Chapter Seventy-Five: Out of Control

The Zhang merchant thrust his dagger with such confidence that he believed even iron or stone would be pierced through. Yet who could have foreseen that this young man before him would merely flick his finger, summoning a jet-black flame at his fingertip, and he would be caught as helplessly as a fly in a spider’s web? His strength vanished—he could not muster a single ounce.

“What’s happening? How can this be?” Disbelief flooded the merchant’s eyes. He looked down—and all color drained from his face in terror.

Beneath his feet, his own shadow seemed to have come alive, transformed into a viscous, inky mire. Out from that morass stretched several black arms—some withered and skeletal, others bloated and rotten—all clutching his ankles with a grip that rendered him utterly immobile.

“You… you’re not human!” The merchant’s eyes bulged wide as he stared at the young man, his voice trembling beyond recognition. “Such sorcery… you… you’re a Lamp Bearer as well!”

The youth looked back at him without expression, as if regarding a corpse.

The merchant tried to struggle, to summon his strength and break free from this bizarre restraint, but soon he discovered something that made his blood run cold. He seemed to have forgotten how to move his own body.

Suddenly, there was a metallic clatter. The dagger he’d been clutching slipped from his numbed fingers and fell to the ground.

He looked down at his hand. It was still there, unharmed, attached to his wrist—but the impulse to “grip” was gone, as if hand and will had been divided by an unbridgeable chasm.

His legs, too, were intact, yet the very concept of “walking” had become foreign and meaningless.

He wanted to turn and flee but could not recall whether to move his left leg or his right first. He tried to cry out in terror, but no longer knew how to engage his throat muscles to make a sound.

Countless thoughts swirled in his mind, but his entire body seemed to have become the possession of another, utterly unresponsive to his will.

Such a grotesque condition was a hundred times more terrifying than a death by a thousand cuts. In recent days, while ingratiating himself with the heretical Turgid Current Sect, he had witnessed the gruesome sight of Master Li devouring living men. Yet even those horrors paled beside the unfathomable methods of this youth before him.

Only now did he understand—this seemingly harmless young man was, in truth, the most deeply hidden and most fearsome demon of all.

But the merchant could not have known that Lu Chenyuan himself was inwardly full of distress.

He had only intended to mete out a light punishment, to subdue the merchant and interrogate him about Master Li’s background. Yet when he had drawn upon his inner sinister power, the disaster doll concealed at his chest seemed to absorb it greedily, suddenly spinning out of control.

He felt the doll pressed tightly against the wound on his chest that had yet to heal, and a ravenous force began to draw his life’s blood through layer after layer of bandages. That familiar chill and gloom radiated from his right palm throughout his body, and even the immobilizing spell became increasingly erratic.

In his ears, the strange voice of a little girl, sometimes sobbing, sometimes laughing, echoed once more—like a wronged child seeking comfort.

“This won’t do… If this continues, the merchant will die of fright, and I myself will be sucked dry by this evil thing!”

I must find a way…

How did Manager Qian usually appease this thing?

He lived with it every day in the inn—there must be some method…

In a flash of inspiration, Lu Chenyuan recalled how ever since arriving at the Tidal Guesthouse, Qian Dahai would nervously stroke the celadon vase behind the counter each day. Then he remembered the day the little beggar entered the inn—he too had heard that eerie laughter, and it was only after Qian stroked the vase that the sound ceased.

So that was it. But what should I do now? The vase is still there, but am I supposed to go downstairs and stroke it? The doll has already been removed from the cabinet—does touching the vase still work?

“Trace the lotus pattern… caress three times…”

A possibility occurred to Lu Chenyuan.

The lotus pattern was merely a medium—the true object to appease was the doll itself. Qian Dahai had not done this simply because the doll was hidden away, inconvenient to retrieve, so he used a roundabout method.

He could not be sure his guess was entirely correct, but with danger mounting, he resolved to try.

By now, the merchant’s mind had utterly collapsed. Staring at Lu Chenyuan’s impassive face, he saw only the King of Hell toying with his prey. He babbled, begging incoherently:

“Brother Lu… no, Master Lu… Lord Lu!”

“Mercy, Lord Lu! I didn’t recognize your greatness, I’ve offended you! My poor mother is eighty, my child is only three, both still in need of care…”

“I’m a wretched soul, battered by years of hardship—my flesh is sour and rotten, even a dog would turn its nose up at me…”

But the youth ignored him, simply drawing from his breast a wooden doll.

It wore a guileless smile, its entire form carved from fragrant sandalwood—yet it exuded a dreadful aura.

What Lu Chenyuan did next made the merchant’s eyes nearly pop from their sockets.

The young man cradled the sinister doll in his palm, his expression becoming uncannily gentle, as if soothing a bawling infant in swaddling clothes. He began to stroke the doll’s head, again and again.

More bizarre still, the merchant seemed to hear a sticky, hair-raising sound, as though the youth was caressing not wood, but a piece of living skin soaked in grease.

In the depths of his terror, he saw crimson eyes sprouting from the boy’s palm, tongues flicking greedily from them to lick the doll.

“What kind of monster is he…”

Lu Chenyuan realized he’d guessed right.

As he stroked the doll, he felt a torrent of resentment and loneliness pour from the doll into himself. The creature within him seemed to respond, sending threads of ghostly blue energy, which the tongues licked up and fed to the doll.

A sudden understanding dawned: this, perhaps, was what the doll had stayed near him for, what it wished to receive in exchange for its aid.

The merchant’s terror deepened. He heard the youth murmur over and over, “There, there… no more fuss now…”

Unable to look away, the merchant’s world shattered; even breathing seemed impossible.

Just as his mind was about to be wholly consumed by unspeakable dread, there was a sharp crack.

The doll’s head suddenly twisted to one side, facing him directly. The cracks at its lips seemed pulled wider in a grin, a drop of pitch-black ink seeping from its painted eye. Its once-dead eyes shone with uncanny light, staring straight at him.

The merchant’s breath stopped.

At that moment, the boy’s calm voice sounded once more:

“Merchant Zhang, now that the pretense is over between us, there’s no need for further games. I am all ears—let nothing be left unsaid.”