Seeing how the talismans were useless but their clothes were not, all the Lan youths each stripped off their outer robes and threw them at the left arm, covering and wrapping it in layers upon layers of robes like a thick white cocoon. A moment later, this ball of white clothes ignited with a WHOOSH, the wicked green flames blazing to the skies. Though it worked for the time being, it would not last long. Once the uniforms were completely burnt, that arm would break free from their ashes. While no one was paying attention, Wei Wuxian ran straight for the west courtyard.
Over a dozen walking corpses those youths had captured were standing silently in the yard. A spell had been drawn upon the ground to seal them inside its boundary, and Wei Wuxian stomped on one of the characters, destroying the entire array. After two claps, the walking corpses jerked. Their white eyes opened abruptly, as if they had been shocked awake by an explosion of thunder.
“Wake up,” Wei Wuxian said. “Time to get to work!”
He never needed any complicated spells or summoning incantations to control corpse puppets. The most straightforward command would suffice. The walking corpses at the very front quivered as they struggled to shuffle a few steps. Then, the moment they approached Wei Wuxian, they fell face-first to the ground like living humans, as if their legs had grown weak from terror.
Not knowing whether to laugh or cry at this, Wei Wuxian clapped twice more, but much softer this time. However, these walking corpses had probably been born at the Mo Estate and had died here as well. They’d never seen the world. So while they instinctively obeyed the summoner’s command, they were also terrified of the summoner for some reason, lying on the ground whimpering, too afraid to get up.
The crueler the evil spirit, the easier it was for Wei Wuxian to manipulate it. These walking corpses had never gone through his training, so they could not withstand his direct control. He had no materials at his disposal to immediately create a device that could ease their fear either, and nothing with which to improvise. As he watched the blazing green flames from the east courtyard gradually die down, an idea suddenly came to mind.
Why go out searching to find a cruel and vicious deceased, one steeped in extreme hatred?
The east hall already had one. More than one!
He darted back to the east courtyard. Lan Sizhui’s first plan had come to an end, so he devised another. The youths all unsheathed their longswords, planting them in the ground to form a fence of blades. The ghost arm smashed about within the enclosure. It was taking all their energy just to hold the hilts in place and prevent them from being expelled by the force; no one had the time to pay attention to who was going in and out of the hall.
Wei Wuxian stepped into the east hall and yanked up the corpses of Madam Mo and Mo Ziyuan, one in each hand. In a low voice, he gave a command:
“Awake yet?”
At the sound of his voice, the souls returned!
An instant later, Madam Mo and Mo Ziyuan opened their white eyes and let out a shrill shriek unique to malicious ghosts at the moment of their resurrection.
Amidst the high and low shrieks, another corpse crawled to its feet in trepidation, calling out feebly with a voice that could not have been any softer. It was Madam Mo’s husband.
The cries were loud enough, the hatred plentiful. Wei Wuxian was extremely pleased.
“Recognize that arm out there?”
He smiled.
“Tear it apart,” he ordered.
The three members of the Mo family were like three blasts of black wind, blowing forth in an instant.
That left arm had broken a longsword. Just as it was about to break out of the pen, three left-armless fierce corpses came lunging at it.
Even aside from the fear of disobeying Wei Wuxian’s command, these three carried an intense hatred for the creature that had killed them, and they unleashed all their fury upon that ghost arm. The one leading the attack was undoubtedly Madam Mo. Once reanimated, female corpses were often particularly ferocious. Her hair was flying wild, her white eyes crawling with red, and her nails had burst in length exponentially. She was foaming at the mouth, her shrill cries practically raising the roofs, completely crazed. Mo Ziyuan followed his mother closely, working in concert with her to both tear and bite at the left arm while his father trailed behind them, filling in the gaps between the other two’s attacks.
The Lan youths who had been struggling to hang on earlier were all stunned. They had only ever heard of such fights between fierce corpses from sundry books and hearsay. This was the first time they had witnessed such a gory scene, and they gawked, unable to avert their eyes. They only had one thought in their minds: This is so exciting!
The three corpses and the one arm were in the throes of battle. Suddenly, Mo Ziyuan shrieked as he dodged; that arm had swiped at his abdomen, and several ropes of his intestines drooped from the tear. Madam Mo snarled incessantly at the sight of this. She pulled her son behind her to shield him while escalating her attacks, her nails slicing through air as sharply as blades made of iron and steel. However, Wei Wuxian could tell she was slowly losing against the arm.
Even three freshly dead fierce corpses working together could not subdue this one arm!
Wei Wuxian watched the battle closely. He curled his tongue slightly, holding a sharp whistle back between his lips as he hesitated to let it loose. If he whistled, he could evoke greater hatred within the controlled fierce corpses, and that would perhaps turn the tables. However, it would be difficult to ensure no one noticed that he was the instigator.
In the span of a second, that hand moved as fast as lightning, ruthless and precise as it snapped Madam Mo’s neck. Seeing how the Mo family was being steadily beaten back, Wei Wuxian was just about to let loose the whistle he held under his tongue when—right then—two strums from a guqin sounded in the far distance.
The two notes were skillfully played, ethereal and clear, carrying with them the tinkling bleakness of windswept pines. The collection of demonic evils that were in the middle of a brawl all froze.
The youths of the Lan Clan of Gusu immediately beamed as if they had been resurrected. Lan Sizhui raised a hand to wipe away the blood on his face and then looked up, calling out in delight:
“Hanguang-jun!”
The moment he heard the cry of that sobriquet and the distant guqin, Wei Wuxian turned to leave.
Another strum. This time, the note was higher pitched, piercing through the sky like the austere harshness of winter’s first approach. The three fierce corpses shrank back while covering one ear with their right hands at the same time. However, it was impossible to block out the Eradication Tone of the Lan Clan of Gusu in such a way. They only managed to back up a few steps before there was the faint sound of cracking in their skulls.
As for that left arm, after engaging in such a ferocious fight, hearing the sound of the strings now made it suddenly drop to the ground. Though its fingers still twitched, the arm was already lying limp and silent.
After a short silence, the group of youths couldn’t help but erupt in loud cheers, the sound filled with the jubilation of having survived. They had endured a terrifying night, and now that help from the clan had finally arrived, they couldn’t have cared less if they were harshly punished later for “disgracing the sect with a breach of etiquette.”
While they waved toward the moon, Lan Sizhui suddenly noticed someone missing. He tugged at Lan Jingyi.
“Where is he?”
Lan Jingyi was busy being happy and replied, “Who? He who?”
“That Mo-gongzi,” Lan Sizhui replied.
“Huh? Why are you looking for that lunatic? Who knows, maybe he was scared of getting beaten up by me and ran off somewhere.”
“…”
Lan Sizhui knew that Lan Jingyi was unmindful and straightforward, never thinking deeply on things or harboring suspicion. He thought to himself, I’ll just wait until Hanguang-jun is down here, then report to him about that man and the incident.
The Mo Estate slumbered soundly, though whether that peace was real or fake was difficult to tell. Even though there had been a bloody corpse fight in the Mo Manor’s east and west courtyards, no one was getting up in the middle of the night to watch it. One had to pick and choose the right spectacle to watch, and a spectacle with such incessant screaming was best avoided.
Wei Wuxian rapidly destroyed any remaining evidence of the sacrificial ritual array, then ran out the door.
Of all people who could have come, it had to be the Lan family; of all people to come, it just had to be Lan Wangji!
This was someone with whom he had once crossed paths and fought, so he retreated in a hurry. Anxious to find a steed, as he passed by a courtyard, he noticed a spotted donkey tied next to a large millstone, chewing something in its mouth. It seemed a little surprised when it saw him come dashing over, giving him a side-eye like a person would. The instant Wei Wuxian met its eyes, he was immediately moved by the disdain in its gaze.
He went up to it, yanked off its rope, and started dragging it out. The spotted donkey loudly complained. Wei Wuxian cajoled as he dragged, coaxing it in every way possible to move it along. Stepping out in the lightening of dawn, they clattered onto the main road.