Wei WuXian sat down by the table as well, “Manager, why not light the lamp if you’re threading a needle? Let me help.”
He took over the needle and thread—the thread went through at once. Passing it back to the old woman, he walked out of the room as if nothing had happened and closed the door behind him, “There’s no need to go in.”
Jin Ling, “When you were inside, did you see if the hag’s actually alive or not?”
Wei WuXian, “Don’t call her a hag. That’s quite rude. The old lady is a living corpse.”
The boys looked at one another. Lan SiZhui asked, “What is a living corpse?”
Wei WuXian, “From head to toe, everything seems to say that they’re a corpse, but the person is actually living. That’s what a living corpse is.”
Jin Ling was shocked, “You’re saying that she’s still alive?!”
Wei WuXian, “Have you looked inside?”
“Yes.”
“What did you see? What was she doing?”
“Threading a needle.”
“Did it go in?”
“… No.”
“Correct. She’s incapable of threading a needle. Dead people’s muscles are too rigid to perform complex actions such as threading needles. The marks on her face aren’t age spots, but livor mortis. And she doesn’t need to eat, either. It’s only that she can breathe which makes her alive.”
Lan SiZhui, “B-but, the old lady is already quite elderly. A lot of old ladies have poor eyesight and cannot thread needles by themselves.”
Wei WuXian, “So I helped her. Did you notice the other thing, though? From opening the door until now, she hasn’t blinked even once.”
The boys blinked a few times. Wei WuXian continued, “Living people blink to prevent eyes from becoming sore. Dead people, on the other hand, have no need to do this. And, when I took the needle and thread over, did anyone notice how she looked at me?”
Jin Ling, “Her eyeballs didn’t move… but her head did!”
Wei WuXian, “Precisely. When most people look somewhere, their eyeballs usually move, no matter how slight the movement is. However, dead people’s eyes don’t. This is because dead people can’t carry out an action as subtle as moving their eyeballs. They can only turn their heads and necks instead.”
Lan JingYi was baffled, “Should we be taking notes?”
Wei WuXian, “A good habit, but do you think you’d have time to flip through your notes when you’re out night-hunting? Keep it in your minds.”
Jin Ling spoke through clenched teeth, “Walking corpses are already weird enough. Why do things like living corpses exist?!”
Wei WuXian, “There are a lot of disadvantages to dead people: rigid muscles, slow movement, and so on. However, there are also quite a few advantages: the lack of fear towards pain, the inability to think, how easy they are to control. Somebody thought that they could amend for the disadvantages of corpses and create perfect corpse puppets. This was how living corpses came into being.”
Although the boys didn’t say anything, one single sentence was written all over their faces— “This person must be Wei! Wu! Xian!”
Wei WuXian didn’t know whether to laugh or frown, thinking silently, But I really haven’t done such a thing!
Although, it really did sound like his way of doing things!
He carried on, “Ahem. Alright. Wei WuXian started it. But, he successfully made Wen Ning, or the Ghost General. To be honest, I’ve always wanted to ask—who exactly came up with this title? It’s so dumb. Anyways, there were some other people who wanted to imitate this but weren’t good enough, so they used improper means. Targeting living people instead, they developed living corpses.” He concluded, “A type of failed imitations.”
Hearing Wei WuXian’s name, Jin Ling’s face froze over. He snorted, “Wei Ying himself used improper means.”
Wei WuXian, “Yep. Then, the ones who developed living corpses used the most improper means of all improper means.”
Lan SiZhui, “Senior Mo, what should we do now?”
Wei WuXian, “Some living corpses may not know that they’re already dead. I think that this old lady is one of the confused corpses. Let’s just not disturb her for now.”
Out of blue, a series of the crisp taps of a bamboo pole knocking on the ground suddenly sounded.
The sound came from nearby a window, which was sealed shut by strips of black, wooden boards. All of the disciples in the central chamber turned pale. Ever since they entered the city, they had been constantly pestered by the sound. They now panicked whenever they heard it. Wei WuXian gestured for them to be quiet. All of them held their breaths as they watched Wei WuXian walk to the window and look outside through a narrow slit between the boards.
As soon as Wei WuXian approached the slit, he could see a field of white. He thought that the fog outside was too thick for him to see anything. Suddenly, however, the whiteness rapidly shrunk backward.
He saw a pair of white, hideous eyes, glowering at the slit between the boards. The field of white he saw wasn’t fog, but the pair of pupil-less eyes.
Chapter 36 Grasses—Part Four
Jin Ling and the group felt that their hearts were about to jump out of their chests, as they feared that something would happen to Wei WuXian as he was looking outside and that he would collapse with his hands covering his eyes. With an ah of exclamation coming from him, the boys’ hearts skipped a few beats. Even their hair seemed to be standing, “What happened?!”
Wei WuXian spoke as quietly as he could, “Shh. Don’t talk. I’m looking at it.”
Jin Ling lowered his voice so that it was even quieter than Wei WuXian’s, “Then what are you seeing? What’s the thing outside the door?”
Wei WuXian neither took his gaze away nor gave a straightforward answer, “Hmmm… Yes… This is amazing. Truly amazing.”
The expression that could be seen from the side of his face was filled with delight, and both his praise and exclamation sounded as though they were from the bottom of his heart. The disciples’ curiosity immediately overrode their nervousness. Lan SiZhui couldn’t help but ask, “… Senior Mo, what is truly amazing?”
Wei WuXian, “Wow! It’s so pretty. Be quiet, you guys. Don’t scare it away. I’m not done looking at it.”
Jin Ling, “Move! I want to see.”
“Me too!”
Wei WuXian, “Are you sure?”
“Yes!”
Wei WuXian took his time stepping aside, as if he was unwilling to leave. Jin Ling was the first to move over. He looked outside through the thin slit between the wooden boards.
It was already nighttime. In the cold atmosphere, even the fog in Yi City had somewhat dissipated, just barely allowing one to see the street at a few meters away. Jin Ling peeked for a while. Failing to find the “amazing”, “pretty” thing, he was rather disappointed, thinking to himself, I didn’t scare it away by talking, did I?
Just as he was about to give up, a small, shrivelled figure suddenly flashed before the slit.
Having seen the entire appearance of the entity without any preparations, Jin Ling’s scalp prickled from the shock. He almost bursted out but, somehow suppressing the exclamation that was still in his chest, he actually managed to stay silent, and maintained the stiff, bent-down posture. After the tingles above his head had passed, he turned to Wei WuXian in spite of himself. Wei WuXian, the root of the commotion, leaned on the window beside the door. With one corner of his mouth curving upward, he raised his eyebrows and gave Jin Ling a sly smile, “Doesn’t it look pretty?”