Jin Ling, “You want us to enter these houses? It’s already this dangerous outside. Who knows what things are hidden in these rooms, watching and waiting for us.”
After he spoke, everyone felt that there really were pairs of eyes hidden within the fog and the houses, closely watching their every move, their every word. They couldn’t help but shuddered in fear. Wei WuXian responded, “True. It’s hard to say whether outside the houses or inside the houses is more dangerous. But, since it’s already like this on the outside, the inside can’t be any worse. Let’s go. There’s no time to lose. We still need to cure the poisoning.”
The group had to do what they were told. Listening to Wei WuXian’s instructions, everyone held the sword sheath of the person in front of him, so that they didn’t wander off amid the dense fog. From house to house, they knocked on the doors. Jin Ling pounded for awhile, and didn’t hear any response from within the house, “There doesn’t seem to be anyone inside this one. Let’s go in.”
Wei WuXian’s voice drifted over, “Who told you to enter if there wasn’t anyone inside? Continue knocking. We need to go into a house that does have someone inside of it.”
Jin Ling, “You want to find one with someone inside?”
Wei WuXian, “Yes. Knock nicely. Your knocks were too strong. It’s quite rude.”
Jin Ling was so irritated that he almost kicked the wooden door down. In the end, he only… stomped angrily on the ground.
Every household by the street shut its door tightly, refraining from opening it no matter how hard they knocked. The more Jin Ling knocked, the more annoyed he became, but the amount of force he exerted had clearly lessened. On the other hand, Lan SiZhui remained calm. At the thirteenth shop, he repeated the phrase that had already been repeated a number of times, “Excuse me. Is anyone inside?”
Suddenly, the door shifted. A thin, black slit had been opened.
It was very dark on the other side of the door, not allowing anyone to make out what was behind the slit. The person who opened the door didn’t speak either. The boys who were close by couldn’t help but stepped backward.
Lan SiZhui regained his composure, “Excuse us, but are you the manager of the shop?”
A moment passed, and an old, bizarre voice leaked from the slit, “Yes.”
Wei WuXian walked over and patted Lan SiZhui’ shoulder, signalling for him to step back as well, and spoke, “Manager, it’s our first time coming here. The fog was so thick that we got lost. We’ve been walking for a long time already, and we’re rather tired. Would it be possible for you to lend your shop so that we can rest a bit?”
The bizarre voice replied, “My shop is not for travellers to rest.”
Wei WuXian looked as if he didn’t find anything strange at all, and spoke with his usual expression, “But, in the area, there isn’t any other shop that has anyone inside. Manager, are you really not willing to do us a favour? We are willing to pay.”
Jin Ling blurted out, “How would you get the money to pay? Let’s make this clear—I won’t lend you money.”
Wei WuXian waggled a delicate pouch in front of his eyes, “Look what this is.” Lan SiZhui was shocked, “How dare you?! This is HanGuang-Jun’s!”
As they argued, the slit was opened a bit further. Although they still couldn’t see the furniture in the room, they could see that a gray-haired, expressionless woman stood behind the door.
Although the old woman had a hunched back, appearing quite elderly at first glance, she actually didn’t have a lot of wrinkles or age spots. It would even be possible to describe her as middle-aged. She proceeded to open the door and move out of the way. It looked like that she was willing to let them in.
Jin Ling was astonished. He whispered, “She really is willing to let us in?”
Wei WuXian also whispered, “Of course. One of my feet was within the slit, so she couldn’t close the door even if she wanted to. If she still didn’t let me in, I would’ve just kicked the door down.”
Jin Ling, “…”
Yi City was already frightening and peculiar; the people who lived here were definitely not ordinary either. Seeing how suspicious the old woman looked, the disciples all whispered in silence. Although they didn’t want to go inside at all, there wasn’t any other choice left for them. They could only pick up their peers, who were too scared to move an inch due to the poisoning, and enter the door one by one. The old woman stood waiting on the side, looking coldly at them. When everyone was inside, she immediately closed the door. The room was pitch-black again. Wei WuXian asked, “Manager, why do you not open the lights?”
The old woman, “The light is on the table. Light it yourselves.”
Lan SiZhui just happened to be standing by a table. Slowly feeling around, he found an oil lamp covered with a thick layer of dust. He fished out a fire talisman and lit it up. As he moved it toward the lampwick, unintentionally looking around the room, a gush of cold air washed from his feet to his head. His scalp tingled with terror.
Within the shop’s central chamber, a roomful of people were crammed inside, shoulders to shoulders and heels to heels. Each and every single one of them had their eyes wide open, staring at them without a single blink!
Chapter 35 Grasses—Part Three
T/N: *You don’t want to be eating while reading this.
He couldn’t help but loosen his hand, yet Wei WuXian saved the oil lamp just as it was about to hit the ground. Calmly brushing it against the burning fire talisman on the other hand, he lit it up and set it onto the table, “Did you make these yourself, Manager? They’re quite well-made.”
The rest finally realized that the people who stood in the room were not real humans, but actually paper mannequins.
The mannequins’ heads and bodies were delicately crafted, the same size as those of real people. There were men, women, and even children. All of the men were “Nether Brawlers”, crafted with tall, sturdy bodies and angered expressions. All of the women were fair-featured beauties, with hair in either single or double buns. Even when covered with loose-fitting paper clothes, one could still see their graceful postures. The patterns on the clothes were almost finer than those of real brocade robes—some were colored with rich, vivid ink; others were uncolored, left with ashen grays. On each mannequin’s cheeks, there were two smears of blush in pretense for a living person’s rosy complexion. However, none of their pupils had been added yet—the eyes were entirely white. The bolder the blush was, the gloomier they looked.
There was another table in the room. On the table, there were a few candlesticks, each a different length than the others. Wei WuXian lit them up one by one, and the yellow light illuminated most corners of the house. Aside from the paper mannequins, there were also two wreaths placed on both sides of the room. Paper gold, ghost money, and pagodas were heaped up beside the walls.
Jin Ling already had his sword slightly unsheathed. Seeing that it was only a shop that sold burial goods, he sighed with discreet relief and sheathed his sword again. In the cultivational world, even if a cultivator passed away, nobody employed the eerie, chaotic obsequies of the common folk. Since they hadn’t seen such things before, after the initial scare, curiosity sprouted from within their hearts. With skin covered in goosebumps, they felt that it was even more exciting than night-hunting ordinary beasts.