Once the rewards were decided, He Qingyuan dipped his forefinger in cinnabar and drew symbols on the glass domes. After a few minutes, the glass opened, and he handed two yellow talismans to Jiang Yan.
Jiang Yan was a bit surprised by He Qingyuan’s attitude.
She had thought he would reject her choices, since that derivative talisman was arguably the most valuable item in the entire vault.
He Qingyuan seemed to understand her look and shook his head gently. “Ordinary psychics would have no use for this talisman.”
“Three seconds of time reversal—only to watch the tragedy happen again… But in your hands, with powerful yao energy sustaining it, three seconds is enough for you to do many things.”
He reminded Jiang Yan, “Don’t lose it.”
“Of course.”
Jiang Yan carefully put away the two talismans, then looked at He Qingyuan again. “You should now tell me about Jiang Chixi.”
He Qingyuan smiled.
“Come with me.”
He turned, walked to the bronze wall from earlier.
Jiang Yan watched in silence as He Qingyuan rotated the three glass bottles one by one. The instant the last bottle turned, the bronze wall gave a deep, rumbling sound. The patterns in the center of the wall shifted several times, then gradually sank inward, revealing a depression shaped like a peachwood sword.
He Qingyuan pressed a token he’d been holding tightly into the slot.
The bronze wall let out another deep hum. There was the grinding sound of gears, and the wall split down the middle, an iron door appearing before them.
He Qingyuan stepped forward and pushed it open.
Beyond the door stretched a seemingly endless passageway, expensive luminous pearls hanging in midair, exquisite murals covering the walls.
The murals began from the primordial era—a world of utter void, nothing but the depth of darkness. Then came the age of the Classic of Mountains and Seas: 496 great yao ruled all laws of the world, able to summon wind and rain, all-powerful. But at a certain point, the great yao inexplicably withdrew from the world. Ordinary yao were not strong, nor did they possess powerful gifts. Afterward, humans appeared, rapidly multiplied, and gradually replaced the yao in governing the mountains and rivers, the grasses and trees.
Jiang Yan walked forward.
She saw humans begin to contemplate the means of survival, gazing up at the stars, founding tribes, building grass huts. Countless plants withered, water sources grew polluted, and untold numbers of living beings perished as their true forms faded into the world. Yao and humans fought many hidden wars, both sides suffering heavy casualties, locked in a struggle with no end.
Later, psychics rose to meet the age. Their own power gave them a chance to negotiate with the yao. The two sides agreed to a compact: the yao would no longer wantonly slaughter humans, and humans would stop cutting down or defiling those yao with spirit.
From then, though relations remained tense, the two sides largely kept to themselves.
But fate is fickle—enemies with a common foe often become allies.
Three thousand five hundred years ago, because psychics neglected to deal with lingering spirits, and the yao underestimated supernatural entities, the first energy field came into being.
No one had ever had to deal with an energy field before. Everyone was caught unprepared.
It was three whole months before the disaster was resolved by a powerful psychic.
In that time, 127 ordinary humans died, along with six psychics and four yao.
The yao were already scarce—one for every thousand humans. Each loss meant the death of a tree, the drying of a river, the toppling of a mountain. The yao realized the gravity of supernatural entities and the energy fields. The psychics also began to accelerate the pacification of spirits.
But for two hundred years afterward, there were no more energy fields.
People on both sides slowly forgot they had ever existed; all thought the disaster was just a fluke of history. Yet, three thousand three hundred years ago, an energy field appeared for a second time.
That time, 263 humans died, along with eleven psychics and seven yao.
Three thousand one hundred years ago, another field appeared: 179 humans dead, seven psychics, six yao.
No one believed it was mere coincidence anymore.
Three thousand years ago, the fourth energy field appeared. It was unusually powerful, taking six whole months before being resolved by an ancient Bronze Mirror yao two thousand years old.
Cumulative casualties on both sides surpassed a thousand.
It was then that the yao and humans formed a cooperative alliance, fighting the energy fields together.
Through the following millennia, an energy field would emerge once every hundred years. Both sides sent their greatest experts to minimize their own losses.
Two thousand years ago, the frequency increased—one every eighty years. The alliance grew tighter, understanding grew, solutions came faster, and deaths decreased.
A thousand years ago, energy fields came every sixty years. Five hundred years ago, forty. A hundred years ago, every fifteen.
Sixty years ago, it was every eight years.
Bringing it to the present.
The emergence of energy fields quickened continually. In recent years, they began appearing every six months. And in just the last two months, there had been two per month in China.
No one could have foreseen energy fields forming so rapidly.
Jiang Yan paused where the murals ended. He Qingyuan’s voice came from behind.
“This section was painted just last month. The newer murals haven’t been added yet.”
Jiang Yan glanced sideways. “New ones?”
He Qingyuan nodded slowly. “Just in May, there were four entirely new energy fields in China—and that’s not counting those concealed by stealth.”
“The rate of formation is doubling again and again.”
Jiang Yan asked, “How many energy fields are there in the country now?”
He Qingyuan: “The ones from March have all been resolved, but those from April and May are still active, plus the Cangnan Funeral Home that’s never been settled… So there are at least seven energy fields expanding inside China.”
“And if you include the hidden ones?”
He Qingyuan replied, “Then there are at least nine.”
“There are missing persons in every province. Information has been suppressed as much as possible to prevent panic, but in the end there’s little hope—”
On this subject, He Qingyuan seemed to visibly age.
But Jiang Yan wasn’t shaken by his mood. She analyzed calmly: “At this rate, in a few decades, China will be covered in energy fields. With your abilities, you won’t be able to save anyone.”
It was a cruel reality—yet reality all the same.
“Eighty years.”
He Qingyuan spoke softly, “Not long ago, I used a formation to glimpse the future. Eighty years from now, there will be three thousand energy fields worldwide, twelve hundred in China alone. By then, supernatural entities will roam everywhere, and our country’s population will plummet to one in ten thousand.”
Jiang Yan asked, “How long do you intend to keep this information secret?”
He Qingyuan let out a sigh. “We’re still weighing the consequences.”
“For most people, especially those of merely average talent, knowing about the energy fields will do nothing to help—it will only cause them anxiety… But we ought to let them recognize the truth of this world, and leave them time to say goodbye…”
“It’s a painful choice.”
Having said this, He Qingyuan stood in front of the mural for a long time. At last, he drew aside a curtain at the end of the murals. “Enough about this.”
“What you want to know is here. Go on in.”
The curtain was made from smoky-gray beads, ancient and beautiful, as if it separated something profoundly secret.
Jiang Yan hesitated a moment, then brushed the curtain aside with one hand and ducked inside.
It was a very small chamber.
And yet, for all its size, it contained everything needed for daily life.
A stone table and chairs, a bare stone bed, a bookshelf packed with books, a guqin with snapped strings, and a faded portrait.
Jiang Yan’s gaze settled heavily on the portrait.
The woman in the painting looked six-tenths like her, the features nearly identical.
But anyone with a discerning eye could tell the vast difference: the woman’s face was softer, her eyes lively and mischievous, her brows and eyes smiled, making her seem innately approachable.
It was a kind of closeness Jiang Yan herself did not possess.
Even when she put on an act to coax out clues, making herself seem friendly and trustworthy, her own face never showed such gentle, lively joy.
Jiang Yan stood before the portrait for a long time.
“This is my senior sister, He Qingfu.”
Jiang Yan didn’t turn around as He Qingyuan quietly explained the story of the woman in the painting.
“Sixty years ago, the rules of heaven abruptly changed. Yao were not only barred from taking human form, they also lost most of their power. Countless yao withdrew from the world, ceasing to help maintain the balance against energy fields… Back then, things were dire—our alliance broke down. At last, our master established the Supernatural Administration Bureau. After his death, my senior sister became the second director.”
Jiang Yan turned her head slightly. “Where is she now?”
“She has passed away,” said He Qingyuan.
“Forty years ago, she was ordered to resolve the energy field on Penglai Island. It was the most powerful ever recorded. She succeeded—but died there.”
Jiang Yan was silent for a moment.
After a while, she nodded, her face blank.
“How did you know she was the reincarnation of Jiang Chixi?”
“Was it because of this face?”
He Qingyuan shook his head.
“Not just that. There were many reasons.”
“For example, before leaving, she left me nine talismans, telling me to go to the National Museum forty years later to help a wedding gown gain human form.”
Jiang Yan paused, surprised.
“What?”
Perhaps because speaking of his senior sister, He Qingyuan’s aged features filled with nostalgia:
“She asked me to help you.”
“At the time, I couldn’t understand her words at all. I’d visited the National Museum and found no wedding gown there. Not until the tomb of the Red Creek Empress was discovered ten years ago and your true form appeared on TV did I finally get her meaning.”
“Then I understood her instructions.”
After hearing this, Jiang Yan looked slightly lost in thought.
After a while, she asked, “Why not thirty years?”
“If she wanted to help me, why make me wait another ten?”
After being excavated, she spent a full ten years in the museum, trying countless times to take human form. Heaven’s power nearly crushed her spirit into oblivion; she lived on the verge of death.
Facing her question, He Qingyuan looked suddenly apologetic.
“That was my doing,” he said.
“At first, I didn’t understand either. Soon I realized the problem—I wasn’t strong enough. I couldn’t control those talismans.”
“There was far too much law and spiritual power in those nine talismans. Ten years ago, I was incapable of using them. No one I knew could, either. The night I helped you gain a human body, a yao came to me wanting to be human, and the talisman transformed by its true body… it could boost a psychic’s spiritual strength dozens of times for a short while, so I absorbed the talisman and immediately came for you.”
“That day was the exact fortieth anniversary of my senior sister’s death.”
There was too much revealed in He Qingyuan’s words.
—He Qingfu had known, forty years before, the details of the future, down to the precise day.
She knew Jiang Yan would one day be excavated, knew a yao would seek out He Qingyuan, knew what its talisman could do, knew that only then would He Qingyuan possess, briefly, the power required to use the nine talismans.
And she knew she would die at Penglai.
Her abilities must have been similar to He Qingyuan’s—of the precognition type.
He Qingyuan’s next words confirmed Jiang Yan’s suspicions.
“My senior sister was much stronger than I am. Her ability was a kind of clairsentience—she could sense all times and places through the eyes of others, even the future.”
Jiang Yan understood.
Such a psychic gift could rival that of Pingping—and even, in certain ways, surpass it.
“She could even see her own past lives,” He Qingyuan went on.
“She said she saw you, saw the many wrongs she’d done to you. You used to trust her deeply, but she betrayed that trust.”
Jiang Yan frowned.
She interrupted him. “It doesn’t matter; I never cared.”
So He Qingyuan didn’t press further.
He sighed softly, walked to He Qingfu’s portrait, and took a small wooden box from behind it.
He handed it to Jiang Yan. “She left this for you before leaving for Penglai.”
“You might want to open it.”
Jiang Yan reached out to take the box.
The lock was cleverly designed—a simple puzzle to solve.
But for a long time, Jiang Yan did nothing.
After a while, she finally lowered her head and assembled the familiar pieces, opening the lock.
Inside was a slip of paper, each character delicately written.
[All these years, I have always thought of you.]
[I’m sorry for the choice I made. You were so small then, and always liked to sleep pressed close to me.]
[But, Yanyan, not all humans are like me.]
Reading these words, Jiang Yan lowered her gaze.
She vaguely remembered the sensation of blades impaling her body, the flood of blood turning to red silk spilling from her, frightening to behold, yet she’d felt no pain.
Jiang Chixi had been a very good emperor.
She knew that human civilization relied on inheritance, so she left behind many things—countless lost texts, all written by her hand and hidden deep within the royal mausoleum. But to guard the tomb against grave robbers, something was needed to protect it.
At that time, Jiang Chixi had only two yao by her side.
Mu Wang died, Jiang Yan gained a human form.
A yao, once in human guise, required food and water and air, just like a human being.
To guard the tomb, Jiang Yan had only one option: to suffer grievous wounds and regress to her true form.
But it was of little consequence.
She was still alive now, and looking back served no purpose.
Under He Qingyuan’s probing gaze, Jiang Yan crushed the note in her palm.
“No need to test me.”
“I will keep doing the missions—until this show is over.”