Nightfall

The Return of an Old Friend

The West-Hill palace was not an Unknown Place like the Zhishou Abbey or the Xuankong Temple, but still it was secluded from the mortal world. In common believers’ eyes, it was the Kingdom of God seated in the mortal world. Horse carriages were running fast towards it from the foot of the mountain, seemingly bringing messages from the mortal world. Nobody would laugh at that.

The priests and deacons started checking. Not surprisingly, they saw high-level ID tokens, and when they found these cavalry soldiers and carriages were from Chang’an, they grew more anxious. They looked at each other with shock and confusion in their eyes, “Is war really coming back?”

Guarded by the cavalryman of the Divine Hall, the carriages were driven to the Peach Mountain, leaving dust behind, and it didn’t stop until it reached the Divine Hall of Light at the cliff’s platform.

The two girls in white clapped their hands gently.

Ten more deacons walked out of one side of the Divine Palace, carrying black cloth piled as high as mountains. Then, they stretched it to the front of the palace. The black cloth was very long, almost the height of three people. The whole square was enclosed by the black curtain, and people could barely see into the square even if they were at the white palace, seated at the peak of Peach Mountain.

At present, there were only cavalry soldiers and carriages inside the black curtain enclosure. Those who had just finished the long journey didn’t care to salute the two girls in white. They opened the carriage door and supported the man coming out of it.

The girl in white looked at the priest in charge of the mission and asked with a childish voice, “Are you sure there’s nothing wrong?”

The priest turned grave and said, “Of course not. We’ve used the connection with our old friends in the Southern Gate Temple, and surely the man has been staying in Lin 47th Street for all these years.”

The girl in white looked at the middle-aged man beside the carriage, and nodded in satisfaction.

The clothes covered by oil stains and the hands full of scars indicated the man’s identity as an ordinary person. He was extremely nervous like everybody would be. He had been an ordinary Chang’an citizen, and someone deceived him and brought him to the suburbs, then, he was dragged away. They traveled day and night. Finally he had gotten off the carriage, only to find he had reached the Kingdom of God for Haotian believers, the West-Hill Palace. He could barely support himself beside the carriage.

He should be excited except for the fear and confusion as a Haotian believer coming to the West-Hill Palace. However, given the war with Tang which had just ended, he could barely believe anything nice was in store for him.

The other girl in white asked the priest, “Did you bring the other thing back?”

This priest was the most loyal subordinate of the Divine Hall of Light, and he didn’t even know what mission he had been carrying on until now, but he could at least guess that this was about the Divine Hall’s biggest secret.

He took a few careful steps forward and took out a cloth package, whispering, “The tomb is too close to the Academy, so we had to be careful. The Old Brush Pen Shop was guarded and the yard wall had been pulled down months ago. Fortunately, that thing was just under the broken bricks, and nobody had found it. We made some efforts and finally brought in back.”

He said like it was easy, but everyone knew how much it would take for men of the West-Hill Palace to sneak into Chang’an, and to smuggle that thing out of the Old Brush Pen Shop.

The girl in white took over the package. Her hand went downward a little because of the heaviness. She said nothing to all the other companions, and signaled all subordinates to get out of the black curtain. Then she walked towards the absentminded man, and said, “Let’s get started.”