Brainless
The dragon vine curled around Mu Yu’s shoulder and asked, “He’s still alive?!”
“No, his body is devoid of vitality. The only reason he’s supposedly ‘alive’ is because of the yin qi in him. I can’t see anything abnormal besides the fact that his chest is rising and falling.”
“You’re not going to strip him, are you?” Xiaoshuai inquired, discomfort showing in his tone.
Mu Yu skipped the question. Instead, he checked Elder Zhao’s neck and head to fnid two bloody holes on the back of his ears that had to be inflicting using sharp teeth or something. The blood was somehow still flowing even though Elder Zhao had died days ago.
“I don’t understand why he’s keeping a dead person around. Xiaoshuai, can you tell what bit him behind the ears?”
Xiaoshuai begrudgingly inspected the wounds. “Can you give me some light with a luminous pearl? Shadow Splitter Sword’s green light is eerie.”
Mu Yu chuckled and did as he was asked. Xiaoshuai found a surprise, so he pressed down on Elder Zhao’s head, only to then pull his claws back and scrunch his face up.
“What’s the matter?”
“Ugh, he doesn’t have a brain. Disgusting!”
“Is that any way to talk about the deceased?” criticised the dragon vine.
“I meant that something ate his brain! Without his brain, they can control him in every aspect,” clarified Xiaoshuai, wiping his claws on Mu Yu.
“The hell?” Mu Yu reacted.
“Can we leave now?”Xiaoshuai bemoaned from Mu Yu’s shirt.
“Xiaoshuai, do you know what fiend beast was responsible?”
“I forgot the name of it. I have seen it somewhere in the past, though.”
Mu Yu proceeded to inspect the store. Unfortunately, he didn’t find anything.
“I reckon we should go see what today’s funeral job is all about,” Mu Yu declared.
“I don’t like funerals.”
“They offer a lot of the best foods they have at funerals, you know?” the dragon vine provoked.
“Let’s go see!” Xiaoshuai enthused.
Mu Yu cast an invisibility formation on them prior to setting out. It wasn’t hard to locate the group since crying, flying paper and the sort were dead giveaways. Chen Erzhuang led the procession toward a mountain from the forefront with a solemn expression, which Mu Yu presumed was the professional expression he always wore as per Elder Xu’s words. Mu Yu sensed faint yin qi identical from the valley coming from Chen Erzhuang, which he didn’t notice last time. As such, he speculated the person he was looking for was hiding in Chen Erzhuang.
A procession consisting of approximately eighty people to see off an elder considerably younger than Elder Zhao was a rather big group. Farmers usually buried their family on their own mountain paddies, which was the reason the group was heading up a mountain.
Throughout the four-hour journey, Xiaoshuai gave the dragon an earful for lying there was food as ritual foods didn’t interest the former. Mu Yu couldn’t see anything out of place about Chen Erzhuang; everything was logical, such as his clerks doing the heavy lifting. Chen Erzhuang and company left the bereaved to continue mourning, while they returned to their store as one would expect.
“You notice anything?” the dragon vine questioned.
“No, but it’s too logical that I can’t help feeling something isn’t right. Let’s follow him back to his store.”
Upon returning to the store, the four clerks returned to carving in silence, and Chen Erzhuang went back into his room. This time, Mu Yu noticed the yin qi vanished once they set foot inside. With no leads and worried for Elder Xu after Xiaoshuai’s revelation, they made their way back to Elder Xu’s place.
“Elder Xu!”
Elder Xu set his pickaxe down and brightly jogged over to greet Mu Yu. “Why do you look so bothered, Immortal Master?”
“Are you all right, Elder Xu? Do you feel any discomfort?” Mu Yu inquired, checking out Elder Xu.
“Thank you for asking. I am well.”
Elder Xu fetched his pickaxe and headed home with Mu Yu, brimming with energy and pride because he had an immortal master as his guest.
“Xiaoshuai, you positive?”
After Mu Yu gave Elder Xu a thorough examination, he only found some symptoms of rheumatism and slight breathlessness due to smoking tobacco.
“That’s normal since his vitality is connected to the wooden mannequin. You won’t find anything. Before you know it, it’ll blow up in your face.”
Confounded, Elder Xu quietly asked, “Immortal Master, is my rheumatism still under control?”
“It’s nothing to worry about, but you’ll die soon,” Xiaoshuai nonchalantly stated.
“Imm-Immortal Master, am I going to die?”
Mu Yu glared daggers at Xiaoshuai, then consoled, “Worry not, Elder Xu. I will help you treat your rheumatism.”
Mu Yu stuck a few wooden stakes that were replicas of steel needles into Elder Xu’s knees and sent his spiritual energy in with the wooden needles as a medium to treat Elder Xu’s condition.
“I must have saved a nation in my last to be so blessed in this life, hahaha.”
“You should quit smoking, though. It’s not good for your lungs.”
Mu Yu stuck wooden needles into Elder Xu’s chest and had them grew thin branches to extract the toxic contents. Mu Yu then gave the elder a massage, dissolving all the pent-up niggles over the years.
Elder Xu hastily ran off to cook dinner late at night, jogging the entire time to enjoy his ability to run pain free again. His only daughter had already married a gentleman in a neighbouring village. “I am preparing a duck right now. It will be ready soon.”
Xiaoshuai’s appetite was on overdrive as per usual. Mu Yu, in contrast, had no appetite to speak of for he was occupied with contemplating how to lure the enigma in the shadows out.
“Immortal Master, please eat up. If there is not enough, I will cook some more,” said Elder Xu, sitting opposite Mu Yu.
“Elder Xu, please try to recall the scene of when Elder Xu emerged from his coffin at No-M-, I meant, Heavenly Cemetery. Was there anything else that was amiss, such as a smell, voice, sound or the sort?”
“Let me see… I do not think there was anything special about his voice. I did hear some rumbling akin to thunder coming from the bottom of the valley. As for smell… Ah, yes, there was a putrid smell spreading.”
“Rumbling. Thunder?”
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