When Siqing Taoist, the Shizu of Changxi Temple, arrived at the dining hall, he saw his disciples and grand disciples all staring dumbfoundedly at his little disciple who was burying his head in his food. The scene was filled with an indescribable awkward atmosphere.
Seeing this, Siqing Taoist laughed. His laughter was full-bodied, like a resounding bell. He shouted, “Children, snap out of it!” instantly breaking the dull atmosphere in the dining hall.
Seeing that the highest-ranking Shizu of Changxi Temple had arrived, the disciples put down their bowls and chopsticks and stood up. The few handsome old men with beards sitting at Wuzhen’s table looked particularly worried. They said to Siqing Taoist, who was striding into the hall like a dragon: “Shifu, there seems to be something wrong with Little Shidi. He was talking nonsense earlier. We don’t know if he’s lost his mind. Please come and take a look.”
Wuzhen choked on a mouthful of rice, barely managing to swallow the overly spicy food with a sip of soup. She thought to herself how casually they were suggesting someone had lost their mind while looking towards the legendary Shizu of Changxi Temple, Siqing Taoist.
This Siqing Taoist was quite different from what she had imagined. There was no ethereal white beard or Taoist topknot, no fly whisk in hand, or otherworldly expression. Siqing Taoist looked remarkably youthful, excessively so. He was said to be over a hundred years old but appeared to be only in his fifties. Moreover, he was built like a bear with a tiger’s back, full of rough vigor. He didn’t look like a Taoist at all, more like a rough-and-tumble wanderer.
Watching several Taoists who looked even older than Siqing Taoist gather around him, respectfully calling him Shifu and trying to support him, Wuzhen felt quite bemused.
Siqing Taoist laughed heartily, his short beard on his chin shaking. He walked to Wuzhen’s side and, seeing her stand up, pressed her back down into her seat with one hand, saying, “Keep eating.”
Pressed down into her seat by a mountain-like force, Wuzhen began to understand why Lang Jun’s strength was so great. It seemed to be a case of ‘like master, like disciple’ – the immense strength of both master and disciple came from the same lineage.
Siqing Taoist examined Wuzhen carefully for a while, then turned to his senior disciples and said, “I think your Little Shidi looks fine. He even seems to have put on some weight, with a healthy glow. What’s wrong with him?”
He soon found out what was wrong when Wuzhen smiled at him and called him Shifu. Siqing Taoist was nearly startled out of his skin. He shouted at her in shock: “Guyu, my disciple, don’t scare your Shifu! What’s wrong with your face? Why are you suddenly smiling?”
Wuzhen: “…”
She had thought that given Siqing Taoist’s high virtue and advanced age, he would surely be a wise elder who would more easily accept the story of body-swapping. Now it seemed that Siqing Taoist was the one who would have the hardest time accepting it.
With the thought of still giving it a try, Wuzhen explained her identity as Mei Zhuyu’s wife from Chang’an. However, Siqing Taoist cut off her unfinished words with one hand, saying gravely: “I don’t believe it.”
Wuzhen: Tch, what a difficult Shifu.
Still, as he was Lang Jun’s elder, Wuzhen maintained some patience and explained to him: “Shifu, I’m not joking. This is true. For some reason, we’ve swapped bodies. Now Lang Jun is in my body…”
Siqing Taoist: “I’m not listening!”
Wuzhen: Listen to me!
She took a deep breath, ignoring Siqing Taoist’s boorish temperament, and said directly: “Actually, we were planning to come visit you together, Shifu. We didn’t expect to encounter an evil spirit halfway, and Lang Jun was captured…”
Siqing Taoist interrupted again: “This story is a lie. Guyu wouldn’t come back to visit me of his own accord. When he left the mountain, I was so angry that I told him once he left, he was no longer part of Changxi Temple and shouldn’t come back. Knowing Guyu’s personality, he definitely wouldn’t come back on his own.”
Wuzhen stopped talking and stared at him, her gaze somewhat unfriendly. “From what Shifu is saying, you drove Lang Jun down the mountain?”
Siqing Taoist was also displeased. He slapped the table angrily and said: “Did I want to drive him down the mountain? It was him listening to those foolish words left by his father, insisting on going down the mountain! What a waste of such good aptitude. I hadn’t seen one like him in so many years. If not for a prior agreement, I would have wanted to pass Changxi Temple to him! But now? He went down the mountain and disappeared without a trace. Is this how he treats his lonely, pitiful, helpless, elderly, and weak Shifu?”
Wuzhen glanced at his bull-like strong physique and the chest muscles that resounded with each slap, expressing doubt about the ‘lonely, pitiful, helpless, elderly, and weak Shifu’. She didn’t engage with this topic, but continued with her previous point, saying coolly: “You’ve already believed that we’ve swapped bodies, why are you pretending not to understand?”
Siqing Taoist was silent for a moment, then suddenly said with heartache: “Guyu, my disciple, how could you marry so quickly? I was thinking that after he passed that fate-ordained tribulation, I’d let him come back to inherit my mantle. How could he truly dive headlong into the red dust of love and not come out? My most talented disciple! What a pity! What a pity!”
His face was full of reluctance as he sighed and beat his chest. “Guyu used to have no interest in these matters of love. If he had maintained his former self, he would surely have dominated the Taoist world and become the number one Taoist of our time!”
Wuzhen hadn’t expected him to have such lofty ambitions. She said, “…Shifu, please calm down.”
Not just Wuzhen, but the whole room full of disciples and grand disciples seemed to be used to their Shizu’s behavior. They all advised him to go back and copy some Qingjing scriptures and not think about dominating the Taoist world, which was not in line with Taoist principles.
Siqing Taoist was barely persuaded by his group of ascetic white-bearded disciples to stop talking about these things. However, Wuzhen felt that he stopped talking because he was annoyed by his disciples’ nagging.
Everyone finally accepted Wuzhen’s explanation, and they heated new dishes and began to eat and talk in a very informal manner.
Siqing Taoist chewed on two chili peppers that looked hot enough to make one lose their mind, and asked Wuzhen: “Then what? You said Guyu was captured by that thing while in your body. Did you find anything after that?”
Wuzhen cautiously and reverently stared at him chewing the chili peppers without changing his expression, feeling that he truly deserved respect as their Shizu. She said, “Afterwards, I went to check the place where we had first discovered its traces, but I couldn’t find any sign of it or Lang Jun. It seems they’ve hidden away. I think that creature knows Lang Jun, possibly from some past grudge. It also said it wanted me to bring something to exchange. Lang Jun probably knows what it wants, but I don’t. Do you know, Shifu?”
Siqing Taoist didn’t waste words and directly said two words: “I know.”
Wuzhen was overjoyed: “That’s great. Shifu, give it to me, and I’ll go exchange it for him.”
Siqing Taoist frowned his thick eyebrows. “When Guyu brought that thing back then, he gave it to me saying it needed to be carefully guarded. No matter what happened, even if he died, it couldn’t be taken out.”
Wuzhen lightly said “Oh,” then looked at Siqing Taoist with sincerity and said, “Shifu, look, now I am Mei Zhuyu. Since Mei Zhuyu entrusted the thing to you back then, and now Mei Zhuyu is asking you to take it out, there’s absolutely no problem, right?”
Siqing Taoist: It seems to make sense.
Wuzhen patted his thick arm and pressed on, “Shifu, the thing was entrusted to you by Mei Zhuyu, and now it’s being handed back to Mei Zhuyu. It’s perfectly reasonable, isn’t it?”
Seeing Siqing Taoist hesitate, Wuzhen took a step back and said, “Alright then, I won’t ask you to give it to me. But it’s not too much to ask you to let me see what this thing is, right?”
Siqing Taoist’s confused expression slowly turned sharp. He stared at Wuzhen and said, “Do you think I would be fooled by such a simple explanation? You underestimate this old man. You keep saying you’re Guyu’s wife, but how do I know if that’s true? Everything you’ve said is one-sided and can’t be fully trusted. I think it’s more likely that you’re the evil spirit who kidnapped Guyu, occupied his body, and is impersonating someone else to come and steal that thing.”
Wuzhen: Wow, Shifu, you dare to imagine. Come to think of it, it does sound quite reasonable.
Seeing her not speak, Siqing Taoist snorted coldly and said, “Now that I’ve exposed your identity, what will you do? Are you still going to pretend? Since you’ve entered our Changxi Temple today, don’t think you can leave easily. Surrender obediently and release Guyu! Otherwise, don’t blame us Changxi Temple Taoists for being ruthless!”
Siqing Taoist revealed a fierce expression like a Greenwood hero.
“Shifu, calm down, control yourself,” the white-bearded old Taoists beside him advised worriedly.
Unfortunately, their advice didn’t work.
The situation developed too quickly and ran wildly in a bizarre direction. Wuzhen couldn’t convince the old Shifu and instead was suspected of false identity. With a wave of his large hand, he said decisively: “Children, tie this person up and lock them away first. We’ll investigate the situation clearly before deciding! We can’t be easily deceived by them!”
Wuzhen was worriedly tied up by two young Taoists and sent to a room to rest. Sitting on the hard bed, she sincerely cursed.
While cursing, she tried to untie the ropes on her hands. Just then, Wuzhen suddenly felt dizzy. This blackout sensation, she had experienced once before, not long ago, before swapping bodies with Lang Jun. Could it be that they were about to switch back?
At that moment, Wuzhen remembered her cousin’s words and thought unexpectedly, Cousin was right this time, it took about a day to switch back. Her second thought was, when Lang Jun discovers his own body tied up, what expression will he have?
Then, she completely lost consciousness.
This exchange was even more severe in terms of dizziness. Wuzhen’s vision was completely black for quite a while before she regained consciousness, accompanied by a bout of dizziness and nausea.
She couldn’t help but sit up and dry heave, hearing several soft voices shouting around her: “Madam, what’s wrong with you?”
“Madam, are you alright?”
“Oh my, Madam suddenly vomited!”
Wuzhen simultaneously felt several hands supporting her. After the dizziness passed, she felt much better and looked up. She saw three or four middle-aged women wearing red flowers in their hair surrounding her, with plump bodies, round heads, small eyes, and round ears.
They were all demons, field mouse demons.
Wuzhen wiped her lips with her thumb, glanced around at her surroundings, and suddenly grinned at them.