Naturally, these two fierce tigers were possessed by evil spirits as well.
He Lingchuan kicked a table toward the tigers with one leg and raised his left hand, releasing a sleeve arrow.
The sleeve arrow was aimed not at the tigers, but at Third Master Gan. Having suffered for half the night inside that wretched mirror, how could He Lingchuan let the culprit get away?
Unexpectedly, Third Master Gan spun around and flashed the mirror toward him.
Seeing the reflection from the mirror's surface, He Lingchuan dodged aside without a second thought.
If he were pulled into the mirror realm again, he feared he wouldn't find a second bird capable of flight.
Yet he was not seized into the mirror. Instead, after striking the mirror's surface, the sleeve arrow actually bounced straight back along its path.
Fortunately, he had dodged in time; the deflected arrow did not hit its master, but instead impaled the lunging tiger.
By pure coincidence, it struck the beast square in the eye.
Its momentum unabated, the tiger tackled Third Master Gan straight to the ground.
From the side, He Lingchuan brought his blade down in a clean sweep, decapitating the tiger.
By now, Wu Jinsong and Xu Dongdong had scrambled up as well, tangling with the other tiger.
A headless tiger carcass lay sprawled across Third Master Gan, its three-hundred-odd jin pinning him completely. Wasting no words on him, He Lingchuan gripped both his wrists and gave a light twist. With two crisp, consecutive snaps, the wrists broke.
Third Master Gan let out an agonized scream.
Reaching down, He Lingchuan hauled him out from under the tiger corpse and called to Wu Jinsong and his partner, "Step aside."
The two complied immediately.
Just as the second tiger lunged forward, He Lingchuan thrust Third Master Gan out as a shield, shoving the man's face right toward the tiger's inch-long claws and fangs.
Third Master Gan shrieked, "Stop!"
A split second before its fangs could bite down, the tiger clamped its jaws shut, sparing him from losing his face.
Using his captive as a shield, He Lingchuan forced the tiger back into a corner and dispatched it with a single slash, then kicked Third Master Gan in the shin.
Amid a long, wailing shriek, Third Master Gan's lower leg snapped, bending at a grotesque angle. Through the torn, mangled flesh, stark white bone protruded.
Despising the scoundrel's tricks, He Lingchuan crippled his limbs to see what further mischief he could brew.
Wu Jinsong righted an overturned chair. Gripping the back of Third Master Gan's neck, He Lingchuan forced him down into the seat.
Third Master Gan had already passed out from the pain. Wu Jinsong raised a hand and slapped him several times, swelling his cheeks, but failed to wake him.
Xu Dongdong said at once, "I'll fetch some water."
He found a bucket in the inner room, drew cold water from Mochou Lake, and returned to dump it over Third Master Gan's head.
Only then did Third Master Gan slowly come to. Looking at He Lingchuan as though beholding an evil spirit, he sobbed, snot and tears streaming down his face. "Spare me, please! The one who harmed you was the Spirit Medium! I'm innocent!"
"Weren't you the one who tagged me with a beam of light?" And in bold, too! "Weren't you the one who brought down lightning to strike us?"
With every question, He Lingchuan dealt him a slap.
"It wasn't me, it wasn't me! It had nothing to do with me!"
"Nothing to do with you?" He Lingchuan bared his teeth in a grin. "Playing dumb? You entered into a covenant with the Spirit Medium. I'm just curious: after sealing that covenant, are you human, or a monster?"
Could a human turn into a monster? He hadn't read widely, and so far he hadn't heard of such a case.
Though the eyeball spider had witnessed Third Master Gan sealing the pact, the characters on the covenant had been tiny as aphids, impossible to make out clearly.
Most importantly, He Lingchuan could see the evil spirits possessing the tigers, yet he couldn't detect anything unusual about Third Master Gan.
Yet was he still a normal person?
Third Master Gan pleaded in haste, "Of course I'm human!"
"Now that you've taken the mantle from the Spirit Medium, what should I call you? A charlatan?"
Third Master Gan blubbered, "Young Master He, I was blind! Please, don't lower yourself to my level!"
"What were the terms of the covenant?"
"The Spirit Medium's lifespan was exhausted. She chose me as her successor and passed her powers on to me so she could die in peace."
"Passing on power on her deathbed? Since when does such a good deal exist?" He Lingchuan asked skeptically. "What did she see in you? Extraordinary latent talent, or your talent for tyrannizing the locals?"
With a mournful face, Third Master Gan cried, "I—I don't know either! She was the one who picked me!"
"Then are you Third Master Gan, or are you the Spirit Medium?"
"I am still me! The Spirit Medium is already dead!"
He Lingchuan searched him twice from top to bottom. Aside from some gold, silver, and valuables, he even turned up a pale-pink undergarment embroidered with mandarin ducks... yet he didn't find what he was looking for. He asked, "Where is the mirror?"
The mirror had still been there before the tiger carcass pinned Third Master Gan, but afterward it had vanished.
"At the foot of the mountain, in the Baijiao Shrine." Third Master Gan swallowed hard. "Everything you saw earlier was just a reflection. The true mirror itself is enshrined at Baijiao Shrine!"
A reflection? He Lingchuan recalled when he first met the Spirit Medium: the mirror she set on the table had also released thugs—namely Wu Jinsong and his men. He had conjured a clone to smash that mirror, but it turned out to be merely a trick of the eye, and he ended up stumbling into the mirror realm anyway.
So the explanation of a mirror image seemed plausible.
Xu Dongdong chimed in, "A mere reflection can suck people in?"
"No, no! What pulled you in was the treasure mirror itself; only the exit was opened here!" Third Master Gan wailed. "Don't kill me! I'll take you to get it!"
Seeing that this fellow had no other abilities and that the Spirit Medium's power likely resided in the mirror, the three exchanged glances and nodded. Wu Jinsong then carried him out of the bamboo house and hauled him onto a horse.
He Lingchuan rummaged around the room for a moment before stepping out. Just as he was about to mount his horse, the divine bone necklace suddenly grew hot.
His movement halted instantly.
A reaction from the divine bone at this moment meant...
"Brother He?" Wu Jinsong was waiting for him.
"Let's go." He Lingchuan mounted up, and the three galloped down toward Baijiao Shrine with Third Master Gan in tow.
Yet after riding a little over a dozen zhang, he pulled up and called out, "Go on ahead. I need to slip into the woods to relieve myself; I'll catch up right away."
Nature called, and that was not something one could hold. Wu Jinsong nodded and spurred his horse forward.
As they rode along the winding mountain path, they soon heard the sound of hoofbeats from above. The sound was somewhat distant and unhurried—clearly He Lingchuan had followed, though at a leisurely pace.
Wu Jinsong and Xu Dongdong did not wait for him, pressing straight ahead.
Their mission in Wuze County this time was to retrieve the lost soul of Young Master Sha, which ought to be stored in the mirror; they had no time to dawdle.
After hurrying along for more than two quarters of an hour, a small ancestral shrine indeed appeared by the roadside ahead. Its gates hung wide open, devoid of any light, appearing quite decrepit in the night.
"This is Baijiao Shrine?" Wu Jinsong sensed something was amiss. Would a treasure like that be hidden haphazardly in an abandoned, derelict shrine?
Third Master Gan said emphatically, "It's inside!"
Yet before the three even reached the front of the shrine, Wu Jinsong suddenly sensed something strange.
Third Master Gan's body suddenly collapsed limp.
He looked down and saw that Third Master Gan had shriveled completely, like a sandbag whose sand had leaked out, leaving only an empty skin.
Squeezing harder, Third Master Gan turned to ash, vanishing into the air with a soft poof.
Damn it, they'd been tricked.
The two exchanged a look; not even stopping to feel angry, they swiftly wheeled their horses around and raced back toward Mochou Lake.
***
After the four departed, peace returned to the shore of Mochou Lake.
The drizzle had just ceased, and the croaking of frogs and chirping of insects reclaimed the night.
After another half cup of tea's time, a faint gleam flashed amidst the water weeds beneath the stilt house.
*Splash!* A head broke through the water—
It was none other than Third Master Gan!
He glanced left and right to make sure no one was around before fishing a mirror out of the weeds and clutching it tightly to his chest.
Then he let out a whistle.
With a rustle from the nearby bushes, a large stag bolted out, possessed by an evil spirit as well.
As long as he fled far away, he would be safe.
Third Master Gan scrambled onto the bank. Just as he was about to climb onto the stag's back, a voice spoke from the side: "As expected, there was a trick in the works."
The shock struck him like a thunderclap.
Next, Third Master Gan's neck was seized. By the faint glimmer reflecting off the lake, he saw He Lingchuan's face.
"How did you..." The lakeside was wide open; where could this man have been hiding earlier?
He Lingchuan flashed him a smile, looking as though he were about to speak, then abruptly tossed him into the air, swung his saber, and sliced him in two!
It happened without the slightest warning. Before Third Master Gan could even react, he fell to the ground and turned to ash.
A bronze mirror slipped from his embrace, on the verge of falling into the lake.
A snake slough appeared in He Lingchuan's hand. He draped it directly over the mirror, catching it securely.
The stag spun around and fled. He Lingchuan didn't pursue it. Only then did he exhale a long breath.
Earlier, using the excuse of relieving himself, he had ducked into the woods, created a clone, and sent it forward on horseback past the bend. He himself donned Lord Boshan's snake slough, slipped quietly back to the bamboo stilt house, and waited in silence.
The snake slough blended perfectly into the surrounding scenery. Combined with the "Stubborn Stone" divine ability, the same trick that had once fooled Zhu Erniang could easily deceive whatever lurked here now.
Assuming something truly was hiding here.
He had already harbored suspicions, and with the hint from the divine bone necklace, He Lingchuan was essentially certain that the target he sought was still nearby and had not gone far.
So that punk Third Master Gan's words were nothing but lies!
Sure enough, He Lingchuan's stakeout had paid off.
Everything he had just witnessed with his own eyes proved once again that the one pulling the strings behind the scenes was not Third Master Gan, nor even any Spirit Medium, but this very mirror!
The mirror-wielders were merely its tricks of the eye.
"Thought you could fool us twice, eh?"
The mirror actually snapped back, "You humans are stupid and greedy. Who else can you blame?"
He Lingchuan gave it some thought. Turning the mirror face outward and the back toward himself, he ripped away the snake slough, gripped Fusheng, and stabbed forward.
Stabbing straight from the back toward the front.
He remembered that the mirror face possessed the ability to reflect attacks, so he played it sneaky and came from behind.
The bronze mirror was exceptionally tough; Fusheng stabbed it three or four times without breaking it.
The bronze mirror let out a mocking laugh in Third Master Gan's voice: "Idiot! You think you can harm my true form with a broken blade?"
He Lingchuan was in no hurry. He buried his head and kept stabbing away. This precious saber possessed the "Army Breaker" trait; although the trigger chance was small, well... he wasn't pressed for time anyway.
Stab it a dozen or several dozen more times, and its defense was bound to break.
As he kept stabbing, the mirror went on taunting him: "Lord Mirror here is the grand heirloom treasure of an ancient immortal sect! You lowly mortals, you unwashed bedbugs, you truly don't know the height of the heavens or the depth of the earth... *Ow!*"
Accompanied by a crisp crack, Fusheng stabbed right through the mirror, entering from the back and punching out the front.
It cracked—it was about to shatter!
The mirror shrieked, "Stop, stop, stop! Hold on, stop now! You win, I surrender!"
Chapter 359