Ning Buwei steadied him and looked around the courtyard before nodding to him.
Fang Wanchen was probably terrified beyond measure, clutching his hand tightly without letting go. “Brother Chengfeng, how did you end up here?”
Ning Buwei tried to pull away once but couldn’t free himself. Being economical with words, he replied, “Passing by.”
Fang Wanchen: “…………”
The onlookers: “…………”
What a perfunctory answer.
Before anyone could react, a white-robed person descended from the sky, his gaze lightly sweeping over Fang Wanchen’s hand gripping Ning Buwei.
Fang Wanchen belatedly hastened to let go and said to Ning Buwei, “Please forgive me, Brother Chengfeng.”
“No matter,” Ning Buwei looked toward Chu Jun and asked, “How’s your situation?”
Chu Jun shook his head.
They had only entered about an incense stick’s time earlier than Fang Wanchen’s group. Initially, Ning Buwei hadn’t planned to get involved in these mortals’ affairs, but when he saw Fang Wanchen walking toward the illusion as if seeking death, he couldn’t help but intervene.
Fang Wanchen barely managed to steady himself before saying to Ning Buwei, “If Brother Chengfeng doesn’t mind, perhaps you could join us. Having more people would be better for looking after one another.”
Ning Buwei recalled the sudden red flash that had appeared on Fang Wanchen’s jade pendant when he entered the illusion, and nodded without hesitation.
Fang Wanchen then looked at Chu Jun. “And this is?”
“My friend,” Ning Buwei said.
Upon hearing this, Chu Jun’s eyebrows twitched slightly, but he didn’t say anything.
Fang Wanchen bowed respectfully to Chu Jun, who returned the gesture with a somewhat cold attitude.
Fang Wanchen said to Ning Buwei, “Our group originally planned to pass directly through the village to the west, but we were forced into this courtyard by the great fire.”
“I don’t believe this,” a young man from the crowd pushed open the door aggressively and stepped out of the courtyard. “How bad could it be—Ahh!”
Another young man standing by the door, quick of hand and eye, pulled him back before the fire could scorch him.
The young man collapsed on the ground, his face ashen. “So—so many dead people!”
Everyone in the courtyard looked at each other.
“Everyone, don’t panic,” Fang Wanchen said calmly. “Perhaps this is a Qimen Dunjia illusion formation. If we can find the key object, we can break through.”
“But—but daren, we’re trapped in this small courtyard. How can we search? And we don’t understand anything about that door armor or trigrams!” someone said with a devastated expression.
Fang Wanchen frowned and said, “We still need to try. Though I’m not an expert, I have some knowledge. This house where we are now shows no signs of having been burned by the great fire. Perhaps the key lies in this place.”
Upon hearing this, Xu Tao excitedly said, “Everyone spread out and look for mechanisms or triggers. Daren will surely break this formation!”
The crowd dispersed at his words, though no one dared to go too far, and none ventured into the rooms to search.
Seeing this, Fang Wanchen said to Ning Buwei, “Brother Chengfeng, I’ll check inside the rooms.”
“I’ll go with you,” Ning Buwei nodded.
Fang Wanchen smiled at him. “Thank you, Brother Chengfeng.”
As Ning Buwei approached the door, he suddenly turned back. “Chu Jun, you also—”
Chu Jun replied in a flat voice. “I’ll investigate the courtyard.”
Ning Buwei was momentarily stunned, then turned and pushed open the door directly.
When the door was suddenly opened, a cloud of dust rushed out, causing both men to cough.
Fang Wanchen used his sleeve to fan away the dust, while Ning Buwei held his breath and walked straight in, examining the room’s arrangement.
It was a simple hall with a faded Eight Immortals table. Several small carving knives and sculpting tools were scattered on the table, covered with a thick layer of dust. Next to the tools was a half-carved piece of jade that appeared to be an unfinished pendant.
On the west side of the hall was a small door covered by a curtain. When Fang Wanchen tried to lift the curtain to enter, Ning Buwei stopped him. “Stay behind me.”
Fang Wanchen retreated behind him.
Chu Jun was examining the spirit-binding array in the courtyard when he suddenly heard an exclamation from the room. The people around him were startled. His expression turned solemn as he took several steps into the room.
Ning Buwei had his arm raised, holding the Suzaku knife in one hand and a ghost-repelling talisman in the other. To Fang Wanchen, who was tightly clutching his waist, he said, “Let’s go.”
Fang Wanchen’s face was deathly pale, his eyes unfocused.
Unable to push him away, Ning Buwei could only comfort him. “It’s alright, it’s just an illusion. Let me go first.”
Chu Jun, who had just witnessed this scene: “…………”
Ning Buwei thought it was a mortal who had entered and said while turning around, “Help me, first take your daren—”
Before he could finish, he met Chu Jun’s cold eyes.
Ning Buwei’s hand, which he had intended to place on Fang Wanchen’s shoulder, immediately rose higher. With a serious expression, he said, “It’s better that you help.”
Chu Jun: “…………”
Chu Jun walked over and assessed Fang Wanchen’s condition. “Evil spirit possession?”
“There’s something strange in this room,” Ning Buwei said. “Just now he accidentally touched the jade stone on the table.”
Chu Jun placed a dot of cinnabar on Fang Wanchen’s forehead.
The man, who had been deathly pale, suddenly gasped for breath and awakened as if from a dream.
Chu Jun picked up the jade stone from the table and handed it to Ning Buwei. Ning Buwei took one look and immediately frowned. “It’s a variation of the Four Symbols Six Harmonies Formation.”
“It resembles your Soul-Devouring Formation,” Chu Jun wiped away the dust from the bottom of the jade stone. His finger, stained with cinnabar, lingered on it for a moment, revealing a clear character “Pei.”
“So it is indeed connected to Pei Heguang,” Ning Buwei said coldly.
Fang Wanchen, who had just regained consciousness, was startled and looked at Ning Buwei. “Brother Chengfeng, are you saying this place is related to Pei Heguang?”
Ning Buwei suddenly looked at him. “You know Pei Heguang!?”
Fang Wanchen quickly waved his hands. “Pei Jing, Pei Heguang was a famous state preceptor of the Li Dynasty five hundred years ago. Legend has it that he mastered astronomy and the yin-yang arts. It’s said he learned techniques from immortals and helped the Li Dynasty win many wars. He was eventually granted the title of marquis… but there was no precedent for this in any dynasty, and his methods were sometimes quite ruthless. People’s opinions of him are mixed.”
Chu Jun and Ning Buwei exchanged glances, both seeing the confusion in each other’s eyes.
Even for a cultivator, merely interfering with a common person’s life or death would incur enormous karmic debt, let alone deciding the fate of a mortal kingdom or dynasty.
And if, as Fang Wanchen said, Pei Heguang had interfered in wars five hundred years ago and even been granted a noble title in the mortal realm, every action would have affected countless mortals’ fates. In the cultivation world, he would have been struck by heavenly lightning until nothing remained…
“It doesn’t make sense,” Ning Buwei said. “As a cultivator, he had no reason to—”
Ning Buwei’s gaze paused.
He looked at the jade stone in Chu Jun’s hand. The patterns carved on it were identical to the pendant at Fang Wanchen’s waist. Remembering the sixth person who had never appeared in Yan Jinzhou’s memories, a strange suspicion formed in his mind.
“What if Pei Heguang….was actually a mortal?”
A cold wind howled through the window, and faint crying sounds converged from all directions. The red light on Fang Wanchen’s jade pendant suddenly flared brightly.
“Take off the pendant!”
Ning Buwei and Chu Jun reached out almost simultaneously to remove the pendant from Fang Wanchen’s waist, but the moment they touched it, they were pulled in by a tremendous force.
The pendant fell to the ground with a clang, rolled twice, and came to rest against the half-carved jade stone.
****
When Ning Buwei opened his eyes, he found that his line of sight had lowered considerably.
He was standing in some tall grass, holding a flower wreath in his hand. Looking more carefully, he noticed his hands had shrunk several sizes, becoming black and thin like chicken claws.
“Erdan, Fourth Brother Pei’s family has picked up a noble person. Do you want to go see?” someone shouted.
Before Ning Buwei could react, his feet began to move. He was panting heavily, mingling with a group of seven or eight-year-old children. Mud houses and new tiled houses passed by him. In the distance were endless green wheat fields and mountain ranges. Mud speckles splashed onto his chin, and the air was filled with the unique damp smell of soil after rain.
These dozen or so children were all wearing coarse cloth clothes. Several of them were quite fair-skinned, and their clothes were obviously better than the others’. They chattered, “I heard it’s an immortal who fell from the sky!”
“Fourth Brother Pei carried him back, but Elder Pei beat him half to death. It was only when the immortal woke up and gave them silver that they let him stay…”
“Hurry, hurry, we’re here!”
A group of children mingled with several adults, jumping up and down, trying to see over the courtyard wall that was more than a person’s height.
After jumping twice without control, Ning Buwei found he could control his body again. He went around the wall to the back of the courtyard, estimated the height, and climbed up a nearby locust tree onto the wall, then jumped down nimbly.
Heavy footsteps approached from behind him. Ning Buwei quickly darted into a nearby haystack and peered through the gaps between the dry grass to see who was coming.
The man was burly with a full beard, looking to be in his thirties or forties. He had a fierce appearance and was holding a stick, walking step by step toward a nearby woodshed.
“What are you doing!?” Before he could reach the woodshed, a small, thin woman appeared from somewhere and stood in front of him, lowering her voice. “Now all the neighboring villages know we’ve picked up an immortal. If you kill him, the officials will definitely arrest you and throw you in prison!”
The man also lowered his voice and said gravely, “Do you think I want to? Do you remember what those people said? If this is discovered, our entire Pei Family Village will be killed along with him!”
The woman clutched his sleeve and wept, “I told you long ago to treat him well… but you wouldn’t listen. What do we do now?”
“Just kill him!” The man gripped the stick tightly. “That man has only a breath of life left. I—”
Bang bang bang!
Suddenly there was knocking at the gate, and someone shouted, “Elder Pei! We heard you picked up an immortal! Let us see him too! We’ve brought gifts for the immortal!”
“Yes, yes, quickly open the door for us!”
The small woman trembled with fear. “What do we do now? What if they see him?”
Elder Pei grabbed her shoulder. “Go lock the woodshed door, and we’ll talk to them.”
The woman nodded quickly. Elder Pei went to the main gate, and she turned into a narrow passageway between the main house and the wall. Ning Buwei emerged from the haystack and quietly followed her.
Behind the main house was a small woodshed. The woman locked the woodshed with a lock, and still not feeling secure, she laboriously moved a large stone used to weigh down the haystack in front of the door.
Taking advantage of his small frame, Ning Buwei slipped into the gap between the wall and the woodshed. He poked a hole in the paper-covered window and, in the dim light, saw what was inside.
The room was stacked high with firewood. In the corner was a large patch of dry grass, on which lay a blood-covered person. Next to him was someone with their back turned, whose features were unclear.
As Ning Buwei tried to get closer, his elbow accidentally hit the window frame, making a faint cracking sound.
The person with their back turned suddenly spun around and, in the dim light and dust, met Ning Buwei’s gaze.
