Chapter 39: 38, Wealth-King Heaven Lord

38, Wealth-King Heaven Lord

Om...

As Zhou Chang's words fell, threads of iron thought-worms slithered from his fingertips, which were pinching the horizontal bone at the back of his head, instantly wrapping a layer around that bone.

"Hmph..."

His movements were fast, but before that, the Paper-Face let out a light hum, and a gust of drifting, chilling wind swept through the gaps between Zhou Chang's fingers, like a woman's smooth black hair.

Zhou Chang lunged at empty air.

The horizontal bone entangled by the thought-worms showed no sign of any abnormality.

Inside the hole of the ring on his hand, Ao Duoji whimpered a few times resentfully.

"I hid so secretly, even my aura was gathered cleanly away, yet the Zhou Langjun still discovered me?

Where did the Zhou Langjun learn such methods?"

The Paper-Face's voice, smiling sweetly, came from the side once more.

Zhou Chang turned toward the sound and saw a yellowed, curled-up poster pasted on a wall covered in filth and old stains.

The poster depicted a woman with a fashionable wavy hairstyle, an oval face, and large eyes; her bright eyes glanced around, and she wore a form-fitting cheongsam. Even on this yellowed poster, her beauty could not be concealed.

In the upper right corner of this poster, two columns of artistic characters were written:

"Die Shuang Brand Perfumed Powder.

A patch of fragrant snow, pure white skin; natural ingredients, rare and hard to find; a wonderful beauty product, a famous item for social gatherings.

The jade face of Ms. Zhang Xueli."

The 'Ms. Zhang Xueli' on the poster was now staring at Zhou Chang; she extended a pair of slender, long palms, smiling as she caressed her own face, then her fingernails suddenly pierced her cheeks, tearing open that oval face and bright, glancing visage.

Beneath the face-skin torn off from Ms. Zhang Xueli appeared the 'Paper-Face' with fine eyebrows, phoenix eyes, a jade nose, and a proud, straight profile.

Her head full of black hair was scattered around her cheeks, and among the disheveled black hair were braids adorned with turquoise, red and yellow gems.

She wore a bright red silk robe with a right lapel and a wide waist, similar to Han clothing but with many differences; the robe was embroidered with blooming fresh flowers, and long 'waist-hanging ornaments' strung with sky beads, agate, ancient jade, turquoise, and other precious items hung all the way down to her waist.

A person relies on clothing and makeup; the Paper-Face wearing such a precious Tibetan robe differed greatly in temperament from the Paper-Face reflected on Bai Xiue's face.

The Paper-Face in the poster now was breathtakingly beautiful, her glances radiating brilliance.

"What a fine painting indeed...

Take it back and paste it on my bedside!"

Even Zhou Chang could not help but admire the increasingly beautiful Paper-Face in the painting; he walked a few steps close to the poster and reached out to peel it off the wall.

Threads of thought-worms also began to spread across the image the moment his fingertips touched the poster.

The beauty in the painting remained radiant: "Why does the Zhou Langjun waste his effort?

In this painting now, there is only a thread of 'thought' that I have lodged here; thoughts are like smoke, and even if caught, they will scatter through the fingers...

With this strength, you might as well think carefully about how to deal with my adopted mother's eldest daughter and second daughter.

The one whose eyes you previously poked out was merely her useless second daughter; especially, the second daughter has not yet put on her 'Ghost Skin,' so it is no great difficulty for you to injure it.

But when it and the eldest daughter both put on the Ghost Skin and come to seek you, your situation will be dire."

Zhou Chang pressed the poster against the wall and stared at the beauty within.

Hearing the other's words, he blinked: "Can you take me to find the Ghost Skins of the eldest daughter and the second daughter?"

"I am at least on sister terms with them; how could I do such a thing as betray them?"

"You already betrayed them once before; one more time makes no difference."

"... Nonsense."

"Look at you, saying one thing but meaning another!" Zhou Chang looked at the Paper-Face, whose expression had turned cold, and he pouted, "You clearly do not want your second sister to kill me, so you pretended to help your second sister earlier, but in reality, you secretly allied with me and trapped your second sister.

I can distinguish between these good and bad, true and false matters."

Earlier, Zhou Chang's preparation to overturn the table to force the Paper-Face to compromise was real, but the Paper-Face letting him off the hook, allowing him to cut off the second daughter's head, was also real.

Plus, the Paper-Face's intentional or unintentional reminder just now made Zhou Chang guess that the Paper-Face's fundamental goal was not to bring him to Li Xiamei's house to be slaughtered; she had other intentions.

With this thought, Zhou Chang, without waiting for the Paper-Face's response, asked her again: "Where is Li Xiamei now?"

The Paper-Face, who was about to say something, heard Zhou Chang's question, pressed her lips together, and remained silent.

"Oh, Li Xiamei is not at home now."

Zhou Chang instantly read the Paper-Face's silence; he nodded: "So you brought me here now, deliberately intending to lure me into killing her entire family—what a terrifying adopted daughter you are!"

He deliberately imitated the Sichuan accent, pronouncing 'truly terrifying' as 'truly ha-ren'.

The Paper-Face's willow eyebrows shot up, her face full of anger: "Nonsense! Nonsense!"

At this moment, Zhou Chang's facial expression settled, returning to that plain, expressionless look; he still tore the poster from the wall, rolled it up, tucked it into his lower back, then picked up the sharp knife and stepped out of the room.

The Paper-Face on the poster wrinkled her nose in disgust but did not dissolve into smoke and vanish.

Zhou Chang's thought-worms and Bai Xiue's lotus threads share the same origin; although his thought-worms have evolved, they have not departed from the root.

Bai Xiue's lotus threads cannot completely trap the Paper-Face; Zhou Chang is the same.

Outside the house, the sky was pitch black.

Zhou Chang walked out of the house, crossed the alley paved with blue bricks, turned around, kicked open the door of the house on the right side of the alley, and stepped inside.

The room, with slightly dim light, was empty; only in front of the wall opposite the door stood an offering table.

On the offering table were unlit incense and candles.

Hanging on the wall was a painted image of the deity being worshipped—the painting had rich, heavy colors and was magnificent and varied, clearly not of Central Plains style.

It was mounted in the center of a yellow mounting cloth embroidered with ingot patterns, with two ribbons hanging down from both sides of the framed painting.

The deity in the painting was golden-yellow, with a single head and two arms, wearing a crown of five Buddhas, clad in golden armor, and adorned with many jewels and necklaces.

In its left hand, it held a treasure tower; in its right hand, it held a giant black-furred rat, from whose mouth poured forth various treasures such as golden pearls and copper coins.

Beneath the deity's seat, a snow-white lion lay prostrate on the ground.

……

"The Wealth-Bringing Heavenly King..."

Zhou Chang gazed at the deity in the painting and murmured to himself.

The deity in the painting was indeed the Wealth-Bringing Heavenly King.

Within the Buddhist schools of the Han lands, he is known as the Multi-Hearing Heavenly King.

Yet the mural on the wall was not the Multi-Hearing Heavenly King in the Han-transmission style, but the Wealth-Bringing Heavenly King depicted in a Tibetan Thangka painting.

The reason Zhou Chang could still recognize the deity in the painting was that Qingyi Town bordered the Tibetan Domain, where Tibetan people frequently traveled, conducting trade back and forth.

Naturally, the fame of the Wealth-Bringing Heavenly King, who commands wealth, spread everywhere.

Even the clothing and garments displayed by Paper-Face in the illustrated paper were all in the Tibetan style.

She must have been a person from the Tibetan Domain in her lifetime, but now the Li Xiamei family has become entangled in this.

And the Li Xiamei family seems to have some connection with the 'Wealth-Bringing Heavenly King'.

"The Wealth-Bringing Heavenly King, the Na-la Heavenly Egg Sheath, the Lotus God's Essence, Paper-Face, Old Feng, Bai Xiue..."

One name after another flashed through Zhou Chang's mind. The scattered clues that had previously remained disconnected due to missing key elements were now filled in and completed by him, simply because Zhou Chang had seen the 'Wealth-Bringing Heavenly King' painting enshrined in the Li Xiamei household.

"The Wealth-Bringing Heavenly King seeks to cause Nezha's birth, borrowing a Na-la corpse as an egg sheath, and making the Ghost Lotus the divine essence."

"When essence and egg unite, the Na-la emerges..." Zhou Chang's heart suddenly brightened.

He drew the illustrated paper from his lower back, spread it open, faced the beauty in the painting toward the Wealth-Bringing Heavenly King Thangka, and asked aloud, "My wife, do you recognize it?"