Chapter 101 - 98: Night of Revenge

Chapter 101: Chapter 98: Night of RevengeYuan Buyu, looking dashing, waited in front of Zhou Xuan’s coffin for Zhou Lingyi’s roster of stage names. ... At Ping Shui Prefecture Train Station that night, things were as busy as ever. Two elderly men with silver hair, dressed in expensive suits, supported each other as they got out of a Meite Car and walked towards the station’s waiting room. "Cousin, do you think the people from the Zhou Family’s Troupe will come after us?" Li Lisheng asked Li Jintang in a low voice. Li Lisheng was the White Paper Fan of the actors’ branch, and Li Jintang was the incense master of the actors’ branch. The two were cousins. "Our actors cannot openly attack, but our disguises are top-notch. How could Zhou Lingyi possibly find us?" Li Jintang reassured his cousin; once they were inside the train station and on the train to Mingjiang Prefecture, they’d be as free as birds. As they walked forward, they failed to notice a shadow materializing on a nearby wall. "Old sir, need a ride?" A rickshaw puller with his hat brim pulled down low blocked their path. "No need." Li Lisheng waved his hand, moving to the side a bit, but the rickshaw obstructed them again, asking, "Need a ride?" "I said no need." Just as Li Lisheng was about to get angry, his eyes caught a glint of cold light. A small knife shaped like a bamboo leaf entered through Li Lisheng’s eyelid, slanting upward to precisely pierce the area behind his brow. Damaging this area would cause the body to instantly lose sensation, resulting in immediate death. Li Lisheng fell exactly this way, struck by the knife, his body went limp, and he lay on the rickshaw, motionless. The shadow quickly attacked from behind, enveloping Li Jintang. Li Jintang sensed danger and tried to sing the Ghost Play, but Lv Mingkun had another knife pressed against his throat, choking his singing completely, not daring to make a sound, leaving him at the mercy of the shadow’s embrace. "Incense master Li, need a ride?" Lv Mingkun lowered his hat brim a bit more. "You’ve got... the wrong person." Li Jintang struggled till the end, denying his identity. "Playing the old man very convincingly... Get on the rickshaw, if you want to live." Li Jintang knew there was no escape; he had no other choice. He got on the rickshaw, sitting on top of his cousin’s corpse. Lv Mingkun pulled the rickshaw, running toward the direction of the Xijiamu District. Enveloped tightly by the shadow, Li Jintang couldn’t understand how, even after changing his face, someone could have found him so easily. Lying back in the rickshaw, he sighed and inadvertently saw a red lantern hanging in the sky with a bleeding eye on it—the lantern was the Night Patrol God’s eye during the night. If Li Jintang had received the news of Human Turtle and Zhou Xuan’s deaths sooner, he and his cousin could have changed their faces and fled earlier. But by the time he received the news, twilight had passed. After twilight, it was time for red lanterns to be hung in the sky, and those red lanterns had been watching the Li brothers since before they left home. Even if they changed faces several times at various inns along the way, they could not escape detection under the lantern’s light. ... No. 91 Guifang Road in the Xijiamu District was a standalone two-story western-style house. Li Jintang was extremely familiar with this place, whether it was the living room, the bedroom, or the spiraling wooden staircase; he knew every inch of the walls like the back of his hand. This place was his home. Lv Mingkun brought Li Jintang upstairs. The second floor was dark, with no lights on, except for a faint glimmer. That glimmer dimmed and brightened rhythmically with breathing, then slowly changed to a ruddy glow. Lv Kunming turned on the light, and Li Jintang saw a young woman sitting on the sofa, smoking a cigar. "Zhou... Zhou... Lingyi, your brother’s death..." "Your interference with my brother’s spirit, what was it for?" Zhou Lingyi stared at Li Jintang. Li Jintang shook his head, indicating he didn’t know. "Not very honest." Zhou Lingyi slowly approached Li Jintang, her fingertip sliced through his face, blood flowing from the wound. She dipped her finger in the blood and drew a witch family’s Gu Talisman on Li Jintang’s throat. The talisman was rapidly absorbed by Li Jintang’s skin, then a lump the size of a fingertip swelled at his throat, emitting a susurrus of insect-like sounds. After Zhou Lingyi snapped her fingers, the lump rapidly moved within Li Jintang’s body, causing him such excruciating pain that he was soaked in cold sweat, unable to scream, his face twisted and ferocious. It was his first time experiencing what it meant to "neither live nor die." "Snap." Zhou Lingyi snapped her fingers again, and Li Jintang’s agony was momentarily lessened by a fraction. No longer wanting to endure the inhuman torment, he hurriedly confessed, "Zhou Xuan has something in his possession! Human Turtle wants it." "What does the item look like?" "I don’t know, really don’t. Neither does Human Turtle. I only know that with that item, Human Turtle can stop living a life of hiding." "Where is the item now?" "Only Zhou Xuan knows, I really don’t." "Why did you guys control my third senior brother?" Zhou Lingyi once again snapped her fingers, increasing the speed at which the lump moved within Li Jintang’s body. The intensified pain made Li Jintang confess much faster, almost bellowing out, "It was Human Turtle’s plan; he wanted Zhou Xuan to find that item, and once found, to kill Zhou Xuan and then take the item back. Li Shuangyi has been Human Turtle’s plant for several years, to ensure that Zhou Xuan would definitely be killed..." Li Jintang spilled everything he knew. Since Zhou Lingyi now knew what she wanted to know, she asked, "Hand over the roster of the actors’ branch." "It’s under the floor tiles of the writing desk," Li Jintang was already so tortured he could barely speak. Lv Mingkun found the register of names and handed it to Zhou Lingyi. "Put a dog chain on Li Jintang, and let him spend his last moments well, as a dog." Zhou Lingyi took the register and left the room. "Li Xiangzhu, I’ll take you to one more place!" Lv Mingkun approached Li Jintang and knocked him out with an elbow strike. ... Li Jintang was woken up by the barking of dogs. He opened his eyes to see fierce dogs, paws pressed to the ground, growling non-stop all around him. And he himself was sitting inside a doghouse made of stone bricks. "Where is this? Where am I?" Li Jintang tried to stand up but felt his neck being pulled. He looked down and saw a dog chain around his neck. "Bite!" An old man outside the doghouse shouted, and upon his command, the fierce dogs lunged at Li Jintang, madly tearing and biting... The sounds of chains, dog barks, flesh being torn, and screams were unending. When everything quieted down, Lv Mingkun handed the old man a red packet: "Uncle, auspicious and prosperous." ... Zhou Lingyi returned to the Zhou Family’s Troupe and handed the register to Yuan Buyu. Yuan Buyu took the register and walked outside. Most names in the register seemed to come from actors, and some were experts from other ’Tangkou’. As a sub-section, it wasn’t rare to hire skilled outsiders when their strength fell short. The first actor Yuan Buyu sought out was named Sun Mingyan. He was one of the rare Five Incense levels in their sub-section. Sun Mingyan indulged in opium, enjoying it amid the engulfing smoke at home when there was a knock on the door. He watched with vigilance—what good thing could come from a knock in the dead of night? He immediately thought of performing a Puppet Play, but upon hearing a sudden wooden sound, he found his mouth unable to open, seeing only a gigantic golden Buddha; the presence alone was enough to keep him from standing, forcing him to kneel. The golden Buddha did not lower its head, just pressed with its palm facing down; the overwhelming pressure crushed down swiftly, and Sun Mingyan could hardly resist before he was crushed by the palm force. The storyteller’s incense had reached the seventh level, and his realm of dream influence was vast; Yuan Buyu didn’t need to enter, as he could envelop Sun Mingyan in a dream from outside. And as Sun Mingyan was crushed by the Great Buddha in the dream, in reality, he was repeatedly smashing his own head with his opium pipe. Yuan Buyu continued to look for the next actor. A storyteller at the level of Seven Incense Sticks, seeking revenge, was like King Yan calling the roll. As soon as they were found, whether inside or outside their house, no matter if they carried evil magic artifacts, one dream became the nightmare that sent them to their ends. When Yuan Buyu returned to the Zhou Family’s Troupe, his coat was untouched by blood, and the names on the register were almost entirely crossed out, leaving only a few lucky actors who escaped disaster tonight by not being in Ping Shui Prefecture. These few were not very high in martial prowess, leaving the clean-up for the shadows in the days to come, which couldn’t be more fitting. ... That night, there was no acting sub-section left in Ping Shui Prefecture, and even their affiliated business, Mingjiang Grand Theater, had its color taken by Liu Jiaotian. Liu Jiaotian performed at a stage set up in front of Mingjiang Grand Theater, her movements, voice, and appearance unparalleled; she sang of pear blossoms falling, of pervasive sorrow, moving the audience to tears and vigor in their applause and cheers. The Grand Theater had almost no patrons, as everyone went outside to listen to Liu Jiaotian’s play, forcing an early closure. ... The day after Zhou Xuan’s funeral, the Zhou Family’s Troupe had fewer visitors, and the guests coming to offer condolences were much reduced. The fire of revenge that had ignited the night before now left only sparks; Zhou Lingyi, cuddled in the sleeve, sat on a grand master’s chair, closing her eyes to rest, and would occasionally startle awake, then gaze upon Zhou Xuan’s face. Seeing him offered her comfort—it had become an inner habit of Zhou Lingyi’s to accept Zhou Xuan, but such comfort was something she feared she would not find for even one more day. On the other hand, Yuan Buyu seemed groggy; ever since returning to the Zhou Family’s Troupe, his vigor had dissipated, spending most of his days dozing off, and even when he was occasionally awake, his conversations with others were incoherent. Zhou Lingyi instructed the people nearby not to disturb him too much; she understood that Yuan Buyu had grasped a new level of incense. Since his incense had been extinguished completely ten years ago, and now he had ascended to such a high level, his spirit could hardly bear it, becoming groggy and requiring much time to stabilize the new incense. "How lazy the sunlight is; if only my little brother were here to bask in it with me, that would be wonderful." Zhou Lingyi squinted her eyes, lifting her face towards the sun, now concealed by clouds, and spoke as if in a trance. ... It was nearly dawn when it was time for the Nu Ritual to begin ascending the mountain. In the latter half of the night, the Zhou Family’s Troupe’s masters were making final preparations, counting if the numbers of paper men and paper horses were correct, checking the number of participants in the Nu Ritual, and inquiring if Nu masks and costumes had been distributed properly. Of utmost importance was the construction of the "Old Dragon Bed." The Old Dragon Bed was the wooden frame for carrying the coffin; it was more of a dragon spine of a wood ship than a bed, extending out with a dozen or so wooden arms. The Dragon Bed had been crafted from the start of the funeral, and now it was completed, but Yu Zhengyuan was not reassured. Carrying a kerosene Wind Lamp, bending over, he meticulously checked if every nail was secured, ordering the masters to reinforce any spot he felt was not stable enough! While the Zhou Family’s Troupe prepared for the last Nu Ritual, Zhou Xuan was not "idle." In the Secret Realm, the black mist transformed by the Helmsman was completely absorbed by Zhou Xuan. The fusion of dual consciousnesses was completed. Guided by the new soul, Zhou Xuan stood in the cabin, walking towards the Black Water. He walked above the Black Water, walked above the red moon, straight to the center of Fei Yue, where a vivid red enveloped his soul. At the same time, inside the coffin, Zhou Xuan’s body slowly regenerated from wounds; even the flesh that had been torn apart consumed the sutures that stitched the wounds, and then quietly knitted together. Spirit and flesh gradually became one...