Words Have No Form
A fox demon’s eyes?
Before he could think about it, the opening overhead slammed shut. The water plants dragged Shen Shu into the hole, sending him tumbling down a sloping passage.
All he could feel was the wind howling past his ears. More and more water plants wrapped around him, tightening until they nearly crushed his insides.
They coiled around his neck, giggling as they spoke:
“Your eyes seal away the fox charm. Don’t tell me you didn’t know?”
“Are you Wen Zhuo’s lackey, or his disciple?”
“Since you’re connected to Wen Zhuo, you can pay with your life in his place!”
Why were they suddenly demanding his life?!
In the pitch-dark surroundings, the red earring on Shen Shu’s ear glowed with a sinister light and trembled without pause.
He had no time to think. He swiftly formed a hand seal and made the ebony gourd at his waist spit out a fruit knife, which dropped into his palm.
Shen Shu quickly cut through the water plants wrapped around him. Then he put all his strength into his hand and drove the knife tip into a crack in the stone behind him, using it to arrest his fall.
The water plants tried to lash him a couple more times, but the sinister light still pouring from his earring made them cower. They exchanged glances and didn’t dare come any closer.
It was the stench of a ghost.
He glared at them. “Get lost.”
The water plants were furious that he could be so arrogant even while bound. They began weaving wildly through one another, like a tangle of threads, and quickly formed a human shape.
White flesh sprouted grotesquely, revealing a hideous face. Its features were jumbled, and it had neither hair nor beard, making it impossible to tell whether it was male or female.
The face scowled. “You don’t get to speak here!”
Shen Shu looked at the human face on the body of water plants and pinched his nose.
“You stink.”
The face immediately flushed bright red. It glared at Shen Shu and stammered, “Y-you-you…” but couldn’t get another word out.
Shen Shu ignored its meltdown. He pulled out a talisman, clenched it between his teeth, then flipped onto the narrow blade of the knife and beckoned to the face.
The face raised an eyebrow. “What?”
Shen Shu frowned and beckoned again. Only then did the face approach, reluctantly.
It thought Shen Shu had something important to say. Instead, he blew at it through the talisman, and a burst of flame instantly caught on its skin.
The face immediately began to shriek:
“It hurts!!!! What are you doing?!”
Shen Shu folded his arms and answered honestly, “There’s no light. I couldn’t see.”
Now he could see clearly. It really was an unimaginably ugly face. He was starting to wonder if the thing had ever even seen a human being.
He grimaced and waved out the flame.
“If I’m one of Wen Zhuo’s people, you’re going to kill me?”
The face finally stopped screaming. Tears and snot ran down it as it sniffled. “Yeah. So what?”
Shen Shu pointed to the spot between his own brows. “Have you ever noticed this mark on Wen Zhuo?”
Shen Shu had noticed it the first time they met: a small blue mark between Wen Zhuo’s brows, shaped like a teardrop and gleaming faintly.
The face didn’t seem to care. “Yeah, I noticed. So what?”
“It’s the sign that a cultivator at the great vehicle stage has one foot in the immortal realm. Once he’s earned enough merit in the mortal world, he’ll ascend soon.”
Shen Shu rubbed his fingertips together, putting on a threatening air.
“In other words, if you touch me, killing you would be as easy for him as crushing an ant.”
That was why Shen Shu had been acting like a lackey. People at such a high level of cultivation were usually crazy. He was afraid Wen Zhuo might get annoyed and vaporize him.
The face sniffed and said unhappily, “I’m different.”
Shen Shu let a small flame flicker at his fingertip.
“You’re a shuimang ghost, right?”
Shen Shu had read about shuimang ghosts in a book.
They were people transformed after accidentally eating shuimang grass. Once they became ghosts, their bodies rotted away, leaving them with only water plants to wrap around themselves. They lived in enclosed caves and valleys, never able to see the light.
These ghosts couldn’t be reborn or reincarnated. They could only find release through the intervention of a cultivator. They were beings filled with deep resentment.
But this one didn’t seem particularly bright. Stupidity was practically written all over its face.
Shen Shu got back to the point. “What was that fox charm you mentioned?”
“Fox charm? It’s a spell invented by a fox demon.”
The face explained readily.
“Your eyes come from the fox demon clan, so you were born knowing how to use it. And your face… well, you’re pretty good-looking, so it works even better.”
Shen Shu raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
The face put it simply. “When you cry, other people see the person they want to see most. They’ll do whatever you say.”
Shen Shu: “…Really?”
The face answered innocently, “Yeah.”
This time, Shen Shu was genuinely shocked.
That was possible?
No wonder Wen Zhuo had been acting so strangely just now, asking about his ears and mouth. He’d fallen under Shen Shu’s fox charm!
Shen Shu couldn’t help touching his eyes.
His shifu had never told him about such a wicked spell!
Shen Shu was skeptical.
Seeing him stay silent for so long, the face started getting anxious. “Aren’t you one of Wen Zhuo’s people? Why hasn’t he come to save you yet?”
As if.
He’d only met Daoist Wen a few hours ago. Forget saving him, the man probably didn’t even remember his name.
Shen Shu asked casually, “What, do you want him to come save me?”
The face blurted out, “Yeah!”
As soon as the words left its mouth, it realized it had given itself away and hurriedly corrected itself. “No, no, no! I don’t want him to save you. He’s so annoying!”
Shen Shu leaned against the wall and asked, “Then tell me. What’s your grudge against Wen Zhuo? Why are you making me pay with my life in his place?”
The face said viciously, “He killed shuimang ghosts, a whole bunch of them! He deserves to die!”
Shen Shu scoffed. “So Wen Zhuo’s too strong for you to kidnap, and you can only bully me instead?”
The face answered as if it were obvious. “Yeah. So what?”
Shen Shu had been a Daoist for years. He knew ghosts well enough. They were all bullies who picked on the weak.
He wasn’t particularly afraid of the face, so he continued probing. “If you can’t beat Wen Zhuo, why trap him in the miasma? Why not just let him leave?”
“I didn’t trap him. He came in on his own!” the face shouted. “He said he was looking for someone, that he’d wait here for that person to come back!”
“But a hundred years have passed. There’s no one here! He… he’s a madman! He’s stayed here just to kill people!”
“Wait for someone?” Shen Shu frowned. “You mean that before this, he refused to leave Chishui Forest and stayed here for a full hundred years?”
Before the face could answer, Shen Shu felt the blade beneath his feet begin to tremble violently. The entire dark valley shook with it, and a series of deep rumbles echoed through the cavern, like anguished cries.
He reached back to brace himself against the wall, barely managing to steady his stance.
The face looked up. The pitch-black ceiling was cracking, thin lines of light seeping through.
It shook its head in disbelief and muttered, “Impossible. We’re several dozen feet underground. How could anyone break through such a thick layer of rock?”
Shen Shu took the chance to kick it. “I told you, crushing an ant. Get it now?”
The next moment, two crackles of electricity rang out. A flash of lightning pierced the hideous shuimang ghost in front of him, slamming it into the depths of the valley, where it vanished from sight.
It was a golden sword.
Shen Shu immediately held his breath and pressed himself against the wall.
He looked up. The blast of lightning had blown a gaping hole through the ceiling. Light from outside streamed through, illuminating a small patch of the cave.
From the opening, Shen Shu felt a formidable surge of spiritual power pouring in like a flood.
At the center of those violent spirit streams, Wen Zhuo leaped down. He looked rather displeased, his robes billowing in the wind as he gathered power between two fingers and aimed at the bottom of the valley, ready to blast the shuimang ghost again.
Shen Shu was alarmed. “Wait! Daoist, don’t attack yet!”
Without thinking, he flipped onto the little knife and leaped up, stopping Wen Zhuo’s hand seal.
Wen Zhuo immediately withdrew his spiritual power, but Shen Shu’s haphazard tug threw off his balance. The two of them somersaulted through the air. Just as they were about to fall together, Shen Shu finally found the knife’s hilt and caught Wen Zhuo by the ankle. They were left dangling upside down in midair.
“Sorry, Daoist.” Shen Shu clung to the knife with one hand and Wen Zhuo’s ankle with the other, explaining with difficulty, “I was afraid there might still be living people at the bottom of the valley. I didn’t want you to accidentally hurt them and lose merit.”
Wen Zhuo’s arm hung down, and his familiar smile returned. “It’s all right. Thank you for saving me.”
His robe had flipped over his head, covering his entire face.
So ridiculous.
Shen Shu thought he looked a little absurd and almost laughed, but remembered the devastating attack he’d just unleashed and forced the corners of his mouth back down.
Never mind. Staying alive came first.
They hung there in midair for a while before Shen Shu finally spoke. “Daoist, the Hanguang Sword is down there. Can you use sword flight?”
Wen Zhuo answered honestly, “Not while I’m upside down.”
Shen Shu looked around. The walls were nearly vertical and impossibly smooth, with nowhere to plant his feet.
He sighed.
“Then… why don’t you climb up here?”
Wen Zhuo fell silent for a moment.
Shen Shu assumed he found it awkward, and was about to joke his way into suggesting something else.
But just as he opened his mouth, he felt Wen Zhuo shift. Then, like a little snake, Wen Zhuo bent his body and climbed up along Shen Shu.
Shen Shu wasn’t used to being touched. Whenever someone laid a hand on him, he tensed up all over and would shoot away like a coiled spring.
But where could he spring to in this impossible predicament?
He could only hold his breath and let Wen Zhuo slowly adjust his position, moving his grip from Shen Shu’s ankle to his calf, then wrapping both arms around Shen Shu’s waist.
But with them both suspended in midair, Wen Zhuo still couldn’t form a hand seal. Shen Shu realized the problem too, so he wrapped an arm around Wen Zhuo’s lower back, giving him room to use both hands.
Their robes pressed together, tighter than a lover’s embrace.
Wen Zhuo was right beside his neck, softly reciting an incantation. The tip of his nose brushed against Shen Shu’s neck from time to time. His breathing was quiet, his breath feather-light. A thin film of moisture fell on Shen Shu’s skin, making it itch.
Shen Shu took a deep breath, tilted his neck up slightly, and tightened his arm around Wen Zhuo’s waist.
This was so strange.
Why did this man smell so familiar?