Way of the Devil

“Open the door,” Dong Qi collected herself and commanded, putting on the imposing manner of a young miss.

The two men hurriedly unlocked the door. After the three of them filed in, they once again shut it.

“Phew… what a precious thing to guard. Finally, the mission’s complete,” one of the men couldn’t help but heave a soft sigh of relief.

“This Holy Fame Plaza has gotten more and more eerie lately. I wonder what’s going on. I get a thoroughly unsettling feeling each time I’m here,” the other complained. “Next time, if I’m sent here for a mission, I’ll definitely refuse it over my dead body. If we were to meet with something unclean here…”

“Touch wood, touch wood! Can’t you keep your mouth shut? Be careful lest your inauspicious words really summon those unclean things!”

“That’s right, that’s right,” the other person quickly slapped across his own mouth lightly.

After the trio including Lu Sheng entered the room, they swiftly made their way to the copper back of the stained-glass mirror.

Xu Chui unfurled a piece of yellow paper, on which they had traced out the standard form of the three words. Lu Sheng held it over for a comparison.

He caressed the scratches on the back of the mirror and scrutinized it in detail.

The three standard characters were neatly and clearly written in uniform script. On the other hand, although one could clearly distinguish that the three words at the back of the mirror were of the same form, they were written in a slanted and twisted manner, as if by someone unfamiliar with the words. It was akin to the writing of a young child who had yet to learn to grasp the brush properly.

“Count to ten…” Lu Sheng stroked the scratches carefully. These scratches had been carved deeply and viciously. “If they were really carved by a child, then such deep scratches… under what circumstances would a little child be able to carve out such deep scratches with a small knife?”

He muttered to himself under his breath, although he seemed to be directing the question to the other two at the same time.

Xu Chui hesitated a moment.

“Copper isn’t considered too tough. Maybe the child used a sharp blade. It depends on how old the child was…”

“What about a girl of seven or eight years old?” Dong Qi suddenly interjected and asked.

“If it were a seven- or eight-year-old… it would perhaps take all the strength in her body to be able to carve out something like this…” Xu Chui shook his head. Looking at Dong Qi, he saw that beads of perspiration had formed on her forehead and her face had distorted into an ugly expression; clearly, she was frightened.

Lu Sheng rose. Seeing that they weren’t able to uncover any leads that day and it was getting late, not to mention that Dong Qi was in very bad shape, he said, “That’s it for today. Get some rest. Early tomorrow morning, we’ll go visit the sect master’s remains and see if we find anything amiss. Also, if the upper echelon of Tea Sect come over to see the mirror tonight, Young Miss Dong Qi, if you notice any of that, you must remember to alert us.”

“Yes! Many thanks, esteemed representative!” Dong Qi nodded vigorously.

“Go rest, you look terrible,” Lu Sheng said impassively. “If you notice anything strange at night, come look for us immediately.”

“Yes. Thank you, thank you, esteemed representative. The two guest rooms have been prepared. I’ll get someone to bring you there now,” Dong Qi gushed gratefully.

Each of them returned to their rooms to rest. After Lu Sheng finished his meal and meditated to cultivate his inner force for a while, fatigue gradually washed over him. Sleepy, he lay down and pulled over the covers, slowly slipping into a slumber.

He slept differently from the common man. Even when he was asleep, as long as there was the slightest movement in the wind, or the smallest blade of grass that moved, he could awake instantly in alarm.

Initially, he hadn’t intended to sleep. Even though it was unlikely that he would land in big trouble given his hard body skills, as well as inner Qi that constantly protected his body, it was nevertheless easy to be caught off guard. Therefore, when he went outside on missions such as this, he usually meditated rather than slept.

Yet, on this trip, he had been unable to shake off that sense of drowsiness once it struck him. He thus lay down and gradually fell asleep.

***

In the dead of the night, Lu Sheng awoke groggily as he seemed to sense some sort of noise.

He slowly got up from the bed and opened his eyes. Drowsiness washed over him, but he could hear faint movement sounds travelling constantly from the window.

Lu Sheng exhaled deeply and looked in the direction of the window.

Curtains hung over the window ledge. Moonlight shone in from outside.

That was when Lu Sheng noticed a small head bobbing up and down outside the window, attempting to peek into the room through the curtains.

‘What’s that?’ Lu Sheng sat upright and stared hard at the window.

The black silhouette of a young girl reflected distinctly in the curtains. She was jumping up and down, as if she were standing outside the window and trying to jump high enough to see what was within the room.

“Who’s that?” Lu Sheng asked.

Instantly, that little girl stopped moving. She stood still outside the curtains, looking silently in the direction of Lu Sheng and not moving an inch.

“If you want to come in, you can knock,” Lu Sheng got off the bed, arose and walked over to the window.

The little child’s shadow beyond the curtains remained unmoving.

“SWISH!”

He pulled back the curtains with a flourish… only to find nothing beyond the window ledge. There wasn’t a single soul to be found in the entire courtyard outside; there weren’t even any guards on the night watch. It was coldly desolate and stark empty.

Lu Sheng narrowed his eyes. Glancing to the left and right, he gave a cold harrumph before pulling back the curtains once more.

***

Dong Qi took to heart Lu Sheng’s instructions and lay on her bed, fully clothed. She intended to rise in the middle of the night to check if those people came again, but unwittingly, she also gradually fell into a slumber.

It was actually rather odd. She was initially feeling rather alert, yet the moment she reached her bed, waves of drowsiness instantly flooded her violently. It was almost hypnotic; after barely a moment, she had fallen asleep.

“I’ll count to ten~~”

“One…”

“Two…”

“Three…”

“Four…”

In a daze, Dong Qi felt as if there was someone by her side, calling out.

It was a very young girl.

Mustering all her strength, she opened her eyes and looked beside the bed. She could very faintly see a little girl dressed in blue, who was presently standing by the bed and staring at her.

Her face was white as ivory, though her eye sockets were pitch-black. Her long flowing hair was also jet-black.

“Five…”

“Six…”

“HOO!!”

Dong Qi hoisted herself up violently and shot straight up from her bed. Drenched all over in her perspiration, she panted heavily.

She looked to the bedside. There wasn’t anyone, nor anything, in sight.

‘I… I…!’ her heart thumped vigorously like a drum. Her face was as pale as a sheet.

“PA. ”

Suddenly, a crisp sound rang out from the window.

Dong Qi’s eyes flashed in that direction; what she saw gave her a fright.

‘I clearly closed the window before I slept, why has it…’

The window had been opened some time or other in the night. Pale moonlight shone in from beyond the curtains, creating a cold and cheerless scene.

“PA. ”

Yet another crisp sound rang out.

Dong Qi startled. She looked warily at the window.

Surprisingly, a short little girl with long hair seemed to be standing beyond the curtains. The little girl’s shadow fell onto the curtains under the moonlight.

She stood outside the window ledge, jumping up and down, as if she wanted to jump high enough to peek into the room’s interior.

“Who’s that…?!” Dong Qi could feel her own voice trembling.

“PA. ”

That child’s dark shadow jumped once more, as if her words had fallen entirely onto deaf ears.

The hair all over Dong Qi’s body stood on end as she began to tremble violently. She snuck back into the covers, frozen in fright. The shadow behind the curtains continued to jump up and down, up and down.

“PA.”

“PA.”

“PA.”

With each jump, the little girl seemed to bounce higher and higher. Initially, only half of her forehead could be seen. Slowly, however, more than half her head bobbed up. After that, the shadow of her entire head was reflected on the curtains.

Dong Qi to cover her mouth with the blanket as she cowered at the foot of the bed. She was pale as a ghost and trembling violently. Scared out of her wits, she no longer dared to look at the window.

“PA.”

“PA.”

“PA.”

“PA…”

Suddenly, the sound stopped.

Dong Qi shut her eyes tightly, the hairs on her body standing up on their ends. When the sound suddenly ceased, she perked her ears to listen more carefully, but could not hear anything.

Slowly, she opened her eyes and looked in the direction of the window.

What she saw sent chills down her spine—the curtains at the window had been thoroughly unfurled, and the window had also been opened. The windowsill was utterly bare, as if something had come in.

It came in! That thing… it came in!!!

All color drained from Dong Qi’s face. She felt a great rock pressing down on her heart, suffocating her. She tried to breathe with all her might and cry out, but a huge lump seemed to obstruct her throat. Not a sound escaped.

All of a sudden, she caught sight of the corner of a blue robe sticking out from the bed canopy.

“Hel… help…!” she struggled and mustered a weak cry.

“SHOW YOURSELF!!!”

A ferocious roar rang out suddenly.

“BOOM!!!”

In a split second, the door to the room was shattered to smithereens in a massive explosion. A flash of red charged savagely into the room—it was none other than Lu Sheng.

He bulldozed through the door with saber in hand as piping hot inner Qi rolled off his entire body.

He slashed at the tail of the bed.

“HOO!!”

The saber flashed brilliantly, but swung through thin air, causing the air to howl from the friction.

Lu Sheng’s eyes shone like daggers and he paused his saber. A web of pale red and black veins, like tattoos, ran over his bare upper body, twisted and knotted in a sinister manner.

After that little girl left his room, he dashed off in pursuit. Unexpectedly, he was now led to Dong Qi’s room.

As soon as he saw the little girl jump into the room, he struck down the door unhesitatingly with his saber.

The ghosts on this trip seemed especially cunning and were very difficult to nab. If he hadn’t given close chase, he would likely have been shaken off.

“Don’t you want to play a game? Come, let big bro play with you,” Lu Sheng plastered a warm smile on his face, though he continued to appear utterly malevolent.

The moment he stepped through the door, he scanned the surroundings to find any trace of that little girl.

It was stark empty by the bed, without even a shadow to be seen. Lu Sheng wasn’t too surprised. He didn’t even glance in the direction of Dong Qi, who was gasping for breath after being rescued. Instead, he scanned the room once through before turning on his heel and rushing in the direction of the study, where the stained-glass mirror was kept.

With a bam, he kicked open the door to the study.

The full-height stained-glass mirror stood in the pitch-black room. Presently, a pale-blue humanoid silhouette was standing inside the mirror.

Lu Sheng entered the room and strode swiftly to the stained-glass mirror.

“Plop.”

“Plop.”

“Plop.”

He advanced step by step with increasing speed. Before long, he was in front of the mirror.

“Take one blow from my saber, and I’ll play whatever sh*t game you want with you!!!”

“HOO!”

Growling, he planted both hands on his saber. In that moment, a brilliant flash of silver-white saber gleam lit up the gloomy night. The gleam shot like wind, shone like moonlight, and flew like a huge meteorite falling from the unknown skies.

In that split second, the signboard-sized cleaver whipped up a violent whirlwind inside the study.

“BAM!!!”

A hand shot out unexpectedly from the mirror, catching the gigantic saber blade firmly in its grasp and halting it dead in its tracks.

Lu Sheng’s eyes widened. Instantly, a blood red line shot up from his abdomen all the way to his forehead. In the short span of a single breath, his body swelled up all over as large bands of muscles bulged out like tumors. His entire person ballooned into a titan more than two meters tall.

Both hands on his saber, Lu Sheng exerted all his might onto the mirror. Presently, the enormous cleaver looked like a small ordinary knife in his gigantic hands. However, when swung, it weighed like a huge hammer.

Massive wind pressure and Qi energy blew around in the study, causing the books and paper inside to fly about wildly.

“Changing the Heavens in Seven Days. Spirit Massacre!!!”

“KABOOM!!!”

The saber blade slashed at the arm inside the mirror once again, resulting in a resounding boom. The arm broke with a “KA-CHA,” while the surface of the mirror shattered into a million pieces. The entire mirror, weighing more than a hundred catties, flew into the air and smashed violently into the wall at the back.

A copious amount of boiling inner Qi flooded into the copper mirror. A pale blue shadow instantly shot out from the shattered mirror surface, letting out a miserable shriek as it attempted to flee outside.

But while in mid-air, it was immediately followed by Lu Sheng’s blade in pursuit.

“SPLAT!”

The silhouette exploded into bits and vanished into thin air.