Guardian Readalong: Vol. 2, Chapter 19

[facethestrange]

Hi, and welcome to this week's installment of the Guardian novel readalong - we have reached the end of volume two! ♡

Here are last week's chapters, and you can find all previous discussions in the schedule posts (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4), or via the !readalong tag.

This week's chapter:

• Chapter 19: (The whole chapter consists of Zhao Yunlan's memories of what he experienced in the Great Divine Tree.) Zhao Yunlan finds the Merit Brush, and sees Pangu creating the world. He remembers Kunlun's childhood, which includes raising a black cat yao and making a bell for him. Nüwa creates humans, and Kunlun points out that they are tainted with the three worms, making Nüwa regret her creation. Nüwa and Fuxi create the Great Seal. Great wars are raging. Kunlun agrees to look after the wu and the yao. Kunlun blinds a dragon, making the god Gonggong crash into the Buzhou Mountain and tear a hole in the Great Seal. The gui break free. Kunlun destroys the Pillars of Heaven, earning divine punishment and causing deadly floods. Kunlun meets the young King of the Gui. Nüwa repairs the sky and the Great Seal. Kunlun gives the young King of the Gui his soul fire and his tendon, making him into a god, and asks him to guard the Four Pillars. Kunlun dies and becomes the Soul-Guarding Lamp. Zhao Yunlan wakes up from his vision back in Dragon City.
  

The corresponding chapters in the Chinese version on JJWXC/the fan translation are 76-78.


Excerpts:

1) Kunlun's childhood and his little yao friend

At that point, Zhao Yunlan’s memories became jumbled. On the one hand, he knew where he’d come from. He kept a firm grip on the Merit Brush. On the other hand, he now remembered being an unruly brat who had run and frolicked all over the mountains, causing mischief wherever he went.

He had hugged the Great God Fuxi’s tail…while peeing on it. The phoenix that had once perched upon the Great Divine Tree had been forced to move because of his antics, and from then on, it only perched atop parasol trees.

Sometime later, Nüwa found a tiny newborn beast from somewhere—a mutant mutt of the White Tiger tribe, covered in black fuzz from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail. He had yet to gain awareness and had been rejected by his own tribe, so he was placed in Kunlun’s care.

The poor little thing was very weak. Surrounded by the eternal ice on Kunlun Mountain, he seemed likely to die at any moment. It was the first time Kunlun-jun had seen such a troublesome little thing. Seeing no other choice, he personally melted some golden sand and crafted a bell to anchor the tiny beast’s soul and open his mind. Then he hung the bell around the beast’s neck.



2) Nüwa creates humans

Kunlun walked over carefully. He and the mud person Nüwa had just made stared at each other for some time. He watched as the human grew from a child to a youth in the blink of an eye. The youth worshipped him with reverence and awe, but before they could even rise from their bow, middle age was upon them. Next, they began to shed their head of black hair, which was now frosted white. Finally, they collapsed in abject weariness and rejoined the mud from which they’d come.

It was a life as fleeting as fire and smoke.

An unspeakable envy suddenly bloomed in Kunlun-jun’s heart. Perhaps because his own time was beyond measure, he was somewhat jealous of these brilliant lives that burned with the brightness of a meteor. He scooped up some mud in his hands. “What are they called?”

Nüwa said, “These are humans.”

Without considering his words, Kunlun replied, “How lovely they are. They carry the scent of mud with them.”

Hearing that, Nüwa’s expression transformed. For an instant, her features twisted as though she were consumed with shock and panic.

But Kunlun was still young. What did he know beyond rampaging around the Great Divine Tree with his furball cat, causing trouble? How could he have looked at her gaze and grasped that in that moment, she had perceived that innumerous trials and calamities lay ahead?

Humans were born from mud, through which the Chaotic evil beneath the ground was able to enter them and become the three worms.



3) Kunlun and the young King of the Gui's first meeting

The higher-ranked any individual gui was, the closer they seemed to human. At the top were the Kings of the Gui: ethereally lovely, like flowers blooming in blood. The more blood-tainted they were, the greater their beauty.

Legend told that two such kings had existed beneath the Great Seal, peerless and unique. Considered in a certain light, the pair of them were even more precious than the Three Sovereigns in the Mortal Realm. What a coincidence, then, that when Kunlun-jun passed through the forest where Kuafu was buried, he encountered one.

This was a boy with black hair and impossibly dark eyes. He sat with appalling posture atop a huge rock, with his unbound hair flowing freely around him. He was the picture of impropriety, barefoot and clad in a coarse hemp garment that someone had given him.

Kunlun-jun’s unexpected appearance in the woods evidently gave him a terrible shock. He slipped and tumbled down from the rock, landing in the little creek below. There he sat, sopping wet.

Even as Kunlun-jun stood there trying not to laugh, a youchu climbed up from beneath the earth and clamped its jaws on the boy’s slender, delicate neck. The young king’s hand came flying up out of the water at a strange angle, closing over the youchu’s mouth and shoving its head under the water. He pressed down on it with such force that half of the youchu’s head shattered, spraying blood across the king’s clean face like red plum blossoms unfurling in the snow.

The young king peeked at Kunlun-jun, then looked at the blood all over himself. Somewhat embarrassed, he carefully squatted down and rinsed his face and hands in the creek. That done, he pulled the youchu’s body closer and opened his mouth, revealing his sharp fangs. He started to gnaw at the most delicate part, the neck.

The beautiful boy sat in the bloody water, daintily feeding on the youchu’s corpse. Noticing that Kunlun-jun was still watching, he couldn’t help eating more slowly, carefully chewing with his mouth closed and not letting blood dribble out. Then he licked his lips lightly, as though hoping to lick away every trace of blood and appear a bit more refined.



4) Kunlun's death

Very quietly, the young King of the Gui asked, “Are you going to put me back behind the Great Seal?”

“No. Everything else is out of my hands, but at least…at least I can keep you safe.” Kunlun-jun laughed quietly. A brief, vicious spasm racked his body, and an imperceptible tremor entered his voice. “Since you don’t want to be a gui, I’ll give you what you want.”

Shocked, the boy grabbed for Kunlun-jun’s shoulder, but Kunlun’s body was already translucent, his face as pale as snow.
The Mountain God raised a hand. His vast sleeves stirred a fresh breeze, and a flame as resplendent as stardust gathered in his palm. “Take it.”

The boy accepted it with both hands.

“This is the soul fire from my left shoulder.” Sweat beaded Kunlun-jun’s forehead, but still he smiled. “And I… I’ll give you something else.”

As he spoke, his body began to shake violently. He pulled a long, silver tendon from his body; in doing so, he endured a pain more excruciating than any in the world. He seemed not to see the boy’s red-rimmed eyes.

“Take my divine tendon,” he said. “From this day forward…you can be free of…the Place of Great Disrespect, and rank among the gods… Guard…guard over the Four Pillars for me. With Nüwa’s Reincarnation Dial, Fuxi’s Mountain-River Awl…the brush from the Ancient Merit Tree…and I’ll give you one last…”

“Kunlun!”

Kunlun-jun touched a thumb to the young boy’s face, lifting it. Softly, he said, “Stone that is aged but not yet old; water that is frozen but not yet cold; body that is dead but not yet born; soul that is melted but not yet burned… Since Shennong was willing to set aside his divine status to become a mortal, I’ll add one more thing to his pile of good deeds…and let him sympathize with humans until the end…”

With those words, he coughed up his heart’s blood into his hand, where it became a dark red wick. The Mountain God of the Great Wild became increasingly transparent, weaker by the second. Finally, he disappeared completely, leaving behind a snow-white oil lamp. There were two words engraved in the corner: Soul Guardian.

Soul that is melted but not yet burned: the Soul-Guarding Lamp.



Questions:

Did any of the epic/sweeping scenes or images stay with you, or did you like the more personal moments better? Just how adorable are the young versions of Kunlun, Da Qing and Wei? How do you feel about this creation myth and what it says about humans? What do you think upset Zhao Yunlan the most about these memories? Any thoughts on volume two as a whole, or on the entire story so far?

You can answer as many or as few questions as you like, or just comment without answering any of them at all! And if you see this post and you're not actually reading the novel: As always, I would love to know what you think about any of this with limited context. :D

And here is the schedule, and that's where you can sign up to host a post.

There's no new post next weekend - enjoy the catch-up week! The readalong comes back with volume three on the weekend of May 9. :)

Comments

[trobadora]

I'm with facethestrange, no way would SW even at his most feral ever have eaten any being that wore clothes.

And the narrative does give us the tantalising mention that someone gave it to him, but absolutely nothing more than that. Which, evil! I want Xiao-Wei's pre-Kunlun encounters with people!

[china_shop]

Yeah, I was being flippant, sorry. And good point about the allusion to former encounters.