Chapter 53

52、Stone Stele Elegy

Swish!

Zhou Chang reached out and seized the iron spearhead hurtling toward him, twisted his wrist, and snapped the spear in half!

Iron thought-threads wrapped around the broken half of the spear; with a flick of his will, the spear instantly reversed direction, pointing straight at Bai Mu’s skull!

Thud!

At that moment, Bai Mu’s knees buckled and she suddenly collapsed to the ground!

She banged her head against the earth repeatedly, pleading: “Spare me! Spare me!”

Bai Mu’s sudden action left Zhou Chang momentarily stunned.

Then he looked down at the woman begging at his feet and asked: “If your daughter were kneeling before you now, begging for mercy, would you spare her?”

Hearing this, Bai Mu’s shoulders jerked violently.

The next instant, she sprang to her feet and turned to flee into the distance!

——But she had not run five steps when Zhou Chang hurled the broken half of the spear straight at her back!

Whoosh!

The thought-threads coiled around the spear retracted in an instant; the broken spear shot through the air like an arrow loosed from a bow, piercing through Bai Mu’s back and erupting from her chest, its iron tip slick with blood!

Bai Mu’s body froze mid-run, then collapsed forward.

Zhou Chang threw the spear without even glancing at the result; he turned and kicked the fallen iron sword toward Lan Rongzhen, who was scrambling away in panic!

The long blade sliced through the air and instantly pierced Lan Rongzhen’s skull!

Blood slowly spread across both their bodies.

The others had all fled into the surrounding darkness, vanished without a trace.

Zhou Chang took a deep breath; the air was thick with a faint metallic scent.

Then he glanced at the corpses on the ground and turned away.

…

In the darkness, Bai Xiue led her father, stepping carefully behind Zhou Chang.

She could not see his expression, so she whispered softly: “You—you just went where?”

“Oh, went to find a place to relieve myself.”

Zhou Chang turned his head to look at Bai Xiue; his answer was as flat as his expression.

“….”

Bai Xiue fell silent, lips tightly shut, for a long while.

She sensed instinctively that Zhou Chang’s sudden disappearance was far more than simply “relieving himself”—and she had a premonition about what he had done after leaving.

But his reply robbed her of the courage to press further.

Moreover, Zhou Chang’s refusal to speak of what had happened made her feel strangely at ease.

She no longer had to ponder her mother’s fate, or carry the guilt of it.

“Thank you, Young Master Zhou…” Her heart swelled with gratitude toward Zhou Chang.

“No need to thank me.”

Zhou Chang halted in the darkness, turned again, and stared fixedly at Bai Xiue’s delicate face: “But no one will always be there to save you—you must learn to save yourself.”

“Only by saving yourself can you honor the heavens for allowing you to be born into this world.”

“Yes, yes!” Bai Xiue nodded eagerly.

Zhou Chang smiled, his gaze shifting elsewhere—

His face turned toward the only place in the pitch-black Bai Family Cemetery that still glowed with light.

On that high slope, neatly stacked blue bricks formed a tall wall; within it stood a hall painted dark red, its eaves jutting outward in black shadows.

Lanterns hung beneath the eaves, their candle flames flickering gently in the wind.

“What is that place?” Zhou Chang pointed to the towering, isolated compound on the slope and asked Bai Xiue.

Bai Xiue opened her mouth to answer, then hesitated, glancing instead at her father.

He knew the history of that building better than she did.

The father, who had remained silent until now, lifted his gaze toward the structure rising on the sole elevated ground of the Bai Family Cemetery; his eyes grew cold: “That’s the Lan family’s ancestral shrine!”

He unleashed everything he knew in a rush: “The Lan clan—also known as the Nala clan, now the Jingbai family of Bai Family Cemetery—ever since settling here, they used money to seize that high slope. Year after year, they raised the walls higher, building their Lan Ancestral Shrine atop it.”

According to the elders, that slope was the most potent feng shui spot in the entire Bai Family Cemetery.

Precisely because the Lanas seized that slope, the Bian Bai family has been in decline ever since!

But later, someone from the Bian Bai family secretly hired a feng shui master to inspect it; the master said the slope was disastrous for the living.

That slope is the very heart of the ‘Sick Dragon Ascending Immortal Tower’ feng shui formation—the ‘Immortal Tower’ itself!”

Legend says if a corpse is buried in the Immortal Tower, the tower will lift its body straight to heaven, resurrecting it!”

At this, Bai’s expression grew strange: “In truth, the Lanas, who once enjoyed luxury in Jingcheng, suddenly fled to this cold, harsh Qingyi Town, abandoned their surname, and hid among the Bai family—rumor says it’s because Bai Family Cemetery is actually the tomb of a Qing imperial consort.”

That Qing imperial consort was said to be surnamed Nala; she secretly came here for unknown reasons and died here.

The weather was too hot to transport her body back to Jingcheng, so she was buried right here, within the ‘Sick Dragon Ascending Immortal Tower’ feng shui formation.”

That high slope? It’s the very earth piled atop the Qing consort’s grave.”

“The Qing court always kept palace affairs shrouded in secrecy; imperial consorts were under strict control.”

“How could a Qing imperial consort possibly leave the palace, even leave Jingcheng, and come to Qingyi Town?” Zhou Chang frowned; the rumors Bai’s father recounted seemed far beyond reason.

Bai’s father shrugged indifferently: “Who knows if it’s true? People just say it that way.”

“Besides, centuries ago, the Wen family’s ancestor, Wen Yongsheng, came here to Bai Family Cemetery specifically to pay respects at the Jingbai ancestral shrine and left a plaque and a stone stele.”

“That stele once stood at the village entrance.”

“The plaque may still be hidden inside the shrine; both bear Wen the Ancestor’s elegy for the Qing imperial consort.”

“Oh?” Zhou Chang’s expression sharpened. “When I entered the village, I didn’t see any stele at the entrance.”

“I’ve never seen it either—I only heard others speak of it,” Bai’s father said. “Someone must have dug it up later—or destroyed it—and now it’s vanished.”

“But some villagers near the entrance say that sometimes, when they wake at night, they still see the shadow of the stele standing at the village entrance.”

“If we pass by there, we might actually see it.”

Zhou Chang gave no reply to Bai’s father’s words; he stared deeply at the shrine on the slope and said: “Let’s go.”

Then he stepped forward into the darkness.

Bai Xiue and her father hurried after him.

After walking for a short while, the village entrance—the path leading up the rugged mountain trail—began to emerge faintly from the darkness ahead.

Zhou Chang carefully scanned the area near the entrance but saw no trace of the stele Wen the Ancestor had erected.

He shifted his gaze, growing more convinced that Bai’s father’s tale was merely legend.

Yet when he looked again toward the entrance, he suddenly saw—on the once-empty flat ground—a black stone stele had appeared, its surface bathed in pale moonlight, casting no shadow at all.

“The stele…”

Bai’s father’s pupils shrank; he stared in shock at his daughter.

He had never imagined his offhand remark would come true!

Zhou Chang strode forward to the black stele; indeed, an elegy was carved upon it.

The heading read: “Elegy for Emperor Shizong Xian of the Qing Dynasty and Empress Xiaosu,” and the signature was unmistakably “Wen Yongsheng.”

Faint moonlight fell upon the characters “Wen Yongsheng,” soaking into the weathered cracks around the carving; those cracks intertwined, faintly forming the ancient seal-script characters “Cao Tou Long.”

When Zhou Chang’s eyes fell upon the first line of Wen Yongsheng’s elegy, his pupils contracted sharply!

For it plainly read:

“Alas! For more than a decade since Emperor Shizong Xian’s head was stolen by traitors, thanks to the protection of ancestral temples and state altars, Empress Xiaosu has finally recovered the emperor’s head and buried it here with her…”

Emperor Shizong Xian of the Qing Dynasty was Yongzheng.

According to this clumsy elegy, when Yongzheng died, his head was not upon his neck—it had been severed and stolen!

Decades later, Empress Xiaosu finally recovered his head—and for reasons unknown, chose to bury it alongside her own in Bai Family Cemetery.