Chapter 173
Chapter 173
The instant Li Jiao’s scissors touched the Dough Doll, Lord Cui Jue, who was reviewing case files in Fengdu City, noticed Hua Jiunan’s name flicker faintly on the bamboo slips before him.
He hurriedly calculated on his fingers, then shouted furiously.
“Insolence!”
“He is the sole surviving scion of that bloodline. How dare a filthy wretch like you harm him!”
With a sweep of his sleeve, a gust of yin wind rolled out of the Underworld.
Masters Fan and Xie, who stood guard nearby, looked puzzled.
“What has happened to anger the Prefect so greatly?”
Lord Cui drew a deep breath and calmed himself.
“An evil cultivator used wicked sorcery against that clan’s sole descendant. I have already punished her!”
Seventh Master Xie stared for a moment, then sighed.
“Alas!”
“That family accumulated boundless merit. Why must it suffer so many calamities?”
Eighth Master Fan gave a cold snort.
“Because their enemies are forbidden existences in their own right!”
“Even if we wish to help, we simply lack the power…”
As the yin wind passed, ghastly white ghostfire erupted from the Dough Doll in Li Jiao’s hand.
The flames spread at astonishing speed. In the blink of an eye, they burned away all the flesh of Li Jiao’s right hand, leaving only stark white bone.
“Ah!”
“Impossible! How could this happen?!”
Screaming, Li Jiao snatched up the scissors and severed the bones of her hand with a snap to keep the ghostfire from spreading through her body.
The terrible pain drove her into even greater hysteria.
Madness filled her wrinkled face.
“I refuse to believe this! All three of you must die today!”
Ignoring the risk of burns, she held the scissors in her left hand and boiled them in the corpse oil bubbling over the brazier.
A moment later, she stabbed them into the Dough Doll bearing Chen Daji’s name.
At Xiaoyu Mountain in the Yin-Yang Realm, General Li Guang was drinking with the Snow Corpse when the slingshot Chen Daji had given him suddenly began trembling violently.
General Li closed his eyes and calculated for several seconds. Then he slammed a hand against the stone table and sprang to his feet.
“Audacious beast! You dare use evil sorcery against my brother? Have you grown tired of living?!”
He nocked an arrow and loosed it into the sky.
When the arrow next appeared, it had already entered the Li family villa.
Transformed into a streak of black light, it shot directly toward Li Jiao’s brow.
Li Jiao paled in horror and frantically waved the bare stump of her right arm.
“Wutong, protect me! Lord Ox Ghost, save me!”
The two ox heads enshrined beside the evil god’s statue shot into the air and blocked Li Jiao.
Black smoke billowed from their empty eye sockets.
With two soft pops, the arrow pierced both overlapping ox skulls.
But its course shifted slightly. It tore away a strip of scalp from the center of Li Jiao’s head, then buried itself in the leg of the evil god’s statue.
With a bald stripe down the middle of her head and her face covered in blood, Li Jiao looked uglier than ever.
“How can this be?!”
“Who are those Hua and Chen brats?!”
As Li Jiao stared in shock at the Dough Doll representing Chen Daji, it suddenly sprang up on its own.
Waving its stubby arms, it unleashed a flurry of wild punches at Li Jiao’s ugly face.
The performance did little damage, but the humiliation was devastating.
Enraged, Li Jiao grabbed the Dough Doll and swallowed it in several bites.
“I’ll kill all of you if it’s the last thing I do!”
After that impotent outburst, the vicious woman, looking every inch a wu shaman, turned toward the Dough Doll representing Zhao Fei.
Back at Xiaoyu Mountain, General Li Guang calculated that he had failed to kill Li Jiao, but considered her unworthy of a second attack.
He sat down again and raised his cup toward the Snow Corpse.
“Valiant Great General, it is not that Xiaoyu Mountain refuses hospitality to an honored guest.”
“You seized Sister-in-law’s soul and brought it out. You must return to the mortal world soon and find an expert in Soul Nurturing.”
“If you delay too long, I fear it will damage Sister-in-law’s very foundation.”
The Snow Corpse slowly and heavily nodded.
He gazed at the yin soldiers and ghost guards continuously searching beyond Xiaoyu Mountain, his guileless face solemn.
Back in the dormitory, Chen Daji suddenly sneezed three times in a row.
Droplets of spit sprayed all over Eighth Master Chang’s face.
Eighth Master hurriedly scrubbed himself with his tail, cursing all the while.
“Have you been eating shit, little bastard? Why does your mouth stink so badly?!”
Knowing he was at fault, Chen Daji did not dare talk back. He merely scratched his head.
“Holy crap!”
“Why do I feel like someone’s plotting against me…?”
Hua Jiunan nodded slightly.
“I feel it too.”
A cold light flashed in Old Sixth Hui’s eyes as killing intent erupted from him.
“Is that evil cultivator playing tricks in the shadows?”
“Wait here, young master physician. I’ll seize her at once and refine her soul!”
With that, he turned and left the dormitory, vanishing after several flickers.
The many little spirits returning from burying the corpse pieces ran after him, grunting with effort.
The book notes:
According to Hong Mai’s *Yijian Dingzhi*, “Wood Guests South of the Yangtze”:
The lands south of the great river contain many mountains, and local custom venerates spirits. Their supernatural beings are strange and uncanny, often worshiped in shrines clustered around boulders and trees, with such places found in every village.
In eastern Zhejiang they are called the Wutong God; in Jiangxi and central Fujian they are called the Third Son Beneath the Tree, or the Wood Guest.
The one-legged form is called the One-Legged Wutong. Though the names differ, all are the same entity.
As for Cui Jue: legend holds that Judge Cui’s personal name was Jue and that he lived during the Sui and Tang dynasties. In folk tradition, he is commonly called Lord Cui.
Stationed in the Son of Heaven’s Hall in Fengdu City, he judges the departed souls that arrive in the netherworld.
The Four Great Judges are Wei Zheng of the Rewarding Good Division, Zhong Kui of the Punishing Evil Division, Lu Zhidao of the Investigation Division, and Cui Jue of the Underworld Law Division.