Wandering Gods of Day and Night-Chapter 79 - 76 Phalanges
79: Chapter 76: Phalanges
79 -76: Phalanges
Zhou Lingyi returned to her room; she didn’t rush to look for Li Shuangyi.
It would not be easy to find him anyway.
Actors, in terms of combat capability, are not exceptional.
However, their “White Paper Play” not only allows them to create fake figures out of paper but also to cast spells on themselves, concealing the presence of ghosts.
Furthermore, with their face-changing skills, they can disguise themselves as someone else.
With these two techniques, they become very difficult to be found.
If too much of a ruckus is made, it might alarm the enemy.
“The one who actually took away your brother’s soul was Third Senior Brother?”
Shadow couldn’t believe it, but since Zhou Lingyi had confirmed it unequivocally, she didn’t doubt it.
After all, Zhou Lingyi would never falsely accuse Li Shuangyi without being absolutely sure.
“So what if it was him who took away the soul?
I also support Third Senior Brother!
Haha, such a famous actor, but your brother ruined him.
This vengeance, Third Senior Brother should indeed seek!”
Shadow stated her position.
“I never said Third Senior Brother shouldn’t seek revenge…
but Third Senior Brother doesn’t seem like the type to focus solely on revenge.
I always feel that there are some ulterior-motived people, using Third Senior Brother, and their true goal is to target our Zhou Family’s Troupe.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know?”
Shadow took the initiative and said, “In the next two days, I will follow Third Senior Brother and expose the people behind him, to help him redeem himself…”
Zhou Lingyi tilted her head towards Shadow, making her feel uneasy.
“Why are you looking at me like that?
To be honest, you owe Third Senior Brother, and the Class Leader owes him too.
Me helping him redeem himself is to repay the debt you and your grandfather owe.”
“What I mean is you act too impulsively.
You are no match for Third Senior Brother in wits.
Don’t meddle in this, I have other arrangements.”
Zhou Lingyi waved her hand, indicating for Shadow to leave.
She propped her head up, pondering who could be the mole in Zhou Family’s Troupe helping Li Shuangyi to capture souls?
The other Senior Brothers?
She thought that was unlikely.
Lao Wu and Lao Shi were not possible, and after her investigation, First Senior Brother and Second Senior Brother didn’t seem abnormal either.
Could the mole be one of the masters, or perhaps, one of the apprentices?
But this person was also skilled at hiding their presence.
To force them out would be too difficult.
“Might as well wait for the hare at the stump!”
Zhou Lingyi thought, if she just kept tabs on Li Shuangyi, the mole would surface within a few days.
…
“Thank you, Young Master.
May the Young Master be lucky.”
Little Fuzi held in his hand a mix of small and large change, totaling around one hundred twenty to thirty yuan.
Since Yuan Buyu pointed out Zhou Xuan’s skill with Dream Generation and the Five Candle Incense, he became even more passionate about it, practicing non-stop with Little Fuzi until four-thirty in the afternoon.
Little Fuzi was initially afraid of the bizarre occurrences in the dreams, but once he embraced the strangeness, he found the bizarre dreams to be fun and thrilling.
Moreover after every dream session, he would receive a small incentive of three yuan, adding even more to the fun!
“That’s enough training for today, Fuzi.
Go help me set up the storyteller’s platform, move the tables into place.
I’m going to take a bath.
I’ll start storytelling earlier today.”
“Aye.” Little Fuzi quickly agreed and turned to leave.
“You don’t want the hardship allowance?” Zhou Xuan took out twenty yuan to hand to Little Fuzi.
“You’ve given me plenty, Young Master.
I can’t take any more.”
Little Fuzi grinned honestly, hitched up his loose trousers, and ran towards the direction of the Ancestor Tree.
“Ah, Fuzi is quite easily satisfied.”
Zhou Xuan returned to his room, picked up clean clothes, and, carrying a basin, headed towards the bathhouse.
As he passed by the boiler room,
he saw Lao Ma, the boiler tender, nestled next to the stove, wearing a thick coat and hunched over.
“Lao Ma, it’s so hot today, I’m sweating just being outside, yet you’re still huddled by the stove?”
“Young Master, I’m trying to sweat it out.” Lao Ma smiled, rolling up his left sleeve high.
On his arm were strings and strings of bodhi seeds, small walnuts, and even canine teeth – all playthings strung together.
“It’s all about rolling them, mainly relying on the oil from the skin to seep into the beads, making the strand look glossy.
When a person sweats, more oil comes out, and the beads shine brighter.”
“”
Lao Ma explained.
“You’re still a trinket worm,” Zhou Xuan fanned in front of his nose with his hand.
Lao Ma must have been drinking recently; as soon as he opened his mouth, the smell of alcohol was overpowering.
“I play with everything, let me show you something new.”
Lao Ma, feeling the effects of alcohol, wanted to show off and pulled out a bone ring strung on a red cord from inside his collar, flashed it, and asked Zhou Xuan, “See anything?”
“This ring, it doesn’t look like an animal bone.”
The bone of the ring was snow-white and dense, unlike the roughness of animal bones.
“Some eye you have, this is made from the cochleate bone of a human foot.
The people in the Snow Plain Prefecture to the west like playing with bones, enjoy making them into bracelets, trinkets, and the bones they choose are particular, not just any person’s bones—they want monk bones.
Look at this one, it’s cut from the thigh…
this one, the middle piece of the cranial cap…”
One by one, Lao Ma took them out and even offered them to Zhou Xuan to “appraise.”
Zhou Xuan just felt ill-fortune and stood up to leave: “Good grief, with all these skulls, thigh bones, and big toes around you, you could almost assemble a person.
Stop messing with this stuff; it’s bad mojo!
I’m off to take a bath, see you later.”
He continued toward the bathhouse with his basin, wondering as he walked, “Something feels off about this boiler room!”
What was off?
Zhou Xuan always felt it was too quiet here.
Zhou Family’s Troupe was a Netherworld Play Troupe, a place for performing plays for the deceased.
Wandering souls and ghosts drifted around everywhere; with his Perception, he could sporadically hear “ghostly wails and soulful cries,” but curiously, not around the boiler room.
Thinking this, he looked back one more time, saw nothing amiss except the furnace fire burning fiercely, and thought—perhaps the fire was too intense, scaring away the wandering lesser ghosts.
…
After watching Zhou Xuan leave, Lao Ma let out a sigh of relief and moved his stool closer to the fire.
He had drunk in the afternoon, and the alcohol buzz was now hitting hard on top of the intense heat of the fire, making his stomach quite uncomfortable, causing him to vomit a great heap of food residue.
The filth and stench spread on the ground.
Suddenly tense, Lao Ma picked up the coal shovel and shoveled the mess onto the small cart used for coal ash.
In the filth lying atop the coal ash, there were even segments of ghastly white matter—if one looked closely, they would find…
they were human finger bones.
Lao Ma repeatedly shoveled the coal ash in the cart, covering the finger bones with it, then wheeled the cart out to dump the ash.
“Alcohol is not a good thing; drank too much and nearly caused a mishap.”
Lao Ma muttered to himself.
…
At 5:30 in the afternoon, Zhou Xuan began his storytelling performance.
Normally at this time, the canteen was bustling, as it was the mealtime for Zhou Family’s Troupe, but today it was unusually quiet.
Masters and disciples grabbed their meals and ran to the courtyard to enjoy the show.
The most enthusiastic were Lv Mingkun and his fellow disciples from Jingyi Room, who always worked at night and were hearing the storytelling in all its freshness for the first time today.
After hearing the announcement from the loudspeaker, “The Young Master is about to tell stories,” they raced to the bathhouse, washed up, and then neatly sat down in two rows in the courtyard, isolating an invisible private box with no one around.
No help for it, the people from Jingyi Room dealt with bodies daily, their bone-deep stench unaffected by washing, leaving a subtle but unsettling odor to those close by.
However, Lv Mingkun and the others, accustomed to being ostracized, ignored the surrounding whispers and happily listened to the storytelling.
“The last chapter ended with Chi Xuzi drunkenly losing his treasure axe, and the heroes tracking it to the Jiuheng Palace…”
With a smack of the gavel, Zhou Xuan silenced the murmuring audience, who quieted down to listen to the story.
Zhou Lingyi, as usual, brought a stool to listen to the story, occasionally glancing around, although they had settled on a “wait and see” strategy, finding the mole sooner would, of course, be better.
“Ah!
Who could this person be, not a hint of a clue to be found.” Zhou Lingyi, having gained nothing, could only close her eyes and rest.
…
“To find out what happens next, tune in for the following chapter…”
Zhou Xuan prepared only three chapters for today, finished them off, collected his gavel and folded fan and ran inside the house, truly fearing the overenthusiasm of the troupe members.
A slow exit and the whole courtyard crowd would press around him, clamoring for another chapter, which he genuinely couldn’t provide.
No sooner had he returned to his room than Yuan Buyu rushed in, asking, “Xuan, have you burned the six-inch incense yet?”
Zhou Xuan entered the Secret Realm, took a quick look and replied, “There’s some surplus even after the six inches burned down.”
“Come, remember well the appearance of our founding Master, and have a dream filled with the presence of God.”
Yuan Buyu closed his eyes, waiting for Zhou Xuan to generate a dream.
