TFOD Chapter 5

Wei Wuxian’s first thought was that perhaps there was a problem with the flag array set up by those few young men.

The things he made could cause great disasters if used carelessly, which was why he had specifically checked the drawing of the summoning flags to make sure there were no mistakes. Therefore, when several large hands grabbed him and dragged him out, Wei Wuxian just let them drag him, saving himself the trouble of walking. He was dragged to the east hall, which was quite lively. The number of people gathered there was no fewer than the number of townspeople in Mo Village during the day. All the servants and relatives had come out, some still wearing their undergarments, their hair uncombed, each with a panicked expression. Madam Mo was slumped on her seat, as if she had just woken up from a faint, with tear marks still visible on her cheeks and tears still welling in her eyes. However, the moment Wei Wuxian was dragged in, her tears immediately turned into a cold, venomous glare.

On the ground lay a human-shaped object, its body covered with a white cloth, only its head exposed. Lan Sizhui and the other young men had serious expressions, bending over to examine it, talking in low voices. Their words reached Wei Wuxian’s ears:

“…Found less than a quarter of an hour ago?”

“We just subdued the walking corpse and were rushing from the west courtyard to the east courtyard when we found the corpse on the corridor.”

The human-shaped object was Mo Ziyuan. Wei Wuxian glanced at it, but couldn’t help but look at it again.

This corpse looked like Mo Ziyuan, yet it also didn’t look like Mo Ziyuan. Although his facial features were clearly those of his cheap cousin, his cheeks were deeply sunken, his eye sockets and eyeballs protruded, and his skin was wrinkled. Compared to the original young and vibrant Mo Ziyuan, he looked like he had aged twenty years. It was as if he had been sucked dry of blood and flesh, turning into a skeleton covered with a very thin layer of skin. If the original Mo Ziyuan was just ugly, then now his corpse was both old and ugly.

Wei Wuxian was examining it closely when Madam Mo suddenly rushed over. A cold light flashed in her hand—she was holding a dagger. Lan Sizhui quickly knocked it down. Before he could speak, Madam Mo shrieked at him, “My son died tragically, I want to avenge him! Why are you stopping me?”

Wei Wuxian hid behind Lan Sizhui again, squatting and saying, “Your son died tragically, what does that have to do with me?”

During the day, Lan Sizhui had witnessed Wei Wuxian making a scene in the east hall, and later heard a lot of embellished rumors about this illegitimate son from others. He felt quite sympathetic towards this sick person and couldn’t help but speak up for him, “Madam Mo, the shape of your son’s body, with his blood and essence completely drained, is clearly the work of an evil spirit. It shouldn’t have been done by him.”

Madam Mo’s chest heaved, “What do you know! This madman’s father was a cultivator, he must have learned a lot of evil arts!”

Lan Sizhui turned to look at Wei Wuxian, who seemed dazed, and said, “This…Madam, there’s no evidence, or…”

“The evidence is on my son!” Madam Mo pointed at the corpse on the ground, “Look for yourselves! A Yuan’s corpse has already told me who killed him!”

Without waiting for others to act, Wei Wuxian quickly flipped the white cloth from head to toe. Something was missing from Mo Ziyuan’s corpse.

His left arm, from the shoulder down, had vanished without a trace!

Madam Mo said, “Did you see it? Everyone here heard it today, right? What did this madman say? He said, if A Yuan touched his things again, he would chop off A Yuan’s arm!”

After her agitation, she covered her face and choked, “…My poor A Yuan didn’t touch any of this madman’s things at all, he was not only framed, but also murdered by his ruthless insanity…”

Ruthless insanity!

How many years had it been since he heard this evaluation used on himself, it felt truly familiar. Wei Wuxian pointed at himself, speechless. He didn’t know if he was sick or if Madam Mo was sick. He had said a lot of ruthless words in his youth, like exterminating clans and slaughtering millions of people, but most of the time it was just talk. If he could really do everything he said, he would have already dominated all the cultivation sects. Madam Mo was not really trying to avenge her son, she just wanted to find someone to vent her anger on.

Wei Wuxian didn’t want to get entangled with her. After thinking for a moment, he reached into Mo Ziyuan’s chest, searched, and pulled out something. Unfolding it, it was actually a summoning flag.

In an instant, he understood, thinking: “You reap what you sow!”

When Lan Sizhui and the others saw what was taken from Mo Ziyuan’s chest, they also understood what was going on. Thinking back to the farce from today, the cause and effect was not hard to guess. Mo Ziyuan was humiliated by Mo Xuanyu’s outburst during the day and harbored deep resentment. He wanted to settle the score with him, but Mo Xuanyu wandered outside and was nowhere to be seen. So, Mo Ziyuan intended to teach him a lesson when he went back at night.

But when night came, he secretly went out and passed through the west courtyard, and saw the summoning flag stuck on the eaves of the wall. Although they had been repeatedly warned not to go out at night, not to go to the west courtyard, and especially not to touch these black flags, Mo Ziyuan thought that it was just that they were afraid of people stealing their rare treasures, so they deliberately scared them. He had no idea how ominous the effects of the summoning flag were. Once it was tucked into his bosom, the entire person would become a living target. His hands and feet were never clean, and he had developed an addiction to stealing the talismans and magical artifacts of his crazy cousin. When he saw such a strange object, he could not resist the temptation to obtain it. So he secretly took one while the flag’s owners were subduing walking corpses in the west courtyard.

The flag array used a total of six summoning flags, five of which were set up in the west courtyard with the Lan family’s young men acting as bait, but they were carrying many immortal artifacts for protection. Although Mo Ziyuan had only stolen one, he had no protective artifacts on his body. Picking the weakest, the evil spirits would naturally be drawn to him. If it were just walking corpses, it would be fine. Even if they bit him a few times, he wouldn’t die right away and could still be saved. Unfortunately, this summoning flag had unintentionally summoned something more terrifying than walking corpses. It was this unknown evil spirit that killed Mo Ziyuan and took one of his arms!

Wei Wuxian raised his wrist. As expected, the scars on his left hand had all healed. It seemed that the body sacrifice contract had tacitly acknowledged Mo Ziyuan’s death as his doing. After all, the summoning flag was originally made and spread by Wei Wuxian, so it could be considered a twist of fate, a lucky coincidence.

Madam Mo knew some of her son’s bad habits, but she absolutely refused to admit that Mo Ziyuan’s death was self-inflicted. She was both anxious and embarrassed. In her rage, she grabbed a teacup and threw it at Wei Wuxian’s head, “If you hadn’t slandered him in front of so many people yesterday, would he have gone out in the middle of the night? It’s all your fault, you bastard!”

Wei Wuxian had been prepared and dodged. Madam Mo then shrieked at Lan Sizhui, “And you! You bunch of useless people, what are you cultivating and what evil are you suppressing? You can’t even protect a child! A Yuan is only a teenager!”

These young men were still young and had only come out to train a few times. They had not detected the abnormality here and never imagined that there could be such a brutal evil spirit. They originally felt somewhat guilty for their oversight, but they turned pale after being unreasonably scolded by Madam Mo. After all, they came from famous clans and had never been treated like this. The Gusu Lan Sect had very strict family rules, and they were forbidden from taking action against ordinary people who could not fight back, even being impolite was unacceptable. Therefore, although they felt unhappy, they forcefully suppressed it, causing their faces to look quite unpleasant.

Wei Wuxian couldn’t stand it anymore, thinking, “After so many years, the Lan family is still like this. What’s the point of having that broken cultivation, it’s like trying to hold your breath underwater. Watch me!”

He loudly “Tsked,” and said, “Who do you think you’re scolding? Do you really treat people like your family’s servants? These people have traveled thousands of miles to exorcise demons and remove evil spirits without taking a single penny, do you owe them? How old is your precious son? He must be seventeen this year, is he still a ‘child’? What kind of child wouldn’t understand human words? Yesterday, did they not repeatedly warn you not to touch anything in the array and not to approach the west courtyard? Your son went out in the middle of the night to steal and cause trouble, is it my fault? Is it their fault?”

Lan Jingyi and the others sighed in relief, their faces finally no longer pale. Madam Mo was extremely heartbroken and resentful, with only the thought of “death” in her mind. Not dying herself to accompany her son, but wanting everyone in the world to die, especially the people in front of her. She always ordered her husband around, shoving him, “Call people! Call everyone in here!”

Her husband was expressionless, as if the death of his only son had struck him too hard, and instead pushed her back. Madam Mo, caught off guard, was pushed to the ground, stunned.

In the past, she wouldn’t need to push him, as long as her voice was a little louder, he would comply. Today, he even dared to retaliate!

All the servants were terrified by her expression. A Ding trembled as he helped her up. Madam Mo clutched her chest, her voice trembling, “You… you… you also get out!”

Her husband was as if he did not hear anything. A Ding gave A Tong several winks, A Tong hurried to support the master out, the east hall was in chaos both inside and out. Wei Wuxian saw that the family had finally calmed down and prepared to continue examining the corpse. However, before he could look twice, another loud scream came crashing through the door from the courtyard.

Everyone in the hall surged out. They saw two people convulsing on the ground in the east courtyard. One, A Tong, was sitting paralyzed, still alive. The other, lying on the ground, had his flesh seemingly sucked dry and hollowed out, wrinkled and withered. His left arm was already gone, the wound had no blood to flow. The scene was exactly the same as Mo Ziyuan.

Madam Mo had just shaken off A Ding’s support when she saw the body on the ground. Her eyes rolled back, and she finally collapsed, completely out of strength. Wei Wuxian happened to be standing nearby, supporting her for a moment, before handing her over to A Ding who rushed forward. Looking at his right hand again, the wounds were also gone.

Just after crossing the threshold of the hall, before even leaving the east courtyard, Madam Mo’s husband died tragically on the spot. The events had happened so quickly. Lan Sizhui, Lan Jingyi and the others all had somewhat pale faces. Lan Sizhui was the fastest to calm down. He questioned A Tong, who was sitting paralyzed on the ground, “Did you see what it was?”

A Tong was terrified. He couldn’t open his mouth, and after a long while, he couldn’t say a word, only shaking his head continuously. Lan Sizhui was extremely anxious. He told his fellow disciples to take A Tong inside, then turned to Lan Jingyi, “Did you send the signal?”

Lan Jingyi said, “The signal has been sent, but if there are no seniors nearby who can come to assist, it will probably take at least half an hour for our people to arrive. What do we do now? We don’t even know what it is.”

Of course, they couldn’t leave. If any disciples were to abandon their post and escape when they encountered an evil spirit, they would not only bring shame to their families, they themselves would also be ashamed to face anyone. These terrified members of the Mo family could not leave either because the evil spirit was probably hiding among them, running wouldn’t help. Lan Sizhui gritted his teeth and said, “We’ll hold out, and wait for people to come!”

Now that the distress signal had been sent, other cultivators would arrive to provide assistance before long. To avoid further complications, Wei Wuxian should retreat. If the people who came didn’t know him, that would be fine. But if it just so happened that someone who had dealt with or fought with him arrived, the outcome would be hard to predict.

However, with the curse on him, he could not leave Mo Village at present. Moreover, the thing that had been summoned had taken two lives in such a short time. Its brutality was extraordinary. If Wei Wuxian simply left at this point, by the time reinforcements arrived, perhaps the entire Mo Village would be filled with corpses, all missing a left arm, and some of the Gusu Lan Sect’s relatives would be among them.

After thinking for a moment, Wei Wuxian thought, “Quick battle, quick decision.”