GU MANG instantly froze.
"Ha ha ha!" Yue Chenqing started laughing. "It really worked! Fourth Uncle is the best."
"The hell do you mean?" Murong Lian asked impatiently. "Now he can't move. Are you going to leave him here? Or are you going to pick him up and carry him inside?"
"It's fine, we can leave him here," Yue Chenqing said. "This immobility talisman is enchanted with a Heavenly Thunder Shield. It would take someone a long time to break it, no matter how strong they are. No one can do anything to him."
"We can't leave him out here alone," Mo Xi said.
"The Heavenly Thunder spell is super strong. Other people can't—"
"Nothing is infallible." said Mo Xi. "Do you have any other magical devices? Anything that can move him along?"
Yue Chenqing thought for a moment, then exclaimed, "I do, I do! Wait a minute!" He dug around in his qiankun pouch once more. After looking for a bit, he took out a small bamboo figurine.
"Isn't that one of those cheap trinkets that children on the street spar with?" Murong Lian said.
"It's the same concept, but this one is enchanted." Yue Chenqing placed the palm-sized bamboo figurine on the ground and rattled off a series of incantations.
Absolutely nothing happened.
"Um, I might've recited it wrong. Let me try again. Murong-dage, Xihe-jun, don't worry." Yue Chenqing anxiously repeated the incantations in a few more variations. Just as Murong Lian was about to irascibly cut this exercise short, golden light flashed, and the bamboo figurine sprang up from the ground. The palm-sized puppet toy had become a bamboo warrior the size of a grown man.
Yue Chenqing beamed. "There we go!" He hefted the immobile Gu Mang, then stared wide-eyed at Mo Xi and Murong Lian. "Lend me a hand?"
Murong Lian gave him a fake smile. "I won't touch him. Too dirty."
Mo Xi had been standing to the side with his arms crossed, but now he stepped forward and asked expressionlessly, "What do you need?"
"We gotta attach his limbs to the bamboo warrior's. There are fastening mechanisms on the warrior, you see?"
Mo Xi did as instructed.
Gu Mang was restrained by the immobility talisman and rendered mute and motionless, but he knew well what was happening around him. He glared at the two people moving his arms and legs, his eyes flashing back and forth between Mo Xi and Yue Chenqing.
The pair tied Gu Mang to the bamboo warrior. To finish it off, Yue Chenqing took the rope around the warrior's torso and wound it several times around Gu Mang's waist. Then he whistled and said, "All right. Let's try taking a few steps."
The bamboo warrior began walking, clack clack clack, arms and legs moving in sync. Since Gu Mang was fixed to it, he was also brought clack clack-clacking along.
This magical device was both wholly marvelous and terribly interesting. Anyone else would have praised Yue Chenqing to the skies, but the two people presently by his side were the deathly stuffy Xihe-jun and the deathly picky Wangshu-jun.
Xihe-jun only watched with his arms crossed, saying nothing. Wangshu-jun snorted.
"Just one of Yue Manor's party tricks." He took two drags of ephemera, exhaled, then pointed the pipe at Gu Mang. "What can it do other than walk?"
"Fight. It can perform all the usual dodging maneuvers." Yue Chenqing took no offense, still pleased with himself. "It can even dance."
Murong Lian bit his pipe, his eyes half-lidded as he mulled this over. "Then why not make him dance?"
Yue Chenqing whistled again. In response, the bamboo warrior began lurching to the left, then to the right, forcing Gu Mang to sway along, this way and that. Even though the movement was silly and cute, those lupine blue eyes glared daggers at them. If Gu Mang could have moved, he definitely would have bitten them to death and torn every one of them apart.
"It can even do the Sogdian Whirl! All you need is—"
"Enough." Mo Xi cut him off. "Let's go." After a pause, he added, "Order the bamboo warrior to follow at the back."
The cave where the phantom was hiding was dim and awfully deep. There were multiple branching points inside the great mountain cavern, which split off into many smaller caves. The three of them—plus Gu Mang tied to the bamboo warrior, so the four of them—slowly walked inside. The empty cave echoed with the clicking of Mo Xi's steel-toed military boots, the padding of Yue Chenqing's footsteps, and the creaking of the bamboo warrior's joints.
Only Murong Lian walked without a sound. His gait was light and graceful, and his shoes were made of the highest quality heavenly silk—his steps were completely silent.
Murong Lian was quite pleased with himself. "Forget the rapist, even a toddler would realize we're coming with the noise you two are making."
"I'll walk more softly," said Yue Chenqing, obedient as ever.
Mo Xi, on the other hand, retorted frostily, "Do you think he doesn't know we've entered the cave? There are no other exits, and this is his territory. He's obviously hiding and replenishing his spiritual energy as he waits for us to arrive."
"Then I'll walk more loudly," said Yue Chenqing, easily swayed as ever.
The bamboo warrior creaked in reply.
Mo Xi was right—those who cast Dream of Longing could only do so with great amounts of spiritual energy; the phantom was hiding in one of these caves to gather his strength. As they walked deeper into the bowels of the cavern, they discovered more and more signs that he had holed up within it.
There were dried bloodstains on the central path, and here and there, scraps of clothing dangled from protruding stalagmites. These had unmistakably been left by murdered cultivators and kidnapped maidens who had struggled as they were dragged inside. In one stone crevice, Yue Chenqing even spied a brocade shoe.
In a bid to stall for time, the rapist had cast a great many spells within the cave. However, the emperor had sent three particular individuals: Mo Xi, whose martial power was formidable and who possessed a commander's capabilities; Yue Chenqing, who was born of an aristocratic line of artificers and who carried numerous unexpected magical trinkets at all times; and Murong Lian, who excelled at illusion techniques and was well-versed in healing spells. Thus, the rapist's mysterious traps posed no threat. The trio swiftly arrived at a long karst bridge.
"It should be up ahead." Mo Xi glanced toward the end of the limestone bridge. There seemed to be an expansive cave on the other end, which shone faintly with the indistinct jade-green light of magic.
This "bridge" was a natural formation of the karst cave—it did span from one side to the other, but it was entirely comprised of spirit stones that protruded from the depths of the underground lake below. The stones varied in size and distance, and were perilously slippery withal.
Mo Xi glanced beneath the bridge. The soaring stone pillars were at least a hundred yards tall, with a rushing river beneath. A short span like this was no issue for this group, it was only… He turned to Yue Chenqing. "Is the bamboo warrior skilled at qinggong?"
Yue Chenqing shook his head.
Mo Xi frowned and gazed at Gu Mang, who was still tied to the bamboo warrior, looking murderous.
"But I think I can order it to jump like a jiangshi. hop across the gaps between the pillars."
Here was a major point of contention during the two years Yue Chenqing and Mo Xi had been stationed together: Deputy General Yue Chenqing liked to use words such as maybe, I think, and probably, while Commander Mo Xi generally only accepted terms such as certainly, definitely, and absolutely.
Consequently, Mo Xi glanced at Yue Chenqing and did not authorize the use of "jump like a jiangshi." He only said, "All of you follow on your own." Then, with one hand, he grabbed Gu Mang by the lapels and rose into the air, his robes billowing. Mo Xi was extremely strong, and his qinggong foundation was outstanding as well. Before the echoes of his instructions had died, he had already swept far into the distance, fluttering like a black kite.
Yue Chenqing was stupefied. "Wow… So skilled…"
Murong Lian scoffed. "What's so impressive about that?"
In this way, the four of them crossed the hundred-yard-long karst bridge. When they looked back the way they came, all they could see was a distant shadow. Mo Xi set the bamboo warrior on the ground without a glance at Gu Mang. "Let's go," he said to the others.
As expected, this was the deepest cave in the entire system, filled with stalactites and stalagmites. The jade-green light of magic they'd seen was coming from a cluster of rock formations in the center of the cavern.
Just as they were about to enter, Yue Chenqing, who was always peering around, shouted in alarm. "Look! There're words over there!"
A fireball lit up in Mo Xi's palm. With a wave of his hand, the flame flitted up to hover above the lofty cave wall at which Yue Chenqing pointed. Illuminated by firelight were several rows of crooked handwriting, scrawled on the cave wall in muddy red ink that looked like blood.
The mountain bride, all night she cried;
First she hates her helpless fate,
Second hates her ill-starred face,
Third their parting does she hate, a lost love left too late.
Garbed in scarlet, crowned in gold;
Once she laughs, face warped by hate;
Twice she laughs, blood streaks her face;
Thrice she laughs, and with that last, forever seals your fate.
Yue Chenqing mumbled each word aloud. Just as he finished reading and opened his mouth to call to the others, he heard a soft giggle from behind him. "Hee."
He whipped around. Without the slightest warning, the tip of his nose bumped into a ghastly pale face.
"Aaahhh!" Yue Chenqing screamed, leaping high into the air and scrabbling backward.
His vision cleared. At some point, a dozen female corpses garbed in red robes and crowned in gold had slunk out of the shadows between the stalagmites. He'd been standing in front of one of them, so he'd come faceto-face with it as soon as he turned.
"G-G-General Mo—! H-help! Aaahhhh!"
Yue Chenqing was a cultivator, but he'd developed an abnormal fear of ghosts after listening to too many horror stories. He shrieked miserably on and on, trying to move his legs and run away, but because he was terrified, he fell to the ground with a crash. With his bugged-out eyes and sunken cheeks, he resembled nothing quite so much as a screaming gopher.
The corpse gazed at him, equally motionless. Robes embroidered with golden phoenixes and butterflies fluttered in the chill wind of the cave.
Yue Chenqing swallowed several times. A realization dawned upon his numbed mind. "Aren't—aren't you…C-Cui-zizi from the teahouse?" he cried.
Miss Cui was expressionless. The dead woman's face possessed a dull, stiff tranquility. After a moment, she giggled again. "Hee hee." Two lines of bloody tears slid down from her staring eyes.
Once she laughs, face warped by hate; Twice she laughs, blood streaks her face; Thrice she laughs, and with that last, forever seals your fate…
Remembering the words on the stone wall, Yue Chenqing's head rang. He shouted to Mo Xi, who was already fighting the other corpses. "Aahhh! Xihe-jun! Hurry up! Don't let her laugh a third time! Or she'll seal my fate!"
The response he received was Murong Lian's pipe rapping against his head. As it turned out, he was standing close by. Incensed by Yue Chenqing's ear-splitting scream, he remorselessly rapped him many more times and left a pipeful of ashes on the boy's head.
"You blithering idiot! Don't you know how to fight on your own?" he snarled. "It's just a jiangshi!"
"But I-I…I'm afraid of ghosts!" Still wailing, Yue Chenqing wrapped his arms around Murong Lian's thighs without warning.
Murong Lian had no words.
At that moment, Miss Cui drew back her scarlet lips and began her third giggle. "Hee…hee…"
"Hee my ass!"
The corpse had no chance to finish her last giggle, because Murong Lian rudely shoved his pipe in her mouth. He looked down at Yue Chenqing clinging tight to his pant leg. "Why are you hugging me? Hurry up and let go!"