I just became the Pirate King, and you're telling me I also time-traveled at the same time.

Chapter 1079 Light Has No Temperature

Her body was trembling, not from the cold, but from fear. The person in the ochre robe didn't even look at her; she just lay there, afraid to raise her head, afraid to move, afraid to breathe.

"This month's payment," the man in the ochre robe spoke. His voice was indistinguishable from a normal person's—neither high nor low, neither rough nor fine, devoid of emotion or inflection, like a machine tuned to a specific pitch. "Not enough."

The middle-aged woman lay prone on the ground, her voice squeezing out from between the soil and pebbles: "The harvest was bad... nothing is growing in the fields... the grass has all dried up... there's really nothing left..."

The figure in the ochre robe did not respond. His eyes remained closed, his face expressionless, like a statue enshrined in a temple, unable to hear the pleas of mortals, unable to see their tears.

The middle-aged woman looked up, her forehead covered in dirt and small pebbles, a small scrape from which a trickle of blood seeped. She stared at the object, her lips trembling, her voice trembling, her whole body shaking.

"Please...give me a few more days...I'll go borrow it...I'll go borrow it..."

"We can't borrow any more." The man in the ochre-red robe said these three words in the exact same tone as when he said "not enough," without any change. "This month, your family's tribute was already less than others. Less is less, there's no leniency."

He raised his right hand.

The moment that hand emerged from the sleeve of the robe, Su Wanwan smelled a scent. It wasn't a foul odor, nor a pleasant one; it was an indescribable smell, like something burning but not wood or oil. The scent reminded her of incense in a temple, but it was different—the smell of incense was comforting, while this smell was nauseating.

He brought his right index and middle fingers together and flicked them lightly.

A scream came from the main room.

The little girl was pulled out of the main room by an invisible force, her feet off the ground, her body floating in the air like a leaf caught in the wind. She was still holding the orange cat in her arms, which had also been startled awake. Its fur stood on end, its tail grew three times thicker, and its four paws gripped the little girl's clothes tightly, its nails digging into the fabric fibers, refusing to let go.

The little girl didn't cry. She was pulled to the courtyard gate by that force, hovering three feet off the ground in front of the figure in the ochre robe, looking directly at the wax-like face. She looked at that face; the eyes were as big as deep wells, the water was black, but something was burning at the bottom.

The person in the ochre-red robe extended their left hand, not by flicking, but by opening their palm with the palm facing upwards.

"Come here," he said.

The little girl leaned forward an inch.

The middle-aged woman knelt on the ground and let out a scream that was not human. The sound was squeezed out from the deepest part of her throat, tearing through all the tissues along its path, streaked with blood and phlegm, slamming against the courtyard wall, bouncing back, and reverberating back and forth in the yard.

Su Wanwan's tail was fully outstretched. Her moonlight surged from within her, forming a silvery-white halo around her. A low growl rumbled in the white wolf's throat; its front legs were bent, and its hind legs were taut, ready to pounce at any moment.

But some people are faster than them.

When Chu Yang stood up from the dry grass, Su Wanwan didn't even see him stand up. One moment he was lying on the dry grass, and the next he was standing at the courtyard gate, in front of the middle-aged woman, below the little girl, and opposite the person in the ochre robe.

He was half a head shorter than the thing, but his shadow was twice as long.

"Put her down," Chu Yang said.

The figure in the ochre robe kept his eyes closed and remained motionless. His left hand was still outstretched, palm up, like a bowl waiting for food to fall. His right hand was still hanging at his side, index and middle fingers together, fingertips pointing towards the ground, like an unlit candle.

"You're just passing through," said the man in the ochre robe, not as a question, but as a statement. "Passersby shouldn't concern themselves with local affairs. That's the rule."

Chu Yang didn't respond. He repeated, "Put her down."

The figure in the ochre-red robe tilted his head slightly, at a very small angle, so small that Su Wanwan wouldn't have noticed if she hadn't been watching him closely. That head tilt seemed like something inside him loosened, or perhaps it was confirming something.

“You’re not a local,” he said. “You don’t know the rules here. The offerings to Shiva cannot be less. If they are less, someone has to make up for it. This is the rule, established hundreds of years ago. You’re just passing through; you can’t change it.”

Chu Yang finally moved. He took a step forward, a small step, just enough to place him directly below the little girl. He looked up at the little girl suspended in mid-air, and she looked down at him. In her unusually large eyes, the fire at the bottom of the well was still burning, unextinguished, neither blown out by the thing in the ochre robe nor extinguished by the fear of being suspended in mid-air.

Chu Yang withdrew his gaze and looked at the person wearing an ochre-red robe.

"I won't change your rules," he said. "I'll only change your outcome today."

The expression on the face of the man in the ochre robe finally changed slightly. It wasn't anger, nor fear, but confusion. He had lived for hundreds of years, received hundreds of tributes, seen beggars, cries, escapes, and resistance, but he had never seen anyone stand before him and speak in such a tone. It wasn't negotiation, pleading, or a threat; it was a very calm, unwavering certainty, like saying, "The weather's bad today, so I'm not going out."

"You can't change," said the person in the ochre robe, raising their left hand an inch higher.

The little girl's body floated another foot upwards. The orange cat's claws finally gave way, slipping from her clothes. Its four paws flared futilely in the air a few times before falling. The white wolf rushed forward and caught the orange cat on its back. The orange cat landed on the white wolf's back, its four paws gripping his fur tightly. The white wolf bared its teeth at the cat's grip, but didn't shake it off.

The right hand of the creature in the ochre-red robe finally moved.

He raised his index and middle fingers from their drooping position, pointing them at Chu Yang. As those two fingers traced a dark red mark in the air, it was like a stroke drawn on rice paper with a brush dipped in cinnabar. The mark did not dissipate but solidified in the air, like a thin, dark red line.

One end of the thread was connected to the fingers of the person wearing an ochre-red robe, while the other end drifted toward Chu Yang's chest.

Chu Yang didn't dodge. He stretched out his right hand, fingers spread, and grasped the dark red thread just as it was about to touch his chest. He didn't grab the end of the thread, but rather held a section of it with his entire hand. The dark red thread throbbed violently in his palm, like a snake whose vital point had been pinched, its body twisting wildly in the air, emitting a sharp, whistling sound like fingernails scraping against glass.

The fingers of the person in the ochre-red robe froze.

A second expression finally appeared on his face—not confusion, but surprise. His eyes, beneath his closed ones, darted around rapidly, as if observing him through some means unseen by Chu Yang. He observed for a few moments, then slowly, inch by inch, he withdrew his left hand, which had been outstretched, waiting for the little girl to fall.

The little girl's body began to fall. Not by falling, but slowly, like a feather. Chu Yang released his right hand, and the dark red thread slipped from his palm, retracting into the fingers of the man in the ochre-red robe, like a startled snake slithering back into its hole. Chu Yang reached out and caught the little girl, placing her on the ground. Once she was steady, the first thing the little girl did wasn't to cry or run, but to go find her cat. She saw the orange cat perched on the white wolf's back, washing its face with one paw, and her heart settled. Only then did she raise her head to look at Chu Yang.

"Thank you," she said, her voice still soft, but with something more than when she told Su Wanwan "I don't want it" last night.

The figure in the ochre-red robe stood rooted to the spot, his right hand hanging at his side, index and middle fingers pressed together, the fingertips trembling slightly. His expression changed again, from surprise to something else entirely. Su Wanwan couldn't quite place it; it wasn't anger, nor fear, but an expression she had never seen on the face of any living being. It took her a long time to realize that expression was—unrecognition. He had lived in this world for hundreds of years, receiving offerings for hundreds of years, and had never encountered anything like "having one's lifeline held in someone's hand." He didn't recognize this event, this person, or this power. In his centuries of experience, he hadn't prepared any contingency plan for this situation.

He said nothing more, turned around, and left. His ochre-red robe fluttered in the morning breeze, like a charred cloud, drifting through the alley, past the crooked old tree, past the village entrance, and into the distant, gray-yellow wasteland. Su Wanwan stood at the courtyard gate, watching the ochre-red patch grow smaller and smaller, farther and farther away, until it became a tiny dark red dot, like a drop of blood falling onto gray-yellow paper, slowly spreading, and then evaporating in the sunlight.

The middle-aged woman remained kneeling on the ground. She didn't stand up, not because she couldn't, but because her legs wouldn't obey her. It wasn't fear, but a release—the tension that had been building since yesterday, all night, and into this morning, snapped the moment the figure in the ochre robe turned and left. Her body lay limp on the ground like a skeleton removed, her forehead still pressed against the dirt, warmed by her body heat.

The old woman walked in from outside the courtyard gate, tossed the uneven hemp rope in her hand into the corner of the wall, squatted down, and helped the middle-aged woman up from the ground. She was more than half a head shorter than the middle-aged woman and as thin as a stick, but her movements were very steady as if she had done it many times before.

"Get up," she said. "It's alright. A passerby took care of it."

The middle-aged woman leaned against her, still trembling, but the shaking had lessened considerably. Her face was buried in the old woman's shoulder, her shoulders heaving as she cried, but silently. The old woman patted her back slowly, one pat at a time, like soothing a child having a nightmare.

The little girl stood in the yard, hugging the orange cat, looking at her mother and grandmother. She didn't go over, nor did she cry. She just stood there, hugging the orange cat even tighter. The orange cat felt uncomfortable being squeezed and twisted its body, but didn't break free, because it could feel the little girl's hands trembling.

The white wolf crouched at Su Wanwan's feet, tilting its head to look at the little girl. After a few moments, it stood up, slowly walked over, and nuzzled the little girl's leg with its head. The little girl looked down at it, reached out, and patted the white wolf's head. The white wolf's tail curled up.

Su Wanwan stood at the courtyard gate, watching the direction where the ochre-red dot disappeared, and withdrew the moonlight in her hand. Her five tails slowly drooped down behind her, the tips still carrying a trace of lingering silver-white light, like five incense sticks about to burn out.

Chu Yang stood beside her, his right hand hanging at his side, his palm slightly red, as if it had been burned by something. Su Wanwan looked down at his hand, pulled her handkerchief from her sleeve, and handed it to him. Chu Yang took it, didn't wipe his hands, folded the handkerchief twice, and stuffed it into his sleeve.

"...Aren't you going to wipe it?" Su Wanwan was stunned for a moment as she watched him stuff a handkerchief into his hand.

"Keep it," Chu Yang said.

"What's the point of keeping it?"

"For next time."

Su Wanwan opened her mouth, wanting to say, "That was for you to wipe your hands, what do you mean by keeping it for later?" But the words sounded too strange, so she swallowed them back. She bit her lip, swallowing the rest of her words, and only hummed, "Then remember to return it to me."

Chu Yang did not respond.

Sun Wukong leaned against the courtyard wall, his golden cudgel held upright at his side, his hands resting on the ends of the cudgel, his chin resting on the back of his hands. He stared at the direction where the ochre-red robe had disappeared, his eyes narrowed. The light shining through his narrowed eyes was not golden, but cold, like ice on a river in winter, reflecting the sunlight, but without warmth.

"That thing," he said, his voice not loud, but everyone in the courtyard heard him clearly, "is not a demon."

Tang Sanzang stood up from the threshold of the main room, closed the scriptures, tucked them into his sleeve, walked into the courtyard, and stood under the fig tree. He didn't look at Sun Wukong, nor at Chu Yang; he looked at the little girl in Su Wanwan's arms—no, Su Wanwan wasn't holding a little girl; the little girl was holding a cat and standing next to the white wolf.

"Wukong is right." Tang Sanzang's voice was calm, but Su Wanwan, who had been with him for so long, could hear what lay beneath that calm. It wasn't the calm of chanting sutras; it was the eerie, suffocating calm on the sea before a storm.

"That's not a demon," Tang Sanzang said, "it's an evil god."

He pronounced the word "evil god" very softly, as if it were a trivial matter. But Su Wanwan noticed that as he said it, his right thumb flicked the prayer beads three times, so quickly that she almost couldn't see it, but the sound of the beads clinking betrayed him—those three flicks were more than twice as forceful as he usually did. (End of Chapter)