TFOD Chapter 128

The matter must begin three nights ago.

That night, Young Master Qin returned home from a social engagement, exhausted and reeking of alcohol, and was just about to rest when he suddenly heard the sound of someone banging on the door.

Someone was repeatedly and forcefully banging on the main gate of the Qin residence.

The doorman, still half-asleep, mumbled a question and got up to go investigate with a lantern in hand. He was just about to ask who was there when the person banging on the door suddenly went berserk, violently crashing into the gate.

It was truly crashing. The door latch creaked, and on the door panels, it was as if ten steel claws were scratching and tearing incessantly.

The commotion was so loud that soon, the courtyard was filled with awakened servants. A group of people, carrying oil lamps, leaning on sticks, and holding lanterns, looked at each other in confusion until their master, clad only in an outer robe and carrying a sword, walked into the courtyard.

Young Master Qin drew his sword with a “clang” and shouted, “Who is it!”

Immediately, the sound of claws scratching the door grew louder.

A servant, huddled in a corner holding a broom, was pointed at by Young Master Qin who commanded, “Climb up there and take a look outside.”

The servant dared not disobey, his face ashen. He reluctantly climbed while repeatedly looking back at Young Master Qin with great distress, receiving only impatient urging in return.

Finally, trembling, he put both hands on the roof tiles, peered out, took one look, and tumbled headfirst to the ground with a “thud.”

Young Master Qin said, “He said that the person knocking on the door is a monster wearing a shroud. With disheveled hair and covered in blood, not a living person.”

Hearing this, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji exchanged a glance.

Lan Sizhui asked, “Young Master Qin, was there no more detailed description?”

Young Master Qin was not from the cultivation world; he stumbled upon them by chance, only knowing that the people before him were cultivators, not their identities or names. However, Lan Wangji’s elegant poise and extraordinary bearing, Wei Wuxian’s lively and confident demeanor, and Lan Sizhui’s composed manner despite his youth made him wary of being careless. So, he answered, “No, that idiot of a servant was so cowardly he fainted after one look. I spent ages pinching his philtrum to wake him up. How could I expect him to see anything clearly?”

Wei Wuxian said, “Allow me to ask a question.”

Young Master Qin said, “Please do.”

Wei Wuxian asked, “Young Master Qin, you only let others look back then; you didn’t look yourself?”

“No.”

“What a pity.”

“What’s there to pity?”

Wei Wuxian said, “Judging from what you’ve said, the one who came to your door was a fierce corpse. A fierce corpse coming to the door is most likely aimed at a specific person. If you had looked, you might have discovered an old acquaintance.”

Young Master Qin said, “Perhaps I am one of those one or two. Moreover, even if it is for someone, that person might not necessarily be me.”

Wei Wuxian nodded and smiled, “Alright.”

Young Master Qin continued, “That thing kept scratching at the door until dawn. When I went out in the early morning to take a look, my main gate was completely ruined.”

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji walked around the gate.

Lan Sizhui followed behind them, carefully observing. He saw that the main gate of the Qin residence was covered with hundreds of harrowing scratch marks, five lines together forming a set, ranging from several feet to several inches. It was indeed completely ruined.

Although it was undoubtedly the trace of human hands, no matter how you looked at it, it did not seem like something living human fingernails could produce.

Young Master Qin said, “Back to the main point, since you two are cultivators, do you have a way to exorcise this evil spirit?”

Wei Wuxian said, “There’s no need.”

Lan Sizhui was quite surprised, but didn’t say much. Young Master Qin was also surprised, and asked, “No need?”

Wei Wuxian affirmed, “No need.

“The so-called ‘house’ has, from the moment it is built and owned, the mission of sheltering from the wind and rain, and resisting external forces. The gate is a natural barrier, which can not only block people, but also non-humans.

“Since you are the master of this house, then, as long as you do not verbally or with action invite evil spirits to enter, they cannot invade. Judging from the evil energy left on this gate, what came to your residence is not a particularly rare fierce corpse or vengeful ghost. One gate is enough to resist it.”

Young Master Qin was skeptical, “Is it really that powerful?”

Lan Wangji said, “It is true.”

Wei Wuxian then stepped on the threshold and said, “It’s true. And, in fact, the threshold is also a barrier. Reanimated corpses have blocked meridians and stagnant blood, and can only move stiffly by jumping. Unless this walking corpse had incredible leg strength in life and could jump three feet high, it wouldn’t be able to jump in even if the door was wide open.”

Young Master Qin was still uneasy, and said, “Is there nothing else I need to purchase? Such as house-guarding talismans or an exorcising sword. I am willing to pay handsomely; money is not an issue.”

Lan Wangji said, “Change the door latch to a new one.”

“…”

Seeing Young Master Qin’s incredulous face, as if he thought this suggestion was just an evasion, Wei Wuxian said, “It’s up to you whether to change it; Young Master Qin can decide for yourself. If there are any follow-ups, you’re welcome to come again.”

Leaving the Qin residence, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji walked side by side for a while, strolling aimlessly, chatting casually.

Nowadays, the two of them were considered to be semi-retired. If there were no urgent matters, they would wander aimlessly, for a month or so at most, and two or three days at least. Wei Wuxian had previously heard of Lan Wangji’s reputation of “going whenever there is chaos,” and did not find it to be too difficult, but now that he was following Lan Wangji in person, he found it was truly testing one’s patience. It was not difficult but, on the contrary, too easy. He used to pick those strange and dangerous places for night hunts, so naturally there were twists and turns, and many setbacks. But Lan Wangji did not pick and choose. When he felt it was necessary, he would go, so it was unavoidable to encounter some night hunting targets that were commonplace for Wei Wuxian. For example, this incident of the fierce corpse coming to the door was truly not that interesting compared to the things Wei Wuxian used to hunt. If others were to see it, they would probably feel it was an overreach and not worth doing.

However, because it was with Lan Wangji, even if the event itself was not so appealing, the company made things easy and pleasant.

Lan Sizhui silently followed behind, leading Little Apple, and after pondering for a while, could not help but ask, “Hanguang-Jun, Senior Wei, is it okay to just leave Young Master Qin’s house like that?”

Lan Wangji said, “It is.”

Wei Wuxian chuckled, “Sizhui, did you think I was just talking nonsense to deceive him just now?”

Lan Sizhui hurriedly said, “Of course not! Cough, Sizhui didn’t mean that. I just wanted to say, although the gate does have a natural effect of resisting evil spirits, that gate is almost falling apart. Not even giving him a single talisman; will something really not happen?”

Wei Wuxian asked strangely, “Is that even necessary to ask?”

Lan Sizhui, “Oh…”

Wei Wuxian said, “Of course, something will happen.”

Lan Sizhui, “Ah? Then why?”

Wei Wuxian said, “Because, that Young Master Qin was lying.”

Lan Wangji nodded lightly. Lan Sizhui was slightly astonished, “How did Senior Wei see through it?”

Wei Wuxian said, “I’ve only met this Young Master Qin once, so I wouldn’t dare say I can assert eight or nine out of ten, but this person…”

Lan Wangji said, “He is obstinate and callous.”

Wei Wuxian agreed with an “Mmm”, “Pretty much, anyway, he’s not a timid and cowardly person. The situation that night was strange, but according to his description, it wasn’t so strange that one would lose their reason. It’s not that hard for him to climb onto the roof to look outside.”

Lan Sizhui understood, “But he insisted that he didn’t look at all…”

Wei Wuxian said, “Right? If someone was banging on your door late at night, everyone would be curious. You’re also not timid; it’s normal to sneak a peek. To say that he didn’t look is just strange.”

Lan Wangji said, “I fully agree.”

Wei Wuxian said, “That’s what I call Great Minds Think Alike!”

Finally, he smiled, rubbed his chin and said, “Moreover, the scratch marks the fierce corpse left on the door looked scary, but the evil and blood energy wasn’t strong. It definitely didn’t come to the door to kill or take revenge; that I can be certain of. So, what exactly is going on, we still need to take a look.”

Lan Sizhui said, “Since that’s the case, why doesn’t Senior Wei directly summon the fierce corpse to ask and know?”

“I won’t summon it.”

“Ah?”

Wei Wuxian said righteously, “Doesn’t drawing a summoning flag need blood? My body is weak.”

Lan Sizhui thought he was really just too lazy to bleed, so he said, “Senior Wei, you can use my blood.”

Unexpectedly, Wei Wuxian burst out laughing with a “pfft”.

He said, “Sizhui, actually, the problem isn’t that. We brought you out for experience this time, right?”

Lan Sizhui was stunned. Wei Wuxian continued, “Of course I could just summon the fierce corpse and make it scram. But, can you do it?”

Hearing that, Lan Sizhui immediately understood.

After experiencing a series of events, he and the other juniors of the Gusu Lan Sect had become a little too reliant on Wei Wuxian. Summoning and asking, raising corpses into generals was the fastest method, but not everyone could use it. And he didn’t cultivate the demonic path, so for him, this kind of method was not suitable to learn too much of. If Wei Wuxian used his old tricks again this time, and solved it in no time, then where would be the experience.

This time, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji wanted to take him through a normal approach, and see how things could be solved using an ordinary method.

Lan Sizhui said, “So, Hanguang-Jun and Senior Wei mean that Young Master Qin is not telling the truth, so you are going to leave him alone first, to scare him?”

Wei Wuxian said, “That’s it. You can watch, that latch can only last another two days at most. Your Hanguang-Jun advised him to change to a new one; it was a genuine piece of advice. But that Young Master Qin still did not take it seriously. But if he’s really hiding something important, then even if he changes ten new latches, it’ll be useless. It’ll come again sooner or later.”

Who knew, that latch didn’t even last a single night. The next day, Young Master Qin went to visit Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji again, with a dark face.

The cultivation clans had many properties in various places. After the three arrived, they were staying in an elegant small building called Small Bamboo Pavilion under the Gusu Lan Sect’s name. Young Master Qin arrived very early, and bumped into Lan Sizhui who was tugging on a rope, trying to pull a donkey. Poor Lan Sizhui was trying very hard to pull Little Apple away from the bamboo it was chewing on, and when he turned around, he saw Young Master Qin’s mouth twitching at him, his face slightly red. He dropped the rope and asked Young Master Qin to enter the house.

He went carefully to knock on the two seniors’ bedroom to inform them. Seeing Lan Wangji, dressed neatly, opening the door silently, and shaking his head, he knew that Senior Wei would not be getting up anytime soon. Lan Sizhui was very embarrassed, and in the end, he had to bite the bullet, breaking the rule of “no lying,” and lied to Young Master Qin saying that the Senior was unwell and resting. Otherwise, he couldn’t really say, “Senior Wei wants to sleep, Hanguang-Jun told you to wait yourself”, such a blunt truth…

Wei Wuxian slept until noon, and after being cuddled and caressed by Lan Wangji, he barely managed to get up. While washing up with his eyes closed, he even put on Lan Wangji’s inner robe by mistake, with sleeves several inches too long, rolled up several times, which was truly improper. Fortunately, Young Master Qin had no time to pay attention to whether he was proper or not. He dragged the three along.

The main gate of the Qin residence was tightly closed. Young Master Qin went up and knocked on the door knocker, skipping the pleasantries, and said, “After receiving guidance from the two immortals yesterday, I was somewhat relieved, but still unable to sleep, so I read books in the hall at night, keeping an eye out for movement outside.”

Soon, a servant opened the door and welcomed the three into the courtyard. As soon as he stepped down the stairs, Wei Wuxian was slightly taken aback.

Large, bright red footprints were scattered across the courtyard, shocking to the eye.

Young Master Qin said grimly, “Last night, that thing came again. It was scratching and crashing at the gate for almost half an hour. I was getting irritated by the commotion when I suddenly heard a ‘crack’— the door latch was broken.”

At the moment he heard the sound of the door latch breaking, the hairs on Young Master Qin’s back stood on end.

He rushed to the door and peeked out through the crack in the wooden door of the hall.

The moonlight was dim. In the distance he could see the door opening. A figure was standing in front of the Qin residence gate, like a wooden stake with a spring attached to its foot, jumping around at the door.

After jumping for a long time, it still couldn’t jump inside. Young Master Qin breathed a small sigh of relief, thinking that this thing was indeed like what Wei Wuxian said during the day, with blocked meridians and stiff limbs. Its legs could not bend, so it couldn’t possibly jump over his high door threshold.

However, before he could completely relax, he saw the figure jumping around at the door suddenly leap up and jump high into the air—and jump into the gate in one go!

Young Master Qin turned around abruptly, backing himself tightly against the door.

The evil thing crossed the door, entered the courtyard, and jumped straight ahead. Thump thump, thump thump, in just a few jumps, it was banging against the door of the main hall.

Young Master Qin felt the wooden door behind him tremble and realized that the thing was only a door away from him. He quickly scrambled to escape.

Young Master Qin said, “The shadow of that evil thing was cast onto the paper window by the moonlight. It couldn’t get in and paced all around the hall. All of the footprints in the courtyard are its! You two, it’s not that I don’t believe you, but you clearly said that this thing wouldn’t be able to jump in.”

Wei Wuxian stepped on the threshold and said, “Young Master Qin, generally speaking, stiff corpses cannot jump in. The meridians and blood of the dead are stagnant, so naturally they cannot bend their legs. You can ask any of the cultivation families stationed in any area, they will all tell you the same.”

Young Master Qin opened his arms as if to show him the courtyard full of bloody footprints and asked, “Then how do you explain this?”

Wei Wuxian said, “It can only be explained that the thing that entered your door is not that ordinary. Young Master Qin, why don’t you think about what you noticed that was strange about that fierce corpse when you peeked at it last night?”

Young Master Qin pondered for a while with an unsightly expression before saying, “Come to think of it, the posture of the thing when it jumped was a bit strange.”

Wei Wuxian asked, “How was it strange?”

Young Master Qin said, “It seemed to be…”

Nearby, Lan Wangji, who had already walked around the courtyard, returned to Wei Wuxian’s side and said in a low voice, “Limping.”

Young Master Qin immediately said, “That’s right!”

Then, he asked in suspicion, “How did this gentleman know that?”

Lan Sizhui was also thinking about this question, but because his understanding had always been that Hanguang-Jun was all-knowing, he was only curious, not doubtful, and quietly waited for an explanation.

Lan Wangji said, “The footprints on the ground.”

Wei Wuxian lowered his body, and Lan Sizhui also squatted down with him, carefully examining the footprints. Wei Wuxian looked at them for a while and then looked up at Lan Wangji, “A one-legged corpse?”

Lan Wangji nodded. Wei Wuxian stood up and said, “No wonder it could jump over. These footprints are all one deep and one shallow. This walking corpse has one leg broken.”

He thought for a moment, and asked, “Do you think it was broken before or after death?”

Lan Wangji said, “Before death.”

Wei Wuxian said, “Mmm. If it’s broken after death, then it won’t affect anything.”

They communicated so easily, but Lan Sizhui couldn’t keep up, so he had to stop them, and hurriedly said, “Wait, Hanguang-Jun, Senior Wei, let me organize this, you are saying that this fierce corpse has one leg broken, and it’s limping, and that because of that, it is actually better at jumping over the high threshold than a two-legged… a, healthy fierce corpse?”

Young Master Qin was clearly thinking about this question as well, “Am I hearing this right?”

Lan Wangji said, “You heard right.”

Young Master Qin looked at them in disbelief, “Isn’t that like saying that a one-legged person runs faster than a two-legged person?”

The two were in the middle of a serious discussion when Wei Wuxian, taking a break from the discussion, smiled at him and said, “You got the wrong idea. But if I put it like this, maybe you’ll understand. Some people lose an eye, so they cherish their remaining one all the more. So even though they have lost one eye, their eyesight may not be worse than a person with two eyes, and might even be better. Similarly, if a person loses his left hand, he can only use his right hand more, so over time, his right hand might become incredibly strong, and one hand could be worth twice the strength of an ordinary person…”

Lan Sizhui did understand, “And this fierce corpse, because it broke a leg in life, and has been jumping on one leg for many years after death, so its jumping power is actually stronger than walking corpses with two legs?”

Wei Wuxian was pleased, “Exactly.”

Lan Sizhui found it very interesting and noted it down secretly. Young Master Qin said irritably, “It’s my fault for arguing with my wife yesterday and being busy with family affairs until too late, so I didn’t have the time to repair the main gate. I’ll go reinforce it now, I’ll make sure this gate is as solid as an iron bucket!”

However, Lan Wangji shook his head and said, “Useless. ‘No precedents may be set.'”

Young Master Qin was shocked, and felt that it wasn’t anything good. “What does ‘No precedents may be set’ mean?”

Wei Wuxian said, “He’s referring to an adage of our profession. It means that some defensive measures against evil spirits can only be used once, and they won’t work the second time. If you had rushed to repair it yesterday, you could have lasted for a while, but since it has entered your gate once, it will be able to enter freely in the future.”

Young Master Qin was shocked and remorseful, “Then! What should I do?”

Lan Wangji said, “Just sit.”

Wei Wuxian said, “Don’t panic. It can enter the main gate, but not the second gate. Your residence is like a city. Right now, only the first gate has been broken. There are two more gates behind it.”

“Two more? What two?”

Lan Wangji said, “The guest gate and the private gate.”

Wei Wuxian said, “Your main hall and your bedroom.”

While they were talking, the group had already passed through the courtyard and entered the hall to sit down. Surprisingly, no one brought them tea for the longest time. None of the servants knew where they had gone. Young Master Qin shouted angrily for someone to come, and then kicked the person away after they arrived. After venting his anger, Young Master Qin’s expression improved slightly, and he was still not resigned: “Can’t you give me some talismans to suppress it? Please be assured, the remuneration is truly not an issue.”

He did not know that the group did not care about any remuneration when they went out on a night hunt. Wei Wuxian said, “That depends on how you want to suppress it.”

“What do you mean?”

Wei Wuxian then began to talk.

He said, “Suppression, well, it’s a temporary fix. If you just want to prevent evil spirits from entering the door, that’s fine. Just change a talisman every half month, but it will still come to your house to bang on your door, and I estimate that by that time, you’ll be changing your main gate more often than the talismans. If you want the evil spirits to avoid your house from afar, then you’ll have to change the talismans every seven days. This type of talisman is complicated to draw and also very expensive. Moreover, the longer you suppress it, the greater its resentment will become…”

Lan Wangji just sat there quietly, listening to Wei Wuxian spout nonsense without saying a word.

Suppression was definitely not the best solution, but the making and use of suppression and banishment talismans were not as difficult and complicated as Wei Wuxian made it out to be. But when it came to such things, no one’s mouth was more skilled than Wei Wuxian’s in spinning tall tales. Even the academically outstanding Lan Sizhui listened in a daze and almost believed it. Young Master Qin found what he was saying very troublesome and also full of impending problems if he chose suppression. He couldn’t help but mumble to himself while looking at Lan Wangji, who was drinking tea with his head lowered. But because Lan Wangji’s face did not have the expression of ‘he’s exaggerating,’ he had to believe him. He said, “Is there no way to solve it once and for all?!”

Wei Wuxian changed the topic and said, “Whether there is or isn’t depends on you, Young Master Qin.”

Young Master Qin asked, “Why does it depend on me?”

Wei Wuxian said, “I can make a special talisman for you, but it depends on whether you’re willing to answer my questions truthfully.”

“What questions?”

Wei Wuxian said, “Did you know this fierce corpse in life?”

After a long silence, finally, Young Master Qin said, “I knew him.”