Wei WuXian spoke, “You can just sit back and relax. It’s going to be over soon.”
Again, he cut the index finger of his right hand on Lan JingYi’s sword. Droplets of blood trickled down.
Lan JingYi volunteered, “Are you going to use the Summoning again? If you dot twice in each mannequin’s eyes, how much blood are you going to use? Do you need me to give you some?”
Immediately, a few other boys rolled up their sleeves, “I can also spare some…”
Wei WuXian couldn’t decide whether to laugh or sigh, “It’s okay. Are there any blank talismans?”
The disciples were still fairly young, not yet at a level of cultivation that allowed them to write runes on-spot. Thus, all of the talismans that they carried with them had already been written with runes.
Lan SiZhui shook his head, “No.”
Wei WuXian wasn’t too concerned, “Already-written ones are fine as well.”
Lan SiZhui took out a stack of yellow talismans from a Qiankun Pouch, yet Wei WuXian only grabbed one of them. After taking a rough look at it, with the middle and forefinger of his right hand put together, he scrawled from top to bottom, above the cinnabar runes that were already there. The crimson blood and the vermilion cinnabar formed a new set of runes. With a flick of Wei WuXian’s wrist, the yellow talisman and the red runes hovered in the air and ignited on their own. Wei WuXian reached out his left hand to catch the sprinkling ashes. Then, he closed his fingers into a fist and lowered his head slightly. As he opened his hand again, he softly blew the black ashes toward the row of paper mannequins. He breathed, “With prairie fires it fails to die, when spring winds blow it regains life.”
The ashes whirled around the room.
The Nether Brawler who stood in front of all others suddenly picked up the hacking saber by his feet and carried it over his shoulder.
A lady, wearing a tall bun and fine robes, slowly raised her right hand. Her slender fingers twirled nimbly, as though she was a languid noblewoman, insouciantly appreciating her long, blood-red nails. By the lady’s side, there stood a golden boy and a jade girl—a pair of child servants. The boy playfully tugged at the girl’s braid, while the girl stuck out her tongue at him. A tongue almost nine inches long rapidly stretched out from within her mouth, stabbing a large hole in the boy’s chest as if it were a snake. After the violent attack, it shrunk back at once. The boy opened his mouth wide, revealing two rows of ghastly, white teeth, and bit into her arm. With this, the two paper children started a fight of their own.
One by one, the dozens of paper mannequins started to teeter. As if they were stretching their limbs, they jolted as they whispered to one another. The rustling noises rose and fell all around them. They were not human, but better than humans.
Wei WuXian, “Hold your breaths.”
After his words, he moved away, leaving the path to the door open. With a slight bow, he made a gesture of invitation.
The wooden doors sprang open again. The sickeningly sweet stench of the corpse-poisoning powder poured into the room, and the disciples immediately covered their faces with their sleeves. With a booming shout, the Nether Brawler charged outside. The rest of the mannequins followed.
The doors shut itself behind the last paper mannequin. Wei WuXian asked, “Nobody breathed it in, right?”
Everyone replied negative. Wei WuXian helped Xiao XingChen up, intending to find a place for him to lie down. However, since there wasn’t any, he could only sit on the cold, dust-covered ground. Xiao XingChen was still gripping Shuanghua tightly. Finally waking up from the semicoma, he coughed a few times, then spoke in a weak manner, “Was that… the Summoning of Painted Eyes?”
Wei WuXian, “I know a thing or two.”
After some thought, Xiao XingChen smiled, “Yes… To eliminate these walking corpses, it was indeed the best method.”
With a pause, he continued, “However, this path of cultivation can easily lead to the backfiring of one’s ghosts and spirits. Even the founder of the path, the YiLing Patriarch, couldn’t avoid such an end. I suggest for you to be more careful and refrain from using this unless you’re in dire situations. You can cultivate some other paths…”
Wei WuXian sighed silently, “Thank you for your advice.”
Most famous cultivators would take clear-cut stands on the matter, drawing distinct lines that showed their absolute hatred toward the certain someone. Yet, his youngest shishu still tried to persuade him, even when he himself was only half-alive, and warned him of the backfire. He truly was a tender-hearted person, both gentle and kind. Seeing the thick layer of bandages wrapped around Xiao XingChen’s eyes and thinking of the things he had been through, Wei WuXian couldn’t help but sympathize with him.
Usually, only young, relatively inexperienced disciples would feel a greater sense of curiosity than loathing toward these sorts of improper paths. Aside from Jin Ling, who kept up an expression of contempt, all others were crammed in front of the door slit as they watched the fight, “Oh my… The mannequin woman’s nails are so scary! One scratch and there are five lines.”
“Why is the little girl’s tongue so long and so hard? Is she a hanged ghost?”
“The man is so strong! How can he lift up so many corpses at once? He’s gonna drop them on the ground! Look, look! He dropped them! They broke!”
After he finished listening to Xiao XingChen’s good-natured words, Wei WuXian picked up the last bowl of leftover rice congee, “The poison has already worked its way around. The things in this bowl may slow it down, but may also not work at all, not to mention that it tastes really bad. Do you want to try? If you don’t want to live, then nevermind what I said.”
Xiao XingChen took over the bowl with both hands, “Of course I do. If I can live, there’s no reason not to.”
Yet, after he had just one mouthful, the corners of his mouth started to twitch. He only stopped himself from spitting it out by tightly pursing his lips together. A moment later, he replied with respect, “Thank you.”
Wei WuXian turned around, “Did you see that? Did you see that? What did he say? You guys are the only ones who have such high standards, so full of complaints even after eating my congee.”
Jin Ling, “Your congee? What else did you do, apart from adding a bunch of weird things into the pot?”
Xiao XingChen, “But, now that I think about it, if I had to eat this every single day, I’d rather die.”
Jin Ling laughed at him without holding back at all. Even Lan SiZhui couldn’t stop himself from bursting with a “pfft”. Speechless, Wei WuXian turned to look at them, and Lan SiZhui put on a straight face at once. Lan JingYi spoke up, his voice full of delight, “Finished. All of them have been killed. We won!”
Xiao XingChen put his bowl down right away, “Don’t open the door just yet. Be careful. More might still come…”
Wei WuXian, “Don’t put down the bowl. Pick it up and drink everything.” With that, he approached the wooden doors and peeked through the slit. After the inhuman battle, thin fog and powder in the color of a purplish red pervaded the entire street. The corpse-poisoning powder was beginning to dissipate and the group of paper mannequins calmly inspected the path. Among the corpse pieces that covered the ground, when there was any that could still move, they would step on it mercilessly, until pools of muddied flesh were all that was left.