Uncanny

"Hee hee hee, tell me—do I look like a person, or a god?"

Something in the woods shook the branches without pause, its voice growing sharper and shriller.

"You look like a person! You look like a person! Spirit grandpa, we're just a poor family trying to scrape together a meal!"

Too terrified to care about anything else, Lu Zhuangyuan hurriedly prostrated himself on the ground, kowtowing again and again toward the woods.

As he kowtowed, he suddenly stopped. At the edge of the forest, he saw a pair of tiny feet in Embroidered Shoes, standing there like two awls.

A chill ran down the back of his neck. He slowly raised his head in stunned disbelief and saw Small Feet Woman standing there all alone, dressed in a brand-new floral padded jacket.

Her broad face was very pale, yet her mouth was tiny. Her eyes were like black beads set into her face, unblinking.

Her entire white face hid in the darkness, like a little air bladder floating in midair.

"Hee hee, do you think I look like a person?" Small Feet Woman giggled behind her hand and began approaching the campfire on those slender little feet.

When he saw that her body twisted and swayed as she walked, as though she had no bones at all, the last shred of hope in Lu Zhuangyuan's heart was thoroughly doused. He had truly run into one!

"Xi Wazi!! Xi Wazi! Wake up! Hurry and piss like an Apprentice!!" Lu Zhuangyuan's terrified, sobbing cry woke the others.

Lu Juren tremblingly picked up a burning stick and hurled it over with all his strength.

Yet the attack had no effect at all. The burning stick passed straight through the woman's body.

Just as Small Feet Woman was about to reach the fire, her body suddenly froze stiff. Her huge head snapped toward the woods to the east.

The branches shook as Li Huowang and the others emerged from the woods, holding several glowing Glowstones.

"Hm?" Bai Lingmiao, who had already removed the strips of cloth, noticed something strange. "Senior Brother Li, look—this woman is truly uncanny! She has no back of the head. Both sides are faces!"

With a clang, the longsword left its sheath. Li Huowang stared vigilantly at the exceedingly bizarre Small Feet Woman in the distance. "What are you?"

"Hee hee, I'm a person. Don't I look like one?" As that extremely thin voice rang out, Small Feet Woman twisted her slender body like a centipede and shifted toward her target.

Naturally, Li Huowang was not about to sit and wait for death. Making a swift decision, he reached with his left hand and pulled out a flattened Dao Bell.

"Ring-ring-ring-ring~" A piercing clamor erupted. Everyone present, including Li Huowang himself, clutched their heads with pained expressions.

Li Huowang did not stop. He kept shaking it forcefully, because he saw everything in his vision twisting and swaying violently, including Small Feet Woman.

Amid the shaking, her brand-new floral padded jacket began to split open, and Black Qi continuously seeped out from within.

This Copper Bell worked on that woman!

Suddenly, Small Feet Woman let out a shriek. Her gradually collapsing body swayed frantically as she retreated into the woods, and before long, she vanished from Li Huowang's sight.

The ringing gradually ceased. Li Huowang lowered his head and looked at the Dao Bell in his hand in surprise. "Though it didn't summon Lord You, I never expected you to have this use."

Whether it was because it had been smashed flat or for some other reason, although Li Huowang had obtained Danyangzi's Dao Bell, every time he shook it, the lines around him only flailed about chaotically instead of gathering into Lord You as they had before.

The more he learned about this world, the more confused he became. What exactly was all this chaotic mess?

"An expert, a true expert! Thank you for saving us! I truly had eyes but failed to recognize Tai Shan! Come, come, warm yourselves by the fire."

Overwhelmed with gratitude, Lu Zhuangyuan approached with cupped hands and eagerly led Li Huowang toward the campfire.

Compared with that thing just now, the monsters following this Daoist master looked far more pleasant. After all, with the Daoist master keeping them in check, those things could at most frighten people. That thing from before truly could take lives.

"Ah! That damned beast! If it hadn't suddenly bolted off like it had gone mad, how could this old man have neglected such an expert?" Lu Zhuangyuan took out his Smoking Pipe and pretended to knock it against the saddle.

After knocking it a few times, he turned and shouted, "Hey, Juanhua! Quick, quick, roast some buns and bring water! Bring the biggest White Flour bun! And three—no, five salted duck eggs too!!"

Lu Zhuangyuan's sudden enthusiasm made Li Huowang rather uncomfortable. "Old sir, there's no need for the trouble. Could I trouble you with a few questions?"

"Ask! Ask whatever you like! Little Daoist Master, you just saved the lives of my whole Household! Heh heh, ask anything you want!" Lu Zhuangyuan thumped his chest and readily agreed.

As if that still was not welcoming enough, he stuffed the mouthpiece of the Smoking Pipe into his armpit and rubbed it vigorously a few times, then relit it and offered it to Li Huowang with both hands in a fawning manner.

"Uh... thank you, old sir, but I don't smoke. Do you know what that thing we encountered just now was? What was it called?" Li Huowang pushed aside the Smoking Pipe, polished smooth with use.

At present, he knew nothing at all about this world. If he wanted to survive safely, he had to understand as much as possible.

Lu Zhuangyuan was clearly baffled by the question. "What? How would I know that, Daoist master? Wasn't that thing seeking a title driven away by you? You don't know?"

Looking at the confusion in his eyes, Li Huowang realized he had asked the wrong question. In this regard, the old man might not know more than he did.

"I heard you say to use an Apprentice's urine. Can an Apprentice's urine harm that thing from earlier?"

"Mhm, mhm, mhm!! Absolutely! Those things fear filthy substances! I heard smearing a handful of snot on them works too. But the most effective thing has to be an Apprentice's urine. It has the strongest yang energy, and it's filthy too."

"Really? Have you used it before, old sir?"

Lu Zhuangyuan, who had been so certain just moments ago, gave an embarrassed smile at Li Huowang's question, his gaze shifting away. "Maybe it works. That's what the old folks in the village have always passed down. Since everyone says so, it can't be wrong."

Li Huowang sighed helplessly. Why was it another inherited saying? Were the people here really so backward in passing down experience?

"All right then, old sir. Let me ask what you do know. Have you encountered many things like this?"

"No. How could uncanny matters like this happen every day? If something like this came every night, I would've sold my belongings long ago and taken my sons back to farm." Lu Zhuangyuan put the Smoking Pipe in his mouth and puffed away.

"This old man has been out here for so many years, and I've only run into such things four times."

"So that's how it is." Li Huowang looked at the dark woods around them, gaining a new understanding of this world.

After staying around Danyangzi for so long, he had thought things like Black Tai Sui were everywhere outside. Now it seemed that was not the case at all.

Ordinary people had heard of these things, but they were still far removed from them.