TFOD Chapter 34

Chapter 33: Plants and Trees Part Eight

The river valleys of the Shu Dong area are numerous, with towering mountains standing as screens, the terrain is rugged and uneven, and the wind is weak. Therefore, many places are shrouded in mist all year round.

The two of them headed straight in the direction indicated by the left hand, passing through a small village.

Several laps of fences surrounded the earthen houses with thatched roofs. A flock of chickens, both hens and chicks of various colors, were pecking for rice in the yard. A large rooster with bright plumage stood on the roof, shaking its comb, standing on one leg, alertly turning its neck, proudly looking down at all directions. Fortunately, no one in the village kept dogs. It was estimated that these villagers didn’t even have enough meat to eat themselves, let alone extra bones to feed dogs.

In front of the village, there was a fork in the road, branching into three different directions. Two of the roads were bare, with many footprints, indicating that they were often traveled. However, the last one was overgrown with weeds, covering the road surface. A square stone slab stood crookedly in the direction of this road. The stone slab was old, weathered, and a large crack ran from top to bottom. Even the crack had weeds growing out of it.

Two large characters were carved on the stone slab, seemingly the name of the place the road led to. The bottom character was barely visible, a “city” character, while the top character had many strokes, a complicated shape, and was cut right through by the crack, causing many small stone fragments to fall off. Wei Wuxian bent down, pushed aside the weeds, and after looking at it for a long time, still couldn’t tell what character it was.

Unfortunately, the direction pointed by his left arm was this very road.

Wei Wuxian said, “Why don’t we ask the villagers?”

Lan Wangji nodded. Wei Wuxian certainly didn’t expect him to ask, so he immediately walked towards the farm women who were scattering rice to feed the chickens, a smile on his face.

The women, young and old, became nervous when they saw a strange young man approaching. They seemed to want to drop their baskets and flee into the house. After Wei Wuxian said a few words with a smile, they slowly calmed down and responded shyly.

Wei Wuxian pointed at the stone tablet and asked a question. Their faces changed in unison, and after hesitating for a long time, they began to talk to him in broken phrases, pointing here and there. During this time, they didn’t dare to look too much at Lan Wangji, who stood by the stone tablet. Wei Wuxian listened intently for a while, the corner of his mouth always raised. Finally, he seemed to change the topic, which made the farm women relax, their faces gradually brightening, and they gave him shy smiles.

Lan Wangji stared at that side from afar, and after waiting for a long time, Wei Wuxian still didn’t seem to have any intention of returning. He slowly lowered his head and kicked a small pebble beside his foot.

He repeatedly rolled the innocent little pebble for a while. When he looked up again, Wei Wuxian actually took something out from his bosom and handed it to the farm woman who spoke the most.

Lan Wangji stood there blankly, unable to restrain himself any longer. Just as he was about to take a step forward, Wei Wuxian finally returned, leisurely strolling back with his hands behind his back.

He stood back beside Lan Wangji and said, “Hanguang-Jun, you should have gone over. There are also rabbits in that yard!”

Lan Wangji did not react to his teasing, and said coldly, “What did you find out?”

Wei Wuxian said, “This road leads to Yi City. The first character on the stone tablet is ‘Yi.'”

Lan Wangji said, “The ‘Yi’ of chivalry?”

Wei Wuxian said, “Yes and no.”

Lan Wangji said, “What do you mean?”

Wei Wuxian said, “The character is indeed that character, but the meaning is not right. It is not the ‘Yi’ of chivalry, but the ‘Yi’ of a mortuary.”

They stepped onto the overgrown path, leaving the stone tablet behind. Wei Wuxian continued, “These women said that since ancient times, six or seven out of ten people living in that city died young, either short-lived or by violent deaths, and the city has a lot of mortuaries where corpses are kept. Also, because the local specialty is coffin paper money and other funerary items, the craftsmanship of making coffins or paper effigies is superb, so it got this name.”

Besides weeds and rocks, there were also barely noticeable gullies on the road. Lan Wangji kept his eyes on Wei Wuxian’s feet, and Wei Wuxian said as he walked, “They said that people here rarely go to Yi City, and people inside the city rarely leave except to deliver goods. They haven’t seen anyone in the past few years. This road has been deserted for several years and no one has walked on it. It is indeed difficult to walk.”

Lan Wangji: “Anything else?”

Wei Wuxian: “What else?”

Lan Wangji: “What did you give them?”

Wei Wuxian: “Oh. You mean that? It’s rouge.”

When he was in Qinghe, he bought a small box of rouge from the wandering doctor-cum-false Taoist who he asked about the Xinglu Ridge, and he had been carrying it around with him. Wei Wuxian said, “When you ask people for information, you should always give a little something in return. I originally wanted to give them money, but they were scared and didn’t dare to accept it. Seeing that they liked the fragrance of the rouge very much, as if they had never used anything like that before, I just gave it to them.”

After a pause, he continued, “Hanguang-Jun, why are you looking at me like that? That box of rouge isn’t considered good. But the current me isn’t like before, always carrying around a bunch of flowers, plants, hairpins and bracelets, giving them to girls everywhere. There really isn’t anything else I could give them. Having something is better than having nothing.”

As if he was awakened by some unpleasant memory, Lan Wangji’s eyebrows twitched, and he slowly turned his head away.

Continuing along this difficult road, the weeds gradually thinned, pulled back to the sides, and the road became wider. But the mist became thicker.

When the left arm clenched into a fist, a dilapidated city gate appeared at the end of the long road.

The corner tower of the city wall was missing tiles and paint, and one corner was missing, making it look particularly dilapidated and ugly. The city walls were full of graffiti scribbled by who-knows-who. The red of the city gate had almost faded to white, the door nails were rusty and black, and the two doors were ajar, as if someone had just pushed open a crack and slipped inside.

Even before entering, one could feel that this must be a place where demons run amok.

As Wei Wuxian walked along the road, he was constantly looking around. When he arrived at the city gate, he commented, “The feng shui here is really terrible.”

Lan Wangji nodded slowly, “The mountains are exhausted and the water is vile.”

This Yi City was surrounded by high mountains and cliffs, the mountainsides leaning sharply towards the center, creating an oppressive and threatening posture, as if they would collapse at any moment. Surrounded by such dark, massive mountain rocks, in the pale white mist, they were even more like demons than demons and ghosts themselves. Just standing here made one’s chest feel tight and one’s heart panicked, unable to breathe, with a strong sense of threat.

Since ancient times, there has been the saying that “outstanding people come from excellent land”. There is also the reverse saying. Due to the terrain and location, some places have poor feng shui, a natural aura of bad luck. People living in these places are more likely to die young and encounter misfortune. If their ancestors have been rooted there for generations, they are even more unlucky to the bone. And unusual events often breed there, the possibility of corpses turning into fierce creatures, and vengeful ghosts returning are several times higher than in other places. Clearly, Yi City was such a place.

Such places are usually remote, beyond the reach of the cultivation clans. Of course, they don’t want to manage it either. It’s very troublesome. More troublesome than water ghouls. Water ghouls can be driven away, but feng shui is difficult to change. If no one cried and begged for help, each family would turn a blind eye and pretend they didn’t know.

Leaving their homes was the best way for the city’s residents to break free, but if a place’s people had been rooted in a remote area for generations, it was difficult to make the decision to leave their homes. Even if six or seven out of ten people in their hometown died young, perhaps they were among the other three or four, so they could still endure it.

The two walked to the city gate and exchanged a glance.

“Squeak—”, the overburdened bearings carried the two misaligned city gates, slowly opening.

What they saw was not a bustling scene, nor was it a group of fierce corpses pouncing towards them. There was only a blanket of white.

A dense fog filled the air, several times thicker than the mist outside the city. They could barely make out that there was a straight long street ahead, with no one in sight. On either side were standing houses.

The two naturally moved closer to each other, entering the city together.

Although it was still daytime, the city was eerily silent. Not only were there no human voices, but there wasn’t even the sound of chickens or dogs. It was extremely strange.

However, since it was the place indicated by the left arm, if it wasn’t strange, it would be strange.

Walking along the long street for a while, the deeper they went into the city, the thicker the white mist became, as if demonic energy was overflowing. At first, they could barely see beyond ten steps, but later, they couldn’t make out the outline beyond five steps. Later, it was almost impossible to see their own hands in front of their faces. The further Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji walked, the closer they got, with shoulders touching each other to barely see each other’s faces. A thought came to Wei Wuxian’s mind, “If someone took advantage of this dense fog and quietly inserted themselves between us, turning two people into three, I’m afraid we wouldn’t even notice.”

At that moment, his foot kicked something. He looked down, but could not tell what it was. Wei Wuxian grabbed Lan Wangji’s hand, telling him not to walk away alone, and bent down to examine the object. A head with wide, angry eyes broke through the mist, colliding with his vision.

The face on this head was that of a man, with thick eyebrows and large eyes, and two unusually prominent patches of rouge on his cheeks.

Wei Wuxian, having just kicked this head, almost sent it flying, knew how heavy it was. Since it was so light, it certainly wasn’t a real person’s head. When he picked it up and squeezed it, a large part of the man’s cheek collapsed, and some of the rouge was rubbed off.

It turned out to be a paper head.

This paper head was made very lifelike, with exaggerated makeup, but the facial features were quite refined. Yi City specialized in producing funerary items. Naturally, the craftsmanship of making paper figures was not bad. Among the paper figures, there were substitute paper figures, which the common people believed could be burned for the dead to suffer in hell, ascend mountains of knives, and descend into cauldrons of boiling oil; there were also maidens and beauties to serve the ancestors in the underworld, massaging their backs and legs. Of course, these were just things that the living did to comfort themselves. This paper head should be a “Yin Warrior.”

“Yin Warriors,” as the name suggests, are bodyguards. It was said that after going down, they could protect ancestors from being bullied by other evil ghosts and tricky judges, and the paper money burned by their descendants wouldn’t be snatched away by little ghosts. This paper head must have originally been attached to a tall and sturdy paper body, but someone must have pulled it off and thrown it on the street.

The paper head’s hair was black, strand by strand, with a luster. Wei Wuxian reached out and touched it. It was tightly attached to the scalp, as if it was really hair that had grown out of it. He thought, “The craftsmanship is really good. Could it be that they used real human hair and stuck it on?”

Suddenly, a thin black shadow brushed past him quickly.

This shadow came very strangely, closely brushing against his side as it ran past, disappearing into the thick fog in an instant. Bichen automatically unsheathed itself, chasing after that figure, and then suddenly returned, sheathing itself.

The thing that just slipped past him was running so fast, it was definitely not a speed that a human could achieve!

Lan Wangji said, “Be careful. Be vigilant.”

Although it had only brushed past them, there was no guarantee that next time it wouldn’t do something else.

Wei Wuxian stood up and said, “Did you hear that just now?”

Lan Wangji said, “Footsteps, sound of bamboo poles.”

That’s right. In that brief moment, besides the hurried footsteps, they had also heard another strange sound. A clear “da-da-da” sound similar to a bamboo pole hitting the ground at high speed. It was unknown why there was such a sound.

Just then, footsteps came from the mist ahead.

This time, the footsteps were very light, slow, and there were many of them, very chaotic. It was as if many people were carefully walking towards them, but they were not saying a word. Wei Wuxian flipped his hand and produced an Ignite Yin Talisman, lightly throwing it forward. If there was anything filled with resentment ahead, it would burn, and the fire would illuminate some area.

The people opposite also noticed that someone on their side had thrown something. They immediately counterattacked and suddenly attacked!

Several sword glows of different colors attacked with murderous intent. Bichen calmly unsheathed itself, circled around in front of Wei Wuxian, and repelled all the sword glows. On the other side, there was a flurry of people falling over each other in a chaotic mess. Hearing the sounds of shouting, Lan Wangji immediately sheathed Bichen, and Wei Wuxian said, “Jin Ling? Sizhui!”

As expected, he had not misheard. Jin Ling’s voice rang out through the mist, “Why is it you again?!”

Wei Wuxian said, “I was about to ask why it’s you again!”

Lan Sizhui tried his best to restrain himself, but his voice was full of joy, “Young Master Mo, you’re here too? Does that mean Hanguang-Jun is also here?”

Upon hearing that Lan Wangji might also be there, Jin Ling immediately shut his mouth, as if he had been silenced again, fearing that he would be caught and punished for making a mistake. Lan Jingyi also shouted, “He must be here! That was Bichen just now! It was Bichen, right?!”

Wei Wuxian said, “Yes, he is here, right beside me now. You all come over quickly.”

A group of youngsters, upon learning that the opposite side were friends and not foes, were as if granted a great amnesty, and came rushing over in a crowd. Besides Jin Ling and the juniors of the Lan family, there were also seven or eight other young men wearing the clothing of other families, their hesitation not yet completely gone, and they should also be disciples from the Immortal Sects of higher status. Wei Wuxian said, “How did you all get here? And why such a fierce attack? Luckily, Hanguang-Jun was here with me, otherwise, what would you do if you hurt an ordinary person?”

Jin Ling retorted, “There are no ordinary people here. There aren’t any people at all in this city!”

Lan Sizhui nodded, “In broad daylight, a demonic fog is spreading, and not a single shop is open.”

Wei Wuxian said, “That’s not important right now. How did you all get together? Don’t tell me you all agreed to come out hunting together.” Jin Ling was always unpleasant towards everyone he met, always wanting to fight. And he also had some friction with the Lan juniors. How could they all be out hunting together? Lan Sizhui, always answering questions, explained, “Well, that’s a long story. We were originally…”

Just at that moment, from within the mist, came a “ka-ka-ka” “da-da-da”, the piercingly loud sound of bamboo poles hitting the ground.

The faces of all the youngsters changed dramatically, “It’s coming again!”