Fake Offerings

"Aah!!"

Junior Brother Yan let out a scream.

Before long, a trickle of fresh blood ran from the Evil God's mouth.

"Crunch~ crunch~"

After devouring Junior Brother Yan, the Evil God not only lost its drunken look but sobered up instead. "Hungry... so hungry!"

"Clack!!!"

The doors to the great hall closed on their own as the Evil God cried out in hunger!

The people inside were probably facing far more peril than hope.

Ye Qianfan was utterly speechless at the sight!

He had never seen anyone so determined to court death!

They had been on the verge of success.

He had even agreed to give those idiots the Red Headscarf, yet they just had to court death and wake the Evil God. In the end, they gained nothing and became its snacks instead!

If Ye Qianfan hadn't seen things going wrong and fled immediately...

He would probably have become a side dish to go with the Evil God's wine too!

"Bang!"

"Bang, bang!"

Two more explosions rang out in the night sky.

Having escaped the great hall, Ye Qianfan looked up and saw two more Human-Skin Lanterns dropping from midair. Only a handful of lit Human-Skin Lanterns remained in the night sky!

And...

Most terrifying of all...

One of those lit lanterns had actually grown his facial features.

It already bore a sixty- or seventy-percent resemblance to Ye Qianfan. Before long, it would probably be his turn to have his head explode!

His Red Headscarf, meanwhile, had been left inside the great hall...

"Daoist, I don't have much time!"

"If your method doesn't work, I'm really done for!"

Ye Qianfan took out his few remaining sheets of yellow talisman paper and followed the Daoist's instructions to fold one into the shape of a piglet!

Because the Daoist had said...

The Evil God was hungry because everyone in the village had died, leaving it without offerings for a long time!

There was only one way to lure the Evil God out now!

An offering with a mouthwatering aroma!

"What? Have you got another way?" the Daoist shot back.

Ye Qianfan really couldn't think of a better idea, so he could only lower his head and keep working.

Soon...

A flat origami pig was ready.

Ye Qianfan opened the hole at the pig's tail and blew into it, quickly puffing the folded paper into a rounded shape!

But no matter how convincing the folding was, paper was still paper.

Calling it a suckling pig...

It was really just an oval ball with a pig's snout and two ears added on. It was still a far cry from a real pig!

No matter how he looked at it, it didn't seem capable of fooling the Evil God!

"It's folded!"

"The next step is Painted Skin," the Daoist said. "But this Paper Puppet has become your body now, so I can't control it directly! You must concentrate fully on what I say. I'll direct you, and you paint!"

"All right!"

Ye Qianfan's eyes immediately lit up.

He hadn't even become an apprentice yet, and he could already learn the Puppet Sect's arts from the Daoist. Who wouldn't want that?

However...

Ye Qianfan had only just closed his eyes.

When he heard the Evil God muttering to itself, "Hungry... so hungry..."

What was going on?

Ye Qianfan hurriedly opened his eyes and looked toward the main hall.

The Evil God was pounding on the main hall's doors as though trying to get out. Its little hands kept striking the paper covering the doors' openwork panels, leaving bloody handprints behind!

But there were no longer any human voices inside the main hall. Even the screams had stopped!

He didn't need to think...

To guess that everyone inside had probably already been eaten by the Evil God!

Clearly, however, those few people hadn't been enough to satisfy it, which was why it wanted to leave the hall and devour people outside.

Fortunately, the Evil God didn't seem to know how to open doors!

"Don't get distracted. Close your eyes and hurry up with the suckling pig's Painted Skin!" the Daoist said just then. "Once the Evil God leaves the main hall, it'll be too late!"

"Got it!"

Reminded by the Daoist, Ye Qianfan hurriedly closed his eyes and focused!

He recalled how the Daoist had used Painted Skin on the Paper Puppet earlier, holding a brush made of human hair and using blood as ink!

Hold the brush, steady the heart, silently recite the incantation!

"By decree of the True Lord Chongying Fuyou, Immortal Elder of the Left Palace of the Supreme Ultimate, Inner Minister of Heaven's Mysteries in the Thunder's Mystic Secretariat: let the brush give life and spirit. Borrow the power—Painted Skin!"

At that moment!

Ye Qianfan and the Daoist almost became one!

The Daoist possessed the Paper Puppet, and the two performed the same movements and recited the same incantation together. At first glance, it seemed that Ye Qianfan was chanting and painting.

In truth, however, the Daoist was leading, while Ye Qianfan merely imitated him!

Fortunately...

The instant Ye Qianfan's brush touched the pig's eyes and dotted them in!

Golden light flashed. Success!

The next second.

A suckling pig the size of a winter melon appeared before them, its surface lightly browned and looking deliciously crisp!

Had Ye Qianfan not known it was a fake folded from paper, he really would have wanted to take a bite!

"It looks pretty real!"

Ye Qianfan marveled, "This method of Painted Skin and dotting the eyes is amazing! This should fool the Evil God, right?"

"In your dreams!" the Daoist said. "This paper pig only has the appearance, not the aroma! Without a smell, it won't attract the Evil God. You must take the corpses down from the dead tree and roast them until they give off an aroma!"

"Uh... wouldn't that be too cruel?"

Ye Qianfan looked at the corpses hanging from the dead tree's trunk. Shen Lang had drained their blood, and now Ye Qianfan was going to use them for a barbecue.

He couldn't help feeling reluctant.

After all, they had all been human once. Some had merely departed a little earlier than others.

"This is called helping dispose of the dead. What the hell do you know?"

The Daoist retorted, "If you leave them in this godforsaken place without letting them rest in the earth, their souls will be trapped here. Given enough time, they'll inevitably become evil spirits!"

"If you help cremate them, on the other hand, it's ashes to ashes, dust to dust. That counts as a good deed!"

"In that case, fiiine..."

Ye Qianfan took the bodies down from the dead tree!

As it happened, he had already removed the Evil Tree's core. Without yin energy to sustain it, the Evil Tree had instantly withered into a dead tree!

It would make perfect firewood!

The withered branches were so brittle that Ye Qianfan didn't even need Ye Fu's help. He easily snapped off a small mountain of dead branches on his own!

Dragging the corpses onto the branches naturally still required Ye Fu's help.

Once everything was ready.

Only then did Ye Qianfan use a fire striker to light a dead branch from a safe distance, then use it to ignite the dead leaves, the corpses' clothes, and their hair, setting the pile ablaze!

"Crackle, crackle!"

Soon...

The corpses were roasting in the flames, fat dripping from them.

As a paper man, Ye Qianfan couldn't smell anything, but the smoke alone made him feel as though a rich aroma was filling the air!

"Hungry... so hungry..."

Sure enough, the Evil God stirred at the smell.

It began pounding on the hall doors even more frantically. How could openwork wooden doors withstand the Evil God's brutal blows? They were soon smashed apart!

"Bang!!!"

Both wooden doors were knocked to pieces, and the Evil God's statue floated out!

Seizing the right moment, Ye Qianfan hurriedly slipped into the main hall behind the Evil God's back while it went looking for the roast suckling pig!