heap resembling "mani piles" of ox heads, all with only grayish-white skulls and ox horns. This should be a white ox-head cult, since oxen play a great role on the plateau. Whole body is treasure; in ancient Tibet, no matter which tribe, only in this point are they comparatively pure.

In the earliest discovered ice pit, the funerary tower of the main consort of the transmigration religion was luxuriously splendid, rich enough to rival a country, yet this most important nine-story demon tower had nothing at all, which inevitably disappointed us. We felt fatigued, so we returned to the top level of the demon tower, lit a fire to warm ourselves and eat, then hurriedly crawled into our sleeping bags to rest.

At two o'clock in the afternoon, I called everyone up, wanting to reach the deepest point before nightfall. If we moved fast enough, we could scatter the Dragon's Peak glacial ice before the cold wave arrived, so Uncle Ming could bring the glacial ice crystal corpse back to Hong Kong. I and Pangzi and the others would also follow the clues to find the Demon Kingdom's altar—finally we could shed these several burdens.

Everyone equipped themselves with tools and weapons. Uncle Ming took out his ancestral "Thirteen Whisker Flower Porcelain Cat" from his bag, carefully counted the thirteen whiskers on the porcelain cat, and found not a single one missing. Then he placed it on the ground and, together with Axiang, bowed twice.

Pangzi and I curiously watched from the side. I asked Uncle Ming: "The porcelain cat's whiskers aren't broken—does that mean we'll achieve instant success and retreat unharmed?"

Uncle Ming said: "Of course. This thing is very efficacious; it certainly means instant success and unharmed retreat, which is why our ancestors spoke of having all whiskers and all shadow."

After saying this, Uncle Ming handed the "Thirteen Whisker Flower Porcelain Cat" to Axiang, telling her to keep it safe. He himself went to his backpack to retrieve the Heavenly Official copper seal engraved with "Heavenly Official Bestows Blessings, Hundred Prohibitions None," preparing to use it when excavating the "glacial ice crystal corpse."

Seeing this fake seal reminded me that this seal was indeed fake—useless as an egg. Fortunately, Shirley Yang, before departing from Beijing, had entrusted someone to bring back from Meiguo a set of thirty-six "Star Official Corpse-Pinning Needles," an artifact used by Tang Dynasty grave-robbing colonels, later lost overseas. With this set, we should be able to manage, though what exactly the glacial ice crystal corpse is remains unclear until we see it. In any case, we must adapt to circumstances.

While I was lost in thought about this, everyone had already finished preparing. Pangzi, Bide Huang, Chuyi, and I split into two groups—one group digs one layer, taking turns. Progress was fairly fast; we estimated we would reach the ninth layer within three hours.

The third layer was hung with wordless ghost banners covered in star patterns, the star lines divided into five colors: red, blue, white, green, black, with black banners most numerous and blue least. According to later descriptions of the Demon Kingdom by the Transmigration Sect, these colors each had different symbolic meanings: red represented blood, blue the sky, white mountains, green water sources, black the abyss. From these differences in ghost banner colors, one could also see how the Demon Kingdom's faith differed from other religions—in their worldview and cosmology, the more black, the deeper the caverns, the greater the power.

I had Pangzi pull down all these dazzling ghost banners that dazzled the eyes, leaving them as fuel for burning, then I led the way down to the fourth layer. This layer of the demon tower piled with countless stones engraved with different symbols—perhaps the legendary "scripture stones"—might have value to archaeologists, but to us they were just piles of worthless rocks. Looking layer after layer, aside from the glacial ice crystal serving as a spirit cover, there seemed nothing else of value. I had expected some clues about the Demon Kingdom's eyeball temple, wall paintings, or the like, but upon closer inspection, I could not help but gradually feel a sense of disappointment.

Thus we dug layer after layer until the eighth layer, when we finally discovered this level was utterly different from those above. This layer also had a crystal spirit cover; when we first lifted it, we saw nothing, but upon going down, we felt something was wrong. Shadows loomed all around, so we quickly raised our "Wolf Eye" flashlights to look, and the other hand drew out an M1911.

We saw nineteen tall male ancient corpses, all seated in a circle, surrounding the center. Since this demon tower had always been sealed by ancient glacial ice, these corpses were indistinguishable from the living, except their faces were blackened differently from ordinary people, and their attire was peculiar, closely resembling the bronze figurines displayed in the heavenly palace of the Xian King's Tomb.

Shirley Yang followed me down and, seeing these corpses seated around, said to me: "They might be priests or guardian law-enforcers who voluntarily sacrificed themselves after transporting the ice-string crystal corpse for burial. Be careful—this layer may have an ambush."

I gestured for Pangzi and the others who were about to descend to stop, and asked Axiang to use her "instinctive eyes" to check if there was anything unclean in this layer. Axiang was nearly scared to tears, extremely unwilling, but she looked at the nineteen county ancient corpses and shook her head, indicating nothing was amiss.

I still dared not be careless—perhaps these guardian corpses who died in the demon tower all harbored that kind of insect which could burn souls to ash; that would be the true "Boundless Karma Fire"—touch the body at all, and it could never be extinguished.

Digging up this most important nine-story demon tower had gone too smoothly; the smoother it went, the more one felt lurking disaster. Anyway, this was the eighth layer, and we still had plenty of prepared ginger juice, so I let Pangzi keep some as backup, while the rest we sprayed onto those ancient corpses. Then we gathered all the water from the water kettle and poured it throughout the entire eighth layer of the tower, everywhere becoming warm and damp—only then did I feel secure enough to dig the deepest layer for the evil god's corpse.

Black folding plate, crowbar, ice awl—all raised, we pried open the blackened wooden planks below, revealing a square space, also constructed of wood, earth, and stone, entirely black. We then tossed in seventy or eighty fluorescent tubes one after another, and only then did the space grow slightly bright.

None of us dared to rashly descend; we merely watched from the edge of the hole opened in the layer above. Uncle Ming, eager to see the "glacial ice crystal corpse" he had dreamed of day and night, squeezed to the front, stared for a long time, his heart leaping—what down here could possibly be the corpse of an evil god?

At the very bottom were only two large crystals of equal size, round, one white, one blue, placed on a stone platform. Illuminated by the fluorescent tubes, they flowed with strange light, revealing naturally formed star charts on their surfaces—otherwise there was nothing else. But these two natural crystals were obviously not the "glacial ice crystal corpse," nor could they be the cursed "Crystal Free-and-Easy Mountain," for they were only fist-sized.

Pangzi still clung to comforting Uncle Ming: although we hadn't found the main prize, these two fakes looked worth quite a bit of silver—better than returning empty-handed.

I told Uncle Ming that this lower space was too dark; viewing it here, we might easily miss something. Better to go down and see for sure—perhaps it was hidden somewhere. Having come, we should stay; not overturning everything bottom-up would not count as complete.

So everyone successively descended to the deepest layer of the demon tower; below lay only the tower base. This tomb tower was not like a Buddhist pagoda in a temple with an underground palace—here we had already reached the final space. We moved the blue-and-white crystals aside and found the stone platform was movable. I told Pangzi to handle it.

Pangzi alone pushed the stone platform aside, revealing a shallow frozen earth pit below, inside which lay a large, thin slab of crystal stone, its surface covered with layer upon layer of natural patterns like water ripples, extremely dense, engraved with a wolf-headed, human-bodied divine general. Its visage was ferocious and wicked, wearing a white helmet, clad in silver armor and white robe, holding a silver-tasseled long spear, posed in a mid-air leap—stern and wind-rising.

Shirley Yang immediately called out, telling everyone not to move: this was the "Crystal Free-and-Easy Mountain" that harbored the demon slave's curse. Though we did not know exactly what the legendary curse referred to, observing the ripples within the crystal stone was highly peculiar—it might produce a special sound wave. If this crystal cracked, the entire Dragon's Peak snowfield and glacier would face collapse danger. Beneath the Crystal Free-and-Easy Mountain lay an object, possibly that evil god's corpse.