Chapter 188

Is Wang Weixiang a fatty…

I swear, I asked this question just following my train of thought; I had absolutely no intention of insulting Pangzi.

Until… Pangzi shot me a murderous glare, frightening me into hastily shutting my mouth.

Moreover, the dwarf ghost didn't notice anything odd about us, and continued to flatter me: "Sure enough, Immortal, your eyes are like torches; this Wang family financier is indeed a fat, oil-leaking dead fatty. Since Wang Weixiang is the eldest, the villagers call him Elder Brother Wang, or Big Fatty,"

The dwarf ghost paused, then continued: "Speaking of this Big Fatty…"

Before he could finish half a sentence, Pangzi clenched his fists, veins bulging on his forehead, and cut him off.

"Damn it, can you speak properly? Why must I be called Big Fatty? When you explain, can't you use a different term?" It could be seen that at this moment Pangzi felt a stifling urge to vomit blood.

"Yes, yes, I'll speak properly," the dwarf ghost replied repeatedly, and only then did he change "Big Fatty" to "Wang the financier."

The Wang financier mentioned by the dwarf ghost, though not utterly wicked, loved money as dearly as life; no matter what he did, he always tried to cut costs. For instance, when constructing this mansion, he schemed to withhold nearly two-thirds of the workers' wages.

Speaking of the artisans who built the financier's mansion, there was one surnamed Xu; although this Xu artisan was not a disciple of the Fa teaching, his ancestors had been disciples of the Lu Ban lineage.

I've said before that those who work as mud-and-water carpenters are, to some extent, familiar with some nightmare-subduing and nightmare-countering arts; even nowadays some carpenters secretly know these methods. If you have a friend from the countryside who has also built a house in his hometown, you'll find that when laying a threshold, the mud-and-water carpenter will ask you whether you want to bury a few copper coins, cash, or place something else elsewhere.

Of course, the nightmare-subduing art has existed since ancient times.

Within the carpentry trade, there is such a legend.

Speaking of which, the carpenter who built the Dujiangyan Zhangyi Pavilion back then was none other than the ancestor of carpenters, Lu Ban. After finishing the pavilion, Lu Ban placed a small wooden figure carrying a pole in a recess of the beam, putting a grain of rice on each end of the pole to keep the figure balanced, and left the saying: "If the wooden figure does not fall, floodwaters will not approach Shu."

Lu Ban was using the nightmare-subduing method to protect Dujiangyan's safety, preventing massive floods from surging forth. But Lu Ban never imagined that, a thousand years later, when Dujiangyan breached in the year of the flood disaster, before the flood struck, Sichuan suffered a massive rat plague; any grain that could be found was dragged out and eaten by the rats, and even if you hid it on the beam, you could hardly escape the rats' claws.

After the rice grains on the pole lost their balance, Dujiangyan suffered a flood disaster that occurs once in a thousand years.

In the Xishu Wild Records, several stories concerning the nightmare-subduing art are also recorded.

Burning the Dragon Bone: A wealthy merchant from Wu region commissioned a carpenter to build a ship; because the "equipment was somewhat flimsy," he suspected the carpenter might have ulterior motives, so he watched as the carpenter finished work, then sneaked to the stern at night to eavesdrop, and happened to see the carpenter striking the wooden dragon bone with an axe while chanting a spell. Two years before the ship's launch, the prediction indeed came true: whenever they encountered wind or rain, the voyage was never smooth.

The wealthy merchant, suspecting foul play, broke open the ship, took out the wooden dragon, and threw it into boiling oil to fry. The carpenter fell ill in the neighbor's house, realized the plot had been exposed, came to beg for mercy, but the merchant ignored his pleas and continued frying the wooden figurine; the carpenter collapsed and died.

In short, this is the art of suppressing objects, a kind of witchcraft passed down among the folk; the ancestor of the nightmare-subduing art is none other than Lu Ban, the ingenious craftsman. Even the object-suppressing nightmare-subduing art of the Plowshare Witch Sect originates from Lu Ban's book.

The Lu Ban lineage also left behind a canonical text, divided into three volumes—upper, middle, and lower. The upper volume covers clearing mountains, felling timber, constructing buildings, and selecting auspicious times; the middle volume deals with nightmare-subduing and nightmare-countering arts, that is, bringing misfortune and the art of cursing and suppressing objects; while the lower volume consists entirely of magical talismans and incantations.

Although the history of Lu Ban's book cannot be traced, its contents still reveal many lineages, including traces of numerous Daoist magical arts.

For example, the art of concealment and the Golden Blade Command are recorded among the major lineages of the Daoist Sect. From this we can infer that Daoist teachings, whether orthodox or heterodox, are inseparable from witchcraft. Speaking of the Orthodox Unity Dao, the founder Zhang Daoling of the Daoist Sect also incorporated Jiangxi folk witchcraft when he established the teaching; the precursor of the Qingming Dao is said to be the Lushan Fa teaching.

The shadow of Lu Ban's book can also be seen in many lineages' arts. Take, for example, the presently prevalent Mao Mountain Nine Dragon Dao Method. If you compare it with the arts in Lu Ban's book, you will find that many arts are merely the same medicine in a different broth; put nicely, they are derived from borrowing and combining the arts of the Southern Mao Mountain Mighty Numinous Tradition, thus forming their own school—namely, the Nine Dragons Creating Water, the Nine Dragons Transforming Bones Water, and Haoran, which are found in the lower volume of Lu Ban's book.

Consequently, many outsiders may still look down on Lu Ban's methods, and some newcomers to the Daoist Sect consider Lu Ban's teaching a heretical side path. But if one traces its origins, Lu Ban's book predates any Daoist teaching. Even the Daoist Sect's largest school, the Five-Pecks-of-Rice Teaching, was founded only at the end of the Eastern Han dynasty, whereas Lu Ban's writings already existed during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods.

Moreover… as for the arts in the middle and lower volumes, it is unknown whether they were composed by Lu Ban himself or by later disciples who wrote under his ancestor's name; but one thing is certain: anyone engaged in carpentry will never be unfamiliar with the nightmare-subduing art.

This Xu family artisan, although not a direct inheritor of the Lu Ban lineage, still had a fragmentary volume passed down from his ancestors.

After painstakingly building the house, the Wang financier kept finding fault—first saying there was a problem here, then claiming the quality was poor there; in short, he racked his brains to forcibly withhold nearly two-thirds of the Xu artisan's wages.

We're all human; I earn money with the sweat of my hands, while you sit with legs crossed and exploit me. The Xu artisan naturally feels no resentment, especially since his family circumstances are not good—he even has a frail, ill mother confined to bed, and their life is quite impoverished.

After several futile demands for payment, the Xu artisan, in a fit of anger, followed the instructions in Lu Ban's fragmentary volume, fashioned a willow wood tablet, chanted a soul-summoning spell to call forth this dwarf ghost, and drove a long willow nail into the tablet.

Unlike ordinary folk magical lineages, Lu Ban's arts can be practiced by anyone, even without formal initiation; however, lacking orthodox transmission, practice will easily go awry, causing effective or ineffective spirits to backfire, and besides inevitably bringing about self-inflicted poverty, loneliness, and early death, the practitioner will also develop a crow's mouth that can bring either good or bad luck.

After summoning the dwarf ghost, the Xu artisan secretly placed the willow wood tablet beneath the beam of the central hall.

This spot corresponds to the heart of the beam, and it directly aligns with the heart of the Wang financier. Over time, the financier not only felt a faint ache in his heart while sleeping, but also began to suffer relentless misfortune, unable to retain his wealth, and started to decline.

Of course, the Wang family's mansion has poor feng shui; even without the willow tablet's mischief, it would eventually be run into ruin by its descendants.

Yet the grudge between these two people has dragged in an innocent wronged soul. Although the dwarf ghost died young, if someone were to retrieve his bones and give him a proper burial, he would effectively have a household registration and could be reborn in the underworld.

Now the dwarf ghost's soul has been driven by Xu, the Lu Ban practitioner, and can only be trapped within the wooden tablet, long-term exerting its influence on the Wang family. Although the Wang family indeed later declined, the financier earned a lasting infamy for his affair with his daughter-in-law.

The Wang family was also leveled by surging crowds, but the willow tablet was buried in the yellow earth when the house was demolished. Even years later, the dwarf ghost remains trapped by the tablet; the wronged soul cannot escape its oppression, let alone register at the Hall of King Yama and enter the six paths of reincarnation.

What happened next was just as the dwarf ghost had said earlier: after sleeping for many days, he was drawn to the soul-attracting incense I had laid out, since that incense is a great tonic for spirits, so he couldn't help secretly turning into a cockroach and sucking in several breaths.

Tonight, when the stage performance began, the dwarf ghost was startled awake by the sound of drums and gongs; due to his innate nature, he played a trick on the audience while watching the show and sucked in a few breaths of wealth energy.

Speaking of the dwarf ghost's origins, his story is indeed quite pitiful: he first died in a filthy place and became a coal‑borne wicked ghost; later he was summoned and trapped in the old Wang family's manor, forced unwillingly to perform deeds that harm heaven and reason; even after the Wang family declined, the dwarf ghost still finds it hard to obtain any chance of rebirth.

However… the Wang financier and Pangzi are really quite similar—not just in name, but also in temperament. I thought about this with a strange expression, and couldn't help glancing at Pangzi a few more times.

Pangzi clenched his fists and roared at me angrily: "Damn it, what are you thinking? I'm not that kind of person!"

I %￥%…… What did I say? I didn't say anything!

I gave Pangzi a sideways glance, then quickly coughed twice, forced a normal expression, and said to the dwarf ghost: "So it seems your background is indeed rather tragic…!"

Midway through speaking, my face turned deathly pale, and large beads of cold sweat slowly trickled down my forehead. At that moment I suddenly realized a very serious matter,

According to the dwarf ghost's account, he has nothing to do with the incident of someone being hurt on the stage. If so, then the person who caused the injury on stage must be someone else. Moreover, the second play scheduled to be performed on the stage…… is the same anti‑Japanese drama as that night.

Thinking of this, my face turned ashen and my heart filled with unease. Pangzi also seemed to grasp the seriousness of the situation; after exchanging a glance with me, we both turned and ran back toward the stage.

But an accident had already occurred before we could get back; when Pangzi and I, straining every effort, ran from the back hills to the stage, what met our eyes was this gruesome scene..