Nine Desolate Records

As the crows swept past the blood moon, Lu Li knew he was about to die.

He leaned against the broken stele, his left hand tightly clutching the blackened, rolled-up animal hide of the "Fragment of the Mountains and Seas," while his right hand bore a deep, bone-revealing wound—not from a sword or knife, but torn open by the backlash of some unseen "rule." Blood flowed along the cracks in the stele's inscription, faintly glowing with a golden hue under the moonlight.

The thing was still there, thirty paces away.

It has no physical form, or rather, its physical form is constantly changing—first, it is a black shadow over ten feet tall, resembling the "mountain demon" recorded in ancient books, but with seven asymmetrical arms; then it collapses into a pool of viscous ink crawling on the ground, from which a dozen turbid eyeballs emerge; at this moment, it is condensing its form for the third time, and the vegetation within a three-foot radius is withering at a visible speed, its vitality being drained into threads of black mist that entwine around the black shadow.

Lu Li pulled out the last genuine talisman from his robes. The talisman paper was the standard yellow hemp paper issued by the academy. He had already exhausted the cinnabar in the battle just now, so he bit his tongue and used his blood as ink to write rapidly on his palm. Lu Li did not draw the standard runes taught at the academy, but rather the incomplete totem on page thirty-seven of the "Fragment." He had completed one-third of it. If Mr. Xun, the instructor of Bailu Academy, saw it, he would surely denounce it as heresy.

"Heaven and earth are dark and yellow..." He silently recited the four lines of the incomplete text's opening verses, the meaning of which no one could fully comprehend. The sparse fortune within his body surged wildly into his palm, "...Mountains and seas expand once more."

The moment the blood talisman took shape, the entire desolate graveyard suddenly fell silent.

The nascent demon, which was gathering, froze. Let's call it a demon for now, that's the name given by the Demon-Slaying Guard. Its dozens of eyes all turned to Lu Li at the same time, each pupil reflecting the red light emanating from the burning blood talisman in his palm.

"Seal." The blood talisman flew out of her hand, leaving a twisted trail in the air. The demon used its seven arms to grab the blood talisman at the same time, but it began to disintegrate and dissipate the moment it made contact.

The silence lasted for about three breaths, then the demon let out a piercing howl. With its last remaining arm, it pointed at the broken half of the monument behind Lu Li, its knuckles twisted into a strange arc, as if gesturing a certain character.

Lu Li understood; it was the ancient seal script character for "prisoner".

The next second, the demonic entity vanished completely, leaving only a pool of rapidly evaporating black mud on the ground, emitting a stench of rotting flesh. Almost simultaneously, the inscriptions on the surface of the broken monument against which Lu Li was leaning, stained with his blood, began to glow with a faint, eerie blue light, one after another:

The Martyrdom Site of Li Mu, the Zhou Dynasty's Imperial Envoy

731st year of the Great Wilderness Calendar

Demonic nightmares are vanquished here.

This area is off-limits to outsiders.

The last line is a bloody addition, the handwriting wild and chaotic:

"The seal has been broken; report immediately to the demon-hunting guards."

Lu Li stared at the line of blood-red words, his consciousness beginning to blur. This was the last letter of the old Demon Guard who died here three days ago, and also the reason he had come here tonight. Three nights ago, there was a disturbance in the desolate graveyard behind White Deer Academy. The night patrolling disciples discovered this corpse leaning against the tombstone, along with this unfinished warning on the tombstone.

The academy blocked the news, claiming that he died from a relapse of an old injury, but Lu Li recognized the face of the corpse.

Seven days ago, it was this old Wei named Li Muzhi who intercepted him in the bamboo grove behind the academy's library, stuffing a scroll of animal hide, tightly wrapped in oilcloth, into his arms, his voice extremely low: "Boy, the blood on your body... is extraordinary. This scroll might just save your life."

At that time, Lu Li didn't know what "special" meant. He was just a poor student who was admitted to Bailu Academy by exception because he solved a difficult question about mythical beasts from the Classic of Mountains and Seas in the provincial examination. His only special trait was that after a serious illness in his childhood, his wounds would ooze very faint golden blood when they healed, which the local doctors called a "pregnancy symptom" that did not endanger his life.

Until tonight, for the first time, he used this blood to draw a talisman and saw the demons crumble before it. Only now, seeing the inscription on the monument activated by his blood, did he understand. "So..." Lu Li coughed up a mouthful of blood, "it's this special method..."

Lu Li's vision began to blur. He struggled to sit up, trying to reach for the SOS jade talisman issued by the academy from his robes, but his fingers froze in mid-air.

From the depths of the desolate graveyard, a second sob echoed.

Unlike the sharp, menacing voice from before, this voice was deep and resonant, as if it came from the depths of the earth, accompanied by the tremors of the ground. The soil beneath Lu Li's feet began to loosen, and pale arms burst forth from the ground. These were not the arms of a corpse, but deformed limbs pieced together from rubble, rotten wood, and mud, with an eyeball without pupils at the tip of each finger.

"More than one..." He laughed hoarsely, his laughter filled with desperate absurdity. "Mr. Xun was right... The Classic of Mountains and Seas records, 'When demons gather, monsters are born.' I was truly... utterly stupid..."

The arms began to reach out to him. They weren't fast, even somewhat slow, but they blocked all escape routes. Lu Li wanted to bite his tongue again, but found he didn't even have the strength to lift his head.

Just then, the dark blue inscription on the broken stele suddenly blazed brightly!

The light surged, transforming into a pillar of light that shot into the sky, piercing the heavens shrouded by the blood moon. Within the pillar of light, the ancient seal script characters peeled away from the stele, rearranging and arranging themselves in the air, finally condensing into a huge phantom—the outline of a warrior clad in armor and wielding a halberd, his face blurred, with only two balls of blue flame burning where his eyes were.

The illusory figure lowered its head and looked at Lu Li.

"The bloodline of Emperor Yan?" An aged voice resounded directly in Lu Li's mind, not through his ears, but shaking his very soul. "A mere remnant of blood dares to awaken the 'Spirit of the Monument'?"

Before the words were finished, the phantom of the general swung his halberd down.

There was no wind, no light, only pure "erasure." The mud arms turned to ashes the moment the halberd touched them, vanishing along with a mournful shriek from the ground. The desolate graveyard returned to deathly silence, as if everything that had just happened was an illusion.

The phantom slowly began to fade.

"Why...why did you help me?" Lu Li asked, using all his strength.

The phantom remained silent for a moment.

"It's not about helping you, it's about helping 'it.' The scroll you have on you is a fragment of the 'Map of Mountains and Seas' that King Yu of the Great used to seal off the nine provinces. Li Muzhi risked his life to bring it out, so it can't be lost here."

After speaking, the general's illusory figure vanished completely, the pillar of light collapsed, and it disappeared back into the broken stele. The inscription on the stele returned to its dim state, as if it had never been lit at all.

He slumped down in front of the monument. In the distance, from the direction of the academy, he could vaguely hear voices and the light of lanterns. Clearly, the beam of light had alerted the night patrol disciples.

I must leave.

Lu Li tried to struggle to stand up, but he had no strength left.

Just then, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed something unexpected growing at the base of the monument where his blood had just stained the spot.

It was a seedling about three inches tall, with a blood-red stem and golden veins naturally etched on its leaves, the veins following the same pattern as the blood talisman in his palm. At the top of the seedling was a flower bud the size of a grain of rice, the bud undulating slightly as if breathing.

Lu Li reached out, his fingertips pausing just before touching the leaf.

The leaf swayed gently and pressed itself against his fingertips.

In an instant, a massive amount of information flooded my mind—not words, not images, but a more primal form of "cognition."

It is called "Blood Talisman Grass".

A strange plant that sprouts from the place where demons and evil spirits have dissipated, nourished by the lifeblood of a talisman master. Not recorded in the Classic of Mountains and Seas, it may be a newly born creature. Consuming its flower can temporarily heal serious injuries, but from then on, one will be entangled in a causal relationship with the demon that gave birth to it. If the demon is not completely destroyed, the injury will never be truly healed.

Lu Li looked at the tiny flower bud, then at the seven or eight wounds on his body that could cripple him, and smiled.

He picked a flower bud and threw it into his mouth.

There was no taste, only a surge of intense heat that exploded in his throat, instantly engulfing his limbs and bones. A tingling, itchy sensation spread from the broken bones, the torn wounds began to close, and the lost strength slowly returned to his body. At the same time, on the back of his right shoulder, beneath the skin that had just been brushed by the demonic black energy, a black mark the size of a fingernail appeared, shaped like a closed eye.

The voices in the distance grew closer. Lu Li glanced one last time at the broken tombstone, then turned and disappeared into the deeper shadows of the desolate grave. He ran very fast, his steps light and agile, unlike someone who had just recovered from serious injuries. But with each step, the black mark on his shoulder would throb slightly, as if marking something.

Behind him, the Blood Talisman Grass withered and turned to ash, scattering away in the wind.

On the inscription, the blood-red words "The seal has been broken, report immediately to the demon-hunting guards" have quietly faded away, leaving no trace.

It was as if no one had ever written a warning, and the crisis had already passed.

At this moment, atop the bell tower of Bailu Academy, an old man in a blue robe stood with his hands behind his back, gazing at the fading remnants of fortune in the direction of the desolate grave, his brows furrowed.

"The spirit of the monument awakened, only to vanish in an instant..." He stroked his beard, muttering to himself, "Was it that kid? Or something else?"

Footsteps sounded behind him, and a disciple bowed respectfully: "Master Xun, the night patrol reports that there are indeed signs of unusual activity in the abandoned graveyard, but no trace of demonic energy has been found. Should we send more men to search?"

Xun Wenruo remained silent for a long time.

"No need." He finally shook his head. "Pass down the order: tomorrow at dawn, all disciples of the academy shall assemble in the Classics and History Hall for an examination on the chapters of the Classic of Mountains and Seas, Northern Mountains Classic."

"Sir?" the disciple asked in surprise, "Isn't this... a bit too hasty?"

"Just do as I say." Xun Wenruo turned around, his blue robe fluttering in the night wind. "Some fish... will only show their faces in muddy waters."

His gaze fell on the simple houses where poor students lived on the west side of the academy.

In one of the rooms, an oil lamp had just been lit in the window.

In the flickering lamplight, Lu Li unfolded the tattered scroll of animal skin. By the dim light, he looked at the line of small print on page thirty-seven, next to the totem he had completed a third of: [Image of the previous text].

"When the blood talisman was created, the cause and effect began."

All that the talisman master sees is bait.

Outside the window, the blood moon was setting in the west.

Further away, on the vast land of Kyushu, the inscriptions on the steles of eight other sealed-off areas simultaneously emitted a faint, almost imperceptible glow.

The tide of fortune in the Great Wilderness, which had lasted for three hundred years, began to ripple three years and seven months ahead of schedule on this night.

The person who threw the first stone stared at the healed wound on his palm, which still bore a golden scar, and softly recited the second line of the four-line verse from the incomplete title page:

"All souls are laid to rest."

He didn't know what the next two sentences meant.

But the black mark on his shoulder suddenly felt as hot as a branding iron.