Where Immortals Once Walked

Of course, the two tigers were possessed by evil ghosts as well.

He Lingchuan raised his leg and sent the table flying at the tigers. His left hand snapped up, and he fired a sleeve arrow.

However, the sleeve arrow was not aimed at the tigers; instead, it was aimed at Third Master Gan. After suffering half the night inside that broken mirror, how could He Lingchuan possibly let the one who started it all run off?

But Third Master Gan abruptly turned around and lifted the mirror, angling it toward He Lingchuan like a shield.

The moment He Lingchuan saw the reflected glint, he did not even think before he twisted aside.

If he got dragged back into the mirror realm—or perhaps more accurately, the mirror’s illusion realm—again, then he probably would not find a second bird willing to fly him out.

Fortunately, he successfully managed not to get pulled into the mirror, but when the sleeve arrow struck the mirror’s surface, it actually bounced back along its original path.

Luckily, He Lingchuan managed to dodge in time, so the arrow did not reverse into him but buried itself in the tiger that was lunging at him.

And of all places, it hit its eye.

Even after getting hit, the tiger’s momentum did not slow in the slightest, with it already being in midair. Its lunge continued onward until it ultimately slammed straight into Third Master Gan and forced him to the ground.

He Lingchuan stepped in and, with one clean motion, took the tiger’s head.

By then, Wu Jinsong and the other two had scrambled to their feet and were wrestling with the second tiger.

Third Master Gan had the headless tiger’s corpse sprawled across him. With a weight of over 150 kilograms pinning him down, he could not move. He Lingchuan did not waste any breath on him. He seized Third Master Gan’s wrists and gave them a light twist.

Two crisp cracks sounded in quick succession as both wrists snapped.

Third Master Gan shrieked.

He Lingchuan reached down, yanked him out from under the dead tiger, and called to Wu Jinsong and Xu Dongdong, “Move.”

They did.

Right then, the second tiger pounced. He Lingchuan hauled Third Master Gan forward as a human shield, shoving his face toward those long fangs and claws of the pouncing tiger.

Third Master Gan screamed, “Stop!”

The tiger shut its jaws in the very last instant, just in time to keep him from becoming a faceless corpse.

Using the hostage, He Lingchuan forced the tiger backward into a corner, killed it with a single slash, then stomped on Third Master Gan’s lower leg.

Third Master Gan’s scream went on and on. His shin snapped and bent at a grotesque angle; where the skin split, pale bone showed through.

He Lingchuan hated him for all the chaos he had stirred up. With his hands and feet ruined, what other tricks could he possibly pull now?

Wu Jinsong righted a chair. He Lingchuan gripped Third Master Gan by the back of the neck and shoved him down onto it.

Third Master Gan had already passed out from pain. Wu Jinsong slapped him several times hard enough to swell his face, but he failed to wake him.

Xu Dongdong immediately said, “I’ll get water.”

He found a bucket in the inner room, ran down to Mochou Lake, hauled up a pail of cold water, then came back and dumped it over Third Master Gan’s head.

Only then did Third Master Gan groggily come to. The moment he saw He Lingchuan, he looked as if he had seen a real ghost. He burst into sobs, snot and tears streaming down his face as he cried, “Please spare me! The one who harmed you was the spirit medium! I’m innocent!”

“Wasn’t it you who marked me with that beam of light? Wasn’t it you who called down lightning on us?”

Every time He Lingchuan asked a question, he slapped him again.

“It wasn’t me! It wasn’t me! It had nothing to do with me!”

“Nothing to do with you?” He Lingchuan bared his teeth in a grin. “Quit playing innocent. You signed a contract with the spirit medium. I’m curious, after you signed it, are you still human, or are you some kind of monster now?”

Could a human turn into a monster? He had not read enough to know of any such case.

The eyeball spider had witnessed the contract being formed, but the characters on the palm had been the size of aphids, making them practically impossible to read.

More importantly, He Lingchuan could see the evil ghosts riding the tigers, but he had not seen anything obviously wrong with Third Master Gan.

But was he really normal anymore?

Third Master Gan hurried to say, “Of course I’m human.”

“So you’ve taken over from the spirit medium. What should I call you now? Spirit charlatan?”

Third Master Gan whimpered, “Young Master He, I was blind. Please don’t stoop to my level.”

“What were the terms of the contract?”

“The spirit medium’s lifespan was at its end. She chose me as her successor. I inherit her divine techniques, and then she can die in peace.”

“A dying master passing on her power, what a bargain,” He Lingchuan said, genuinely puzzled. “What did she even see in you? Great bones? A charming personality? Or just that you’re good at bullying people?”

Third Master Gan’s face crumpled. “I, I don’t know! She just picked me!”

“Then are you Third Master Gan, or are you the spirit medium?”

“I’m still me! The spirit medium is dead!”

He Lingchuan searched him from head to toe twice. Apart from some gold and silver and assorted valuables, he even found a pale pink embroidered undergarment with mandarin ducks on it, but he could not find what he was looking for. “So where’s the mirror?”

The mirror had been there when the tiger corpse pinned Third Master Gan down. After that, it was gone.

“At the Baijiao Shrine down the mountain,” said Third Master Gan with a gulp. “What you saw before were only literal mirror-images. The true mirror, the real thing, is enshrined at Baijiao Shrine!”

Mirror-images?

He Lingchuan remembered the first time he met the spirit medium. The mirror on her table had been able to “cast out” thugs, namely Wu Jinsong and the others. He had smashed that mirror with a clone, and it turned out to be nothing but a decoy. He had still ended up inside the mirror realm afterward.

So, Third Master Gan calling what he saw as “mirror-images” actually sounded plausible.

Xu Dongdong cut in, “A mirror-image can pull people inside?”

“No, no!” Third Master Gan cried. “The one that pulled you in was the true mirror itself. The exit was just opened here! Don’t kill me, I’ll take you to it!”

Since the idiot before them did not seem to have any real ability beyond that mirror, the spirit medium’s supposed skills or abilities were probably all tied to it anyway. The three of them exchanged looks and nodded. Wu Jinsong hauled Third Master Gan out of the bamboo house and tossed him onto a horse.

He Lingchuan rummaged around the room for a moment, then stepped out. Just as he was about to mount up, the divine bone amulet suddenly grew hot.

He froze.

If the divine bone amulet is reacting like this, then that means...

Wu Jinsong called, waiting for him, “Brother He?”

“Go,” He Lingchuan said, swinging up into the saddle. The three of them rode hard down the mountain toward Baijiao Shrine, dragging Third Master Gan along with them.

But after only a short distance, He Lingchuan abruptly slowed to a stop. “You go on ahead. I need to duck into the woods and take a leak. I’ll catch up in a bit.”

It was the kind of emergency no one could argue with. Wu Jinsong nodded and kept riding.

They continued along the winding mountain road. After a while, they heard hoofbeats behind them. The sounds were steady, unhurried, and still some distance away. It sounded like He Lingchuan had followed, but was not pushing speed.

Wu Jinsong and the other man did not wait. They pressed on.

Their mission in Wuze County was to recover Young Master Sha’s missing souls. If it really was in the mirror, they could not afford to waste time.

After hurrying for more than half an hour, they finally saw a small shrine by the roadside ahead. The doors stood open, but no light showed inside. In the night, it looked rundown and abandoned.

“This is Baijiao Shrine?” Wu Jinsong felt uneasy. Would a treasure like that really be hidden in some broken-down backwoods shrine?

Third Master Gan said firmly, “Go inside. It’s there.”

But before they even reached the doorway, Wu Jinsong sensed something wrong.

Third Master Gan’s body suddenly went slack.

He looked down and saw that Third Master Gan had collapsed. It was as if all the sand had leaked out of a sack, leaving only the outer skin.

Wu Jinsong squeezed him just once, and Third Master Gan turned to ash with a soft puff, vanishing into the air.

Damn it, we’ve been played.

The two men exchanged a look. They could not feel anger right now, but they spun their horses around and galloped back toward Mochou Lake.

* * *

After the four of them left, Mochou Lake returned to silence.

The drizzle had stopped. Frog calls and insect chirps reclaimed the night.

Another few minutes passed.

Then, beneath the stilted bamboo house, a faint glimmer flashed among the water plants.

Splash.

Someone broke the surface.

It was Third Master Gan!

He glanced around first, making sure no one was there. Only then did he reach into the reeds and pull out a mirror, hugging it tight against his chest.

After that, he let out a whistle.

In the nearby brush, something rustled. A large stag burst out, and it was also possessed by an evil ghost.

As long as he got far enough away, he would be safe.

Third Master Gan scrambled ashore and was just about to climb onto the stag’s back when a voice beside him said calmly, “So this is where it was.”

Third Master Gan nearly jumped out of his skin.

Then someone seized him by the back of the neck. In the dim light reflected off the lake, he saw He Lingchuan’s face.

“You, how...” The shore’s open, where could he have possibly been hiding?

He Lingchuan smiled as if he was about to say something, then he suddenly tossed Third Master Gan up, and with a single slash, he cut him clean in two.

He gave the other party no warning and no time to react.

Third Master Gan hit the ground and instantly crumbled into ash.

The bronze mirror fell from his arms, and it was just about to drop into the lake when He Lingchuan produced a shed snakeskin in his hand and slapped it over the mirror, covering it, then catching it firmly.

The stag turned and fled. He Lingchuan did not chase it. Only now did he finally let out a long breath.

Earlier, he had used the excuse of “taking a leak” to slip into the woods. He had created a clone that rode on ahead around the bend. Meanwhile, he himself had wrapped himself in Mountain Monarch Bo’s shed snakeskin and quietly crept back toward the bamboo house to lie in wait.

This snakeskin could blend perfectly into the surrounding scenery. And with the divine technique “Stubborn as Stone,” a trick that had fooled even Zhu Erniang before, he could also fool whatever might be lurking here—at least, if there truly was anything.

He had already been suspicious. And once the divine bone amulet reacted, he was basically certain that whatever he was looking for was still nearby.

So Third Master Gan really was lying. As expected, waiting here paid off!

Everything he had just witnessed proved again that the one controlling everything from the shadows was not Third Master Gan nor even some spirit medium. Instead, it was all this mirror!

The mirror-holder was only its decoy. “Trying to fool us twice, huh?”

The mirror actually talked back. “You humans are stupid and greedy. Who else is there to blame?”

He Lingchuan thought for a moment, then held the mirror facing outward, with the back toward himself. Only then did he tear off the snakeskin and drive Fleeting Life into it.

From the back, he aimed right through the reflective face.

He remembered the mirror could reflect attacks, so he chose the sneaky way and hit it from behind.

The bronze mirror was shockingly hard. He stabbed three or four times, and still could not pierce it.

It let out a mocking laugh in Third Master Gan’s voice and said, “Idiot. You think a broken saber can deal with my true body?”

He Lingchuan did not rush. He just kept stabbing.

This treasured saber of his had the Army-Breaker ability. The chance of triggering it was low, sure, but he was not in a hurry.

He stabbed it ten times, then twenty times, then eventually fifty times. He did not stop.

He was sure that it would eventually break the mirror’s defense.

As he stabbed, the mirror kept spewing contempt. “I, the Mirror Lord, am the sacred treasure of an ancient immortal sect. You lowly mortals—you smelly, unwashed bugs—have no idea how high the heavens are and how deep the earth is—OW!”

With a sharp, brittle crack, Fleeting Life finally punched through the mirror back to front.

It actually cracked!

The mirror let out a shriek. “Stop, stop, stop! Enough! You win! I surrender!”