Soul of the Great Gu Master

I tore off the scraps of paper still clinging to me, helped Xiao Yudao up, and the two of us ran all the way back to the cave where we were resting.

Ma Erlei was snoring thunderously, deep in sweet sleep.

I let out a breath of relief, thinking the paper effigies must have feared the fire, which was why they had not come in to deal with Ma Erlei.

Ma Erlei finally opened his eyes and said curiously, "What happened? Why are you two panting like that? Brother Kunlun, why are there scraps of paper on your shoulder?"

I tore the scraps off and tossed them into the fire, where they instantly turned to black ash. Xiao Yudao also tore several scraps from herself and sighed. "How strange. How could eight paper figures appear? What power were they relying on to run? And that thing that came drilling out of you—what was it?"

I did not hide it from Xiao Yudao. I said, "That was my Gu Spirit. If I haven't guessed wrong, every paper figure had the soul of a wronged ghost or a vicious ghost sealed inside it. It was precisely because of the ghosts' ghostly power that those paper figures could run."

The Blood Infant had come out of the jar and gone in pursuit because it wanted to devour the souls inside the paper figures. Once it swallowed those souls, its strength would surge greatly, so it looked beside itself with excitement.

"You have a Gu Spirit?" Xiao Yudao and Ma Erlei both looked at me in shock, their faces full of disbelief.

Embarrassed, I nodded and said, "I only got a Gu Spirit because I was lucky. But the Three-Corpse Gu Insect I'm raising still doesn't have much power. Otherwise, I wouldn't have had to release the Gu Spirit just now."

Ma Erlei gave me a thumbs-up and said, "Brother Kunlun, to be honest, I'm raising Gu insects too, but I've failed again and again. I've wanted to get a Gu Spirit as well, but I've never found a suitable one."

I smiled and said, "There will be chances in the future. When the time comes, I'll teach you how to tame and raise a Gu Spirit."

After being tormented by those eight paper figures, none of us could sleep anymore.

I waited patiently for a long while, but still did not see the Blood Infant return. I could not help feeling worried. The Blood Infant was an extremely powerful Grudge Spirit, and the strength of the resentment on it far surpassed the souls on those paper figures.

Why had it still not come back after so long?

I asked, "Tell me, among the Miao people, are there shamans who can command paper figures? These paper figures could leap around and knew how to cooperate. I feel someone must have been directing them from behind the scenes. My Gu Spirit chased after them, so logically, it should have come back long ago. It may have run into a shaman."

For eight paper figures to appear at the same time, there had to be an expert shaman who had sealed souls inside their paper bodies and was controlling them with some kind of secret ghost-driving art.

Xiao Yudao thought for a while and said, "Controlling paper figures isn't difficult. It's much simpler than corpse-driving. Every Miao stockade has shamans like that. It's just that Chiyou Valley is far from the Miao stockades. Who would be hiding here? That is something we need to consider carefully."

Ma Erlei thought for a moment and said, "Looks like Chiyou Valley really does have secrets hidden in it. Tomorrow, we must go in and take a look. We need to make some preparations in advance."

The three of us quickly got busy, cutting some bamboo near the cave and shaving it into very handy bamboo spikes, then tying them into a bundle. That way, if we ran into paper figures again, we could stab straight through their bodies with the bamboo spikes.

We also gathered dry wooden sticks, wrapped rags around them, tied them securely, then packed dried thatch around the cloth. With a strike from a fire starter, they would blaze up in an instant.

The paper figures were made of pasted paper. If they ran into torches, they definitely would not dare come close.

The three of us worked busily for more than an hour, and the east gradually began to brighten.

The Blood Infant still had not returned. In my heart, I cursed it. That gluttonous, greedy Gu Spirit—after eating so many lonely souls and wild ghosts, wasn't it afraid of stuffing itself to death? You damned dog thing, you had better not get into trouble.

"The sun won't come out for a while yet," Ma Erlei said. "Everyone, hurry and rest a little longer."

Just then, a faint sobbing came again from the cave entrance. This time, Xiao Yudao was not the only one who heard it.

The three of us stood up together.

"Still trying this trick? I'm going to burn it until not even ash is left," Xiao Yudao said, grabbing a torch and rushing out. Her sympathy had been used by the paper figures earlier, and she was still furious beyond endurance.

Ma Erlei and I followed behind her. Once we were out of the cave, we saw a paper figure standing a few meters away. This paper figure was slightly different. Its face was pasted over with red paper, and simple features had been drawn on it.

When the red-faced paper figure saw us appear, its body trembled with agitation. It whimpered softly and gestured with both hands.

Xiao Yudao shouted, "Don't pretend to cry in front of me. Hurry up and summon your friends, so no one can say the three of us are bullying one paper figure and relying on numbers to pick on the few!"

The red-faced paper figure whimpered again. Listening closely, the sound came from the abdomen of its paper body, and it sounded extremely uneasy and nervous.

I held Xiao Yudao back and said, "This time doesn't seem fake. The red paper figure seems to want to say something."

The red-faced paper figure nodded hard. Its paper head was attached to its body, so when it nodded, it looked somewhat comical.

I tried asking, "Can you understand what we're saying? Who exactly are you?"

The red paper figure gestured hard several times. Judging from its meaning, it seemed to be writing in the air. I became even more certain that the red paper figure before us, like the eight green paper figures just now, bore us no malice.

I took two steps forward. The red paper figure backed away two steps in fear. I stopped and said, "If you can write, write your name on the ground. But I have to get closer before I can see what you've written. Don't worry. I won't burn you with fire."

"Da Xiao, don't be fooled by it," Xiao Yudao shouted nervously.

I looked back at Xiao Yudao, signaling for her not to be nervous, then lightly moved my feet and walked up to the red paper figure. The red paper figure's body trembled all over, and a whimpering sound came from it.

I said, "All right. We are people from Camellia Village, and we came here to gather medicine. As long as you bear us no malice, we won't bear you any either. Where are you from, and what is your name? Tell me."

These words were meant for the soul on the red paper figure. I believed that the soul sealed inside the paper figure was not a bad person, or at the very least, it could not help itself.

The red paper figure hesitated for a moment, then broke off a branch and began drawing on the ground. It wrote three times in a row before I finally made out the six characters it had written.

"Camellia Village, Ma Xiaolou." I read it aloud. "Xiaodao, Erlei, do you know whether there is such a person in Camellia Village?"

It was someone from Camellia Village. Perhaps it had seen Ma Erlei and Xiao Yudao before, which was why it had risked danger to meet us.

Xiao Yudao and Ma Erlei cried out in shock at the same time, "The great Gu master!"

I was also stunned, and then immensely shocked. The soul sealed inside the red paper figure before us was actually the soul of Camellia Village's great Gu master—the only person in the entire Miao Borderlands who had raised a Golden Silkworm Gu.

His soul had actually been imprisoned by someone and sealed inside a paper figure.

For such a bizarre thing to happen in this world was simply too inconceivable.

Xiao Yudao and Ma Erlei rushed forward, their gazes landing on the little paper figure, both somewhat unable to believe it. For a long time, neither of them spoke.

I looked at Xiao Yudao, then at Ma Erlei. Both of them shook their heads. With the soul sealed inside the paper body, unable to show itself and meet them, Xiao Yudao and Ma Erlei also had no way to verify the red paper figure's identity.

But one thing could be determined: the great Gu master of Camellia Village was named Ma Xiaolou.

The red paper figure lifted its head and stared at Xiao Yudao, seemingly looking at the "Little Golden Silkworm" pattern between her brows. Then whimpering sounds came from it, though no one knew what it wanted to say.

The red paper figure began gesturing repeatedly on the ground again. After it finished writing, it raised its head and glanced toward the east, where more and more light was appearing. Then it dropped the branch and ran toward Chiyou Valley.

It left behind only three baffling words: Earth egg... Gu...