MJWCATFPITWOC Chapter 17
by Volare“Pa pa pa!!”
The person outside didn’t seem to expect them to lock the door and began banging on the wooden door more violently, then kicking it with their feet, but the wooden door remained still.
As the commotion lessened, Shen Yucheng’s suspended heart had just eased slightly when more footsteps came from outside, with dozens of swaying shadows appearing under the door crack. Shen Yucheng looked at the small wooden board holding the door shut, and now it was difficult to say.
“Can you stop them for a bit?” he asked Mo Yifeng. If he could use his sword, maybe he could resist the things outside.
Dozens of hands and feet fiercely attacked the door, and the wooden door began to bend due to the enormous pressure. The door gap widened, and the scene outside was clearly visible. The things trying to get in didn’t look like people at all. Their entire bodies were engulfed in flames, their skin was dilapidated, their eyeballs were protruding, and their empty mouths were open, numbly squeezing inward.
Even though the room hadn’t made any noise, they firmly believed someone was inside.
Mo Yifeng had already gotten up from the bed, looking at his hands: “I can’t stop them.”
Shen Yucheng followed his gaze and, combined with the abnormal coldness of Mo Yifeng’s body earlier, a guess arose in his heart: “Let me ask you, do you not have any spiritual power?”
He observed the other’s expression, not letting go of any detail.
Mo Yifeng took a deep breath: “There are too few records about the Enclosure, I only found out after coming in.” Not only that, but even his body had become no different from an ordinary person. That’s why he was so surprised when Shen Yucheng used the Puppet Dao.
The Enclosure was a spiritual technique that only a Nascent Soul peak cultivator could activate. Its purpose was to protect the creator’s secrets. Its design didn’t include letting people from within the Enclosure come out, so most people didn’t come out after going in. This was the true Enclosure, an absolute guardian of secrets.
Shen Yucheng recalled that the factor for entering the Time Dao was that their spiritual power matched the creator of the Enclosure. He asked if they were one of them?
“It should be you. Remember we’re bound by the Dao Companion Contract? Maybe that’s why I was pulled in.” Mo Yifeng guessed. Both the Enclosure and the Puppet Dao were legendary spiritual techniques, so many things he couldn’t be sure of. He guessed that his master discovered the Ghost Face Wall was an Enclosure and deliberately led them there.
That bad-hearted thing.
The bending of the door grew more severe. Shen Yucheng was about to reinforce the blocking board when a wooden slat of the small window was smashed open by an arm, and the smoke from outside floated into the enclosed space. He immediately covered his mouth and nose: “Mo Yifeng! Be careful—”
Before he could finish speaking, the wooden door was completely knocked open with a loud crash, and the wooden door fell to the ground. Countless “people” slowly poured in. A current flowed from his shoulders to his head, and Shen Yucheng clearly felt what it meant to have his scalp tingle. The scene before him made him extremely physically uncomfortable.
He turned to pull Mo Yifeng out, but when he turned back, the tall youth was hidden in the white mist coming from outside, sitting motionless on the bed, with an empty look in his eyes, just like Li Juemu had been when they first arrived.
The “people” went straight for Shen Yucheng. As he dodged, he caught a glimpse of the “person” behind him holding a censer. Distracted for a moment, he was grabbed, and the smoke-bearing “person” raised the censer and brought it closer to him.
Were they going to make him smell it?
Almost instantly, he felt that Mo Yifeng would be safer staying here. He ordered the several “people” holding him to get away, and escaped the wooden house while dodging.
Flames and golden light shot out from the windows of the dilapidated wooden house, and clumps of black mist surged out from the doors of every house. Shen Yucheng looked up at the moonlight in the dark night, but it had been swallowed by thick fog. The scene from four years ago before the village’s downfall was repeating itself. What he had heard Yan Quanye describe so lightly before was actually so heavy.
He couldn’t extinguish the fire, nor could he save all the villagers. At this moment, he seemed to be in the hellish flames.
He lowered his head, and the light in his eyes returned to the emptiness he had before entering Futian Sect, deep and hopeless. Several strands of white mist floated in front of him. The smoke-bearing “person” had come to Shen Yucheng’s side at some point, placing the censer in front of him. Thick white silk surrounded him, mercilessly locking the human heart.
“You! Get up!” A familiar voice came from afar, gradually approaching. Finally, the “people” beside him seemed to be tripped by something, and Shen Yucheng’s shoulders were shaken violently: “Hey! Wake up!”
His pupils gradually focused, and the colored particles in his vision recombined. Before him was an enlarged face.
The other person said, “Why are you here?”
Shen Yucheng opened his eyes. The surroundings were still the same, but the emotions from just now had been erased from his heart. Those things seemed like a long time ago, “Yan Quanye?”
A person he had been searching for for so long had suddenly appeared here. For a moment, he was speechless.
Yan Quanye was wearing cloth clothes and had a sturdy build. The sense of incongruity he had felt on Hanji Mountain now had an answer. Yan Quanye’s outfit was indeed not strange in the village.
“—Hey, I’m asking you.”
The other person’s continued calls pulled Shen Yucheng back to reality.
Shen Yucheng explained how they had come to Jitan Village to find the Hundred Question Mirror and had been trapped here, and then threw the question back to the other person.
Yan Quanye scratched his head, looking at the fire spreading everywhere in the village, orange reflected in his eyes: “Me? Did I scare you when I suddenly disappeared on the mountain last time?”
No, but you really scared Li Juemu.
“Then you should know that I’m the village’s Earthbound Spirit. I’ve been away from the village for more than four years, wandering around Hanji Mountain. For the last year or two, I was basically in a state of unstable spirit. To be honest, I don’t remember much about what happened to us back then. Earthbound Spirits can’t leave the place where they died for too long. When I saw you, I was already at my limit. Disappearing meant returning here again.”
“I spent some time regaining my senses. One day, I woke up completely and was here.”
“Actually, it’s pretty good here,” Yan Quanye looked at the walking corpses on the village roads: “At least I can see them again and live with the villagers, even if it’s only for a few days each time.”
The Time Dao would endlessly loop the most profound scenes from the time of its creation. Before Shen Yucheng and Mo Yifeng came in, Yan Quanye didn’t know how many times he had looped here.
Yan Quanye withdrew his nostalgic gaze: “It’s just that the night they jumped into the fire to commit suicide needs to be constantly replayed. The number of times is too much for me to want to see again.”
Shen Yucheng felt that this Yan Quanye was more distinct than the one on the mountain, like a living person.
At this moment, a wooden house collapsed, and several “people” were crushed underneath, stretching out their hands and waving them in the air. Shen Yucheng was the first to notice Mo Yifeng walking out of the broken wood. His handsome face was slightly scratched, and his eyes were more serious than at the beginning, with bloodshot eyes exposed. Since he had assimilated with those “people,” the villagers didn’t attack him.
A crowd of villagers was marching towards the only sober Shen Yucheng and Yan Quanye in the village. They attacked them from all directions, forming a circle that slowly narrowed when viewed from above.
Yan Quanye had always acted as a spirit and had never been attacked by “people,” so he couldn’t think of a solution.
As the villagers left the wooden houses, white mist covered the sky. Shen Yucheng suddenly understood why Jitan Village was filled with smoke four years later. He grabbed Yan Quanye, stared at the slowly advancing villagers, and said in a deep voice: “Your spirit should be able to pass through them. I need you to do something for me—”
“This, is it really possible? There are too many,” After a moment, Yan Quanye couldn’t believe Shen Yucheng’s plan, but seeing that he didn’t have the slightest wavering in his eyes, he stammered: “Since you know I’m a spirit, I can just leave and not help you. Why should I trust you?”
This person is crazy, right?
Shen Yucheng was helpless and said sternly: “Then you can leave now.”
In an unexpected response, Yan Quanye choked and angrily left behind a sentence that he didn’t guarantee success before running towards the end of the village, passing through the “people.”
Seeing the other person running away, Shen Yucheng still retained the feeling of grabbing Yan Quanye just now. He could touch him, but it felt like he could tear him apart with a little force. This was a spirit.
Golden threads emerged from his fingertips, moving in the air like they were alive. Shen Yucheng looked at the surrounding people. This was a good testing ground.
He threw them up, and the golden threads automatically bound the front row of villagers like a tide, then tightened and shrunk towards the middle, restricting their actions. They could only twist and struggle. Shen Yucheng transmitted spiritual power onto the golden threads and released them after five seconds. “Stop them,” Shen Yucheng said.
The next second, the people in front suddenly attacked those behind them. Caught off guard, the rear wave retreated quite a bit.
Immediately following that, he controlled several waves of people at once, creating an “army” of hundreds of people. However, while controlling them, he had to accurately distribute the ratio of his own spiritual power to the number of puppets. Once it was unbalanced, he might be backlashed.
Several drops of sweat flowed from his temples to his neck. He panted slightly, not expecting that controlling a hundred people at once would consume so much spiritual power. He didn’t have the extra energy to drive the villagers to do more things. He only wanted to delay until Yan Quanye completed his plan.
“Yucheng-ge.” A voice suddenly came from behind.
Shen Yucheng’s heart skipped a beat, and he quickly pulled away. He wasn’t surprised when Mo Yifeng’s figure appeared in his sight. After all, one of the rules of the Dao Companion Contract was that you couldn’t manipulate your partner, but he didn’t expect him to suddenly approach from behind.
Mo Yifeng’s expression was different from the beginning. Could it be that the effects of the censer would change over time?
But there was no chance to investigate. Mo Yifeng’s red eyes showed madness: “Ge, fight me.”
It was as if he was determined to decide who was better.
After speaking, he rushed up before Shen Yucheng could think. Shen Yucheng thought he would be unarmed and was thinking about how to yield, but he miscalculated the difference in height and strength between the two. After getting close, Mo Yifeng quietly pulled out a small knife he had hidden for a long time and stabbed it towards Shen Yucheng’s abdomen.
“!”
The place where the two fought transformed into a martial arts field in the sky. The white mist split apart with their movements, turning into a few scattered white clouds.
Shen Yucheng had never been so glad that he was shorter. He wasn’t as agile as the other person and was a little slow to react, so he could only bend over to dodge. The sharp knife split a strand of Shen Yucheng’s hair in half.
Before he could regain his balance, the small knife attacked from other places, forcing him to dodge left and right in embarrassment.
Mo Yifeng launched a fierce attack, and Shen Yucheng, considering his body, could only defend step by step: “Wait a moment— ugh!”
He grabbed the other person’s wrist and was about to snatch the small knife when Mo Yifeng’s fierce eyes suddenly closed, his whole body softened, and a spot on his chin bumped into a spot below Shen Yucheng’s nose.
At this time, Yan Quanye ran over from afar: “Hey, I’m done, it really is possible…”
Yan Quanye stood where he was and didn’t want to come over, looking at the two people face to face: “You guys are in public, can’t you hold back?”
Shen Yucheng was unable to defend himself.