Flowers in the Mirror, Moon in the Water

Thud.

The Man in Brocade landed on his backside, his gaze initially dark, but it soon turned to surprise and delight.

He scrambled to his feet, no longer paying any attention to Tu Su on the ground, and pointed excitedly at Ye Wuyou, who had just struck.

"You-you used vital breath just now. Are you awake too?"

When Ye Wuyou nodded, a glimmer finally appeared in the Man in Brocade's perpetually gloomy eyes. He could not help laughing.

"Good, good, good! I knew it. Someone had to have avoided falling into it. That's good, that's good. At last, I'm not alone."

"Let's speak somewhere private."

The two turned into a narrow alley. Only then did Ye Wuyou stop and turn to face the Man in Brocade.

He had already switched his vision back. After all, looking at a rotting corpse was hard on the eyes.

At such close range, all Ye Wuyou needed was a thought, and even though the other man was a Third Realm cultivator, Ghost could strike and kill him instantly.

But Ye Wuyou had other ideas.

The Man in Brocade did not know he was dead. Until he heard the bell, he remained a cultivator whose behavior and reasoning were perfectly normal-and a Third Realm cultivator at that.

Since the "source" of this place, that demon beast's eyeball, could control the man, why couldn't Ye Wuyou use him to get close to that uncanny eyeball?

Compared with the previously weakened Bai Lu, this seemingly lively Man in Brocade was at least better suited to lending a hand.

Or, rather, being used.

But Ye Wuyou had no qualms about using a dead man who had attacked him while alive.

He merely needed to make a few small preparations.

Ye Wuyou briefly told the Man in Brocade what he had discovered over the past several days, glossing over the issue of timing. He knew the man's own memories of the village covered only three days.

"Brother Ye, are you saying you've already found a way out of here?" the Man in Brocade asked excitedly.

"More or less. To be precise, though, I only know what caused this damned place."

Ye Wuyou explained it to him and mentioned the Thousand Illusions Purple-Gold Bell.

Sure enough, when he brought it up, the Man in Brocade's expression shifted, as though he were hiding some secret.

But soon, driven by his strong desire to leave-and, more importantly, reassured that Ye Wuyou was only in the First Realm and could be killed at his whim-the Man in Brocade revealed a few things.

"Yes, I suspected all this had something to do with the Thousand Illusions Purple-Gold Bell too. To tell you the truth, I am the last successor of the Thousand Illusions Sect. I know a little about it."

"This Violet Gold Bell isn't actually a bell. The bell is merely a vessel. Under normal circumstances, it won't ring at all. If an outsider insists on ringing it, they'll lose their mind in an instant. If they're lucky, they'll survive, lose their memories, and become an imbecile. If they're unlucky, they'll be sent straight to their grave."

"To use it, you need our Thousand Illusions Sect's exclusive spell formula. But I can't tell you that."

[A spell formula? As if you need to tell me! That lousy bell is only fit to hang on a dog. Only trash like you would treat it as a treasure.]

Ye Wuyou listened quietly, then raised a question at the appropriate moment.

"What if the bell broke?"

"Broke?"

"Yes. Didn't you say the bell was just a vessel? Is there something else inside?" Ye Wuyou asked.

"To tell you the truth, I... happened to see an eyeball when I passed out earlier."

The Man in Brocade's expression instantly turned ugly. Realizing what Ye Wuyou's words implied, he began pacing back and forth, apparently thinking something over.

But as the Thousand Illusions Sect's last successor and the sect master's disciple, the Man in Brocade did seem to know a thing or two. He slowly spoke.

"The Violet Gold Bell is only a vessel. Even if it broke, I still have a way to seal that thing away, but I'll need a container."

"What kind of container?"

"Something above the profound grade..." The Man in Brocade paused, then swept his gaze around, looking for something.

But the village clearly had nothing he wanted, and he himself was penniless, so he amended his words. "Forget it. At the very least, it can't be an ordinary object. It needs a little spiritual essence."

An object with a little spiritual essence?

Ye Wuyou thought for a moment and realized that he and the others from the Heavenly Prison all seemed rather poor.

None of them had any magical treasures.

"Wait, hold on," Ye Wuyou told the Man in Brocade, then turned and left.

A short while later, Ye Wuyou returned with a red handprint on his face.

He had never expected Lin Qingqing to keep the thing tucked against her chest all this time. Retrieving it had been rather awkward.

He tossed over a bell. The demon fox's aura within it had already been erased.

"Take a look. Will this work?"

"This is what you people from the Heavenly Prison use to track demonic creatures' auras, isn't it...? Fine. It has a trace of spiritual essence, so it'll barely do. But it won't keep that thing sealed for long. We'll have to replace it sooner or later."

The Man in Brocade accepted the bell, then quietly sighed.

"Supreme treasures are hard to find. Even the Heavenly Prison is this poor."

[You penniless bastard. At least you know to say "even." I've killed you seven times, and you haven't dropped a single gold coin, you broke wretch.]

Ye Wuyou patted his shoulder. The Man in Brocade looked puzzled, but Ye Wuyou was already heading out of the alley.

"Let's go. We'll find that thing."

After standing there and thinking for a while without noticing anything, the Man in Brocade followed Ye Wuyou out.

[How dull. What's the point of wasting your soul on someone already dead? That ignorant thing is no match for you. It's merely a wisp of great dao aura. You could easily suppress it with a wave of your hand.]

Heh. Ye Wuyou paid no attention whatsoever to the narrator's barking.

No match for me?

I risked entering No-Self, the first stage of the Formless Heart Sutra, back then. Didn't I still get effortlessly smashed to pieces and turned into a madman?

If Ye Wuyou believed every damned word the narrator said, he would have died many times over.

Xia Anmeng's remnant soul had taught him the method of splitting his soul. The narrator had subsequently improved it into the "Soul-Controlling Scripture," which even he could use.

Ye Wuyou had left a wisp of his soul on the Man in Brocade.

It was only a wisp. Compared with the portion he had given Lu Caiwei last time, it was no more than a single hair from nine oxen, so Ye Wuyou felt no pain.

Moreover, that wisp of soul had not penetrated deeply. It merely clung lightly to the man's body. Since the man was not a soul cultivator, he could not detect it, but Ye Wuyou could not control him either.

Still, his soul could block the uncanny's corruption. Even a mere wisp should be of some use against an "eyeball" that was not even a great dao remnant, shouldn't it?

Of course, Ye Wuyou had not done all this to protect the man. He was giving himself a little breathing room to react.

Even if that thing controlled the Man in Brocade and wiped his memories, Ye Wuyou could still kill him in time.

The two arrived beside the Water Well at the Eastern Village Entrance.

The Water Well, so terrifying the previous night, showed nothing unusual now. There were even signs of villagers having drawn water nearby.

But Ye Wuyou knew the key lay within this Water Well.

People gradually gathered around them. After all, the Man in Brocade was an outsider, and he had acted hostile toward Tu Su earlier.

Ye Wuyou sighed softly. "Wait a moment. I'll go get them to leave."

The Man in Brocade had been about to release his vital breath, but at Ye Wuyou's words, a curious expression crossed his face.

"You still care about these people? Oh, right. Your colleagues from the Heavenly Prison are among them."

The Man in Brocade thought for a moment, then swept his sleeve toward the surrounding people. "No need to trouble yourself, Brother Ye. I'll handle it for you."

The eyes of the people around them froze one after another, then their expressions went blank, and each returned to their own house.

Seeing Ye Wuyou's astonished gaze, the Man in Brocade smiled.

"Why are you so surprised, Brother Ye? As a Thousand Illusions Sect Disciple, what's so strange about me using illusions?"

Ye Wuyou withdrew his gaze, a trace of doubt rising in his heart.

Wasn't this already an illusion realm?

You could cast illusions inside an illusion realm? What did that make this? Was that really possible?

[With a little thought, you understood everything about this simple question. An illusion realm was merely flowers in the mirror, moon in the water. But with nine truths, one lie, what was flowers in the mirror, moon in the water to you was reality to someone else.]