Like a child’s wail, it let out a cry, shaking the mountain forest with the noise.
Wu Yinyu was certain she hadn’t misheard; the sound came from right beneath her feet.
She stepped back, almost thinking she had stepped on something, but the ground was unremarkable. Where would any Infant Spirits or children be?
Another booming cry rang out, earth-shattering.
Wu Yinyu hastily retreated from the ritual platform and stepped onto the soft grass. Perhaps because the platform was special, she hadn’t sensed any other auras.
“Did Boss Yu hear that?” Wu Yinyu half-crouched, touching the icy stone platform.
“I hear it,” Yu Zezhi said with a grim expression, staring at the stone slab beneath her.
The Lotus Pattern Arc Light had just illuminated half the mountain, and red lotuses had bloomed everywhere. How had it missed the space beneath the ritual platform?
Light shimmered over those axe-hewn inscriptions, and a surge of Yin Energy circulated within it. Clearly, other secrets were hidden beneath the Plague-Ghost-nurturing curse.
“Let me investigate.” Yu Zezhi stood composed on the platform, then suddenly raised a hand and struck at the shimmering inscriptions.
A palm wind carrying golden light shot forth, powerful enough to awe the entire area.
The stone platform creaked, and several cracks crisscrossed its surface. The Overgrown Mountain seemed about to collapse; the earth shook, the mountain swayed, and insects and beasts, frightened, rushed down the mountain.
As the stone platform cracked, the wailing below grew clearer. It truly was the voice of a small child!
The hill crumbled, the stone platform shattered into pieces with a boom, and the sounds of rumbling, rustling, and creaking rang out together, deafening.
Wu Yinyu couldn’t stand steady and quickly grabbed a similarly shaky tree nearby. She wasn’t worried about Yu Zezhi getting hurt, only afraid she couldn’t hold on herself.
Yu Zezhi stood alone, with nothing to lean on, and was indeed completely unaffected, as if rooted between heaven and earth.
She looked at Wu Yinyu, intending to walk over, but was stopped.
“I can stand. Boss Yu, look after the other matters.” Wu Yinyu hugged the tree without moving. Her face was pale, her eyes still smiling, yet she seemed a little more distant.
Yu Zezhi paused, feeling as if the person who always loved casting her line and bait was about to reel in and leave.
The stone platform opened, revealing a small child’s coffin inside. The coffin was only so big, about half an adult’s arm in length.
With the ritual platform broken open, the curse scripts for nurturing the Plague Ghosts were completely obliterated. The mountain stopped shaking, and in an instant, the earth fell silent.
Wu Yinyu slowly straightened up, walking a bit unsteadily as if the tremor was still affecting her. She stepped forward, actively took Yu Zezhi’s arm, peered inside, and saw the coffin in the pit clearly.
“Is there a spirit inside?” she wondered. With the crying, there must be a spirit.
Yu Zezhi glanced at the slightly curled fingers resting on her arm, then bent down and tapped on the coffin.
A faint trace of gray smoke escaped from the coffin. It wasn’t extremely Yin, but it wasn’t the Life Energy of a living person either.
Strange.
“Can you stand?” Yu Zezhi turned her head, her gaze meaningful.
Wu Yinyu simply let go of the other’s hand, releasing it decisively. She gently pushed Yu Zezhi’s shoulder and ordered, “Open it and take a look?”
The abrupt release caught Yu Zezhi off guard. She stared at Wu Yinyu for a few seconds, then jumped into the pit, as if to push the coffin open.
Wu Yinyu’s lips had just parted but quickly closed again. She had wanted to warn Yu Zezhi to be careful, but then thought it was unnecessary worry. Such a powerful figure wouldn’t be easily hurt.
In the end, she only said coolly, “Boss Yu is bold. If it were me, I wouldn’t dare just jump down like that.”
“Isn’t your leg injured? Even if you had the guts, it wouldn’t be your turn to jump.” Yu Zezhi said flatly, “But I thought you were quite daring before.”
“Wasn’t I sick?” Wu Yinyu smiled listlessly. “My mind is dulled.”
Yu Zezhi pushed the coffin lid open with one swift motion and raised her arm to cover her mouth and nose. Inside lay neither a living person nor white bones, but… a wooden carved doll.
The carving skill was superb, practically divine craftsmanship. At first glance, one would truly think it was a child’s corpse. The eyes, ears, mouth, and nose all looked vividly alive.
The crying came from this wooden puppet’s mouth, and the Infant Spirit was precisely attached to it.
Something was still stuffed in the puppet’s mouth. Its clothes had yellowed with age, but the cloth in its mouth was still stark white.
Wu Yinyu didn’t understand the purpose of the cloth. The puppet wasn’t a living thing; gagging it wouldn’t stop the sound. She asked in surprise, “What is this?”
“Carved from willow wood.” Yu Zezhi picked up the wooden puppet for a closer look. In her hands, it was truly the size of an infant.
Wu Yinyu immediately understood. “Has Boss Yu heard of the Ear Whisperer God?”
“Camphor and willow carved into people?” Yu Zezhi traced its features, then looked up to see Wu Yinyu craning her neck from above, wondering if her neck was getting tired.
She simply took the puppet and climbed out of the pit, saying, “I’ve heard of it. Carving camphor wood into a person, granting it a spirit, is called a Spirit Elder Brother. Using willow wood, it’s called a Spirit Elder Sister.”
“Correct.” Wu Yinyu stepped forward and directly lifted the puppet’s skirt. Its belly was hollowed out, with a roll of paper hidden inside. She carefully took out the paper and unfolded it gently, careful not to tear it.
Written on the paper were “heart, liver, spleen, kidneys, lungs,” along with the Infant Spirit’s birth date and the exact year, month, day, and hour the puppet was carved.
The characters were written in milk cinnabar, still redder than fresh blood.
“It’s indeed a Camphor Willow God. Called a ‘god,’ but it’s merely a pitiful thing, neither human nor ghost.” After reading it, Wu Yinyu rolled the yellow paper back up and tucked it into the puppet’s belly.
She snorted very softly. “Some people curse a child with a suitable birth date to death, take their internal organs, then carve a person from willow wood. The refined soul is then trapped within the wooden puppet. A puppet made this way can predict the future and ward off evil.”
“How vicious,” Yu Zezhi frowned.
Wu Yinyu nodded, her gaze unable to move from the white silk cloth in the puppet’s mouth. That thing was constantly tugging at her heart.
She reached out and poked a corner of the cloth. “But I don’t understand what this is for.”
Yu Zezhi raised her hand and actually pulled the silk cloth out. As she unfolded it, her hand paused slightly.
The white silk stuffed in the wooden mouth was incomplete, but one could see half a lotus flower painted on it.
Others might embroider on silk, but this was drawn with ink. Yet this ink was extraordinary; it didn’t bleed at all.
After the silk cloth was removed, the wooden puppet stopped crying. Its wooden eyeballs even rolled twice, as if coming to life.
A muffled, whimpering sound came from its mouth, and its rolling eyes suddenly fixated, as if staring at Yu Zezhi.
The puppet shrieked, “Wuxian is guilty of heinous crimes! Don’t think you can capture me!”
Since it was a Camphor Willow God, Wu Yinyu had expected it to speak. But even fully prepared, the shrill cry still made her temples throb.
Yu Zezhi probably found it noisy too. She raised a hand and drew an X over the puppet’s mouth. The puppet immediately fell silent, only its eyes rolling incessantly.
“Also called Ear Whisperer God.” Wu Yinyu rubbed her brow. “It just loves to speak unpleasant truths.”
The puppet wasn’t a living thing; how could its stiff limbs move? Only its eyeballs could it move freely.
After a while, when the puppet’s eyes stopped moving, Yu Zezhi touched its mouth and released the Silencing Spell.
The puppet seemed to have finally regained its senses. In a child’s tender voice, it asked, “Where is Wuxian? I soaked in a lotus pool for a hundred years. How did I end up here in the blink of an eye?”
Yu Zezhi held it face down, letting it clearly see the coffin in the pit. “For these hundred years, you likely never soaked in any lotus pool. This is your dwelling.”
“How—how can this be!” The puppet refused to believe it, insisting persistently, “I truly spent these hundred years in a lotus pool! Look, I’m covered in water. I don’t lie. I am the Wu Family’s Household Guardian!”
The words “Wu Family’s Household Guardian” were shouted until its voice cracked, heart-wrenching.
Yu Zezhi simply lifted the puppet’s skirt corner and brought it before its own eyes.
The dirty skirt was dry. Let alone being soaked, it didn’t even have a single watermark.
Wu Yinyu was stunned. She hooked the puppet’s collar and pulled it closer. “Are you talking about the Wu family, one of the Five Gates of Wise City?”
“Of course! The Wu family has prospered under my care for many years, thriving like a fish in water in Wise City!” The puppet sounded somewhat proud.
Wu Yinyu hadn’t expected that the Wu family’s Household Guardian, missing for many years, was trapped here. Nor had she imagined it would be an Ear Whisperer God.
The puppet began howling Wuxian’s name again. “Wuxian violated family law and imprisoned me here, even gagging me with silk cloth! Quickly, find her! After this is done, I promise I will grant your wishes.”
Wu Yinyu ignored it. Her heart pounded wildly as she snatched the silk cloth from Yu Zezhi’s hand. Upon closer inspection, it looked even more familiar. This… was drawn by her.
An Ink Fragrance still lingered on the silk cloth, also smelling incredibly familiar.
Yes, it was hers.
Wu Yinyu stood dazedly. The scene before her eyes suddenly shifted, as if she had been transported back to the Wisdom Water Red Mountain, facing a vast expanse of Gourd Pagodas.
But she didn’t see Lian Sheng. She was just listlessly lying beside the Lotus Pool. Before her lay an unfurled piece of pure white silk cloth.
The silk cloth was spread out, one corner dipping into the pool. In the lotus pool, a koi fish wagged its tail and swam close, its mouth touching the silk briefly before swimming away.
She didn’t hold a brush. When she raised her hand, ink flowed beneath her fingertips. With just a light touch, an ink lotus appeared vividly on the silk.
But this flower had too few petals, and the petal tips weren’t delicate enough.
After looking for a while, she still found it displeasing and wiped it away.
Wu Yinyu was fixated on drawing a beautiful lotus—one that stood gracefully, neither too alluring nor too sparse. But because she herself disliked it, she drew it over ten times.
A Young Novice Monk approached from afar and asked, puzzled, “What is the High Immortal drawing?”
Wu Yinyu cast a glance toward the lotus pool, weary in heart and hand. “I wanted to draw a new physical body for her. As a newcomer to Little Enlightenment Ruins, she should receive a modest gift. Growing one nurtured in a lotus pool is ultimately too slow.”
