Red Dancing Shoes

*Thud.* It was another knock-like sound. There was something next door! Zhang Yuanqing hurriedly swapped the rusty kitchen cleaver for the rusty dagger, and the wooden stick for the spear. Clutching his weapons, he trotted out of the room with light footsteps. The moonlight lay like frost, and the surroundings were dead silent. Bending low, Zhang Yuanqing stealthily crept toward the window. The paper pasted over the window was long shredded and ruined. Squatting beneath the sill, he carefully raised his head and peered inside through a tear in the lattice. Cold, frost-like moonlight was compressed into beams by the holes in the roof, shedding illumination upon the narrow room. Upon seeing the sight inside, Zhang Yuanqing's heart dropped. In the dim, silent chamber sat three weathered coffins. Their black lacquer was peeled and flaked, and their lids were layered thick with dust. Beside the coffins lay two desiccated corpses dressed in work overalls. Rolled beside the hand of one of them was a bronze awl. That awl caught Zhang Yuanqing's attention. About half an arm's length and cast from brass, its handle was engraved with incantations and carvings in exquisite craftsmanship. Most importantly, while every other weapon here was rusted, it alone gleamed golden, free of a single speck of verdigris. Without reason, an image surfaced in his mind: one of Lady Sandao's hands, fingers curled as if gripping something. Yet her palm had been empty. *Thud.* The dull impact sounded again, forcing Zhang Yuanqing to shift his gaze to the middle coffin. A teeth-grating creak rang out as the coffin lid slowly slid aside. A bruised-black hand reached out and gripped the edge of the coffin. Then, a horrific figure sat up inside. By the clear moonlight shining down from the hole in the roof, Zhang Yuanqing could see the creature clearly. Wrapped in tattered clothes, its face was bloated and heavily putrefied, with dead, bulging eyeballs protruding outward. Its hair was like withered grass, perched in a disheveled mess atop its head. *"Heh, heh..."* It threw its head back toward the moonlight overhead and exhaled a puff of turbid corpse qi, baring two startling fangs. *A jiangshi? A jiangshi?!* Zhang Yuanqing felt his Master Ying PTSD flaring up. *So it really is a jiangshi. Right, it has to be, or what would be the point of the Corpse-Suppressing Talisman consumable?* Thoughts of retreat sprouted in Zhang Yuanqing's mind. Exploring to this point had already yielded enough information. It was time to head back to the main hall. Yet right at that moment, his shoulders abruptly sank. The familiar frigid sensation descended, eating into his flesh and raising goosebumps across his skin. At this crucial juncture, the shoulder-clinging ghost had arrived. *Fifteen minutes are up...* Zhang Yuanqing's heart plummeted. In this peril-ridden ancient temple, his nerves were strung so tight that he had hardly been able to spare the mental energy to count the minutes; he had relied solely on intuition, which naturally had its margins of error. The wraith clinging to his shoulders was bad enough, but what followed immediately poured oil onto the flames. As if catching the scent of the living, the seated jiangshi ceased tilting its head back. Its bulging eyeballs lowered, staring straight at the window—straight at the eyes spying on it from outside. Amid a terrifying breakout of goosebumps, Zhang Yuanqing sprang to his feet, spun around, and bolted. The instant he turned, he heard the deafening crash of a coffin lid hitting the floor. Not daring to look back, he ran with heavy strides, burdened by the wraith on his shoulders. With another loud crash, the door was blown off its frame. Sprinting for his life, Zhang Yuanqing threw a glance over his shoulder and saw the terrifying, tatter-clad figure burst from the room. With a savage leap, it pounced after him like a hungry tiger hunting a sheep. *This is a "stiff corpse"? Where's the stiffness?!* His face drained of color. Pivoting on his heel, he used his momentum to spin around and thrust the spear straight toward the jiangshi's chest. He planted the butt of the shaft into the earth, bracing it like a makeshift barricade. At the same time, he caught sight of a hideous, gaping cavity in the creature's chest. Its heart seemed to have been gouged out. *Eldest Senior Brother? This jiangshi is the Eldest Senior Brother from the journal!* The next instant, the jiangshi crashed against the spear. The finger-thick shaft bent into a full moon before snapping with a loud *crack*. With no time to think, Zhang Yuanqing seized the opening bought by the spear and rolled past the jiangshi's feet. His nostrils were filled with the stench of decay, and the crash of a broad blade hacking into the ground echoed behind him. He rolled all the way behind the creature, sprang up on his knees, and lashed out with the dagger in his hand. *Clang!* The dagger struck the back of the jiangshi's head as if hitting steel. Aside from severing a few strands of dried-grass hair, it inflicted zero damage. On the contrary, the force vibrating back through the hilt made the webbing of Zhang Yuanqing's thumb throb with agony, nearly knocking the weapon from his grip. *Bronze skin and iron bones?!* Horrified, Zhang Yuanqing watched as the jiangshi whipped around. Raising both hands, tipped with sharp, ink-black nails, it clamped onto his shoulders. Pain flared instantly. The sharp, blackened claws pierced his skin, and crimson blood soaked through his jacket. The scent of fresh blood stimulated it. Deep within its bulging eyeballs, a crimson light welled up. Opening its fangs, the jiangshi exhaled foul, reeking gas and snapped savagely toward Zhang Yuanqing's neck. The candle's purifying effect was still active, so he did not lose his head to fear. With a thought, a fluorescent-blue inventory appeared, and a talisman materialized in his hand. *Thump, thump, thump...* The jiangshi, which had been savage and bloodthirsty a heartbeat earlier, recoiled repeatedly the moment it saw the talisman, treating it like a venomous serpent. *It works! It's afraid of me, and it has some intelligence...* Gritting his teeth against the searing pain in his arms, Zhang Yuanqing locked his muscles and stared down the jiangshi. Carrying the wraith on his shoulders, he backed away step by step. As he retreated, he silently prayed that the female ghost in the well would not pop out to cause trouble. Throughout the withdrawal, chilling growls rumbled from the jiangshi's rotting throat, its crimson gaze fixed unwaveringly on Zhang Yuanqing. Fortunately, whether because of the jiangshi's presence or because Zhang Yuanqing was walking backward, the well ghost did not show herself. Zhang Yuanqing backed out of the East Courtyard and returned to the quadrangle. Never daring to stop for a second, he stumbled toward the main hall. As he approached its upturned eaves, an ethereal, shrill shriek pierced his ears. His shoulders lightened, and all negative effects vanished. *Pant, pant, pant...* Inside the main hall, Zhang Yuanqing leaned against the lattice door, wheezing relentlessly. His legs twitched with uncontrollable spasms. Part of it was fear, and part of it was the physiological crash as the adrenaline drained away. After resting for a few minutes, with the adrenaline completely gone, the wounds on his arms flared with agonizing pain. Grimacing, he stripped off his jacket and T-shirt. Both arms had been clawed into bloody tatters, and the blood seeping out was a dark, blackened crimson. Evidently, the jiangshi's nails carried a deadly poison. The situation had suddenly turned dire. *There's no antiseptic here, no tetanus shot... How fast does corpse poison act? Am I going to drop dead from it?* A flurry of thoughts flashed through Zhang Yuanqing's head. To his surprise, he found he wasn't particularly frightened. Then he realized... this had nothing to do with his own courage; it was the candle stiffening his spine. Bathed in the candlelight, his emotions gradually settled. *Now that I'm infected with corpse poison, I can't afford to drag this out. I have to go straight to Plan B.* Before entering the Spirit Realm, Zhang Yuanqing had laid out two plans. Plan A had been to explore the Mountain God Temple with utmost caution, gather intel, and then seek a way to break through. That was the steady, safe approach. Plan B was a riskier alternative inspired by gaming with his young aunt—looking for patterns and methods. He would attempt to subdue the red dancing shoes. Since they were all items, and he could use the yellow paper talisman, who was to say he couldn't tame the red dancing shoes? Guan Ya had mentioned that by solving the rules of a rule-based item, there was a certain chance of taming it. *With my abilities, it's virtually impossible to slap the yellow paper talisman onto the jiangshi's forehead on my own.* Trying to stick a talisman onto the forehead of a ferocious, intelligent supernatural creature was like a child with a knife trying to duel an adult. Even if the adult was wary of the blade, it didn't mean the child could actually land a strike. Wasting no more time, Zhang Yuanqing pushed himself up against the lattice door, stepped over the threshold, and walked out into the courtyard before the main hall. This was where he had first encountered the red dancing shoes. The full moon hung like a plate. Ancient halls, overgrown weeds, and swaying shadows of trees. He waited and waited... Standing in the wild grass for a long time, he stayed on high alert for any shifts in his surroundings, but the red dancing shoes never appeared. These shoes did not seem to have a fixed territory. At first, they had trailed behind him when he entered the temple, then they had appeared in the quadrangle, and now there was no telling where they had gone. Knowing his condition would only deteriorate the longer he delayed, Zhang Yuanqing sighed and turned around in resignation to head back into the hall. The moment he turned, his body froze stiff. *Tap, tap...* Between him and the main hall, a pair of red dancing shoes glowing with a faint crimson light rose and fell, as though an invisible dancer were wearing them and stepping in place. The footsteps echoed eerily through the empty, silent night. *Can't you change your entrance for once? Why does it have to be terrifying every single time?* Zhang Yuanqing's soul slowly settled back into his body after nearly leaping from his chest, and he quietly swallowed a mouthful of saliva. Even though he had been hoping for them to appear, directly facing these uncanny shoes still sent his sanity plummeting out of control... The red dancing shoes continued marching in place, their heels clicking crisply against the ground. The overlapping echoes felt all the more desolate, all the more frightening. Suddenly, a fluorescent-blue prompt popped up in Zhang Yuanqing's field of vision: [Would you like to dance with me? If so, please step in place.] This text appeared right beside the red dancing shoes, as though the shoes were speaking directly to him. *It really wants a dance. Refusing means death... What a nasty pair of shoes.* Zhang Yuanqing had no choice but to go all in, because he noticed one crucial detail: the red dancing shoes had cut off his retreat. They stood right between him and the main hall. If he failed the dance, death was a certainty. *Is it a coincidence? Or did the shoes do it on purpose? Do they have intelligence too?* Zhang Yuanqing reined in his thoughts, settled his emotions, and visualized his father's face in his mind. Simultaneously, he lifted his foot and began stepping in place. *Tap, tap.* As if his steps had toggled the item's switch, the rhythm of the red dancing shoes changed. They broke into an extremely rapid tap dance. It was a spirited, high-tempo routine. Crisp tapping sounds echoed beneath the quiet night sky, resounding through the deserted ancient temple. Beneath the moon, amid the weeds, along the pebble-paved path, a pair of red dancing shoes danced alone, possessing an indescribably bewitching beauty. Zhang Yuanqing widened his eyes, letting the moonlight flood his pupils, and stared unblinkingly at the shoes. He didn't need to commit them to memory consciously; he only needed to imprint every step onto his retinas. Meanwhile, his heart hammered like an overtaxed engine, deafening noise filled his ears, and countless fragmented images flashed across his mind. His brain began automatically absorbing external information: the sound of the passing wind, the slight bend of the weeds, the swaying frequency of the distant locust tree's leaves, the posture and tempo of the red dancing shoes' taps... Processing the flood of data, his brain swiftly analyzed and memorized every detail. A few minutes later, the red dancing shoes came to a satisfied halt, stepping back with the left foot and rising onto their tiptoes. The pose looked odd, but had someone been wearing them, it would have been a textbook curtsy. *Quite polite, aren't you...* Blood trickled from Zhang Yuanqing's nose as he muttered internally. Then, he saw a line of text float above the red dancing shoes: [Your turn!] In those few minutes, it had cycled through hundreds of rhythms, with distinct footwork for every single one—far beyond an ordinary person's capacity for rapid memorization. Steadying himself, Zhang Yuanqing fished a little blue pill from his pocket and popped it into his mouth. Immediately, his brain slipped into a wondrous state, replaying the images of the past few minutes frame by frame. *Tap, tap, tap, tap...* At a sluggish pace and with clumsy posture, he matched the first few beats, then cast a wary glance at the red dancing shoes. If its standard demanded an exact replica of its graceful form, he could never complete the task even if he remembered every beat and motion. Seeing no hostile reaction from the shoes, Zhang Yuanqing felt a wave of relief and threw himself entirely into the dance. Tapping, spinning, small hops, crossing left foot over right... He moved slowly, his form awkward and unsightly, an eyesore compared to the flowing elegance of the red dancing shoes. However, a slow pace guaranteed he wouldn't make mistakes. Seven or eight minutes later, Zhang Yuanqing replicated every single step of the routine and came to a panting halt. Warm liquid overflowed from his nostrils, dripping down his lips and chin, but he didn't care to wipe it away, staring fixedly at the red dancing shoes. Whether he would walk out of the Spirit Realm alive, whether he would successfully clear the trial... Everything depended on this moment. [Your dancing skills are as terrible as ever!] The red dancing shoes flashed this line of text, after which they dissolved into a faint crimson shimmer, dispersing into the night. Immediately after, a cold, mechanical voice chimed in Zhang Yuanqing's head: [Ding! You have completed a dance with the red dancing shoes. Congratulations on winning the red dancing shoes' appreciation. However, because your dancing foundation is utterly abysmal, the red dancing shoes will only appreciate you for half an hour. Best of luck!] Zhang Yuanqing collapsed limply to the ground as if drained of all strength, his face pale and his head throbbing with sharp pangs of pain. Half a minute later, the symptoms eased. Still pale, he sat up and eagerly opened his inventory. Lying in the second slot was a pair of brand-new, red dancing shoes. After he stared at them for a few seconds, the item's information automatically surfaced. [Name: Red Dancing Shoes] [Type: Footwear] [Function: Tracking, Pursuit/Execution] [Description: Their former owner was the princess of a Western kingdom. Blessed with natural beauty and peerless dancing talent, she had all the men of the kingdom swooning over her. Yet her wicked stepmother grew jealous of her talent and beauty, locking her away atop a tall tower. The lonely princess danced alone beneath the cold moonlight until she drew her final breath. Inheriting her lingering will, these red dancing shoes embarked on a wandering journey, dancing on endlessly without rest.] [Note 1: Form 1: Throw the red dancing shoes toward a designated target (a lock can also be achieved using cells such as the target's blood or hair). They will pursue and execute the target relentlessly. During the pursuit, they ignore all physical obstacles and are impossible to evade or destroy until the target dies or finishes a complete dance with them. The style of dance is unrestricted.] [Form 2: Equipping the red dancing shoes grants a boost to agility, increases evasion, allows the wearer to run across any terrain, and consumes no stamina. Your only concern is that they can only be worn for five minutes per use. Exceeding the time limit will make it impossible to take the red dancing shoes off forever; you will run alongside them until the end of your life—or until you sever both feet.] [Note 2: Won't dance with me? Off with all your heads.] *A divine artifact...* Zhang Yuanqing was wild with excitement after reading the item's properties. *Is this what a rule-based item is like?* *It's ridiculously powerful.* The descriptions for the yellow paper talisman and the candle had been relatively brief, just a few short sentences. But the profile for these red dancing shoes was a veritable essay. From that alone, one could see just how extraordinary they were. "Pity it only appreciates me for half an hour..." Noticing the countdown timer next to the inventory slot, Zhang Yuanqing felt a pang of regret. If a divine artifact like this could truly become his permanent possession, it would be of immense utility whether in the real world or in future Spirit Realms.