Gu Mang stopped moving.
“Hahaha!” Yue Chenqing burst into laughter. “Fourth Uncle really is amazing! It actually worked!”
Murong Lian said impatiently, “What’s the point? He can’t move now. Are we supposed to leave him here? Or are you planning to carry him inside on your back?”
“It’s fine. We can just leave him here,” Yue Chenqing replied. “This immobilization talisman has the Heavenly Thunder Tribulation-Breaking Seal on it. Even someone extremely powerful won’t be able to break it for quite a while. He won’t be able to move.”
Mo Xi, however, said, “We can’t leave him here alone.”
“But the Heavenly Thunder spell is very powerful. No one can—”
“We can’t rule out the unexpected,” Mo Xi interrupted. “Do you have any other artifact that can let us bring him along?”
Yue Chenqing thought for a moment before exclaiming,
“Oh! I do! Wait a second!”
He immediately began rummaging through his storage pouch.
After digging around for a while, he pulled out a small bamboo doll.
Murong Lian glanced at it.
“Isn’t that one of those cheap little bamboo toys children make fight each other in the streets?”
“The principle is the same,” Yue Chenqing replied, “except this one’s enchanted.”
He placed the palm-sized bamboo figure on the ground and muttered a string of incantations.
…
Nothing happened.
“…Uh. Guess I remembered the wrong spell. Let me try again. Brother Murong, Lord Xihe, don’t rush me.”
Scratching his head anxiously, he tried one incantation after another.
Just as Murong Lian was about to lose his patience and interrupt him—
A burst of golden light erupted.
The little bamboo doll shot upright, growing from a palm-sized toy into a bamboo warrior as tall as a person.
Yue Chenqing grinned.
“There we go!”
Together with Mo Xi, he lifted the immobilized Gu Mang, blinking his round eyes at the other two.
“Mind giving me a hand?”
Murong Lian smiled without warmth.
“I’m not touching him.”
“He’s filthy.”
Mo Xi had been standing with his arms folded. He walked over expressionlessly.
“What do I do?”
“Tie his arms and legs to the bamboo warrior’s limbs. See those locking clasps on its joints?”
Mo Xi did as instructed.
Although Gu Mang couldn’t move or speak because of the immobilization talisman, he was perfectly aware of everything happening around him.
His blue eyes glared furiously at the two men manipulating his limbs.
First at Mo Xi.
Then at Yue Chenqing.
Together they secured him onto the bamboo warrior.
Finally, Yue Chenqing wrapped the rope around Gu Mang’s waist four or five times before fastening it to the bamboo warrior’s torso.
He gave a cheerful whistle.
“All right! Let’s see it walk!”
The bamboo warrior immediately began marching forward.
Left arm.
Left leg.
Right arm.
Right leg.
Perfectly stiff and synchronized.
Since Gu Mang was tied to it, he was forced to march in exactly the same awkward fashion.
It was actually an ingenious and delightful magical artifact.
Anyone else would have praised it enthusiastically.
Unfortunately…
Standing beside Yue Chenqing were Lord Xihe, who was about as expressive as stone…
…and Lord Wangshu, who found fault with everything.
Lord Xihe simply folded his arms and watched in silence.
Lord Wangshu snorted.
“Nothing more than one of the Yue family’s petty little tricks.”
Taking another leisurely puff from Floating Life Like a Dream, he exhaled smoke before lazily pointing his pipe at Gu Mang.
“What else can it do besides walk?”
“It can fight too,” Yue Chenqing answered proudly, completely unoffended. “Basic dodging and combat are no problem.”
“It can even dance.”
Murong Lian bit down on his pipe stem, narrowed his eyes thoughtfully, then said,
“Then make it dance.”
Yue Chenqing whistled again.
The bamboo warrior immediately began swaying stiffly from side to side.
Since Gu Mang was strapped to it, he had no choice but to sway along as well.
Left.
Right.
Left.
Right.
The movements were ridiculously adorable.
Unfortunately, the pair of snow-wolf blue eyes glaring from that adorable dance were filled with murderous fury.
If he had been able to move…
He probably would have bitten every single one of them to death.
“It can even perform the Whirling Dance. All you have to do is—”
“Enough.”
Mo Xi cut him off.
“Let’s go.”
After a pause, he added,
“Give the bamboo warrior an order to stay at the rear.”
The cave where the ghost hid was vast, gloomy, and deep.
The main cavern branched repeatedly into smaller chambers.
Three people…
And one bamboo warrior carrying Gu Mang…
Slowly advanced inward.
The echoes inside the cave consisted of iron plates on Mo Xi’s military boots…
Yue Chenqing’s footsteps…
And the bamboo warrior’s joints creaking.
Creak.
Creak.
Only Murong Lian walked in complete silence.
His footsteps were always light, almost floating, and the finest heavenly silkworm shoes he wore made no sound whatsoever.
He looked rather pleased with himself.
“The racket you people make walking around…”
“Forget the rapist.”
“You’d wake up a three-year-old child.”
Yue Chenqing nodded honestly.
“Then I’ll walk more quietly.”
Mo Xi replied coldly,
“You think he doesn’t already know we’ve entered his cave?”
“There’s no other exit.”
“This is his territory.”
“He’s simply hiding somewhere, restoring the spiritual power he exhausted while waiting for us to arrive.”
Yue Chenqing immediately switched sides.
“Then I’ll walk louder.”
The bamboo warrior obediently continued,
Creak.
Creak.
Mo Xi was right.
The Dreamwalker technique consumed an enormous amount of spiritual energy.
The ghost was currently hidden somewhere inside the caves recovering his strength.
The deeper they ventured…
The more evidence they found that someone had been living here.
Dark, dried blood stained the main passage.
Torn scraps of clothing hung from sharp stone formations.
Clearly they had belonged to the murdered cultivators…
Or to the kidnapped girls who had struggled while being dragged through the tunnels.
Yue Chenqing even spotted an embroidered shoe wedged deep inside a crack.
To delay them, the rapist had laid numerous magical traps throughout the cave.
But the three people the Emperor had sent…
Mo Xi possessed overwhelming combat strength and outstanding leadership.
Yue Chenqing came from a renowned artifact-forging family and carried countless unexpected magical gadgets.
Murong Lian excelled in illusion techniques and knew a fair amount of healing magic.
None of the cave’s traps posed much difficulty.
Before long, they reached a long natural stone bridge.
“He should be ahead.”
Mo Xi looked toward the distant end.
Across the bridge lay a spacious cavern.
Faint green magical light flickered somewhere within.
The “bridge” itself, however, was merely a series of naturally formed spirit stones protruding from an underground river.
Each stepping stone differed in size and distance.
All were slick with moisture.
Mo Xi glanced below.
Towering stone pillars descended nearly three hundred feet into a dark underground stream.
Crossing posed no difficulty for them.
Except…
He turned to Yue Chenqing.
“Is the bamboo warrior skilled in lightness techniques?”
Yue Chenqing shook his head.
Mo Xi frowned at the murderous-looking Gu Mang tied atop the bamboo warrior.
“…Though I think I can order it to hop like a hopping corpse.”
“It should…”
“…probably…”
“…be able to jump across these gaps.”
“…”
This had always been one of the biggest conflicts between Yue Chenqing and Mo Xi during their two years stationed together.
Vice Commander Yue Chenqing loved saying things like,
“Maybe.”
“I think.”
“It should.”
Commander Mo Xi accepted only,
“Definitely.”
“Certainly.”
“Absolutely.”
So Mo Xi merely glanced at him.
He ignored the suggestion about hopping.
“You two follow.”
The next instant, he grabbed Gu Mang by the front of his robe with one hand.
His robes fluttered.
He soared into the air.
Possessing tremendous strength and exceptional lightness skills, he had already glided several dozen feet away before his sentence had even finished.
Yue Chenqing stared with wide eyes.
“Wow…”
“What incredible skill…”
Murong Lian sneered.
“What’s so impressive about that?”
After crossing the several-hundred-foot stone bridge, they looked back.
Their starting point had become nothing more than a distant speck.
Mo Xi set the bamboo warrior down without sparing Gu Mang so much as a glance.
“Let’s go.”
This truly was the final chamber of the enormous cavern.
Stone pillars and stalagmites crisscrossed in dense formations.
The eerie green magical glow came from a cluster of stone pillars at the chamber’s center.
Just as they were about to proceed, Yue Chenqing, who habitually looked everywhere except straight ahead, suddenly cried out,
“Look! There are words carved over there!”
A fireball flared to life in Mo Xi’s palm.
With a flick of his hand, he sent it floating above the tall stone slope Yue Chenqing indicated.
By its light, several crooked lines of blackish-red writing became visible on the rock wall.
They looked as though they had been written in blood.
A bride enters the mountain, crying through the night.
First, she laments a drifting life.
Second, she laments beauty’s fleeting fate.
Third, she laments missing her beloved for all eternity.
A crimson jacket.
A golden bridal crown.
One smile leaves beauty ruined.
Two smiles shed tears of blood.
Three smiles—and travelers can never leave.
Yue Chenqing quietly read every word aloud.
Before he could comment—
A soft giggle sounded behind him.
“Hee…”
He whirled around.
His nose nearly collided with a deathly pale face.
“AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!”
Yue Chenqing screamed at the top of his lungs.
He leapt nearly ten feet into the air before rolling frantically backward.
Now he could see clearly.
At some point, more than a dozen female corpses had emerged silently from the shadows among the stone pillars.
Each wore a crimson bridal robe.
Each wore a golden bridal crown.
Because Yue Chenqing had been standing directly before one of the stone columns…
The moment he turned around…
He had come face-to-face with one of them.
“M-M-Marshal Mo!!”
“S-S-Save meeeeeee!!”
Despite being a cultivator…
Yue Chenqing had listened to far too many ghost stories growing up.
He was absolutely terrified of ghosts.
He shrieked and wailed uncontrollably.
Trying to run, his legs failed him completely.
He collapsed onto the ground with a loud thud.
His eyes bulged.
His cheeks puffed.
He looked exactly like a screaming prairie dog.
The female corpse simply stared at him.
Motionless.
Her embroidered robe, decorated with golden butterflies, fluttered gently in the cave’s cold wind.
Yue Chenqing swallowed repeatedly.
Then inspiration suddenly struck.
He gasped,
“Y-Y-You’re…”
“…Miss Cui from the teahouse…?”
Miss Cui showed no expression.
The dead woman’s face carried only a stiff, unnatural serenity.
A moment later—
“Hee…hee…”
She giggled again.
Then two streams of blood flowed from her lifeless eyes.
One smile leaves beauty ruined.
Two smiles shed tears of blood.
Three smiles…
Yue Chenqing remembered the bloody poem on the wall.
His scalp exploded with terror.
Turning toward Mo Xi—who had already begun fighting the other female corpses—he screamed,
“AAAAAAH! LORD XIHE!!”
“Don’t let her laugh a third time!!”
“Otherwise she won’t let me leave!!”
The answer he received…
Was Murong Lian smashing his pipe onto his head.
Murong Lian had been standing nearby all along.
After nearly having his eardrums ruptured by Yue Chenqing’s shrieking, he was furious.
He struck him repeatedly with the pipe stem, knocking a shower of pipe ash all over Yue Chenqing’s head.
“You useless fool!”
“Fight her yourself!”
“It’s just a zombie!”
“B-But…”
“I’m…”
“I’m afraid of ghosts!!!”
Yue Chenqing shouted while throwing all dignity aside.
He wrapped both arms tightly around Murong Lian’s leg.
Murong Lian: “…”
At that exact moment—
Miss Cui opened her crimson lips.
The third laugh began to escape.
“Hee…”
“Hee…”
“Hee your head!”
Before the ghost could finish the final laugh, Murong Lian ruthlessly shoved the stem of his smoking pipe straight into her mouth.
Then he looked down at Yue Chenqing, who was still clinging desperately to his pant leg.
“Why are you hugging me?”
“Let go already!”