Xiao Hui hurried all the way and at last caught up with Ming Li and the others in front of the altar, panting hard.

Ming Li turned and glanced at him. The monkey's mouth was open and his tongue hanging out, gasping for breath, yet his hands still clutched the two wine bags tightly. Ming Li was stunned a moment, then after a pause shook his head and turned away.

Tu Magu gestured toward the altar. "Follow me!"

Ming Li nodded. "Many thanks."

Tu Magu smiled and went first into the Miao altar; Ming Li followed behind him and went in as well.

The moment they entered the altar, a gloomy feeling closed over them, utterly different from the bright, sunlit world outside. Whether or not the great shaman had given some order, all along the way Tu Magu and Ming Li saw no one else in the altar.

Xiaobai was brimming with drink, Ming Li heavy with worries, and neither paid any heed to their surroundings. Only Xiao Hui dragged his two large wine bags along behind them, hiccuping every so often, his monkey eyes darting curiously this way and that.

In the gloomy altar, upon those stone walls, red marks faintly appeared, looking rather as though they had been smeared with fresh blood. And in the corners of the stone walls there were often the skulls of animals and fierce beasts, savage decorations.

Xiao Hui squeaked twice, seeming somewhat uneasy, and quickened his steps to keep close to Ming Li—though the wine bags in his hands he held all the tighter and did not let go.

They met no hindrance along the way and soon came to the deepest part of the altar, outside the stone chamber where the great shaman dwelt.

Ming Li suddenly frowned. Though his heart was somewhat tense just now, by instinct the chill breath given off by the Blood-devouring Pearl within his body had suddenly grown restless; within this stone chamber there seemed to be some mysterious, unfathomable power that had stirred the Soul-devouring Pearl.

Tu Magu turned his head and said to Ming Li, "This is the place. The great shaman is inside. Let us go in!"

Ming Li nodded and followed Tu Magu into the stone chamber, and at a glance saw the stooped figure sitting with its back to them before the fire.

Tu Magu motioned for them to wait, then went forward himself and stopped at the place where he had stood before, saying with great respect, "Great shaman, they have come."

The great shaman's aged voice rose slowly, and what reached Ming Li's ears was, astonishingly, very fluent and proper Central Plains speech: "Bring them here. Tu Magu, there is nothing more for you here. You may go!"

Tu Magu answered, then turned to Ming Li. "Then you talk with the great shaman. I will go out first."

Ming Li nodded to him and said from the bottom of his heart, "Chief, I truly thank you."

Tu Magu smiled. "It is nothing." With that he looked again at Xiaobai in the crook of Ming Li's arm, thinking to himself that for such a woman to hold her liquor so well was truly inconceivable. With this thought he slowly walked out.

After Tu Magu's figure had vanished, Ming Li turned and looked ahead.

That stooped back flickered unceasingly in the firelight, lit now bright, now dark, giving a faint sense of unreality, full of mystery.

He was just hesitating how to begin his plea when the great shaman's voice had already sounded.

"Young man, come here!"

Hearing that aged voice, Ming Li felt a sudden stirring of respect. He answered, and supporting Xiaobai slowly went forward. Six feet behind the great shaman he hesitated, then did not go on, but stood where he was.

Xiao Hui came dragging his two large wine bags and kept close at Ming Li's heels, yet his three eyes never stopped darting about, taking in the surroundings, until at last his gaze fell upon the strange stone statue of the Hound God ahead, and there it stayed.

"Sit," the great shaman's aged voice said quietly.

Ming Li sat as told. Xiaobai could no longer stand steady; the wine seemed to be rising in her, and she looked very much inclined to sleep. Instinctively she leaned against Ming Li, rubbed her head twice against his shoulder, and sank into deep slumber.

As for Xiaohui, it seemed the quiet of the stone chamber had gotten to him too; he hardly dared breathe. He sat down quietly beside Xiaobai, set the two wineskins at his side, stealthily picked one up, brought it to his lips, and took a sip. His monkey eyes rolled toward the figure of the Great Shaman.

"You came looking for me—what is it that you want?" The Great Shaman still faced the fire and did not turn his head.

Ming Li said, "Great Shaman, it is a friend of mine. Her two souls and seven spirits have been scattered; only a single soul remains, and it has been this way for a full ten years now—as if she were a dead woman. I have heard that you possess a wondrous art of restoring souls, and that it is just the thing to save her. Great Shaman, you must, must save her…"

By the end of his words, his voice seemed to be trembling.

Ten years of sorrowful waiting, of bitter searching—all of it seemed to surge up into his heart in that moment.

The Great Shaman did not speak but kept his silence, and the stone chamber fell into stillness, save for the fire before him, crackling and burning, flaring and dimming by turns.

After a long while, the Great Shaman broke the silence. "Your friend—how did she come to have this affliction?"

Ming Li hesitated, then said slowly, "Ten years ago I was contending in magic with… an enemy. His cultivation was unfathomable; he struck down with an immortal sword of immense power, and I had no strength to resist. She—she did not spare her own life. She burned up all her vital essence and blood and fused it into her three souls and seven spirits, and only thus was I saved; but she herself became…" His voice caught for a moment, and he paused for quite a while before continuing: "But fortunately she had on her a rare treasure, the Hehuan Bell. At the critical moment it held back one of her souls and drew it into the bell, and only thus was there a thread of hope. Great Shaman, I beg you, save her."

The Great Shaman's back, in the firelight, suddenly seemed to grow a shade older. Slowly he said, "This friend you speak of—is she of the Demonic Sect?"

Ming Li was startled. He had feared the Demonic Sect's ill repute and so had not dared to say so plainly; he had not expected that the Great Shaman, on hearing it once, would come straight out with it. As he stood there alarmed and uncertain, the Great Shaman's aged voice went on: "She must be a woman! And the spell she used—it is the secret 'Spell of Foolish Love' handed down within the Demonic Sect, is it not?"

Ming Li was greatly astonished, both alarmed and overjoyed—alarmed that this old man in the depths of a gloomy altar at the southern border's edge should prove a recluse of uncommon gifts; overjoyed that the greater his powers, the greater the hope of saving Bi Li.

He paid no more heed to anything else and nodded again and again. "The Great Shaman's eyes are indeed discerning—it is just so. Yet though the world slanders the Demonic Sect greatly, this friend of mine is truly kind at heart beyond measure. I beg you, Great Shaman, to work your wondrous healing hand and save her this once!"

The Great Shaman's shoulders seemed to stir slightly, and amid the sound of the burning fire there seemed to come a faint sigh—a sigh faintly bitter, with a hint of grief in it.

"You orthodox and demonic sects of the Central Plains—to a wild man of these borderlands like me, there is no difference between them, no stake in the matter. You need not worry on that account."

Ming Li was overjoyed and was about to say something when the Great Shaman went on: "That wondrous art of restoring souls you speak of—I do know a little of it. But whether I can save your friend, of that I am not certain…"