While Baozhu returned to her room to rest, Wei Xun took the thin cord he had found at Wu Daozi's former residence to the rear quarters behind the Hall of Returning to Impermanence. Ever-shifting smoke curled from the incense burner. The stench of corpses mingled with sandalwood into an intensely pungent, peculiar odor that filled every corner of the room.
Wei Xun soaked the cord and compared it with the thatch grass on Wu Guancheng's corpse, confirming that they were the same material. It seemed Wu Guancheng had not only been there but had indeed discovered the mysterious finishing-touch ingredient among the pigments the Sage of Painting had left behind, taking the realism of his paintings to another level.
Rising from beside the corpse, Wei Xun suddenly felt a trace of weariness wash over him.
The Incense Clock on the wall was just approaching midnight. He rolled up his sleeve and inspected the crook of his elbow. He had not soaked in the hot springs today, and the blue-purple meridians had darkened a little. The man in the Soul-Calming Mirror looked pale, like a ghost in the dead of night. His mind wandered. As his chronic affliction grew steadily worse and his strength and energy ebbed away, perhaps, in his final moments, he would fall from the pedestal of the greatest in the world, just as Chen Shigu had, unable to keep pace with his disciple.
Having touched a rotting corpse, Wei Xun worried that its stench still clung to him. He would have to hold Baozhu's hand later, so he wanted something to wash away the smell. Passing the Hall of Returning to Impermanence, he glanced inside and saw Tanlin drinking tea to keep himself alert. He brazenly went in and helped himself to the salt, orange peel, mint,