Chapter 25: A Desperate Counterattack

The Shared-Life Bird and Moru are both figures depicted in the murals of Torin Temple, while the Sixteen Vajra Dancers are unquestionably the finest and most masterful works in the temple’s murals. This group is located on either side of the eastern wall of the portico. The sixteen dancers raise their arms above their heads or press their palms together before their chests. Their expressions are delicate and alluring; they have slender waists, full breasts, exposed bellies, and skirts whose ribbons seem to flutter in the breeze. Their technique resembles the iron-wire and gossamer-line styles popular in the Western Regions between the third and fifth centuries. Their colors are soft and subdued, emerging and fading as though half veiled. They inherit the highest artistic realm of passion, savor, and sensual beauty from the aesthetic principles of ancient Indian dance and painting.

Madam Ge had adapted the murals of Torin Temple to create an illusion formation that trapped both the minds and bodies of her enemies. If Ding Jun had not possessed the **Heavenly Demon Disintegration** technique to protect him, he would have suffered a mental collapse and died long ago.

“Very good. You really are a... formidable opponent...” Madam Ge panted as she slowly lifted her hair and peeled away a gray human-skin mask, revealing her true face.

She looked only forty-five or forty-six. Her face was pale, and traces of blood stained the corners of her mouth. Only her long, slender eyes still radiated their old allure.

“Your illusions are even more powerful. None of us could imagine how you vanished from the cellar, or how you controlled the woman in the ice coffin and made her speak as though she had risen from the dead. It was all like one of David Copperfield’s tricks—eerie and unfathomable, yet possessing tremendous visual appeal. I believe your illusions could imprison anyone. If I had not happened to practice the **Heavenly Demon Disintegration**, I would be the one who died tonight, not you.” Ding Jun let out a long sigh.

He had assassinated his opponent, but felt no joy in victory. The victory had come far too dearly.

Madam Ge stared at Ding Jun, her eyes shifting with complicated emotions.

They were standing directly beneath the eastern wall of the portico where the Sixteen Vajra Dancers were painted. The figures in those murals, weathered by the passage of time, had suffered varying degrees of damage; many were mottled or incomplete. Yet it was precisely this that gave the murals such an overwhelming sense of historical weight that one could hardly bear to look at them directly.

“I understand now. This must have been... deliberately arranged by Master Shi...” Madam Ge said faintly, coughing blood.

Ding Jun did not understand. “What?”

Madam Ge smiled. The fine crow’s-feet at the corners of her eyes trembled gently, like ripples disturbing a dead well, revealing a singularly alluring charm. That expression existed only because of the name Master Shi.

“An illusion is like a magic trick. It must be performed in an environment that can be controlled, and it must have... someone on the inside. For example, when I vanished inside the cellar, an accomplice deliberately damaged the power lines, drawing everyone’s attention to the electric light overhead. I slipped into the ice coffin in an instant. My accomplice was Master Shi... So when he sent people to search everywhere, he was merely putting on a show. Once everyone else had left, I could come and go freely through the small door.

“As for the corpse rising and speaking, he ordered me to do that. His purpose was to lure everyone into the cellar and wipe them all out. Strange, isn’t it? The killer and the prey were on the same side, while you helpers became the targets to be hunted down...”

Ding Jun could only offer a succession of bitter smiles.

Madam Ge lowered her head and stared at the sword hilt protruding from her chest. Suddenly, she let out a blood-choked sigh.

“I did so much for him. I even betrayed the Ten-Day Eagles and betrayed Guge... But why was he so heartless? Why did he cast me aside like a useless chess piece? We had agreed that once everyone entered the cellar, he would drop the dragon-severing stone and release poison gas, killing them all, then rescue me. But we nearly suffocated to death in there. After you escaped from the cellar, I escaped too and called him. He ordered me to set up an illusion formation around the Scripture Repository and attack you... He knew perfectly well that you had practiced the **Heavenly Demon Disintegration**, the most direct counter to ancient Persian illusions... He meant to send me to my death, didn’t he? Didn’t he? Didn’t he?”

Ding Jun was speechless. At last, he realized that everyone had been deceived, and that the true instigator was Master Shi, who had presented himself as a weak and helpless man.

“Where were you when the dragon-severing stone fell?” he asked.

“I was the corpse. I had merely used an advanced art of disguise and the Tortoise-Breathing technique, so you couldn’t determine whether it was real or false. You could never have imagined that Master Shi would be my accomplice. All the confusion was deliberately created by him...”

“Where did Master Shi go?” Ding Jun’s thoughts were in turmoil. This was a genuine reversal, and every relationship between friend and foe had to be redefined.

“I don’t know. He left me here to deal with you precisely so that I would die. As for a dead woman... would he still tell the truth?” Madam Ge laughed bitterly again and again. Blood flowing from the corners of her mouth soaked half her clothes.

Ding Jun stepped back. He knew Madam Ge was already a pitiful puppet, but there was nothing he could do.

“Fifteen years ago, I followed the envoy to Zanda County. I personally witnessed Master Shi deceive her, conceal the truth from her, and trick the secrets of Guge out of her. Then his wife suddenly drew her blade and killed the envoy. Fifteen years later, I made the same mistake as that envoy. I fell for him again, surrendering to his honeyed words, willingly becoming his accomplice and his slave... He is the true master of illusion. He can control everyone’s thoughts and make them serve his will. You, me... and countless others have all been bewitched by him... But what does he really want...?”

Ding Jun could not help asking himself the same question. Indeed, why had Master Shi done all this? What was his ultimate goal?

Suddenly, he thought of the jade tablet inside the ice coffin and asked urgently, “What use is that jade tablet? The Guge envoy brought the Ten-Day Eagles here for the jade tablet and the three lives, didn’t he?”

Madam Ge struggled to raise her head and drew breath with difficulty.

“I don’t know... The Ten-Day Eagles are merely peripheral members of Guge. Miss Xue... Miss Xue is the one who... who...”

Suddenly, a gust of wind swept past. A middle-aged man wearing an ocher cloak came riding upon it, his eyes fixed on Ding Jun with an air of murderous brutality.

“What a fine place.”

Every word the man spoke seemed to be torn from between his teeth, carrying a chill that made the skin crawl.

“To die here would be like dying in the gentle embrace of women. I have examined the place. This is the most relaxing and delightful spot in all of Torin Temple, the place most capable of bringing peace to body and mind. Everyone must die eventually, so choosing a good place and a good way to die is important. Only people who truly understand the taste of life and the realm of the mind can appreciate that. Without question, you and I are such people.”

Ding Jun straightened his back and cast aside all the doubts and distractions Madam Ge had brought him. He devoted himself entirely to facing this sinister, cunning man, who resembled a jackal.

The man’s rectangular face was ocher as well. Even his eyes, eyelids, and eyebrows were an ugly ocher, like those of a full-grown lizard that had just crawled out of the earthen forest.

“Who are you?” Ding Jun asked.

“Ha. That isn’t important—not in the slightest. What matters now is that you must choose how to die. Dawn is almost here, and we have little time left.” The man bared his teeth. His ocher tongue emerged and licked his cracked lips. “I need your blood as desperately as parched earth needs rain. So before we say goodbye, I must thank you.”

He bent his knees and crouched, crossing his ten fingers and half-clenching his fists against his chest. Then he gave Ding Jun a strange bow.

Ding Jun smiled faintly and stepped back, gathering his concentration as he watched the man.

“This is the highest courtesy of a sorcerer. I know you are an extremely powerful opponent. Old Jin once said that you were as unfathomable as an ancient glacier and as unstoppable as a great avalanche in the Himalayas. Excellent. You are exactly the kind of supreme opponent I need to temper a sorcerer’s spiritual energy.”

The man stuck out his tongue again. This time he did not lick his lips or draw it back. Instead, he clamped it tightly between his upper and lower rows of teeth, making himself look both terrifying and ridiculous.

Suddenly, the man moved. His yellow cloak spread open like a sail filled with wind.

After five sharp ripping sounds, the cloak split apart and became five strips of cloth fluttering in the air. The man flashed forward, and the strips wound counterclockwise around Ding Jun, binding his neck, both arms, and both legs. It was as though the torn cloak had transferred itself from the man’s body to Ding Jun’s without leaving the slightest trace.

The two bodies touched for one ten-thousandth of a second, like two magnets of the same pole repelling each other. They separated instantly, faster than lightning or thunder.

“In about five more seconds, these Soul-Rending Banners, soaked in a special medicinal solution, will generate tremendous tension. Once your body has been stretched to a certain degree, they will undergo a series of tiny explosions, tearing the surfaces where your limbs join your torso. Under the combined force from within and without, you will be ripped apart like a man dismembered by five horses in ancient times.”

The man clapped his hands lightly and sighed with lingering satisfaction.

“But is the Hunter King, Ding Jun, really going to die like this? I’m a little surprised. I still have several follow-up techniques I haven’t used... What a pity. What a pity!”

Ding Jun sighed. “I may not know your name, but I know that you were the one who killed Shi Hai.”

“That’s right. It happened so long ago that I’ve almost forgotten it. Afghanistan has too much wind and sand and too few people. You can’t find a proper place to kill anyone there. How could it compare with Torin Temple? Look at them—the Sixteen Vajra Dancers are all astonishingly beautiful, as if, with one blink of the eye, they might emerge from the murals and sway toward us in seductive grace...”

The man pointed toward the dancer whose palms were pressed together before her chest.

“Look at her. Her eyes are lively and expressive, gazing to the side as though she has discovered some priceless treasure...”

Imitating the figure in the mural, he pressed both palms over his chest and turned his head toward the lower left. Suddenly, he let out a startled cry.

In an instant, blood gushed through the gaps between his fingers, as though a spring of blood had erupted from within him.

“That mural... the eyes in that mural...” He turned toward Madam Ge and shouted twice in incoherent panic. His knees gave way, and he collapsed against the mural, kneeling.

“You killed Shi Hai. You deserved to die long ago. So I had no choice but to stop killing with killing.”

Ding Jun swept his hand coldly. The strips of cloth, no longer controlled by the man’s sorcery, fell away and writhed like dead snakes.

“What kind of martial art is that? I didn’t feel myself being injured at all...” The man opened his hands. A perfectly symmetrical cross-shaped wound, each arm half a foot long, had appeared across his chest.

Ding Jun crouched and stared into his eyes.

“I used the Crossed-Blade technique, Chapter Nine of the Delta Force’s one-strike killing methods. But I wasn’t using a tactical straight knife. I was using another kind of blade—an invisible one. Since the blade was invisible, naturally you couldn’t feel it.

“Ever since I saw Shi Hai’s corpse, I swore a solemn oath that one day I would avenge him with my own hands. In truth, I don’t need to know your name. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, blood for blood, killing for killing—that is the principle of war. Do you understand?”

“I understand. I understand. But your killing me does not mean you are the final victor. You have no idea why we hunted Shi Hai... Hahaha! Do you know how ridiculous you are? Ridiculous beyond measure! The faith and solemn oath you have struggled to defend are wrong in every possible way... One day, one day you will... understand that you never stood on the side of justice. Hahahaha...”

The man laughed wildly as blood spurted from his seven orifices, contorting his face into a hideous mask.

His words were strange, casting another layer of gray shadow over the doubts in Ding Jun’s mind.

“Why did you kill Shi Hai?” Ding Jun murmured.

“Cough, cough... cough... You... you should ask Master Shi... Cough, cough, cough... Go and ask him. You will surely receive the most perfect answer...”

The man spat out one final mouthful of blood, lowered his head, and stopped breathing.