Chapter 2 Paper man (2)
The Jiang’s medicine hall was located in YanChao alley. Most of the wooden structures had
been destroyed in the fire three years ago and only half a room towards the west end had
survived. It could still provide shelter against rain and strong winds, but nothing more than
that. Unsuitable for humans to live, but a great place to hide ghosts.
Jiang Shining, son of the Jiang family who hadn’t even turned twenty yet, had become a
stray ghost in his own backyard.
He slipped into the house through a crack and hesitated, but his mouth was not idle-
“Is the front door and the wing room separated by the East China Sea?”, the clear voice
couldn’t hold back anymore.
Jiang Shining finished speaking with his own mouth and rolled his eyes with a weary face.
After a moment of silence, he said in a lower voice: “I’m in, but the lunch box is stuck
outside.”
He scoffed, talking to himself: “Awesome job.”
A moment later he changed his voice again and said: “I’m flattered.”
Jiang Shining: "..."
Judging from the slightly green face that shone in the moonlight, he didn’t want to open his
mouth anymore.
The three crumbling walls of the room had turned black from the smoke and the north-facing
window was now a gaping hole. There was no morning light during wugeng4 time in winter,
save for a shadow of a crescent moon that shone a pale light in a corner of the room. The
person who sat on the side of the window hole was half drenched in solemn moonlight, half
hidden in darkness.
He was dressed in a robe that blended in with the night and had two curves under his
well-structured eyebrow bone. His deep black eyes reflected just a bit of light and it was
easy to tell just from his silhouette that this person was good-looking… But half his face that
was visible in the moonlight was too pale, the wrist bone that supported his chin was also
very prominent, showing a state of serious illness.
In fact, he was sick- He couldn’t stand up, nor could he walk.
4 Wugeng 五更 is the time period between 3 to 5 am in the morning.
As for the cause of the illness? Nobody knew, not even ghosts knew. He stayed at the Jiang
house for four days and except the fact that his surname was Xue and his given name was
Xian, Jiang Shining knew nothing about him.
“I’m begging you, please change your posture. You can’t even sit properly. Your upper body
will also be paralyzed if you sit crooked like that all day.” Once Jiang Shining entered the
room, he stuffed the lunch boxes into Xue Xian’s arms. Before he died, he had at least read
ten years' worth of sage books and his eyes hurt whenever he looked at Xue Xian’s lazy
posture.
“Paralysed after only sitting incorrectly, did you take me as you?”, Jiang Shining had just
turned away and he opened his mouth to chide himself in that clear voice.
“......” Jiang the scholar was thoroughly unwilling this time and crumpled his face towards
Xue Xian, saying: “I’ve stepped inside already. Ancestor, can’t you use your own mouth to
speak?”
Xue Xian opened the lunch box cover and squinted his eyes, smelling the still warm food. He
finally opened his mouth lazily: “All right, I’ll tire myself for the sake of the meat. You want
some?”
Jiang Shining said, “Are you going to burn them to ashes for me?”
Xue Xian: “Keep dreaming.”
“Just eat your food!”, said Jiang Shining and did not pay any more attention to him. Instead,
he walked towards the edge of the wall and crumpled into a thin paper man, sliding onto the
floor- He could walk only for a limited number of hours every day and had to rest once his
time was up.
This paper man must have been cut out by some genius; the edges looked like they had
been bitten by dogs, but with just a few strokes it depicted Jiang Shining’s features clear
enough. However, there were two rouge blushes on his cheeks, making it seem silly
amongst the creepiness.
After a moment of lying dead on the floor, he got sick of Xue Xian’s poor mannerism and
came back to life, frowning at him: “I’ve wanted to ask this since two days ago, why can’t you
use such a simple thing as chopsticks?”
Xue Xian raised his eyebrows and glanced at him blandly: “Thanks for asking. My upper
body has also been paralyzed for quite some time. Only recently have I been able to sit up,
so I still can’t handle chopsticks yet.”
He then lifted his hand and threw an assassination weapon right at Jiang Shining’s forehead,
knocking the paper man back onto the ground. He seemed very impatient.
With some difficulty, Jiang Shining turned his head to look at the assassination weapon:
Bleh, chicken bones!
The paper man stopped for a moment and then as if he had just remembered something,
struggled upright: “Let’s talk this out, can you not add two red splotches on my face next
time?”
Xue Xian was even lazier this time, answering with one single word: “No.”
Jiang Shining: "..."
As the saying goes, after dinner comes the reckoning. If not for Xue Xian helping him make
this paper body, he might have still been floating around mindlessly for who knew how long.
But concerning this matter, Jiang Shining was a little confused-
Huizhou was a vast place and wasn’t lacking in abandoned houses. He could have taken
shelter in any one of them, but he just had to choose an empty house such as the Jiang’s
medicine hall. Who knew what he had been possessed by? Besides, Xue Xian mentioned
during the first day he came that he was here for an important task. But even after four days,
except for eating, all he did was help Jiang Shining by making a paper body for him.
It couldn’t be that his important task was to make a paper man, could it?
Jiang Shining lay on the cold ground for a while and once again came back to life as if he
had remembered something.
Xue Xian had a bad temper and was already impatient by the second time. He stopped him
directly the third time: “I’ll cut off your mouth if you talk anymore. If you have something to
say, say it tomorrow morning.”
Jiang Shining said hurriedly: “One last thing.”
Xue Xian side-eyed him: “I get a headache every time you talk. I’ll get paralysed if you talk
anymore. Now shut it.”
“I felt someone following us when I was entering the door, so I took a glance when I entered
the yard. He looked like a monk. He had a string of copper coins hanging by his waist. He
should be at the door by now.” Jiang Shining flopped back onto the floor after saying this and
there was no more movement by the paper man.
So far, he had used up all his hours today and until dark, he could neither move nor talk and
could only be a spectator at best.
Xue Xian: "..."
A monk following a ghost, what can he do?
A monk with a string of copper coins hanging by his waist following a ghost, what else can
he do?
Such an important matter, you nerd, why didn’t you say it earlier?!
With Xue Xian’s violent temper, back then when he was able to move, he would have sent
Jiang Shining as well as the entire house up to the heavens. But now, he could only stare
impassively through the hole as the door creaked open from the outside.
These days, charlatans that relied on only talking for a living were everywhere. Xue Xian had
had his fill of them and knew that those who did have some skills relied on experience to
succeed. So the older they looked, the harder they were to fool.
Therefore, when the monk who was outside the door stepped in, Xue Xian heaved a sigh of
relief- The visitor was unexpectedly young and Xue Xian could tell that he wasn’t a
charlatan, but he wasn’t that far away from one either. When he swept over the monk, who
was still far away, and the copper coins hanging by his waist, with his extraordinary eyesight,
he was completely relieved.
The more capable they were, the more evil spirits they would have exorcised. From a
distance, they looked quite different from the common copper coins. The copper coins would
have a lustrous surface like they were coated evenly with oil. Although some people could
imitate this layer of yellow shine by using unscrupulous methods, they could only fool the
eyes of the ordinary people at most, but not Xue Xian.
The young monk in front of the door didn’t even bother to imitate. Let alone the bright shiny
surface, even the surface of the copper coins had almost worn away. Who knew where he
might have found them from. Maybe they hadn’t been properly used even once.
You want to earn a living with that? With what? With your face?
Xue Xian sneered silently and put down the lunch box. He cast a layer of camouflage and
turned it into a wooden pillar with scorched marks.
He quietly leaned back in his seat and his tall and thin body crumpled. Within a blink of an
eye, he had also turned into a thin paper man, but the edges of this paper man were much
smoother than Jiang Shining's and the paintwork was quite fine as well. Plus, there weren’t
any red splotches on his face.
Jiang Shining, who couldn’t move on the ground: "..."
This showed that someone was probably an *sshole, a pure bastard.
The thin paper man possessed Xue Xian slid down the chair and laid next to Jiang Shining's
paper man. In the blink of an eye, the two pieces of paper on the ground transformed into a
layer of dark moss lying on the ground, integrating completely with the dilapidated house
perfectly.
If it had been more than half a year ago, Xue Xian would not have done such a troublesome
thing. Whoever ate a belly full of courage and came knocking at his door, he would have
blown up a new grave for them on the spot. Now, however, he had no other option but to
bend and put up camouflage spells layer by layer—
He had just recovered from full paralysis to partial paralysis and it was extremely difficult for
him to move from one place to another by himself. There was only a limited amount of
energy that this paper body could withstand and it was fortunate enough not to dig his own
grave.
Fortunately, the monk who came here this time was an embroidered pillow5. Only his face
had any worth.
He guessed that the monk would take a look around, find nobody in sight and would leave,
go back to where he came from.
The young monk in white stopped in the courtyard, looking around coldly.
The Jiang’s medicine hall originally had three main rooms, three wing rooms and a medicine
garden with a large front door. It was not a small house. However, after the big fire and three
years of abandonment, everything could be taken in in just a few glances...
The monk retracted his gaze, raised his feet around the debris on the ground and walked
straight to the remnant west wing room.
He stepped inside through the door of the chamber and the fingers hidden inside his sleeves
twitched imperceptibly. Subconsciously, he rubbed the copper coins on his waist with the pad
of his thumb and then let go with a slight frown.
Jiang Shining, who had turned into moss and was stuck to the ground, stared fixedly at the
monk's footwear, deathly afraid that he would step on him when he came in for a round. Xue
Xian, on the other hand, rested leisurely and did not pay attention to the monk at all.
Sure enough, the wing room was so small that it could be swept through at a glance. The
monk didn't even enter, just stood at the door for a while, then turned around and left.
Xue Xian scoffed again, silently.
But in a moment, he couldn't scoff anymore… Because the monk was back!
5 As in the person only has the looks but not real skills, because an embroidered pillow looks beautiful from the
outside, but its insides are stuffed of straw.
He had a piece of white linen in his hand when he returned. Judging by the material and
size, it had been torn carelessly from the hem of his clothes. With a piece of copper, that
nobody knew where it came from, wrapped in the piece of clean cloth, he walked over to
Xue Xian calmly, bent down and shoveled “moss” Xue up from the ground.
Xue Xian: "..."
When he shoveled it up, his eyebrows were clearly wrinkled. If one wasn’t mistaken, it
seemed to be an expression of slight disgust.
Xue Xian: "..."
How dare this baldy think that he was dirty!
Translation: nucleatedrbc and Lunaa
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