Chapter 133

The vertical pupils opened, and White Crane Child descended!

He first looked toward Li Zhuiyuan, who was standing not far away. By now, White Crane Child was already used to this.

During this period, his own spirit medium had been following that boy around the whole time, running errands before and after him.

Lately, every time he was invited down through a spirit medium ritual, he had ended up reduced to this boy’s hired muscle.

Li Zhuiyuan spread open his left hand. His right hand, wrapped in yellow cloth, was clenched into a fist. Using the etiquette of the Officers of the Command Banner, he greeted White Crane Child:

“Please, Lord White Crane Child, slay demons and eradicate evil.”

White Crane Child froze for a moment. His vertical pupils narrowed, and the boy’s sudden politeness and respect made him feel distinctly uncomfortable. It even left him faintly flattered.

He did not know what had gotten into the boy today, but since the boy was willing to show him face, he had to respond in kind.

White Crane Child nodded to Li Zhuiyuan.

“Mm.”

Come, then. Let me see where this malevolent spirit is that I’ve been summoned down to deal with this time!

White Crane Child’s vertical pupils began to sweep the surroundings.

He could sense a dense malevolent aura nearby, very close to him.

But this malevolent spirit seemed extremely skilled at hiding itself. Even his vertical pupils could not yet pierce its concealment.

No wonder they had invited him down. This evil thing really did have some ability.

Blood-colored light began to flow through White Crane Child’s vertical pupils as he strengthened his power to see through all falsehood.

“Creak…”

Just then, the second-floor window of the photo studio was pushed open from inside, and Lin Shuyou stepped up to the windowsill.

At that moment, a tiny white centipede still dangled from the center of his brow. He had one hand on it, apparently planning to yank it off by force.

One man and one god, one high and one low, met each other’s gaze.

White Crane Child found this person strangely familiar.

It felt as though he had seen him often somewhere before.

Yet for the moment, he genuinely could not remember who he was.

There was never any direct face-to-face communication between a Yin god and a spirit medium in the first place. After the god descended through the ritual, the Yin god and the spirit medium merely shared the same point of view.

For most qualified spirit mediums, successfully invoking descent was already difficult enough.

No one had the leisure to summon a god down, set up a mirror, and chat with the Yin god for fun.

Invoking a descent for no reason at all was itself a form of blasphemy, and the Yin god would grow angry and mete out punishment because of it.

Because of that, a Yin god’s understanding of his own spirit medium’s appearance usually came from glimpses during combat while in a spirit-medium state—maybe from a reflection in water, maybe from a pool of blood. Now that there was more glass and tile around, they could occasionally catch a glimpse of “their own” face.

Besides, Yin gods often had more than one spirit medium capable of summoning them. The only ones they were relatively familiar with, or willing to give some face to, were a small number of elderly and highly respected senior spirit mediums.

Most importantly, when spirit mediums performed a descent, they usually painted their ritual face beforehand. So the scattered, chance glimpses Yin gods caught of “their own face” were usually covered in ritual makeup anyway.

Lin Shuyou knew that after painting his face, his temper would worsen and his personality would become strange, so this time he had not painted it.

When Little Yuanhou had just called for him to invoke descent, he had actually been a little panicked inside, because without painting his face first, the success rate of the spirit medium ritual would drop.

Fortunately, Deng Chen was still sitting beneath him, constantly giving off malevolent aura, and that truly stimulated him.

Besides, as a two-headed black python, Deng Chen was naturally skilled in the art of splitting one into two.

Earlier, when the two of them had been pressed tightly together, Lin Shuyou had vaguely been able to perceive another point of view in his mind. In that perspective, he had seen the back of his own head. That was Deng Chen’s point of view.

In fact, Deng Chen was the same. He could also see some of Lin Shuyou’s perspective.

The two of them were in a mutually connected state. Deng Chen had indeed placed half of his spirit onto Lin Shuyou’s body, for the sake of, on top of the preparations already in place, further enhancing the deception aimed at that pig.

The white centipede, under that pig’s control, had bitten Lin Shuyou on the forehead and truly sensed the authentic spirit of the black python. What the pig had not expected, though, was that there was actually another person sitting in front of the black python as a cushion of flesh.

At this moment, as he looked at White Crane Child below, Lin Shuyou also felt a bit awkward and uncomfortable.

Still, he had grown up in the temple. He had watched his grandfather, his master, and all his senior brothers perform spirit medium rituals, and he had seen them summon White Crane Child before.

So he could accept it somewhat.

As one of the Officers of the Command Banner, if he saw White Crane Child, then he absolutely had to salute.

He had once been the first person in the world able to use his own eyes to look directly at the back of his own head. And now he was the first Officer of the Command Banner able to salute the Yin god he himself had summoned.

Lin Shuyou said, “Greetings, Lord White Crane Child!”

White Crane Child nodded again. He had finally remembered who this person was. So it was his own spirit medium after all.

So the boy had acquired yet another Officer of the Command Banner by his side.

But which spirit medium was it this time?

White Crane Child silently recited the birth date and hour of the spirit medium who had summoned him down this time.

Then he abruptly looked toward Lin Shuyou standing at the second-floor window.

Lin Shuyou was still bent in his bow and had not straightened up yet.

Because he truly did not have the nerve to rise.

He knew how absurd what he was doing was. Even more absurdly, it had actually worked.

That was the terrifying thing about Little Yuanhou. Before meeting him, Lin Shuyou himself had never realized that his family’s inheritance still had so many bizarre alternate paths of development.

White Crane Child withdrew his gaze. His vertical pupils were filled with confusion.

The spirit medium who had summoned him down was on the second floor.

Then whose body, exactly, was he attached to right now?

White Crane Child subconsciously raised both hands.

And saw a pair of pig hooves!

White Crane Child: “…”

“Roar!”

White Crane Child let out a furious roar. He had actually descended into the body of a malevolent spirit—and that malevolent spirit was a pig?

The next moment, he glared furiously at Li Zhuiyuan.

He did not even need to guess. He knew perfectly well whose handiwork this was!

“You truly deserve death!”

Li Zhuiyuan reminded him, “Actually, its pig snout, pig ears, and rooting mouth have all already been torn off. If you only look at the face, it really does look human enough.”

It was just that the pig had not finished the whole job. It had not had time to replace the hooves, and there was still a curly pig tail left behind.

White Crane Child strode toward Li Zhuiyuan. Torrents of white vapor kept spraying from his nose, mouth, and ears. Even his eyes were blasting out white vapor.

He really was furious.

As a lofty Yin god, when had he ever suffered such humiliation?

Li Zhuiyuan said, “White Crane Child, eradicate evil and defend the Dao.”

White Crane Child said, “I’ll eradicate you first!”

White Crane Child kept advancing with strong, forceful steps.

Each step left a deep footprint in the road.

Faced with this situation, Li Zhuiyuan truly was not nervous in the slightest.

He knew White Crane Child was genuinely angry, probably with a volcano erupting inside him right now.

But White Crane Child would not kill him.

When someone truly wants to kill a person, who still has the leisure to walk over one step at a time like this?

To put it bluntly, White Crane Child still retained a clear mind. He was only using this excuse to pressure him and try to squeeze out some benefits.

Sometimes, once the filter is stripped from lofty beings and their status is dragged down to your own level, you realize that they are only this much.

That was also why Li Zhuiyuan had never felt much reverence toward Yin gods from the very beginning. He had read the Sutra of Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva, and it described how Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva had subdued those ghost kings in the first place.

Put nicely, that was called turning back from the wrong path and taking refuge in the Buddha.

Put less nicely, was it not simply a matter of circumstances forcing them, their heads pushed down until they signed a contract of servitude?

If Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva truly only knew how to chant scriptures and did not have the means of a wrathful vajra, how could those ghost kings possibly have obediently served beneath him and listened while he preached reason to them?

So really, you lot are not all that principled. If the Bodhisattva can handle you, why can’t I?

Of course, Li Zhuiyuan also knew that he was not a Bodhisattva, and he did not have such a hard demon-subduing vajra in hand.

So when it came to certain things, concessions still had to be made.

“What I taught Shuyou can be promised to stay limited to his one temple for now, and not be promoted further.”

“This time, your crime is beyond pardon!”

White Crane Child continued advancing, steadily closing the distance between himself and Li Zhuiyuan.

For now, one temple… The very word for now was open to debate. And one temple was even simpler. If all the Officers of the Command Banner temples formed a nominal alliance, then it could still continue spreading.

That promise was basically the same as no promise at all.

Li Zhuiyuan naturally knew that what he said was not pretty, but he did not want to yield on this matter. Even if the broad direction was all “eradicating evil and defending the Dao,” why should the Yin gods stand loftily above while only the spirit mediums paid the price?

When it came to matters of principle, the boy did not want to back down.

Li Zhuiyuan said, “Shuyou has already joined my team.”

White Crane Child said, “This time, your sins are truly grave!”

Li Zhuiyuan said, “I will not help Shuyou establish perception with your other Yin god colleagues.”

White Crane Child said, “This time, you have overstepped far too much!”

Sure enough—Lin Shuyou had mentioned before that he originally could still sense other Yin gods, such as the two generals Zeng and Sun, but now he could not sense them at all.

At the time, Li Zhuiyuan had guessed that those other Yin gods probably regarded this spirit medium as a giant pit and did not dare step into it anymore.

But there was another possibility as well: perhaps one Yin god had deliberately blocked Shuyou’s connection to his other colleagues.

Otherwise, there was simply no way to explain it. Why was this obviously dangerous pit that all the other Yin gods avoided one that this particular god kept stepping into over and over again every time he was summoned?

Combined with White Crane Child’s earlier shift in attitude toward him, and the change in tone now—

Heh. So Lord White Crane Child really had been secretly sneaking bites for himself behind everyone else’s back.

The merit from river walk was immense, especially for a Dragon King who successfully completed it. It could benefit not only himself, but even his entire family and sect.

The Qin Clan and Liu Clan had very few people, which meant there were not many to divide the rewards among. That, in turn, meant the remaining people would get a much larger slice of the cake.

For Yin gods, descending everywhere every day to deal with minor evil spirits, beat petty curses, conduct spirit processions, and dispel bad luck was little more than scraps off a mosquito’s leg. How could that compare to taking one big bite off a Dragon King’s leg?

The performance, the merit—those things were not even on the same level. And the more the boy could torment White Crane Child into anger and misery, the more it proved that the boy’s chances of becoming a dragon through river walk were high, did it not?

The white mist spraying from White Crane Child’s face had become shorter and smaller than before. Probably because Li Zhuiyuan had not stepped back, and the distance between the two of them had grown too small. If he kept spraying that hard, he might burn the boy.

But White Crane Child still kept walking forward.

Li Zhuiyuan said, “Do you want your divine post regularized?”

White Crane Child stopped instantly.

Those vertical pupils locked onto the boy.

Every team had seniority.

Why was it that novice spirit mediums always started by summoning White Crane Child? Was it because White Crane Child was the most idle? Because he liked running errands everywhere?

In the mythic narrative system of the Officers of the Command Banner, the first to appear had been the two generals Zeng and Sun. Later, during Yin god processions, it was found that two men lacked sufficient presence, so General Zeng split in two and they became three.

After that, the lineup was gradually filled out, supplemented, and expanded until the whole system was completed.

Which also meant that White Crane Child’s status among the Officers of the Command Banner was pretty much the same as Lin Shuyou’s status in Li Zhuiyuan’s own team. Both of them were late additions, outside the core ranks.

Lin Shuyou’s desire to enter the inner circle was, in truth, reflected in White Crane Child’s own thoughts as well.

White Crane Child said, “This time, you went a little too far.”

As though he felt those words were too soft, he added, “Don’t let there be a next time!”

Li Zhuiyuan nodded. That warning was basically no different from not saying anything at all.

Still, today was a special case. Li Zhuiyuan also understood that stuffing the man into a pig’s body had indeed been too much, so he had to leave him a bit more face.

White Crane Child turned around. He was about to start carrying out his duty and eradicate evil in defense of the Dao.

This time, the method of eradicating evil in defense of the Dao was very simple.

Namely…

I kill myself!

…

“You can raise your head now. They should have finished talking below,” Deng Chen reminded him.

“Ah, really?”

Lin Shuyou straightened up and let out a long breath.

Little Yuanhou was Little Yuanhou, all right. He could even negotiate this kind of thing. In front of Little Yuanhou, the Yin gods really were very easy to talk to.

“Don’t pull that centipede off yourself. I’ll deal with it for you. Crouch down a bit—you’re too tall, I can’t reach.”

Ah You did as told.

Deng Chen grabbed the centipede around the middle of its abdomen with his left hand. He pinched downward with his fingertips, and the centipede’s mouthparts loosened. Just like that, Deng Chen removed it with ease.

Still, a small wound remained on Lin Shuyou’s forehead, with a slight raised bump.

“Ptoo!”

Deng Chen spat a mouthful of “saliva” onto Lin Shuyou’s forehead, then rubbed it in with his palm.

He was a black python and naturally had venomous fangs. What he had spat out was not saliva at all, but a mild snake venom. Fighting poison with poison, he could draw the centipede toxin out of the wound this way, to keep it from leaving a scar and marring Lin Shuyou’s face.

Lin Shuyou said, “I have a friend who’s also good with poison.”

Deng Chen said, “That friend of yours is definitely better than me. The only reason I know some poison is because I’m a venomous snake and naturally understand toxins a little.”

Lin Shuyou said, “She doesn’t seem to understand her own poison very well either.”

Deng Chen paused, then said, “Then she’s genuinely impressive.”

Originally, Lin Shuyou had thought that since Binbin and the others were not here this time, it ought to be his chance to stay by Little Yuanhou’s side and put on a good showing, turning the tide at the critical moment.

No, not turn the tide. First he had to fight with everything he had, bleed profusely, suffer grievous injuries, and end up on the verge of death. Only then would Little Yuanhou step in and reverse the whole situation.

That afternoon, while sitting on the curb eating fried skewers and snacks, he had been fantasizing about scenes exactly like that.

But what he had not expected was that, after Little Yuanhou talked with the photo studio owner, he tied both Lin Shuyou and the owner to chairs together.

Before going downstairs when the fog was just beginning to rise outside, Little Yuanhou had specifically instructed him: just sit here and do not move.

Now it looked like he really did not need to move much at all.

Boom!

Below, dust flew up violently as White Crane Child drove a vicious punch into his own chest, smashing it inward in one blow.

But from inside the chest that had just caved in came a series of cracking sounds. The broken ribs were actually reforming, showing signs of swelling back into place.

The pig-headed thing had already collected four of the five facial features, and its constitution had truly undergone an enormous transformation because of it.

If it really succeeded in gathering all five features, then matters would truly become hard to control.

White Crane Child exerted strength in both arms and smashed his fists against each other.

Boom!

Under that mutual strike, both pig hooves exploded, the wrists shattering completely.

But at the broken stumps, new hands were already regrowing at a speed visible to the naked eye. This time, what grew out were not pig hooves, but normal human hands.

White Crane Child looked up toward the second-floor window.

Lin Shuyou understood and immediately threw down the trident.

White Crane Child temporarily had no hands with which to catch it, so after the trident stuck into the ground, he drove the handle straight into himself using the half-grown hand.

Squish…

The trident was fixed into the writhing flesh.

White Crane Child began swinging the trident, cutting into himself. His first strike had originally been meant for the neck.

Li Zhuiyuan reminded him, “Cutting off the head might not kill it. It may instead interrupt the spirit medium ritual.”

White Crane Child heard that and immediately changed position, slicing off both his own legs. His whole body was now reduced to only the upper half, lying in a pool of blood.

The severed legs began to evaporate, raising a cloud of mist.

Yet new legs still slowly started growing out.

White Crane Child slashed open his own abdomen, laying his insides bare.

But even after chopping the pig liver, pig heart, pig lungs, and all the rest into pieces with the trident, he still could not stop them from growing back.

All it took was for him to pause for even a moment, and no matter how bloody and ragged he had made himself before, he would immediately return to human shape again—and increasingly more human with each time.

White Crane Child had not expected the situation to turn out like this.

Li Zhuiyuan had not expected it either. He had clearly calculated everything correctly, yet what should have been the simplest final cleanup had somehow become this complicated.

The key problem lay in the pig head—in other words, that human face.

As long as that face was not truly attacked and broken apart, the pig’s body seemed able to keep restoring itself endlessly.

But the problem was that the head truly could not be touched. Touch it, and it would be set free.

Even if they heavily wounded the pig and ruined its scheme, allowing this wave to be considered successfully crossed, Li Zhuiyuan still would not be able to sleep with peace of mind afterward.

Even though he had said it was only a pig, this pig was genuinely smart.

Deng Chen had told Li Zhuiyuan before that the five of them had originally been the Five-Organ Sealing Diagram.

It was an extremely high-level sealing art, used to imprison a truly terrifying existence.

The long ages of the seal had gradually soaked that terrifying being’s aura into them as well.

Later, even they themselves no longer knew whether that terrifying being had been worn away, or whether something had gone wrong with the place of sealing. In any case, they ended up cast out into the world.

The sealing diagram that had once suppressed evil had become a ferocious malevolent spirit that brought disaster among men.

Back then, though they were called five, they had actually been one.

It was only after the Dragon King of the Qin Clan, Qin Kan, personally shattered it apart that the one split into five.

After each of the five Yin beasts passed through a period of slumber, they gradually awoke and began moving about in the mortal world again.

That pig had awakened the latest, because after the sealing diagram was shattered, it had received the largest share of the fragments, and so it took longer to digest.

At present, even though one eye was missing, the sealing diagram’s effect was still showing itself. If it had been so easy to wear down, it never would have been used in the first place to suppress something of that level.

But it had already been broken once and was now incomplete, so it could not possibly still possess its former true power.

Li Zhuiyuan looked around and circulated the Liu Clan's Art of Observing Qi in his heart. He discovered that surrounding feng shui aura was being continuously funneled toward this place.

No wonder it was so hard to kill. So it could draw in outside power and constantly replenish itself. That really was the standard trick of a high-level seal.

“Please rest for a moment, White Crane Child. Let me set up an array here that cuts off its connection to heaven and earth. Then you can continue killing yourself.”

At those words, White Crane Child stopped his suicide operation.

He looked up toward the second floor once again.

Lin Shuyou once more understood and threw down three sticks of incense.

White Crane Child caught them. The incense ignited on its own, and he planted them atop his head.

Then he looked at Li Zhuiyuan and said, “Hurry up.”

Li Zhuiyuan took out array flags from his bag and said, “No rush. We have plenty of time.”

Two streams of white vapor burst from White Crane Child’s nostrils. He understood the deeper meaning hidden in the boy’s words, which only made him angrier.

Li Zhuiyuan began laying out the array. He did not disperse the outer fog. Leaving it in place would help keep ordinary people from accidentally wandering in, and it would not affect his array setup anyway. He only needed to factor in the fog miasma’s influence ahead of time and correct for it while arranging the formation.

This kind of array was not especially difficult, but it required precision. It was best laid out personally, which meant it took more time.

So the photo studio in the heavy fog sank into a strange stillness.

Lin Shuyou truly felt too embarrassed to remain on the second floor, but he also felt too embarrassed to go down and face White Crane Child directly. Since Little Yuanhou did not need his help setting up the formation either, he could only run to the first floor and start peeling candies for him.

White Crane Child sat there, his injuries already restored as before. He kept watching Li Zhuiyuan’s movements the whole time. At one point he even warned him:

“I’m watching you. Do not deliberately drag this out.”

Li Zhuiyuan had just planted one array flag. Hearing that, he said, “Then why don’t you do it yourself?”

White Crane Child was choked back into silence and said nothing more.

But the three sticks of incense burned too quickly.

When they were nearly burned out, White Crane Child’s vertical pupils became unfocused, and a trace of confusion appeared on his face.

What he found most unacceptable was that his mouth had begun producing strange noises outside his control.

White Crane Child: “Squeak squeak…”

White Crane Child: “Moo mo”

White Crane Child clenched his fists. He refused to allow himself to start making pig-grunting noises next.

“You… come quickly and help me renew it.”

Lin Shuyou, who had just come out carrying a plate of peeled candy, happened to hear that. He could not help swallowing hard. In the past, he never would have imagined that White Crane Child would voluntarily make such a request.

Li Zhuiyuan took the plate from Lin Shuyou and began eating candy, then signaled him with his eyes.

Lin Shuyou understood. Quietly, he took out the Sealing Talisman Needles and walked over in front of White Crane Child.

“Lord White Crane Child, please forgive the offense; I mean no disrespect.”

White Crane Child said, “Last time, was it intentional?”

Lin Shuyou awkwardly lowered his head.

White Crane Child said, “Hmph hmph hurry up and do it!”

Lin Shuyou immediately drove the Sealing Talisman Needles into White Crane Child’s body. Then his hands began moving nonstop while he recited the multiplication table under his breath.

“Oink oink…”

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