Suspended Wooden Mannequins
“Mamma mia!” Xiaoshuai exclaimed, racing back into Mu Yu’s shirt.
The dozen-odd wooden mannequins they were searching for were suspended from a rope around their neck, tied up around the beams over four metres overhead! The creaking was produced from the friction between the ropes and the beams.
“Wussy,” jibed the dragon vine.
“What do you expect? There’s nothing good to eat here.”
“Jackass, is this some sort of jape? Doesn’t he have nightmares at night?” Mu Yu cursed, startled.
“Mu Yu, have you noticed that none of them have anything to identify as wood?” the dragon vine queried.
“… No wonder why I didn’t sense them!”
Mu Yu touched one of the maidens who looked ill. “I can sense vitality; it’s faint, but it’s there. The vitality is coming from the rope around their neck. As the rope’s other end isn’t linked to anything that I can see providing vitality, the rope must be directly supplying vitality. Yeah, this isn’t your usual hemp rope but some yellow material I’ve never seen before. The strange part is that it’s not a plant, so I can’t wrap my head around where the vitality is coming from. Moreover, how did Chen Erzhuang climb four metres up without a ladder to hang them?”
Mu Yu started looking through the mannequins until one stood out. “Elder Xu? Are you telling me all of these mannequins are actually based off real people? Actually, besides the young maiden, all of them are elders with one foot in a coffin already. I don’t see the old lady the clerk carved yesterday. Wait, wait, wait, wait… Could they all be people who will soon die? Xiaoshuai, how much longer does the elder we’re staying with have to live?”
“The one who called me a rodent? He should be saying farewell tomorrow evening. He’s in horrible shape as it is,” grumbled Xiaoshuai.
“What’s the disease he contracted?”
“None. He was doing fine; I’d say he had, at least, ten years to go. Didn’t you notice Heartstealer Formation drained his vitality?”
“Damn, I missed it!” Mu Yu turned back to Elder Xu’s mannequin and intently stared. He pinched his eyebrows together because he noticed chest movements. “Is it just me, or is the mannequin breathing?”
“Wait, wait, wait. I feel as though I remember this from somewhere. Give me a second…” Xiaoshuai gently ran his claw along the mannequin’s arm and jerked his hand back.
“What?”
“I remember now! It’s not a formation but one of the black magic practices – sorcery. I know I’ve seen it somewhere before, but I can’t remember exactly where. Anyway, the Heartstealer Formation was intended to activate the sorcery. Unlike formations, the Heartstealer Formation wasn’t necessary once the sorcery was activated. Man, even I missed it!”
“Sorcery? You mean the art where they plant a concoction of several venomous creatures into people’s bodies to punish, control or torture people?”
“Yes!” Xiaoshuai tugged on Elder Xu’s mannequin’s face and expanded, “The sorcery is transferring Elder Xu’s vitality to this mannequin.”
“In other words, the mannequin will come to life when Elder Xu dies? I’d like to knock the living daylights out of whoever started it.”
Xiaoshuai stopped to think first, then answered, “Not sure. My guess is this mannequin is going to be used to replace Elder Xu and hide some secrets or items. Before you ask, I don’t know how to defuse the sorcery.”
“Hide something, you say…? I wonder if it has anything to do with Elder Zhao mentioning he’d come to take people and their descendants when they died. Does that mean the mysterious person we’re searching for needs to wait for people to die in order to take their descendants? If that’s true, it would suggest that he’s trying to expedite their deaths so that he can collect their souls. This is just Ghost Gate all over again and the plague they spread. What does this person want now? We must put a stop to this charade they’re creating.”
“By the way Mu Yu, you reckon we should check out the suspended coffin?”
“You just had to mention the coffin, didn’t you, Big Earthworm?!”
Mu Yu shut the door and headed to the store. The store’s front door was locked, obviously. The green light Shadow Splitter Sword emitted only served to intensify the uncanny atmosphere in the dark room. Mu Yu ran his sword along the coffin to check for any traps before he peered inside.
Mu Yu didn’t recognise the old man lying inside until he noticed only four fingers on the elder’s right hand. “If my memory does me justice, Elder Xu mentioned Elder Zhao also only had four fingers on his left hand…”
Mu Yu shone Shadow Splitter Sword’s green light on Elder Zhao’s face.
Hearing a weak breath from Elder Zhao, Xiaoshuai ducked back inside Mu Yu’s shirt. “I thought he was dead!”
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