SES Chapter 32 V1

Chapter 32 – Epilogue

They didn’t even bother to leave behind a manual, a set of rules, or a list of taboos—just laughed it off and rode away on a green ox? Cao Yanhua fumed. Why didn’t that ox just throw him off and stomp him to death?

Suddenly, a thought struck him and he shouted, “I’ve got it! It was that wolf who opened the Phoenix Lock!”

The more he thought about it, the more sense it made. “I said no person could open the Phoenix Lock. I never said no wolf could!”

Seriously? Luo Ren didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

The mystic on the other end was already raging. “I said no person, and that implicitly includes wolves!”

“But—”

“No ‘but’! I said it that way to sound cool. Cool people talk in concise phrases—‘Bow to me and thrive, defy me and perish’—what, you want me to spell out ‘Bow to me, and you, your pigs, your dogs, and your wolves will all thrive’? That wouldn’t be cool at all!”

Are all experts this good at arguing nonsense? Cao Yanhua felt utterly wronged.

Luckily, Mu Dai was on his side. “Still, it does seem like the Phoenix Lock was opened.”

The mystic didn’t deny it. “It was opened, yes. But it wasn’t by a person—or a wolf.”

Then… something not human or wolf? Cao Yanhua imagined a hulking werewolf figure in his mind.

But… never mind. He didn’t dare say it out loud.

It was Luo Ren who broke the silence. “Let’s look at the painting again. The mountains and rivers I can understand. They represent the geography around Hangu Pass, where the Qinling Mountains meet the Yellow River. The layout seems to reflect that terrain. And we’ve figured out the seven cursed slips and the Phoenix Lock. But this wolf—or dog…”

The mystic was blunt. “That wolf? I have no idea. And I’m not going to guess. Guesses should be based on evidence, not pulled out of thin air.”

Mu Dai nodded, tapping the armrest of the sofa. “Mm, no wild guessing. I respect that.”

Luo Ren nodded too. “Alright, let’s leave the wolf aside for now and focus on what we do know, to reconstruct what happened.”

Doing so revealed that the root of everything went back much further than that mysterious “Hangu Pass.”

Luo Ren picked up a marker and continued drawing connecting lines across the wall. At the starting point, he wrote: “Earliest seven murders, tortoise shell and animal bone.”

A little further on, he added: “Ominous—sealed away by a great and virtuous one.” Then further down: “Yin Xi, Hangu Pass, Laozi, Phoenix Lock, seven cursed slips.”

This tied the painting and their previous deductions together. But in the center of it all, Luo Ren paused and drew a giant question mark.

“Based on the records, Zhang Guanghua was just an ordinary man, not evil, not saintly. I don’t think he had the power to unlock the Phoenix Lock. Someone else must have opened it before him.”

Mu Dai nodded. “He was just the first to make contact.”

The mystic on the phone coughed. “He may not have even been the first. Don’t forget—there are seven slips. Zhang Guanghua only brought out one. He was just the first one you encountered.”

Yi Wansan looked at the basin of water. “So… there are six more human skins?”

“Hey, whose voice is that? You sound new,” the mystic said.

New? Yi Wansan felt insulted. “I have spoken before! When you asked how many slips there were, I was the one who answered—seven!”

“Oh. Maybe I was too excited at the time to notice,” the mystic said cheerfully. “What should I call you?”

“Everyone calls me Wansan.”

“Alright, Little Sansan, let’s get back to it.”

“Little San” was bad enough. Now he’d been downgraded to Sansan?! Yi Wansan was furious, but the conversation had already moved on.

“I didn’t know the full picture before,” the mystic continued. “I called it ‘human skin’ earlier, but that’s not accurate. There’s no human skin—only the cursed slips. The real curse isn’t the slip itself…”

It’s like a ghost attached to a lantern: people just describe it as “that haunted lantern.” The lantern is innocent, but no one separates the two—they just flee at the sight of it.

“The cursed force has no shape. No one’s seen it. But Laozi once trapped it inside a wooden slip, so people began calling them ‘cursed slips.’ My guess is it was confined for so long that even after escaping, it instinctively retained the shape of a wooden slip. When it possesses someone, it manifests by raising the shape under the skin. When it tries to leave the body… it does so violently.”

Mu Dai followed up, “So that’s why people had wounds on their backs?”

“Exactly. It tears off a patch of skin.”

Cao Yanhua had to ask, “But why the back? Why not the face or arms?”

The mystic was annoyed. “Because the back is broad. It needs a flat surface to show itself.”

“Well… legs work too…” Cao Yanhua lifted one pudgy leg, studied it, and even made space with his hands. “I’ve got room for two slips here.”

Luo Ren signaled him to drop it. “Think of the cursed slips like a serial killer. They probably have a preference—an MO.”

The mystic laughed. “Little Radish, I like the way you think! That’s exactly what makes this so terrifying! Remember, I told you the cursed slips are alive?”

Mu Dai felt a chill. Why did he have to say something so scary with such a gleeful tone?

“No one knows what they look like. They might just be a force or energy. In the Southern Song dynasty, Wen Tianxiang wrote in Song of Righteousness, ‘Heaven and earth contain righteous qi; it flows through all things, high and low.’ That qi has no shape, but it fills the world.”

Luo Ren’s expression shifted. Mu Dai noticed and glanced at him. He smiled and gestured for her to keep listening.

“My point is, the cursed slips might be like that—alive. Not necessarily possessing a body. Not necessarily shaped like slips. We don’t know if they’re sentient or if they can communicate with each other. But I’m almost certain: the other six are not like this one. They may be even smarter now, having learned from this one’s mistakes. They’ll hide better.”

“Alive?” Cao Yanhua shivered. “If they’re alive… would they hold a grudge?”

He looked at Yi Wansan. “You… you burned one!”

Yi Wansan was already anxious. Hearing that, he snapped, “And you didn’t throw a cup at it?!”

Mu Dai took a breath to calm herself. “I didn’t do anything…”

Luo Ren reminded her gently, “You caught it with the water basin.”

Mu Dai’s reaction was faster than Yi Wansan’s. “And you? You stabbed it!”

Luo Ren grinned. “That wasn’t a stab. It was a poke.”

…

The mystic was cackling on the other end, enjoying the drama. He could just picture it: Fatty Cao and Little Sansan wrestling, while Little Pouch tugged at Little Radish’s hair…

See? The moment danger shows up, they start throwing each other under the bus. Not a real-life-and-death bond yet. That kind of bond means no matter how much you argue, when danger comes, you still show up for each other.

The mystic suddenly missed his friends.

He heard Luo Ren say, “It’s fine. It’s already happened. I caused this. If I can shield you all, I will. I just don’t know if it will allow that.”

It? Which “it”?

Luo Ren was pointing at the basin of water, and the cursed slip was submerged inside.

Yi Wansan sighed. “Forget it. No one’s getting out of this. We’re all in it now.”

He glanced around, then leaned close to the basin and muttered through clenched teeth, “And that guy on the phone—Mystic, or whatever he calls himself—don’t forget him.”

When he looked up, he saw Mu Dai giving him a disgusted look.

He just shrugged. “Hey, self-preservation. That’s just who I am.”

The mystic chuckled. “No need to panic. There is a force that can counter the cursed slips.”

Luo Ren thought for a moment. “The Phoenix Lock?”

The mystic nodded, even though they couldn’t see it. “The Phoenix Lock isn’t just imbued with gold and fire. It also represents a divine force against evil. I have a bold theory.”

“The power punishing the cursed might come from the same elemental force the Phoenix Lock represents—the Five Elements. It locked away the slips for a thousand years. That power must still linger.”

“Liu Shuhai and Luo Wenmiao both had their left feet chopped off. Amputation was an ancient punishment. Back then, tools were crude—stone knives, stone axes. That explains why the wounds were jagged and rough.”

So… was it the Phoenix Lock’s power doing the punishing?