by Feng Yue
“Oh, Yezi, are you awake?” Victor asked, trying to smile.
Ye Qingxuan looked at his messy bed, shaking his head, “You didn’t sleep?”
“I couldn’t fall asleep feeling like someone was looking at me. There was the feeling of murder in this room. Yezi…”
Victor looked at the empty corner, as if he could see the invisible evil spirits. His green eyes were vicious, hunting for the enemy, ready to kill.
“Is he looking at me?”
“He is dead, Victor.” Ye Qingxuan whispered, “He will not appear outside the window.” Everyone only lives once. Once someone is dead, he is really dead.”
“He died?” Victor looked back at him. The viciousness in his eyes gradually faded, like finally relaxing a whole night of confrontation. He whispered, “Is he really dead?”
Ye Qingxuan nodded slowly.
“So it is,” Victor said.
Victor suddenly realized that all his hardships were gone. He leaned against the wall and softly laughed, “Yes, I killed him, I had forgotten. As I said before, you don’t know how to fight, so every time you have to rely on me. When Old Phil was looking for me, I knew that it was not good. So I did pretty good, right?” He smiled, but the fear beneath his smile was not completely concealed—it was a fear that could never be rid of.
“Yes, you did very well.” Ye Qingxuan nodded.
“Of course. I’m a bad spawn, and not even murder could stop me.” He whispered, “I am a big man and will be successful, right?”
Ye Qingxuan kept silent, patting Victor’s shoulder.
Victor looked at him, smiling as he teared up, both embarrassed and sad. Like a little bully who had just gotten beaten up, his tears were cheap.
“But at that time, why did I not stand out? I was supposed to be the bait. I should’ve been who went, but I was afraid. Yezi, you are not afraid?”
“You’ve suddenly asked me this question, but I can’t answer now.” Ye Qingxuan scratched his head and grasped Victor’s shoulders, “You do not have to be sad because of what happened. I was not as brave as you think.”
“Yezi, are you trying to comfort me?” Victor gazed at him, “I do not need comforting.”
He did not finish his words because he saw no sympathy nor the slightest mercy in the white-haired teen’s eyes.
“No one can always say beautiful words, Victor. Those beautiful things are just for camouflage.” Ye Qingxuan whispered, “I am more afraid than you are, but I have been used to it.
“When I was very young, I knew that if I died, no one would remember me. So I had to work hard to live, but with more effort to live, the more I feared death.
“It’s much easier to die than live.
Five years ago after I wandered here, the priest adopted me. I thought I could live. I thought that by living, I could do anything. I could act like a good boy, studying hard to learn to spell. But the most important reason in my heart was not to repay them or help other people—It was for myself. “
Ye Qingxuan paused and started laughing, but it was self-deprecating. “This includes the time I stood up and asked Mr. Wolf Flute to let me replace you, so that he would owe me, and help me become a musician to go back to Avalon. It was that simple. Sometimes I think about the kind of person I am and feel very ashamed. Victor, I have done so much. Maybe part of it was to help other people, but ultimately, it was for myself.”
He stroked the ring on his finger. “Maybe I was such a person, but because I had nothing, I wanted more. If I really wanted something, I would not care about my life. I would rush to any opportunity, feeling like a dog yearning for food. Sometimes I felt that being a dog was not a bad thing. As long as that allowed me to get the things I wanted, I could do anything…anything “
Yezi evaluated himself quietly, as if he had cleaned the dusty mirror that he had looked at before, now able to see his true reflection. His tone was complex and solemn. Saying those words was like betting against fate everything he had in his life.
“Victor, I want to be a musician.”
In the long silence, Victor stared at him as if this were the first time he was seeing him.
After pausing for a moment, he suddenly softly laughed, “So you are really evil, Yezi.”
“Did you really say that?” Ye Qingxuan was stunned for a moment. Suddenly, he became angry and kicked Victor in his side, “I have said so much, and tried to comfort you!”
Victor was being tossed around on the floor by Ye Qingxuan’s kicks, but could not help laughing, as if he was laughing at Yezi.
“Go away. I will pretend that my kindness was eaten by Old Phil,” Ye Qingxuan snappily kicked the door and left, but Victor was still laughing.
After a while, the awakened Old Phil ran into the door, looking for something to eat. But he only saw Victor was still laughing so hard almost could not breathe.
The kind of laughter was embarrassing and sounded like it came from a petty man, but Victor still felt that he was a big man.
－
Downstairs, the priest looked up in silence, and after a long time nodded. “It’s all right now.”
“Really simple.” Wolf Flute sighed, “Should it be said that it was easier to communicate between the kids?”
“No, it’s a fool who only believes in silly words.”
－
It was midnight. The black moon hung high, while the wind howled.
In the backyard of the church, the two figures walked out of the room carrying shovels and walked through the streets. One of them was tall and thin without facial expressions. The other’s footsteps were staggered, like he had just been injured recently.
They walked all the way through the town quietly, and finally stopped at the iron fence in front of the cemetery.
The tall and thin priest took a rusty copper key off of his neck and unlocked the huge iron lock. The iron gate was pushed open with a sharp sound as it had not been opened for a long time.
“Do you really want to hide the stuff in the cemetery?” Wolf Flute held the shovel and whispered, “Will it become rotten from the moisture and the corpses?”
“The last priest told me that the thing was well preserved and should not be broken,” the priest said.
“Hey, we entrusted such important things to the custody of the church. You should at least confirm!”
“First, that thing was handed over to the cleric to seal. You did not say which day you would get it back. Second, if every priest chose to look at the thing, then there would be no secret.”
“Why don’t I think you’re right?” Father Bann looked back at him again, like looking at an idiot’s eyes.
In the dark, Father Bann carried the light, leading the way ahead. They walked on the soft, wet soil, passing by the tombstones. Wolf Flute was injured, not able to walk fast, so he still had the privilege of reading the epitaph of each tombstone.
“Oh, what a miserable story. This person was killed because he discovered his wife’s affair! Wait! His wife is here. Why is the adulterer here? Plus his two dogs. What is that? Father, I could make up a story with hundreds of thousands of words.”
“Nonsense.” The priest wrote him off, “Come on, we’re almost there.”
In the end, they stopped in front of a very old tombstone. Behind the pale tombstone, the cross had been broken, and the writings had been faded over time by the wind and rain.
The priest looked down at the writing, and used the shovel to get rid of weeds in front of the grave and nodded. “It’s here. You can start digging.”
Wolf Flute tentatively started digging, feeling the dull pain from his wound. Without any resistance from the mud, it made him feel at ease.
But the muddy soil was obviously cold, and also had gravel on the top.
It seemed like an invisible ghost was staring at them in the dark, watching them dig the graves. It seemed to envelop them with cold air. The ghost waited to be dug out, and then let the people lie in the tomb.
“Whose
tomb is this?” Wolf Flute trembled a little bit. “I always feel like we will dig up wraiths.”
17 Bones of the Perished
“This tomb belongs to the one before the previous priest,” Bann said in a cold voice. “He jumped after he had gotten drunk. He had internal bleeding and died the next day. Rest assured, even if the avenging spirit did exist, he’d have gone drinking instead of come looking for you.”
“Hey, are you encouraging me to dig the grave of the previous secret protector?”
“Fine, you don’t have to,” Bann muttered.
“Wait, I will! I will!” Wolf Flute continued digging bitterly. With the surgery and the medicine, his heavy injury had healed but had left him with very serious side effects. He would receive more advanced treatment once he returned to the holy city.
Now he was sweating all over, regretting that he had not done much physical work during his years in the holy city, otherwise he would not be panting already.
Digging and digging, the sound of the shovel became rhythmic. He tried to make it less boring. Wolf flute began to sing, “One little, two little, three little Indians. Four little, five little, Six little Indians!”
Just before Father Bann’s tolerance reached his limit and killed him for singing such horrible songs, Wolf Flute finally heard the sound of the shovel hit the sarcophagus.
He was excited and started to dig harder. He had soon cleared a majority of the dirt on top of the coffin.
Seeing that he was almost done, the priest pushed Wolf Flute away. He took out a crowbar from his sleeve and put it under the crack of the opening, struggling to open it. With the sound of the nails breaking, the coffin was cracked slightly, then opened entirely.
Wolf Flute was stunned.
He did not smell anything unpleasant, instead he smelled church incense which made him quite uneasy.
The priest lit the lantern and swept the top of the coffin. Wolf Flute was only able to see the bones, like the blooming stone flowers, but he barely saw much else.
A surge of wind blew in from the sky and swept away the dark clouds. The moon shone above.
In the gloomy moonlight, the body in the sarcophagus appeared to smile at the two guests.
The priest had a cold look on his face, and Wolf flute gasped with surprise, “What the f*ck is that thing?”
-
Inside the hundred-year-old coffin, everything was covered in scarlet.
There were spider lilies in full blossom. They grew out of the bones, with a smell of an extravagant incense, enchanting and seductive.
Underneath the layers of spider lilies, the bones that would only exist in nightmares were finally exposed.
On the seemingly grinning black skull, in addition to the normal two eye sockets, there were two additional gaps, as if there used to be two more eyes in them.
A skeleton over three meters tall was lying in the coffin, six arms crossed. Two hands with open palms on top, fingers crossed, posing like flames. Two hands laid on top of the chest, its fingers closed together like a lotus. Two hands, with fingers crossed like chains with an iron lock.
Under the six arms, something was guarded.
Where the rib cage had been now had many layers of lamellae, the barbs above had all been broken.
A pair of torn wing bones extended from the back to the front. Although it had become bone, it was still covered with a bronze layer .
A frantic feeling filled the coffin like a demon’s burial ground. Even when dead, it still felt as if he would leap out of the coffin and fly towards the moonlight.
This was not a human corpse. It more like a monster made of black iron, bronze and silver, only existing in a craftsmen’s nightmare!
Wolf Flute took out the shovel, expressionless. He poked the bones which seemed to have been made of alloy. The sound of the metal colliding produced a very low buzz, numerous souls in the darkness echoed in return.
He held the shovel and froze.
As a gust of wind blew, the shovel in his hands silently disintegrated into powder. The iron residue drifted through the air, seeming to have pierced the heart with every breath, giving him chills all over—the Curse of Ravages.
It was a curse created by the musicians of the Modification Department. The music was engraved into the bones. Even the smallest disturbance would cause the aether to backfire, turning all those who touched the bones to ashes.
Wolf Flute tilted his head and looked at Bann, “Hey, Father, when the people of your church were drunk did they all turn into something like this?”
“Ah, I was just trying to scare you. I only wanted to see your expression,” the priest casually revealed the truth, as if he had done nothing wrong. He looked at the bones with a cold stare, “Before he died, he was not human. Just treat it as a body of the beast.”
“What now?” Wolf Flute asked. “The two of us stay here and wait a few decades until the Curse of Ravages has dissipated?”
“The sarcophagus and the cemetery are connected. Unless the cemetery was dug entirely out of the ground, the Curse of Ravages will not dissipate.” The priest turned around to look at him, putting his hands out, “Show me your letter of appointment.”
Wolf Flute was surprised for a moment. He scrambled through his bag and took out a piece of paper as red as blood. The paper had a pear watermark from the church as an anti-counterfeit mark. The priest put the paper in front of the lantern, turned it to the side. A few numbers were revealed where the red stains had been.
“S7:6-3242? What kind of code is this?” Wolf Fang asked.
“The Authorized Ciphertext, issued by the Cardinal Hall of the Sacred City. The believers are allowed to use divine power with this.
“S is the abbreviation of the angel Seraph, meaning the first sequence under the throne. Seven is the number representing ‘The Burning Snake’—a power to eliminate all evil. This is power given to me by the Cardinal Hall of the Sacred City. Followed by a one-time ciphertext, which can be interpreted by us.”
The priest explained this casually, and took out an old clock from his inner pocket.
The clock was a size of two fists, more like a large bell, but much more solemn than a bell. It was very old, engraved with lines of spells, and a crest of the Three Saints.
Under the moonlight, the brass bell shone silently.
Then the priest sounded the bell with a complex rhythm.
It was quiet at first, then suddenly felt like someone let out a breath.
Suddenly, countless bats started screaming, shattering the silence. They flew toward the sky in panic, aimlessly flying about, so frightened they died running into the tombstones and the walls.
The sound, unbearable to the human ear, had spread like water dropped into a quiet lake. Ripples spread in all directions. Suddenly it reached tens of millions of miles away, so many miles away in the holy city, a huge dark bell sounded in response.
Then the clock in the hands of the priest broke, silently turning into iron sand in the moonlight. It poured down from the hands of the priest like water and dissipated into the air.
Wolf Flute suddenly turned pale.
The light from the iron sand had emerged. A huge amount of aether formed together. Amid the dust swirling, the holy object revealed itself in the iron sand.
It was a rare sword. Its body was made of lapis lazuli, its blade full of gaps and cracks.
On the back of the sword remained traces of forging, almost like layers and layers of the blooming peonies. If you looked carefully, each layer was filled with numerous holy names and scriptures. At the hilt of the sword, four generations of popes left their names and the emblem of the tricyclic, proving that God had the power to grant this weapon. When it was used, it would break everything like shattering a china pot.
The emblem and the scripture were filled with endless power. The power turned the body of the sword scarlet red. The edge of the sword shook nonstop, and a fuzzy shadow was revealed.
“Upon calling of the prayer,
the divine power shall arise!
“I will fill the river and let it run endlessly,” The priest recited, holding the hilt, letting the flame’s power burn himself.
“My Lord, for you.”
He clenched his sword and held it high.
There was silence, as if they were frozen by an invisible power.
Then the blade came down!
The silence was broken. The sword came down with a burning burst, like a quick flash that tore apart the lights and the shadows, impossible to look at directly.
The bones in the coffin were shaking violently. On top of the bones, the scarlet red spider lilies quivered. They blossomed, danced, and in an instant, turned into dust and flew away.
Dust mixed with the petals, red as blood in the moonlight.
They continued to fly out of the sarcophagus and spread into the cold wind like a group of blood-colored butterflies.
And yet the sword continued to stab downward against the bloody butterflies!
Finally it collided against the bones.The blade and the bones started shaking and screaming, as if they were being burned in a furnace together. The sounds were terrifying yet harmonious.
Soon the sound disappeared, as did the blade, then the butterflies.
Everything was like a dream. It was as if nothing had happened.
Wolf Flute had his head down, but could not keep his eyes off of the bones in the sarcophagus.
-
Inside the sarcophagus, the six arms slowly stretched open. The chest bone plate expanded like flower petals, revealing what was hidden inside—a box made of black iron.
The Curse of the Ravages was broken by the sword from thousands of miles away.
Remembering the light, Wolf Flute felt goosebumps all over him. It was a power extracted from the source, daunting even if it was just a mirror image of what was left of it.
“That sword….is it the ‘kingdom of heaven’ forged by four generations of the popes?”
“Yes.” Father Bann withdrew the empty hand. “The ciphertext was the real key. Without it, you can’t open the cage of the bones.”