The nonhuman creature holding Xu Muchan did not answer, but the true form it revealed seemed to have already provided an answer.
It lowered its head and greedily sniffed at Xu Muchan’s neck. A tongue like a snake’s forked tongue extended from between its lips, slowly flicking in and out. From time to time, the cold, damp tip of its tongue touched Xu Muchan’s skin.
In his dazed state, Xu Muchan even seemed to hear the hissing sound of a snake flicking its tongue.
He clenched his teeth and tightened his grip around the Mountain God tablet against his chest. His body instinctively resisted as he leaned backward.
But several palms suddenly extended from behind and pressed against his shoulders and back, gradually pulling his stiff body back until he was almost stuffed into the nonhuman creature’s embrace.
The top of Xu Muchan’s head pressed against the creature’s chin.
He did not dare raise his head, afraid of meeting that terrifying vertical pupil. Instead, following the force of the hands against his back, he shrank further into the other’s arms.
His forehead pressed against its chest.
With his eyes closed, he quietly called out, “Wei Xilou.”
He said, “I’m a little scared.”
“Will you die?”
His voice trembled, carrying an unmistakable suppressed sob.
The nonhuman creature suddenly stopped.
Within the raised slit of its eye, eyeballs crowded one against another, as though competing for dominance. Finally, a black pupil squeezed its way out from among the scarlet mass—
All the deformed hands withdrew.
The icy, smooth skin resembling jade gradually regained its warmth and elasticity. A rhythmic heartbeat sounded beside Xu Muchan’s ear.
Wei Xilou held the back of the young man’s head. His chin lightly rubbed against the top of Xu Muchan’s head, and his voice unexpectedly carried a hint of amusement.
“Is A-Chan very afraid that I will die?”
Xu Muchan hurriedly wiped away the moisture from the corners of his eyes and raised his head.
His voice remained muffled, with a slight hoarseness, yet he answered honestly.
“I don’t want you to die.”
The smile on Wei Xilou’s face became even more pronounced. He gently stroked Xu Muchan’s long hair.
“But A-Chan, people will always die.”
Xu Muchan hurriedly interrupted him.
“You know that’s not what I mean.”
Wei Xilou’s smile faded. After a moment of silence, he said, “To ascend and become a god, one must always pay a price. This is the price I paid.”
Perhaps seeing him fall silent, Wei Xilou continued, “Isn’t everything fine now? I won’t die. If I died, and someone bullied A-Chan in the future, who would avenge you?”
Xu Muchan stared at him in astonishment.
But Wei Xilou raised his hand and covered his eyes, continuing:
“There are some things you should have already guessed. There isn’t much time. I still have a few things to tell you. Remember them carefully.”
“A heavenly fetus that dies prematurely transforms into a fierce ghost. If the people of the Daoist sect discover this, they certainly will not let you off easily. A-Chan must learn how to protect himself. Although ghostification can help you, you have not yet matured, and prolonged ghostification will inevitably harm you. I will lend you a hand.”
Before Xu Muchan could speak, he continued, “A-Chan has far too many questions. I don’t want to answer them. Be good.”
Xu Muchan’s mouth, which had just opened, pressed shut again.
He did not know what Wei Xilou meant by lending him a hand.
Wei Xilou continued covering his eyes, leaving him able to rely only on his ears and other senses to listen and feel.
He felt the palm covering his eyes change again. Once the fear had faded, the sensation of skin as cold and smooth as jade was actually quite pleasant.
A wet, sticky sound arose beside his ears.
At the same time, a strong, fishy odor filled his nostrils.
“A-Chan, open your mouth. Eat this.”
A warm and damp object was pressed against Xu Muchan’s lips.
The strong fishy smell made him instinctively resist. He struggled, trying to pull away the hand covering his eyes, wanting to see exactly what Wei Xilou was making him eat.
But that palm was far stronger than he was.
Xu Muchan could not move it at all. He could only turn his face aside to refuse.
“What are you giving me to eat?”
The thing not only carried a strong fishy odor; when it touched Xu Muchan’s lips, he could even feel it faintly throbbing.
It was like…
Like a heart.
Wei Xilou did not answer.
He turned Xu Muchan over so that he was lying face-up. More hands eagerly extended from somewhere and pressed down on his limbs and body to prevent him from struggling.
Two more hands carefully cradled and fixed his face in place.
Then Wei Xilou bit into the still-beating heart, tore off a piece, and pinched Xu Muchan’s lower jaw, forcing his mouth open.
He leaned down, pressed his lips against Xu Muchan’s, and passed it over.
The piece of heart he had bitten off was still faintly trembling. Once it entered Xu Muchan’s mouth, it slid down his esophagus into his stomach.
The effect was immediate.
Xu Muchan felt a strange craving rise within him.
His body betrayed his will first. His long canine teeth pushed against his lips, and like a young beast that had gone a long time without feeding, he fiercely bit down on Wei Xilou’s lips.
Wei Xilou let out a soft hiss and pulled back slightly, gently patting and soothing him. He held the still-beating, living heart against Xu Muchan’s lips.
“Don’t rush. It’s all yours, A-Chan.”
Xu Muchan was drawn in by that strange scent and devoured it in large mouthfuls.
Wei Xilou watched without blinking. After seeing him finish, he noticed that Xu Muchan still seemed unsatisfied and licked his lips.
Wei Xilou used his thumb to wipe away the liquid clinging to the corner of his mouth and smiled slightly.
“Is it delicious?”
Xu Muchan’s rationality slowly returned.
When he thought about what he had just eaten, he immediately felt nauseous. He shook his head desperately and tried to break free from Wei Xilou’s restraint again.
But the difference in strength between them was enormous.
Wei Xilou refused to let go, and no matter how much Xu Muchan struggled, it was all in vain.
Leaning down, he licked away the liquid remaining at the corner of his lips. Wei Xilou said regretfully, “The time is up. A-Chan should go back now. This is not a place where you should stay.”
At the same time as his words sounded, the roar of surging waves rang out.
It was as though an overwhelming flood of river water came rushing over, submerging this narrow coffin.
Xu Muchan felt the space beneath him shaking violently. It felt as though they were no longer on solid ground, but were drifting in the river. The coffin had become a small boat, rocking and swaying as it was carried forward by the river water, heading toward some unknown destination.
From beginning to end, Wei Xilou kept Xu Muchan’s eyes covered, and later covered his ears as well.
Xu Muchan could neither see nor hear. He could only feel what seemed like many pairs of arms tightly embracing him. Wei Xilou’s cold, smooth skin was pressed tightly against his own. That wet, slippery snake tongue seemed to emerge again from time to time, occasionally touching the skin at the side of his neck and sliding along his blood vessels. Yet Xu Muchan was no longer as frightened.
Amid the violent rocking, he even felt a powerful wave of drowsiness.
But just as he was about to sink into the depths of sleep, Wei Xilou’s voice woke him. “We’re here.”
Xu Muchan seemed to be suddenly pushed by someone and instinctively staggered one step forward. His tightly closed eyes slowly opened, and he discovered that he was no longer inside the coffin, but standing inside the Wei residence.
It was not the eerie Wei residence from the third year of the Republic of China, but the silent Wei residence in the main tomb chamber.
Xu Muchan looked around blankly, only to discover that this place was actually exactly the same as the Wei residence from the Republican era, almost a perfectly scaled-down version of it.
To the point that he could hardly tell whether everything that had happened earlier had merely been an illusion, or whether he had truly returned to the past and seen Wei Xilou before he ascended to immortality.
Perhaps because he was already too familiar with this place, Xu Muchan instinctively headed toward the courtyard where the wooden tower was located.
But when he stepped into the courtyard, he first saw a familiar figure. Xu Muchan’s eyes immediately widened, and he ran forward. “Big Brother!”
Wei Xilou turned around. Seeing him looking as though he was about to cry but was holding it back, he reached out and caught him. His eyes carefully examined him from head to toe before he smiled and said, “Looks like A-Chan has already obtained that thing. Is there anywhere that feels uncomfortable?”
Xu Muchan stared blankly at him with his mouth slightly open. Only after a long while did he say, “I think I went back to the Wei residence in the past, and I saw you too… Back then, you were still just an ordinary person.”
When he said the words “ordinary person,” Xu Muchan’s voice grew quieter and quieter.
Clearly, no matter when, Wei Xilou never looked very ordinary. He did not even look particularly human.
Xu Muchan bit his lip and stared fixedly at Wei Xilou.
Yet Wei Xilou did not look surprised in the slightest. Instead, he said, “Perhaps it was because of the Black River. This residence was originally an underground dwelling modeled after the original Wei residence. With the Black River underground becoming active again, a brief convergence of yin and yang is not particularly unusual.”
Xu Muchan slowly frowned. Clearly, none of what Big Brother was saying was what he wanted to hear. He grabbed Wei Xilou’s arm and clenched it tightly. “What happened after I went back?”
According to the history recorded by the Wei family, the Yun Dong main branch had been wiped out, and in the end, only Wei Ting and Wei Xilou escaped.
But this was clearly not the whole truth. Before Xu Muchan left, Wei Xilou could no longer be considered human. Why, then, had he taken Wei Ting and escaped?
There were many things about this that did not make sense.
Wei Xilou sighed, but Xu Muchan had an expression that clearly said, “If you don’t tell me the truth, don’t even think I’ll let go.” He could only compromise. “I only just remembered it myself. A-Chan, let go first. I’ll tell you everything slowly.”
Xu Muchan looked at him suspiciously, as though afraid that the moment he let go, Wei Xilou would disappear.
Wei Xilou smiled, took hold of Xu Muchan’s hand, and held it. With his other hand, he casually picked up a pointed shovel from the ground, forcefully thrust it into the earth, twisted it hard in a circle, and then pulled it out. Immediately, black-red water gurgled up from the hole.
“What is this?”
Xu Muchan frowned as he examined it, somewhat puzzled. “Is this… Black Taisui?”
But he quickly rejected that guess. The black-red water felt familiar to him, yet it was also different from the Black River he had seen in his memories.
“It is a tributary of the Black River. It has already been polluted.”
Wei Xilou answered his question, casually tossed the shovel aside, and pulled Xu Muchan away from the black-red flow.
“One of the Wei family’s ancestors was once an accomplished sorcerer. He possessed extraordinary talent. Relying on the Wei family’s enormous wealth, he gathered scriptures and secret techniques from various schools and sects, organized and integrated them, and then mastered them for his own use. This tributary of the Black River was discovered by him.”
“For some unknown reason, he used a formation to trap this tributary, preventing it from flowing into the main Black River. He then built the Wei family’s residence above it to suppress it. The Ascension-to-Immortality Pagoda was also built at that time, to offer sacrifices and prayers to the Black River.”
“But there was only one peerless genius like him. No matter how extraordinary the Wei ancestor was, he was still merely flesh and blood. It is said that when he died, he was already more than one hundred and ninety years old. At that time, the Wei family had not produced another genius, so there was no one to inherit his legacy, and he ultimately died with regrets.”
“After his death, however, the Wei family continued to prosper. According to the ancestral instructions he left behind, the Wei family worshiped the Black River generation after generation, in order to ensure the Wei family’s prosperity. If things had continued like that, perhaps the Wei family could have endured forever. But human hearts are always too greedy. After obtaining great wealth and honor, they wanted power as well.”
Human desire gave birth to the Five Changshen. In pursuit of long-lasting prosperity, the Wei family’s descendants began worshiping the Five Changshen generation after generation, nourishing them until they became increasingly powerful.
But the Five Changshen were inherently greedy and evil gods. They granted the Wei family’s wishes, but at the same time, they would silently collect an equivalent price.
The Wei family suffered the backlash.
First, strange incidents began occurring throughout the household. People who were perfectly normal during the day would suddenly turn into bloodthirsty monsters that ate humans at night. And there were even more people who, although they did not become man-eating monsters, gradually developed animal characteristics on their bodies.
The Wei family consulted their ancestor’s handwritten records and spent enormous sums of money searching everywhere for experts. At last, they discovered that this was the backlash caused by worshiping the Five Changshen.
The Five Changshen were no longer satisfied with the Wei family’s offerings. After becoming increasingly powerful, they even wanted to turn the entire Wei family into their own followers, to be driven at their command and offer them even more blood sacrifices.
Naturally, the Wei family refused to accept their fate.
Fortunately, the Wei family had accumulated countless generations’ worth of wealth. Box after box of gold, silver, and jewels was scattered, bringing countless so-called experts—some genuine, some fraudulent—to their door.
After pooling everyone’s knowledge, they concluded that the reason the Five Changshen had become so powerful was because the strange underground waterway trapped by the Wei ancestor was nourishing them. If they wanted to eliminate the Five Changshen, they first had to undo the formation that trapped the water.
But this underground waterway was precisely the foundation of the Wei family’s prosperity. If they released it, the Wei family might decline as a result.
At that time, the head of the Wei family was Wei Xilou’s grandfather. Naturally, he was unwilling to let the Wei family, which had prospered for countless generations, collapse in his own hands. Thus, he hesitated for a long time and could not make a decision.
And it was at this critical moment that Madam Wei gave birth to a baby boy, who was named Wei Xilou.
Coincidentally, there happened to be a Daoist practitioner staying with the Wei family. At a glance, he recognized that this child was a Heavenly Fetus.
Sometimes, things really were that coincidental. That exceptionally talented ancestor of the Wei family had also been a Heavenly Fetus.
According to the records in his handwritten notes, a Heavenly Fetus possessed innate knowledge from birth and a pure spiritual body. It was the innate constitution closest to immortals and gods. If the child’s bones and meridians could be cleansed with Taisui water from a young age, he might be able to ascend to immortality.
The so-called Taisui water was the black water trapped beneath the Wei family’s residence.
When the ancestor recorded this passage, he seemed rather regretful. He himself had only found the Taisui water after reaching middle age, missing the best opportunity to ascend to immortality.
Grand Elder Wei was reluctant to give up the Wei family’s wealth and glory accumulated over generations. After reading the ancestor’s handwritten records, he conceived the idea of using the Heavenly Fetus to ascend to immortality and replace the Five Changshen.
Xu Muchan immediately thought of the “tonic soup” Wei Xilou had once drunk. “So that’s why they made you drink all those things?”
But something still did not quite add up. The “tonic soup” Wei Xilou drank seemed different from Black Taisui.
As though seeing his confusion, Wei Xilou continued, “Ordinary people cannot consume Black Taisui directly. Even a Heavenly Fetus with extraordinary talent is no exception. If Black Taisui is consumed recklessly, one will either descend into madness or be assimilated, becoming a part of it.”
So the Wei family found people to conduct repeated studies and subsequently modified and diluted the Taisui water.
After Wei Xilou consumed it, he indeed showed no unusual symptoms. Instead, he became more intelligent with each passing day, and there was a spirituality about him that other children did not possess. The Wei family therefore believed they had chosen the right path.
Until Wei Xilou was fifteen years old, when his body could no longer withstand the Taisui water and collapsed for the first time.
Seeing Wei Xilou covered from head to toe in writhing lumps of flesh, his facial features displaced and his limbs twisted like those of a monster, the members of the Wei family fled in terror. Wei Xilou’s biological parents were no exception.
That first collapse took Wei Xilou a full month to recover from.
After that, he moved alone to the western courtyard.
He continued to take the “tonic soup” regularly, and his body continued to break down from time to time, requiring a long time to recover.
He gradually became the unpredictable Eldest Young Master in the mouths of the Wei family, and whenever they mentioned him, their respectful tones concealed a deep fear.
However, as he grew older, Wei Xilou’s control over his body actually became stronger and stronger. Usually, abnormalities would only appear on the day he consumed the “tonic soup.” But accompanying this was the fact that his emotions as a human being became increasingly faint and shallow.
Many times, when he looked at the members of the Wei family, it was as though he were watching a group of moths flying into a flame, watching them embrace foolish, unrealistic hopes, attempting to use one monster to replace another monster so that the Wei family’s prosperity and wealth could be preserved forever.
They even hoped that the younger members of the Wei family could build a good relationship with him, so that after he ascended to immortality, he could better protect and bless them.
Yet the result was obvious.
Ascending to immortality through the physical body was nothing but a lie, and the Wei family knew nothing about immortals and gods.
Wei Xilou really did ascend to immortality. He devoured the Five Changshen and replaced it, becoming a new god. But he was not the god the Wei family had hoped would protect and bless the Wei family.
“After that, you already know what happened. The Wei family was wiped out overnight, and only Wei Ting escaped.”
When Wei Xilou spoke of these past events, there was not the slightest fluctuation in his tone.
But after Xu Muchan sorted through everything in his mind, he felt that something seemed to be missing from the story. “Why was Wei Ting the only one who escaped? And why did he take you with him when he escaped?”
More importantly, according to what Wei Yao had said, Wei Xilou had been conscious at the time. He had followed Wei Ting to Jiangcheng, and not long afterward, he had died of illness.
That clearly did not make sense either.
Xu Muchan looked at Wei Xilou, but Wei Xilou merely spread his hands indifferently. “The memories I’ve recovered don’t include this part. It probably isn’t very important. I’ve forgotten all these old matters, so why should A-Chan care about them?”
Xu Muchan cared very much.
He glared at Wei Xilou. Seeing that Wei Xilou not only did not care in the slightest, but even had the leisure to play with his hair, he immediately yanked the strand of hair wrapped around Wei Xilou’s finger back.
Wei Xilou regretfully rubbed his fingertips together. Seeing that Xu Muchan was still frowning and thinking, he said, “Doesn’t A-Chan want to see something else? This tomb was actually built by the Wei family a long time ago. Half of the wealth accumulated by the Wei family over generations is hidden here. I’ll take you to have a look?”
Xu Muchan was still thinking about the matter and did not hear what he was saying clearly. With Wei Xilou leading him by the hand, he instinctively followed.
But after they had only walked a few steps, a muffled “thud” suddenly came from the wooden tower behind them.
Xu Muchan immediately came back to his senses and turned toward the wooden tower. “There’s something inside the tower?”
After thinking for a moment, Wei Xilou said, “Probably a rat.”
Xu Muchan did not believe him at all. He pulled free of Wei Xilou’s hand and approached the wooden tower. Looking inside, he saw the missing Liu Gaoming and the others.
They perhaps could no longer be called human.
Zhou Yi had a rooster’s head growing from his neck; the exposed skin on Liu Gaoming’s body was covered in brown fur that seemed to have burst through; Shi Lei’s eyes had become the vertical pupils of a snake, while his exposed skin was covered in snake scales. As for the brothers Qian Kun and Qian Kan, one had become a yellow dog with a human head, while the other had become a man with a horse’s head.
Xu Muchan: “……”
He turned around and asked Wei Xilou, who had followed him over, “Why did they turn into the forms of the Five Changshen?”
Wei Xilou said, “The Five Changshen were born from human desire. They cannot be completely killed. After these people entered the tomb, greed arose in their hearts and they coveted the treasures inside. Naturally, they were possessed by the Five Changshen.”
Xu Muchan frowned. “Then what do we do now? We can’t exactly send them to a hospital looking like this, can we?”
Wei Xilou, however, looked as though he had no intention of getting involved. “They make their living in this line of work. They broke the rules because of their greed, so this is simply the consequence of their own actions. There’s no need to bother with them.”
Xu Muchan said, “But you were the one who found them. If something happens to them and their families report it to the police, won’t the police come looking for you?”
Wei Xilou was even more unconcerned. “Old Man Wei was the one who hired them. If anyone comes looking, they’ll go to the Wei family.”
Xu Muchan: “……”
In the end, at Xu Muchan’s insistence, Wei Xilou still made a phone call. Xu Muchan had no idea who he contacted, but before long, a group of people arrived and carried the five people, who were already barely recognizable as human, away.
Judging by their calm and composed expressions, they seemed to have long since grown accustomed to things like this.
Xu Muchan became even more puzzled. He always felt that this nonhuman being whose identity card had only just been issued seemed to understand the rules governing the world behind the scenes even better than he did.
Wei Xilou had no idea what he was thinking. Since the trouble had already been dealt with, he took Xu Muchan’s hand again and walked toward the back.
“The Wei family accumulated quite a few good things. A-Chan, go take a look. If there’s anything you like, pick it out. I’ll have someone come deal with the rest later.”
Xu Muchan said he wasn’t interested, but when he actually saw the underground storeroom piled high with gold, silver, and precious treasures, he was still so shocked that his mouth fell open.
The wealth accumulated by the Wei family over generations was still an extraordinary fortune even by today’s standards.
Xu Muchan looked at the boxes of gold and silver, as well as antiques whose exact ages were unknown but which were obviously extremely valuable at a glance. He asked softly, “These… don’t we have to turn them over?”
Wei Xilou lowered his head and looked at him. “These all belong to the Wei family. Why should we turn them over? And to whom?”
Xu Muchan: “……”
Fine.
He shut his mouth and followed Wei Xilou around the entire underground storeroom. After feasting his eyes on everything, he left without taking a single thing.
Wei Xilou looked somewhat unhappy. “The Wei family’s possessions are indeed rather vulgar. It’s only natural that A-Chan doesn’t think much of them.”
“……” Xu Muchan truly did not have the energy to explain himself and could only silently accept that interpretation.
But then Wei Xilou said, “I heard Old Man Wei say that all the good things are in museums nowadays. Whatever A-Chan likes, we can go take a look another day.”
Xu Muchan was afraid that he would follow that up with something like, “Whichever one you like, I’ll bring it back for you,” so he quickly changed the subject. “Big Brother! I’m a little tired. Why don’t we go out first? If there’s still time, I’d also like to go back to the Mountain God Cave.”
Wei Xilou indeed stopped dwelling on whether something was good or bad and followed his lead. “We still have plenty of time. I’ll have someone prepare a car.”