Chapter 13: Da Hei Heaven

After eating his fill, Luo Qi planned to find a place to rest for the night and leave tomorrow's matters for tomorrow. Originally, he was unwilling to sleep in a house that Guan Xinyue had painted as being filled with ghostly atmosphere; no matter how you looked at it, this place counted as a haunted house. However, Du Zhengyi, who had not been baptized by human ghost stories, couldn't be bothered to drive them back. He couldn't drive, and Guan Xinyue, that little brat, was nowhere near the age to hold a driver's license, so once the driver quit, they were all stranded in the haunted house.

Guan Xinyue didn't care; her family was lax in managing her, and she could easily make up an excuse to avoid going home. Having experienced so much herself, according to Luo Qi's observations, she seemed to be in a state of "breaking the pot to pieces" at the moment, and even seemed happy to have two Mages accompany her to stay in her family's old house. In the end, only Luo Qi was unwilling to stay here, yet he had no choice but to submit to the democratic decision.

Guan Xinyue assigned them places to sleep. She slept in the room she shared with her sister; it was naturally inappropriate for the younger generation to stay in her grandparents' room, and her Gugu and Gufu's room seemed particularly unlucky. That left her father's room. In this old house where the haunted nature was fully exposed, even if he had to squeeze into a bed with Du Zhengyi, Luo Qi had no heart to complain.

The night passed without incident. Luo Qi woke up early the next morning; it was truly impossible to sleep soundly in this place, and Du Zhengyi didn't laze in bed this time either. The countryside morning was very quiet; one could hear the distant sounds of chickens and dogs, and smoke curled up from nearby chimneys. It was just that this pastoral landscape was actually better suited for viewing from afar; Luo Qi started coughing the moment he stepped outside.

"What era is this, why must you burn firewood?" he asked indignantly. "Why does your grandfather insist on living in the countryside?"

"The countryside is quite nice in the summer," Guan Xinyue said. She was following Du Zhengyi's instructions, taking them for a slow stroll around the village.

"Since your grandfather likes the countryside so much, does he like farming? Or does he like the simple folk customs of the countryside?" Luo Qi asked casually.

"He likes the peace and quiet," Guan Xinyue said, kicking a pebble on the dirt road. "He lives here because the city is too noisy. He actually doesn't like dealing with neighbors; although he has lived here for many years, he hasn't really spoken to them much."

"A reclusive Old Mage," Luo Qi said offhandedly.

Guan Xinyue looked up at Du Zhengyi, who seemed not to have heard what the two of them were saying at all; his expression was gloomy, and he still looked three-tenths unawakened. "Your friend said the same thing yesterday. Is he... in a bad mood right now?"

Luo Qi said indifferently, "He is working, just concentrating his energy."

"You don't have to work?" Guan Xinyue asked.

"I'm not a Mage," Luo Qi laughed.

Guan Xinyue looked at him mockingly, "Why do I feel that ever since you decided you weren't a Mage, you've suddenly let yourself go?"

Luo Qi was in a good mood today, so he didn't get angry. They went to the house of the mistress of Guan Xinyue's Gufu, whom she had accused. A large padlock hung on the front gate, covered in a layer of dust, looking as if no one had returned for a long time.

On the way back empty-handed, Guan Xinyue still hadn't given up on studying the two young Mages, "Luo Qi, you say you aren't a Mage, but yesterday when your friend fell into a hallucination, it was you who woke him up."

"You could do it too," Luo Qi said. "That was just a set of predetermined awakening mechanisms. Let's put it this way: the main role is played by the Soul Requiem itself. We all received the same training when we were in school; the Soul Requiem is like a signal. As soon as we hear the chanting, our minds realize on their own that everything before our eyes is an illusion, and we are freed from the deception we are under."

"Then if we humans are hypnotized..." Guan Xinyue said sensitively.

"That's much worse," Luo Qi said vaguely, unwilling to elaborate further. He looked up and saw the low yellow walls of the Temple; it turned out they had circled around and returned to the vicinity of the Guan Family home.

The Temple gate was already open, and an old man was sweeping the courtyard. The Temple, which he had glimpsed in the twilight yesterday, was now clearly visible: a crude, modern retro-style building painted with garish gold roofs, blue rafters, and red walls, with some half-hearted traditional paintings on the rafters. Several ropes were tied under the eaves, with one end tethered to the ground, and colorful prayer flags were wrapped around them.

Luo Qi's heart stirred, and he asked Guan Xinyue, "Don't only Tibetan Buddhists use prayer flags?"

Guan Xinyue felt very uncomfortable standing at the Temple gate, and she followed up on Luo Qi's words, saying softly, "And what is worshipped here isn't Shakyamuni, but the Da Hei Heaven."

Luo Qi looked at her in surprise, and she shrugged, "I don't really understand it either, but everyone in my family says this place is very strange."

"A cult?" Luo Qi asked.

"Shh!" Guan Xinyue let out a horrified breath and jabbed an elbow into Luo Qi's ribs, "We're standing right at their door, don't talk nonsense."

Luo Qi clutched his ribs and looked at Du Zhengyi as if to complain.

Du Zhengyi shook his head with an ambiguous meaning, "Since we feel this place is the most suspicious, we'll have to figure it out sooner or later. While there are few people now, let's go in and take a look."

Luo Qi was eager for this, and he excitedly stepped inside. Guan Xinyue immediately seized the opportunity and triumphantly turned back to complain to Du Zhengyi, "Look, isn't he still daring enough to cross the threshold first? You shouldn't have pitied him yesterday; you should have just let him freeze to death."

"Hurry up and come worship the Buddha," Luo Qi pretended not to hear and strode forward, "Guan Xinyue, do you want to pray for a romantic connection?"

"This isn't a Matchmaker Temple," Guan Xinyue said, but she didn't dare to be too loud; she glanced suspiciously at her surroundings.

The three of them walked into the small courtyard of the Temple. No one came to pay them any mind. The door to the main hall was open to them, and two rows of dim eternal lamps flickered in the depths of the Temple.

Luo Qi swallowed a trace of nervousness. The threshold of the Temple gate was very high, and a half-curtain hung on the door frame, covered in spotted stains. He lifted the curtain to let Guan Xinyue go first, noticing that she passed through sideways in a very awkward posture, terrified of touching the dirty curtain. He didn't forget to laugh at the right moment, then hurriedly followed inside, anxiously scanning his surroundings. He caught sight of the Buddha worshipped above and couldn't help but step back, reflexively averting his gaze.

Guan Xinyue immediately seized the opportunity again, mocking him tit-for-tat, "Such a coward. I told you long ago, what's worshipped here isn't the Buddha, it's the Da Hei Heaven."

Luo Qi hissed as if he had been scalded, and just as he was about to retort, he was slapped by the person behind him.

It was Du Zhengyi, who finally couldn't take it anymore. "Are you two trying to rack up your own shame points? Are you planning to redeem them for a nail clipper once you've saved enough?"

Luo Qi laughed heartlessly and was hit by Du Zhengyi again.

"Be quiet, don't disturb my concentration, or else go outside and argue to your heart's content," he said in a suppressed voice.

Luo Qi said unconvinced in a low voice, "But this place is too strange, isn't it? Even if they worship some Da Hei Heaven, at least it should be a Buddha. This pitch-black thing with three heads and six arms, it's either an evil ghost or a Yaksha, right?"

Du Zhengyi did not answer. No matter what was being worshipped, to him, a person entering a temple for the first time, it was all the same; what he cared about was that there were no residual energy fluctuations here.

Guan Xinyue, however, couldn't help but lecture Luo Qi, "You're so uncultured. The Da Hei Heaven of Tibetan Buddhism looks just like this. Besides, you can't put Yakshas and evil ghosts on the same level. A ghost is a ghost, but a Yaksha is a guardian deity listed among the Eight Legions."

Luo Qi's expression immediately became very rich, "I only know that among the Yaksha race, male Yakshas are born looking like evil ghosts, while female Yakshas are born looking very human."

"Are you trying to call me a female Yaksha?" Guan Xinyue looked at Luo Qi, her eyes narrowing dangerously.

Du Zhengyi couldn't take it anymore, "Shut up, both of you."

Luo Qi and Guan Xinyue both shut their mouths resentfully. Du Zhengyi pushed them from behind, "If you're so idle, go to the front and worship... Heaven and Earth together."

Luo Qi and Guan Xinyue both exploded. Guan Xinyue cursed vaguely, and Luo Qi muttered, "You won't let us talk, yet you're the one provoking us."

"Sorry," Du Zhengyi said, half-truthfully, and no ghost would believe his words, "I don't have a deep understanding of this part of the culture."

The three of them quieted down and began to examine the main hall of this small country temple. The room was no more than fifty square meters in size. A sacrificial table was set in the front, with Lotus and incense candles, and several semi-old prayer mats were spread on the floor. There were no guardians in the east or west, and no Arhats in the back; the only thing worshipped here was that statue of the Da Hei Heaven in a leaping posture. Instead, the east and west walls were covered with paper booklets, some looking like old account books, each with a string of prayer beads threaded through the top left corner; these paper booklets were hung on the wall by the prayer beads.

Luo Qi suppressed his curiosity and went up to perform some messy bows to seek peace of mind. Guan Xinyue's expression clearly carried a trace of fear; she looked up and met the deity's gaze for a moment, appearing somewhat dazed, not knowing what she was thinking, but she never went to bow.

Du Zhengyi was a complete outsider to this civilization here, having neither any taboos nor a shred of reverence, and he first went to the wall to flip through those paper booklets.

After Luo Qi finished bowing to the Buddha, he climbed up from the floor and whispered to Guan Xinyue, "I think this place is just a cult. Don't you think everything here is different from a proper Buddhist temple? By the way, you're so young, you haven't been to other temples, have you?"

"I went to Lingyin Temple when I was traveling," Guan Xinyue said, coming back to her senses. She turned and walked to Du Zhengyi's side, asking in a low voice, "You see what this is, right?"

Du Zhengyi turned around, his expression bewildered. Luo Qi hurriedly darted over, took the booklet from his hand, and read it softly—"Da Hei Heaven, bless my family's chickens to sell for a good price this year."

He clicked his tongue; you really couldn't blame Du Zhengyi for being confused, he was a bit stunned too. He reached out and opened another booklet from higher up, "Da Hei Heaven, bless the road in front of my house to be repaved this year."

He shook his head and flipped through a few more booklets. Some were written in great detail, with trivial words scribbled and crossed out, but in the end, they could still be summarized as making a wish. Some wishes were very hard to describe, for example—"Want a signed photo of Lu Han? Guan Xinyue, you didn't write this, did you?"

Guan Xinyue stood with her arms crossed, looking askance at the wall full of wishes, sighed, and didn't bother with him.

Luo Qi continued to search through the endless wishes, "My family's conditions are really too poor, my husband's salary isn't high, I don't have a job, and I have two children to raise, and I recently lost my phone... She wants a phone? She's asking the Da Hei Heaven for a phone?"

"Inconceivable," Guan Xinyue murmured.

Luo Qi was stunned for a moment, then suddenly threw aside the paper booklet in his hand and jumped up to hook one from the very top. This row of paper booklets was black, threaded with Sandalwood prayer beads, and filled with writing. The crooked handwriting recorded how a man had been betrayed by his wife. Even though Luo Qi always had infinite curiosity, he lost his patience after reading this book full of cynical and exceptionally crude words. The pages flipped faster and faster in his hands until the last paragraph, where he stopped and reread it several times. The man didn't directly state what result he wanted, and the desire to kill didn't seem easy to write down directly, but the meaning was already apparent between the lines.

The paper pages in his hand almost began to burn hot. He hissed again, nudged Du Zhengyi, and handed the booklet to him. Du Zhengyi read it very carefully, with great interest. Luo Qi really didn't know if it was because it was rare to see such a soul-baring monologue in the Mage World, or because Du Zhengyi was actually particularly gossipy. He looked at Guan Xinyue again; the young girl hadn't even touched those paper booklets, as if everything here made her feel disgusted.

Du Zhengyi closed the booklet, and he hurriedly turned around, "How is it?"

"Interesting," Du Zhengyi said. "If you were to make a wish to the gods and Buddhas, what would you wish for?"

"To become more beautiful?" Luo Qi said.

Guan Xinyue "tsked" at him. Du Zhengyi seemed to want to hold it in, but he still broke down and laughed. "Guan Xinyue, if you were to make a wish, what would you wish for?"

"World peace." Guan Xinyue straightened her expression and also blurted out a rather unreliable remark.

"That's a grand vow!" Luo Qi said. "I thought you would wish for the dead to be reborn."

"How could that possibly come true?"

"World peace can't come true either, can it?" Luo Qi said. "Only letting me become more beautiful has a chance."

"I've discovered that sometimes," Guan Xinyue said, frowning, "you are extremely detestable. About every five minutes, the thought of beating you to death wells up in me, which is very detrimental to my cultivation."

Luo Qi smiled with a look of feigned simplicity. "You can make that wish. The dead being reborn isn't very easy, but the living breathing their last is quite feasible."

"Stop talking nonsense." Du Zhengyi interrupted the two of them. "However, Luo Qi, you aren't wrong about that."

"What do you mean?" Luo Qi said. "You want to beat me to death too? That's so heartbreaking."

"I can achieve the matter of beating you to death all by myself; I don't need to come here to make a wish," Du Zhengyi said. "But look, wanting a mobile phone, wanting an autograph, wanting money, wanting a road built, or even wanting an ex-wife to have bad luck—these are all very easily realized wishes. I thought that if there really were an omnipotent deity, it would be more reasonable to make wishes that one could never achieve no matter how hard one tried."

"That's right," Luo Qi said, pondering. "Rising in rank and amassing wealth, or attaining immortality—those are worth wishing for."

Guan Xinyue's expression, however, turned extremely ugly in an instant. "Someone wants an ex-wife to have bad luck?"

Du Zhengyi and Luo Qi exchanged a glance.

"Are you alright?" Luo Qi asked in a low voice, looking her over carefully with some worry. "You absolutely must not break down at a time like this."

Guan Xinyue's breathing was somewhat rapid; she bit her lip tightly, and expressions of anger and fear alternated across her face. Luo Qi reached out and grabbed her forearm, and the weight of her body tilted over, relying on Luo Qi's support to maintain her balance.

"I'm fine," she said with a pale face. "I just feel a bit like vomiting."

Du Zhengyi, however, furrowed his brows. "Can't you two hear such noisy motor vehicle traffic?"