Ma Zi was a man of almost forty years old; his persona was exactly what his name depicts. His knife-shaped, elongated face was covered in dense and fine grain-sized black spots, which looked as if a nest of mice had just stepped in ink and ran across his face.
Next to Ma Zi, was a boy of five or six years old who had small eyes, a lion-like nose and a melon of a face. His body was skinny and weak, but his skin was extremely rough. He did not possess the radiant skin of a child at all. His expression was also very dull, but there was a strange sense of anxiety that was hidden in the depths of his gaze, which made him appear more lively and vivid, on the contrary.
At first glance, Wen Leyang felt that this child looked a little familiar, yet he could not recall where he had seen him before.
When little Chi Maojiu entered the room, he did not even take a glance at Ma Zi, but his gaze stopped at the little boy’s body. He sized him up and down attentively.
Ma Zi waited until the three people were sitting comfortably before asking directly, “What’s the purpose of your coming here?” His tone of speaking sounded rigid; there was not an ounce of courtesy in his words.
Chi Maojiu had only shifted his gaze away from the child, “I am seeking an incisive witchcraft spell for revenge.” He then placed his bag full of gold bars onto the ground, which resulted in a ‘clang’. There was unspeakable pleasantness in the heavy sound it made.
The corners of Ma Zi’s mouth moved ever so slightly, “Tell me more!”
Little Chi Maojiu chuckled, his mouth cracked and revealed a mouthful of dirty yellow teeth, “The enemies are a husband-and-wife pair who have been married for ten years but were never blessed with any children. I want that woman to be impregnated so that they can first become very surprised and joyful.”
A sense of contempt flowed out from Ma Zi’s gaze. He should be feeling condescended to do the task, for this matter ought to be handled by an old traditional Chinese medical practitioner.
Chi Maojiu continued, “Then, you will make the woman fall ill with a serious illness, until a point that they feel it getting very dangerous, yet harboring hope to save both the adult and baby’s lives! That woman really wants some children, so she will certainly embrace her illness with all her might; she will take that chance! I want them to live in constant fear for the next ten months, every day, and to be swayed by the thoughts of winning and losing!”
Ma Zi had only become slightly more spirited, and his face genuinely revealed a smile, “What happens afterward?”
Little Chi Maojiu then probed, “When the child is in the mother’s womb, the fetus must be a very loving one, in a way that every time the woman is in pain, it will use its own way to console its mother. That’s how the woman becomes thinner and thinner day by day, while her stomach grows bigger and bigger every day. If you are capable of haunting the woman with nightmares frequently, it will be even better.”
Ma Zi did not even need time to consider. He nodded as he took in everything, “No problem. Is there anything else?”
Wen Leyang noticed, not knowing when it started, that the child standing next to Ma Zi was frowning heavily. He was pondering strenuously over little Chi Maojiu’s words.
Chi Maojiu revealed a surprised expression. He laughed in a sharp voice, “So, is this really doable?”
Ma Zi waved his hand impatiently, “The best thing about the witchcraft spell is just how much can one understand? Just listen to me; it’ll do!”
Little Chi Maojiu cheered with a hoarse voice. He was like a savage person with enmity that filled his heart, about to avenge himself, “I want the fetus to start chewing on the woman’s womb and intestines ten days before she is born. Of course, the woman cannot die yet, but she will watch helplessly before labor, and despite being in so much pain, she will still need to risk her life and persevere through!”
The old monk, Ji Fei, felt his eyeballs covered in goosebumps, and shot an evil stare to Chi Maojiu as he muttered, “By then, the fetus would have yet to grow teeth right…?”
The boy was already completely immersed in his thoughts by now. He squatted on the ground and was using his finger to sketch something out continuously on the cobblestone. He frowned so hard his brows were almost knitted together.
Ma Zi did not acknowledge the old monk’s remark, but opened his mouth and laughed to himself, “Very well, please continue!”
“When the fetus is born, he will be dark-skinned and tough. He will be healthy and vibrant, however…” Chi Maojiu suddenly lowered his voice. There was a manic that could not be concealed in his gaze. He stretched out a finger and pointed to his face, “I want that ghost fetus’ face to be exactly the same as mine now. The moment the fetus comes out from the mother’s womb, she needs to smile, and also yank out that woman’s intestines!”
As he spoke, Chi Maojiu raised his hand and threw his fists in the air, “Finally, the infant shall say to its father – Jing Er is here to seek revenge from you! She shall then hurl strenuously while the woman screams out in agony – all is gone!”
Wen Leyang listened and felt a chill run down his spine, yet Ma Zi was beaming with joy. He clapped as he burst out laughing, “I couldn’t tell that you were a woman with the evilness and cruelty of a wild wolf…”
Before he could finish his sentence, the child shook his head strenuously with a steadfast expression. He muttered to himself softly, “I can do a ghost’s wail and wolf’s howl, but I cannot make the infant speak.”
Before his voice died away, Ma Zi suddenly raised his leg and stomped ferociously onto the boy’s stomach, “Scram! This is not the place for you to speak!”
Everyone did not expect Ma Zi to suddenly strike out so ruthlessly. The boy screamed out in agony as he fell outside heavily. Little Chi Maojiu’s eyes lit up with a murderous glow, and his body swayed as he was chased out. He used his one arm to wrap around the child who was spewing blood at the corner of his mouth.
The blind man who was taking care of the poisonous creatures next door too leaped out into the courtyard upon hearing the ruckus. His face was filled with thirty percent of rage, “Ma Zi, no matter how disobedient this child is, there is no need for you to beat and scold him all the time!” He then stretched out his arms in an attempt to retrieve the child from Chi Maojiu’s cradle.
Chi Maojiu on the other hand rolled his dead fish-like eyes at him, and held the boy even tighter.
However, the boy seemed to have a rather close relationship with the blind man. He struggled with all his might twice, and jumped out from Chi Maojiu’s cradle, then hid behind the blind man. His tiny body was shaking, emitting a rustle.
Ma Zi sneered softly, “This is my family’s matter, which is none of your business!” He then seemed to refuse to cause a conflict with the blind man before everybody else. He turned around and looked towards little Chi Maojiu, “I’m taking your deal. Leave the gold behind, and return three days later.”
Little Chi Maojiu completely disregarded Ma Zi, but he looked at the boy with his back bent forward, and spoke kindly, “Those final words of yours – Are you really not going to say it out loud?”
The boy’s lips moved. He snuck a peek at Ma Zi and immediately stiffened his body. He lowered his head and looked towards the surface of the ground, not daring to even utter a word.
The blind man heaved a sigh, stretched out his hand and caressed the boy’s head, before returning to his own room.
Chi Maojiu laughed. He took two steps closer towards the boy, “Why is there a need for you to be afraid of him? Just by depending on their measly tricks in their Yunnan’s witchcraft, how are they capable of controlling you?” As he was saying that, he opened his palm towards the boy, revealing a strand of short hair, as red as blood, in his palm.
The boy noticed the red hair. His eyes were filled with disbelief, as he stood transfixed to the ground. He was completely dumbstruck, while Ma Zi cursed out in extreme rage, and suddenly sprung out from the chair.
At the same time, little Chi Maojiu roared loudly, “Leyang!”
Even though Wen Leyang did not understand what was going on right now, when he heard his companion’s cry for help, he did not hesitate before immediately raising his leg to kick Ma Zi so hard that he flew into the courtyard.
Ma Zi did not even have the opportunity to scream before he fainted at that very second.
When Wen Leyang was done kicking, he was feeling a little strange. Chi Maojiu had never called him ‘Leyang’ before in such a creepy manner. He then looked at the child’s appearance and was suddenly enlightened. Chi Maojiu was not calling out to him, but was trying to reveal the child’s identity – he was Leyang!
This boy’s facial features were vaguely similar to Lord Leyang Wen of the Painting Town back in the days, but the short man, Leyang Wen, always had a smiley, town-folk look, while the boy’s expression was overcautious and fearful in comparison. Wen Leyang did not manage to connect the dots in time.
When Tuo Xie’s disciples realized that the Leyang family member was bullied by an outsider, they refused to wait any longer. They would first protect a Leyang family member above all other important matters.
The big-headed dwarf who was keeping an eye on the shop heard the movements at the back room and immediately jumped back to investigate. He squalled in rage upon witnessing the scene, “So it turns out that all of you are here to cause trouble…” But before he could finish his sentence, his vision darkened, and he could only feel as if a train slammed onto his mouth. He was knocked out cold by Wen Leyang’s single punch, and when his head hit the surface of the ground, seven or eight teeth fell out from his mouth…
Almost at the same time, a strange rustling noise echoed suddenly from the courtyard. All sorts of poisonous vermin crawled out from the soil in a threatening manner and pounced towards them in all directions.
This time, even the old monk, Ji Fei, could not help but to laugh out loud. Wen Leyang was standing at the same spot and was too lazy to move. He only urged the Poison of Life and Death to circulate in his body for a moment. Those thousands of threatening poisonous vermin suddenly stopped moving. They fled their nests a moment later and ran helter-skelter in the courtyard. Some were stepping on one another and rolled into a ball, while some slammed into rocks and corners, crushing their skulls as a result…
Not only did the poisonous vermin in the courtyard turn wild, but it could also sense the utmost esteemed poison power in Wen Leyang’s body. They were all colliding messily and biting everything…
The blind man gasped in fear and hastily ran out of the room. When Leyang suddenly remembered the two little Mo Ya, he could not accept that a new generation of a bug king would be startled to death by him. He dashed into the room in a flash and placed the two ants in his palm as he gently comforted them.
The tyrannical Mo Ya were more docile in his hand than silkworms. The ants crawled around in all honesty and gradually became braver. They gathered together before they started rubbing against one another intimately, occasionally raising their long whiskers, and rubbed against Wen Leyang’s palm in an affectionate manner.
The blind man stood in the courtyard and muttered to himself for a long while, before glaring at Wen Leyang, “Who… who are you actually?”
The old monk, Ji Fei, sniggered, “Open your… forget it, you’re blind. This is the disciple of Wen Bucao, while this is the disciple of Miao Bujiao.”
The blind man’s expression was apprehensive, “You are the ‘Die a dog’s death on Crow Ridge?”
The old monk immediately coughed, and forgot what he was about to say.
The blind man’s body became much more bent, “Heh, you’re the number one sect in the world… Why is there a need to cause trouble to us running a small business here…?”
The old monk, Ji Fei, was trying to suppress his cough strenuously, and sneered hoarsely, “We aren’t some famous sect, and we aren’t as pretentious as those empty-headed good for nothing fools either. If someone is flaunting our banner to swagger and swindle others, there is no hope for that person to walk the face of this earth anymore!”
It was unknown if it was because of ‘You’ve Got Me’, that Wen Leyang had a rather good impression of the blind man, or not. He chuckled as he passed the Mo Ya that he had calmed, into the blind man’s palms. He then patted the blind man’s shoulder to startle him, “We’re not as frightening as he had described us.”
The blind man was under the impression that Wen Leyang had planted some rare poison on his shoulder, as his body slumped and tumbled onto the ground.
That boy had only reacted to the situation now, as he gasped with his face filled with concern. He hastily ran over to help the blind man up.
Wen Leyang laughed, turned around, and looked towards Chi Maojiu, “What’s going on?”
The gush of an odd smell that came from Ma Zi’s room belonged to someone who was using the right channel of Tuo Xie’s technique to refine the spell. Wen Leyang and the rest had only stayed behind to investigate further.
The moment they entered the room in the middle, Chi Maojiu could see that the boy was cast with the ‘Soul-hauling Silk’. This was an Art of Witchcraft from Yunnan province. The person who was under its spell could not muster any sense of resistance towards the person who cast it. Even though it was sinister, there was nothing profound about it.
Chi Maojiu had received a vast improvement in his cultivation method; his witchcraft power was pure and precise. Upon using his heart to sense, he soon discovered that this boy’s body inherited the orthodox, Tuo Xie’s witchcraft power, while Ma Zi was but an ordinary witch in Yunnan Witchcraft Sect.
Chi Maojiu was still slightly puzzled initially, but he soon figured out that there was more than just the Seven Maidens Mountain’s family that inherited Tuo Xie’s witchcraft spell in the world – There was also the Painting Town’s disciples! Not only did Little Chi Maojiu meet the short man, Leyang Wen, but he also fought with him twice in front of the Miao stockade village and during the battle of Goddess Peak. So, upon close inspection of the boy’s appearance, he soon understood the rough idea of the situation.
The boy’s witchcraft power was apparently stronger and deeper than Ma Zi’s, but he was still young after all. It was unbeknownst to anyone how he was planted with the ‘Soul-hauling Silk’ by Ma Zi, and allowed Ma Zi to torment him all the time. The boy dared not and could not resist the smell in the courtyard earlier. It could very well be from Ma Zi, instructing the boy to refine the spell on his behalf.
Little Chi Maojiu was still a little worried and attempted to probe further. Those requests of his would even take a good hand from the Seven Maidens Mountain a slightly longer time to ponder over it. Yet, Ma Zi took on everything. It was either the fact that he had made up his mind to swindle others, or that he was overly confident with the boy’s capabilities.
On the contrary, it was the boy who had been pondering all along and denied Chi Maojiu’s request for the fetus to speak in human words in the end.
In order to make a newborn infant open its mouth to speak, although the witchcraft spell was futile in this, yet this was a process that grew with the heaven’s will, but if he were to follow Chi Maojiu’s instruction earlier, he would need to turn the fetus into a ghost fetus, and since the ghost fetus had already deviated from the human path, then it would absolutely never speak out human words.
The two matters between one right and one evil could never possibly be realized at the same time.
Ma Zi’s Art of Witchcraft was ordinary; he had never thought of it. He was afraid that the deal in his hands would be ruined, so he stomped on the boy out of extreme rage. When Chi Maojiu chased him out of the room, his hand patted the boy’s body. He had already plucked off the blood magic ‘Soul-hauling Silk’ that was tied to his hair, and naturally, Ma Zi’s witchcraft spell would be broken too.
Chi Maojiu explained the sequence of events briefly, before pulling Wen Leyang aside. Of course, the old monk, Ji Fei, wanted to join too. There was solemness in Chi Maojiu’s gaze, and his voice lowered to the lowest extent, “The witchcraft power on this child’s body, as compared to the one on Leyang Wen back in the days, is slightly weaker.”
Wen Leyang laughed, “That’s natural. He is still young, how can he be compared to Leyang Wen…?” He was halfway through his speech when he suddenly shut his mouth. There was astonishment contained in his gaze; he stared at Chi Maojiu.
When they were in Shanghai’s Painting Town, Wen Leyang once heard from ‘Tang Tang’ Leyang Tian, who explained the method of inheriting the witchcraft spell in the Leyang family – In their family, there would always be only one person who was capable of inheriting the first ancestor’s witchcraft power. Moreover, every time this witchcraft power was inherited, it would grow weaker.
This child was charged with the Painting Town’s witchcraft power. This signified that Wen Leyang’s chest felt a little suffocated, “Is Leyang Wen already dead?”
The old monk Ji Fei hastily explained softly from the side, “You have just returned recently, and you are constantly busy all along. There are still some matters that we have yet to explain to you in time. Not long after you went to Shiwan Mountain back then, the Painting Town turned desolate. No one knew what happened, and the few demon immortals including Hanba and Chang Li investigated personally for a long time, but failed to find even a single clue.”
The Painting Town had friends all over the world. Even though the family had gradually declined in power after Leyang Shoujin and Leyang Tian’s death, they had the most genuine and earnest human relationships that were accumulated over the past millenniums. When people started to fade away and the family became empty abruptly, there were a lot of people who came to investigate this case. Other than the few demon immortals and Tuo Xie’s disciples, the rogue cultivators, the Five Blessings, the World Sect and even Guo Xiaojun had been investigating it all along, yet no one managed to yield any results. The people of the Painting Town had truly vanished into thin air.
Wen Leyang inhaled a deep breath, he asked Chi Maojiu, “Did that happen four years ago?”
Chi Maojiu nodded, “Less than that, but it is almost that time too.” As he was saying that, he turned around and looked towards the boy who was holding tightly to the blind man’s arm who was already scared out of his wits, “He was only less than one to two years old at the time. I am afraid he will not remember much.”
Wen Leyang nodded. He walked and bent over as he held up the child. With great effort, he gave him an affectionate look, chuckled, and asked, “So how does this blind man usually treat you?”
The boy did not hesitate as he nodded and answered fearfully, “Very well… he’s always protecting me.”
The blind man’s face was filled with coldness and desolation. He was still waiting for the strong poison on his shoulder to take effect, but little did he know that this child’s stuttering words had already hurled him back to the gates of hell.
Wen Leyang then pointed to that dwarf. The boy dared not speak anymore, but his eyes were apparently overflowing with full fright, Chi Maojiu frowned and spoke to Wen Leyang, “We shall enter the room to speak.” As he spoke, he pulled up the blind man who was still awaiting his death. He then laughed as he spoke, “Do not panic, we still need to thank you!”
By the time the few people had entered the blind man’s room, the dwarf outside suddenly opened his eyes. He was glaring so hard his eyeballs were almost bulging. He widened his mouth in an attempt to scream in agony, yet he could not even make a sound, while at the same time, his short and small body expanded!
Under close inspection, one would discover that the expansion was not because the dwarf was suddenly filled with air or was bloating due to fermentation, but there was something that was cruising in between his skin and flesh. It was growing rapidly, which caused his skin to stretch out tightly. His muscles and bones remained unmoved, only his skin was extremely stretched to the point of bursting. The dwarf’s skin was already almost stretched thin to the point of translucency, yet it still had not burst open.
After he tormented the child from the Leyang family, he fell into the hands of Miao Bujiao’s disciple – Anyone could only admit to being this unfortunate.
The old monk Ji Fei who was left outside to guard the captive was startled by the situation so he retreated repeatedly. It was until Wen Leyang shouted towards the outside, “Come inside, Ma Zi will not be running away.” Only then the old monk was akin to a man who received a decree of amnesty; he dared not take a glance at the dwarf anymore, but he was still a little worried, so he immediately grabbed Ma Zi’s hair and dragged him into the room as well.
Wen Leyang then asked the boy a few questions. The boy did not even have a name; he had been following this Ma Zi ever since he could recall. At the same time, he inherited the only portion of the witchcraft power from his family, but some essential Art of Witchcraft Spells were also planted into this mind altogether. That was why he was capable of launching a few simple witchcraft spells.
He was only between the age of four to five years old after all. Ma Zi was very terrifying, like a divine being or a phantom, in his eyes. He was planted with the Soul-hauling Silk, and dared not resist even if he was not controlled.
He also never had the intention of coming up with a method to break the spell of ‘Soul-hauling Silk’.
The blind man’s true colors were exposed this time. He had since lost his initial imposing mannerism, so he revealed his origins honestly.
He was a cultivator who cultivated the Art of Poison and did not possess other abilities other than taking care of poisonous creatures. He frequently went to the place of the outer fringe to try his luck, where he met Ma Zi and the dwarf roughly more than a year ago.
One understood witchcraft, one knew about poison, while the other was slightly skilled in corpse-control. The three lonely souls gathered and suddenly came up with a strange idea. So they opened that shop and flaunted the three families Wen, Miao, Luo’s banner to swindle others. Even though their business was not flourishing, it was still a way to pass their time.
The dwarf was inherently cruel, and ever since the shop was opened, the Leyang family’s boy had to suffer the additional torments of the dwarf.
Even though the blind man was not a kind person, he still had a sense of morale in him. Sometimes, when he truly could not bear watching anymore, he would step forward and speak out on behalf of the child. Over the past year, the child treated the blind man like family.
Regarding the child’s encounters, the blind man had completely no knowledge. Little Chi Maojiu waited for the blind man to finish talking, before bending over with a smile to pick up the fainted Ma Zi, and walked into the room next door…