TFOD Chapter 28

Lan Wangji finally turned his head, but his gaze was still slightly to the side. Seeing this, Wei Wuxian blinked, a mischievous thought inexplicably rising in his heart. He was just about to say something teasing when a shattering sound came from the table.

They both stood up and looked over. They saw tea cups and a teapot broken on the ground, and an Evil Sealing Pouch lying among the white porcelain shards and spilled tea. The surface of the pouch was bulging continuously, as if something was trapped inside, anxiously trying to get out.

Although this Evil Sealing Pouch seemed to be only the size of a palm, it possessed the miraculous ability to store items. Both the inner and outer layers were embroidered with complex spells, reinforced by several layers of seals. Lan Wangji had originally sealed the arm inside the pouch and placed it under the tea cup on the table. Now, seeing it agitated, he remembered that it was time to perform “Repose.” Without their nightly short soothing tune, even if the Evil Sealing Pouch’s suppression power was strong, it alone wouldn’t be able to contain the ghost hand.

Wei Wuxian reached for the bamboo flute at his waist, but his hand grasped nothing. Turning his head, he saw that the flute was already in Lan Wangji’s hand. He was slightly lowered, focused on carving on the flute for a while before handing it back. Wei Wuxian took it back and examined it. The flute that had been worked on had many of the rough details on the holes and such made much more refined.

Lan Wangji said, “Play it properly.”

Remembering their dreadful performance in the meditation chamber that had actually roused Lan Qiren from unconsciousness just to make him cough blood and pass out again, Wei Wuxian almost laughed out loud. He thought, “It’s hard for him to put up with me for so long.” Right then, he stopped intentionally causing mischief and brought the bamboo flute to his lips in a serious manner. Who knew, just two notes into his playing, the pouch suddenly expanded several times in size and stood up!

Wei Wuxian “puffed” out a broken note and said, “What, you’re used to ugly tunes, and it doesn’t like it now that I’m playing something a little better?”

As if in response, the Evil Sealing Pouch suddenly flew towards Wei Wuxian. Lan Wangji’s fingers swiftly changed the melody. He plucked the strings, and all seven strings of the guqin vibrated simultaneously, emitting a roaring sound like a mountain collapsing. The Evil Sealing Pouch was rebuked by the furious guqin sound and fell back to its original spot. Wei Wuxian continued playing as if nothing had happened. Lan Wangji softened the force of his wrist, continuing with the melody of “Repose,” turning it into a tranquil and peaceful harmony.

After the piece was finished, the Evil Sealing Pouch finally shrunk back to its original size, lying still. Wei Wuxian put the flute back in place and said, “It has never been this restless these days, as if something stimulated it.”

Lan Wangji nodded slightly, turned to him, and said, “Moreover, it was something on you.”

Wei Wuxian immediately lowered his head to look at himself. The only new thing he had on him today was the curse mark that had transferred from Jin Ling.

The curse mark on Jin Ling’s body was left in the stone fortress on Xinglu Ridge. The ghost hand reacted strongly to this curse mark. Could it mean…

Wei Wuxian said, “Does that mean there might be other parts of its body in the walls of the Nie family’s sacrificial hall?”

The next morning, the two set off together to return to Xinglu Ridge.

Nie Huaisang had been caught red-handed yesterday, and he had confessed everything. He had called in his trusted disciples overnight to clean up the mess left behind by the intruders. When Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji arrived, he had just finished directing people to fill the wall where Wei Wuxian had dug out Jin Ling, putting a new corpse in it. Watching the white bricks being neatly piled up layer by layer, he kept wiping sweat. Who knew that as soon as he turned his head, his legs went weak, and he gave a forced smile, “Hanguang-Jun… and this one…”

Wei Wuxian waved his hand and laughed, “Sect Leader Nie, are you building a wall?”

Nie Huaisang wiped sweat with a towel, almost rubbing a layer of skin off his forehead, “Yes, yes, yes…”

Wei Wuxian said with a hint of sympathy and three parts of awkwardness, “I’m sorry. You might have to trouble yourself to rebuild it once more later.”

Nie Huaisang, “Yes, yes, yes… Ah?! Wait!”

Before he finished speaking, Bichen was unsheathed. Nie Huaisang watched with his own eyes as the stone wall he had just repaired split again.

Destruction was always easier than construction. Wei Wuxian demolished bricks at a god-like speed, much faster than they could build. Nie Huaisang trembled while gripping his folding fan. He was so aggrieved that tears were almost welling up in his eyes. But because Hanguang-Jun was standing next to him without any expression, he didn’t dare say anything either. Lan Wangji explained the cause and effect to him in a concise manner. He immediately swore to the heavens that it was not true, “No! Absolutely not! The corpses used in our family’s sacrificial hall all have complete limbs. There is absolutely no man’s corpse with a missing arm. If you don’t believe me, I’ll dismantle the bricks with you to prove my innocence, but you must immediately fill them back in after dismantling. You can’t delay. This is my family’s ancestral burial grounds…”

Several Nie family disciples joined in. With people working, Wei Wuxian withdrew to the side to wait and see the results. Half an hour later, most of the stone bricks of the wall where Jin Ling had been buried had been removed. Some of the disciples had put on face masks, and some had taken secret red pills to prevent corpse changes caused by their breathing and human presence. In the black soil, a pale hand or a blue-veined foot occasionally emerged, as well as tangled, dirty black hair. All of the male corpses were roughly cleaned up and laid flat on the ground in rows.

Some of the corpses had already turned into skeletons, some were in the process of rotting, and some were still very fresh. They were in all sorts of different states, but none of them were missing limbs. There wasn’t a single male corpse found without a left arm.

Nie Huaisang said cautiously, “Is it enough to dismantle only this wall? Do we need to dismantle more? We don’t need to, right?”

It was indeed enough. The curse mark on Jin Ling’s body was very dark. The thing that left it must have been buried very close to him at the time and wouldn’t have been beyond the range of this wall. Wei Wuxian crouched down beside a row of corpses. After thinking deeply for a moment, Lan Wangji said, “Retrieve the Evil Sealing Pouch?”

Taking out the left hand from the Evil Sealing Pouch and allowing it to identify its own, wasn’t a bad idea. However, if it got too close to other parts of its body, it would be hard to guarantee that it wouldn’t become stimulated and trigger a more dangerous situation. And this location was very special, filled with heavy Yin energy, doubling the level of danger. So they had chosen carefully to come during the day. Wei Wuxian shook his head, pondering, “Could it be that this arm isn’t from a man? No, I can tell the difference between a man’s hand and a woman’s hand at a glance… then, does that mean its owner had three arms?!”

He had just been amused by this thought when Lan Wangji said again, “Legs.”

After his reminder, Wei Wuxian remembered that he had actually overlooked the fact that the range of the curse mark was only the leg area. He hurriedly said, “Take off the pants! Take off the pants!”

Nie Huaisang was extremely shocked. “Why would you say such a shameful thing in front of Hanguang-Jun!”

Wei Wuxian said, “What’s so shameful about it, we are all men. Just help me take off the corpses’ pants. We don’t have any female corpses here, only take off the pants of the male corpses!” As he spoke, he reached out his demonic hand to the waistbands of the corpses on the ground. Poor Nie Huaisang had not anticipated that after confessing everything yesterday, today he would actually have to remove corpses’ pants in the sacrificial hall of his ancestors, and they were male corpses too. He felt that after death, all the ancestors of the Qinghe Nie Sect would each slap him across the face and he would be born with some defect in his next life. He couldn’t help but shed tears. Fortunately, Wei Wuxian’s actions were stopped by Lan Wangji. Nie Huaisang was about to praise that it was indeed Hanguang-Jun when he heard him say, “I’ll do it.”

Wei Wuxian said, “You? Are you really going to do this kind of thing?”

Lan Wangji’s eyebrows seemed to be twitching, enduring something as he repeated, “Don’t move. I will.”

Of all the shocks that Nie Huaisang had received today, this was the most severe.

Of course, Lan Wangji wouldn’t actually touch the corpses to pull their pants off. He just used Bichen’s sword energy to gently cut through the clothing of the corpses, revealing the skin underneath. Some of the clothing didn’t even need to be cut, having already become tattered. In a short while, he said, “Found it.”

Everyone hurriedly looked down at the ground. The body next to Lan Wangji’s white boots had a faint ring on each of its two thighs. The stitches of the flesh-colored thread were very dense. Above and below the rings, the skin color was slightly different. Obviously, this corpse’s legs and its upper body didn’t belong to the same person.

These two legs had actually been sewn on!

Nie Huaisang was already dumbfounded. Wei Wuxian asked, “Who chooses the corpses that the Nie family uses to sacrifice to blades?”

Nie Huaisang looked dazed, “Generally, the family heads in each generation would pick and hoard them while they are alive. My elder brother left early, he didn’t store enough, so I helped him pick some… I just kept the corpses that had all five features and four limbs. I don’t know anything else…”

It was impossible to get a clear answer from him about who had snuck this corpse in. From the person who provided the corpse to the members of the Qinghe Nie Sect, there were countless suspicious targets. Perhaps only by finding all the limbs and piecing together the corpse and soul would they know what was going on.

After finally separating the two legs from the half-corpse, Wei Wuxian put them into a new Evil Sealing Pouch. While doing so, he said to Lan Wangji, “This brother looks like he was torn apart by five horses. Not only was he torn apart but he was also thrown around everywhere. One piece here and one piece there. How much hatred does that take? Let’s just pray that he wasn’t cut up into too many pieces.”

Although Nie Huaisang said “see you again” when they said goodbye, seeing his face full of horror, it was likely that he didn’t want to “see them again” for the rest of his life. The two left Xinglu Ridge and returned to the inn. When they were in a safe place, they took out the three body parts for careful comparison. Sure enough, the color of these two legs was consistent with the severed left arm, and if they were placed close, they would have a strong reaction, shaking continuously, as if wanting to connect, but alas, there was a missing torso that made it impossible to connect. They must belong to the same person.

Other than that this was a tall, slender-limbed man with a strong physique and excellent cultivation, everything else was still unknown and confusing. Fortunately, the ghost hand quickly pointed out the next direction: southwest.

Following its guidance, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji made their way to Liyang.