The miasma of Southern Xinjiang, carrying the cloying sweetness of rotting leaves and medicinal herbs, clung to Ye Fan's brow as he walked across the dew-drenched blue stone slab toward the bamboo pavilion deep in the clouds and mist. The Old Sorcerer's village was tucked away in the folds of the Ten Thousand Great Mountains; the bamboo pavilions of some twenty-odd households flickered in and out of the fog like dead leaves soaked in a teacup, and even the sounds of chickens and dogs were muffled by a layer of damp cotton.
He stopped under the old banyan tree at the village entrance. Seven or eight faded ox skulls hung among the branches, each eye socket embedded with a night-pearl that swayed in the mountain wind, casting a ghostly glow across the sword tassel at his waist tied by Lin Zhaoyue—woven from the ice-silkworms atop Cangwu Mountain, it now felt heavy, saturated with the miasma.
"Outlander," a hoarse voice came from behind the tree.
Chapter 212