Yin Shou Shu

Chapter 227 The Staff of the Head

An eerie silence descended upon the room.

Mo Li and his companion, completely unaware of everything, stared in disbelief at the bizarre skull.

This skull, with its lifelike human face, is an ugly creation, like half a dead person's skull and half a living person's face glued together.

The face, with only the head visible on the back, is smiling radiantly.

But the most outrageous thing is that the face in the picture is actually Ran Qing's!
And the sound it made was Ran Qing's.

Mo Li and Long Zongshu looked at each other, and couldn't help but ask, "What is this thing..."

"Ran Qing, what's going on?"

Both of them were startled by the unusual appearance of the skull.

Ran Qing also looked at the unusual skull in her hand and said, "I don't really understand it either, but I can roughly guess why Sixth Aunt was trading with the mandrill and looking for the ancient witch's skull."

That unseen monster's weakness is being watched.

It is an evil spirit that cannot be seen by the living, but it will die once someone sees the human face inside its belly.

After a monster dies, it will have a human face left behind.

Could this human face actually come to life on the ancient shaman's skull?
Holding up a face that looked exactly like her own, Ran Qing asked, "What are you? Why are you trying to harm me?"

Ran Qing tried to communicate with this face.

The face held in his hands grinned broadly and said, "Hello, my name is Ran Qing..."

This face seems to only be able to say this one sentence.

Mo Li looked at Ran Qing with a strange expression and asked again, "How did you make this thing? It feels so eerie..."

Ran Qing sighed and recounted what had just happened.

After hearing Ran Qing's story, Mo Li and Long Zongshu were both somewhat astonished.

Unexpectedly, Ran Qing had already suppressed the monster without their knowledge.

Long Zongshu also came over, curiously examining the skull with Ran Qing's face.

He gently reached out and touched the human face on the skull: "Huh? This feels so real..."

Long Zongshu was extremely surprised.

Ran Qing subconsciously touched his face. The moment Long Zongshu touched his face, he also felt as if his face had been touched and pinched.

Mo Li noticed this and came over as well.

"When you pinch this face, do you feel anything?" Mo Li curiously reached out and pinched the person's face, pulling hard.

Ran Qing, who was holding up the skull, twitched, and a faint red mark appeared on her face.

He quickly stopped Mo Li: "It hurts a little..."

Mo Li chuckled and stroked the face, saying, "I think I know what this is now."

Ran Qing felt her heart race for no reason as she felt the delicate fingers caressing her face.

He quickly took the skull away, preventing Mo Li from touching it, and asked, "What is it?"

At this moment, Ran Qing was somewhat uneasy.

Mo Li, oblivious to the fact that he had withdrawn his finger, said with a grin, "There is a kind of monster in the legends of the ancient Luo Kingdom called the Human-Faced Demon."

"This kind of monster is invisible to ordinary people and can only be found by special methods. Once it is seen by a living person, the human-faced monster will die quickly."

"The dead human-faced demon will turn into the face of the person who killed it."

"It is said that in the ancient Zangke tribes, the priests would search for human-faced demons, kill them, and use the faces that the demons had transformed into to make a kind of magical artifact called the 'human-headed staff'."

"But after the ancient Luo Kingdom disappeared, the human-faced demon also disappeared, and the evil magic weapon, the [Human Head Staff], also vanished without a trace."

"I never thought there really were human-faced monsters in the world. They look exactly like the monsters you encountered..." Mo Li looked at the skull in Ran Qing's hand with curiosity and said, "Then it seems that what you have in your hand is the [Human Head Staff]?"

"I never imagined it was made from the skull of an ancient shaman..."

Mo Li explained the origin of the monster and the situation of the strange skull.

Ran Qing frowned as she looked at her, then at Long Zongshu: "...Zongshu, have you ever heard the legend of the human-faced demon?"

Neither "The Art of Witchcraft and the Divine Arts" nor "The Legend of Sister Er's Demon Extermination" mentions this kind of thing.

Long Zongshu scratched his head and said, "This... I've never heard of it, but I have heard of a strange bird called the Human-faced Partridge."

Mo Li rolled her eyes and said, "Zong Shu's family only came to Zangke a few hundred years ago. By then, the human-faced demons had long since disappeared."

"This is a ghost story my old woman used to tell me. She died too young to tell you."

Mo Li explained it this way.

Ran Qing remained silent for a few seconds, then nodded in agreement with the explanation.

"So what is the purpose of this [Skull of the Head]?"

Ran Qing looked at the face in her hand that was exactly the same as her own, and no matter how many times she looked at it, she felt physically uncomfortable.

After all, it's my own face, and it looks so real... I always feel like there's an uncanny valley effect.

Mo Li shook his head innocently and said, "I don't know about that. My wife didn't tell me."

"She just said that this thing was the most popular ritual implement among the priests of the Zangke tribe in the old days, and every tribal priest wanted a [human head staff]."

“I suspect the old woman herself doesn’t know…at least when she told me this story, she didn’t know what the ‘skull’ was for.”

Mo Li continued to examine the human head held up in Ran Qing's hand, and said, "But if the old woman was able to find a way to make the [Human Head Staff], then she must have figured out its function."

"Take your time to figure it out yourself. This thing shouldn't rot, right?"

As Mo Li spoke, he couldn't help but reach out and poke the head in Ran Qing's hand again, saying, "The touch is very realistic... and it even has body temperature."

Long Zongshu, standing to the side, asked curiously, "But if it's the [Staff of Human Heads]... wouldn't it just have a human head and no staff?"

"Do we need to find a stick to hang it up?"

Long Zongshu looked at Mo Li and Ran Qing.

Ran Qing flipped the head over and, sure enough, saw that the bottom of the skull was still hollow.

You can use a stick to poke it in from the side and back, and then it really becomes a human head cane.

Mo Li's eyes darted around, and he said with a grin, "I'll go find a stick to try it out."

Ran Qing's eyelids twitched suddenly; all the sensations of this severed head would be transmitted to his face.

If Mo Li were to find a big stick and shove it into someone's head... ouch...

Ran Qing suddenly felt a chill run down her spine and quickly stopped him: "You can't just find any stick, can you?"

"Perhaps this is only half finished, and the remaining part of the cane may also require special materials."

"Perhaps we need to find another way to make a walking stick..."

Ran Qing spoke weakly, but Mo Li had already brought in a wooden stick from outside with great interest.

The stick was torn from the rake; it was a bit thick, and Mo Li was about to use it to stab.

Ran Qing instinctively wanted to refuse, but after being persuaded and encouraged by Mo Li for a long time, she couldn't resist her curiosity and decided to give it a try.

Perhaps after it's inserted and becomes a crutch, something really will happen?
He was also curious about the purpose of this mandrel.

And so, Mo Li held the thick, long wooden stick and slowly shoved it into the bottom of the man's head.

Ran Qing gasped, feeling something thick and heavy being shoved into her throat, almost filling it completely...

(End of this chapter)