Chapter Fifty-Two: The Deceitful Demon Hu Silences His Tongue

In the city of Chang’an, no place was more bustling than Rouge Alley near the Furong Garden. Just two streets away stood the imperial palace, and it was common to see palace attendants come out to purchase rouge, spices, scholarly supplies, and rare medicinal treasures. They never went anywhere else—always to Rouge Alley. Each shopping trip meant over a dozen carts piled high with goods, almost always from the same few shops, all pre-ordered and ready for pickup.

But truly, those who lingered in this area were rarely the colorfully dressed, affected palace attendants. Instead, it was the cherished mistresses of the powerful and noble who frequented these lanes. After all, these women were young and rich.

In the Tang dynasty, what mistress was not youthful, alluring, adept at music, chess, calligraphy, painting, and skilled in all manner of social arts? Yet with their patrons preoccupied with affairs of state, these women could do little but arrange flowers or plant willows to while away their idle days. Over time, they sought relief from their ennui by spending lavishly in Rouge Alley.

“The world is going downhill, people’s morals are not what they were. These respectable women spend silver like water, even more extravagantly than the courtesans and songstresses,” sighed Li Yishan, squatting under a large willow tree at the entrance to Rouge Alley, a giant wine gourd in hand. His head shook in lament, which made the young nun beside him puff out her cheeks in irritation.

“Uncle Yishan, could you please complain a little less? Your griping is making me— cough, making this humble nun hungry,” the young nun could hold her tongue no longer and shot back at him.

“Where do you suppose that rascal He Chang’an has gone?” Li Yishan frowned slightly, his left hand moving swiftly through signs as he calculated.

“Maybe someone killed him?” the young nun suggested.

“Impossible. That kid has good fortune; his face doesn’t foretell an early death,” Li Yishan replied with certainty.

“In these troubled times, what use is fortune?” The nun sounded discouraged and sat herself down with a thud, listlessly eyeing the bejeweled, shapely ‘respectable ladies’ passing by. “I don’t know much about your bone-reading skills, but your aura-reading is really nothing special...”

“My aura-reading—well, there’s no point explaining. You wouldn’t understand,” Li Yishan said, taking a large swig of cheap wine and grinning. “Just wait and see. That He Chang’an will surely—”

“Enough, enough. Every time you talk so confidently, but isn’t it always the same? You get accused of swindling and chased by creditors everywhere you go.” The young nun, now irked, kicked hard and sent a fist-sized stone flying.

The stone spun through the air, tumbled for twenty or thirty steps, and crashed straight into the ankle of one of the ‘respectable ladies.’

“Ow!”

With a plaintive cry, the woman, her composure forgotten, clutched her ankle and rolled on the ground, cursing colorfully:

“Who the hell threw that rock? Are you stupid or just addled from too much bedding? You—may you be ridden by a thousand, trampled by ten thousand—”

All elegance and poise vanished, her shapely form now contorted by pain and the undignified thrashing about.

The young nun, incensed, pulled out her wooden fish drum, ready to recite the Six-Syllable Mantra and subdue the woman on the spot.

“Auntie, we’d best run!” Li Yishan, seeing trouble brewing, barked, “Within a hundred paces of this place, judge yourself by the standards you hold for others!”

With that, he dragged the young nun into a nearby quiet alley, swiftly making their escape.

Back in Rouge Alley, within a hundred paces, the lingering glow of righteous energy had not yet faded. The ‘respectable ladies’ all seemed dazed and began to mutter self-reproach:

“Oh, what misfortune! I hurt my own ankle—how could I insult others? I am the eighth mistress of the Minister of Rites—how can I behave like a fishwife and disgrace propriety…”

“Lord Mi, I’m sorry. I spend your silver, enjoy your favors, and yet I foolishly keep those charming but useless scholars…”

“Alas, my dear, it’s not that I mind your shortcomings—it’s just that you’re too soft…”

All at once, the air was filled with the melodious, murmured regrets of many ladies.

…

Beneath the pitch-black Demon Suppression Tower, He Chang’an was either freeloading or on his way to do so. Along the way, he had even managed to switch professions and become something of an actor.

Each time he ‘subdued’ a demon or ghost, he would reverse the flow of spiritual energy, making himself appear deathly pale and trembling all over. Sometimes he’d even foam at the mouth and convulse on the ground, until the other demon-slayers had to carry him away.

But what both delighted and worried Chen Double-Blades was that no matter how much evil energy entered his body—no matter how close to death he seemed—He Chang’an would miraculously recover within a few hours after swallowing various expensive pills.

Chen Double-Blades could not figure it out.

Still, since there was no urgent pressure from above, he was happy to keep ‘profiting’ from He Chang’an’s merits, driving the price ever lower to line his own pockets.

Merit points were hard currency in the Demon-Slaying Office. Not only could they be exchanged for cultivation techniques, magical tools, pills, and other daily necessities, but advancing in level or rank also depended on accumulating merit points.

Yet for He Chang’an, as long as he could live in peace, he was more than content to absorb the demonic and ghostly energies he could ‘freeload’ each day.

In just a few days, his Breath-Absorbing Technique had broken through another bottleneck, reaching level twenty-five.

By his reckoning, with his current strength, he could easily defeat ten or so of those Mr. Ma types with one hand…

…

This time, Chen Double-Blades assigned He Chang’an a demon as his target.

A demon of falsehoods—Hu Buyan.

Hearing the name, He Chang’an was baffled, unsure what kind of creature he was about to face, so he steeled himself for anything. Standing at the entrance to the dungeon, he peered inside and was taken aback.

The so-called ‘Demon of Falsehoods, Hu Buyan’ turned out to be a refined scholar—elegant, composed, and lean of face. Even chained to a stone pillar with rune-inscribed iron piercing his collarbone, battered and suspended in the damp cell, he still exuded an unmistakable scholarly aura.

‘Is this a demon?’

He Chang’an observed quietly, analyzing the situation, doubts swirling in his mind about whether the Demon-Slaying Office of Great Tang truly understood how to classify monsters and demons.

After all, he now had a fair grasp of the subject, no longer a complete novice. The Demon-Slayer’s Handbook spelled it out:

So-called demons were non-human spirits—essences of things—who considered human souls and flesh delicacies, sworn enemies of humanity.

So-called monsters were once human, but broke with the human way, akin to the ‘fallen angels’ or ‘devils’ of later ages: everywhere, ever-present, the greatest foes of human cultivators.

Ghosts were the souls of the dead, with specters and phantoms falling under this category.

As for spirits, they were the strange beings neither fully human nor entirely inanimate—by his own reckoning, trees and stones that absorbed the essence of heaven and earth and gained some consciousness…

Of course, in reality, all demons, monsters, and ghosts could change forms under certain conditions.

A ghost, for instance, could become a benevolent spirit or a ghostly immortal, or, if it turned bloodthirsty, fall into the demonic path…

So it went.

‘A scholar turned demon—I’ve heard of it, but never seen one. This Demon of Falsehoods, Hu Buyan, truly merits further study…’

“Young man, the righteous energy within you carries the breath of a sage,” Hu Buyan said suddenly, a gentle smile on his lips. “Alas, how greatly I have declined—long has it been since I dreamed of the Duke of Zhou!”

Good grief, quoting Confucius right out of the gate—now what?