Slitting the Belly and Spilling the Intestines

These two lines came from The Grand Investiture of the Six States, from the passage Gongsun Yan sang as he slit his belly and spilled his intestines before the crowd to declare what lay in his heart.

Though Chang Dafeng was not dressed as Gongsun Yan, his eyes blazed and his brow brimmed with righteous spirit. Coupled with the stirring, impassioned lyrics he sang, anyone versed in opera who saw him would have taken him for Gongsun Yan himself!

After learning the Draft of Divine Makeup and Ghost Painting, achieving Opera Communion with Spirits was no longer a matter of chance.

Every time he drew breath and began to sing, it was as though the character himself had arrived!

Ding Ling had only seen the opera troupe perform The Grand Investiture of the Six States a few times before. She had never actually learned the scene.

But Chang Dafeng had sternly ordered her to sing along.

She threw herself into it, her face turning solemn and her expression awe-inspiring and unapproachable as she joined in:

"Rather than feed a belly full of learning to jackals and wolves, I'll tear it out for the common people to see-"

The same cadence rose and fell, carrying the same stirring, impassioned force!

Almost as soon as Ding Ling began to sing, Zhou Yang's heart settled. It worked!

Although Ding Ling had yet to learn the Draft of Divine Makeup and Ghost Painting, she had sung opera twice that night, and both times she had achieved Opera Communion with Spirits, bringing the character she sang to the scene!

Her bearing was exactly the same as Chang Dafeng's!

Her awe-inspiring righteousness pressed down on the ghosts until they dared not show themselves!

Even the false belly she held against her body shriveled and shrank in an instant!

Chang Dafeng's eyes lit up!

He looked at Ding Ling as though he were gazing at a pearl that had suddenly burst into radiance in the night!

"If I do not slit open my belly and declare my heart to all the people now, then when?!" Chang Dafeng sang in a drawn-out voice.

In a flash of inspiration, Ding Ling gripped the dagger and swept its gleaming blade hard across the false belly she held against her body. A strong scent of incense, mixed with a faint, strange odor, flowed down from the slit in the false belly!

The odor formed twisting, looping scarlet strands beneath Ding Ling's belly!

It looked as if she had truly cut open her own belly, letting its contents spill out.

Zhou Yang looked closely and immediately realized that the scarlet strands flowing from the false belly were in fact the intertwined shadows of the dead Qian and Li, covered in Ding Ling's blood!

"Buzz!"

Before Zhou Yang could react, a chilling sensation suddenly made his hair stand on end!

It was as though faces full of malice had appeared in every dark corner around them, staring at them with eyes brimming with ill intent!

The gazes of ghosts!

Ding Ling used the opera ghost's eerie rhyme, carrying her own blood, to draw the gazes of other ghosts!

The gazes and shadows of these ghosts are the "materials" Chang Dafeng prepared for her to create an averting god!

Zhou Yang understood completely at once!

Chang Dafeng spoke at that moment as well, his voice somewhat tense. "If you use the aura of that opera-singing Puppet from Daliang Village to create a Zhen, then when you encounter it in three days and perform opposite it, you'll inevitably be at its mercy.

"Better to be bolder: put your blood directly on its aura and draw more vicious ghosts here.

"Use the gazes and shadows these ghosts leave behind to create a Zhen, and you won't have to worry about being at that opera-singing Puppet's mercy!

"Next, these ghost shadows will come and eat the intestines spilling out of your false belly. You'll feel pain as though your real intestines were being eaten, but you have to endure it. Don't cry out, and don't show the slightest sign of pain!

"That way, these ghost shadows will think you're somebody to be reckoned with and be afraid of you. After eating the intestines, they'll all try to get away from here.

"When that happens, stomp on them. Whichever one you catch will do!

"Whichever one you step on will be your Gate of Opening Averting God!"

As Chang Dafeng spoke, the malicious "gazes" all around them had already taken solid form-

A human figure crawled on its hands and feet, its hair hanging loose. Moving with an uncanny, rapid gait, it quickly reached Ding Ling. A great mouth beneath its long hair suddenly opened wide and began tearing at what had spilled out of her!

A piercing agony shot straight to the top of Ding Ling's head!

Her eyes went blank, and her face turned deathly pale!

Before she could even scream, another ghost, this one headless, emerged from a corner, gathered up the things that had spilled out, and began tearing at them!

In the blink of an eye, seven or eight ghost shadows were gathered around what had spilled from the false belly, ripping and gnawing at it!

By the time the fourth ghost shadow gathered around her, Ding Ling was already struggling to hold on.

The extreme pain raised layer after layer of goosebumps on her skin. With her own Mindfulness and willpower alone, she could not possibly endure the pain of seven or eight ghost shadows tearing her intestines apart and eating them.

One look at Chang Dafeng's expression was enough to tell that when he had practiced the Draft and first opened the Gate of Opening to create a Zhen, he had by no means used the Ghost Rhyme of a real ghost to draw several ghost shadows to divide and eat his intestines, as Ding Ling was doing!

His brow was tightly furrowed now, and he kept calling out to encourage Ding Ling.

If the difficulty of Ding Ling's opening the Gate of Opening and creating a Zhen this time had been ordinary, Chang Dafeng, given his temperament, would have started mocking her long ago. He would never have acted as he did now.

The intestines flowing from the false belly gradually diminished.

Ding Ling's face was blank, and she swayed on the verge of collapse.

Zhou Yang's thoughts were linked to Ding Ling's, so he could feel that under the relentless assault of pain, her mind was already in a perilous state. Once her mind broke and she could no longer restrain her thoughts, she would immediately lose her outward composure and give herself away before the many ghost shadows!

So Zhou Yang spoke at once. "Let me do it.

"I'll endure the agony of having your belly cut open and your intestines eaten in your place."

His Mindfulness was far stronger than Ding Ling's. If he took control of her body, he could surely hold out longer than she could.

Then they could safely pass the hurdle before opening the Gate of Opening.

"No!"

But Ding Ling rejected Zhou Yang's suggestion.

The thought she sent him was somewhat weak. "I don't want to rely on you for everything, sir...

"It's only enduring pain. That's something I can do.

"I can bear this pain, and it's not as if the ghosts are really eating my intestines. Why make you suffer through it too? Let me try, Mr. Zhou. If I really can't hold on, it won't be too late for you to step in then..."

Since Ding Ling insisted, Zhou Yang said no more.

He felt her thoughts wax and wane beneath the assault of pain, like a tiny boat on towering waves, seemingly in danger of capsizing at any moment. The feeling left his heart pounding in secret alarm.

But as Ding Ling had said, the pain was not real after all.

After the ghost shadows had eaten every last bit of the intestines that flowed from the false belly, the pain bearing down on Ding Ling's mind gradually faded.

Two or three of the ghost shadows gathered at Ding Ling's feet vanished in an instant.

They vanished so quickly that even Chang Dafeng, who had been watching anxiously from the side, could not call out a warning in time to keep some of them from escaping. "Quick, quick, step on them!

"Any ghost shadow will do. There's no time to be picky!

"Just step on whichever one you can. Any of them is stronger than that ghost's aura from before!"

Though the agony had receded from Ding Ling's mind, her reactions were still somewhat sluggish.

At Chang Dafeng's warning, she raised one foot and, without stopping to see what the ghost shadow beneath her looked like, stomped down. Her sole landed squarely on the ground, but the ghost shadow crouching at her feet slipped out from under her shoe at the last possible instant!

Ding Ling drew a breath and hurried to stomp on another ghost shadow!

She was much faster this time, but she still missed!

"If you can't catch one, you'll have to suffer through it a second time!

"Stupid girl, how can you be so stupid?!

"And now, of all times, you're useless!"

Chang Dafeng watched anxiously from the side, cursing under his breath.

At that moment, Zhou Yang took control of Ding Ling's body.

He saw that only two ghost shadows remained around Ding Ling.

One was right beside his foot, while the other, slender and small, was two or three steps away.

At this critical moment, he naturally could not ignore the one close by and go after the one farther away.

He raised his foot at once and stomped on the ghost shadow beside him-

"Slap!"

His foot came down on the solid ground.

He had missed again.

Zhou Yang froze for a moment.

Chang Dafeng had already begun cursing in frustration. "Useless! Useless!

"What a complete good-for-nothing!"

The last remaining ghost shadow was two or three steps away from Ding Ling.

If she couldn't even step on the ghost shadow beside her foot, how could she catch the one farther away?

Chang Dafeng had already given up hope.

Zhou Yang's heart sank as well.

Seeing that the slender, small ghost shadow had yet to escape, he decided to give it a try. He dashed over to it in a few quick steps, raised his foot, and stomped down again-

His shoe came down as though he had stepped into a patch of mud!

It felt completely different from the hard ground!

Got it!

The unexpected success set Zhou Yang's heart pounding!