When Lu You opened his eyes again, he found himself back in the bedroom of Unit 1601. He was still standing before the wardrobe—even holding the same pose, arm outstretched to touch the dolls inside, his whole body locked in place, differing not one whit from his state before the Ghost Wall Illusion had swallowed him.
What had changed was this: He Zhuchun, who had been by the door, was gone.
Through the whole time he’d been trapped, Huang Xiaopao had stayed faithfully at his side. Now, seeing Lu You finally awake, it swished its big tail, rose up on its toes, and pawed at his knee.
Lu You crouched down and gathered it into his arms.
The row of Ghost Children inside the wardrobe remained neatly ranked exactly as before—but now a trace of fear had appeared, from nowhere, in every pair of hollow black eyes, their gazes sticking faintly to Lu You like chewing gum.
Filthy. And disgusting.
Lu You walked to the window in a few strides and pulled the curtain aside to look out. A bright moon hung high in the night sky, its pale light sifting down through the lattice like snowflakes across the floor.
Lu You turned back to the wardrobe, pushed the biggest Kuman Thong doll aside, and—sure enough—found a palm-sized booklet in the empty space behind it.
He opened the cover. The writing inside was done in pencil, the hand practiced and seasoned, evidently weathered by years, its color faded to almost nothing.
Lu You read with full concentration.
The first page read: The Soul-Swapping Fortune-Seizing Art is a gate of utmost yin and utmost evil. Until driven to the end of one’s road, a disciple may not employ it for desire, for wealth, for name, or for gain. It must not breed Vengeful Spirits; it must not take human life; it must not seize fortune by force; it must not alter Karma or the affinities between people. Should one act wantonly: hidden merit annihilated, Nether Karmic Debt coming due, the Impermanence Envoy blocking the road—and beyond all saving.
The crisp, aged paper turned with a rattle. Still that faint pencil script—this page recorded the soul-swap procedure in detail, similar to a method Lu You had glimpsed by chance before, and needed no elaboration.
A few more pages, and arts of life extension, fortune raising, and fate changing swept past his eyes—until, near the very end, his gaze abruptly snagged. Several large characters thrust themselves into view: Deceiving Heaven to Swap Souls and Steal Life.
His fingers tightened on the Spellbook. He was about to read closely when he heard a faint stirring from the living room.
The booklet was tucked carefully into his inner pocket, and Lu You, softening his steps, moved to the door and peered out along the wall’s corner.
Outside the Ghost Wall Illusion, the living room and every room had their lights restored; the front door still stood wide open as it had before He Zhuchun vanished—which now conveniently let Lu You observe outward.
At the entryway of the tightly shut front door, Lu You’s eyes narrowed. Something was furtively moving there, jerking still whenever it made a noise, glancing around, then returning to fiddle with the door lock.
He looked more closely, studying the face—and the more he looked, the more familiar it seemed. His mind searched its memory a moment, then matched the information to someone.
He raised his voice and called out, “Qi Feng.”
The figure at the door shuddered and slowly turned around.
The living room’s dim light fell through, and at last that face was laid bare before Lu You.
Caught, Qi Feng gave up the pretense entirely. He walked out a few steps and extended a hand. “Lu You. A pleasure.”
His gaze dropping to the enormous backpack behind Qi Feng, Lu You said, “Not a pleasure. I came here specifically for you.”
The extended hand met with cold shoulder, but Qi Feng didn’t take offense. He simply withdrew it, smiling. “What a coincidence, then. If I’d come back any later, you’d have missed me entirely.”
Lu You couldn’t be bothered with the pleasantries and was blunt. “If I hadn’t let you believe I was trapped to death inside that illusion, would you have dared show your face?”
Qi Feng’s face stiffened. “…What?”
“No point pretending anymore. Might as well be direct.” Lu You sized him up and said, flatly,
“The second before my hand touched the Spellbook, you set your Ghost Children to drag me into an illusion, spirited He Zhuchun away in the chaos, and left me a counterfeit to play with. Qi Feng—you don’t see me as an opponent at all, do you? You treat me like one of those brainless little ghosts under your command.”
Said to this point, the smile finally fell from Qi Feng’s face. His upturned triangular eyes slanted at Lu You, and he looked exceptionally sinister.
The two stood locked a moment. Then, suddenly, Qi Feng snorted a laugh.
“The name of Great Immortal Lu has long reached my ears. Had I known Your Excellency would grace my humble home, I’d have prepared finer entertainment. My only fault is that your visit caught me quite unprepared.”
Speaking, he crossed to the sofa in a few strides, spread his arms wide, and sat. “I never wanted open conflict with you. You practice Immortal Sect Methods, I practice Thai Esoteric Occult Arts—we’re not rivals. But you can’t lean on my admiration for you, confiscating my Old Ghost one moment and slaughtering my Little Ghosts the next. That’s a bit out of line, wouldn’t you say?”
He wore a crooked smile and simply stared at Lu You. Lu You met the stare for a while—and then he laughed too.
He glanced around, found a long-handled broom in the corner, and struck without warning. Qi Feng didn’t even have time to react before Lu You strode to his Altar Table and, with the full length of the broom handle, swept down hard.
Crash—
In an instant, statues of every kind—big-headed deity, Thai Buddha Amulet alike—were swept to the floor and smashed to pieces.
Statue Vessels worth a small fortune were reduced to a pile of broken junk right under their owner’s eyes.
Lu You had genuinely worked himself up. Seeing the Altar Table only half wrecked, he rolled his shoulders and made to smash the rest—but Qi Feng lunged over and clamped hard onto his wrist.
Qi Feng’s eyes had gone red with rage almost instantly. Two rough breaths hissed through his nose, his teeth grinding audibly, and he snarled:
“Lu You, you’re looking to die!”
Lu You still held his head slightly raised, looking down at him.
“Not convinced? Then fight me.”
Speaking, he exerted force and pulled his wrist free of Qi Feng’s grip.
Lu You’s health had always been poor—he rarely went out and saw little of the sun—so over time his skin had been nursed into an extremely pallid shade. Now, gripped so viciously, his wrist quickly bore a ring of unmistakable red marks, glaring against the fair skin, almost too stark to look at.
Qi Feng panted twice more, looked at the wrecked Altar Table, then at Lu You. “I told you I didn’t want a head-on conflict.”
“Too late.”
Lu You’s tone was mild, betraying neither anger nor calm. “You’ve already provoked me.”
“You brought this on yourself!”
The words had barely left him when Qi Feng abruptly drew from some corner of the Altar Table a palm-sized bell.
The bell was narrow on top and broad below, golden through and through, its midsection gleaming with a mirror-metal sheen that twisted and reflected Qi Feng’s enraged profile.
But its sound was not crisp at all—rather hoarse; shaken, it could only produce a dead, muffled tone.
Almost the instant the bell rang, Lu You could clearly feel the density of Yin Energy around them surge. The room’s temperature dropped more than ten degrees, and the pleasant warmth turned bone-piercingly cold.
None of the windows were open, yet every drape billowed without wind. And Lu You felt it again—that prickling sense of being fixed by countless malicious gazes, like needles against his back.
“It’s been a long time since I killed someone this directly,” Qi Feng said. “Lu You, you have truly provoked me.”
Behind him, a shrill infant’s wail abruptly split the air. An Infant Spirit, its skin cyanotic and black, crawled slowly out from the direction of the bedroom, dragging behind it a trail of filthy black water.
Before Lu You could even turn to look at it properly, the Infant Spirit struck—flinging itself at his chest.
Qi Feng looked as if victory were already in hand—but his gloating smile had only stretched halfway when he heard Lu You say, quietly:
“Kuaipao. Deal with it.”
A bright yellow figure shot out from who knew where. On its little black face, two grape-seed eyes were rock steady. Kuaipao split its mouth in a grin of needle-sharp teeth and bit down hard on the Infant Spirit’s neck, intercepting it midair and slamming it to the floor.
The beast’s fangs sank deeper and deeper into the Infant Spirit’s neck, and the shrill wailing, under its master’s very eyes, faded from loud to soft—and then into silence.
Lu You leaned back, half-resting against Qi Feng’s wrecked Altar Table. With perfect composure he fished cigarettes and lighter from his breast pocket, tapped one out between his teeth, and—right in front of Qi Feng—leisurely lit up.
A mouthful of smoke was blown lightly into Qi Feng’s face—even as the wrist holding the cigarette still carried that strip of fragile red marks.
There was no emotion in his voice, only deliberate provocation: “Who’s next? I’m about to begin a formal Spirit Invocation.”
Meanwhile, Kuaipao, having finished off the Infant Spirit, straightened up, wiped the black smear of blood from its face, dropped to all fours, and scurried back to Lu You’s feet—where it even remembered to wave at Huang Xiaopao in the corner.
One human and two weasels watched Qi Feng with perfect composure.
Qi Feng’s emotions, compared to theirs, were shattering to pieces. He scanned Lu You up and down in sheer disbelief: “My Infant Spirit. I raised that Infant Spirit for so long! And you just—”
His lips quivered a few times before the last two words finally came out: “…killed it?”
Lu You nodded. “At this point, I’ve well and truly thrashed what you worship and slaughtered what you raise.”
He seemed to find it amusing himself, and gave a short laugh. “I now permit you to use killing moves on me. Come on, Qi Feng. Show me what you’ve really got.”
Qi Feng stood a few paces off, head half-bowed, a few strands of hair falling to shadow the look in his eyes. After a long moment, he suddenly asked, “Before we fight, I want to know how you saw through that fake He Zhuchun so easily.”
“Because the workmanship was shoddy, that little ghost whelp of yours.”
Lu You bent one arm, bracing against the Altar Table to take his weight, and launched into the itemized Q&A he knew best—even for an enemy already bent on killing him.
“First, the gait was wrong.”
“I know you staged the sprained-ankle scene to cover the way little ghosts walk. But the staging was too stiff. Setting aside whether a grab from He Zhuchun’s height could even catch a Ghost Child the height of a stool—even if he did trip, given their height difference, he’d have hit his knees first.”
—Children always carry a telltale toddle of their age; staggering steps and bouncing gaits are everywhere among them.
Lu You explained, “But your little friend? One clean fall, not a scratch anywhere else, ankle alone twisted. What a coincidence.”
“Second, the details.” Lu You continued,
“For instance, when I failed my Spirit Invocation inside the trap, your little doll ghost’s first expression wasn’t worry—it was poorly concealed excitement. And when I had him lay out the fish innards as Offering Tributes, he kept swallowing saliva the entire time. He Zhuchun’s Seven Apertures are sharp; by rights, with that stuff sitting on the offering table, never mind fleeing a good distance from the smell—he stood right against the table, staring eagerly. Pitiful, really.”
“Qi Feng, do you starve your Ghost Children? A little fish guts nearly drove him mad with craving.”
Qi Feng’s face by now could no longer be called merely ugly—it was nearly gray with defeat. “Anything else?”
“There is, actually.”
Lu You flicked the ash from his cigarette, then stubbed it out against the Altar Table, leaving a black burn scar in the wood. A smile tugged at his mouth, and he said, softly:
“He Zhuchun is a good sort. This morning he gave me a bouquet of Jasmine—he ran a long way to fetch it and carried it back himself; the fragrance clung to him for ages after.”
Lu You’s eyelids lifted halfway, and he added, regretfully, “But the little friend you raised? He smells rotten.”
