Chapter 460

Is this Wang Weixiang a fat guy…

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 quickly shutting my mouth.

And this dwarf ghost didn't notice anything odd about us, continuing to flatter me: "Immortal, your eyes are indeed like torches; this Wang family wealthy man truly is a fat, oil‑leaking dead fatso. Since Wang Weixiang is the eldest, the villagers call him Wang Daxiong, or Wang Da Pang,"

The dwarf paused, then continued: "Speaking of Wang Da Pang…"

He hadn't even finished half a sentence when Pangzi clenched his fists, black lines covering his head, and interrupted him.

"Damn it, can you speak properly? Why must you call him Wang Da Pang? When you explain, can't you use a different term?" One could see that Pangzi felt a stifled urge to vomit blood.

"Yes, yes, I'll speak properly," the dwarf ghost replied repeatedly, and only then did he change Wang Da Pang to Wang Cai Zhu.

The Wang Cai Zhu spoken of by the dwarf ghost, while not utterly wicked, loved money as dearly as life; no matter what he did, he always tried to save money—for instance, when constructing this residence, he schemed to withhold nearly two‑thirds of the workers' wages.

Speaking of the artisans who built Wang Cai Zhu's residence, there was one surnamed Xu; this Xu artisan, though not a disciple of the Fa Sect, had ancestors who were disciples of Lu Ban's lineage.

I've said before that those in the masonry and carpentry trade, to some extent, are familiar with the art of subduing spirits and counter‑spells. Even today, some carpenters secretly know these methods. If you have a friend from the countryside who has ever built a house back home, you'll find that when laying a threshold, the mason will ask whether you want to bury a few copper coins, or place something else somewhere.

Of course, the art of subduing spirits has existed since ancient times.

Within the carpentry trade, there is such a legend.

Speaking of the Zhang Yi Tower of Dujiangyan built back then, it was none other than the carpentry patriarch Lu Ban. After finishing the tower, Lu Ban placed a small wooden figure carrying a pole on a beam's recess, putting a grain of rice on each end of the pole to keep the figure balanced, and left the saying: "If the wooden man does not fall, water will not approach Shu."

Lu Ban Patriarch was using the spirit‑subduing method to protect Dujiangyan's safety, preventing massive floods. But he never imagined that, a thousand years later, when Dujiangyan breached and before the flood disaster struck, Sichuan suffered a massive rat plague. Any grain that could be found was dragged out for the rats to eat; even if you hid it on the beam, you could hardly escape the rats' claws.

When the rice on the pole lost its balance, Dujiangyan experienced a flood that occurs once in a thousand years.

In the Xishu Wild Records, several stories about the spirit‑subduing art are also recorded.

Burning the Dragon Keel: A wealthy merchant from Wu region hired a carpenter to build a ship, suspecting the carpenter might have ulterior motives because the supplies were meager; he watched the carpenter as work wrapped up, sneaking at night to the stern to eavesdrop, and happened to see the carpenter striking the wooden dragon keel with an axe while chanting a spell. Two years before the ship's launch, it indeed came true—whenever it encountered wind or rain, things never went smoothly.

The 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 neighboring house, realized the plot was exposed, came begging 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 subduing objects, a type of folk witchcraft passed down among the people; the progenitor of spirit‑subduing art is Lu Ban, who ingeniously stole heaven's craftsmanship. Even the Plowshare Witch Sect's object‑subduing spirit‑subduing technique originates from Lu Ban's book.

The Lu Ban lineage also left behind a canonical text, divided into upper, middle, and lower volumes. The upper volume covers mountain opening, timber felling, house construction, and selecting auspicious times. The middle volume deals with spirit subduing and counter‑spirit subduing—that is, bestowing blessings and cursing objects. The lower volume consists entirely of talismanic spells and rituals.

The history of Lu Ban's book cannot be traced, but from its content we can still discern many lineages, including traces of numerous Daoist arts.

For example, the art of hiding and the Golden Blade Command are recorded in various lineages of the Daoist Sect. From this we can infer that all Daoist teachings are inseparable from witchcraft. Speaking of the Orthodox One Heaven School, the ancestral heavenly master Zhang Daoling, when founding his teaching, also combined Jiangxi folk witchcraft. The precursor of the Qingming Dao is said to be the Mount Lu School of Dao.

Moreover, the shadow of Lu Ban's book can be seen in many lineages' arts. Take, for instance, the presently popular Maoshan Nine Dragon Dao method. If you compare it with the arts in Lu Ban's book, you'll find that many arts are merely different soups with the same medicine—put nicely, they borrow and combine the arts of the Southern Transmission Maoshan Great Display of Numinous Power sect to establish their own school; the so‑called Nine Dragons Summoning Water, Nine Dragons Transforming Bone Water, and Gao Ran are found in Lu Ban's lower volume.

Thus, many outsiders may look down on Lu Ban's methods, and some newcomers to Daoism consider Lu Ban's teaching a heterodox side path. Yet if we trace its origins, Lu Ban's book predates any Daoist sect. Even the foremost Daoist tradition, the Five‑Pecks‑of‑Rice School, was founded in the late Eastern Han, whereas Lu Ban's writings already existed in the Spring and Autumn‑Warring States period.

Of course… as for the arts in the middle and lower volumes, whether they were composed by Lu Ban himself or by later disciples borrowing his master's name, we cannot know. But one thing is certain: anyone in the carpentry trade will never be unfamiliar with spirit‑subduing arts.

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

After painstakingly building the house, Wang Cai Zhu kept finding fault—first this, then that—exhausting every ounce of his wit to ruthlessly withhold nearly two‑thirds of Xu the artisan's wages.

We're all human; I earn my keep with hard work, while you sit with legs crossed, squeezing me dry. Naturally, the Xu family artisan feels wronged, especially since his household is poor, with a frail, bedridden mother, and life is quite destitute.

After several futile demands for payment, the Xu artisan, in anger, followed the records in Lu Ban's fragmentary volume, fashioned a willow wood tablet, chanted a soul‑summoning spell to summon this dwarf ghost, and nailed it to the tablet with a long willow spike.

Lu Ban's art differs from ordinary folk lineages; anyone, even without formal initiation, can cultivate the techniques in Lu Ban's book. However, lacking orthodox transmission, practice will inevitably go awry—effective spells fail, ineffective ones backfire—and inevitably, besides inviting poverty, loneliness, and early death, one cultivates a mouth that spews auspicious‑sounding but actually harmful words.

After summoning the dwarf ghost, the Xu artisan secretly placed the willow wood tablet beneath the central palace's beam.

This spot corresponds to the heart of the beam, directly aimed at the Wang family wealthy man's heart. Over the years, he not only felt a faint ache in his heart while sleeping, but also seemed to have suffered eight lifetimes of misfortune, unable to retain his wealth, and began to decline.

Of course, the Wang family residence's feng shui isn't great! Even without this willow tablet causing trouble, it would eventually fall into decay at the hands of its descendants.

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

Now the dwarf ghost's soul, driven by the Xu‑Lu Ban, can only be trapped within the wooden tablet, long‑term exerting its influence on the Wang family. Although the Wang family later indeed declined, Wang Cai Zhu earned a lasting infamy for committing adultery with his daughter‑in‑law.

The Wang family was also flattened by a surging crowd, but the willow wood tablet was buried in the loess as the house was torn down. Even years later, the dwarf ghost remains bound by the tablet; the wronged spirit cannot escape its suppression, let alone go register at the Yama Hall and enter the six paths of reincarnation.

What happened next was just as the dwarf ghost had said earlier: after days of deep slumber, he was drawn to the soul‑attracting incense I had laid out; since that incense is a great tonic for ghosts, 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 drumming and gong sounds; due to his innate nature, he played a trick on the audience and sucked in a few breaths of wealth qi.

Speaking of the dwarf ghost's origins, they are indeed quite pitiful. First he died in a filthy place, becoming a coal‑decline ghost. Then he was summoned and trapped in the old Wang family residence, forced unwillingly to do deeds that harm heaven and reason. Even after the Wang family declined, the dwarf ghost could hardly find a chance to be reborn.

However… Wang Cai Zhu and Pangzi really are quite alike—not just in name, but also in temperament. I thought strangely, unable to 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, quickly coughed twice, forced a normal expression, and said to the dwarf ghost: "So it seems your background is indeed rather tragic…"

Mid‑sentence, my face turned deathly pale; 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 where someone was hurt on the stage. If so, then the person who injured someone on the stage must be someone else. And the second play the stage is about to perform…… is the same anti‑Japanese drama as that night.

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

But the accident had already occurred before we could get back; when Pangzi and I, having mustered all our strength, ran from the rear hills back to the stage, what met our eyes was this gruesome scene.