Chapter 235: Hidden Bodies
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Wen Shulin did not talk nonsense either. He got back on his feet and measured the distance between him and Chang Li’s face with his hands. He then scrutinized her gaze and his face slowly filled with concentration. Finally, he scribbled some equations on the ground and muttered to himself for some time. After a long while, he heaved a sigh and confidently said, “Pickle jar!”
Unexpectedly, Chang Li glared at him, “You have to do a telling for even this!? Everyone under the heavens knows that! Foretell something that only I know!”
Wen Shulin’s face was full of sorrow as he muttered softly, “I don’t even know what I’ll be able to foretell beforehand…” Although he had said this, he dared not stay idle as he started calculating again. This time, he got the results of the ancient cave. The third time was Qilian Mountain’s Exquisite Ice. The fourth, the fifth… until when it was indiscernible whether it was the ninth or the tenth time, Wen Shulin carefully said two numbers, “A hundred and thirty thousand eighty-eight?”
Chang Li, who was covering her mouth as she yawned, was suddenly stunned. She cheered as she nodded, “Not bad! That’s more like it!” She then waved her wrist in front of Wen Leyang. A beautiful golden bracelet shone brightly on her wrist under the mottled sunlight in the Red Leaves Forest, dazzling Wen Leyang’s eyes.
Grand Elder Wen was astounded, “A bracelet? Just this little bit of gold is that expensive?”
Chang Li made a ‘you don’t know anything and I am too lazy to explain it to you’ face. She then reached out and plucked the jade knife from Wen Leyang’s chest. She waved it in front of Wen Shulin as she challenged, “This time, calculate about this!”
Wen Shulin did not take too much time before he said confidently, “Mount Hua!”
Guo Huan did not understand what was happening when Chang Li nodded with a smile, “That’s right, this old demon’s immortal’s cave is on Mount Hua!”
Wen Tunhai frowned from the side as he pointed at Wen Shulin and scolded, “Stop being deliberately mystifying! If you had derived that Guo Huan’s immortal’s cave is on Mount Hua, then just say so. You only said two words, ‘Mount Hua’, do you truly take yourself as a blind teller who cherishes every word as if it was gold?”
Wen Shulin had no nose but that did not stop him from making an expression as if he had suffered the utmost outrage, “That’s how I calculate! If I’m calculating about the jade knife, then the thing which I can tell will definitely be connected to the jade knife somehow. However, as for what that connection is, I don’t know myself! From the jade knife’s measurements and the lengths of the few cracks, I only managed to derive two words, ‘Mount Hua’. I don’t even know what connections there were between Mount Hua and the jade knife!”
Chang Li stretched as she ignored Guo Huan’s surprised exclamations. She then pointed at the corpses which had been buried under the ground by Wen Shulin as she returned to the topic, “First, tell us what happened here!”
Wen Shulin hastily nodded but he ended up mumbling for a long while without being able to speak a full sentence. Fourth Elder Wen sneered from the side and crossed his arms with a gaze which was even more venomous than a poisonous snake’s. He stared at him coldly as he said, “Say what you must, Grand Elder had said that your sin does not warrant death!”
Wen Leyang finally understood why Grand Elder Wen had acted out of character.
Grand Elder Wen knows that Wen Leyang was looking at him. He turned and gave him a smile that was too profound to be understood. The laugh lines on the edges of his lips were somewhat sinister!
Wen Shulin finally managed to calm himself down, “You guys have also witnessed just now that I can tell the world’s situation but I don’t know what the context of the telling will be in. After all these years in the Red Leaves Forest, I had not derived anything useful. I must have some measures for my own protection…” As he was saying this, he pointed at the magic spell which had been broken by Xiaowu, it was the piece of bone that was lying on the ground.
When he had wandered during his youth, he had derived an unnamed mountain cave on a big mountain once. It was unknown if it had been left behind by an obscure cultivator a thousand or ten thousand years ago. In the cave were some bones inscribed with an ancient script. These were all refined objects and once some life vitality was added to it, the talisman’s seal scripts would activate, transforming the inscribed bones into corpses which listened to the spellcaster’s commands. Wen Shulin also knows the Art of Disguise which was how he had come up with this rotten idea.
His contingency plan was, if the Wen family was to find out that he was an imposter one day, he would activate these fake zombies and put on a show of moving corpses. The Wen family disciples would naturally not dare to fight the bodies of their ancestors. When the time comes, he could escape with his life under the protection of these bone puppets.
Wen Leyang was amused and enraged. Only obscure cultivators who do not know about the world’s affairs would conjure up such a stupid idea. Although the Wen family were not cultivators, their Art of Poison was unpredictable. If they wanted to kill a person with poison amongst a bunch of other people, even a random Death Trademark’s disciple could do it, let alone experienced people such as the Wen elders.
Chang Li frowned, “You’re a cultivator so you must have some cultivation skills, correct?”
Wen Shulin nodded, “That’s true, I had self-protection life vitality before this. Otherwise, how could I have secretly switched that many dead men from the Life Trademark… All the bodies of the ancestors! At that time, I had brought those bone talismans into the Red Leaves Forest and secretly switched the bodies all for this moment! I wanted to disperse all the acc.u.mulated life vitality I had cultivated over all these years and after I have dispersed my life vitality, I’m no different from a normal person!” He smiled helplessly as he said this, “Just look at me now! If I still had my skills, I wouldn’t have to carry out so many unnecessary actions. Even the elites of this world won’t be able to stop me that easily.”
Before Chang Li could reply, the little girl Xiaowu has also huddled close to them. Her clear eyes were filled with questions, “Why did you disperse your life vitality?”
Whether it was cultivators from the Mountain Sect, World Sect, obscure cultivators or the rogue cultivators, all were universally afraid that they had too little life vitality. They cultivated their life and still felt that time was not enough. They would never have behaved like Wen Shulin who had dissipated his life vitality for no reason. Moreover, he had also chosen to hide in such a dangerous location such as the Place of Birth, Life, Sickness, and Death.
Wen Shulin shook his head at the little girl and smiled bitterly, “I cultivate in heaven-telling, it’s different from your Art of Heaven’s Cultivation. For the so-called onlookers, I had wanted to calculate about the world so naturally, I would have to wander in the world. Besides those cultivation skills, what was important was also to follow heaven’s path and be in harmony with nature. The stronger the force of my life vitality was, the greater it affects my calculations! I had reached that conclusion a few dozen years ago which was why I had prepared such an escape route secretly. After that, I then dissipated the life vitality I had cultivated!”
He had transformed the bones which had been cast with an Art of Devilry by someone else into zombie-like monsters. He then used his Art of Disguise to make the monsters look like the bodies of the Wen ancestors. Finally, he used Taoist magic and sealed the real ancestors’ bodies before burying them in a pit he had dug.
Before Wen Shulin completely dissipated his life vitality, he had seized the opportunity when Fourth Elder Wen left the Red Leaves Forest to accomplish all those things. For dozens of years, he had deceived everyone and n.o.body had ever noticed the switch.
Wen Tunhai spoke again with a frown, “If you’re an imposter, where’s the real Wen Shulin?” As he said this, a maliciousness seeped out between his brows, “Did you kill that old man?”
The fake Wen Shulin was astonished and he hastily shook his head, “I’ve never killed anyone. The real Wen Shulin had died more than thirty years ago. I first met him on the Nine Peaks Mountain, he had lost his footing and fell from a cliff. When I reached him, he was barely breathing and was beyond help. Before he died, I asked his name and background. I then cast the Art of Disguise and changed into his appearance. I also took the antidote for the prohibition spell. After I had buried him, I acted like I was heavily wounded and lay on the ground.”
After the fake Wen Shulin had finished speaking, he paused for a moment before he smiled with embarra.s.sment at First Uncle, “You had entered the Red Leaves Forest to cultivate more than thirty years ago. At that time… I was already Wen Shulin.”
When Fourth Elder Wen heard this, he lowered his head and thought about it deeply before he nodded slowly, “Sometimes, the men of the Life Trademark will enter the mountain to harvest some Cold Corpse Herb which can subdue Yin and block Yang energies. There was this one time when Wen Shulin had almost fallen to his death when he was outside but was later rescued by the Death Trademark.”
The fake Wen Shulin quickly chimed in, “Not almost, he did die. The moment he stopped breathing, I immediately took his place. At that time, I still had some life vitality to protect myself so it was not too difficult to fool a few men from the Death Trademark.”
Whether Wen Shulin’s words were true or false, the scheming elders would be the judges. Wen Leyang, however, has been frowning all this while as he pondered intently about this old man’s method of practice which was rumored to be able to tell everything under the heavens.
The method of practice of the Heaven-Telling Sect does have its own unique points. It would not be an overkill to describe it as unimaginable. However, this strange art was also not as mysterious as Wei Mo had made it out to be.
Firstly, one could not calculate everything nor could one set the question first before finding out the result. One could only calculate based on their surroundings and the objects that they have. If one was in Tianjin City, one could definitely not calculate how many unmarried women there were in Baiyun Mountain Airport.
Secondly, the teller doing the calculations does not know what kind of things they would be able to calculate. Even if they had gone to the actual site of Guangzhou Baiyun Mountain Airport, the results of their calculation might not necessarily be the number of unmarried women. Maybe, even after half a day’s worth of calculations, they could only calculate three words – ‘pot’, ‘roast’, ‘beef’.
Thirdly, n.o.body knows what kind of connection there was between the object calculated and the results. Even if they had managed to derive the words ‘pot roast beef’ at Baiyun Mountain Airport, it could have been the staff’s meal for that day, or that a cow had been hit by a large truck which was transporting rocks when Baiyun Mountain Airport had been under construction and that cow was then subsequently made into pot roast beef. The point was, pot roast beef definitely has some connection to the Baiyun Mountain Airport but n.o.body could really tell what that actual connection was.
Wei Mo had only known how to derive big numbers back then, he completely did not understand the calculation for small matters. Naturally, he believed in what he desired and he thought that he could derive the minute matters of the world’s situation as long as he could find the right way. He had even exaggerated his Martial Uncle into a living G.o.d. Wen Shulin had dabbled in this field for many years now so he knows it better than anyone else that the art in which he had cultivated was at most, a self-entertaining past time. This was why he had dispersed all his life vitality and tried hard to extract himself from the world and nature with the hopes that his accuracy could be improved. He had then made all those actions to prepare his escape.
The fake corpses would lie in the Life Trademark and not move at normal times. When the moment was ripe, they would obey Wen Shulin’s commands and turn into moving corpses to cover his escape.
However, Wen Shulin himself never expected that when he was exposed, the ones who had come for him were not only the people of the Wen family but there was the addition of the little girl Xiaowu who had appeared from out of nowhere and seen through the act of the moving corpses in one glance. When he saw that the entire Wen family was torn with grief, he understood that he would be found out sooner or later. Instead of waiting for his death, he had chosen to give himself up so that he might be treated with more mercy. The only thing was, it was unknown whether the words of ‘leniency to those who confess’ could be found in the Wen family’s interrogation room on the Nine Peaks Mountain.
Wen Shulin had been living in fear all these years. He had done his calculations within the Red Leaves Forest but the results he had obtained had been either useless or befuddling even to him. In the end, there was only one useful information which was that Wei Mo would also come to the Nine Peaks Mountain one day.
Hence, Wen Shulin had seized the opportunity when the Wen family village had undergone a huge renovation thirty years ago and secretly altered the Wen family’s set-up so that Wei Mo could never be able to calculate anything here. Although Wen Shulin had hidden deep within the Red Leaves Forest, he was still an obscure cultivator who was ignorant of how the world worked. His thoughts were always on what he desired so he had secretly changed the Wen family’s set-up but also revealed himself in the process.
As for the fact that the Wen family had discovered his tracks and was contemplating on how to capture him, he had no way of calculating that and had completely no idea. Half a year ago, when Wen Leyang had said that he was going to hold a wedding reception, he had salivated for a few days. When he heard that it had been canceled, the old man had even felt upset about it.
Wen Shulin no longer has a nose so it was strenuous for him to talk. However, in order to get on their good sides, he still tried hard with all his might. After he finished telling them about his method of practice and all his actions in the Wen family during the past few decades, he then sat on the ground and panted with his shriveled mouth. He smiled bitterly at the others as he said, “I had hidden in Red Leaves Forest to look for peace. I’ve never thought of harming anyone nor did I dare to harm the Place of Birth, Life, Sickness, and Death in any way…”
He had not finished speaking when Fourth Elder Wen’s eyes reddened again. The fake corpses were still squalling and moving about inside the circle drawn by Chang Li as if they were dancing in a masquerade. The ancestors’ bodies which had originally laid inside the wooden house, safe from wind and rain, had been thrown into a pit in the ground but, nevertheless, Wen Shulin still had a resentful expression on his face.
After this, the people from the Life Trademark moved the bodies of their ancestors back into the wooden house. After the fake zombies had been taken care of, Fourth Elder Wen then sent a few men to tell the people outside that all was well. He also invited the heads of the Miao and the Luo families in. Shortly after, noisy footsteps sounded as the two Luo family elders, Mumu, Ah Dan, Qing Miao’s Second Mother, and little Chi Maojiu walked into the Place of Birth, Life, Sickness, and Death under the escort of the Wen family disciples.
The Wen family’s golden remedy had some magical effects. Wen Shulin’s nose was no longer throbbing with pain. If he was willing, he could even blow blood bubbles out of the holes…
When everyone was present, Grand Elder Wen looked at Wen Shulin again and asked in a low voice, “What do the ‘big flat cake, broken gong, and the dog’ mean?”
Wen Shulin was temporarily stunned as he heard this before he scratched loudly on his head. His expression was hesitant as if he does not know where he should start his story from. Chang Li reminded him with a smile, “Start from the beginning, it’s okay if you’re slow, just make sure that you tell it all!”
Wen Shulin nodded hastily. He recalled his memories with a pained expression and relayed the events as they had happened.
Wen Shulin was one of the Heaven-Telling Sect’s disciples who had the best natural endowments. It was precisely because of his rather good natural endowments that he saw his abilities were completely useless in trying to derive the big numbers. He would have to spend a few decades to derive big events before he could even manage to get a result. If his technique was to be applied to the world, even a heaven-shocking and earth-shaking world war would have long ended before he finished his calculations. Hence, he only wanted to calculate the small numbers of the world’s affairs. In the end, he had quarreled with his Martial Brother the Supreme Leader and left Mount Emei in a fit of rage. He then entered the world and dabbled in the so-called calculation of small numbers.
With his skills, if he wanted to make a living, the best career option was to become a fortune-teller. However, he had almost starved to death during the first few years. Ha only understood later on that fortune-telling and calculations were two very different things. If it was a job, then he needed some packaging as well. He also acted like a true fortune-teller where he cherished every word as if they were gold. He set a rule for himself to never say more than three words. No matter how much he was paid, he would only say three words in the end. As for the subsequent matters after the three words, it was up to the client to interpret them.
The others listened intently and waited for him to carry on. However, Chang Li interrupted him with a smile, “Three words each time? What if you had a two-word or four-word result?”
Wen Shulin chuckled, “Adding or subtracting a word or two is always easy. If my result was ‘roasted chicken’, I would tell my client that it was ‘roasted fragrant chicken’. If my result was ‘red clothes young lady’, I would tell them that it was ‘red clothes girl’. No matter who comes to me to do a telling, they cannot tell me what to calculate about. I’ll simply measure their height or the size of their heads and say whatever I calculated before sending them on their way.”
When he had tweaked his ears and scratched his cheek in embarra.s.sment as he calculated all sorts of results for his clients, he could not even earn enough for two steamed buns. However, when he changed his marketing strategy to ‘when the golden mouth opens, only three words ring’, his booth soon bustled with customers. He had turned from a trickster who was wandering the streets into a living G.o.d that everyone respected. In addition to that, he does have the skills. Maybe the three-word readings had left people puzzled but when it came true, everything just clicked into place naturally and he gradually made a name for himself. Some people even gave him a nickname as the ‘Three-Word Immortal’.
The Three-Word Immortal had continued to cultivate as he went into society. His cultivation base had not improved but he lived a comfortable life. Everything was fine until that fateful day around seventy or eighty years ago when a bright-looking, extremely handsome middle-aged man had suddenly approached him. He smiled peacefully as he handed him a large sum of money and his own left arm.
Wen Shulin was already an exceptional fortune-teller by then. If the person gave him their left hand he would want to touch their face, if the person moved their face closer he would ask about the time of their birth. The point was that he would reject whatever which had been offered because he could calculate anything. This middle-aged man fared the same, after he had thrown his left arm back, Wen Shulin then measured the length of his right arm. He then began to calculate. After a while, he got the result which was ‘two fighting men’.
The original result was ‘two tigers fighting each other’. To stay true to his nickname, the ‘Three-Word Immortal’, he had slightly reworded the result. He had not understood what this result had meant and he did not think much of it as he wrote it on a piece of paper before tossing it to the other person and called it a day.
The other person’s eyes lit up after he saw the slip of paper. He then chuckled, “I hadn’t believed you at first. If you could really calculate everything under the heavens, you would’ve cut and run when you found out that I was coming. However, seeing these three words, you do have some skills there!” After he said this, he paused and smiled in a leisurely manner, “You’re also a cultivator, aren’t you?”
Wen Shulin had not been alarmed as he had met some cultivators in the outside world. His cultivation base was slightly shallow and he could not conceal his life vitality from those with bright eyes. However, n.o.body would find trouble with him so he had chuckled and nodded. He then returned the money to the middle-aged man like a hoodlum, “Since we’re both cultivators, I can’t accept this money. I’ve only wanted to cultivate when I entered society. If I could help a friend in need then that’s for the best!”
The middle-aged man heard the word ‘friend’ and his expression turned strange. He continued after a brief moment, “Please do another telling for me! Let’s see what else you can tell.” He waved his arm as he said that and with a m.u.f.fled bang, the entire bundle of money had been ground into a fine powder within his palm. After that, he took out a Bagua Board that was of an intense purple color, so much so that it made people’s eyes hurt just by looking at it, “If you do a good telling, this will be your reward!”
Wen Shulin could not take his eyes off the purple Bagua. This kind of Bagua was the utmost treasure of letter-divination formula amongst the five arts of the Tao family and would help his predictions a great deal. Without a second word, he picked up the hand of the middle-aged man. He then carefully noted the positions of the joints and measured the distance between his facial features before he started to calculate in earnest for his client.
As he said this, a strange expression appeared on Wen Shulin’s face. It was a mix of fright and an awkwardness as he does not know whether to laugh or to cry. He smiled bitterly, “With this telling, I finally understood what it means when they say that it’s less fortunate to help others and more fortunate to do bad.”
He does not have to reword or repackage his results this time, it was three direct words, ‘nine-headed snake’!
Chang Li broke into a heartless laughter from the side as a playful light flickered on her delicate face. She was so beautiful that it lifted their hearts up before mercilessly throwing them down the next second, “This person must have been Tian Yin! The result of your first telling was ‘two men fighting’, that was the two primordial spirits which were fighting within his body. You would not understand what it was but Tian Yin himself understood it best. Of course he would want you to do another telling!”
Poor Wen Shulin, when he had got the result of ‘nine-headed snake’, he still had not figured out what kind of person was in front of him. He secretly wondered if this was the cultivator’s nickname or the name of a magic weapon.
Tian Yin’s expression had turned even stranger. He looked at Wen Shulin who was hugging the purple Bagua and was unwilling to part with it. He was stunned for a while before he finally broke out into laughter, “You now know that I’m Xiang Liu but why aren’t you running away yet?”
Wen Shulin thought that the words ‘Xiang Liu’ sounded somewhat familiar. When he finally figured it out and squalled, Tian Yin already had his hand around his neck as he pulled him along.
Tian Yin had not given him too much trouble, he only interrogated him about his calculations. Wen Shulin dared not keep anything from him and he explained his method of practice entirely to him. After Tian Yin listened to it, he smiled bitterly and rubbed his brows, “Although it’s not much… But it’s not completely useless!”
Tian Yin then brought him far away to Mingsha Mountain and Crescent Moon Spring. He only opened his mouth when they had reached their destination as he pointed at the brilliant water of the Crescent Moon Spring in the wilderness and said, “Calculate!”
Wen Shulin had not understood his meaning so he asked with a shudder, “Calculate what?”
Tian Yin always had a smile on his face. He does not have even an ounce of Xiang Liu’s true soul’s foulness in his appearance. He looked to have the air of an erudite person in everyone’s eyes as he said, “Calculate any way you want and anything you can. I’ll come back for you after a year. If you want to live happily, you will show me all the results of your calculations. If there’s something that I want, naturally, you won’t have to die.”
Wen Shulin was utterly dumbstruck, he had never heard of a question like this before. Tian Yin did not explain further as he turned around and left.
The little girl Xiaowu did not know who Xiang Liu or Tian Yin was as she listened along from the side. Her big eyes were pitch black and would occasionally glow exuberantly. She asked curiously, “The bad guy left so why didn’t you run?”
Wen Shulin dared not underestimate this little girl. He now understood that everyone around him was ancestors who could have him killed irrespective of their size. He hastily replied in a polite manner, “I did not dare to run! He said that he had set up prohibition spells in thirty-kilometer radius. I would have died without a doubt if I ever escaped out of that circle!”
n.o.body knows if Tian Yin had spoken the truth. After all, with his abilities, it was not too difficult for him to set up a prohibition spell to keep Wen Shulin in a such a large area.
Wen Shulin dared not neglect this task. In the consequent year, he had even disregarded his meals and gone without sleep. He calculated about anything that he could grab from around the Crescent Moon Spring. The results he got were of a wide variety. They contained verbs, nouns, adverbs, adjectives, and onomatopoeias. He had not understood the significance of the majority of his results.
After a year, Tian Yin returned as he said he would. He looked at the results which Wen Shulin had obtained which numbered almost a thousand and knitted his brows with slight gloominess, “This many?”
Wen Shulin cursed silently within his heart. With the premise of ‘calculate any way you want and anything you can’, he was only worried that he had not calculated enough. If he does not obtain the result that Tian Yin wishes for, his old life would be done for. In the end, Tian Yin had thought that there were too many results.
Thankfully, Tian Yin was somewhat satisfied. He carefully collected these results and put them into his pocket but he had not let him go. Instead, he then brought him somewhere else.
This time, they had gone to the s.h.i.+wan Mountain of Guangxi.
It was the same as last time, Tian Yin wanted Wen Shulin to continue his calculations and he does not care about the what and how. This time, he had given him a time limit of five years. After all, the s.h.i.+wan Mountain was far bigger than Crescent Moon Spring. As he looked at the unending immense mountains with their sharp peaks and cold cliffs, Wen Shulin even thought of dying…