Under the watchful eyes of the other two in the temple, the man picked up the water bowl, bent his waist and slowly drank it. He didn’t seem at all thirsty; rather, looked very hesitant and cautious.

At the same time the fellow was drinking, Xie Lian could hear a distinct “splatter, splatter” sound, which was similar to water splashing down an empty container.

In an instant, his mind was clear, and he grabbed the fellow’s wrist. “You may stop drinking.”

The Taoist follower’s hand shook, while he stared at Xie Lian in surprise.

Xie Lian smiled, and said, “It’s useless to drink, isn’t it?”

The man’s pallour changed, and with his other hand, grabbed the iron sword tied around his waist and threw it at Xie Lian’s face. Xie Lian didn’t move from where he was standing, only raising a hand to bat the sword aside with a clang. Then he felt the arm he still had in wrist suddenly collapsed, like a ball losing air, and then the man was free from Xie Lian’s grip. Once free, the man turned to flee out the door.

Xie Lian was not in a hurry to chase after him. In a place like this, free from supernatural or spiritual barriers, the man could run for ten miles and still Ruoye would be able to drag him back.

However, as soon as he had raised an arm to do so, a blast of sharp wind blew by his side.

It sounded as though an arrow had been shot from behind him. Something flashed by him and pierced the man, nailing him to the door. Xie Lian was shocked, staring at the sight for a moment. They were bamboo chopsticks.

He turned back to see San Lang calmly getting up from the shrine table. The young man walked past him to pull the chopsticks out from the body, shook them, and then said, “Ah, they’re dirty now. I’ll throw them away later.”

The Taoist follower had been struck quite brutally here, and yet he made no sound of pain. Silently and slowly, with nothing to hold him up, the man slowly slid down the wooden door. From the wound in his belly flowed not fresh blood, but water.

It was the water that he’d drunk earlier.

The two of them squatted down by the man’s body. Xie Lian pressed slightly upon the wound and felt air coming out of the hole, like a balloon that had been pierced. The man’s “body” gradually began to change: before, he’d been a rather large Han man; now, he was shrinking all over, and in a little while he looked like nothing but a very small, old man.

Xie Lian said, “It’s an empty shell.”

Some demons, unable to create a good body to use, would instead resort to making empty dummy shells.

They would use very realistic materials to carefully craft the dummy skin, using real human skin as reference and even going so far as to take materials directly from a real human body.  As such, palm prints, fingerprints, and hair would naturally be flawless, as they were organic. Moreover, as long as the demons themselves don’t wear this skin, the body would not be tainted by demonic qi, and thus this shell would be immune to spells and wards. That was why the wards written on their door hadn’t kept this body out of the temple.

However, a body like this was easily broken. As an empty fake, if it wasn’t worn by anybody, it could only move and act according to the commands of a manipulator. Moreover, the commands had to be simple, repetitive, and built in from the start; anything more complicated would simply not compute. As such, these dummies often seemed sluggish and dull, not quite like a full, live human. They could only communicate by repeating the same few sentences, repeating the same kind of actions, talking to themselves, and often replying to questions with irrelevant answers. And when there are too many people asking too much of them, they would easily leak secrets.

Xie Lian had a simple, yet effective, method for verifying whether or not a person was an empty shell: he would give them something to eat or drink, and then listen for the sounds they would make as the ingested items entered their body. If they were an empty shell, the food or water would clatter around inside as though it were an empty container. It would sound completely different from when a live human ate.

The body had by now completely deflated, and now resembled nothing more than a mat of wrinkled leather spread out on the floor. San Lang used his bamboo chopsticks to poke at it. “This dummy’s pretty interesting.”

Xie Lian understood what he meant. This Taoist follower dummy’s mannerisms and expressions had been quite lively and real, just like those of a living person. He’d also been able to answer questions and converse quite normally. His manipulator must be quite strong and skilled in power.

Looking over at San Lang, Xie Lian said, “Looks like you’ve got some knowledge in this area too.”

San Lang smiled and said, “Not much.”

This dummy, coming over to Xie Lian’s temple, telling him about the Ban Yue Guan – whether or not the tale was true, it was certain that its purpose was to bait him to go to Ban Yue Guan. He wanted a reliable opinion about this, however, so he decided to ask Ling Wen. Calculating that he only had a bit more borrowed spiritual powers left, he entered the spirit communication array.¹

The spirit communication array was bustling and lively with excitement. It didn’t sound like the kind of busy that came with official business; it sounded like everyone there was playing some kind of game, laughing and chatting together. Xie Lian was quite struck with amazement at this when he heard Ling Wen’s voice, “Your Highness Crown Prince? You’re back? How was the time you spent below?”

Xie Lian said, “It was good, it was good. What’s going on with everyone? So lively.”

Ling Wen replied, “The wind deity has returned, and is throwing out merits. Would Your Highness like to get some as well?”

At that moment, Xie Lian heard the followers of the scientific^a deities yelling at the top of their lungs, “A hundred merits! I got it!”

“How come I only got one…”

“A thousand! A thousand! Ahh! Thank you, Great Wind Immortal! Ahahahahaha…”

Xie Lian thought to himself – was the wind deity throwing away merits and the heavenly officials picking them up like they were money? Even while his own merit box was empty, he didn’t know how to fight over merits like they were doing over there. Those heavenly officials were also very familiar with each other, and he was not.

He didn’t care about fighting over merits, but Xie Lian did insert himself into the crowd to ask, “Fellows! Does anyone know anything about Ban Yue Guan?”

With just that one question, within an instant, the entire crowd of heavenly officials fell silent.

Xie Lian felt depressed once more.

When he’d been sending rather trivial tips and quips into the array, the silence he met from the heavenly officials was understandable, since nobody sent such silly things into the array. However, most people did send questions about spiritual business into the array, like his just now: did anybody recognize this particular demon, and was there a way to defeat it? Who has domain over this region, could one ask for a little help there? If someone had relevant information, they would give it right away; those who did not would say they would try to help if they could. Thus, there was no reason for Xie Lian’s question to be met with the same kind of deathly stillness he got when he’d been sending in only trivial matters.

After a very long time, a heavenly official suddenly cried, “The Wind Deity has given out another ten thousand merits!!!”

All the heavenly officials were roused once again into fighting for merits, and so no one gave his question any proper attention. Xie Lian knew that the matter of the Ban Yue Guan was probably far from simple, and so he probably couldn’t get any good answer here. He wondered at the power of the wind deity, who was able to send out ten thousand merits in one save. Xie Lian was just about to retreat when, suddenly, Ling Wen sent him a question.

“Your Highness, why did you suddenly need to ask about Ban Yue Guan?”

Xie Lian told her about the dummy and the events of that morning. “The dummy alleged that he’d escaped from Ban Yue Guan as an only survivor. I don’t know if his words are true or false, and so I thought I’d come up here to ask about it. What’s with this place?”

Ling Wen could be heard muttering to herself. She said to him, “Your Highness, I implore you not to dip your hands into this matter.”

Xie Lian had expected such an answer. Otherwise, why would the heavens have left this problem unattended for a hundred and fifty years, while completely shutting up when asked about it?

He asked, “Every time people pass through Ban Yue Guan, half those people disappear. Is this true?”

After a good while, Ling Wen answered. “We’re not really allowed to talk about it.”

Xie Lian could hear extreme discretion in her voice, and knew that this was a very difficult matter for her to speak about. So he said, “All right, I understand. You’re in a difficult position, so I’ll leave the matter be. We’ve never talked about this private, either.”

As he’d gotten as much as he could, Xie Lian left the spirit communication array. He got up and began sweeping the pile of dead skin away to one side. After muttering to himself for a few moments, he raised his head and said, “San Lang, I’m afraid I’m going to be taking a trip far away.”

From Ling Wen’s words and manners, the Ban Yue Guan matter involved something quite major. As this dummy had been personally delivered to him, it was definitely some sort of bait for Xie Lian, and most likely led to nowhere nice.

San Lang said, “That’s fine, Gege. You wouldn’t mind bringing me along, would you.”

Xie Lian asked, baffled, “It’ll be very far, and there’ll probably be a lot of hardships along the way. Why would you want to come with me?”

San Lang laughed. “You want to know what is up with that demonic Ban Yue Guan place, right?”

Xie Lian was taken aback. “You know about that as well?”

San Lang held up a hand, leisurely in his manner. “Ban Yue Guan wasn’t called Ban Yue Guan two hundred years ago. It was Ban Yue in the land of the Ancient Country.” He sat down slowly, his eyes bright like starlight. “Ban Yue, the demon place, is actually…”

Xie Lian put the broom aside and sat down as well, wanting to listen carefully to what the young man was going to say.

But at that moment, there was a soft knock on the door.

The sky was getting dark now, and as all the villagers had been scared away from his temple because of his little lie about demonic possession, who could it possibly be? Xie Lian stood by the door, held his breath, and felt nothing disturbing the wards and spells he’d cast on the door. Then there was another set of soft knocks, and Xie Lian could then distinguish that there were two people outside knocking on his door. He pondered for a moment, and opened the door.

And indeed, as he’d thought, there were two black-clad young men standing outside. One handsome, one elegant – they were Nan Feng and Fu Yao, respectively.

“You two…” said Xie Lian.

Fu Yao took initiative and rolled his eyes.

Nan Feng asked bluntly, “Are you going to Ban Yue Guan?”

Xie Lian answered, “Where did you hear this from?”

“A few heavenly officials were talking about this. They said that you’d gone into the array today to ask about Ban Yue Guan.”

Xie Lian understood. His hands resting inside his sleeves, he said, “All right, I get it. You’re ‘volunteering’ to come with me, right?”

The two young men looked as though they had cavities. Twisting up their faces, they said, “…Y-yeah.”

Xie Lian couldn’t help laughing out loud. “I get it, I get it. However, let me say, if there’s anything we come across that we can’t defeat, you’re both more than welcome to run.” He stood aside to let the two of them in.

He did not expect that, when the two of them entered and saw San Lang sitting casually behind Xie Lian, their faces, which had been slightly black with displeasure, turned completely ashen.

Nan Feng suddenly rushed in front of Xie Lian and said, “Back off!”²

 

 

1 – he pinched something here but I don’t know what it is. “这便捏了个诀儿”

2 – he attacc! But he also… proTECC

 

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