Chapter 97

After resting a while and feeling some strength return, I and Pangzi each supported Chen Mo on one side and walked out of this pitch‑black little alley.

The atmosphere on the street was oppressive and quiet; Aomen is a city that never sleeps, and once night falls the lights are blazing, so there should be a steady stream of pedestrians.

But at this moment there wasn't a single pedestrian on the street, not even a taxi, adding another layer of oppression to our already exhausted minds and bodies.

Fortunately, it was merely strange; nothing uncanny appeared on the street, and no wandering spirits lingered there.

"What should we do now? We can't even hail a taxi," Pangzi asked, panting.

"What else can we do? Naturally we'll walk; it's not far anyway." I couldn't help feeling a bit relieved despite my wry smile.

No sooner had the words fallen than a rather magnetic voice came from behind.

"How did you end up here?"

We turned our heads and saw Fan Wuchang in a black outfit, a cigarette dangling from his lips, slowly walking toward us.

"Didn't I have the lawyer bail you out? Why aren't you staying at the inn?" Fan Wuchang gave us a puzzled glance.

"Ah… explaining this would be too complicated. To make a long story short, a short explanation wouldn't be thorough enough, so I'll explain it when I have the time." Pangzi sighed and replied.

Pangzi's tone directly caused a black line to appear on Fan Wuchang's forehead.

"I'm only worried about Zheng‑ge's ancestral home—how did you fare with it?" Fan Wuchang wearily rubbed his forehead.

We've already dispelled the yang sha, but the feng shui still needs to be set on an auspicious day; otherwise we cannot alter the qi of this dead house." As I said this, I lightly placed my hand on the handle of the umbrella floating in mid‑air. Little Fat and Hong Nainai, as well as Murong Jiaja, are souls, so I don't worry that Fan Wuchang can see it. However, an umbrella floating in mid‑air for no reason is bound to seem strange.

Fortunately, Fan Wuchang's attention wasn't on the umbrella behind me; he merely worried about how long it would take to improve the feng shui of Zheng's ancestral home.

Pangzi recounted the whole incident to Fan Wuchang, telling him that they must set up the Nine Yin Formation in twelve days, borrowing heavenly momentum to change the house's qi.

After listening, Fan Wuchang nodded lightly, urging us not to be careless and to properly handle the house's feng shui.

"Right, Brother Chang, how did you end up here?" I was utterly puzzled by Fan Wuchang's appearance, and the fact that he had no bodyguard with him seemed highly irregular for a right‑hand man of a crime boss.

Moreover, Fan Wuchang tonight gave me a strange feeling: although his stern face remained calm, under the pallid light I could see his complexion was somewhat sallow, as if he had just recovered from a serious illness.

"Nothing… yesterday the Tiger Gang declared war on the Dongling faction, the battleground being the street right next door; I just came from there, afraid you'd run around recklessly, so I came specially to give you a warning." Fan Wuchang took out a tissue and lightly wiped the sweat from his forehead.

"I guess that's why the whole street is deserted—you two gangs are fighting," I said. I and Pangzi don't really want to get involved in underworld affairs, but judging by Fan Wuchang's condition, he likely suffered serious injuries in this big battle.

"Be careful…" I warned, and instinctively patted his waist, only to feel a long, cylindrical hard object there.

This sensation involuntarily made me think of a gun—equally cold, tucked at the waist; if it isn't a gun, what else could it be?

It seems this matter is no trivial affair; even Fan Wuchang, who usually prefers a knife, is now wearing a pistol.

"Heh, I'm fine…" Fan Wuchang gave a laugh that admitted no denial, sidestepped my hand resting on his waist, gave us two more cautions not to wander about randomly, then handed me and Pangzi a cigarette and walked past us.

Pangzi and I lit our cigarettes, supported Chen Mo, and continued forward.

When we returned to the inn, it was already five a. m. On the table lay a letter written by Yuan Qiu, telling us that Lao Zhang had taken him out for drinks and would probably be playing for a day or two, so we shouldn't worry; if anything happens, call the phone number at the bottom of the note.

Three people, three rooms; after Yuan Qiu left, one room happened to be vacant. But when I tried to place the unconscious Chen Mo in Yuan Qiu's room, I found it locked. Having no choice, I put Chen Mo in Pangzi's room instead.

At that moment, Pangzi and I had no trace of sleepiness; our minds kept returning to that bizarre serpent infant. Although we are young and our experience limited, not having seen much doesn't mean we haven't heard much. Even after listening to QingSongShu recount all sorts of supernatural tales in our leisure time, and after reading numerous fragmented ancient texts, we had never heard of a creature that is neither fully human nor snake, with a human body and two heads.

"What exactly is this laughter‑inducing flower?" I asked, taking a puff of my cigarette and turning to Hong Nainai and Murong Jiaja.

Hong Nainai pondered for a moment, then shook her head: "I've only heard that it is an evil flower cultivated with the blood of virgins; anyone who smells its fragrance becomes intoxicated in body and soul, and once entranced may spend a lifetime lost in that ambience, never to awaken. But as for the flower's details, I cannot say."

In the end, it was Murong Jiaja who told me the origin of the laughter‑inducing flower.

She said that to trace the origin of this flower we must go back to the Han dynasty.

Speaking of the late Eastern Han, there was an old man in Julu who held a copy of the Scripture of Great Peace, transmitted it to eight disciples, formed the Yellow Turban Strongmen, and then, with defiant heavenly power, forcibly severed the Han imperial dynasty's dragon vein. Consequently the Han house teetered on collapse and war flared across the land.

This old man was none other than the founder of the Way of Great Peace, later honored as the Grand Virtuous Teacher Zhang Jue. Although he severed the dragon vein and broke the Han's qi, Zhang Jue incurred heavenly punishment for his defiance of heaven; afterward the Yellow Turban army was besieged by the combined forces of warlords such as Yuan Shao, Cao Cao, and Sun Jian, and finally vanished into the loess of history. Even so, the Yellow Turbans had their moment of glory; it is said that after Zhang Jue's death the Scripture of Great Peace split in two, the upper strategy falling into the hands of Huang Chengyan, Zhuge Liang's father‑in‑law, while the lower strategy's whereabouts remain unknown.

Of course, all that is later talk; worth mentioning is that besides the notorious Way of Great Peace, the populace at the time saw a surge of various organizations, all raising the banner of rebellion, yet behind the scenes many engaged in deeds worse than beasts and birds, making them truly evil cults.

The Han dynasty was an age when sorcery prevailed, and the rise of these evil cults is inseparable from it. Among these cults there was one called the Gate of Joy, which advocated achieving unity of heaven and man through yin‑yang union. Within the Gate of Joy existed a bizarre, humanity‑destroying "treasure" known as the Laughter‑Inducing Flower.

He took a peculiar flower as the source, irrigated it with the blood of pure maidens, and what made it even more humanity‑destroying is that this flower was gestated within an infant's body.

They take an infant less than a hundred days old, plant the flower's seed inside its body, treat the child like a plant by confining it in soil, then use dark arts to bewitch a maiden; when her lust is aroused, they mercilessly destroy her spirit and intellect, harvesting her blood to nourish the Laughter‑Inducing Flower.

When the seed sprouts, it pierces out of the infant's body; at that moment the child suffers a rupture of body and mind, agony beyond endurance. On the day the flower blooms—also the day the infant's life ends—the infant retains only its consciousness, which merges with the Laughter‑Inducing Flower.

Because the flower contains the infant's purity and the maiden's beautiful hopes and wishes for her lifetime, it combines these in an utterly alternative way.

Whoever smells its fragrance instantly falls into a dazed, illusory realm—hazy and dream‑like, with shifting light and shadow, suffused with the breath of spring, eroding everyone's mind and soul.

This is the Laughter‑Inducing Flower, conceived in a manner that annihilates humanity, and terrifying to the extreme: perhaps at the moment of your death you will not sense death's approach at all, but only feel yourself lying on a vibrant meadow brimming with life, imbued with spring's breath, and possessed of a sense of home.

Although the Gate of Joy was later exterminated in history and the method of refining the Laughter‑Inducing Flower was lost, Murong Jiaja and Hong Nainai both insist that the bloodstains on the twin‑headed serpent infant carry the scent of that flower.

"Didn't you say the Gate of Joy was wiped out? Then the method of refining the Laughter‑Inducing Flower should have been lost, right?" Pangzi rested his chin on his hand, his face grave.

Murong Jiaja raised her delicate brows, exhaled like orchids, and spoke softly: "All Daoist sects and Buddhist teachings are inseparable from sorcery; the Gate of Joy originates from sorcery, and the method of nurturing the Laughter‑Inducing Flower is likewise a sorcerous art. Though the Gate of Joy understands it, one cannot guarantee that other schools have not dabbled in it."

"But that serpent infant, though somewhat human‑like, is covered head to toe in snake scales, even its tongue and eyes exactly matching those of a snake—how can that be, and how does it bear any resemblance to the legendary Laughter‑Inducing Flower?" Pangzi paused, then asked Murong Jiaja with great puzzlement.

"Gu"—almost at the same instant, I and Murong Jiaja blurted out that word.

The Han dynasty valued sorcery and also gu poison; by the end of Emperor Wu's reign the notorious gu‑sorcery calamity had arisen. The origins of sorcery and gu are anciently intertwined, and in the Han they were never separated.

For example, after I and Pangzi returned from Anhui, the old woman who delivered eggs in the Chan Yi Hall was one who mixed gu insects with corpses to create another kind of evil thing.

From this it is not hard to infer that the serpent infant is a blend of the Laughter‑Inducing Flower and one of the Five Poisons, the snake. After all, sorcery has been passed down through the ages, altered by countless individuals, giving rise to a profusion of orthodox and heterodox arts. In this world, besides geniuses, there are those who have taken a wrong turn and stepped onto the evil path—talents gone astray.

At this moment, everyone's hearts in the inn felt chilly; the strangeness of the serpent infant far exceeded anyone's expectations. If it weren't for Little Fat, I think we'd all die without ever knowing what this was. Thinking of that, a surge of post‑disaster trepidation welled up in me.

"Pangzi, what should we do now?" I exclaimed, torn with anxiety, and tossed the ball to him.

Pangzi rubbed his furrowed brow, sighed, and said: "Let's talk later; I'm not worried about the serpent infant now, but about the person pulling the strings behind it—someone capable of concocting such a humanity‑destroying monster must be no ordinary individual."

What Pangzi said is indeed reasonable; though the serpent infant is strange, the person behind it is undoubtedly more terrifying. Even though we two could stay out of it and remain uninvolved, such an act is so utterly inhumane that anyone with a shred of conscience would surely do everything possible to stop it and bring the perpetrator to justice.

But once we wade into this murky water, countless unknowns will likely arise, and we may end up inviting an enormous trouble—a foe terrifying to the extreme.