"By my count, the curse-insect I cast should be flaring up soon." Qian Chen pinched his fingers to calculate the time. He had chosen an open, unobstructed clearing, locking onto the qi of the Wei manor in Jiaobu Town from afar.
"What a fine scheme to kill with a borrowed blade—using me as a knife to kill that useless Wei Taiping, then using the Wei clan as a blade to eliminate me." Qian Chen sneered coldly. "Those heterodox figures scraping a living in the jianghu are truly no easy marks. Even though I deliberately displayed a cultivation level of merely Qi Refining, he remains this cautious.
"Had you been as reckless as those two from the Mount Mei Sect, wouldn't I have dealt with you long ago?
"If I had killed Wei Taiping just now, wouldn't that have played right into your hands? Strike down the ringleader first, then punish the accomplices. Wei Taiping is merely an accomplice, but you are the true ringleader!"
Qian Chen planted the Seven Baleful Banner behind him and cleared a flat, circular space. Using the Black Gold Baleful Hook, he planed a large boulder flat to serve as a tabletop. Then, taking out a length of peach wood he had lopped off in Sanyang Village, he whittled it into the shape of a sword and carved three crude command tokens.
From the Dragon Sparrow Ring, he released the Azure Phosphor Five Poisons, directing them to crawl onto the stone platform and settle in the five directions.
Next, he unhooked the red gourd from his waist and set it on the right side of the stone platform, placing the three peach wood command tokens on the left.
He then laid out the Spirit Light Mirror, Dragon Sparrow Ring, Soul-Binding Rope, and Azure Heaven Golden Wheel before the stone platform, retrieved three spirit talismans, and arranged them in the center. Qian Chen took up the peach wood sword, cleansing and tempering it with true qi. As his qi resonated with the surroundings, he determined the precise two-hour period according to the celestial order... In this manner, a crude ritual altar was fully arranged. Because Qian Chen was not performing a ritual to communicate with high deities, he enshrined no divine statues; and because this was not an exorcism to ward off evils or slay demons, neither did he enshrine the Three Daoist Patriarchs.
Instead, he made offerings only to the Five Poisons Incarnations, symbolizing the spirit of the Five Poisons!
When the sky had darkened completely and the appointed hour drew near, Qian Chen opened his eyes. With his left hand, he scattered a handful of jade dust; with his right, he dipped the peach wood sword into cinnabar and flicked it in flourishes. Threads of red cinnabar lingered in the air, forming a talismanic script. Only then did Qian Chen shout, "Host of ghosts, assemble!"
As the decree rang out, heaven and earth answered...
In the City God Temple of Jiaobu Town, City God Wei had just listened to the report of the Night Wandering Ghost Clerks and was about to resume his official duties when he heard the Daoist voice of this decree. He sighed softly. "He truly possesses the true transmission of Daoist orthodoxy!" Calling over a ghost clerk, he commanded, "A disciple of the Daoist orthodoxy is holding an altar ritual. All local spirits and deities must accommodate him. Go and release the wicked ghosts held in the Nether Realm!"
Behind the City God Temple... the host of ghosts walked the night: decapitated ghosts, hanged ghosts, vomit-eating ghosts, swift ghosts, cat ghosts, fox ghosts, pipa ghosts, blood-eating ghosts, disheveled ghosts, mighty ghosts, one-horned ghosts, drowned ghosts, and impoverished ghosts. In an instant, an invisible, immense power swept them away across dozens of li, prostrating them beneath Qian Chen's ritual altar.
The jade dust Qian Chen had scattered transformed into pure essence, which the ghosts scrambled to devour.
"Ferocious baleful qi of the ghost host!"
With a sweep of his peach wood sword, Qian Chen drew a thread of qi from the ghosts and sealed it into the first command token.
Just then, a squeak broke the silence. The Ear Canal Deity, no bigger than a bean, stealthily crawled onto the altar to pick up and eat the jade dust. It looked at Qian Chen timidly, clutching a speck of jade dust with a pitiful expression. Resigned, Qian Chen said, "Since you performed a service by delivering a message, guard the altar for me!" Only then did the Ear Canal Deity rejoice. Picking up two specks of jade dust, it stood on the stone platform beside the red gourd, chin up, chest puffed out, belly protruding, putting on an imposing and majestic air.
Yet it was so tiny that no matter how hard it tried, it looked nothing like a divine general guarding an altar, resembling instead a tiny doll.
At that moment, two more little sprites scurried out—the Gold and Silver Boys Qian Chen had encountered before. They also gazed longingly at the spirit-pill jade dust. Qian Chen could only say, "You two shall serve as attendant boys..."
Soon, spirit creatures such as a white snake, a gray rat, a hedgehog, a fox, and a weasel caught the scent of the spirit pills and rushed over from the distant mountain woods. Many other spirit creatures came as well, but Qian Chen dismissed them with a splash of talisman water, retaining only these five most spiritual beasts.
Qian Chen tapped them with his peach wood sword, drawing forth a wisp of qi and sealing it into the second command token.
"Bizarre sinister qi of the demon host!"
Holding up the red gourd and the Spirit Light Mirror, the Gold and Silver Boys stood on either side of the altar. Qian Chen guided the Five Poisons Incarnations with his peach wood sword, using the Five Poisons as a sacrifice to draw a speck of yin baleful spirit from heaven and earth, sealing it into the final command token.
Then Qian Chen gave a final shout: "Demonic baleful qi of the Five Poisons!
"Five Poisons and Five Demons, host of spirits and hundred ghosts, heed my command! The turbid corpse qi of the yin soul resides within form and spirit, ever preserved by consciousness. Trailing the soul of the yin corpse, draining the essence of the yang spirit, depleting righteous qi, easily leading unto death... Let the external qi of heaven and earth transform into a host of ghosts, awakening hundreds of insects... Duo!"
This final shout sounded like thunder, reverberating within the minds of the surrounding spirits and ghosts.
With the silver-robed boy straining to hold it aloft, the mirror face of the Spirit Light Mirror turned toward the Wei manor in Jiaobu Town, firmly locking onto a thread of qi. Of the three tokens, the one sealing the ferocious baleful qi of the ghost host was the first to turn to ash. An invisible current of qi followed the Spirit Light Mirror's lock and surged toward the Wei residence...
At that moment, the gatekeeper of the Wei residence heard two lion roars echo outside the main gate, immediately followed by the self-rattling of the white tiger bronze door knockers.
Lying in bed after having fallen unconscious the moment he returned to the Wei residence, Wei Taiping abruptly coughed up a mouthful of black blood. The servants watching over his bedside were seized with terror and rushed off to report to Patriarch Wei Lecheng.
Meanwhile, the household servants and thugs who had accompanied Wei Taiping out also felt something amiss. One of them absently scratched his back, only for the itch to intensify.
Instantly, all of them felt an agonizing itch spread across their skin. They clawed and scratched at themselves, and before long, the broken skin festered into sores. The sores brought even worse itching, and the worse it itched, the less they could stop scratching. Soon the sores were a bloody pulp, pus running all over their bodies, breaking out everywhere with malignant boils, ringworms, scabs, draining ulcers, maggots, and oozing dampness...
Their gums swelled painfully; opening their mouths revealed rotted teeth and released a foul, overpowering stench.
Wei Lecheng hurried over. After asking about Wei Taiping's movements, the servants dared not hide anything and recounted the entire affair of Wei Taiping leading men to Sanyang Village. Hearing this, Wei Lecheng sneered repeatedly, then turned and ordered, "Summon Daoist Zhen here at once!"
Daoist Zhen arrived in haste. Seeing Wei Taiping lying comatose on the bed, he feigned great alarm: "Disciple... my disciple, what happened to you?"
Wei Lecheng had already had the servants who went with Wei Taiping to Sanyang Village interrogated. His expression cold and sullen, he glared at Daoist Zhen with ill intent: "Can it be that even Mister Zhen cannot see what has befallen my son?"
His tone carried the distinct threat of turning hostile...
Daoist Zhen had no choice but to step forward and examine him. Slanting his long banner behind his back to shield himself from the pestilential vapor, he took Wei Taiping's pulse, inspected his tongue coating, and rolled back his eyelids to check his pupils. After probing Wei Taiping's internal qi meticulously, Daoist Zhen pondered for a long time before saying, "Master Wei, my disciple must have suffered under the sinister plot of a scoundrel. We need only investigate whom he met today and who placed this curse upon him to find the culprit... Once we seize the cursed focus, we can break the hex!"
Wei Lecheng said calmly, "I asked the servants, and they said Mister Zhen instructed my son to go to Sanyang Village to fell a plum tree. Perhaps he disrupted someone's fengshui and provoked a backlash from the earth qi. This is the will of Heaven, not human doing. Still, I must ask you, Fellow Daoist, to break my son's curse first!"
Hesitation appeared on Daoist Zhen's face, but just then, three clan elders of the Wei family arrived outside the room bearing magical implements.
Wei Lecheng sneered, "What? Could it be that Mister Zhen cannot even resolve a petty trick from some sorcerer?"
Wiping the cold sweat from his brow, Daoist Zhen said, "Allow me to look again..." After examining him once more, he said to Wei Lecheng, "Master Wei, would you permit me to question the servants about what transpired when my disciple went out today?"
Wei Lecheng summoned a servant whose body was covered in sores and told Daoist Zhen to ask him himself.
Daoist Zhen carefully warded off the pestilential qi, first protecting himself thoroughly so that no one could cast gu or curses upon him. The servant, whose flesh was suppurating, saw the immortal master retained by the family and dared not conceal anything, immediately giving a full, unvarnished account of everything that had happened that day.
Hearing that the young Daoist who came calling days ago had taken the spirit pill Daoist Zhen had dismissed as a 'spurious pill,' dissolved it in water, and poured it over the felled plum tree—causing the tree to revive in an instant, bloom with plum blossoms, and bear fruit in moments—Daoist Zhen's expression turned thoroughly mortified.
He could only force an awkward smile: "Perhaps it was merely a petty illusion, tricking mortal eyes."
Wei Lecheng said slowly, "I already dispatched someone to investigate. A servant strapped on armor-talismans to hasten to Sanyang Village, and that great plum tree is still growing strong behind the village right now! Beside it lies the old trunk that my foolish son felled. The servant even touched the tree and climbed up to pluck an unripe plum—his teeth are still sour from it!
"Word just came from the City God Temple as well. Not long ago, an expert casually planted the tree and ripened the plums. The wounded who ate those plums had their bones and flesh healed; the elderly who ate them saw their white hair turn black, and even sexagenarians regrew teeth! The villagers now revere them as divine treasures... Even the medicine merchants in town have sent people down to buy them up at exorbitant prices.
"They say these plums have become a true spirit medicine!
"Right now, a single plum in Sanyang Village is worth a hundred coins... The medicine merchants are buying the green plums to pickle them with aromatic herbs into medicinal plums, and each is already fetching the steep price of fifty taels of silver. Once they reach the Central Plains, I fear the price will soar to several hundred taels or more.
"This spirit pill dissolved in water, revived a plum tree, and the plums from it can heal external bone and flesh wounds while shattering evil sorcery... I hear that after the Jiang boy ate a green plum, he spat out a toad and regained consciousness. My son brought this upon himself by harming many innocents and inviting Heaven's wrath... only then did he swallow that toad and fall into a coma.
"I wonder whether Mister Zhen's pills can wake my son?"
Daoist Zhen hesitated and said, "That toad-insect is not the primary cause. The young master fell unconscious the moment he walked through the door, and only now has the ailment flared up. There must be an evil cultivator of the heterodox path conducting a ritual to harm him in secret. If we wish to cure him, we must first tear down his ritual altar!"
"This is the wrath of Heaven!" Wei Lecheng stared fixedly at Daoist Zhen, repeating each word with icy weight.
Daoist Zhen cried out in misery inwardly: *It's clearly that you don't dare provoke that man, yet you talk of Heaven's wrath! Forget it, forget it. It seems that young Daoist truly has an extraordinary background. Fortunately, I never showed my hand, but merely duped this convenient disciple into leading the charge. A flying sword is wonderful, but a cultivator's life matters most of all. Losing a flying sword is merely losing an external object, but losing my life means losing everything!*
*I'll concede this round, wrap up my loose ends, and prepare to slip away!*
Chapter 59