"The temple has no trees, and is hidden within the snow-covered mountains. It is said that there are two days in the year when it shows its true facade, and if you are not pure of heart, then you cannot see it."
Xiao En"s aged-sounding voice was calm. The temple was extremely significant to him. Because he knew of the connection between the temple and that young woman, Chen Pingping had paid a high price when kidnapping him and bringing him back to Qing. And because he knew the location of the temple, Ku He, who had benefited most from what was inside the temple, wanted him dead. And the young Emperor held the extravagant hope that he could receive the aid of Heaven from that temple.
But what was the temple? It was just a building.
Xiao En suddenly felt as if half his life had been a lie, and only the second half, spent behind bars, had been real. The old man looked at the dawn light spreading outside the cave. "Master Fan," he said, a stupefied look on his face, "do you believe that there really are G.o.ds?"
Fan Xian was silent. He thought of his own rebirth, and of that box he had been left behind, and he nodded. "I believe in the G.o.ds more than anyone else in this world."
"What are they?"
"If I knew what they were, then I would be a G.o.d myself."
Xiao En fixed him with a look of admiration. "For someone as young as you to see things so clearly is rare indeed." He paused for a moment. "But the current Emperor is still young, so he does not see clearly."
Fan Xian knew that the story had finally begun. Not was somewhat nervous and filled with antic.i.p.ation.
"Do you know what this land was like thirty years ago?"
"The Kingdom of Wei was strong, and could have united all-under-Heaven at any moment."
"Correct. At that time, I was the head of the Red Riders of Wei, a trusted aide of the Emperor." There was a strange look on Xiao En"s face as he remembered the past. It was not as if he were lost in his memories of his former glory, nor that he bore any sort of grudge. Perhaps his impending death had brought him a kind of serene indifference. "The whole land belonged to the Kingdom of Wei. Every man of talent and accomplishment was part of their royal court. But the ones who stirred up the court, apart from the first Emperor, were two pairs of brothers."
Fan Xian saw the old man"s seemingly determined look, and felt somewhat more at ease. "One of those pairs was you and Zhuang Mohan," he said gently.
"That"s right. He had greater prospects than I did." Xiao En"s face softened. "And he was more sentimental than I. I was locked up by Qing for 20 years, and he still remembered me. I owe him."
"Why does no one know you are brothers?"
"The reason is very simple. My reputation was terrifying. Who knows how many men I had killed in secret? He was a scholar, and naturally he didn"t care for me. I didn"t feel any connection to him either," Xiao En replied in a matter-of-fact voice.
Fan Xian paused for a moment before changing the topic. "And who were the other pair of brothers?"
"Zhan Qingfeng and Ku He."
"Zhan Qingfeng? The first Emperor of Northern Qi, the one who was a famous general at the time?" Fan Xian was finally stunned. So that was the secret connection between Ku He and the Northern Qi royal family! No wonder he had once singlehandedly defended the current Emperor and the Empress Dowager, and the royal family were so reverent of Ku He.
"Ku He is the younger brother of Zhan Qingfeng. Since childhood, he was resolved to spend his life as a monk, walking the path of Heaven, doing his best so that he might one day enter the temple." There was a hint of mockery in Xiao En"s voice. "Many people believe in the temple, but who has even seen it in a thousand years? But those monks preached all throughout the land, living lives more pitiful than beggars."
"But the temple really does exist," Fan Xian piped up.
"Yes." Xiao En closed his eyes. "When the first Emperor pa.s.sed away, and the young Emperor ascended the throne, although that Emperor still held us ministers in high regard, for some reason, he had an unusual fear of death. All day, he would practice some kind of art that he thought could lead to immortality."
"Considering how powerful the Kingdom of Wei was at the time, he had nothing to worry about as Emperor. It was only natural that his mind would turn to such things," said Fan Xian.
"So Ku He took the opportunity to enter the palace and convinced the Emperor to dispatch a diplomatic mission to search for clues regarding the temple"s location," continued Xiao En. "He said that if the immortals of the temple were to pa.s.s their teachings on to the Emperor, then he could become immortal too. The moment the Emperor heard that, there was no way he could object..." Xiao En laughed bitterly. "As the Emperor"s trusted aide and captain of the Red Riders, the duty naturally fell to me."
"Ku He was the one who proposed it. He was fervant in his belief in the temple, so naturally I could not stay out of it," said Xiao En calmly. "They gathered all the power of the Kingdom of Wei and searched for who knows how long. Finally they found a lead, so Ku He and I led a thousand men north."
Although the dying old man spoke vaguely, Fan Xian knew that the process at the time was rather complex. The people worshipped the temple, but it was illusory, leaving no trace. To be able to find a genuine clue to its existence would be a shocking development indeed.
The sound of the old man"s aged and apathetic voice reverberated through the cave. The dawn light was dimming outside. Fan Xian listened silently, interjecting with timely questions. His mind was racing as he tried to sketch a map of the group"s expedition to the temple in his head.
Time seemed to turn back to thirty years ago, and the yellow mountains" mild air turned to endless wind and snow. In the old man"s memories, Fan Xian seemed to catch sight of the thousand men of the expedition, caught beneath a sky that snowed as far as the eye could see, soldering on through the wastelands of the frozen north. They wore leather boots and thick leather clothing, showing only their eyes, but they still could not stop the cold winds from penetrating them down to the bone and filling their bodies.
At the head of the ranks were their two leaders: Xiao En, in the prime of his life, and the young pious monk Ku He.
The men moved northward, the route becoming more perilous, their numbers thinning. Some men perished from the cold, some fell down the icy ravines and disappeared without trace, some were ripped apart by birds of prey that descended lightning-fast from the skies. In short, as the men moved further ahead, their numbers shrank, and a strange mood befell them.
The whole world was an endless expanse of white snow. Because they had spent so long in this dull and freezing landscape, some men"s eyes began to falter. Xiao En, ruthless, abandoned them in the wastelands. In the distance, hungry wolves, resistant to the cold, awaited the blind men"s demise.
Everything happened in silence; even such bitter things as death.
The team carried on for a long time before they finally came to a great mountain range deep in the north. There was a narrow path through the mountains, and the snow was thick enough that it had already covered up the mountains" faces. It looked like a string of endless icebergs.
After the men - now numbering merely a hundred - pa.s.sed through the mountains, they found that behind the mountains was another stretch of land still concealed by ice and snow, where animals rarely even appeared. Tenacious, the team set up camp, wanting to find traces of the temple there, but after many days, no one had found anything.
It was winter, the snow fell thick and hard, they were separated by mountains, sun had set, and food had run out.
The strongest men made it through to the end. In a stretch of endless night, Xiao En and Ku He sat back to back in their tent, a wall of dead bodies around them. Their fire had burned out, and the ruined tents and clothing of the dead men was all they had to grant them the slightest warmth and the slightest hope.
"This is the wrath of Heaven."
Inside the mountain cave, Xiao En struggled to open his eyes. There was a redness growing denser in his pupils, but they still betrayed his endless dread. "The temple knows that mortal men are trying to find it, so Heaven is angered. Heaven has sent this boundless darkness upon us."
Fan Xian looked the old man in the eye, saying nothing for a long time. "That was polar night." In his head, he confirmed once more the location of the temple.
Xiao En did not understand what "polar night" was. But he had sunken deep into his memories, and there was a look of frustration in his face. "At that point, Ku He was hungrily and meanly devouring human flesh while he prayed piously to Heaven. I couldn"t help but despise him. To my surprise... perhaps he had finally truly aroused the feelings of the immortals of the temple... daylight suddenly came."
Fan Xian couldn"t stop himself from looking at Xiao En. How could the two men have survived the long months of polar night? Even if they had flesh to eat and tents to burn, for the two of them to struggle alone like that could well send a man insane.
Xiao En suddenly laughed. "At the moment that day broke, Ku He and I had reached the end of our lives. But suddenly, we discovered hope, a strength that came from some unknown place, that allowed us to continue living."
"And then you found the temple." Fan Xian drew his dagger and put it to one side. "What was the temple like?"
Many years ago, past the snowy mountains, two men, emaciated to skin and bone, emerged with great difficulty from their tent. Their eyes were sunken and their skin was pallid. When they breathed, exposing their rotten and swollen gums, the signs were clear - these two men would soon be dead.
The dawn renounced its miserliness and its rays of light finally began to appear. A handful of animals emerged once more from their holes. The two once-hardy men had spent the last of their strength, but they were still more ferocious than these beasts, and so they managed to replenish themselves, standing to their feet once more.
That day, they narrowed their eyes, looking blankly at the mountains before them, unsure where the temple – that they had gone through h.e.l.l to find – could be.
All that stood before them was a vast expanse of pure white snow.
Suddenly, a shaft of light descended from the dark-blue sky. The light that fell upon the mountains seemed to bend in some queer way, and suddenly, a beautiful temple appeared amongst the mountains.
The grand temple had been built upon the mountainside, its black stone walls and light-gray eaves standing against each other to create a vista of indescribable dignity.
Ku He stared dumbfounded at the mountains, and suddenly fell to the ground, overcome with emotion. He burst into tears at the appearance of the temple, overcome with a feeling of incomparable wretchedness. Xiao En stood stupefied. A long time later, he finally came to his senses, sitting down on the snow ground, unable to gather the strength to stand again for a long time.
This was the temple.