The little bamboo house was a ramshackle wreck, without even a door. Its interior was pitch-black, and a strange, stale stench of decay seeped out.
Lü Bufan led his half-blind master slowly inside, their feet treading a thin layer of dust.
There was a main room, with a few bamboo stools, bamboo cups, and other utensils scattered about. The blackened firepit had long since gone cold. The room was somewhat disordered, but no one had deliberately trashed it.
It looked as though something had happened to the former owner, who had knocked over the utensils in his haste to leave. After he left, no one had ever come inside again.
Lü Bufan craned his neck and peered around for a good while. Once he was sure there was nothing uncanny, he breathed a sigh of relief... Then he righted a bamboo stool for his master to rest on and pushed open several windows to let light and air into the house...
With the windows open, the boy surveyed the house, then turned to his master. "Master! This is the first time in my whole life I've had a house of my own! If only Liuzi were here too... Heh... This godforsaken place might be poor, but we should be able to survive by gathering herbs, hunting, and clearing some land to grow crops! You rest. I'll tidy the house, then go find you something to eat..."
His half-blind master grunted and ignored him. Lü Bufan did not mind and began rummaging through chests and cupboards as he cleaned the long-abandoned house.
Tearing down a tattered curtain to use as a rag, Lü Bufan ran outside and found a leaky, battered bucket beside a well. He drew some water and hurried back, glanced toward the eastern bedroom, then shoved its door open with a clatter and walked inside...
His half-blind master, Master Ming, gave a cold chuckle and shifted his little stool to one side... With an agonized "Aaaah!", Lü Bufan scrambled out of the bedroom, disheveled and utterly terrified!
Covered in water and dust, his face full of terror, Lü Bufan fell onto the spot where his half-blind master had just been sitting. He hastily turned to his master. "A madman! A murderous madman used to live in there! Inside... Inside, it's all... All..."
His half-blind master curled his lip. "Human face skins, right? A lot of them?"
"A lot... A lot..."
Master Ming lifted his bamboo staff and prodded Lü Bufan. "Take them all outside and burn them! If you like, you can keep one to play with... Hurry up! Stop playing dead dog!"
"Are these what that faceless, skinless Village Head you mentioned left behind? Will he come back for them? What'll we give him then? Is that fellow a murderous madman?"
His half-blind master fell uncharacteristically silent for a moment, then said quietly, "Is this world short of murderous madmen? What's so strange about it? He won't be coming back..."
Lü Bufan studied the expression on this master he had picked up by chance and bared his teeth at him... Then he summoned his courage and went back to cleaning the room.
Using a bamboo pole, he carefully lifted down the horrifying masks hanging from the ceiling and along the walls, slowly dropping them into the overturned wooden bucket. Lü Bufan planned to take them outside and burn them shortly...
Suddenly, a human-skin mask above the wooden bed caught Lü Bufan's attention. It had the appearance of a young man, its features astonishingly lifelike...
The mask seemed to be stuffed with wads of crumpled paper, making it look as though living flesh and blood still lay beneath that human skin!
The owner of the human-skin mask looked as though he were asleep. His features were as fine as a painting, serene and refined, with a trace of a gentle smile at the corners of his eyes, as though he were enjoying a beautiful dream!
Unlike the other masks, which had been hung haphazardly from the ceiling and walls, the former owner had carefully hung this one opposite the bed, as though he especially cherished this piece in his collection.
Lü Bufan carefully took down the human-skin mask and examined it. In the end, suppressing his nausea and unease, he placed it on top of the others in the battered wooden bucket and carried it outside. He intended to burn the bucket along with everything in it in the courtyard.
"Wait!" His half-blind master, seated in the main room, called Lü Bufan to a halt... "He didn't even take this mask with him?" Leaning on his bamboo staff, his master stood and slowly approached Lü Bufan... His dull gray eyes stared fixedly at the unusual mask in Lü Bufan's bucket.
"Master? Aren't you nearly blind?"
"I'm not completely blind yet, am I? Get out of the way... Don't burn this mask! Keep it safe... It might prove very useful someday!"
"You recognize this mask? Who is it?"
"This is the faceless, skinless Village Head's face... His own!"
"Good heavens... Why did he peel off his own face? Has he really gone mad?"
His half-blind master sneered and said softly, "Who would peel off his own face for fun? A woman peeled it off... A woman as venomous as snakes and scorpions! His woman, too..."
"His woman? His wife?"
"Mm! Though they weren't married yet..."
"Why? Did his fiancée catch him fooling around with other women? That's far too vicious!"
"He didn't. His woman had another man! That man hated his face but couldn't be bothered to kill him, so he told the woman to peel his face off! To tear the grass out by its roots and expand their power, that woman's Lineage simply slaughtered almost the entire faceless, skinless fellow's clan... Enough, enough. Get back to work! Just keep this face safe."
"You call that a woman? That snake-and-scorpion bitch had no conscience at all. Heaven ought to strike her with lightning! What's her name? Where's she from?"
"That woman's called Xian'er... Liu Xian'er. She should be kneeling between the legs of that immortal in that damned immortal abode by now... Enough, enough! Why are you asking so many questions? Get back to work!"
His half-blind master brandished his bamboo staff to hit Lü Bufan, who promptly grabbed the nauseating wooden bucket and darted outside, ready to burn the whole lot.
After one last look at the most lifelike human-skin mask on top, Lü Bufan gritted his teeth and took it out anyway. Then he pulled a sheet of oiled paper from inside his robe and carefully wrapped it up.
Just then, a hoarse, elderly woman's voice came from the courtyard entrance. "Boy, if you don't want that mask, give it to me!"
Lü Bufan looked up and saw the ugly, hunchbacked Granny Yu who lived by the village entrance. Still, he shook his head. "Master told me to keep it safe. I wouldn't dare disobey him! Please forgive me, Granny."
Granny Yu studied Lü Bufan closely. Only after a long while did she ask in puzzlement, "When did you become his disciple? Why would he take you as one?"
Lü Bufan gave an honest grin. "Ever since I was little, I scraped by in a brothel in Huqi Town, over three hundred li away. No family, no livelihood, just me! Heh, Master was a big spender from out of town back then. Every day, he drank and enjoyed himself in the brothel. Plenty of people thought he was a rich man from the capital or Guardian City! They crowded around him all day, hoping for a tip..."
"Once, the head of the brothel's thugs framed me, saying I'd stolen the brothel's silver... Pah! He was the one stealing what he was supposed to guard! The madam was furious. She tied me up and was going to drown me in a filthy ditch, but Master threw her an ingot of silver and saved my life! Later... Later, Master ran out of money, and his eyes went bad! The madam stripped off his clothes and threw him into the mass graves outside town..."
"I rescued Master and fled Huqi Town. Master can tell fortunes... He's just right sometimes and wrong other times. So I took him through the streets and alleys of a few other towns, telling fortunes for visiting merchants and the like to scrape together enough to eat! Then there was thunder a few days ago, and he started insisting we come here..."
Granny Yu listened attentively, then looked Lü Bufan over suspiciously... "That's it? It was that simple? You just brought him here?"
Lü Bufan nodded honestly. "That's it! I still don't even know Master's full name. Before, all I knew was that he was called Master Ming... Granny, do you all know Master? Did he used to live here? How do I find work here? How can I earn enough to eat?"
Granny Yu stared blankly for a while, then shook her head... "Madmen. They're all madmen! If he's tired of living, he should just go die. Why drag a child along? The faceless, skinless one's gone completely mad, and so has he..."
Lü Bufan's heart clenched. Though he had guessed that his master had some strange connection to this village, just what was the story behind these bizarre people? Would staying here put him in danger?
That old skeleton at the village entrance seemed rather unfriendly, and Granny Yu was peculiar too. The mute seemed all right. But the cripple and the tall, skinny man even seemed a little hostile... Just who were these people?
Muttering to herself, Granny Yu shuffled away on her cane, her back hunched. She did not ask for the human-skin mask again.
After busily cleaning up the little bamboo house, Lü Bufan lit a fire in the courtyard and burned some useless broken utensils along with the wooden bucket full of human-skin masks.
As a strange, scorched stench spread... Lü Bufan suddenly noticed that the tall, skinny man who had brought the cripple over at noon was standing at the entrance, staring at him with a sinister expression.
Lü Bufan hurriedly stood and cupped his hands in greeting, unsure how to address the old man.
The tall, skinny man merely snorted and brought out a pile of things from behind his back... "Hey, boy! This is your master's fortune-telling fee. Just cured meat and dried bamboo shoots... Tell your master we're square! And don't tell our fortunes again... Pah!"
He dropped a bamboo basket full of things at the entrance, spat on the ground again, then turned and sauntered off.
Though baffled, Lü Bufan did not care about his attitude. He hurried over and picked up the heavy bamboo basket. A closer look revealed strips of cured game meat and a large heap of sun-dried bamboo shoots! He could not help wondering...
His master had merely spouted a load of nonsense and had never actually told their fortunes. Why had they really brought a fortune-telling fee?
His half-blind master, who was dozing on a broken bamboo chair inside, suddenly shouted, "What are you standing there for? Trying to die? If we've got food, hurry up and cook! I'm starving!!!"
Lü Bufan muttered something but carried the food into the main room anyway. He had already cleaned out the firepit and scrubbed a blackened iron pot. There was also a pile of broken bamboo chair pieces, along with some dry grass and firewood.
Lü Bufan struck a spark with his fire steel and first lit the cooking fire. Then he used a frayed grass rope to pull open the skylight above the firepit to let the smoke out... After that, he began preparing the cured meat and dried bamboo shoots nearby.
As he washed them, Lü Bufan asked his master, "Master? Is this your hometown? Do you still have family? Everyone in the village seems to know you. Did you run away after doing something bad?"
His half-blind master turned over on the bamboo chair, not bothering to answer him at all... Lü Bufan was just about to ask again when he saw that the filthy, skeletal black dog that had been lying at the village entrance had somehow made its way into his courtyard. It was lying by the doorway, staring blankly at him.
The boy grinned. "You're here? Are you hungry? I'll give you some cured meat..."
As he spoke, Lü Bufan picked up a small piece of cured meat he had cut off with bamboo chopsticks and lightly roasted it over the cooking fire. At once... The rich, charred aroma of roasted cured meat spread through the air.
Holding the piece of cured meat in his chopsticks, the scrawny boy walked outside and crouched in front of the big black dog...
"Here! Eat! Hungry, aren't you? The people here don't look like much. I bet that old skeleton doesn't have anything good to feed you either! If I get anything tasty later, I'll save you a piece too. So no biting me or my master from now on!"
The big black dog quietly watched Lü Bufan, then looked at the piece of roasted cured meat held in his chopsticks. It opened its jaws, snatched the meat with a smack, chewed it carelessly a few times, and swallowed. Then it lay there without moving again.
Lü Bufan chuckled and reached out to stroke the back of the big black dog's head... Then he went back to cooking.
On the bamboo chair, his half-blind master, Master Ming, rolled his eyes, then turned over and went back to lying like a corpse. The tall, skinny man and the cripple sitting on the roof of the house opposite exchanged a glance. The cripple cursed under his breath, "What the hell... Fuck..."
Before the cripple could finish, the tall, skinny man hurriedly clapped a hand over his mouth. Tugging at each other, the two climbed down, knocking over the ladder with a clatter.
The old skeleton at the village entrance was clinging to a tree, watching from afar. At the sight, he burst into furious curses...
Then hunchbacked Granny Yu poked her head out of her window and viciously cursed him a few times. Using one hand, the old skeleton slowly climbed down the tree and clambered onto the big rock, where he lay down again, still grumbling.
As the sun sank in the west, the peculiar people of Two Realms Village gradually fell quiet. Wafts of cured meat stewing with dried bamboo shoots drifted from the little bamboo house.
The loud-voiced mute seemed to go to bed very early... Only his snoring was every bit as loud as his voice! It could be heard far from his thatched hut.
A few other households kept their doors firmly shut, with no one in sight... There was no telling whether their owners had gone out or were hiding inside.
The big black dog slowly wandered the deserted road, its tail drooping, as though patrolling its own territory! Two Realms Village was going to sleep...