Chapter Nineteen: Building the Self

The female demon known as Rakshasa Woman, also called Princess Iron Fan and Iron-Fan Fairy, once named Yinsha, had been among the forces of the Heaven-Reaching Escape of the Four Secret Guards of the Great Zhou Kingdom. After her husband was slain by the Eight Divisions of Heaven and Dragon of the Buddhist realm, she turned against them, led her attendants into battle in the western frontier, and left slaughter without end. The world feared her, and so called her by the name of Rakshasa.

She attained immortality through killing, yet did not ascend to the heavens, remaining in the mortal world. Later she married the enlightened Ox Demon and bore a son. At his birth, red clouds filled the sky, blood-tinged vapor spread everywhere, and the desolate slope of an entire mountain was stained crimson. Thus he was named Red Boy.

The battle between Liu Chou and the leopard demon and wolf demon did not last especially long, nor especially short, yet the wounds he suffered were severe enough to leave him nearly unable to endure.

After all, their strength was not far apart. Having launched one ambush after another, Liu Chou had already been drained of stamina, and against the attacks of the two storm-riders he was truly overmatched and unable to prevail with ease.

Moreover, once the hand crossbow had been exposed, it had lost its use.

A hand crossbow was a fine weapon when used suddenly, but once the enemy was on guard—especially enemies of such rank—its killing power was greatly diminished, and it no longer served as a surprise weapon.

Liu Chou tried it. When he fired head-on, both demons evaded in advance. No matter how swift the crossbow bolts were, or how great their force, if they could not strike the target, they were useless against them.

At last, after forcing the other side back once more, Liu Chou suddenly summoned Golden Eye from the inner realm of the flask.

The colossal beast that appeared before them startled the two demons so badly that they both leapt backward at once, quickly widening the distance between them and Liu Chou. But then they saw him swing himself onto the monster’s back and charge off in a mad dash, racing eastward at full speed.

By the time the two demons came to their senses and tried to pursue, he was already a hundred paces away.

Golden Eye was incredibly fast, and had been gathering strength for a long time. Naturally it outpaced the two storm-riders, who were already worn from battle. The demons chased for a while, only to see the distance between them and their quarry growing ever wider, and in the end they could only stop in irritation and return to the side of the mottled corpse.

With Banfan dead, how could the two demons dare go back to report? They simply split Banfan’s remains between them, took what they could carry, and fled for their lives...

A thousand years later, that leopard spirit had cultivated the proper path, survived his tribulation, and became a great demon. He occupied Hidden Mist Mountain and called himself the King of the Southern Mountain, having once for a time become a demon lord of a region. The wolf demon, meanwhile, went to Tiger Mouth Cave on Leopard-Head Mountain north of Yuhua Prefecture City, where he continued as a storm-rider for more than a hundred years. Later he was given a new name, Cunning and Strange, and together with another wolf demon called Strange and Cunning, he served under the Yellow Lion Demon.

...

Ten days later, Liu Chou finally entered the white complex on the summit of Dog Hill Mountain, known as the Heaven-Reaching Escape Tomb.

After presenting the bamboo tally issued by Tu Zhu, Liu Chou was permitted entry. It was a vast and deep building, divided within into countless separate chambers, each with its own function, responsible for the various generals, deputy generals, and marquis-generals of the Heaven-Reaching Escape, as well as all manner of logistical affairs: weapons, armor, elixirs, bounties, intelligence... Even matters such as the transfer of property deeds, the sale of demons, and the appraisal of spiritual artifacts each had their own offices.

This was the core brain of the entire Heaven-Reaching Escape. Every message sent by the four divisions, and every matter requiring handling from the four divisions, could be managed here to completion, with receipts issued.

There were not many people in the tomb. Voices could be heard, and people walked to and fro, making all kinds of sounds, yet for some reason the whole building was always filled with a cold, silent atmosphere. The moment things fell quiet, one had the sensation of standing inside a burial chamber. Perhaps this was the reason it had been named a tomb.

Liu Chou had arrived in the morning, but did not leave until afternoon. Using this rare opportunity to glimpse the world, he made full use of his authority and absorbed every scrap of knowledge he could about it...

With the status of a marquis-general, Liu Chou naturally could not reach many secrets. But for someone like him, who had once been exposed to the civilization and technology of another world, there was already far too much to take in. First he needed to understand the basics of this world, and all manner of things concerning the human and demon races.

The maps were extremely colorful. From their structure, the whole world was divided into four vast landmasses. The Heaven-Reaching Escape could mark only Southern Jambudvipa, and not all of it, merely the scattered, patchy regions where human cities stood. Beyond those cities were gray, red, and black areas, indicating the degree of danger: gray meant ordinary, red meant dangerous, and black meant unknown.

Gray regions were mostly the habitats of certain demon tribes and demon beasts, of varying numbers and only ordinary in combat power. Red regions meant there were very dangerous monsters there; Mount Mei, for example, was marked in a solid crimson mass. As for black, even the terrain there was only roughly known. No one had ever brought back relevant intelligence, or rather, no one had ever thoroughly explored those places.

Among the Four Great Continents, the East Victorious and South Jambudvipa Continent had far more gray regions, the West Ox Continent was covered in broad stretches of scarlet, and only in the North Dark Continent, apart from a few neighboring lands that were red or gray, the rest was black as ink.

What surprised Liu Chou somewhat was that at the junction of the western and southern continents there was still a stretch of black land, with vast unknown regions. Elsewhere, like stars strung on a necklace, stood cities and passes of all sizes. For some reason, that black expanse had never been explored and remained forever dark.

Long ago, a demon Liu Chou knew, named Ghost Carriage, once said that the Great Zhou had a road leading westward. If one looked only at the map, it could only be here. In other words, this was a place humans had never reached or explored, but for the demons it was a road to survival.

If so, there must surely be no few demons here.

Once the structure of the world had become clear, Liu Chou also learned a little about the greatest reliance of the human race in this world.

Talismans, flying ships, and mechanism beasts.

The earliest inventor of the talisman furnace was the Yellow Emperor, one of the ancient human kings. During his war with Chiyou, he gained sudden insight and summoned craftsmen to create talisman furnaces powered by crystal stone, and then fashioned the south-pointing chariot. This was the earliest mechanism beast in human history.

But because crystal stone was scarce and difficult to mine, the art of mechanism beasts never flourished. Only later did a craftsman named Xizhong transform them into machines powered by demon cores, and this led to a tremendous expansion of mechanism beasts. In just a few decades, they spread across the land and became the human race’s sharpest tools and weapons.

After that came flying ships, mechanism war-beasts, mechanism carriages... one by one they were developed, and only then did humanity gain its greatest foundation for expansion and self-preservation. By waging war against the many demons of Southern Jambudvipa, they gradually expanded, and in the end became the rulers of this continent.

This era was later called the Golden Sixty Years, and, like the Investiture Wars, it was one of the two most renowned periods in which humanity finally seized control of this sacred land, forever remembered by all the human race.

Among the many things he learned, Liu Chou had more or less figured out the age and place in which he now stood, and gained a broad understanding of it. But many details remained obscure, and time would not permit him to linger. Thus, once he had found what he sought, he calmly entered the room assigned to him and exchanged his bamboo tally for the insignia of a Heaven-Reaching Escape marquis-general.

This was Liu Chou’s first time entering the quarters reserved for a marquis-general of Heaven-Reaching Escape. The guards inspected only his bamboo tally and let him pass without another word. But the soldier who received him, after searching and reviewing Liu Chou’s records, wore a very strange expression, his eyes repeatedly glancing up as he covertly sized him up.

Liu Chou’s attention was not on that. He was drawn instead by a huge painting hanging high upon the stone wall.

In the painting was a demon with one foot, a dragon’s head, a camel’s neck, eagle claws, and scales all over its body, bearing a massive head that was half dragon and half tiger. When Liu Chou looked up at it, the dragon head’s two enormous eyes also gazed down at him. Their look was like water, and Liu Chou felt the stir of life within it, whereupon he understood: this demon in the painting had already ascended to heaven and become immortal, and this was merely his mortal image.

Taken together, the identity of the figure in the painting was naturally self-evident.

The marquis-general’s private room was immense, with many people inside each occupied with their own tasks. Yet after Liu Chou’s identity was confirmed, the strange feeling seemed to spread. Many soldiers’ expressions turned odd; some cast sidelong glances, others whispered among themselves, all discussing his unusual status.

For he was the marquis-general chosen by Yinsha to take part in the Heavenly Ghost Seven examination.

Had it been on any other day, neither Yinsha nor the Heavenly Cry would have caused such a huge reaction. But the things Yinsha had done recently had spread throughout Heaven-Reaching Escape. Ignoring its commands, she had led her retinue into the Buddhist kingdom of the West and already slaughtered seven villages and three small towns. Her bloodlust was so extreme it was staggering, and she had even acquired a terrifying infamy that made people tremble at the mere mention of it:

Rakshasa Woman.

The soldier explained the various matters of Heaven-Reaching Escape. It was the same as what Little Four and Tu Zhu had once said, though certain details were described more thoroughly, including how to hand over missions, how to carry out bounty tasks, how to claim rewards... and so on, serving as an introductory explanation.

Given Liu Chou’s current status and position, the first thing he needed to do was take on simple tasks, earn wealth, and build his own powerful retinue, before moving on to the next step of advancement.

Retainers were the most crucial element at present.

After listening to the explanation, Liu Chou went to the armory of Heaven-Reaching Escape. There were many specially crafted weapons and arrows there. The crossbow bolts in his inner flask realm had long since been worn nearly to scrap through repeated use and urgently needed replacement. At the same time, he also needed to know what items he could exchange for, so as to prepare for later needs.

The weapons and armor produced by Heaven-Reaching Escape itself were far superior in quality to the standard equipment of the Sixteenth Army. For example, most of their weapons were forged from iron rather than the bronze commonly used in Great Zhou. These weapons were superior in both toughness and hardness, though they were also quite costly.

Liu Chou did not have much wealth. After looking at the price of the bolts, he realized that he simply could not afford them. Each bolt cost nearly thirty saber-coins, and even if he spent everything he had, he could at most buy several dozen, far from enough.

At that moment, Liu Chou noticed two rooms with especially large doorframes nearby. At their entrances were actually placed the corpses of two demon beasts. Just as his gaze turned toward them, the soldier selling the weapons casually said,

“If the marquis-general is short on wealth, you may first sell the things on hand and then return to replenish your bolts. Would that be acceptable?”

“Here, then?”

“Indeed. Anything can be bought here—implements and weapons, paintings and antiques, spiritual artifacts and treasures, house deeds and land deeds, slaves and common folk... everything is available. So long as the marquis-general can produce it, we can price it.”

At the mention of selling things, Liu Chou then remembered that there was still a large pile of odds and ends within his flask realm, all of which he had casually taken from those shops back then. Their value might not be high, but they were certainly more useful there than they were languishing in the flask realm.

As Liu Chou was thinking this over, the soldier assumed he was pondering something else and gave a sly chuckle before adding, “The marquis-general need not worry! In Heaven-Reaching Escape, the goods we sell have no concern for origin, and no concern for provenance. We only speak of value. Even if you looted them just now from Dog Hill, it would be no matter!”

“So that’s how it is!” Liu Chou understood at once. Truly worthy of the number-one elite force of Great Zhou—every rule existed only to strengthen their power, by any means necessary.