From a long way off, Xu Ying and Yuan Qi caught the smell of roasting meat—an agonizing scent for two who were already starving.
Many strangely shaped figures sat inside the tavern, drinking and eating. Xu Ying glanced at them from the corner of his eye and felt a chill run down his spine.
What he saw in that sidelong glance was not people, but skeletons seated around tables, feasting and drinking. On the table lay human hearts, brains, and other organs.
Xu Ying and Yuan Qi walked forward under the strange gazes of the tavern’s patrons. A skeleton among them asked, "Where are they headed?"
An old ghost answered, "The Home-Viewing Terrace."
"They cannot go any farther. Once they pass the Home-Viewing Terrace and see their homeland, they can never return to the world of the living."
The old ghost muttered, "They should stay here, like us, let us devour their flesh and blood, and become wandering ghosts like us, instead of going inside to die…"
Ahead, the mist thickened. Through the green fog, white walls and blue-tiled roofs came into Xu Ying’s view—a long, wide street flanked by old shops.
Xu Ying looked at the street and felt a familiar ache in his chest, though he was certain he had never been here.
The sound of reading drifted from a private school nearby. Xu Ying stood by the window and looked in. More than twenty children sat inside, swaying back and forth as they recited their lessons aloud.
The schoolteacher was a young man who appeared to be in his twenties, not yet thirty.
Xu Ying studied the man’s face. It seemed familiar, yet he could not recall when he had seen it.
After a moment, class ended. The children poured out in a boisterous rush.
The schoolmaster’s wife emerged, dressed in a white skirt—a quiet, gentle woman who affectionately patted a few of the children on their heads.
Xu Ying felt a similar sense of familiarity toward the woman, though again he could not place it.
The woman noticed him and smiled. "Young man, who are you looking for?"
Xu Ying shook his head. "I am merely passing through. Could you tell me the way out of here?"
The woman raised her hand and pointed him in a direction. Xu Ying thanked her and set off the way she indicated.
The woman watched him go, then called out to a mischievous child: "A-Ying, don’t run too far—time for lunch!"
"I know, Mother!" The child darted past Xu Ying, bumping into his leg.
Xu Ying froze, standing stock-still.
He spun around. The school and the street dissolved like dust.
He looked ahead at the child, who had stopped and turned. The boy’s face was identical to his own when he was small.
The child smiled, then vanished like dust as well.
In an instant, Xu Ying’s face was streaked with tears.
"A-Ying, what’s wrong?" The snake demon Yuan Qi noticed he had stopped and looked at him in confusion.
"I saw my parents."
Xu Ying stood rooted there, and after a long moment he said in a hoarse voice, "But I could not recognize them. I could not recognize them…"
He dropped the great bell, crouched on the ground, covered his face, and wept in a low voice. "I cannot remember their faces. I cannot remember their names. I just saw them, but I could not recognize them…"
Yuan Qi came to his side and patted the boy on the shoulder, murmuring, "A-Ying, we have to keep going."
Xu Ying rose silently and followed the direction the woman had pointed.
Ahead, the path stretched long and difficult—a narrow, winding road.
A wide, smooth highway ran alongside it. Xu Ying did not take the easy path but instead climbed the harder one.
"Halt!" A group of deities had arrived near the tavern in pursuit. One among them, a gray-robed man, spoke in a low voice. "Ahead lies the Home-Viewing Terrace. We go around!"
The gray-robed man looked young enough, but he was immensely tall—more than twelve or thirteen feet—with dragon horns on his forehead and long, sharp claws on his fingers. He did not look human.
One of the deities asked, "Elder Stone Dragon, what happens if we enter the Home-Viewing Terrace?"
The gray-robed man was a stone dragon from the Temple of Letters in Ningyuan, and a sacred being in his own right.
The Temple of Letters was grand and prosperous, filled with the smoke of offerings. Before and behind the main hall stood four bronze pillars, each coiled with a stone dragon carved from the hardest stone.
Because the temple’s incense was so abundant, these four stone dragons had gradually acquired divine powers.
They had absorbed incense for four hundred years, each achieving a Golden Body of their own. The gray-robed man’s name was Stone Dragon Son, and he was one of the four.
Stone Dragon Son’s eyes gleamed. "The Home-Viewing Terrace lies outside the jurisdiction of the Yin Court. It is extremely mysterious. Legend says that whoever enters will see the place where they grew up. The Terrace exists between the realms of the living and the dead. One misstep, and you can never return—you become a wandering ghost!"
At that moment, a voice drifted over, and a laugh accompanied it: "I have heard that those near death sometimes hide inside the Home-Viewing Terrace to dwell between life and death, neither dying nor aging, neither old nor dead. To trespass into the domain of such beings is extremely dangerous. They will do anything to survive!"
Stone Dragon Son turned toward the voice and saw Magistrate Zhou Yang striding toward them with a retinue of officials.
The two men met each other’s eyes, then looked away.
Stone Dragon Son said, "Xu Ying has entered the Home-Viewing Terrace. He will never come out alive. You may return and report your mission, Magistrate Zhou."
Zhou Yang answered calmly, "He has violated the law. I want to see him alive, or at least his corpse!"
Their gazes locked again. Behind Stone Dragon Son’s head, smoke coiled and the scent of incense thickened; a golden light began to suffuse his body—the unmistakable sign of a Golden Body being activated!
Zhou Yang smiled faintly, composed and serene. "The Golden Body of the Yin Court still falls short of my Zhou family’s Diamond Indestructible Body. As it happens, I have cultivated the Diamond Indestructible Body!"
Stone Dragon Son sneered. "Golden Body or Diamond Indestructible Body—which is superior has never been settled. Moreover, Magistrate Zhou, you are still young. How many tiers of the Diamond Indestructible Body have you cultivated?"
Zhou Yang smiled. "The second tier!"
Stone Dragon Son’s pupils contracted slowly, and he felt the pressure.
If Zhou Yang had cultivated only the first tier, Stone Dragon Son could have won easily. At the second tier, the outcome was anyone’s guess.
If they fought, both would likely be gravely wounded—and they might even perish together.
Zhou Yang had no desire to push matters to a breaking point. He proposed, "Since Xu Ying has entered the Home-Viewing Terrace and his fate is uncertain, why should we fight to the death? Stone Dragon Son, let us go around the Terrace and wait for him on the road ahead."
Stone Dragon Son nodded. "Whichever of us claims him will depend on luck." With that, he led his followers away.
Zhou Yang watched them go. His eyes narrowed as he studied the mist-shrouded Home-Viewing Terrace. "The Home-Viewing Terrace—a place where one can exist between life and death. I hear many terrifying beings have hidden here, their lifespans nearly spent. But once you enter, you can never leave…"
Behind him, an official whispered, "My lord, is the legend of the Home-Viewing Terrace true?"
Zhou Yang’s expression shifted. He chose to circle the Terrace from the opposite direction. "I once thought it was false. But then I heard a rumor."
He paused. "The rumor has circulated within my clan. It says that my Zhou family ancestor once faced a tribulation of certain death. At that time, the ancestor wished to enter the Home-Viewing Terrace to place himself between life and death and avoid the doom. Fortunately, his talent was extraordinary, and he was able to avert the tribulation through his own brilliance, extending his life. Only then did I learn that the legend of the Home-Viewing Terrace was true."
The officials exchanged glances and stared into the mist. One murmured, "The fugitive Xu Ying entered that place—can he really come out?"
Zhou Yang shook his head. "He is a man whose lifespan has not yet ended. Perhaps he has a chance. But perhaps…"
His expression darkened. "…he will be possessed by those beings whose lifespans are spent, who are no longer human nor ghost, borrowing his corpse to return to life!"
The officials shuddered.
Inside the Home-Viewing Terrace, the mist grew thicker and thicker. The road beneath Xu Ying’s feet became ever more tortuous and perilous. Below yawned a bottomless chasm, and above, jagged rocks jutted like knives and halberds. One careless step would send them tumbling to their deaths.
Past the cliffs, a single log bridge spanned the gap between two fortress-like peaks. It was a round log, and one had to walk with utmost care. A single roll would send them plunging into the abyss.
Xu Ying removed his shoes, steadied his breathing, and walked barefoot along the log, feeling the shift of weight beneath his feet with absolute concentration.
Behind him, the snake demon Yuan Qi coiled around the great log and inched forward.
They looked down and saw mist swirling above a green river. Bubbles rose to the surface with a burping sound, and rotting corpses drifted atop the water.
Each bubble swelled into the shape of a human head, growing larger and larger before rising from the river’s surface.
"Where does the young traveler come from?" asked the face of a young girl inside one of the bubbles, her posture coquettish.
Xu Ying did not answer.
Yuan Qi blew a breath at the bubble. The girl’s face twisted and she screamed, "I’m dying! I’m dying! Aaah—"
The bubble burst with a pop, and green river water splashed across Yuan Qi’s face.
The snake demon shivered and hurried after Xu Ying across the log bridge to the far bank.
They followed the mountain path and found someone standing at the roadside, seemingly possessed of three legs, frozen in place.
Drawing closer, they saw that it was not three legs—the man was nailed to a wooden stake.
Xu Ying and Yuan Qi’s scalps prickled, and they crept past. The man was still alive, trembling as he cried out, "Save me…"
Yuan Qi’s heart went out to him. "How can I save you?"
"Give me two years of your lifespan!" the man cried.
Yuan Qi turned to Xu Ying. "If we give him two years, we can save him. We have plenty of lifespan—why not save a life?"
Even as he spoke, the trees along both sides of the road swiveled around. They were not trees at all but three-legged grotesques, each rooted to the ground with a wooden stake that looked like a third leg. They all cried out in unison: "Give me two years of your lifespan! Save my life!"
Yuan Qi leaped back, realizing they were not nailed to stakes but rooted into the earth, their bodies fused with the trees.
He hurried after Xu Ying and never mentioned saving anyone again.
The two pressed on with pounding hearts, and along the way saw a man sitting by the roadside, his mouth sprouting a thriving flower stalk. Others stood like scarecrows in a field, sprouting branches that shaped themselves into human forms; within the lattice of their ribs, a beating heart was plainly visible.
And so on.
These people had used strange Nuo rites to extend their lives, often transforming themselves into plants—grotesque and uncanny.
After walking for a long while, they at last saw a house. Before it stood a normal man—a burly figure with a bushy beard—who eyed Xu Ying and Yuan Qi with some surprise.
Xu Ying mustered his courage and stepped forward to ask the way. The bearded man said, "You have come from the world of the living? Who guided you here? This is the only safe path through the Home-Viewing Terrace. Without a master’s guidance, you could never have reached it!"
Xu Ying hesitated, then recounted his experience—how he had entered the Home-Viewing Terrace and seen his parents. "If they had not guided us, we would never have arrived here."
The bearded man’s surprise deepened. "The Home-Viewing Terrace—of course, what you see here is your own homeland! Young man, what you saw was from when you were a child. Your parents, seven or eight years ago, foresaw your future and pointed out a path to save you! They are masters of the highest order—truly remarkable!"
Xu Ying was thunderstruck. In his memory, his parents had perished in the fire at Xu Family Terrace, and they were nothing more than ordinary people. How could they possibly be masters?
He recalled the faces he had seen in the Home-Viewing Terrace, and suddenly his memory wavered. The faces of his father and mother grew hazy, as though they stood before two blank sheets of white paper.
The bearded man said, "I can send you out of the Home-Viewing Terrace, but I have an enemy closing in. In life, we arranged a duel, and he too has come here. Today is the appointed day. Rest in my house a while—once I have killed him, I will see you out."
Xu Ying and Yuan Qi were stunned.
A duel arranged in life, decided in death—this bearded man possessed a boldness entirely his own.
They entered the house and watched as the bearded man drew forth a sword chest taller than a man, set it before him, rested one hand upon it, and stood proud and erect.
After a time, wind and rain swept in, and the underworld was wracked by a furious storm—lightning flashed, thunder rumbled, and the sky turned black.
Through the gloom, they made out the figure of a towering deity standing amid the dark clouds, calling out: "Yuan Tiangang! You severed my dragon’s neck at Coiled Dragon Mountain and ruined my cultivation! Today I will take your head and settle the debt of blood!"