Stranger Danger

Carefree Shrine was a living shrine[1] the people of Carefree Pass had created to commemorate the Carefree Celestial.

When Carefree Shrine was initially founded, it was said to enjoy an overwhelming amount of worship. Thousands and thousands of people came to pay their respects including scholars and other men of culture. They left behind many memorable, famous verses such as, “A mountain sprung where the celestial points and free humanity from the mortal coil forevermore,” or “A celestial and a mountain saved a people, granting them everlasting happiness and freedom.”

Alas, the march of time was unstoppable. As the dynasties changed, Carefree Shrine endured all kinds of disasters and was even scorched by the flames of war. In the end, the shrine lost all of its former glory and became abandoned.

Right now, Ye Qing was standing in front of Carefree Shrine and supporting himself with a wooden stick. He was wearing a mask and coughing non-stop.

The shrine’s walls were bent, the roof was leaking, and it looked like it was suffocating amidst a floor of dead leaves and overgrown weeds. When the mountain wind blew across the area, it made this whiny, mournful noise that gave the shrine a ghastly atmosphere.

Once upon a time, the incense smoke of this shrine was thick enough to pierce through the nine heavens. Today, it was as lifeless as it was abandoned. What an ironic and terrible fate it was.

Of course, Ye Qing was a warrior. He wasn’t the type to reminisce about past glories, much less weep for some lost history. He had come here today not because he wished to pay a worthy predecessor his respect, but because he had business to do.

After his cough subsided, and he no longer felt like he might collapse on his feet at any moment, Ye Qing tossed the wooden stick away and stepped into the shrine.

In the past, there were multiple statues depicting the Carefree Celestial inside the shrine so as to accommodate its many worshippers. Today, only one mud statue was still intact.

The mud statue looked surprisingly pristine considering the condition of the shrine. It was shaped like a Taoist carrying a horsetail whisk and pointing forward with his right hand, his middle and index finger pressed together. It was a very celestial-like pose.

The statue’s face was blurry and unclear, however. The two small flags planted on his left and right flank were also tattered beyond imagination. Ye Qing could barely read the words, “The celestial touches your head” and “Bless you with boundless life and happiness” on the flags.

The corners of Ye Qing's lips turned up when he saw the Taoist statue. He turned his wrists and produced three incense sticks. After the incense sticks ignited on their own, he pointed them upside down and bowed three times.

The first bow was to invite the Night Walker.

The second bow was to request the gods and demons to open a path.

And the third bow was to bless his legs with the ability to tread between yin and yang.

Each time he bowed toward the statue, one of the incense sticks would burn out completely. When all three incense sticks had gone out, the smoke they produced poured down to the floor and spread across the whole shrine. They didn’t rise to the sky or fade away like a normal smoke would.

Then, Ye Qing stomped his foot and declared in a loud voice, “Wind and rain cannot block the path between yin and yang, gods and demons cannot stop the Night Walker! The offerings are ready, so please show yourself, Night Walker!”

As soon as he was finished speaking, the smoke abruptly sank into the floor and vanished into nothing.

Nine breaths later, a puff of smoke emerged from the underground and formed a single word: “Wait.”

It disappeared a second later.

“Phew...” Ye Qing let out a sigh of relief and smiled when he saw this. Everything he did earlier was to request a Night Walker to show himself.

The Night Walkers were a part of a mysterious transportation organization of the jianghu. His colleagues were the Traveling Celestial, the Yin Coachman, the Ghost Ferry.

Technically, their job was no different from their human counterpart. They transported goods and passengers from one location to another just like a horse carriage, a litter, a ferry and so on. They didn’t serve the common people, however. Their services were only provided to jianghu people, the wealthy and influential, Strangers and Anomalies.

That’s right. The Night Walkers, Traveling Celestials, Yin Coachmen and Ghost Ferries didn’t just provide their services to humans. They were perfectly okay with serving Strangers as well. They didn’t support one side or another, and they didn’t care if you were good or bad, right or wrong, human or Stranger. So long as you paid them a worthy price—it could be in the form of money, treasures, or even your life—they would transport you anywhere you desired without leaving a trace behind.

The organization served only profit and possessed next to no principles, so their services had resulted in some major disasters. As a result, they were branded as heretics by the imperial court and the orthodox sects of the jianghu in all four realms. However, the demands for their services were endless, and their unnatural abilities made them incredibly difficult to detect, much less capture. That was why they were still in business to this day.

Of course, they weren’t able to operate as openly and wantonly after they became wanted in all four realms, so they dipped under the radar and operated much more carefully than before. These days, not many people had even heard of their existence.

Although the Night Walkers, Traveling Celestials, Yin Coachmen and Ghost Ferries were all service providers, their target audience and the price they demanded were very different from one another.

A Night Walker mainly provided his services to humans, and he didn’t care if they were male, female, good, evil, orthodox or heretic. Just pay him his due, and he would carry you anywhere you wanted to go.

A Traveling Celestial mainly provided his services to Strangers, and just like a Night Walker, he didn’t care if his customer was intelligent or non-intelligent, neutral or hopelessly evil[2]. But unlike a Night Walker, he didn’t accept cash. He demanded natural treasures of all kinds, Stranger materials and the like.

A Yin Coachman mainly provided his services to yin creatures such as ghosts, yin guards, yin judges and so on. He mainly requested nether artifacts—or to put it in more secular terms, funerary items.

Finally, a Ghost Ferry mainly provided water transportation services to humans and Strangers who needed to travel or transport their goods by water. They accepted anything, be it money or treasures.

The one Ye Qing chose to summon was a Night Walker, and Carefree Shrine was one of his bases of operations. All a customer needed to do was to light three incense sticks, worship the ground instead of the sky, and say the words necessary to invite a Night Walker. If the corresponding Night Walker agreed to the request, then it would provide some form of response. If not, the smoke would dissipate like a normal smoke would.

Ye Qing hadn’t learned this trick from the books. Chen Wuxin—the Heartless Brain—was the one who told him about it. Since the Heartless Brain had occupied Chen Ah Sheng’s brain, it naturally inherited the man’s memories as well.

Before Chen Ah Sheng moved to Chaos Heaven Mountain, he was operating in Bei You of Northern Xinjiang. He traveled south because his nemesis was hunting him like a relentless hound. A Night Walker was how he was able to slip past Carefree Pass without being detected.

Although the Corpse Ship had provided him with the perfect cover, and the Intelligence Department was unable to ascertain his location or his status, Ye Qing didn’t dare to let down his guard in the slightest. The Intelligence Department was notorious for having eyes and ears in every part of the world, so it was entirely possible that they had moles working in Carefree Pass as well. They might even have an entire team of spies keeping watch at the garrison right now. If he tried to slip into Northern Xinjiang through Carefree Pass thinking that everything would be fine, he might very well pay the price for his arrogance and optimism.

That was why he decided to employ a Night Walker’s services.

“Wind and rain cannot block the path between yin and yang, gods and demons cannot stop the Night Walker.” What this line really meant was that a Night Walker possessed the incredible ability to cross freely between the yin and yang world and deliver his customers to their destination without leaving behind a trace.

That said, a Night Walker usually operated within the span of a commandery or several commanderies only. That was because each Night Walker was assigned a territory, and no one was allowed to infringe upon another Night Walker’s territory barring exceptional circumstances.

For example, the Night Walker Ye Qing was summoning strictly dealt with customers within Carefree Pass only. If he left the region, he would have to seek out a different Night Walker or find other ways to escape his pursuers.

Ye Qing’s thoughts ran free for about three incense sticks until suddenly, a powerful gale swept into the shrine and flung the dead leaves everywhere. Right after then, four people carrying a litter appeared from the horizon and ran straight toward him.

The mountainous terrain didn’t seem to slow them in the slightest, and they crossed a hundred meters in the blink of an eye even though their movements suggested otherwise.

All four men were wearing black, form-fitting outfits and wearing square hats. They were also wearing a traditional-looking mask with the word “Night Walker” written at the center.

A closer look would reveal that only the guy standing at the forefront had a heartbeat and a pulse. The other three people were as lifeless as an inanimate object.

The litter they were carrying had a pyramid-shaped roof like a bridal sedan, but it was pitch-black in color and radiating a dark light. It didn’t look like it belonged to this world, and it didn’t.

“Greetings, dear customer. I am the Night Walker.”

After the four men stopped in front of Ye Qing and set down the litter, the Night Walker with a heartbeat raised his hands and greeted Ye Qing politely.

Ye Qing returned the gesture and said, “A pleasure to meet you as well, Night Walker.”

1. Worship of the living is the worship of living people practiced in the East Asian cultural sphere. There are two types of enshrinement: the enshrinement of the spirit of a living person who has made a significant contribution, and the enshrinement of one's own spirit. ☜

2. Because there are extremely few good Strangers in the world. Take Wawa for example, the requirements necessary for her birth are so stringent it’s a miracle she exists at all. ☜

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