“Are you going to burn it into ash for me?” asked Jiang Shining glumly.
“In your dreams.”
“Just eat your food!”
Jiang Shining no longer wanted to speak to Xue Xian. He walked to a corner, then suddenly collapsed, transforming into a flimsy paper doll and sliding from the wall to the ground. He only had a limited amount of time he could manifest each day; once that was up, he had to rest.
The paper doll was truly the work of a “genius.” Its edges looked like they’d been chewed on by a dog, while a few brush strokes formed the scribble of a face. If one squinted, they could just make out Jiang Shining’s likeness. Upon its cheeks were two blobs of rouge, adding a touch of silliness to its uncanniness.
The paper doll had barely spent a second on the ground before Xue Xian’s continued offenses to his sensibilities got to him. Jiang Shining rose once more and frowned. “I’ve been wanting to say this for days. Can’t you even hold your chopsticks correctly?”
Xue Xian lazily flicked his gaze upward. “As you pointed out so kindly, my upper body was paralyzed for a long time. Only recently have I been able to sit up, so I can’t quite use chopsticks properly yet.” Then he raised his hand and flipped something at Jiang Shining, hitting him squarely on the forehead and sending him crashing back to the floor as a paper doll. Xue Xian had made his annoyance clear.
With some effort, Jiang Shining twisted his head to look at what had been flung at him.
Wonderful, a chicken bone! he thought.
He was quiet for a moment before he recalled something. Struggling to get up again, he said, “There’s one more thing. Can you not smear rouge on my face tomorrow?”
This time, Xue Xian’s answer was even more lackadaisical. He only said one word: “No.”
Jiang Shining couldn’t bring himself to say anything to that. One shouldn’t bite the hand that fed them, he understood. If Xue Xian hadn’t crafted this paper body for him, who knew how long he would have drifted as lonely as a cloud.
Still, there was one thing Jiang Shining couldn’t understand. Huizhou was huge, with no lack of vacant houses. Any of them could temporarily shelter Xue Xian, yet he’d specifically chosen the Jiang family’s burned-out clinic. Was there something wrong with him? Moreover, the day he arrived, Xue Xian mentioned that he was here for something important. But four days had passed, and the only thing he’d done (aside from eating) was craft a paper doll for Jiang Shining to possess. Surely, his important task wasn’t to cut out a paper doll?
Jiang Shining lay on the cold ground for a while longer before he remembered something else and struggled to rise once more.
With his ill temper, Xue Xian was already irritated by their brief conversation, and he spoke before Jiang Shining could. “Keep talking and I’ll snip your mouth off. You can talk tomorrow morning.”
“Just one last thing!” Jiang Shining rushed to say.
Xue Xian shot him a glare. “Listening to you gives me a headache. That’s what will end up paralyzing me. Shut up.”
“I think someone followed me here,” said Jiang Shining. “I glanced back when I stepped into the courtyard earlier and thought I saw a monk with a string of copper coins at his waist. I reckon that he should be at the door by now.”
After saying so, he collapsed and fell silent, his time up for the day. He could no longer move or speak until nightfall, only watching from the sidelines at most.
Xue Xian was speechless. What would a monk follow a ghost for? A monk with a string of copper coins hanging from his waist, following a ghost. Something so important and the damn bookworm hadn’t told him earlier, when it mattered? Was he planning to save it for New Year’s Day?!
Fury bubbled inside Xue Xian. If he’d still been able-bodied, he would have blasted Jiang Shining and the entire courtyard to smithereens. Now, however, he could only maintain a blank expression, watching through the ruined window as the courtyard gates, pushed from outside, creaked open.
In these times, there were plenty of charlatans who made a living spinning lies. Xue Xian had met quite a few himself, but he also knew that a couple among them really knew their stuff. How capable one was depended on one’s experience. The older one grew, the harder one became to fool.
The monk stepped inside, and Xue Xian breathed a small sigh of relief. The interloper was surprisingly young. He clearly wasn’t a con artist, but he was nothing special—the copper coins at his waist were the evidence. The more skilled the exorcist, the more evil spirits they would have subdued with their coins. As if coated in oil, those coins would have a sheen to them when seen from afar. Some might employ trickery to mimic this sheen, but while that might be enough to fool an ordinary person, it would be useless against Xue Xian.
For this young monk, however, it seemed like trickery hadn’t even crossed his mind. The coins hanging at his waist were shine-free; their copper coating had nearly worn away, leaving them dull and gray. It was hard to say where he had come across them—perhaps they’d never even been put to use. Yet he’d still left his mountain to sell his services. With what advertisement? His face?
Xue Xian sneered privately. He put down his box of food and cast a basic illusion, turning it into a charred wooden post. Then, he silently leaned back in his chair and his tall, slender form flattened into a slip of paper, its edges much neater than Jiang Shining’s and its brushstrokes more refined. There were also no blobs of rouge on its face.
Jiang Shining lay mute and motionless on the ground. The lack of rouge on Xue Xian’s cheeks told Jiang Shining that his companion had been born in the year of the donkey: a purebred ass, through and through.
The flimsy paper Xue Xian was inhabiting fluttered from the chair to the floor, landing next to Jiang Shining. In the blink of an eye, Xue Xian cast another illusion, and the two paper dolls became a clump of moss on the muddy ground, blending in with the dilapidated house. It was a flawless disguise.
A mere half year ago, Xue Xian would not have bothered with this deception. Those with the guts to barge into his nest would have found themselves buried six feet under. Now, he had no choice but to debase himself by casting illusion after illusion. After all, he had only just begun to recover from complete, then partial paralysis. Any movement was a monumental challenge for his frail body, and it was severely restricted in the magic it could channel. That he’d avoided sending himself to his grave was already a blessing.
Fortunately, their current monkish visitor was no better than a decorative flowerpot—only his appearance was worth anything. He would probably take a look around after entering, find no one, and leave.
The young monk in the white hemp robe paused in the courtyard and swept a cold gaze over the area.
The Jiang family’s clinic originally had three main houses, three side wings, and a medicinal herb garden, with a large storefront behind the latter. It’d been a sizable compound, but it had lain completely abandoned for three years after the devastating fire. Now, one could take in all that remained in a mere few glances.