Liang Yixin held the short spear and thrust it into Lin Shaocong's back.
Zhang Laifu felt a jolt run through his body, but felt no pain. Fortunately, Lao Liang had reined in his strength, worried that Lin Shaocong and Zhang Laifu might roll straight down the slope, so the thrust failed to pierce clean through Lin Shaocong's body.
Lin Shaocong lowered his voice and said to Zhang Laifu, "Fall down."
Fall down?
That was easier said than done.
The mountain slope before them was so steep that a man could barely stand. If he fell forward, they would tumble right down the mountainside.
Falling backward wouldn't work either—it defied the laws of mechanics, and with the willow branch sticking out of Lin Shaocong's back, falling flat on the ground might very well skewer him through like a candied hawthorn.
Zhang Laifu chose what seemed the best angle and dropped sideways to the ground.
Lao Liang gave a faint smile. Was that a real fall, or just an act?
Real or fake, it hardly mattered. He snapped off a few more willow twigs, stripped their bark with his hands, then bent, wove, and pulled them taut, repeating the motions in rapid succession.
The strands coiled between Lao Liang's fingers like snakes. Zhang Laifu couldn't follow his sleight of hand; all he could see was the willow strips being woven into a shallow plate, its edges curling upward as raised walls quickly sprang into being.
What kind of plate had walls?
Lin Shaocong cut his eyes toward Lao Liang and whispered, "He's a willow-weaver, a basketmaker. Whatever you do, don't let him trap you beneath it."
A willow-weaver was a craftsman who fashioned everyday utensils from willow shoots and twigs, one of the three hundred and sixty trades.
Before Lin Shaocong could finish speaking, Lao Liang had already completed a willow basket and hurled it toward the pair.
The basket didn't appear large, nor was it moving particularly fast, yet dodging it was nearly impossible. No matter which way Zhang Laifu ducked, it hovered relentlessly over his head.
Left with no choice, Zhang Laifu cast Lin Shaocong off his back.
Free of the burden, Zhang Laifu managed to dodge clear of the basket, but Lin Shaocong was caught beneath it.
Through the gaps in the weave, Zhang Laifu could see Lin Shaocong curled up inside.
The willow-weaver's signature skill—the bone-locking basket!
Lin Shaocong was still struggling within, but Lao Liang clenched his five fingers into a tight fist. The willow strands shifted and writhed against one another, and the entire basket contracted around him.
Liang Yixin offered a piece of advice: "Young Master Lin, don't move. The more you thrash, the more you'll suffer."
Lin Shaocong went still, and Lao Liang turned his gaze toward Zhang Laifu.
"Laifu, the play here is over. Come back to the hostage quarters with me and act out the next scene."
Zhang Laifu scrambled to his feet and ran. Lao Liang turned back, tore off another willow shoot, stripped the bark in one swift stroke, and whipped it through the air.
This was the fundamental skill of a willow-weaver, called the willow whip. With Lao Liang's mastery, a single strike was enough to shatter Zhang Laifu's bones.
Zhang Laifu stumbled along the slope, staggering repeatedly, yet through a blend of agility and sheer luck, he actually dodged the blow.
Closing the distance in two strides, Lao Liang brought the willow branch horizontally in a sweep aimed at Zhang Laifu's waist.
A blow at waist height was extraordinarily difficult to avoid. If Zhang Laifu tried to jump, he couldn't jump high enough; if he tried to crouch, he couldn't keep his footing on the steep slope.
Seeing that the willow whip was about to strike home, Zhang Laifu simply dropped down and sat right on the ground.
Once again, he had managed to evade the blow, but sitting down was easy—standing back up wouldn't be nearly as fast.
Lao Liang raised the willow switch to strike again, and Zhang Laifu had no idea how to dodge.
Just as the switch rose above Lao Liang's head, poised to bring down its blow, his gaze suddenly froze, and the right hand holding the willow branch slowly drifted downward.
He seemed to be injured, but Zhang Laifu couldn't tell where.
Lao Liang roared, "Who! Who did that?"
He stared in shock toward the willow basket.
Lin Shaocong was trapped inside. He couldn't get out, nor could he launch an ambush from within. This was the willow-weaver's signature skill, and since it had already taken hold, Lao Liang was completely certain Lin Shaocong was pinned.
If it wasn't the Lin Shaocong inside the basket, who else could have struck? Could there be someone else here?
Lao Liang turned his head to look behind him.
As Lao Liang turned, Zhang Laifu saw the back of his head.
Plunged into the back of Lao Liang's skull was a dagger sculpted from clay.
The entire blade was driven into the bone, leaving only the hilt protruding, still writhing slowly.
Up on the slope, right where Lin Shaocong had stood earlier, Lin Shaocong pulled himself out of the silt using only his hands.
This dagger had been thrown by Lin Shaocong, embedding itself squarely in the back of Lao Liang's skull.
Wasn't Lin Shaocong in the basket?
If Lin Shaocong had crawled out of the mud, who was in the willow basket?
Lao Liang couldn't begin to fathom what craft Lin Shaocong had used—with a dagger lodged in the back of his head, his thoughts weren't particularly clear.
Lin Shaocong's physical strength was heavily depleted. He could no longer maintain his signature skill, nor was there any need to keep up the disguise.
The fake "Lin Shaocong" inside the willow basket grew increasingly limp, and a trickle of silt began oozing through the gaps in the weave.
Inside the basket was a mud figure!
A mud figure with the exact same build and appearance as Lin Shaocong!
This time, Lao Liang understood. "You're a clay figurine artisan..."
A clay figurine artisan, also called a mud doll maker, was a craftsman who pushed a cart selling clay figurines, another of the three hundred and sixty trades.
Lin Shaocong nodded. "That's right. I sculpt clay figurines, and our trade ancestor was named Zhang."
He declared his lineage: Clay Figurine Zhang was the ancestral patriarch of the mud-sculpting craft.
Liang Yixin glanced back at Zhang Laifu, finally piecing a few things together. This was a trap the two of them had planned all along.
Yet even having realized it, Lao Liang couldn't comprehend how, after scraping by in the underworld for so many years, he had been outplayed by two fools.
When had Lin Shaocong used his signature skill?
Could it have been the moment they were first spotted on Guaizi Slope?
Lao Liang remembered something.
Back then, Lin Shaocong had first climbed down from Zhang Laifu's back before speaking.
Why had he insisted on getting off Zhang Laifu's back?
Because there was silt on the ground, and he had done it to buy himself the chance to use his signature skill.
The person who climbed down had been Lin Shaocong himself, but the one Zhang Laifu hoisted back onto his shoulders had been a mud figure.
Zhang Laifu running forward with the mud figure had drawn all of Lao Liang's attention, while the real Lin Shaocong had slipped into the mud on the ground.
This was the signature skill of a clay figurine artisan: Clay Body Metamorphosis.
Yet this skill was not something easily pulled off.
First, one had to rapidly sculpt a mud figure matching Lin Shaocong's build, and then swap places with it without anyone noticing—how difficult must that be?
For Lin Shaocong to perform such a feat in so brief a moment proved that his craft was far superior to Lao Liang's.
Yet when they had captured Lin Shaocong initially, he hadn't resisted in the slightest.
Lao Liang shook his head slightly. "This makes no sense. When we seized you back then, why didn't you lift a finger?"
Lin Shaocong wiped the muddy water from his face. "Because Song Yongchang was there, and I couldn't beat him."
Lao Liang still couldn't understand. "Even if you couldn't beat him, you didn't even try to strike once?"
Lin Shaocong truly hadn't fought back at all back then. "I couldn't win anyway, so why bother? What would landing an extra punch accomplish? What if you accidentally beat me to death?"
Lao Liang shook his head. "We never planned to kill you. We only wanted you alive."
Lin Shaocong shook his head as well. "What you wanted was an idiot. If I had fought back then, would you still have thought me a fool? Would you have let me live? Even if you hadn't killed me, would you have left yourself unguarded around me? Would I have ever been able to escape?"
Lao Liang looked at Lin Shaocong in utter bewilderment. Was he a wealthy young master, or a hardened underworld rogue?
No matter what he was, he had to be killed right now.
Brandishing the willow whip, Lao Liang charged forward.
He was twenty paces from Lin Shaocong. Lin Shaocong's legs were crippled and he couldn't walk; Lao Liang needed only a dozen strides for the willow switch in his hand to reach him.
As long as the willow switch landed on his body, it could easily kill him.
Lin Shaocong felt a surge of tension. The clay dagger he had crafted was still churning inside the back of Lao Liang's skull, yet Lao Liang's vitality was far more stubborn than he had imagined.
Using the silt from the ground, Lin Shaocong formed another dagger and hurled it toward Lao Liang's forehead. Lao Liang swung his willow switch and smashed the dagger to pieces.
The quality of this silt was far inferior to the carefully selected clay Lin Shaocong normally used. With no time to sculpt proper daggers, Lin Shaocong simply squeezed mud into balls and hurled them at Lao Liang.
Battered bloody by the mud balls, Lao Liang pressed on regardless. Only a single thought drove him now: even if his own life was forfeit, he had to slaughter Lin Shaocong.
Lin Shaocong would certainly discover that bowl. He was a craftsman; he would recognize what it was worth.
If he was allowed to live and the bowl was exposed, it would inevitably bring ruin upon the Second Master.
He couldn't think of anything else; with a dagger lodged in his skull, his mind was too clouded.
Lao Liang was less than ten paces from Lin Shaocong, and panic began creeping into Lin Shaocong's chest.
His craft was superior to Lao Liang's, but his crippled body meant he would be at an overwhelming disadvantage in close combat.
Just as Lin Shaocong was frantically searching for a countermeasure, he saw Lao Liang stumble, the willow switch slipping from his hand onto the ground.
After two more unsteady steps, Lao Liang's legs gave out, and he collapsed onto the slope.
Lin Shaocong saw that a second dagger had appeared in the back of Lao Liang's head. This dagger was also one he had sculpted from clay and handed to Zhang Laifu earlier.
Zhang Laifu, standing behind Lao Liang, had hurled the dagger into the back of Lao Liang's skull. He possessed no extraordinary skill, relying entirely on the spiritual potency within the clay to strike so true.
Lao Liang lay face-down on the slope, twitched a few times, and breathed his last.
Zhang Laifu stood silently beside Lao Liang's body for a long while.
Lin Shaocong had no idea what Zhang Laifu intended to do and worried that the man might be losing his mind.
If an idiot also went mad, would there be any saving him?
Zhang Laifu crouched down, pulled the two clay daggers from the back of Lao Liang's head, handed one to Lin Shaocong, and tucked the other into his own chest.
"Great prop," Zhang Laifu praised.
Lin Shaocong let out a long breath. Worried that Lao Liang's corpse might roll down the slope, he pushed the nearby silt toward the body.
The mud accumulated in response to Lin Shaocong's gestures, writhing rapidly toward Lao Liang, and soon engulfed the corpse.
The body rolled back and forth within the mud until it was swallowed completely. Not long after, a clump of willow catkins floated up from the surface of the silt.
Lin Shaocong crawled over, picked up the clump of willow catkins, and cupped it carefully in his palms. Looking at Zhang Laifu, he said, "Don't be afraid. It's all special effects."
Zhang Laifu climbed to his feet and nodded. "Great special effects."
Lin Shaocong looked at the mud on the ground once more. "For an underworld man, dying in the earth counts as returning to one's roots."
Zhang Laifu nodded again. "A good resting place."
Holding the clump of willow catkins, Lin Shaocong said to Zhang Laifu, "This is craft essence, extremely rare and precious. Do you want it?"
"I don't want it." Zhang Laifu had no idea what craft essence was.
Lin Shaocong tucked the willow catkins into his clothes. "I won't take advantage of you, then. He hid something inside one of the willow trees just now. Whatever he hid, it's yours."
Chapter 7