The Corpse Under the Smoke

Feeling that he had fallen into a trap, the Spite-Blight immediately tried to escape by controlling Li Huowang’s lower half.

But a lower half had no eyes. It had no way to perceive direction. It crawled out of the tree hollow, managed only a few zhang before tripping over a root and crashing hard to the ground.

Sensing the situation was wrong, the Spite-Blight tried to flee outright. But just as it began to emerge from Li Huowang’s severed lower body, a bronze coin sword, glinting with cold light, descended from above and drove itself deep into the body that had half-fused with wood-ash.

A black plume rose with a piercing shriek. The Spite-Blight let out a tormented howl, but by then there was little it could do. The sound gradually faded.

Only when the Spite-Blight had gone completely still did the invisible Li Huowang reveal himself.

Or rather, the upper half of himself. His lower half was still lying on the ground.

When a con man knows what a person wants, deceiving that person becomes very simple.

Knowing that the thing’s only desire was to possess his body, Li Huowang had cut himself in half. He had used his own lower body as bait to lure the Spite-Blight out.

Li Huowang lay collapsed on the ground, gasping for air. Skin-burning, chest-opening, body-splitting—all manner of torment had passed through him again. The pain was so great he was on the verge of passing out. He had held on this long almost purely by willpower.

“At least there’s a payoff,” Li Huowang murmured, turning his head to look at the bottom of the bronze coin sword. Thin black smoke was slowly rising from it—the corpse of the Spite-Blight.

When he reached out with a charred fingertip to touch the drifting smoke, he could clearly feel the darkness inside him expanding. The urge to kill. The hatred. The irritability. All of it deepening.

Stranger still, when he reached toward the source of the black smoke, he found that his hand could not touch the Spite-Blight at all. Beneath the wisps of smoke, there was nothing. Empty.

But other things could touch it. Even just poking at it with a rotten stick produced a tangible texture. Only his flesh could not make contact.

“A Spite-Blight… truly dangerous and bizarre,” he muttered. “No wonder the Supervisory Heavenly Office offers such a high price to have people catch these things. What on earth do they want them for?”

He rested for a while, lying on the ground. When he had recovered a little strength, he propped himself up on his hands and began crawling toward his lower half.

It was then that heavy footsteps made his expression darken.

“Someone’s coming? Miao Miao? No—that’s not how she walks!”

Alert now, Li Huowang turned to look at the messy forest path to his left. As the footsteps grew louder, a bizarrely dressed fat woman emerged, walking with steady, measured paces—a ritualistic dancer’s gait.

She wore a red talisman-paper bib, and on her head sat a small golden crown with a red tassel. Her entire scalp was pierced through with lit incense sticks, jutting out like the spines of a hedgehog.

Two small triangular banners painted with red curse-charms were thrust through the outer edges of her ears, driven straight into her earlobes.

If not for the wolf-tooth club wrapped in yellow paper that she carried over one shoulder—proof that she was human—Li Huowang might have mistaken her for another vile spirit.

The woman struck a pose with her club and thrust it toward Li Huowang. “Hey-hey~! Ascending to heaven, traversing the earth, wandering the realm! Guard the winds and clouds with the Four Righteous! Arrest fiends and capture evil—make it clear!”

Li Huowang stared at this strange woman, his brow furrowed. He reached into his abdomen, pulled out his Office token, and raised it toward her. “The Supervisory Heavenly Office is on business! Get lost!”

“Eh?!” Seeing Li Huowang’s token, the fat woman froze for a moment. Then she reached into her own bib and produced an identical token. She was from the Office too.

“You’re also from the Supervisory Office? You don’t really look like it. Throw the token over here! Let me see!”

Faced with a man who had only half a body left and was charred black all over, she was not about to relax her guard.

Li Huowang tossed the token over without a word. Then he began the slow work of reattaching his lower half to his upper half.

While he waited in silence for sensation to return to his legs, the fat woman walked over and set the token down beside him.

“Didn’t expect you to actually be from the Office. I thought for a second you were a Spite-Blight. Say, which sect are you from?”

“The Ao-Jing Sect.”

The fat woman looked him up and down, then gave an approving nod. “Mm. I figured as much.”

She began pulling the incense sticks out of her face one by one. “Young man, look at this mess. So close to the flood washing over the Dragon King Temple—family not recognizing family. That severing technique of yours is quite something. Where’d you learn it?”

Li Huowang could see no hostility. He had no interest in small talk with a stranger. Even inside the Office, people were not exactly one big happy family.

Once the incense was gone from her head, her real face came into view. To look at her, she was like any ordinary peasant woman.

Li Huowang did not answer, so the fat woman asked again. “I came here looking for the Spite-Blight. What are you here for?”

“Mm?” Li Huowang propped himself up and gave her a long look. “You took the same job? A job can be taken by two people?”

“What’s so strange about that? Of course several people can take the same job. It’s about who can get it done first.”

“Oh.” Li Huowang turned his body with effort. He pressed his hand against his lower half, testing it. A faint sensation was starting to return. “You’re too late. I already killed the Spite-Blight.”

“What?! You alone?” The fat woman’s face showed genuine shock.

Li Huowang could see that beneath her outward surprise, the Ten Emotions and Eight Sufferings inside her told a different story. She was not thinking what she showed. This one had two faces.

But that was normal. Meeting a stranger out in the wild, one had to be guarded. Li Huowang was the same. Ever since she had appeared, he had not let go of the Purple-Tasseled Sword in his grip.

“Elder sister,” he said, “you said it yourself. Jobs inside the Office are settled by skill. Whoever gets it done first wins. I accept your concession.”

He struggled to curl his calf and then slowly lower it again. His foot could already move.

“That’s how it works, but…” The fat woman looked visibly anxious.

Li Huowang was not about to listen. He forced himself to his feet, used his bronze coin sword to pick up the Spite-Blight, and began hobbling toward the edge of the peach grove.

“Wait!!!”

The moment he heard that, Li Huowang spun around, his sword pointed straight at her, stopping just before the tip of her nose.

“What? You want to take it by force?” His tone had turned murderous.

The fat woman forced a flattering smile and slowly backed away a few steps, putting herself out of his striking range. Then she explained, “We’re both from the Office. Would I do something like that?”

Li Huowang answered with a cold sneer. He knew exactly what Office colleagues were capable of.

The moment he showed even a hint of weakness, this woman would almost certainly have attacked him from behind. Take the Spite-Blight. Pocket the reward.

Hundreds of lifespan pills were no small sum in this chaotic world. The Office only cared that the Spite-Blight was delivered. They never asked where it came from.

“Best if you didn’t. So let’s go our separate ways. Heaven’s road is wide. I’m sure you don’t want to find out what the Ao-Jing Sect’s methods are like.”

Having delivered that threat, Li Huowang took his prize and slowly backed out of the grove.