Chapter Ninety-Five: The Kneeling Idol

Li Qing sprang to his feet and wiped the ash from the face of the stone door as well. I knew what he was after: he wanted to see whether there was a plaque above it. In former times, every proper gate had a signboard overhead; grand houses and temples alike would hang one there. But above this door, there was nothing at all.

After seeing that, Li Qing became even a little more impatient than the Fat Man. He actually shoved the stone door open at once. It was heavy, but Li Qing was immensely strong too. With a thunderous groan, the door slowly swung inward.

The moment it opened, a damp, rotten stench hit us full in the face. I thought it was poison gas and quickly covered my mouth and nose. Just then, the little fellow hiding in my clothes poked out its head, its crafty eyes peering in fear into the darkness. It seemed desperate to go inside, yet fearful at the same time. I almost wanted to learn the language of weasels then and there, so I could understand exactly what this little creature was trying to tell me, and perhaps even learn from it what lay within.

After waiting a moment, once the foul smell had faded a little, Li Qing held up his flashlight and leaned his head inside. Only for an instant, before he jerked back out again. Before I could even ask what had happened, I heard a rustling inside. Something came rushing straight at my face, carrying a gust of wind with it.

"Dammit!" I cursed. My leg was already injured, and in my panic to dodge, I stumbled and fell hard to the ground. The next moment, I saw a mass of dark, chattering things swarming out of the doorway.

"What in the world is that? Bats? Such huge bats?" I cried out.

When I was little, there were always plenty of these at dusk. In recent years, with pesticides everywhere, I had scarcely seen them anymore. But the bats out in the countryside were small. These ones, however, were enormous. I wanted to see what they really looked like, so I switched on my flashlight and swept it across the flock surging out. The moment they were hit by the beam, they panicked at once. Their formation broke apart, and several bats veered straight toward me.

The instant I saw them, I was petrified, because these huge bats had human faces. They looked hideously terrifying, especially with those eyes and the black fur on their bodies, all of it radiating an extremely sinister air. They came at me so fast that I froze for a split second, and then they slammed into me. Their soft bodies flapped across my face, and I was instantly covered in gooseflesh, flailing wildly as I swatted at them.

But the more I struck at them, the more bats seemed to land on me. In no time, the air around me was filled with their rank, fishy stench and their shrill squeaking cries.

"Turn off the flashlight! If you keep shining it on them, they can't see!" Li Qing shouted at me.

Only then did I realize that perhaps the light had startled these creatures of the dark. I hurriedly switched off the flashlight, and sure enough, once the light went out, the bats quickly regained their order. They began flying away. Since there was no exit behind us, I could see bats hanging all over the stone walls, packed so densely there was almost no room between them. In the darkness, their eyes glowed green. I did not dare switch on the flashlight again, and could only stare at them. It was like rows and rows of green light strips.

"Stop looking. Let's go in first," Li Qing said.

"Is there anything else inside? And can you at least be a little steadier?" I snapped at him. If he had not rushed in so quickly, would I have been scared senseless like this?

Li Qing leaned his head in again and swept the interior with his flashlight. Then he looked back and said, "No, they're gone. I just shone the light in there and startled all the bats inside. They should have all flown out by now. Come in and take a look. This really isn't a tomb. It's a temple."

I glanced back at the human-faced bats and felt relieved that they did not bite. Then I stepped inside, while Li Qing casually shut the stone door behind us to keep the bats from rushing back in. They might not bite, but they were disgusting enough already.

Once inside, I understood at once why Li Qing had said this was a temple. Just beyond the entrance stood two yaksha statues, both with ferocious faces and glaring eyes, as if they were staring directly at me. Every temple had these. I suddenly recalled the Fat Man saying that my fate chart carried a ghostly aura, and that I would be struck down the moment I entered a temple. Then I thought of the green dragon saber that Guan the Great had laid across my head, and a chill ran through me. By then, Li Qing had already gone ahead.

He stood there by himself, staring constantly left and right. The little fellow against my chest was trembling so hard it no longer dared even poke its head out.

I walked over to Li Qing and saw that his face had gone deathly pale. I looked around both sides, and immediately understood why his expression had turned so grim. In fact, even I wanted to let out a string of curses, and if the Fat Man had been here, he would have exploded in rage.

On both sides of the passage stood two rows of divine statues. I recognized several of them: the Dragon King, the Mountain God, the Earth God, and one statue whose face was painted with theatrical makeup. The others also appeared to be gods, though I could not name them.

The reason I said the Fat Man would be furious if he saw this was that every single one of these statues, whether I recognized them or not, was kneeling.

And each one was shackled.

The first time I ever witnessed the Fat Man's methods was when he invited the City God in the house of the Immortal Maiden. The way he spoke sounded, to my ears, almost like blasphemy. But little by little I came to understand that although his tone when talking to the gods was playful, even disrespectful, it was the sort of teasing one uses among one's own people. It sounded as though he and the gods shared some deep familiarity. His words might have been irreverent, but his heart was reverent.

That was exactly how I felt too, despite all the boastful nonsense I liked to spout.

So who on earth had the nerve to make the gods kneel here, and even put chains on all of them? I could see that the line of kneeling deities continued all the way to the far end of the passage, but beyond that was only darkness. Even my powerful flashlight could not reach the end. By my understanding, the Jade Emperor was the leader of all the gods. Could it be that the deity enshrined at the end of this passage was the Jade Emperor himself? Were these gods in chains because they had committed crimes?

So this underground ancient temple was actually a shrine to the Jade Emperor?

I could tell that Li Qing did not believe in ghosts or gods. Men with exceptional martial skills usually trust only their own strength. As for me, I had never exactly believed either, but I had seen the City God and Lord Guan with my own eyes. After that, my whole worldview nearly collapsed. If not for my elder brother's theory about incense and devotion, I would probably already have become a devout believer after witnessing such miracles. Even so, I was still stunned.

"Let's go and take a look. The deity at the end of the passage is probably the Jade Emperor," I told Li Qing.

"Something's wrong. I have a bad feeling about this," Li Qing said, raising a hand to stop me.

"What is it?" I asked. Although Li Qing had been unreliable more than once on the road, I trusted the instincts of a martial artist like him.

Li Qing shook his head. "I don't know. It just feels creepy. Stay behind me."

With that, he moved forward warily. I drew my dagger and clenched it in my hand, only to feel sweat already soaking my palm. The two of us advanced almost like crawling toward the end of the corridor.

As we drew nearer, I finally saw what was ahead. That was when I understood why my flashlight had not revealed anything before: there was a pillar directly in front of us. It was immensely thick, so thick that if it had not been round, I might have mistaken it for a small mountain.

Before this pillar stood a huge incense burner and an altar, both covered in a layer of dust. In front of the altar there were also two kneeling mats that had turned black with age. I gave one of them a light kick, and a cloud of dust immediately rose up.

Li Qing swept his flashlight over the pillar. It was about three or four men tall. Because it was so broad, I could not see what lay above, only that at the very top there seemed to be lotus petals.

Then I suddenly remembered the mural on the stone door.

That weasel spirit in human clothes had been standing on a lotus altar, preaching scriptures to the believers below.

The end of the chapter is not the end of the road.