act19mini

It will only hurt you if I let you leave this town...

Love... Hmph. None of you would know a thing about the love in my heart...

Time's up! Enough hiding things!

I'm sorry... but I'm just as clueless as you about this 'personification' technique.

Hate me if you must. Kill me if you like.

Asking me to darken my conscience, and lie to my students, though... never.

Mr. Pu, I have always respected you.

So don't blame me. You left me no choice.

Before the swordswoman's sword can fall, a blade flies in from outside, sending her skidding back with the might of a thunderclap.

Astutely, she realizes her foe's power is beyond the pale, and without a second thought, she vaults through the window and flees.

She ran...

Tianshi Lin... Did you hear all that?

Most of it. And I'd guessed most of it.

*sigh*...

I can believe you have troubles, sir, but I think you'll agree your actions prior to now have not been proper.

No objections, Tianshi Lin... Oh, I've made a fool of myself with this, a fool of myself...

But how did you know I was being held captive by...?

A talking broom showed me the way, while asking that I save you.

I don't know if anything can surprise me today.

Sit down, Tianshi Lin, have some tea.

And as he says it, a plate drags a teapot and teacup over, and tea is served.

Lin Qingyan just furrows her eyebrows at the sight.

These items...

They're the students of this school. And all of them are geists.

That explains the strangeness of the townsfolk I met today...

So is everyone in this town...?

Some are humans, some are geists. As for how many of each, I'm not sure myself, not anymore after all these years.

The town became this way a long, long time ago. None of what I told you earlier was a lie per se, Tianshi.

I've heard tell of possessed beings born out of Feranmut influence. But I've never seen a 'geist' with intellect approaching that of humankind.

Have you forgotten, Tianshi Lin, what rests nearby?

...The Tomb of Sui.

Correct.

We all know about the power of Feranmut incarnations to possess objects, and Sui was all too powerful. Even suppressed by the town for a millennium, the mere might that leeched out of the cracks of the earth sufficed to turn some things geistly.

Ordinary people should <i>never</i> know about any of that. Sir, are you...?

A Feranmutologist at the Sui Regulator. Decades ago, at that.

Life ends somewhere, and so does knowledge... My Feranmut studies were achingly incomplete, and the research had wicked away my own humanity. I handed in my resignation and left to live a secluded life in the mountains. That's when I found this town.

Decades ago, this town saw frequent possession incidents, which the Tianshi Bureau would send a Tianshi to quell if it felt like it.

But I had to feel sorry for geistkind, born into our secular realm not knowing up from down. And how steeped in humanity some were, their consciousness not so far from a human's.

Why simply watch them run amok and be crushed? Nothing stopped me from trying to teach them human rites and values. Maybe they'd even be able to coexist?

So little by little, this school came to be.

How noble of you.

No, no... I can't be prizing those words from a Tianshi's lips.

It's ridiculous on the face of it. I spend one half of my life on studying the 'bestial', and the other half on teaching the 'geistly' to be human, only to look back and realize I've half-baked both. What do I really know...?

Still, since sequestering away, I've come to find the little things oh so endearing.

I <i>had</i> thought this was how it'd be until my time was up.

But see, a few days ago, I received a letter.

A letter...?

'CLASSIFIED SCOOP, NOT FOR PRYING EYES'?

Someone claims to have gotten hold of a one-of-a-kind secret tome, penned personally by that Grandmaster of Yumen.

Rumor has it that Grandmaster is a Feranmut incarnate, but has the capacity to form himself a human's body. So analogously, the tome's teachings can allow geists to 'become human'.

Even Yumen is involved in this? That explains the incident Zuo Le mentioned.

Wait. Can this tome really make the 'geistly' human?

To be honest, I have no idea if that's true or not. But importantly, quite a number of geists believe it. And it's caused a great deal of unrest.

Are you suggesting the letter's writer aimed to sow unease in this town?

*sigh*... Hard to say, you know, hard to say...

All that I know, I've told you now. What are your plans, Tianshi Lin?

Matters of the bestial Sui are out of my job's scope. But as a Tianshi of the Tianshi Bureaus, geists hurting people is something I cannot overlook.

If whoever's orchestrating this has malevolence in mind, all the more reason to put my foot down.

That's good... I could tell you were the upstanding sort. I'm at ease knowing this investigation is in your hands.

Tianshi Lin... just one more thing.

Hu Jun's 'remains'. Could you hand them to me...?

Certainly...

Are you giving him a burial, sir?

A burial, yes, but it's not just a burial.

This study we're in... is the Hall of Morn and Eve. Every broken item that rests in here, once was Geist.

A geist does not live and die as a human does.

They come alive from humans' attachments to things; they perish when their vessel breaks or the attachment is rid.

If the broken vessel can be mended, perhaps one day, the spirit can manifest again.

So this teapot—no, Hu Jun here...?

Hu Jun's owner was a tea farmer here. He loved tea, and knew it through and through.

He used to clear a few mu of land in the mountains to plant tea. Every April before Qingming, when he picked and fried his leaves, he'd go around town ladling out wellwater as he pleased, and all of it filled with the fragrance of tea.

But he wasn't content. He devoted himself to finding the best tea under heaven, and the clearest spring water.

One year, he heard of the mothertree of Mount T'ien tea, by the southernmost border of Yan. With nary a goodbye, he hired a ship fleet and went south.

But once he was gone, he never came back.

A speck of that tea farmer's infatuation dwelt within this teapot, as it accompanied him day in and day out. Who can blame our Hu Jun, for wanting to leave the village so...

Was that tea farmer... a friend of yours?

From her bag, Lin Qingyan brings out a small box. Safekept within, there rest a teapot's shards.

My thanks, Tianshi...

Mr. Yun, I've been looking forward to meeting you.

I'm so, so sorry for keeping you. There were some mishaps along the way.

You said you wanted to tour this town first, yes? Has it satisfied you?

Of course! The people, and the whole character of the place, have really opened my eyes.

I apologize you had to wait for so long. How about we get going?

Right. Come with me.

Oh, wow... Now that's a pretty stone.

Ooh, it's got such a beautiful pattern, and it's really smooth. If I carve it a bit, I might be able to sell it at the market for a good price...

Say, my young friend, could you give that stone back to me?

Back to you? I found this stone in the river, what do you mean, back to you?

It's a stone I wanted to add to my garden that took me quite a lot of effort to find. I accidentally left it here as I was returning back.

If you give it back to me, then when my garden is restored, you can play there. How does that sound?

No, no, no. It's yours just because you said it's yours? I saw the stone here, and I picked it up first. That means it's mine.

*sigh* Such an unreasonable little rascal...

Alright, then how about this? I'll trade you some other treasure for that stone.

Name your price. Anything for the stone.

Really...? Then I want a hundred, no, a thousand...?

Forget hundreds or thousands. Millions, billions, enough fame and fortune to sustain you until you're old and gray will be yours, just like that.

You...

Do we have a deal?

No, no, no, the answer's still no.

People are always trying to take advantage. If you're okay with paying <i>that</i> much for this stone, it means it must be worth way more than that.