One-Eyebrow Taoist

"Eh, Master, ghosts."

Of the two disciples of the yellow-robed Taoist, the one who looked sharper caught sight of Su Che from afar. He immediately stepped through the Dipper Paces, formed seals with both hands in rapid succession, then scooped out a handful of glutinous rice from his waist and scattered it wildly toward him.

"By the command of heavenly soldiers and earthly fire, my Dao displays divine might! Its decree is like thunder—break!"

The glutinous rice came down like a driving rain, pelting him over the head and face. Just as Su Che was about to speak, several grains of raw rice flew into his mouth.

"Heh, this little ghost has some skills."

"Senior Brother, this little ghost isn't afraid of your Heavenly Soldiers and Earthly Fire Command. I'm afraid he might be an old ghost."

The other junior brother, who looked twenty years older than his senior brother, had narrow eyes and a long face. He spoke from the side with a bleak, chilly expression.

"No fear. Watch my peachwood sword and Maoshan talismans." That senior brother drew a peachwood sword from behind his back and wrapped two yellow talismans around it.

"Talismans command the Nine Netherworlds, Maoshan's orthodox law; primordial yang of the Ninth Heavens, become the edge of my sword. My Dao displays divine might, swiftly, swiftly—"

He assumed the stance of Kuixing Kicking the Dipper, and the peachwood stick was about to come down on Su Che.

Before the peachwood sword could move, however, a slap came for the back of his head.

"Burning incense without looking at the god—you'll make Taoists laugh themselves sick. So rash and reckless! What kind of behavior is this?"

The yellow-robed Taoist had straight brows and a moustache above his lips. Raising his right hand, he slapped his disciple on the back of the head.

"How many times have I told you? When you see Sword Qi gathering between a man's brows, he must be one of the Donghai Tower's finest. You dare make trouble even after meeting a master of the sword?"

As he spoke, the yellow-robed Taoist gave Su Che a Taoist salute.

"Lin Jiugong, a humble latter-day student of Maoshan from Guobei County, greets you, Dao Brother. My two disciples are worthless; they have disturbed you."

Su Che looked at the group of three, feeling an inexplicable familiarity in his heart. He casually came up with an alias for himself.

"Wanderer Yue Buqun greets you, Dao Brother. In these times, people are less than human and ghosts less than ghosts. Meeting someone and opening with a move first is what shows the true colors of our kind—slaying demons and defending the Dao. What disturbance could there be?"

"Still, it is because I have failed in my discipline." The One-Eyebrow Taoist looked at Su Che. "Where have you come from, Dao Brother?"

"Children of the jianghu do good deeds as they travel; ask not what lies ahead. Passing through Shanyin, I heard that a wood demon was causing trouble here, so I came to investigate."

"You have come too late, Dao Brother. The Wood Wraith entrenched here has already been injured by Shanyin County's newly appointed county commandant. I do not know where it has hidden itself." Lin Jiugong looked around. "The wood qi here has already receded, which proves that the Wood Wraith has moved elsewhere."

One-Eye had left?

That fellow had dared go to the county yamen looking for him a second time. He had been dead set on that one arm—how could he abandon his old nest so easily?

His copy of the Records of the Mysterious had recorded it clearly: wood wraiths were creatures deeply attached to their roots and would not relocate lightly.

Su Che thought of that One-Eyed demon's arm, neither metal nor iron.

Could it be that he had guessed wrong? That fellow was not a Wood Wraith at all.

"Since the Wood Wraith has gone, what are you and your disciples doing here?"

"We are pursuing a zombie."

"That thing has cultivated for nearly a hundred years and has forged a bronze head and iron arms—"

"Master accepted a reward of ten taels of silver. He wants to bring back that zombie's head."

"Then we can have Huadiao wine."

"White-cut chicken, roast suckling pig, roast goose..."

The One-Eyebrow Taoist's two lively disciples—one gesturing wildly, the other muttering away—worked together to recite a menu of dishes.

A trace of embarrassment flashed across the One-Eyebrow Taoist's face.

Before a sword hero who roamed the four seas, his own paid-work style truly made his face burn.

"Hahahaha! Excellent. Then I shall travel with Dao Brother Lin. I only ask for a plate of roast goose to accompany my wine."

A true sword hero indeed—what a Yue Buqun, bright as the wind and clear as the moon.

Yue Buqun: deep as a still abyss, firm as a towering mountain, outstanding among the common herd. What a fine name.

Daoist Lin felt admiration well up within him.

"Then, I shall trouble you, Dao Brother."

Su Che nodded.

"Please lend me your disciple's peachwood sword."

Lin Jiugong was startled. Did swordsmen traveling the jianghu these days no longer carry swords?

"Fine. Qiu Sheng, give him the sword."

The lively Qiusheng smiled at those words, channeled strength into his hand, and tossed over the peachwood sword in his grasp.

He still intended to test this "sword hero" before him.

Had Su Che encountered such a situation last night, he could only have stamped his feet and sighed. But today, having just returned from the Zhongshan Assembly, he had received from Zhongyuan an exquisite sword art.

The Mirage Shadow Yuan Sword that Zhongyuan had sent into Su Che's Niwan Palace had brought not only the method of practicing this sword art, but also its insights and understandings.

Once it had been poured into him, he became as proficient as though he had trained in it from childhood for decades.

Su Che joined the index and middle fingers of his left hand into a sword sign and tapped the center of the peachwood blade. The sword spun several times around his right hand as its axis, finally shedding the force of Qiusheng's throw and floating horizontally in the air. Then Su Che casually plucked the peachwood sword down with his right hand.

"Amazing!"

Qiu Sheng was a youth by temperament to begin with. Seeing Su Che's move, he immediately cried out in praise.

Lin Jiugong could not help nodding. With such a swordsman's aid, their odds of dealing with that fiend had increased by another thirty percent.

The group continued searching through the withered forest and Zen courtyard.

The moonlight that night was not bright, but there was still enough glow to distinguish the road ahead. Phosphorescent fires flickered now and then among the broken walls and ruined buildings, illuminating the path before them.

Suddenly, Lin Jiugong's nose twitched slightly, and he raised the mirror in his left hand before his chest.

Straight ahead, a cluster of ghostly blue phosphorescent fire drifted toward them.

"There's something unclean. Everyone, take cover."

The One-Eyebrow Taoist did not waste words. Leading Su Che and the others, he hurried to the side and hid behind a dead pine.

As the blue fire drifted closer, two figures dressed in monks' robes emerged beneath the moonlight.

"What rotten luck. One-Eye finally left. If we could bask in the moon like this every day from now on, perhaps we could become a little stronger. If we could catch a few streams of Emperor's Flowing Essence, these ghost bodies of ours might stabilize somewhat."

"What are you thinking? Your corpses and mine are incomplete. Being headless ghosts at all is already thanks to our patriarchs' accumulated virtue, and you still want to go further? Stop dreaming."

The two monks strolled beneath the moon, dressed in ocean-blue robes and hemp sandals, with strings of prayer beads in their hands.

Unfortunately, neat severed wounds circled their necks.

Their six-yang crowns, scarred with scabs, had long since vanished to who knew where.

"I heard that Guobei County has a Yin-Yang Dharma King, a man of vast supernatural powers and the foremost figure among ghost cultivators. Perhaps if we join him, we might still have a future."

"Junior Brother, first, you heard that from a ghost. Second, your senior brother has developed a condition these past years—I can't stand hearing words like head, noggin, foremost, or head."

"Ah, being trapped here every day like this, we might as well die."

"Junior Brother, we are already dead."

"Senior Brother, according to the Buddhist division of the Six Realms, which realm do you think we belong to?"

"I think we should count as the Realm of Hungry Ghosts. The heavens, asuras, and humans—those three higher realms certainly all have heads. Beasts, hungry ghosts, hells—even beasts should have heads."

"But hungry ghosts should have mouths too, shouldn't they?"

"Perhaps because this is the Central Plains, we aren't under the western side's jurisdiction. And Junior Brother, even without a mouth, you ask far too many questions."

Snort.

Su Che turned his head.

He saw that Taoist Lin's unlucky disciple named Wencai could not hold back his laughter.