Chapter 35: Grass and Trees Three

He let go without thinking. Before the oil lamp could hit the floor, Wei Wuxian snatched it back, calmly scraped it against the Fire Talisman still burning in his other hand, lit it, set it on the table, and said, 'Did you make all these yourself, ma'am? Fine work.'

Only then did the others realize that the figures crowding the room weren't real people—they were a huge crowd of Paper Effigies.

These effigies were life-sized, exquisitely crafted, with men, women, and even children. The men were all 'Yinforce Dummies,' made tall and muscular, with hair standing on end in fury. The women were all pretty beauties, some with double buns, some with cloud-like coiffures; even under their loose paper robes, you could tell their figures were graceful. The patterns on their paper clothes were even more intricate than on real brocade robes. Some were painted in vivid colors—deep ink, bright rouge, big reds and greens. Others were still unpainted, all mottled white. Each effigy's cheeks were daubed with two big blushes, meant to mimic the color of a living face, but their eyeballs seemed unfinished—the sockets were completely white. The brighter the rouge, the more ghastly they looked.

There was another table in the main room with several candles of varying lengths. Wei Wuxian lit them one by one. The yellow light illuminated most of the space. Besides the Paper Effigies, two large funeral wreaths stood to the left and right of the room. In the corners, piles of paper gold ingots, spirit money, and paper pagodas formed small hills.

Jin Ling had already drawn his sword partway. Seeing it was just a shop selling funeral supplies, he imperceptibly relaxed, sheathed his sword again. Cultivation clans, even when a cultivator passed away, never used these messy, eerie folk rituals. They'd seen little of it. After the initial scare, curiosity took over. Goosebumps rose, and they found it more thrilling than hunting ordinary demonic beasts on a Night Hunt.

No matter how thick the fog was outside, it couldn't get inside. Since entering Yi City, this was the first time they could see each other's faces clearly. They felt Anxin. Seeing them relax, Wei Wuxian asked the old woman, 'Could we borrow your kitchen?'

The old woman seemed to hate the light. She glared almost viciously at the oil lamp. 'Kitchen's in the back. Help yourself.' With that, she scurried into another room as if fleeing a plague. She slammed the door shut with a loud bang that made several of them jump. Jin Ling said, 'That old hag is definitely suspicious! You—' Wei Wuxian cut in, 'Alright, enough. I need help. Who's coming with me?'

Lan Sizhui hurriedly said, 'I will.'

Lan Jingyi, still standing stiffly, said, 'Then what about me?'

Wei Wuxian said, 'Keep standing. Don't move until I tell you to.'

Lan Sizhui followed Wei Wuxian to the kitchen in the back. As soon as they entered, a foul, moldy stench hit them. Lan Sizhui had never smelled anything so awful in his life. He felt dizzy but held back from rushing out. Jin Ling had followed them in. He leaped back out the moment he stepped inside, fanning the air desperately. 'What the hell is that smell?! You're supposed to be figuring out how to cure the poison, what are you doing here!'

Wei Wuxian said, 'Hey? You came just in time. How'd you know I was about to call you over? Come help.'

Jin Ling said, 'I'm not here to help! Ugh! Did someone kill someone here and forget to bury them?!'

Wei Wuxian said, 'Young Lady Jin, are you coming or not? If you're coming, get in here and help. If not, go back and sit down, and send someone else over.'

Jin Ling flared up. 'Who are you calling Young Lady Jin? Watch your mouth!' He pinched his nose, hesitated over whether to stay or go, and finally snorted, 'Fine. I want to see what kind of trick you're pulling.' He stomped in, lifting his robes angrily. Just then, Wei Wuxian clanged open a chest on the floor—the source of the stench. Inside, a pork leg and a chicken were festering, the red meat riddled with green mold and tiny white maggots curled in the rot.

Jin Ling was forced back out again. Wei Wuxian picked up the chest and handed it to him. 'Throw this away. Whatever. Just toss it somewhere we can't smell it.'

Disgusted and deeply suspicious, Jin Ling did as told, threw it away, scrubbed his fingers furiously with a handkerchief, then threw the handkerchief away too. When he returned to the kitchen, Wei Wuxian and Lan Sizhui had actually drawn two buckets of water from the well in the backyard and were cleaning the place. Jin Ling said, 'What are you doing?'

Lan Sizhui, diligently wiping, said, 'As you can see, cleaning the stove.'

Jin Ling said, 'Why clean the stove? It's not like we're making food.'

Wei Wuxian said, 'Who says we're not? We are making food. You—go sweep the cobwebs. Get all those spiderwebs down.'

He said it so matter-of-factly, so理所当然, that Jin Ling found himself莫名其妙 handed a cobweb broom and started sweeping in a daze. The more he swept, the more wrong it felt. He was about to throw the broom at Wei Wuxian's head when Wei Wuxian opened another chest. Jin Ling jumped back out, but thankfully, no foul odor assaulted him this time.

The three of them worked fast. Soon, the kitchen was焕然一新, finally looking somewhat lived-in and not like a long-abandoned haunted house. There was already chopped firewood in the corner. They piled it into the stove base, lit it with a Fire Talisman, set a large cleaned pot on top, and boiled a pot of water. Wei Wuxian poured a pile of glutinous rice from the second chest, rinsed it clean, and put it into the pot.

Jin Ling said, 'Making porridge?'

Wei Wuxian said, 'Mhm.'

Jin Ling threw down his rag. Wei Wuxian said, 'Look at you, getting angry after a little work. Look at Sizhui here—he worked the hardest and hasn't said a word. What's wrong with porridge?'

Jin Ling said, 'What's good about porridge? It's just bland water! Wait—that's not why I'm angry!'

Wei Wuxian said, 'Anyway, it's not for you.'

Jin Ling grew even angrier. 'What? I worked this long and I don't get any?!'

Lan Sizhui said, 'Master Mo, is it… can porridge cure Corpse Toxin?'

Wei Wuxian smiled. 'It can, but it's not the porridge that cures it—it's the glutinous rice. An old folk remedy. Usually you apply glutinous rice to wounds from bites or scratches. If you ever run into that situation, you can try it. It'll hurt like hell, but it works instantly. But they weren't bitten or scratched; they inhaled Corpse Toxin Powder. So all we can do is make them drink some Glutinous Rice Porridge.'

Lan Sizhui understood. 'No wonder you insisted on entering a house, and a house with people. A lived-in place is more likely to have a kitchen, and a kitchen might have glutinous rice.'

Jin Ling said, 'Who knows how long this rice has been here? Can we even eat it? And this kitchen hasn't been used in at least a year—it's all dust, the meat's rotten. How has that old hag survived this past year without eating? She can't possibly be at the stage of辟谷, so how is she alive?'

Wei Wuxian said, 'Either this house has been empty all along, and she's not the shopkeeper here at all. Or… she doesn't need to eat.'

Lan Sizhui whispered, 'If she doesn't need to eat, then she's dead. But this old lady… she's clearly breathing.'

Wei Wuxian stirred the porridge with a spatula, mixing in whatever he found in various jars and bottles. 'Right. You never finished your story. How did you all end up in Yi City together? It can't be a coincidence that you ran into us again, can it?'

The two teenagers' expressions turned grave immediately. Jin Ling said, 'I, the Lan Clan people, and a few from other clans—we were all chasing something. I came from Qinghe.' Lan Sizhui said, 'We came from Langya.'

Wei Wuxian said, 'Chasing what?'

Lan Sizhui shook his head. 'We don't know. It never showed itself. We don't know if it's a thing, or a person… or some kind of organization.'

It turned out that a few days earlier, after Jin Ling tricked his uncle and helped Wei Wuxian escape, he kept worrying that Jiang Cheng might actually break his legs this time. He decided to slip away, disappear for ten days or so, and only reappear after Jiang Cheng's temper cooled. He handed Purple Thunder to Jiang Cheng's trusted subordinate and ran off. He traveled to a small town on the edge of Qinghe, looking for his next Night Hunt spot, and rested at a large inn. That night, as he was reciting incantations in his room, suddenly, the Spirit Hound lying at his feet started barking at the door. It was already late at night. Jin Ling hushed the hound, but then he heard knocking.

The Spirit Hound stopped barking but grew extremely agitated, scratching the floor madly with its claws, growling low in its throat. Jin Ling grew wary. He shouted, asking who was there. Getting no response, he ignored it. However, half an hour later, the knocking sounded again.

Jin Ling climbed out the window with the Spirit Hound, circled around, came up from downstairs, planning to attack from behind and catch the midnight troublemaker by surprise. But he found no one. He waited stealthily for a while but still saw no one at his door.

He stayed alert, left the Spirit Hound guarding the door, ready to attack anyone who came. He didn't rest all night, but nothing happened. He just kept hearing a strange sound, like water dripping.

Early the next morning, a scream came from outside his door. Jin Ling kicked the door open and stepped right into a pool of blood. Something fell from above the doorframe. Jin Ling jumped back just in time to avoid being hit.

A black cat!

Someone had nailed a dead cat's corpse above his door at some point. The strange dripping sound he'd heard in the night was this cat's blood falling.

Jin Ling said, 'I changed inns several times, but it kept happening. So I took the initiative and chased it. Whenever I heard about a dead cat mysteriously appearing somewhere, I went to check. I was determined to find out who was behind this.'

Wei Wuxian turned to Lan Sizhui. 'You too?'

Lan Sizhui nodded. 'Yes. A few days ago, we were on a Night Hunt in Langya. During dinner one evening, we suddenly fished a cat's head—still with its fur—out of the soup… At first we didn't know if it was targeting us, but when we changed inns to rest that day, we found another cat corpse in the bedding. It went on for days. We chased it to Liuyang, met Young Master Jin, realized we were investigating the same thing, and joined forces. We only tracked it to this area today, asked a hunter in a village in front of a stone tablet, and he pointed us to Yi City.'

Wei Wuxian thought, 'A hunter?'

The juniors must have passed through the village at the stone tablet later than he and Lan Wangji. Back then, they hadn't seen any hunter—only a few shy farm girls feeding chickens at home, who said the men had gone out transporting goods and wouldn't be back for a long time.

The more Wei Wuxian thought about it, the graver his expression became.

From the description, besides killing cats and dumping corpses, the other side hadn't taken any other action. Though it sounded and looked terrifying, they hadn't actually been harmed. Instead, these incidents had stirred their curiosity and desire to get to the bottom of it.

Also, the juniors' meeting point was Liuyang. Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji had also just come south from Liuyang to Shudong. It looked almost as if someone was deliberately guiding these clueless kids to rendezvous with the two of them.

Luring a bunch of clueless juniors to a dangerous, unknown location to face a fiercely murderous残肢—wasn't this exactly the same套路 as what happened at Mo Family Village?

And that wasn't even the most complicated part. What Wei Wuxian was more忌惮 now was… the Yin Tiger Talisman. It might very well be in Yi City right now.

Though Wei Wuxian himself wasn't keen on accepting this possibility, it was the most logical explanation. After all, there were people who could restore half of a damaged Yin Tiger Talisman. Even though they were supposedly dealt with, who knew whose hands the restored Yin Tiger Talisman had fallen into?

Just then, Lan Sizhui, squatting by the stove fanning the firewood, looked up and said, 'Senior Mo, I think the Glutinous Rice Porridge is done?'

Wei Wuxian snapped out of it, stopped stirring, took a bowl Lan Sizhui had just washed, scooped a spoonful to taste, and said, 'It's done. Take it out. One bowl each for the poisoned ones. Feed them.'

However, after taking it out and just one bite, Lan Jingyi spat it out. 'What is this, poison?!'

Wei Wuxian said, 'What poison? This is the antidote! Glutinous Rice Porridge.'

Lan Jingyi said, 'Leaving aside why glutinous rice would be an antidote, I've never eaten Glutinous Rice Porridge this spicy!'

The others who'd tasted it nodded in agreement, all looking teary-eyed. Wei Wuxian rubbed his chin. He grew up in Yunmeng. Yunmeng people could handle spice, and Wei Wuxian's palate was especially heavy. Whenever he cooked, it was inevitably so spicy that even Jiang Cheng would throw down his bowl and curse how awful it was. But he could never resist adding spoonful after spoonful of seasoning to the pot. Seems he hadn't restrained himself this time either. Curious, Lan Sizhui took a bowl and tried a sip. His face flushed red, lips pressed together to keep from spitting it out, eyes watering. He thought, 'This flavor… it's terrifyingly familiar…'

Wei Wuxian said, 'All medicine has some toxicity. Spice makes you sweat, you'll recover faster.'

The youths all went 'Eeeh!' in disbelief, but they still drank the porridge with pained expressions. For a moment, everyone's faces were flushed red, heads sweating profusely, each looking utterly tormented. Wei Wuxian couldn't help saying, 'Is it that bad? Hanguang-jun is from Gusu too, and he can handle spice just fine. How come you're all like this?'

Lan Sizhui covered his mouth. 'No, Senior. Hanguang-jun's taste is very mild. He never eats spicy food…'

Wei Wuxian paused. 'Really?'

But he remembered, in his past life, after he defected from the Yunmeng Jiang Clan, he'd once met Lan Wangji in Yiling. At that time, though Wei Wuxian was widely criticized, he wasn't yet universally reviled. So he shamelessly insisted on having a meal with Lan Wangji to catch up. Lan Wangji ordered dishes full of Sichuan peppercorns and chili, so Wei Wuxian always thought Lan Wangji's taste was similar to his.

Thinking back now, he couldn't remember whether Lan Wangji had touched those dishes with his chopsticks. But then, he'd even forgotten that he'd said he'd treat, and Lan Wangji ended up paying the bill. Naturally, he wouldn't remember such details.

For some reason, suddenly, he really, really wanted to see Lan Wangji's face.

'…Senior? Senior Mo!'

'Hm?' Wei Wuxian finally snapped back to attention. Lan Sizhui whispered, 'That old woman's door… it's open.'

A cold wind blew from somewhere, pushing the small room's door open a crack. It swung open, then shut, then open again. The room was pitch black, but a hunched shadow could vaguely be seen sitting at a table. Wei Wuxian signaled them not to move and walked into the room himself.

The dim light from the oil lamp and candles in the main room filtered in. The old woman sat with her head bowed, as if unaware someone had entered. A piece of cloth stretched on an embroidery hoop lay on her knees—she seemed to be doing needlework. Her two hands stiffly pressed together as she tried to thread a needle.

Wei Wuxian also sat down at the table. 'Ma'am, why don't you light a lamp to thread the needle? Let me.'

He took the needle and thread, threaded it in one go, handed it back to the old woman, then walked out of the room as if nothing had happened, closed the door behind him, and said, 'Don't go in there.'

Jin Ling said, 'When you went in just now, did you see whether that old hag is dead or alive?'

Wei Wuxian said, 'Don't call her an old hag. It's rude. That old woman… is a Living Corpse.'

The teenagers looked at each other. Lan Sizhui said, 'What's a Living Corpse?'

Wei Wuxian said, 'From head to toe, it has all the characteristics of a corpse, but偏偏 the person is alive. That's a Living Corpse.'

Jin Ling exclaimed, 'You mean she's still a living person?!'

Wei Wuxian said, 'Did you all look inside just now?'

'We did.'

'What did you see? What was she doing?'

'Threading a needle.'

'Did she get it through?'

'…No.'

'Right. She couldn't get it through. A dead person's muscles are stiff; they can't perform complex actions like the Needle-and-Thread Technique. Those aren't age spots on her face—they're corpse spots. And she doesn't need to eat, but偏偏 she breathes. She's alive.'

Lan Sizhui said, 'B-but this old lady is very aged. Many elderly women have poor eyesight and can't thread needles themselves.'

Wei Wuxian said, 'That's why I helped her. But did you notice something else? From the moment she opened the door until now, she hasn't blinked once.'

The teenagers blinked repeatedly. Wei Wuxian said, 'Living people blink to keep their eyes from drying out. Dead people… don't need to. And when I took the needle and thread, how did she look at me? Did anyone notice?'

Jin Ling said, 'She didn't move her eyeballs… she moved her head!'

Wei Wuxian said, 'Exactly. When ordinary people look in another direction, their eyeballs转动 at least a little. But dead people can't, because they can't perform such fine movements as转动 their eyeballs. They can only turn their heads and necks.'

Lan Jingyi said blankly, 'Should we be taking notes?'

Wei Wuxian said, 'Good habit. But during a Night Hunt, when do you have time to flip through notes? Memorize it.'

Jin Ling gritted his teeth. 'Walking corpses are creepy enough. Why would there be something like a Living Corpse!'

Wei Wuxian said, 'Living Corpses rarely form naturally. They're usually made. This one was.'

'Made?! Why would anyone make one?!'

Wei Wuxian said, 'Dead people have many缺点: stiff muscles, slow movement, etc. But dead people also have优点: they fear no pain, can't think, are easy to control. Someone thought they could improve the缺点 and create the perfect corpse puppet. That's how Living Corpses came about.'

Though none of the teenagers said it out loud, their faces were practically screaming in bold letters: 'This person must be Wei! Wu! Xian!'

Wei Wuxian didn't know whether to laugh or cry. He thought, 'I never made anything like this!'

Though it did sound exactly like his style!

He said, 'Ahem. Well, Wei Wuxian started it, but he succeeded in refining Wen Clan, aka the Ghost General. Actually, I've always wanted to ask—who came up with that nickname? So dumb. Then there were others who wanted to imitate but couldn't get it right, went down crooked paths, and started experimenting on living people, creating things like Living Corpses.' He concluded, 'A failed imitation.'

Hearing Wei Wuxian's name, Jin Ling's expression turned cold. He snorted. 'Wei Ying himself is already a crooked path.'

Wei Wuxian said, 'Mhm. Then those who make Living Corpses are the crooked path within the crooked path.'

Lan Sizhui said, 'Senior Mo, what should we do now?'

Wei Wuxian said, 'Some Living Corpses might not realize they're already dead. I think this old woman is a bit confused about her situation, so we'll just leave her alone for now.'

Just then, a crisp sound of bamboo tapping the ground abruptly rang out.

The sound came right against a window. And this window was boarded up with black wooden planks. The faces of all the cultivation clan disciples in the main room paled. They'd been harassed by this sound constantly since entering the city and had grown terrified of it. Wei Wuxian gestured for silence. They held their breath and watched as he walked to the window, peering through an extremely narrow crack between the planks to look outside.

As soon as Wei Wuxian approached the crack, he saw一片 white. He thought it was just the thick white fog outside making it hard to see. But suddenly, this white rapidly retreated.

He saw a pair of狰狞 white eyes, glaring viciously through the crack. What he'd seen earlier wasn't fog—it was these eyeballs without pupils.