Xu Rucheng blurted out a line of Yuzhou slang: “What in blue blazes…?” 

He remembered Tai Sui’s seemingly pointless answer earlier—this was a slaughterhouse. 

Xu Rucheng had joined the Luwu to dedicate himself to his country and to get revenge. He had known he would have dealings with all kinds of evil cultivators; he had been ready to conceal his identity and go underground. But now he was still chilled to the bone. The ghost stories adults had told to scare children when he was little surged up one after another—human meat buns, medicine made with human organs…

“Don’t move.” 

Xu Rucheng had been about to take a step forward and was called to a halt by Tai Sui. He came back to himself, touched his face, and struggled to shake the wild thoughts out of his head. 

Total nonsense… That was all total nonsense repeated by villagers…

Human meat was no tastier than pork, beef, or lamb—who would eat human? Anyway, was there any meat on these children’s bodies? And there were so many spiritual beasts for making elixirs in Southern Shu—weren’t they all more useful than mortals? 

“Who are these people?” 

Tai Sui said, “A specialty of Wild Fox Country’s black market. They’re called spiritual image dolls.” 

“…what kind of dolls?” 

“A spiritual image doll is a kind of insurance,” Tai Sui said unhurriedly in the gloomy prison. “All of Chu’s wealthy people want to prolong their lifespans, live hundreds of years without aging. Many of them open their spiritual eyes without authorization. Anyway, when it comes down to it, all they have to do is pay Sanyue some protection money every year. But spiritual energy is scarce in the mortal world, and unevenly distributed. If your meridians haven’t been infused with spiritual energy, you’ll end up with an eye-opening wound if you’re lucky. If you’re unlucky or in poor health, forget about prolonging your lifespan, you’ll go see your ancestors right on the spot. Opening your spiritual eyes is like gambling with your life. The wealthy treasure their lives. So even if they’ve made all kinds of preparations, they still give themselves insurance—spiritual image dolls.” 

Xu Rucheng had never heard of this. He asked, “How does that protect them?” 

“Buy a living person whose spiritual image is similar to yours, usually between twelve and sixteen. Too young is brittle, too old is unclean. Then a secret art of Western Chu is used to connect the buyer’s spiritual eyes with the teenager. That’s a spiritual image doll… You can think of them as a sort of stand-in. When the buyer opens their spiritual eyes, half of the spiritual energy that pours into their body will be split off by the doll. This way, even if there’s a part of the buyer’s body that hasn’t been fully soaked in spiritual energy, the impact on them will be much smaller. It will hardly leave any eye-opening wounds.” 

Xu Rucheng was struck dumb. 

Evil cultivators were nothing. Evil cultivators themselves were covered in scars from eye-opening wounds; they couldn’t compare to these wealthy Dongheng people! 

“Close your mouth, stop looking like a country bumpkin.” Tai Sui tsked. “At the Wild Fox Country Great Market, there’s more demand for spiritual image dolls than the supply can meet. The Snake King hadn’t heard of this convenient forbidden art when he opened his spiritual eyes, so he ended up covered in eye-opening wounds. He was always brooding about it. This is the business he took the highest percentage from. It’s your main financial backing.” 

Xu Rucheng thought, Some motherfucking financial backing. 

“When the buyers open their spiritual eyes, what happens to these kids?” 

Tai Sui said, impatiently, “A mortal’s completely unprepared meridians have a large quantity of spiritual energy poured into them—what do you think happens? If their deaths looked pleasant, do you think that the buyers would leave these spiritual image dolls in the slaughterhouse instead of taking them away?” 

Xu Rucheng’s mind roared—in other words, the children being used as spiritual energy vessels were shut up in here and had no idea when they would suddenly explode and die.

“The buyers…the buyers know this and can’t bear to see it?” 

“Obviously,” Tai Sui said. “Haven’t you heard the saying ‘a gentleman stays away from the kitchen’?” 

Hearing this, the hotheaded Xu Rucheng, who had taken part in a revolt five years ago, had an urge to take up his old profession once more here in Western Chu. His eyes slowly fell on the stone platform in the center of the prison. 

“Oh, that. That’s for dealing with the bodies. The spiritual image dolls die through the impact of a great quantity of spiritual energy. Their bodies are valuable. You can’t let money go to waste,” Tai Sui said. “Flesh and blood mixed with a great quantity of spiritual energy can be used as fodder for spiritual beasts. The organs can be used to make elixirs, cheaper than using spiritual beasts. With luck, you can even get a little bit of spiritual bone out of it, the best product for toolmaking. Also…” 

Xu Rucheng was starting to feel sick. “Also?” 

Tai Sui paused. There seemed to be a peculiar laugh suppressed in his voice. “You can use them as offerings to evil gods during festivals. They’re full of spiritual energy—isn’t that more respectable than horse meat or beef?” 

Xu Rucheng covered his mouth, holding back his retching. 

Tai Sui had said before that the Snake King had made offerings of “raw meat” to the reincarnation wood divine image… He was absolutely certain now that this so-called “Grand Duke Tai Sui” was trapped in the reincarnation wood. If he had been able to move a single fingernail, he would have cooked the Snake King into jerky long ago. 

“Using human flesh as tribute, wasn’t he afraid of being struck by heavenly lightning? Or was he tacitly accepting that he was worshipping a monster… Wait, no, I didn’t mean you, senior…” 

Tai Sui, his mood unreadable, said, “No, actually. That ogre believed that all gods eat humans—if the gods didn’t eat humans, what else would they eat? Would they eat the five grains the same way humans do?” 

Xu Rucheng: “…” 

Goodness gracious, what that evil cultivator had said actually made some sense. For a moment, he actually couldn’t refute it!

“Can’t they die?” 

“Great Warrior Da Cheng, do you think everyone is like you, able to hack through gold and jade as soon as they pick up a chopper? Take a look at these little ghosts. They’ve hardly eaten a good meal since they were born. On a good day they might not have the strength to stab themselves to death, never mind that their food and drink is drugged. Even if they manage to get hold of a weapon and pull it across their necks, they still need to bleed for a while before they die, right? An elixir will bring them right back.” Tai Sui said, “Do you want me to describe in detail what the outcome is if they don’t manage to die?” 

Xu Rucheng didn’t want that at all. “Senior, if you had told me this before, I wouldn’t have hesitated to come even without the heart demon oath. What should I do?” 

“You?” Tai Sui paused, then indifferently said, “Oh, whatever you like. I’m all right.” 

Xu Rucheng let out a breath. “…didn’t you bring me here to rescue them?”  

“You think I brought you here to get yourself killed?” Tai Sui sighed. “Big brother, there’s at least one established foundation cultivator keeping watch here, and I figure there are around ten open-eyed evil cultivators. You want to steal the kids? You couldn’t even steal a couple dozen buns.” 

Xu Rucheng didn’t quibble with his ruthless diction. He quickly reckoned: he remembered the way he had come. If he went back and requested reinforcements, what would their chances of taking down this den of evil cultivators be? An established foundation… They had an established foundation cultivator… If there was really nothing they could do, it would still be better to give these children easy deaths. That would also be a good deed…

Tai Sui seemed to know what he was thinking. “If you kill off this batch, they’ll find new spiritual image dolls. Or if you’re powerful enough, you might be able to get rid of this whole gang of evil cultivators… Ha, this bunch has a monopoly on Wild Fox Country’s trade in spiritual image dolls. If you kill them, those other envious evil cultivators may be so pleased they’ll build a temple in your honor.” 

Xu Rucheng was at a complete loss after having this bucket of cold water dumped on him. “Wait, senior, so what did you actually bring me here to do?” 

Tai Sui said, “The third kid from the left, the one with the shaved head, and the rightmost girl sitting staring into space. Each of them has an amulet made of reincarnation wood… Oh, there’s also one that’s fallen under the butchering platform. Take them all and destroy them for me. That’s all. The rest has nothing to do with me. You can do whatever you like.” 

Hearing his incomprehensible instructions, Xu Rucheng became even more bewildered. Relying on the stealth talisman he had on him, he went to the butchering platform. His eyes avoided the not fully grown severed limbs on the platform. Indeed, there was a reincarnation wood amulet sticking out of a crack under the stone platform. 

There was a rather coarse divine image carved onto the wooden amulet, called “Tai Sui”—this was a Tai Sui amulet. 

Reincarnation wood liked darkness and damp. It was one of the most common trees along the banks of the Xia River, on the border between Wan and Chu. Seeing the local tyrant of Wild Fox Country worshipping Tai Sui, many locals had blindly imitated him, praying that this deity of unknown origin would bless them as he had blessed the Snake King. You could buy Tai Sui amulets at quite a few miscellaneous goods stands. 

After he turned the amulet over, he sucked in a breath as though his eyes had been stung. On the back of the wooden amulet was a very small bloody handprint, with one deep scratch made by a fingernail. Xu Rucheng could easily imagine how, when the overwhelming spiritual energy had come surging in, this frightened child had had nowhere to run and could only pour all their will to live into this wooden amulet…hoping that there was someone who could save them. 

On the point of death, how much strength could a person exert? This little hand had even left a mark on the wooden amulet, had even kept holding on in death. Only when the body had been hauled away and dismembered had the bloodstained amulet dropped under the stone platform, unnoticed. 

Why would this evil god want to destroy his own amulets? 

“Senior…” 

Before he could ask, Tai Sui interrupted him. “It has nothing to do with you. It won’t harm your conscience to destroy a few pieces of wood, will it?” 

The heart demon oath was hanging over his head. However much this stuck in Xu Rucheng’s throat, he could only act according to orders and go remove the other two amulets. 

Concealing himself from the eyes and ears of these mortal teenagers took less effort than blowing away dust. He didn’t even need to approach the iron cage to get the amulets. He quickly reached out across empty space and took the one from the boy. Then he came up in front of the girl.

Whether it was coincidence or something else, through the iron cage, the girl’s hollow eyes were looking directly at Xu Rucheng. The two gazes met, one falsely and one truly. 

Xu Rucheng’s extended hand stopped in midair. 

Tai Sui said, “Don’t you know how to use a sleep spell?” 

“I do.” Xu Rucheng didn’t break eye contact with the girl for a moment. After being silent for a while, he whispered, “Senior, I don’t know why you want to destroy your amulets, but do you have to take away the only thing they have to rely on?” 

Tai Sui said, with a cold laugh, “Isn’t it stupid to rely on a piece of rotten wood?” 

The corners of Xu Rucheng’s mouth tensed at once. 

Tai Sui said, “No nonsense…” 

“It is stupid.” Xu Rucheng abruptly jerked his gaze away from the girl’s dried up eyes and faced upwards towards the chilly inscriptions on the ceiling of the prison. 

Of course it was stupid. Back then, his parents, his uncles, his grandparents, his fellow townspeople…and the girl in his heart, hadn’t they all been this stupid? Pitiful insects vainly wishing for a god or buddha to come carry them through their troubles? 

“Incredibly stupid. Everyone who comes to the end of their road is stupid. I know I’ve sworn a heart demon oath, so I’ll take the amulets for you, and you can stop rushing me! Aren’t you disgusted that one of your believers would give you another believer’s flesh and blood as an offering?!” Xu Rucheng abruptly raised his voice, which only he and the evil god could hear. “Do you know what it means to come to the end of the road? Do you know what it feels like to have had no freedom since birth? You don’t know anything. Can’t you at least leave them a bit of dignity when you speak?! Have a heart, your divinity!” 

Tai Sui was stony-hearted. He was entirely unmoved by these words. “Heart demon oath.” 

“Fuck!” Xu Rucheng swore angrily. The rims of his eyes turned red. He raised a sleep talisman in midair and aimed it at the little girl’s brow. 

Still hugging her knees, the girl’s head fell sideways. She fell asleep like that. 

Xu Rucheng crooked his fingers across the distance, and a reincarnation wood amulet flew from the girl and landed in his hand. The veins rose on the back of his hand. The three amulets instantly turned to fine dust. “All right?!” 

“Good boy.” Tai Sui seemed to breathe out a long sigh. After a moment, he resumed his odious tone of voice: “Even if you muster reinforcements when you get back, you won’t be able to destroy this bunch of evil cultivators without anyone knowing. If you’re exposed, your lord’s plans in Seventeen Li Town will get nowhere.” 

Xu Rucheng clenched his teeth with a click. “There is no need for you to remind me of that.” 

Tai Sui didn’t bicker with him. He laughed softly. “Western Chu is some awful place. There are many mountains and many wrong roads. Natural disasters are frequent. It’s rare for a whole family to suffer no disasters within a given year. All these little ghosts were taken from disaster-stricken places. You can buy the cheaper ones for a single copper coin. But when they’re made into spiritual image dolls, each one will cost at least a box of white spirits. Who wouldn’t be envious of a trade that brings such big returns on investment? Established foundation cultivators can have whatever they want in the mortal world. When have you seen them be cautious?” 

Xu Rucheng stopped in his tracks. 

“This is ‘Tao’ County—‘tao’ as in ‘flee¹.’ There’s no shortage of desperate criminals. What are you waiting for? Hurry up and spread the word, get someone else to do your dirty work for you. If you wait for the trouble to come when they get to Seventeen Li Town, it’ll fall on you,” Tai Sui said in a tone that seemed to be angry that a piece of wood couldn’t reach enlightenment. “Which prince did you say your lord was before? Where did he dig up a walking, talking, brainless club like you? Why didn’t anyone teach you how to be an evil cultivator before you came here?” 

Xu Rucheng took to his heels and ran. 

“Hey, look out. If you step on a trap, I won’t save you. I just taught you a lesson for free, so it won’t be asking too much for you to do something else for me, right?” 

“What?” said Xu Rucheng. 

Then he heard Tai Sui say, “I want you to cut down the reincarnation wood trees within a hundred li radius of Wild Fox Country and from now on forbid everyone in Tao County to worship Tai Sui or to privately keep a Tai Sui amulet.” 

Xu Rucheng’s eyes flashed. He thought to himself, It’s true. He is trapped in the reincarnation wood. It sounds as if, if he wants to escape, he can only do it by destroying all the reincarnation wood in the vicinity.

With this guess in mind, he tentatively said, “So about the statue in the Immortal Palace…” 

Tai Sui interrupted him in a sincere tone: “Cheng’er, I think that lovely head of yours is sitting on your neck just to help you carry on with little girls. Don’t try getting clever with me. Or else I’ll make fun of you and you’ll start crying again, and it’ll be very tiring for me to hold back from laughing at you.” 

Xu Rucheng: “…” 

This son-of-a-bitch of an evil god. 

“I’ll leave it up to you how to handle it. If you’re afraid I’ll go out haunting if the divine image is gone, you can go ahead and keep burning incense for it,” Tai Sui said indifferently. “Only when you burn the incense, remember to bathe in incense ash, be sure not to have any injuries or illnesses…and you can’t eat spicy food, garlic, or preserved or cured meat, and if you violate any one of those conditions, the heart demon oath will backlash against you.” 

Xu Rucheng was all at sea. He had no idea what this evil god’s problem was. 

Three days later, on the night of the new moon, in a place no one knew about, bloody light lit up a slaughterhouse in Tao County. 

The concealment inscriptions the slaughterhouse used were second-class. Even if an ascended spirit immortal came in person, they wouldn’t be able to break them apart silently. The evil cultivators inside the slaughterhouse had never thought that this perfectly safe place would be exposed. They were taken by surprise. And in the midst of the fierce battle between cultivators from several sides, someone took advantage of the commotion to carry off all the spiritual image dolls. This person had been prepared. Not waiting to be pursued, they immediately broke the spiritual seals on the spiritual image dolls and made a clean getaway. 

Wild Fox Country’s black market strictly prohibited private fights, but until they reached Wild Fox Country, everyone had to rely on their own abilities. Evil cultivators were always killing each other and plotting for the sake of snatching treasures. This massacre could only count as an especially large incident involving especially fertile loot…and probably making the wealthy people counting on this method to open their spiritual eyes despair. 

Meanwhile, Seventeen Li Town’s Snake King, without any reason, suddenly issued an order forbidding anyone to worship Tai Sui again. 

In the area of Wild Fox Country, perhaps the Snake King’s word wasn’t an imperial edict, but it was close enough. 

The locals said that he had a special magic power that let him understand the speech of birds, beasts, and insects. Even mosquitoes were his scouts. If he only wanted to hear it, not even pillow talk could be hidden from his ears—but of course, this was an unfounded rumor. Even if the Snake King had been able to understand the speech of mosquitoes, he probably wouldn’t have heard any news apart from “I’m going to sting you.” The Snake King only had numerous lackeys and had planted over a hundred listening arrays in the streets and alleys of Wild Fox Country. 

In sum, when the Snake King said they couldn’t worship, no matter how unwilling the common people were, they still didn’t dare to disobey. As soon as the order came down, they immediately no longer dared even to say prayers in private. The Snake King said they were forbidden to keep Tai Sui amulets, so overnight, practically all the Tai Sui amulets in Seventeen Li Town—even in all of Tao County—vanished without a trace. 

And as Xu Rucheng watched anxiously, the mysterious reincarnation wood divine image showed no changes. 

The sly evil god had used him and dropped him. He didn’t speak to him again. 

When Tai Sui had said he was a “tree spirit,” he hadn’t been entirely deceiving this talking club. 

He had indeed been born in the reincarnation wood. Since his awareness had sprouted, he had always been trapped in the unprepossessing divine image, faced every day with the Snake King’s ugly face, which made him angry whenever he saw it. 

He didn’t know what he was, couldn’t say whether he was dead or alive, and didn’t know what he was doing. Most of the time he was in a daze. Sometimes he would dream of a fragmentary scene, but before he could look at it closely, it would disappear like a bubble. 

In Great Wan’s Yuzhou, the Snake King had frequently brought crowds of idiots to weep and drone while prostrating themselves before him; they called him “Tai Sui.” 

For no reason at all, he hated this name. But it was no use hating it. Later, as people kept calling him that, he got used to it and gradually took “Tai Sui” as his name. 

There was turmoil and war in Yuzhou. Tai Sui was trapped in the reincarnation wood, unaware of the passage of time—until it became popular among the people who worshipped Tai Sui to carve reincarnation wood into amulets and hang them up around the house or on themselves. 

The amulets seemed to have a resonance with him. Gradually, Tai Sui found that his “consciousness” could “flow” through the amulets into the bodies of these people, so he could get a taste of what it was to be human. 

Being human wasn’t very good—while Yuzhou was part of Great Wan, it was just across the river from Western Chu, and their dietary habits resembled those of the people of Chu. Their food was heavily salted and heavily seasoned, and they particularly liked pickled foods. Forced to “share in their joys and sorrows,” Tai Sui at first found it novel, but after a few days was nauseated by all the pickles and seasonings. 

So he came to his first conclusion about “himself”: he didn’t like to eat like humans ate. 

Wood didn’t have eyes. Tai Sui was like a blind man. Only when his consciousness rippled back after extending to others could he slowly work out what he was. 

When his consciousness was attached to an urchin, he would get beaten along with them. The urchin would scream and cry, and he would feel a “bottom” and “palm” that he didn’t have. He was more afraid of having his palm hit than his bottom; he didn’t know where the thought came from, but he thought that an adult was only truly angry when they hit your palm. 

If his consciousness landed in the body of an adult, it would be a little more painful. Doing the same thing over and over day after day was all right for these people, but Tai Sui’s consciousness would fragment from time to time. In the lightless factories and fields, he felt wrists, backs, waists…and knees that felt like pincushions. 

He knew that when humans were happy, their bodies would feel like they were floating; when they anticipated something, their chests would itch; when they were angry, their heads would heat up and their hearts would pound against their ribs. He felt the floating, the itching, the pounding along with them, but he couldn’t empathize with their emotions—there was nothing for it; his attention was always drawn by the insistently painful places on these people’s bodies. 

But though this was torment, mortals could endure it, so he could also make do with it and live. At least it let him recognize all the human sense organs. 

At first, this Tai Sui born of reincarnation wood didn’t understand anything. After his consciousness got a little more deeply entangled with these people, he became a little more clear-headed. While learning the Yuzhou dialect, he inexplicably “learned” another accent and dimly remembered a great deal of common knowledge…

That was before that ogre covered in snakeskin brought the Chu across the Xia River. 

At that time, he still wasn’t sure how many countries there were in the world. He didn’t know who was an immortal and who was evil, and he didn’t know why the person who “worshipped” him was covered in monstrous snakeskin scars. 

Then the Chu came east, Xuanyin pacified the rebellion, the immortals fought, and the corpses of the nobodies were strewn over the ground. 

The people who had “believed in” him had been sold out by his “immortal envoy.” The deaths and the resentment of the dying rebounded mercilessly onto his consciousness. Again and again, he struggled. Again and again, he “died.” This continued for months. When he opened his eyes again, he had come to Chu. 

Having been forced through this campaign, his consciousness, confused as a small child’s, grew up overnight. Without being taught, he knew the terms “immortal sect,” “evil cultivators,” “Xuanyin,” “Sanyue.” 

Before, the snake-skinned evil cultivator had only used him to trick others. Later, he must have figured he had been blessed. Somehow, he had begun worshipping in earnest. So at last, through the Snake King’s consciousness, Tai Sui tasted all different flavors and only then found that he didn’t dislike eating; he even thought that the flavor of Chu food was all right…he only disliked the food those people whose shoulders, backs, and knees hurt had eaten. 

It was much more pleasant to attach his consciousness to the Snake King, especially after that ogre put down roots in Wild Fox Country and could have anything he wanted—Tai Sui indulged in a life of luxury along with him and sometimes remembered a few more refined, more tasteful scenes. 

But these trifles were useless. He had no interest in what shop had made the Snake King’s precious stone studded belt, whatever Cui Ji or Yao Ji it was—all he wanted was to kill that ogre. 

When he had been in Yuzhou, he had found that the more he sent his consciousness out, the clearer it would be when it rebounded, and the clearer it was, the stronger it was. Tai Sui had the feeling that when his consciousness reached a certain degree of strength, he might even be able to influence real people. 

As more and more people in Wild Fox County worshipped Tai Sui, he started wildly sending his consciousness out—the easily frightened common people of Tao County, the trembling servants, the evil cultivators dying in battle, the extravagant wealthy people of Chu…as well as the “livestock” they feasted on. At first it was voluntary, but later, he could no longer control his consciousness. If there was someone holding his amulet and praying, he would involuntarily be drawn by it. 

His consciousness, previously curled up weakly in the divine image, became stronger and stronger, but also more and more confused. He would often be trapped in the bodies of unknown people, confuse them with himself like Zhuangzi dreaming of being a butterfly. Fortunately, his desire to kill was steady enough. In five years, “kill the Snake King” had become a clear road marker, firmly holding him in place, dragging him back from the edge of madness countless times. 

Until that assassin charged in. 

As soon as that big idiot came in, Tai Sui’s muddled spiritual sense was suddenly touched. His scattered consciousness instantly returned to its original place. Then he found to his astonishment that there was a long-lost piece of his consciousness on the knotted bag that big idiot was carrying! 

When the knotted bag got caught on the divine image, his consciousness fused, and a segment of distant memory floated up clearly. He remembered a teenage girl named A-Hua, remembered that his consciousness had once “travelled” through reincarnation wood. 

He remembered that he wasn’t a tree. It seemed that he was also a cultivator. Someone had taken his consciousness from his spiritual foundation and placed it into an illusion. But his consciousness, wandering through all the reincarnation wood, had been much stronger than that of an ordinary person. He had known perfectly well that it was an illusion. Though he had gone in obediently enough, he had from start to finish been concerned about A-Hua’s fate. He had secretly snuck out a sliver of consciousness and headed against the current through the reincarnation wood to find her. 

He had found the girl’s lilac knotted bag, trampled into the dirt, but he hadn’t found her. He had been going in circles in the divine image when it was as if something had abruptly shattered his consciousness. He hadn’t known anything more. 

The moment his previously broken consciousness fused, Tai Sui clearly felt that his original body was held in some place he couldn’t reveal, and there were heavy rules restraining him like shackles. 

But he hadn’t had time to think it through carefully—the big idiot had a karmic connection to the knotted bag that went down to the bone, and he had spilled his blood on the reincarnation wood divine image. He could finally talk to someone! 

He could finally kill the person he needed to kill! 

All at once, he realized his long-cherished wish of the last five years, but the stabilizing force on his consciousness also disappeared. 

The Tai Sui amulets had long ago become a specialty product of Tao County. Even the spiritual image dolls had gone along and believed in them. When his consciousness was attached to the spiritual image dolls, it would fall to pieces along with them, then scramble back to the divine image. He’d had enough. 

Luckily, the big idiot was useful and easily tricked. Using his hands, Tai Sui took care of the reincarnation wood in the area that was constantly pulling away his consciousness. At last, his scattered consciousness assembled. He could sleep. 

Perhaps this time, he could dream of what had actually happened five years ago. 

If he couldn’t dream of it, that was fine. He’d had enough of being human these last few years. He wasn’t curious about his original body at all. He wanted to rest. 

Plish—

In a daze, Tai Sui was suddenly startled by the sound of water. Something was pulling his consciousness. 

He went through the quiet Seventeen Li Town and “looked” in the direction of the water. He “saw” a little boat floating in the Xia River. 

What the hell? Where had the big idiot gone to burn his incense? 

Before he could get a clear “look,” a strange yet familiar female voice sounded in his ear: “So this is Western Chu.”