Chapter 368: City of the Dead?

The tip of Fleeting Life was still stuck in the mirror’s face when He Lingchuan asked, “Convinced yet?”

“Yes, yes, I’m convinced. I’m completely convinced. You’re amazing!”

What the hell is up with that saber?

He Lingchuan twisted the hilt slightly. “And just now, who did you call a smelly, unwashed bug?”

“I—” The mirror reacted fast. “I meant Gan Laosan, that kid!”

“What are you, exactly? If you lie to me again, I’ll twist you into a fried dough twist[1].”

“I was originally a heart-protecting mirror[2] bestowed by the Heavenly Evolution Sect upon General You Shanming. I followed him through years of campaigning. I absorbed too many wrathful souls, and I ultimately gained consciousness.”

So it used to be a heart-protecting mirror? No wonder it’s so hard to pierce; blocking attacks was its sole purpose.

He Lingchuan remembered that the mirrors Qing Xu and the others had used were of the same style. Apparently, it was a standard issue of the Heavenly Evolution Sect.

It was a good thing that he had stabbed from the back toward the reflective side, effectively hitting a weak point.

The mirror continued, “Later, General You died in battle. I was removed from his armor, and I passed through many owners. They all used me to kill men and monsters. That’s how I managed to keep my spirit awake even after the world’s spirit qi declined.”

“And what are you doing here?”

“I was sealed for a long time, in a state of deep sleep. A few days ago, I suddenly consumed a huge chunk of imperial nectar, and that woke me up. I realized I was out in the wilderness, so I summoned a mirror-slave to take me away.” The mirror sounded aggrieved. “Even with my blessing, she was already over two hundred years old, and her lifespan was truly exhausted. I had no choice but to take a new mirror-slave nearby.”

“You mean Third Master Gan?”

So this mirror enslaves living people?

“Yes. The rule for taking a mirror-slave is that I must grant him three wishes or requests and fulfill them. If he’s willing to agree directly, so much the better.”

That idiot.

He Lingchuan shook his head inwardly.

No wonder Eldest Master Gan warned his third brother sternly not to seek out the spirit medium.

“Eldest Master Gan saw how you dealt with Young Master Sha?”

“He was right there,” said the mirror. “You think he didn’t know beforehand? I told him it would consume Gan Laosan’s second wish, and he still made the request!”

He Lingchuan fell silent.

Eldest Master Gan understood perfectly well that the spirit medium would never work for the Gan Family for nothing. The cost would always land on Gan Laosan in the end. Yet for the sake of his business, he still demanded that she go after Young Master Sha.

Of course, if you looked at it another way, Third Master Gan had lived comfortably for seventeen or eighteen years off his eldest brother’s support. What was a little “payment” to the family, really?

As He Lingchuan was turning that over in his mind, a fish nearly two-thirds of a meter long suddenly leaped from the lake and slammed into his wrist.

It was a perfect stroke of timing.

While talking to the mirror, He Lingchuan had kept his spiritual sense spread out, sweeping the surroundings in case of an ambush.

But water could block spiritual sense, and the fish struck without warning.

It appeared that the evil ghost that had slipped away earlier had quietly entered the lake and latched onto the fish.

The impact flipped He Lingchuan’s wrist, wrenching the mirror around with it, and now the mirror’s face pointed straight at him.

The mirror’s surface lit up, and in it he saw his own face.

His reflection grinned at him like a demon. “You really think you won? Hand over your soul!”

It had deliberately played weak, biding its time for this exact moment!

He Lingchuan immediately felt a tremendous suction pouring out of the mirror, trying to yank his soul and spirit straight inside.

He had already been hit by this once in the mirror realm, but the pull from that “reflection” was nothing compared to the real thing in front of him now.

No wonder so many people couldn’t escape it.

But just as the reflection laughed in triumph, something went “dong” inside He Lingchuan’s mind, as if someone had struck a great bronze bell.

The sound was deep and lingering, carrying an indescribable vastness. In a single instant, it pinned his soul and spirit in place, steady and immovable.

So that’s how it is.

He Lingchuan finally relaxed. The two things he carried—the “set”—really were enough to restrain this mirror.

At the same time, his reflection in the mirror went wide-eyed.

From its point of view, in the empty air behind He Lingchuan, a gigantic city suddenly appeared, though it was only its silhouette. The details were indistinct, yet the city was clearly towering and layered, immense beyond measure. The city gates were crowded with shadowy figures. Countless faint voices seemed to chant and whisper in the air, an overwhelming, solemn pressure surging outward like a tide.

It was power the mirror could not possibly withstand.

“T-the City of the Dead! The City of the Dead Spirits!” the mirror shrieked so hard its voice cracked. The fear in it was like a rabbit being chased by a tiger. “You’re from a soul land? So it’s real... There truly is a City of the Dead...”

Fleeting Life suddenly trembled, its killing intent slicing off the rest of the mirror’s words.

Crack!

The mirror split a little more.

“City of your sister!” He Lingchuan snarled and hammered the mirror’s face with two punches. “Spit my golden-armored copper man back out!”

He did not know what nightmare the mirror thought it had seen, shouting nonsense about some “City of the Dead.”

He did not know of any City of the Dead; he only knew of Panlong City. Thinking back to the earliest desert journey, Panlong City really had held countless heroic spirits, spirits that had gotten Nian Songyu and even State Preceptor Sun killed. And were heroic spirits not a kind of dead spirit too?[3]

Panlong City had always been his biggest trump card. Now this mirror had somehow called it out, and that pissed him off.

This thing was vicious and scheming at every turn. If his treasure had not still been trapped inside it, he would have smashed it to pieces on the spot to eliminate future trouble.

After that shock, the mirror became much more obedient. With a soft pff, it spat out the golden-armored copper man.

Back then, the copper man had thrown the three of them out of the mirror realm and then fallen along with the Crimson Luan. If the mirror spirit refused to cooperate, He Lingchuan would have lost a precious treasure.

The golden-armored copper man shrank back into a small figurine. He Lingchuan picked it up, checked it, and almost exploded in rage.

“Where are the profound crystals? Where’s the profound crystal I put inside it? Did you swallow it?”

A battle construct of this size naturally needed profound crystals to run. He Lingchuan had only had two total. He had fed it one, and by his estimate, it should have lasted for several uses.

And yet the compartment was completely empty.

“It wasn’t me, it used it up itself!”

After listening to its excuse, He Lingchuan learned what had happened. Once the three of them escaped the mirror realm, the copper man lost its link to its master. It also never received an order to stop, so it kept rampaging.

It was an energy hog, so it did not take long for it to consume the profound crystal entirely.

Hearing that, He Lingchuan felt as if his heart were bleeding.

Profound crystals were precious fuel, and each of them was worth tens of thousands, yet one of his had been wasted just like that.

He looked again at the copper man’s battered body. It was covered in damage. Clearly, it had fought plenty inside the mirror realm.

This is a catastrophic loss.

And the mirror still had the nerve to complain, “It went around picking fights with the people in my mirror, messing up a lot of karma. I’m the real victim here!”

He Lingchuan was about to give the broken mirror another brutal lesson when hoofbeats approached. Wu Jinsong and Xu Dongdong finally came racing back.

“The moment we reached Baijiao Shrine, Gan Laosan turned to ash,” Wu Jinsong said, still breathing hard. “We got played.”

He Lingchuan shook the bronze mirror at them, careful to keep the back facing outward.

“The mirror’s right here.” His tone was sour. “It’s been behind everything. Gan Laosan was just a decoy, a mirror-slave bound by it.”

Wu Jinsong crept closer, cautious. “This is what stole our souls?”

“Probably.” He Lingchuan patted the mirror. “Hey, their souls, give them back.”

He knocked on it a few times before it reluctantly coughed up two glowing orbs.

The orbs flew to Wu Jinsong and Xu Dongdong, slipping into their bodies through their seven apertures.

Both men shuddered. Their eyes cleared from blankness into focus, and their faces regained life.

They exchanged a look, then cupped their fists toward He Lingchuan. “Many thanks for saving us, Young Master He!”

Just from their tone alone, He Lingchuan could tell they were truly back—back to themselves, back to having real emotion.

“We still need to retrieve Young Master Sha’s missing souls.”

The mirror hurried to say, “I can, but if I hand it over now, his soul will disperse.” There was a distance of well over a hundred kilometers from here to the Sha Residence, and a living soul could not be separated from its body—or a proper vessel—for too long.

With his dead companion in mind, Xu Dongdong ground his teeth. “We don’t have to. We brought seabed wood. It can house and nourish a soul...”

They had come to retrieve Young Master Sha’s missing souls, so they had naturally brought a container.

But his words cut off abruptly, because he suddenly remembered that the seabed wood had been carried by their companion, who had died in the mirror realm.

“Give us back the seabed wood!”

The mirror went silent, pretending it had not heard anything. It was not stupid. Once it handed everything over, the saber would come down next.

“It looks like we’ll have to bring this thing back, too,” Wu Jinsong said, glancing at He Lingchuan. After hesitating, he added carefully, “I wonder if Young Master He would be willing to give it to us...”

This was He Lingchuan’s spoil of war. And he had the strength to keep it. What price could Wu Jinsong possibly name that would persuade him?

He Lingchuan waved a hand. “You two report to the Grand Tutor of the King of Baoshu’s estate in Beijia, right?”

“Yes.”

“I’m headed to Beijia too.” He Lingchuan flashed a grin. “Mind if I come along?”

Wu Jinsong lit up. “That would be perfect!” Relief washed over him, and his smile widened. “If you return the young master’s soul, the grand tutor will surely reward you heavily!”

He Lingchuan laughed twice, thinking that Wu Jinsong had seemed more sincere when he was literally missing some of his souls.

They immediately made the mirror return the five corpses of the Sha household guards. They buried them by Mochou Lake and erected a small marker.

Wu Jinsong and Xu Dongdong recited prayers over the graves and poured out two jars of wine. Only then did they lead their horses and return with He Lingchuan toward Wuze County.

As for Third Master Gan, He Lingchuan had his own way of dealing with him.

He forced the mirror to dissolve the mirror-slave contract and restore Third Master Gan to freedom.

Killing him with one slash would have been far too kind.

Honestly, although the Soul-Stealing Mirror was no good thing either, with the Gan Family collapsing and Third Master Gan’s situation so hopeless, becoming the mirror’s slave might actually have been the best possible way out for him.

After He Lingchuan had cut the spirit medium in half, she had been able to heal rapidly by relying on her status as a mirror-slave—never mind that she had lived over two hundred years, far beyond any normal human lifespan.

If this mirror played dirty and moved in the shadows, it might even have dragged the Gan Family out of the mud.

Had Eldest Master Gan not already demonstrated its ability to do exactly that?

Evil objects had their uses, and crooked paths had their shortcuts.

He Lingchuan insisted that the mirror strip away that contract and throw Third Master Gan back into his original state, forcing him to bear what he should have borne all along.

A parasite like him, once the family’s main pillar collapsed, his fate...

Hehe.

1. These are delicious. Search up mahua, though maybe just fried dough twist works as well. ☜

2. Note that I’ve also translated heart-protecting mirror (护心镜) as heart-protecting plate before, but in this case, mirror obviously fits the context much better. I made a reference/note about this back in Chapter 316. ☜

3. Note that what I am translating as City of the Dead (亡灵之城) is probably more faithfully translated as City of the Dead Spirits, but the latter is just a bit of a mouthful, so I’d rather not. Anyway, that’s the reason for the mention of dead spirits. ☜