Taoist priest goes to America

I walked past a thicket of trash-strewn bushes and arrived at the entrance to the public restroom. The door was ajar, and there were no lights inside; only moonlight shone through the skylight, casting a white rectangle on the ground.

Ang Lee pushed open the door and went inside. The smell inside the toilet was even worse than outside, a mixture of urine and feces.

The door to the third cubicle was closed.

Ang Lee stood before the door, his spiritual energy threads threading through the crack. He reached out and pulled back the bolt. The rusty iron bolt emitted a sharp, scraping sound.

The door opened.

Moonlight slanted in through the vent and fell directly into the room.

Old Bai squatted next to the toilet, his body curled up, his clothes mostly torn, revealing his grayish-white back.

Its body was covered with cockroaches, their dark brown shells and long antennae crawling slowly on Old White's shoulders, arms, and head.

The cockroach scurried into a hole in the clothes, leaving wet, shiny streaks on the grayish-white skin. Old Bai's head was lowered, his mouth moving, making wet chewing sounds.

With the help of the outside lights, Ang Lee could see what it was eating. Its mouth was stuffed full of cockroaches, not just one, but a whole clump.

The cockroach's legs, wings, and antennae protruded from the corners of its mouth and were still moving.

Some cockroaches hadn't been chewed up yet; half their bodies were sticking out, and their six legs were frantically paddling in the air, trying to crawl out of their mouths.

Old Bai's jaws opened and closed, crushing several cockroaches with each closure. Juice dripped from the corners of its mouth onto the ground, mingling with a pool of something else that leaked from its mouth—a mixture of cockroach shell fragments and unidentified slime.

Old Bai's mouth finally opened a little, and Ang Lee saw something even deeper inside.

It was a much larger thing, a grayish-brown, furry creature with a long tail—a rat.

The whole mouse was stuffed into Old Bai's mouth. The mouse's head was already in its throat, but its tail was still sticking out. It was pink with rings and was shaking wildly in the moonlight.

Old Bai pressed his tongue against the rat's body, biting open the rat's belly. Dark red blood spilled from the corner of Old Bai's mouth, dripping down his chin into the pile of cockroaches.

Ang Lee stood at the door, gritting his teeth as he watched this scene.

It's the feeling of seeing your husky rolling around in the bathroom and then taking the poop out of the bathroom and eating it.

The moonlight shone on his face, and the veins on Li An's face bulged.

He reached out a hand and patted Lao Bai on the head, causing Lao Bai to pause for a moment.

It raised its head, its dark red eyes peering at Li An through the gaps in the tent fabric.

"I threw up," Li An said, barely containing his anger.

Old Bai didn't move; the rat's tail in his mouth was still swaying, and it was Old Bai's tongue that was curling.

"Spit it out," Li An said again, his tone as if he was enduring it.

Old Bai opened his mouth, and a dark, lumpy thing fell out, hitting the ground with a dull thud. The rat, mixed in with the chewed-up cockroach carcass, bounced once on the ground and then lay still.

Ang Lee frowned, feeling both disgusted and helpless.

He never expected Old White to eat cockroaches and rats in the toilet; he thought it could at least hold it in for a few hours.

Old Bai paused for a moment, then raised its head, its dark red eyes looking at Li An.

Ang Lee frowned. "There's no more, is there? How much did you eat?"

Old White opened his mouth. A black, pasty substance fell out of his mouth and landed on the ground. It was hard to see what it was in the moonlight, but it smelled foul.

The lump contained fragments of cockroach wings and a large amount of rat meat. Old Bai stuck his tongue out of his mouth and licked the corner of his lips.

Li An took out the jujube wood doll from his sleeve pocket; he had gotten it from Chen Houde. It was about the size of a palm, dark brown, with a smooth surface and no facial features.

He squatted down, placed the puppet on the ground, took two steps back, and made a hand seal with his right hand.

Place the tip of your index finger against the base of your thumb, then bend your middle, ring, and little fingers in sequence, with the tips touching the palm, forming a hand seal resembling the Taoist "收" (shōu, meaning "to gather" or "to collect").

His lips moved as he recited a mantra he had used for many years in the fantasy world to guide his spiritual power.

The puppet began to grow up.

The puppet grows like a balloon being inflated, from the size of a palm to half a person's height, and from half a person's height to the same height as Old White.

Its color changed from dark brown to grayish-white, and its surface changed from smooth to rough, like tree bark.

Its shape is also changing; it is no longer the faceless wooden puppet, but has become a human-shaped box.

A crack appeared on the front of the head, running from the forehead to the chin, like a door.

A crack also appeared in the very center of the body, running from the neck to the groin.

The seam edges were very smooth, and the wood grain was so clear it looked as if it had been carefully planed.

Old Bai stood beside the spirit puppet, its dark red eyes curiously watching the opened humanoid box.

Ang Lee gestured with his chin towards the box. "Go inside."

Old White bent down and crawled into the humanoid box. Its movements were slow, starting with its head, then its shoulders.

His body rubbed against the edge of the human-shaped wooden box, making a rustling sound.

Ang Lee stepped forward and closed the human-shaped box with both hands. The wooden lid made a dull "click" as it closed.

The puppet began to shrink, from Old White's height back to the size of a palm. Its color changed from grayish-white back to dark brown, its surface from rough to smooth, and its shape from a human-shaped box back to that faceless wooden puppet.

But the puppet's face had changed; it was no longer a smooth, featureless oval, but had a blurred outline. It had gray hair, a drooping head, blood-red eyes, and a trace of what looked like blood at the corner of its mouth.

Ang Lee picked up the puppet and held it in his hand. The puppet was warm, as if it had just been held in someone's palm.

Ang Lee took out the apotropaic charms from his sleeve pocket, extended his sharp little fingernail, and quickly began to carve them.

In no time, a cursed wooden puppet was carved.

He placed the willow puppet on the ground, made a "collect" hand gesture with his right hand, the same hand gesture as before, but with a different mental output.

That was for the jujube wood spirit doll, using a simplified version of the incantation for warding off evil spirits.

Now it's a rough willow wood puppet, using the complete set.

Doyle stood behind him, his greyish-white eyes staring ahead, seemingly looking at something.

Ang Lee stood up, walked over to Doyle, and placed the willow puppet on Doyle's forehead.

When the puppet touched his skin, Doyle felt as if he had been hit by static electricity, and his body trembled slightly.

His body began to soften, like a piece of melting wax, as if transforming from three-dimensional to two-dimensional. His body shrank inward, shrinking from 1.8 meters tall to the size of a palm, and finally became a puppet.

The puppet was dressed in a dark blue police uniform, with bandages around its neck and its hat brim pulled low, obscuring most of its face.

Ang Lee picked up the puppet, hung it on his belt, and placed it next to the jujube wood spirit puppet.

Isya stood beside Doyle, the remaining half of his face glowing white in the moonlight.

The wound on his shoulder, severed by shrapnel, had stopped bleeding, and a dark red crust had formed on the surface.

Ang Lee placed the second piece of willow wood on his forehead. Isya's body also began to contract, faster than Doyle's.

As its body shrank, so did its wounds. Half of its face shrank into a depression the size of a fingernail, and the wound on its shoulder shrank into a black dot the size of a grain of rice.

Finally, he turned into a puppet, wearing a black suit vest, with his gray hair neatly combed. Half of his face was complete, while the other half was a smooth concave surface with no features, only the texture of wood.

Ang Lee also hung the puppet of Isya on his belt. The three puppets were strung together, with the jujube wood puppet on the far left, Doyle in the middle, and Isya on the far right.

They gently tapped against the belt of the Taoist robe, making a soft "tap, tap" sound, like three beads strung on a rope.

Li An glanced down at the string of puppets, flicked it with his finger, and the jujube wood puppet spun around, reflecting a dim light in the moonlight.

He hung the puppets on his belt. The belt of his Taoist robe was originally empty, but now it had several puppets, dark brown in color, that gleamed dimly under the streetlights.

He turned and walked out of the restroom. The night wind blew in his face. He walked to the Rolls-Royce, opened the door, got into the driver's seat, and fastened his seatbelt.

He put the cigarette in his mouth, shifted gears, stepped on the gas, and the Rolls-Royce drove onto the highway. The blue light from the dashboard illuminated his face, and the wooden puppet at his waist gently tapped against the seat, making a soft, tinkling sound.

In the rearview mirror, the public restroom grew smaller and smaller until it became a tiny gray dot and disappeared into the night.