Chapter 38

Chapter 38

The non-human thing holding Xu Muchan gave no answer, but the true form it revealed seemed to answer for itself.

It lowered its head, pressing close to Xu Muchan's neck to sniff greedily. A forked tongue, like a snake's, slid out from between its lips, flicking slowly in and out, the cold, wet tip occasionally grazing Xu Muchan's skin.

Xu Muchan could've sworn he heard a faint hissing sound.

He clenched his jaw, clutching the Mountain God Amulet to his chest. He instinctively leaned back, but several hands shot out from behind, pressing down on his shoulders and back, dragging his rigid body back inch by inch until he was almost shoved into the creature's arms.

Xu Muchan's head bumped against the creature's chin. He didn't dare look up, terrified of meeting those horrible vertical pupils, so he just let the hands on his back push him, curling deeper into the other's embrace. He pressed his forehead to its chest, eyes shut, and whispered, "Wei Xilou."

He said, "I'm a little scared."

"Are you going to die?"

His voice shook, barely holding back a sob.

The non-human thing suddenly went still. Inside its vertical eye slit, eyeballs jostled against each other like they were fighting for control. Finally, a single black pupil pushed its way out from the mass of red—

The twisted hands all retracted. The cold, jade-smooth skin warmed up and regained its elasticity, and a steady heartbeat thumped right by Xu Muchan's ear.

Wei Xilou pressed the back of the boy's head, rubbing his chin gently against the top of it. There was an odd hint of amusement in his voice: "Is Achan that scared of me dying?"

Xu Muchan quickly wiped the wetness from the corners of his eyes and looked up. His voice was still thick, a little raspy, but honest: "I don't want you to die."

Wei Xilou's smile widened as he gently stroked his long hair: "But Achan, everyone dies sooner or later."

Xu Muchan cut him off quickly: "You know that's not what I meant."

Wei Xilou's smile dropped. After a pause, he said, "Becoming an immortal god always comes at a price. This is mine."

Noticing Xu Muchan had gone quiet, Wei Xilou went on, "Isn't this fine now? I won't die. And if I did, who'd get revenge for Achan when someone picks on him later?"

Xu Muchan stared at him, stunned, but Wei Xilou just covered his eyes with a hand and kept going: "You've probably already figured some things out. There's not much time—I still have things to tell you. Remember them carefully."

"The Heaven-born child died young and turned into a vengeful ghost. If the Daoist sects find out about you, they definitely won't let you off easy. Achan needs to learn to protect himself. Ghost transformation can help, but you're not fully grown yet—using it too long will hurt you in the long run. I'll lend you my strength."

Before Xu Muchan could say anything, he went on: "Achan asks way too many questions, and I don't feel like answering. Be good."

Xu Muchan's mouth, which had just opened, snapped shut again.

He had no idea what Wei Xilou meant by lending him strength. Wei Xilou kept his hand over Xu Muchan's eyes the whole time, so he had to rely on his ears and everything else he could feel.

He felt the hand over his eyes change texture again. Now that he wasn't scared anymore, the cold, jade-smooth skin actually felt kind of nice.

A wet, sloppy sound hit his ears, and a heavy, rank smell filled his nose.

"Achan, open your mouth and eat it."

Something warm and wet was pressed against Xu Muchan's lips. The overpowering stench made him instinctively pull back. He struggled, trying to peel the hand off his eyes to see what Wei Xilou was forcing him to eat.

But that hand was way stronger than his. He couldn't budge it, so he just turned his face away in refusal: "What are you feeding me?"

The thing didn't just stink—when it touched his lips, Xu Muchan felt it pulsing faintly, like... like a heart.

Wei Xilou didn't answer. He flipped Xu Muchan onto his back, and more hands shot out, pinning down his arms and legs so he couldn't fight. Two more hands cupped his face to keep it steady. Then he bit into the still-beating heart, grabbed Xu Muchan's jaw, forced his mouth open, leaned in, and fed it to him mouth-to-mouth.

The bitten heart was still twitching. It slid down his throat into his stomach, and the effect hit right away. A weird hunger surged up inside Xu Muchan. His body moved on its own, long fangs pushing past his lips as he bit down hard on Wei Xilou's mouth like some starving young animal.

Wei Xilou let out a soft hiss, pulled back a little, and patted him gently, pressing the still-beating heart to his lips: "No rush. It's all yours, Achan."

Pulled in by the weird smell, Xu Muchan wolfed it down in big bites.

Wei Xilou watched without blinking. When Xu Muchan finished and licked his lips like he still wanted more, he wiped the corner of his mouth with his thumb and smiled: "Good?"

Xu Muchan's sanity slowly came back. Realizing what he'd just eaten, he instinctively felt sick. He shook his head frantically, trying to wrench himself free from Wei Xilou's hold.

But they were way too mismatched. Wei Xilou wouldn't let go, and no matter how hard he struggled, it was useless.

Wei Xilou leaned down and licked the leftover liquid from the corner of his mouth, then said, almost regretfully: "Time's up. Achan should head back now. This isn't where you belong."

Right as he spoke, the roar of rushing water filled the air.

It was like a wall of river water came crashing in from every side, flooding the cramped coffin.

Xu Muchan felt the ground under him lurch violently—like they weren't on solid ground anymore, but floating on the river. The coffin had turned into a little boat, rocking as the current carried it along to who knows where.

And the whole time, Wei Xilou kept his hand over Xu Muchan's eyes, and later covered his ears too.

Xu Muchan couldn't see or hear anything. All he could feel was a bunch of arms holding him tight, Wei Xilou's cold, smooth skin pressed up against him, and the wet, forked tongue having come out again, sometimes grazing his neck and sliding along his veins. But Xu Muchan wasn't so scared anymore.

Through all the violent rocking, he even felt a heavy drowsiness creep over him.

But just as he was about to drift off, Wei Xilou's voice pulled him back: "We're here."

Xu Muchan felt like someone had shoved him. He stumbled forward a step, and his squeezed-shut eyes slowly opened. He realized he wasn't in the coffin anymore—he was standing in the Wei residence.

Not the creepy Wei house from the third year of the Republic era, but the silent Wei residence inside the main tomb chamber.

Xu Muchan looked around, confused, and realized this place was exactly like the Wei residence from the Republican era—almost a perfect miniature copy.

He was so thrown off that he couldn't tell if everything before had been an illusion, or if he'd really gone back in time and met Wei Xilou before he ascended.

Maybe because he knew this place so well by now, Xu Muchan instinctively headed for the courtyard with the wooden tower.

As he stepped into the courtyard, the first thing he saw was a familiar figure. Xu Muchan's eyes went wide, and he ran over in big strides: "Brother!"

Wei Xilou turned around. Seeing the look on his face—like he was about to cry—he reached out to catch him, studying him carefully from head to toe. He smiled and said, "Looks like Achan got that thing. You feeling okay?"

Xu Muchan stood there, mouth open, staring at him. It took him a long moment to say, "I think I went back to the Wei residence in the past, and I saw you... back then, you were still just a normal person."

When he said "normal person," Xu Muchan's voice trailed off, getting quieter and quieter.

Clearly, no matter when it was, Wei Xilou never seemed all that normal—or even all that human.

Xu Muchan bit his lip, staring hard at Wei Xilou.

But Wei Xilou didn't look surprised at all. Instead, he said, "Maybe it's the Black River. This place was originally built as a yin house modeled on the old Wei estate, and with the underground Black River acting up again, a brief meeting of yin and yang is only natural."

Xu Muchan's brow slowly knitted. None of what his brother was saying was what he wanted to hear. He grabbed Wei Xilou's arm, squeezing hard: "After I came back, what happened?"

According to the Wei family records, the main branch in Yundong was wiped out, and only Wei Ting and Wei Xilou got out alive.

But that clearly wasn't the whole story. Before Xu Muchan left, Wei Xilou was already not human anymore. So why would he have taken Wei Ting and run?

There were too many things that didn't add up.

Wei Xilou sighed, but Xu Muchan had a look that said, "If you don't tell me the truth, don't expect me to let go." He had no choice but to compromise: "I only just remembered it myself. Achan, let go of me first, and I'll tell you slowly."

Xu Muchan looked at him with doubt, as if afraid that the moment he let go, Wei Xilou would disappear.

Wei Xilou smiled, took his hand and held it, casually picked up a pointed shovel from the ground with the other hand, thrust it hard into the earth, then twisted it around before pulling it out. A stream of black-red water bubbled up from the hole.

"What is this?"

Xu Muchan frowned as he observed, somewhat puzzled: "Is this... Black Taisui?"

But he quickly dismissed that guess. The black-red water felt familiar to him, yet it was different from the Black River he remembered seeing.

"It's a tributary of the Black River, and it's been contaminated."

Wei Xilou explained, casually tossing the shovel aside and pulling Xu Muchan away from the black-red stream: "An ancestor of the Wei family was once a sorcerer. He was extraordinarily gifted, using the Wei family's vast wealth to amass texts and secret arts from every school and sect, then organized and fused them, mastering and internalizing them. He was the one who discovered this tributary of the Black River."

"For reasons unknown, he used a formation to trap this tributary, preventing it from merging with the main current of the Black River. He then built the Wei mansion atop it to suppress it, and the Ascension Tower was also constructed at that time, used for sacrifices and prayers to the Black River."

"But a genius like that appears only once in a generation. No matter how formidable the Wei ancestors were, they were still only mortal. It's said that he was over one hundred and ninety years old when he died, and since no new genius had emerged in the Wei family by then, no one could carry on his legacy, and he died full of regret."

"After his death, the Wei family continued on. According to the ancestral instructions he left behind, the Wei family was to sacrifice to the Black River for generations to ensure the family's prosperity. If things had continued that way, the Wei family might have endured forever. But people are always too greedy—after great wealth and honor, they want power too."

Human desire gave birth to the Five Wild Gods. The descendants of the Wei family, seeking lasting fortune and prosperity, began to worship the Five Wild Gods for generations, making them ever more powerful.

But the Five Wild Gods were greedy and wicked by nature. They fulfilled the Wei family's wishes, yet they would also exact a corresponding price in secret.

The Wei family suffered the backlash.

First, strange things started happening more and more around the house. People who were normal during the day would suddenly transform at night into bloodthirsty, man-eating monsters. And many more, though they didn't turn into cannibalistic monsters, gradually grew animal features on their bodies.

The Wei family consulted their ancestor's journals and spent a fortune to seek out experts from near and far, finally determining that this was the retribution from worshipping the Five Wild Gods.

The Five Wild Gods were no longer satisfied with the Wei family's offerings. Having grown stronger, they wanted to turn the entire Wei family into their servants, to be used and fed more blood sacrifices.

The Wei family of course refused to accept their fate.

Fortunately, the Wei family had accumulated wealth over countless generations. Chest after chest of gold and silver was thrown around, attracting a parade of so-called experts, both real and fake.

Putting their heads together, they concluded that the Five Wild Gods had grown so powerful because the strange water vein trapped underground by the Wei ancestor had been nourishing them. To get rid of the Five Wild Gods, they'd first have to break the formation trapping the water.

But this underground water vein was the very foundation of the Wei family's prosperity. If it were released, the Wei family might fall into decline.

The head of the Wei family at the time was Wei Xilou's grandfather. Naturally, he was unwilling to see the Wei family, which had prospered for countless generations, fall into ruin on his watch, so he delayed making a decision.

And just then, Madam Wei gave birth to a baby boy, named Wei Xilou.

Coincidentally, a Daoist practitioner was staying with the Wei family at the time and immediately recognized the child as Heaven-born.

Sometimes things just line up like that. That exceptionally talented ancestor of the Wei family had also been a Heaven-born child.

According to his journals, a Heaven-born child is born with innate knowledge and a pure spiritual body—the constitution closest to gods and immortals. If bathed from childhood in Taisui water to purify the body, one might ascend to immortality.

The so-called Taisui water was exactly the black water trapped beneath the Wei mansion.

When he recorded that passage, he seemed rather regretful—he himself had only found the Taisui water in middle age, having missed the opportunity for ascension.

Old Master Wei couldn't bear to give up the family's generations of wealth, and after reading the ancestor's journal, he came up with the idea of using the Heaven-born child to ascend and replace the Five Wild Gods.

Xu Muchan immediately thought of the "tonic soup" Wei Xilou had been drinking: "So that's why they gave you those things?"

But there still seemed to be something off—the "tonic soup" Wei Xilou drank didn't seem to match Black Taisui.

As if sensing his confusion, Wei Xilou continued: "Ordinary people cannot consume Black Taisui directly, and even a Heaven-born child is no exception. Eating Black Taisui recklessly would either drive you insane or get you absorbed into it, becoming part of it."

So the Wei family had people study it over and over, then improved and diluted the Taisui water.

After Wei Xilou consumed it, he indeed showed no adverse effects. Instead, he grew smarter by the day, and had a spiritual aura that other children lacked. The Wei family thought they were on the right path.

It wasn't until Wei Xilou turned fifteen that his body could no longer withstand the Taisui water and broke down for the first time.

The Wei family watched as Wei Xilou's body became covered in writhing fleshy lumps, his features shifting out of place, his limbs twisting like a monster's. They fled in terror, and even Wei Xilou's own parents were no different.

That first collapse took Wei Xilou a full month to recover.

After that, he moved to the western courtyard by himself.

He continued to take the "tonic soup" regularly, and his body continued to break down from time to time, and each time it took him a long while to recover.

Gradually, he became known among the Wei family as the young master with unpredictable moods. When people spoke of him, their respectful tones hid deep fear.

However, as he grew older, Wei Xilou gained more and more control over his body. Usually, episodes only appeared on the days he took the "tonic soup." But along with that came the gradual fading of his human emotions.

Many times, looking at the Wei family, he felt like he was watching moths fly into a flame—watching them cling to foolish, unrealistic hopes, trying to use one monster to replace another to keep the Wei family rich and prosperous forever.

They even hoped the younger generation of the Wei family would get on good terms with him, so that after he ascended, he would bless them better.

But the result was obvious.

Ascending to immortality in the flesh was nothing but a lie, and the Wei family knew nothing about gods and immortals.

Wei Xilou did ascend—he devoured the Five Wild Gods and took their place as the new deity. But he was not the kind of protective god the Wei family had hoped for.

"After that, you know the rest. The Wei family was wiped out in a single night, and only Wei Ting escaped." Wei Xilou spoke of these old matters in a flat tone.

But Xu Muchan thought it over and felt something was missing: "Why was Wei Ting the only one who escaped? And why did he take you with him when he ran?"

And most importantly, according to Wei Yao, Wei Xilou was conscious at the time. He had followed Wei Ting to Jiangcheng and died of illness shortly after.

That clearly didn't make sense either.

Xu Muchan looked at Wei Xilou, but Wei Xilou shrugged casually: "The memories I've recovered don't include that part, so it probably isn't important. I've forgotten all these old matters—why should Achan care?"

Xu Muchan cared a lot. He glared at Wei Xilou, and seeing that Wei Xilou not only didn't care but was casually playing with his hair, he immediately snatched his hair back from Wei Xilou's fingers.

Wei Xilou regretfully rubbed his fingertips, and seeing that Xu Muchan was still frowning in thought, said: "Doesn't Achan want to see something else? This tomb was actually built by the Wei family long ago. Half of the wealth the Wei family accumulated over generations is hidden here. Want me to take you to see it?"

Xu Muchan was still lost in thought and didn't really hear what he said. Taking his hand, Wei Xilou led him along, and Xu Muchan followed instinctively.

But after they'd taken only a few steps, a dull "thud" suddenly echoed from the wooden tower behind them.

Xu Muchan snapped out of it and turned to look at the tower: "There's something in the tower?"

Wei Xilou thought about it for a moment, then said: "Probably a rat."

Xu Muchan didn't believe it at all. He pulled his hand free and approached the wooden tower. Peering inside, he saw the missing Liu Gaoming and the rest.

They couldn't really be called human anymore.

Zhou Yi had a rooster's head on his shoulders; Liu Gaoming's exposed skin was covered in coarse brown fur; Shi Lei's eyes had turned into vertical slits like a snake's, and his exposed skin was covered in snake scales; and the Qian brothers, Qian Kun and Qian Kan—one had become a yellow dog with a human head, the other a horse-headed man.

Xu Muchan: "..."

He turned to ask Wei Xilou, who had followed him over: "Why did they turn into the Five Wild Gods?"

Wei Xilou said, "The Five Wild Gods were born from human desire. They can't be completely killed. These people got greedy after entering the tomb and touching the treasures, so naturally the Five Wild Gods possessed them."

Xu Muchan frowned: "So what do we do now? We can't exactly send them to a hospital like this, can we?"

Wei Xilou, however, couldn't be bothered: "They're in this line of work themselves. They broke the rules out of greed, so now they've brought it on their own heads. Don't worry about them."

Xu Muchan said, "But you're the one who hired them. If something happens, and their families call the police, won't the police come looking for you?"

Wei Xilou was even more nonchalant: "Old Man Wei found them. If anyone's looking, they'll come after the Wei family."

Xu Muchan: "..."

In the end, at Xu Muchan's insistence, Wei Xilou made a phone call to someone or other. Before long, a group of people arrived and hauled out the five who could no longer be recognized as human.

Judging by their calm expressions, they seemed quite accustomed to this kind of thing.

Xu Muchan grew even more puzzled. He felt that Wei Xilou—this non-human who had only just gotten his ID card—seemed far more familiar with the rules behind the scenes than he was.

Wei Xilou didn't know what he was thinking. With the troubles resolved, he took Xu Muchan's hand again and led him deeper: "The Wei family has accumulated quite a few good things. Achan, take a look—if you find something you like, pick it out, and I'll have someone take care of the rest."

Xu Muchan said he wasn't interested, but when he actually saw the gold, silver, and treasures piled up in the underground storeroom, his jaw dropped in shock.

The wealth the Wei family had amassed over generations was nothing to sneeze at, even by today's standards.

Xu Muchan looked at the chests of gold and silver, and the antiques of unknown age but clearly valuable, and whispered, "These... don't we have to hand them over to the government?"

Wei Xilou looked down at him: "These are the Wei family's things. Why would we hand them over, and to whom?"

Xu Muchan: "..."

Fine then.

He shut his mouth and followed Wei Xilou around the entire underground storeroom. After taking it all in, he came out without taking anything.

Wei Xilou seemed a bit displeased: "The Wei family's things are indeed a bit tacky. It's no surprise Achan doesn't think much of them."

"..." Xu Muchan really didn't have the energy to explain, so he just let that assumption stand.

Then Wei Xilou added, "I heard from Old Man Wei that the good stuff is all in museums now. Achan, if you like something, we can go take a look another day."

Xu Muchan, afraid he'd follow up with "If you fancy something, I'll get it for you," quickly changed the subject: "Brother! I'm a bit tired. How about we head out first? If there's still time, I'd like to go back to the Mountain God Cave."

Wei Xilou indeed stopped dwelling on good or bad things and went along with him: "We have plenty of time. I'll have someone prepare the car."