AU Extra — Young Boy’s Illusory Dream (7)
After praying for blessings, there was still no sign of anything unusual. The two of them therefore got up and walked outside the hall.
“There’s only this peach-wood talisman left.” Gu Mang lifted the peach talisman with its golden-yellow tassels and looked around. “How are we supposed to use this?”
“The talisman seller said there’s a tree behind the temple. Just hang it on the tree.”
Holding the talisman, they left the temple and walked about a hundred meters before turning a corner. There they saw an ancient peach tree towering into the sky, its lush green crown magnificent. The trunk was thick, sturdy, and vigorous; it would take seven or eight grown men holding hands to encircle it. More than half of the old tree’s trunk pressed down over the walls of an already-deserted old compound, practically forming a forest all by itself, with tangled roots sprawling across the ground.
Here and there, several pairs of finely dressed young men and women were worshipping around it. Afterwards, they hung the peach-wood talismans covered with their heartfelt wishes on the lower branches. When the wind blew, the tassels drifted and swayed together, while hundreds upon hundreds of wooden talismans collided with crisp, hard sounds. Combined with the distant fragrance of candlelight and incense from the temple, the whole scene was solemn and devout.
Gu Mang stared at the tree for a long while, vaguely sensing a hidden evil aura. He turned sideways to look at Mo Xi and, sure enough, saw that Mo Xi’s sword-like brows were lowered as he solemnly examined the ancient tree.
“You felt it too?” Gu Mang asked quietly.
“Mm.”
“No wonder there was nothing strange inside the temple. Turns out there’s something fishy about the tree behind it.”
Mo Xi slowly ran his long fingers over the rough knot of the tree, closed his eyes, and listened with his spirit for a long time. Slowly, he opened his eyes and shook his head.
“It’s not a tree demon.”
Gu Mang also reached out and sensed it. “Sure enough. This spiritual flow doesn’t feel like a demon. It’s more like…”
“It’s a ghost.”
Gu Mang raised his lashes and studied Mo Xi’s handsome face. After a while, he smiled.
“Not bad. For a newly initiated Junior Brother, you’re not much worse than the others in the academy.”
Mo Xi ignored him and said, “Ghosts and spirits won’t manifest during the day. Hang up the talisman according to its wishes first. We’ll watch its movements tonight.”
As he spoke, he took out brush and ink from his Qiankun Pouch. But when he actually raised his wrist over the peach-wood talisman, Mo Xi suddenly stopped.
—He didn’t know what to write.
It couldn’t really be blamed on Young Master Mo. In the study of the Young Master of the Mo Residence, there were only spell manuals and classical texts on literary cultivation. Not to mention those romantic stories sold among the common folk—even poems and verses related to love were things he had barely read.
Gu Mang, however, was very considerate and volunteered himself.
“I’ll write it? I won’t mess around.”
Mo Xi looked at him. He seemed to be wavering between trusting and not trusting him. Then he handed both the wolf-hair brush and the wooden talisman to Gu Mang.
Since this concerned subduing demons, Gu Mang really didn’t fool around this time. He bit the end of the brush and seriously thought for a while, his gaze fluttering like butterfly wings over the thousands upon thousands of peach-wood talismans already hanging on the ancient tree.
The wishes of those who had come before swayed lightly beneath the mottled sunlight. The sounds of wooden plaques colliding with one another were like the soft whispers of lovers unable to contain their affection. The writing on the plaques was sometimes new and sometimes old, sometimes plain and sometimes elegant. An entire tree was filled with the deepest affection of the mortal world.
On some of the older plaques, people had written:
“Luan mirrors and flower branches, who knows of this feeling?”
Others had dipped their brushes lightly and written:
“Even if we become mandarin fish together, I would not regret dying.”
But all these sentiments were too grand. Gu Mang knew that he could joke around with Mo Xi, but if he actually wrote such solemn vows of eternal love, it would be inappropriate.
So Gu Mang thought for a while. In the end, he merely wrote four words:
“May I always accompany you.”
It wasn’t perfunctory, nor was it enough to make the evil spirit suspicious. Yet it didn’t seem particularly profound either. Compared with those vows of eternal union and growing old together, it was far more restrained.
Gu Mang smiled and looked up at Mo Xi.
“How about this?”
“Mm.”
“Don’t be so perfunctory. Is what I wrote good or not?”
“…” Mo Xi said, “I’ll hang it up.”
“Don’t move. Wait.” Gu Mang stopped him. “There’s still something to add.”
With great seriousness, he wrote two small characters at the very edge of the peach-wood talisman:
“Gu Mang.”
“It’s your turn.” Gu Mang handed the brush and wooden talisman to Mo Xi.
“…My turn for what?”
Gu Mang widened his eyes.
“Write your name, of course. What else? Or do you want to add something like, ‘If there were no hatred of parting in my eyes, I would not believe there are people in this world who grow old together,’ or perhaps, ‘If I live, I shall return to you; if I die, I shall forever yearn for you’?”
Those poetic lines only made Mo Xi frown deeply.
“I’m not adding anything.” He put away the brush and ink, then got up to find a place to hang the peach-wood talisman.
Gu Mang refused to let it go and chased after him, somewhat annoyed as he shouted,
“Brother, you can’t be like this. How did this become something only I do? That’s so unfair to me, okay? No, you have to write something for me. If you won’t write it, I’ll write it myself… Mo Xi! Stop right there!”
In the end, Gu Mang helplessly sat down on the ancient tree’s roots, which were almost as hard as rocks, and rolled his eyes.
“Fine, fine, hang it, hang it. I, as the senior, won’t hold a grudge against the junior… Ah!”
Only after saying it did he realize he had misspoken. He hurriedly turned his face away and fell silent.
Fortunately, Mo Xi was standing straight beneath the luxuriant branches, concentrating on hanging their talisman among the piles of peach-wood plaques. He hadn’t noticed that Gu Mang had just called himself “Senior Brother.”
After hanging it, he checked to make sure it was tied tightly and wouldn’t loosen and fall. Only then did he turn around and ask Gu Mang,
“What did you say?”
Gu Mang muttered, “Nothing.”
“Making a wish is all that matters. Why sign your name? Whether gods or ghosts, they can all see who made the wish. These worshippers aren’t cultivators, so they don’t know this. That’s why they write their names on the wooden plaques.”
Mo Xi walked toward him and looked down at him.
“Why are you copying them?”
Gu Mang replied righteously, “I think doing it this way looks more solemn. I’m seriously trying to fool an old ghost here. Did I do anything wrong?”
“…No.”
“Then that settles it.”
Gu Mang stood up, stretched, and kicked a small pebble at his feet.
“Alright, we’re done. Let’s find an inn and get some rest. Then we’ll come back tonight and see what happens.”
That night, they stayed at the Changsheng Inn.
Liansheng Town wasn’t particularly wealthy. Most of the townspeople never traveled far their entire lives and had never seen much of the world. They weren’t particular about their own lives, either. Although the Land God Temple had earned some money from outsiders over the past three or four years because of its reputation for granting wishes for children, fundamentally, that couldn’t change much.
Therefore, even though Young Master Mo had asked for the inn’s best guest room, the conditions still couldn’t make him look pleasant.
“Yesterday at Miss Su’s house, I didn’t see you being this picky.”
“That was lodging borrowed from someone.”
“What about when we slept under the tree before? I didn’t see you being particular then.”
“That was to hurry along the journey.”
Gu Mang looked at Mo Xi’s cold expression as he scrutinized the tables, chairs, bedding, and mattress. His black eyes blinked, filled with a mixture of amusement and helplessness.
“Hey, I think the bed in this inn is pretty big. It could sleep three people without any problem. The tea set and cups are clean too. It’s not as shabby as you make it sound.”
As he spoke, he reached out and touched the balsam flowers in the Ru porcelain vase on the table. He smiled brightly.
“Look, there are even flowers in the room.”
Mo Xi glanced at him. Seeing that he genuinely looked content and happy, he paused for a moment, but ultimately said nothing.
Before they knew it, night had grown deep.
The two of them gathered their belongings and returned to the Land God Temple on the outskirts of town.
Liansheng Town was a place where immortal arts had not yet become widespread. There wasn’t even a single cultivator in the town, so naturally there was no magical night lighting either. Once night fell, the wilderness was filled with the strange cries of night owls, while ghostly phosphorescence flickered eerily among the graves and fields. There wasn’t a person in sight.
They moved lightly and stealthily, quickly arriving behind the earth temple.
Under the night sky, the ancient peach tree looked like a fierce ghost crawling out of hell. Its branches were grotesquely twisted, its trunk crooked and contorted. Even the sound of the wooden plaques colliding—distant and peaceful during the day—had gained a few chilling and sinister undertones in the night wind.
Gu Mang and Mo Xi hid in the darkness. Before coming out, they had rubbed a little refined grave soil onto the backs of their hands, which could suppress the yang energy on their bodies to the lowest level.
Gu Mang carefully sensed the spiritual flow nearby for a while and said,
“It really is getting stronger. At this rate, that ghost should reveal its true form at midnight.”
After a pause, Gu Mang unusually became serious as he said to Mo Xi,
“Oh, right. I know you pure-blooded nobles all have various excellent family weapons passed down through generations. But that trial ring you’re wearing will restrict you from using any high-level weapons, so be extremely careful. If anything happens, remember to call me.”
Mo Xi looked at him.
“Thank you.”
“No need to thank me.”
Gu Mang managed to remain serious for barely two sentences before once again becoming shamelessly roguish.
“If you call me, I can hurry up and run away.”
“…”
The night dew grew heavier.
A bright full moon emerged from behind thin clouds.
Midnight had arrived.
Beneath the ancient peach tree, there was still a deathly silence. As time passed bit by bit, there was still no unusual movement.
Just when the two of them began to doubt their own judgment, they suddenly heard a rustling sound coming from a mound not far away—
Gu Mang lowered his body.
A mass of black shadow slowly gathered. It rose from the ground and gradually condensed into a blurry human shape.
The figure dragged its sticky, sluggish steps and swayed toward the ancient peach tree. A clicking, rattling sound came from its mouth, as though it were reciting some ancient curse.
As it recited, the peach-wood plaques hanging from the ancient tree began to sway rhythmically.
Left and right, their movements perfectly synchronized.
Then faint crimson light began to flow from the talismans, scrambling toward the “person” beneath the tree.
There was clearly no strong wind that night, yet suddenly thousands of leaves began to rustle, their countless whispers spreading through the wilderness.
“Is it absorbing the tree spirit?” Gu Mang murmured to himself, then shook his head. “No, that’s impossible. The spirit of a thousand-year-old ancient tree isn’t something an ordinary ghost or monster could absorb… Then what is that sound…?”
Mo Xi suddenly said,
“That isn’t the sound of leaves. Listen more carefully.”
Gu Mang quieted his breathing and concentrated. After a moment, he suddenly understood.
“It’s desire!”
It turned out those low, fragmented, chaotic sounds, at first glance resembling the rustling of grass and trees, were actually countless broken human voices intertwined together.
There were both male and female voices, their tones sometimes tender and sometimes sincere.
Some spoke shyly:
“I wish to be husband and wife for every lifetime, forever and ever.”
“May we stay together forever and grow old without parting.”
Some were rather amusing:
“Zhang Dazhuang will cherish Sun Lianlian for his whole life. If I ever break this vow, may I drop dead.”
“If I, Jiang Xiaomao, ever betray Lu Wanshu, then let me be reborn as a pig butcher in my next life.”
Others were the kind of lingering love poems Gu Mang had seen during the day, such as:
“If the mountains have no ridges and heaven and earth unite, only then will I dare part from you.”
“In heaven, may we be two birds flying wing to wing; on earth, may we be branches intertwined.”
And so on.
The love and affection countless men and women had entrusted to the peach-wood talismans were awakened at this moment, surging toward the eerie figure standing beneath the tree like a flood.
The shadow grew larger and larger, and its appearance became clearer and clearer.
Then, with a violent wind sweeping across the ground, it suddenly threw its head toward the sky and let out a roar.
Its body exploded with dazzling red light.
When the radiance gradually faded, what stood on the mound was already a short, hunched, wretched-looking man—
No.
It shouldn’t be called a man.
It was a male corpse.
The corpse was completely naked, covered in blood. It smacked its lips and let out a satisfied belch before slowly turning its head.
“…!!”
Gu Mang’s first reaction was to worry that Junior Brother Mo would be frightened. He wanted to reach out and cover the other’s mouth, but before he could even raise his hand, someone had already covered his mouth from behind.
“Mmph…”
“Don’t make a sound.”
Mo Xi stared at the male corpse with alert composure and whispered beside Gu Mang’s ear,
“He’ll notice us.”
Gu Mang was both amused and surprised.
This noble young master, who was only just setting out into the world, was actually so calm and reliable.
Not bad.
But that thought flashed by in an instant. His attention quickly returned to the male corpse.
The corpse was simply too disgusting.
Its nose bridge had collapsed, its gaze was lecherous, and its face was covered in festering sores. Even more horrifyingly, the thing between its hips had actually been shredded into strips of bloody flesh, like someone had peeled a cucumber into countless thin strands.
Every time he took a step, those strips of flesh trembled.
They trembled in all directions, crooked and crooked again, in a horrifyingly vivid and peculiar display.
This corpse brother, despite being physically mutilated, remained determined in spirit. He wandered around for a while, sniffing left and right.
Suddenly, he split open his bloodied lips and gave a giggle. His voice sounded like a pig’s bladder that had been stepped flat.
“Ah, smells good. So much fragrance from face powder. Looks like quite a few pretty little beauties came by today. Heh heh heh heh.”
He suddenly blew out a breath.
A foul wind swept through the wilderness, and immediately afterward, blurry figures began appearing beneath the ancient peach tree, some sitting and some standing.
Gu Mang had sharp eyes and immediately recognized them.
He murmured,
“Are these the worshippers who appeared during the day? …What is he doing by turning their shadows into illusions?”
The answer came quickly.
The cucumber-shred corpse wandered among the phantoms of the worshippers.
He looked at the remnant image of one young woman and disdainfully said,
“You’re too fat.”
Then he quickly moved on to another woman.
“But you’re too thin.”
The cucumber-shred corpse hurried from one to another. After looking at more than ten women without finding a single one to his liking, he huffed and puffed, and the anger in his voice grew increasingly obvious.
This time, his voice no longer sounded like a flattened pig’s bladder.
It sounded like a pig’s bladder that had been punctured—
and filled with urine at that.
He hissed furiously,
“Damn it, you’re this ugly and you still have the nerve to put on makeup?”
“This pockmarked face looks just like a pomegranate peel turned inside out! Let me see what wish you made… Huh? ‘May Sun-lang love me forever.’ If I were Sun-lang, I’d have to be blind to love you.”
“Ugly freak, ugly freak! Looking at you makes me lose all interest! Wow, this old lady is at least forty-five. She’s even older than I was when I died. At her age she’s still praying for romance and children? Tsk! Shameless!”
Gu Mang: “…”
Mo Xi: “…”
The two exchanged glances.
Gu Mang said,
“To be honest, I want to beat him up.”
Mo Xi shook his head.
“Wait a little longer.”
Brother Cucumber-Shreds swayed his countless strands of naked flesh and continued wandering around.
Further ahead, he saw several women with delicate and beautiful appearances. Only then did his tone soften.
Of course, even his softened voice sounded awful, still like a pig’s bladder.
This time, it was a fully swollen bladder, impatiently wanting to release its flood.
“This one has a pretty waist. Quite something. She’ll do.”
“This one’s not bad either. Innocent. And there’s even a beauty mark at the corner of her eye. Very charming. Heh heh heh.”
Every time he took a liking to someone, he would slap the person’s phantom.
The phantom would then slowly dissolve into his body, seemingly becoming some kind of special mark.
Besides that, he also didn’t forget to criticize the wishes these women had made, either mocking them or making lewd comments.
“Oh, you want to grow old hand in hand with your husband, with children and grandchildren around your knees.”
After reading a woman’s wish written on a peach-wood talisman, Brother Cucumber-Shreds giggled.
“Having children and grandchildren around your knees won’t happen. Once this old man possesses your husband, within three months to a year, your husband will be dropping dead. But your little face is pretty and fresh. I can borrow your husband’s body and sleep with you once. Leaving you a child is still possible, hahaha.”
As he spoke, he bared his teeth and kissed the woman’s phantom.
Then he leered,
“Beautiful lady, shouldn’t you thank your good husband?”
Hearing this, Mo Xi and Gu Mang’s expressions suddenly changed.
Possession…?
In an instant, everything became clear.
The rumor Su Qiao had told them now completely connected—
Gu Mang murmured,
“The so-called wish for children is actually this evil corpse attaching itself to the husband’s body, using the opportunity to take advantage of those women. This ghost belongs to the category of lustful spirits. Under the influence of its spiritual flow, men and women really are more likely to conceive when they sleep together. But the price is enormous. If an ordinary man can’t have the root cause of his illness diagnosed, his primordial yang will be greatly depleted because of being possessed by the fierce ghost, and within a year, his qi will be exhausted and he’ll die.”
He looked up at Mo Xi.
“So that’s why the Land God Temple’s child-seeking blessings are related to the women’s appearance and have nothing to do with the men. That’s why all those men die strange deaths. So what Miss Su said is true. This isn’t a benevolent temple. It’s an evil temple.”
“Everything makes sense…”
After hearing Gu Mang’s three “so that’s whys,” Mo Xi didn’t immediately respond.
After thinking for a moment, he said,
“No. Not everything makes sense. That couple from the wealthy Chonghua merchant family went missing. Normally, only the husband should have died, but in their case, both the wife and husband disappeared.”
He frowned, his gaze falling from afar onto Brother Cucumber-Shreds.
“Why was this couple different?”
Gu Mang scratched his head.
“Ah, you’re right about that. Let’s keep watching.”
They continued watching.
Brother Cucumber-Shreds spent the time it took to burn a stick of incense going through all the women who had come to worship that day. He marked all the ones he wanted.
Then the dead ghost waved his hand, dispersing all the remaining phantoms that hadn’t been marked.
Afterward, he counted on his fingers and muttered something under his breath.
“Hmm, fourteen passed the test in total.”
His voice was sharp and shrill.
“Not too good, not too bad. Five a night, so that’ll take three nights… No, three nights leaves one extra… Then only two nights… Damn, two nights leaves several extra. Ah, forget it. Anyway, in two or three nights, I’ll sleep with all these women! Hahaha, hahaha!”
After cackling wickedly, Brother Cucumber-Shreds muttered to himself again.
“Who should I start with from today’s batch? The past two days I’ve played with soft and tender young girls. I should change the flavor a little. Why don’t I pick the spiciest one from the bunch and have a taste…”
As he spoke, he blew out another breath.
Many figures swept across the grass in front of him before finally settling on a certain hazy silhouette.
“Alright, it’s you!”
Brother Cucumber-Shreds slapped the figure.
Red light exploded like fireworks.
The image gradually changed from blurry to clear, revealing a tall, straight-backed figure with a powerful bearing standing in the night.
It was astonishingly Gu Mang’s appearance from the daytime!
Gu Mang: “…”
Mo Xi: “…”
Brother Cucumber-Shreds circled Gu Mang’s phantom once.
Suddenly, he muttered,
“Huh? This girl is spicy, alright, but why do I feel like there’s something strange about her? Something doesn’t seem right.”
Gu Mang inwardly thought, This is bad.
After a person takes Illusory Form Powder, their appearance changes according to their original appearance, with their physique and features temporarily transforming into those of the desired opposite sex.
Among all disguise techniques, Illusory Form Powder was the most sophisticated. An ordinary person simply couldn’t tell the difference.
But this lecherous bastard clearly wasn’t an ordinary person.
The number of women he had seen was probably several times greater than the countless strands of flesh between his legs, so he could actually vaguely sense that something was wrong with Gu Mang.
Fortunately, there was some good luck in this misfortune.
Because Illusory Form Powder was a forbidden drug, strictly controlled by the Chonghua Imperial Palace. Unless absolutely necessary, it wasn’t casually distributed to cultivators.
So this kind of situation was very difficult to encounter, and even this lecherous old ghost didn’t think of that possibility for the moment.
He muttered,
“Maybe it’s because she’s too spicy? Look at this waist and these legs. Her muscles are so tense. Looks like she can really fight.”
As the old cucumber ghost spoke, he circled the phantom again and laughed maliciously.
“Looks like she’ll be flavorful. Exciting, too.”
All this time, Gu Mang had always been the one flirting shamelessly with others.
Now, someone had actually dared to act like a lecher toward him.
How outrageous.
Gu Mang gritted his teeth.
“Don’t stop me! I’m going to beat him until his name disappears from the Book of Life and Death!”
Mo Xi said,
“Wait a little longer.”
After examining Gu Mang, Brother Cucumber-Shreds turned to look at the phantom of Mo Xi accompanying Gu Mang.
“Her lover is young, too. And quite handsome.”
Suddenly, he thought of something.
His face blossomed into a delighted smile, though that smile squeezed onto his blood-covered face looked particularly horrifying.
“If I possess this man, I can’t waste him. With this face, I could go out and become a flower thief. Even if I walked into a house and randomly grabbed some pretty girl to have my way with her, I bet she wouldn’t resist. Heh heh heh. Wonderful, wonderful!”
Mo Xi: “…”
Gu Mang raised his brows.
“Are we still waiting?”
Mo Xi didn’t answer.
He lowered his eyes and adjusted his bracer.
Before Gu Mang could react, a flash of silver light suddenly shot out—
The hidden weapon case clicked open, and a sleeve arrow shot straight toward the lustful ghost’s head!
Immediately afterward, Young Master Mo’s figure moved like a bolt of dark lightning.
In the blink of an eye, he had already swept in front of the corpse ghost.
He raised his leg and delivered a vicious kick.
The iron-plated leather boot slammed through the corpse ghost’s flesh, and in an instant, he kicked the bastard squarely in the chest, sending him crashing backward!
※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※
Suddenly, I feel like A-Lian really is… one of the major reasons Xi-Mang has been put through so much trouble for so long.
(A-Lian: ? Nonsense! I’m sitting innocently in the principal’s office, and somehow I’m getting blamed for something from the sky?)
A-Lian, look, if you were a Young Master Murong like this in the extra chapter, Mang-Mang’s school life would probably have been opened in a completely different way. It would have been much more hilarious…
A-Lian: I’m not taking the blame for this!