Chapter 42: Reflections on a Borrowed Face

Liu Wei stood ramrod straight, not bothering to look at the bloody hole in his own chest, his eyes fixed dead on the ambusher.

More precisely, on the mask covering the ambusher's face.

"Who are you? Where is Liu Wu?"

The two brothers had only each other to rely on, and each cared more for the other than for himself.

Wu Chang took off his mask and said, "Brother Liu Wei, instead of staying in the village to deal with the evil, you slipped out in the dead of night — what business could that be?"

As he spoke, he reloaded. The motion was slow, as if to let a certain someone see it clearly.

"Hero Wu?" Liu Wei stared at Wu Chang in disbelief.

He had never imagined that the bushy-browed, square-eyed, gentlemanly Hero Wu would stoop to such a dirty trick as a sneak attack.

Wasn't that the bandits' specialty?

In Huaigu Village, Wu Chang's whole persona was that of a Daoist master who could summon and return souls. Now that the mask had fallen into his hands, just how much of the secret had been exposed?

And when he thought of why his brother Wu had left, Liu Wei's heart gave a sudden lurch.

"What have you done to Liu Wu?"

Wu Chang shrugged. "Same as you — bang!"

Liu Wei spat out the fresh blood in his mouth and cursed:

"Despicable! And you, from a famous and proper sect — if you've got the guts, let's have it out fair and square. What kind of hero-heroic man resorts to a sneak attack?"

Wu Chang curled his lip. "No, mate — our Tang Clan plays with hidden weapons. A straight-up duel against you saber types? You must be out of your mind."

"You—!" Liu Wei flushed scarlet with rage and coughed up a mouthful of fresh blood.

"See, the moral blackmail didn't work so now you're getting heated. Fine, my hidden weapons are reloaded, and your little brother is waiting for you down below. Any last words?"

"You rat! Give my brother back his life!" Liu Wei launched a death-throe counterattack, driving his vengeful ghosts to assault Wu Chang.

But Wu Chang was wearing the other half of the mask, so the vengeful ghosts could not attack him at all and could only brush past his body.

Wu Chang squeezed the trigger, and a matching bloody hole bloomed on Liu Wei's other side of the chest.

Times have changed, my lord.

Watching Liu Wei crash to the ground, breathing out but no longer in, Wu Chang complained in dissatisfaction:

"You're a bandit — what gives you the right to call me a rat?"

Liu Wei turned his head, his eyes wide. "You know everything?"

"If you'd been to Chen Family Village, you'd have guessed it too," Wu Chang said.

"Heh, so that's how it is. I don't die unjustly."

Liu Wei let out two miserable laughs, stared wide-eyed, and breathed his last.

Show-off — even dying you have to play the cool guy?

Wu Chang clicked his tongue, reached out, and ripped the mask off Liu Wei's face.

"Item Name: Huayao — Human Face (White)."

"Item Type: Instance Item"

"Item Grade: d."

"Item Skill: Ghost Control."

"By offering one's own essence and blood as sacrifice, one can control the vengeful ghost refined within the mask."

"Item Description: When combined with Huayao — Human Face (Black), the item's combo skill can be unlocked."

The description on Liu Wei's mask was, as expected, identical to Liu Wu's.

He fitted the two masks together, but found a seam between them that refused to align no matter what he did.

Liu Wu had once mentioned that one had to refine a sufficiently powerful master ghost — one with enough capacity to bear the strain — before the two halves could merge into one.

Staring at the two halves in his hands, he was oddly reminded of the Fog Demon.

Both were Huayao.

Humans transformed into yao, yet the resulting yao possessed no spirit-intelligence at all, retaining only instinct.

Was this really the kind of Huayao the user wanted? Or was the reason the spirit-intelligence had been scattered by the yao energy simply that they lacked the sufficiently powerful master ghost Liu Wu had spoken of?

Enough.

Wu Chang shook his head and did not dwell on it further.

The two halves of the mask held a secret, but they were ultimately a grade-d item — and an Instance Item at that, one that could not be taken out of the instance.

Rather than agonizing over its use, it was better to return it to the vengeful ghosts and trade it for the Blood-Colored Last Words reward.

Only what you can hold in your hand is truly yours.

The instant he stepped into Ghost Cry Forest with the two halves of the mask, the dormant grudges throughout the entire grove stirred to life.

Some had already become vengeful ghosts; some were nothing but pure grudges.

They all "looked" at Wu Chang in unison, and on faces that could hardly be called faces, emotions of hope, anxiety, and excitement surfaced.

Ever since he had seen Lehmann's true form, Wu Chang had been able to read the emotions contained within grudges.

He did not know whether this was due to an improvement in his spiritual sense, or a side effect of having beheld an evil god's true form, nor did he know whether this ability was a blessing or a curse.

!

But one thing was certain — at this moment, through this ability, he resonated with the grudges left behind by the other players.

【Give it back to me.】

This time, the voices carried by the grudges were no longer shrill and frenzied, but rational, tinged with pleading.

Wu Chang set the two halves of the mask on the ground and stretched out a hand in an "after you" gesture.

The grudges surged forward, each one passing through the mask and reclaiming the heart's blood that had been stolen from them.

For a moment, the wind in Ghost Cry Forest rose to a frenzy, the sounds half weeping, half laughing, the commotion more horrifying than ever — yet somehow the old bone-deep chill was gone.

A few minutes later, the ghost servants and the resentful wraiths had all retrieved their heart's blood and slowly dissipated.

The disappearance of the crimson wraith caused some changes to Wu Chang's attribute panel.

Releasing the player wraith aggregate in the Weeping Ghost Forest granted him +2 Energy, +2 Inspiration, and +1 Willpower.

Just like the crimson wraith completed in the Moonlight Sanatorium, it also added 5 attribute points.

Besides this, the two masks remaining on the ground also underwent changes.

"Item Name: Shadow-Casting Human Mask."

"Item Grade: C."

"Item Skill: Shadow Cast."

"Skill Description: The Human Mask (Black) and Human Mask (White) can each record the shadow of a target and summon that shadow to assist in battle. If the target's level is ≤12, its combat power is perfectly replicated; if the target's level is >12, combat power will fluctuate based on the user's level and Energy attribute. If the shadow is destroyed, it can only be summoned again after 24 hours."

"Item Combo Skill: At Ease."

"Skill Description: When wearing both the Black and White Human Masks simultaneously, a perfect disguise is performed; actions taken during the disguise will not entangle the true body in karma, and conventional abilities cannot deduce the wearer's true body from information left behind during the disguise."

"Note: The masks are too lifelike, making the wearer truly believe they possess two souls."

Worthy of a crimson wraith—the Human Masks, reforged through the Blood-Colored Last Words, were far more useful than the Demon-Transforming Human Masks Liu Wei and Liu Wu had used to control ghost servants.

Although the ghost servant masks had accumulated enough power, as long as they could not be combined into one, they could not truly be unleashed.

Separated, the ghost servant masks could only simply drive ghost servants, used as a control skill like Liu Wei did.

Against ordinary people who knew no spells it might still work, but against opponents with special abilities, or those wielding items like the Soul-Cleansing Command Banner that hard-counter ghost servants, the ghost servant masks would be hard-pressed to be of great use.

Meanwhile, the purified Human Masks were equivalent to gaining two stable level-12 fighters, and came with a perfect alternate identity, convenient for concealing one's true self.

They were simply far, far more useful.

He stored the Shadow-Casting Human Masks properly, mounted his horse, and hurried back to Huaigu Village.

The ambush on Liu Wei had taken too long; he hoped the village hadn't undergone any major changes during this time.

(End of this chapter)