Stranger Danger

Chapter 84: Pallbearer

“It’s because I have this,” Faceless passed a certain item to Ye Qing. It looked like a cicada, but it was glittery and translucent under the sunlight like a piece of white jade. It was also warm and smooth to touch.

“You have an Invisible Cicada? No wonder!” Ye Qing exclaimed in realization after examining it for a moment.

“Your wealth of knowledge is truly impressive, young master,” said Faceless, and unlike most of his praises he meant this from the bottom of his heart.

Ye Qing continued to examine the Invisible Cicada closely. The Invisible Cicada was a highly rare Stranger with the ability to conceal one’s presence and blood. Supposedly, anyone with an Invisible Cicada was nigh undetectable by conventional means. A long time ago, there was a Stranger called Chun Xia [1] who transformed into a human and used the Invisible Cicada to mask his presence. He then infiltrated the Jixia Academy of Chu and became their student for years. Exceedingly talented, he quickly rose to stardom and took first place in the imperial examination, and for a time there was no one in Shendu who didn’t know his name. He was also famous for always wandering the red-light districts on a white horse.

Alas, Chun Xia’s epic adventure would meet a tragic end. While drinking with a friend, Chu Xia grew so drunk that he accidentally revealed his true form. It was only then people realized that he was actually a Stranger. It was said that Chun Xia was still locked in a prison in Shendu known as the “Heavenly Prison” to this day.

Assuming that the stories were true, Chun Xia had managed to fool the people in Shendu for years thanks to the Invisible Cicada. It was no wonder that it could fool the Heaven’s Eye of Anyang as well.

So why didn’t more humans or Strangers procure the Invisible Cicada for their own use? It was because it was extraordinarily rare, of course. Born at the end of spring, an Invisible Cicada’s lifespan was so short then it usually died at the beginning of summer. In fact, assuming that it was born at the start of the day, it would die when the sun set, meaning that it had a lifespan of half a day at most. Moreover, an Invisible Cicada was transparent and incredibly difficult to spot with the naked eye while it was still alive, and when it died it would immediately disappear into nothingness. It was why some people said that it was a ghost who was even more ephemeral than a ghost itself.

To say that it was incredibly difficult to capture an Invisible Cicada would be an understatement. A considerable amount of luck was involved in the process. Not only that, one must use a special method to wipe out its mind, but leave its form intact. Only then could it remain in the physical world indefinitely in the form Ye Qing was seeing right now. This was why the imperial court wasn’t worried that malicious Strangers might infiltrate certain settlements en masse using an Invisible Cicada.

Ye Qing toyed with the Invisible Cicada while asking, “Do all five of you have an Invisible Cicada?”

“No. Evergreen Ivy only gave Rotten Crown, Dark Eye and me an Invisible Cicada as they need to leave the county to contact the other Strangers, while I need to approach the gates and communicate with Tang Yi’an from time to time.”

“Incredible. I can’t even begin to imagine how long your leader has been preparing for this,” Ye Qing sighed before tossing the Invisible Cicada back to Faceless. The Stranger was priceless, but it was also useless to him. Hence, he saw no need to take it from Faceless.

The duo would continue to chat a while longer before they reached an area that was filled with dead plants and yin energy. Dry bones and rotting corpses could also be seen peeking out from the ground here and there. When they got close to a clump of dead trees, an insane amount of crows cawed and took off into the sky. Their cries sounded shrill and bleak.

“Why did we come to a burial mound, young master?” Faceless asked curiously. The so-called burial mound was really just a place where those who couldn’t afford to bury their dead in an actual graveyard buried their dead

“I told you. I’m going to make an incense stick!” Ye Qing replied simply. Specifically, he was going to make an Incense of Misfortune in preparation for the upcoming crisis.

According to the “Twelve Incense Sticks of Ghosts and Gods”, one must gather a bowl of Rootless Water, a clump of hair from a Poverty Ghost, three Misery Flowers, a pair of eyeballs from an Unlucky Cat, one soulfire from a Bleakwind Bandit, and one leaf from a Distress Tree. One must then seek out a location where the five elements are weak and wait for the moment where night passes into morning. Only then can one create the Incense of Misfortune.

He already had the soulfire of a Bleakwind Bandit, and he asked Qiao Six and Tao Xian to gather the rest of the items a few days ago. It took little effort for the two factions to procure what he needed, and he had received them from Tao Xian when he visited the Iron Shirt Gang earlier.

The reason Ye Qing came to this burial mound was because this was one of the few places he could create the Incense of Misfortune; a place where the “five elements were weak”.

After wandering around the area for a bit, Ye Qing went to a clearing and cleared out the surrounding bushes with a swing of his sleeve. Then, he took out all the ingredients he needed to make the incense stick, lit a bonfire and said to Faceless, “Guard me while I work.”

“Yes, young master,” replied the Stranger dutifully.

First, he placed a cauldron on top of the fire. Once it was sufficiently warm, Ye Qing poured over half a bottle of Rootless Water into it. It didn’t take long for the water to become boiling hot. Then, Ye Qing put the rest of the ingredients—a clump of hair from a Poverty Ghost, three Misery Flowers, a pair of eyeballs from an Unlucky Cat and one leaf from a Distress Tree—into the cauldron in order.

The order in which the ingredients were dropped into the cauldron must be followed strictly. Otherwise, there was a high chance the cauldron would just explode, and all his effort would be for naught.

After the ingredients had melted in the Rootless Water one by one, the cauldron began emitting a cold, dark and inauspicious smoke into the surroundings and covering the surrounding grass in a sheen of gray. All the pests hiding in the underground immediately crawled out into the open and escaped as far away as they could.

Ye Qing did not panic though. Checking the cauldron one more time to make sure that the ingredients had fully melted, he grabbed the last and most important ingredient of them all—the soulfire of a Bleakwind Bandit—and dropped it into the cauldron.

The soulfire of a Bleakwind Bandit was yin in nature. It also possessed the ability to unify all the conflicting ingredients in the cauldron, which was why the boiling liquid cooled down the instant contact was made. The transparent silhouette of a Bleakwind Bandit abruptly appeared in the cauldron and let out a soundless howl, and the gray smoke covering the area immediately rolled back into the cauldron. Not only that, the yin energy across the entire burial mound were drawn into the cauldron as well. Then, a stormy cloud began gathering rapidly in the sky.

“This wasn’t mentioned in the book!” Ye Qing stared at the cauldron in alarm. It wasn’t supposed to suck the surrounding yin energy dry or summon a storm cloud!

As he was an astute man, he quickly deduced that it was probably because he used the soulfire of a Bleakwind Bandit Leader as the final ingredient. He thought that the soulfire of an ordinary Bleakwind Bandit didn’t count because it wasn’t a true soulfire, but clearly he was mistaken.

Ye Qing immediately plugged more wood under the cauldron and turned the fire into a blazing inferno, but by this point the cauldron had accumulated too much yin and filthy energies. Not even an inferno was strong enough to heat up the cauldron.

The final step to create the Incense of Misfortune was to evaporate the water inside the cauldron with a huge fire. The powder that was left behind could then be blended into the incense stick. However, since the fire wasn’t strong enough to heat up the cauldron, it couldn’t evaporate the water within as a matter of course. At this rate, he was going to fail for sure.

“Wait! I can use the Netherflame!” Ye Qing was wracking his brain for a solution when he suddenly recalled the Blue Demon Hand. The Netherflame should be more than enough to evaporate the water inside the cauldron.

Without hesitation, Ye Qing pressed his left hand to the cauldron’s side and unleashed the Netherflame. He made sure to control it so that it wouldn’t burn through the cauldron itself. It worked. The liquid inside the cauldron immediately started bubbling and releasing gray smoke like crazy once more. A long time later, all that was left inside the cauldron was a mound of black powder.

“It’s done,” Ye Qing said with clear relief. Thank goodness he had the Blue Demon Hand, or the creation would’ve failed at the last step.

Ye Qing wet the powder with his remaining Rootless Water slightly and stirred them for a moment. Then, he slowly kneaded them together into multiple Incense of Misfortunes.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much powder in the cauldron at all. It was only enough to make three Incense of Misfortunes in total. Still, Ye Qing was extremely satisfied with this outcome. According to the “Twelve Incense Sticks of Ghosts and Gods”, he would be lucky to make enough powder to create two or even just one Incense of Misfortune. The fact that he had enough to make three meant that he was insanely lucky.

Ye Qing was ready to leave after he put away the incense sticks when suddenly, he spotted a humanoid silhouette walking toward him in the distance. His appearance was nothing special. He was a tall, muscular man with a blank expression, and people like him were a dime a dozen in Anyang. What was odd was the fact that he was carrying a massive coffin on his back.

The coffin was over ten meters long and made from something he couldn’t identify. He could only tell that it was some sort of grayish black material. Multiple crows were circling just above the coffin and cawing again and again.

Despite the size of the coffin, the man’s footsteps were perfectly silent. Not only that, he was moving so fast that he reached Ye Qing and Faceless in just a few steps.

“Who are you? Get lost! You’re blocking my young master’s way!” Faceless chided the strange man before throwing a palm strike at him. However, he didn’t use much strength at all because he sensed no danger from the man, and because his master would be displeased if he accidentally killed a human. He was just trying to scare him.

“Caw! Caw!”

Right before the invisible force would strike the man, the crows circling above the coffin abruptly cawed in unison and created some sort of sound wave that actually canceled out Faceless’ attack. Then, they flew straight toward Faceless.

Surprised, Faceless turned a little more serious and threw another palm strike at the crows. However, his force passed right through them and dealt no damage almost as if they didn’t exist.

“Get back!”

Ye Qing realized the danger and blocked in front of Faceless immediately. Not a moment too soon, the crows hit his face—but he couldn’t feel any impact whatsoever—and appeared inside his head. When they cawed again, his mind immediately shook as if he was under attack!

Ye Qing hurriedly visualized the “Emperor Fuxi Visualization Method”. When Emperor Fuxi appeared and unleashed his light, the crows immediately melted away like ice under a blazing sun.

“Phew…”

After his mind had returned to normal, Ye Qing stared at the coffin bearer with increased wariness. This was especially true after the crows he supposedly wiped out reappeared above the coffin he was carrying and cawed like nothing had happened. If he wasn\'t mistaken, the crows weren’t real crows at all. They were some sort of spiritual manifestation that the man used to attack an enemy’s mind. His mind would’ve been crushed if he hadn’t viewed the painting before.

It was at this moment Faceless remembered something and exclaimed in astonishment, “Pallbearer. He’s the Pallbearer!”

1. meaning Spring Summer