The night wind swept the pagoda tree leaves across the blue stone slab. The moment Ye Fan pushed open the courtyard door, a clamor surged forward like a tide. Outside the courtyard, just three steps away, the street was crowded with over twenty commoners. There were old women carrying vegetable baskets, children clutching candied hawthorns, and several bare-chested strong men holding torches—yet their eyes betrayed something unnatural.
The old woman's crying was deliberately drawn out at the end, the child's sobbing was intermittent, and the young man in the front row who had shouted about a ghost had the back of his right hand oozing blood, yet he didn't even furrow his brow.
"They're spirit-controlled puppets." Chǔ Hóngzhuāng's Gu Insect suddenly drilled out from the silver bell in her hair, the Golden Silkworm Gu curling into a tiny ball on her fingertip. "Raised on soul-confusing powder and pain-numbing pills, specifically used to put on a pathetic act in the streets." She tilted her head toward the teahouse at the very back of the crowd. "At the third table over there, the fellow in the grey cloth tunic has a copper coin pendant from Jiuyao Pavilion hanging from his waist."
Chapter 130