Si Teng (Rattan) – CH 014

Chapter 14

When Wang Qiankun was lowered, he was indeed unconscious. Half of his Taoist hairstyle was undone, and many strands of hair were sticking up, giving him a somewhat “windy” look.

Si Teng told Qin Fang to watch over the three people and then went down into the cave. Qin Fang waited in the room for a while, thinking that since Si Teng hadn’t told him not to follow—he might as well go down and see what was happening, rather than guarding three people wrapped in vines like mummies.

Surprisingly, the cave was very small, cramped like a large cabinet. On the floor was a vine root half-buried in the soil, from which countless vines sprouted and spread out. There were several fresh wounds on the root, and a reddish “blood”—according to Wang Qiankun, it was probably sap—dripped from the wounds. This must be the original location of Si Teng, but it didn’t seem particularly special. Qin Fang waited with her for a while, then coughed twice deliberately: “Those three people are still up there. Why don’t we… ask them again?”

“Can’t you see?”

Qin Fang paused, then looked at the cave more carefully: “It’s not that big. I’ve seen everything there is to see.”

“Step back.”

Qin Fang stepped back two steps as instructed. As soon as he stood still, the vines started moving, writhing and shaking up and down and sideways. The vines beneath the ground moved and twisted in the soil, like snakes moving underground. After a while, it sounded like an earthquake, with the faint sound of chains. The ceiling and walls began to crack, and countless chunks of earth fell haphazardly. Qin Fang covered his head and tried to move to a corner. Suddenly, with a loud crash, the ground beneath him collapsed, and he fell down.

Fortunately, he didn’t fall very far, only about a meter. Qin Fang coughed and stood up, seeing Si Teng standing in front of him, gesturing, “Look again.”

Qin Fang then realized that the cave had become much larger: it was as if there had originally been a large room, and someone had built a small, sealed room inside it. The sudden tremor had collapsed the smaller room, finally revealing the true nature of the cave.

The entire cave looked like a farmer’s cellar for storing vegetables. The brick-red walls were covered with faded yellow strips of paper with strange, distorted red characters. The red ink had faded to a dark red over time. There were oil lamps on the walls in each corner, with the oil hardened and blackened, but they were still lit, with flickering flames, giving it a somewhat eerie atmosphere. Four thick iron chains extended from each corner of the cellar, each ending with a massive iron hook, resembling the torture devices used in ancient times to pierce people’s spines. In the center of the cellar, suspended in mid-air, was a vine root the size of a table. The lower half of the root, originally buried in the soil, was charred black. Directly below the root was a burned-out fire pit, with ashes several centimeters deep.

Was this where someone was hung and burned with iron hooks? What if it wasn’t a vine root but a person? Qin Fang shivered with horror. Si Teng walked to the wall, picked up a talisman, and examined it, saying, “Wudang.”

She looked at another one: “Kongtong.”

She remained calm and then even laughed: “The Huang family’s fox-spirit ritual! Using swords, axes, and even pots and pans to deal with mere animals like dogs and cats—isn’t that ridiculous?”

She laughed loudly, and the oil lamp’s flame suddenly flared, licking the walls. The talismans instantly curled and fell, crackling, looking like countless scorched insects.

The fire was too intense, and the smoke stung Qin Fang’s eyes. He forced them open and saw Si Teng slowly kneeling before the vine root, her forehead gently touching it.

Countless vines began to slowly retract from all directions.

***

At dawn, Qin Fang splashed Wang Qiankun with a bucket of water to wake him. Yan Furui hadn’t been sleeping anyway, and as for Wafang, he was dozing off with tears and snot on his face. Qin Fang patted him to wake him up. Wang Qiankun stared blankly at Si Teng, who was sitting in front of him, for four or five seconds, then closed his eyes tightly, muttering to himself, “Hallucination! Hallucination!”

Yan Furui sighed and said, “Master Wang, this is truly a supernatural being. You didn’t believe me when I told you, but if you had believed me earlier…”

He implied that if Wang Qiankun had believed him earlier and mobilized the power of the Wudang Mountain Taoist sect, then all these problems wouldn’t have happened—but he didn’t dare say that directly in front of Si Teng.

Wang Qiankun continued to chant his self-imposed spell: “Hallucination, it’s all a hallucination! There are no monsters in this world, it’s all a trick! A trick! Everything can be explained by science! By science!”

Si Teng found it amusing. She leaned forward, her breath gently brushing against Wang Qiankun’s face: “Little Taoist Priest!”

Wang Qiankun shivered with fright, his eyes wide open as he roared, “Monster! Don’t come near!”

Yan Furui sighed again: “Master Taoist Wang, your words are so contradictory. Didn’t you just say it wasn’t a monster?”

Qin Fang covered his face with his hand, trying hard to suppress his laughter. He thought these two Taoists were quite amusingly clueless.

Si Teng remained motionless, her eyes like a deep, unfathomable pool. Wang Qiankun was extremely nervous. On one hand, he firmly believed there were no monsters in this world, but on the other hand, the more he looked at her, the more she looked like a monster—her eyebrows, eyes, nose, lips…

Si Teng suddenly asked him, “Do I look good?”

Oh no! Wang Qiankun remembered the legends he had heard as a child about beautiful female monsters seducing righteous Taoists. This damned spirit was staring at him; was she trying to seduce him? What a ridiculous idea!

He kept repeating the name of his favorite female celebrity, Fan Bingbing, in his mind. Si Teng extended her hand, rolled up the sleeve of her coat slightly, revealing her smooth, white arm, and ordered him, “Look.”

Wang Qiankun was furious: “What’s so good about it!”

He said that, but his eyes still looked, scrutinizing it with a critical gaze for a long time. He had to admit it was indeed beautiful. He wasn’t a poet; he couldn’t write lines like “delicate hands, like willow branches swaying in the breeze, fingers like green onions,” but he was simply filled with resentment: everyone loved beauty, but these monsters were so hateful. Why did they have to be so beautiful, appealing to humanity’s baser instincts…?

Just as he was thinking this, his expression suddenly changed.

Si Teng’s hand, from wrist to fingertip, almost instantly transformed into vines. The white skin turned a grayish-brown, and her slender fingers became vine-like tendrils.

Even more terrifying, her hand remained still, but the vines continued to grow. Each new segment was more delicate and finer than the previous one. These vines twisted and swayed, quickly reaching Wang Qiankun’s face, as if teasing him, threatening to tear him apart, yet gently brushing against his face.

Wang Qiankun was terrified. He frantically tilted his head back, his eyes darting around, his screams distorted with fear: “What are you doing? What do you want?!”

Si Teng laughed heartily. Her wrist twitched lightly, and her hand returned to its normal shape. But the extra vines suddenly snapped off, clinging tightly to Wang Qiankun’s face, as if alive with eyes, squeezing into his nostrils, mouth, and ears. Qin Fang was completely taken aback by Si Teng’s move, and even he was stunned. Fortunately, he instinctively covered the eyes of Wafang. Yan Furui was utterly dumbfounded, while Wang Qiankun was terrified, screaming and struggling frantically. Even after the vines were removed, he kept jumping around wildly, as if trying to shake off the vines.

“Little Taoist Priest, please don’t be nervous. Let’s just talk calmly.”

Don’t be nervous? How can he not be nervous? Wang Qiankun’s fingers trembled with anger as he pointed at Si Teng: “You put five worms on me! Five worms!”

“How could I put five worms? Little Taoist Priest, we demons don’t act that crudely.”

Her calm tone and friendly demeanor gave Wang Qiankun a glimmer of hope: “Not five worms?”

“Little Taoist Priest, you like to talk about science, right? My original form is a white vine. What I put in were five vine strands. Have you ever cut open a vine to see its structure? Even the shortest vine is made up of countless woody fibers. If one fiber is one worm, then I put in thousands of worms, not just five. Little Taoist Priest, you underestimate me.”

Wang Qiankun remained silent, staring at Si Teng, then at Yan Furui, and said, “Taoist Yan, I haven’t offended you, right? Please don’t play tricks on me. Is this magic? Is it some kind of magic trick?”

Qin Fang had found Wang Qiankun’s antics amusing before, but now seeing this grown man’s trembling voice and genuine fear, he felt a strange unease and blurted out, “Si Teng!”

Si Teng ignored him, simply smiling at Wang Qiankun: “Qiu Shan said I’m good at strangling. Little Taoist Priest, strangling is a vine’s nature. There are two kinds of strangling… For example, I can take a perfectly normal person and turn them into a lifeless stick…”

At that moment, she looked at Yan Furui. Yan Furui hadn’t yet realized what was happening when he suddenly felt the vines on his body tighten, digging deeper into his flesh. He started gasping for breath, his neck and face turning red. Wafang, not understanding what was happening, cried out, his voice hoarse: “Master, your face is red! Master, are you sick?”

Wang Qiankun shouted, “Stop! Stop! I understand! I understand!”

“There’s another way, from within. Little Taoist Priest, you people always exaggerate when you make up words, like ‘a thousand claws scratching the heart.’ Who’s ever had their heart scratched by claws? But, I’ll give you this chance.”

She extended her right hand, the tips of her five fingers lightly touching. Wang Qiankun screamed, clutching his chest and falling to the ground, thrashing and rolling around, his forehead covered in veins. In the blink of an eye, the ground beneath him was soaked with sweat. Qin Fang couldn’t bear to watch, turning Wafang’s head away. Wafang kept crying, sobbing, and asking, “Uncle, what are you doing, Uncle? We don’t have any money! My master is very poor!”

Children’s world was so simple; they would only think they were robbers. Qin Fang’s eyes felt heavy; he wanted to smile at Wafang but couldn’t.

When Wang Qiankun finally got up, his face was ashen, his jaw twitching uncontrollably, saliva dribbling from his mouth. His crotch was soaked. The air smelled of something pungent. People supposedly lose control of their bowels when electrocuted; this “scratching the heart” technique was surely far more powerful than electrocution, probably surpassing all tortures throughout history.

Qin Fang’s emotions were extremely complex. Having gotten along well with Si Teng these past few days had given him a false sense of optimism; now he realized it was all an illusion—yet, on second thought, he was somewhat grateful that she hadn’t used such extreme measures on him.

Si Teng remained calm, her demeanor still as friendly as Wang Qiankun had initially perceived: “Since we’ve already greeted each other…now, Little Taoist Priest, I’ll ask you a question. The Four Gates, the Seven Caves, and the Nine Streets—how many of these do you know?”

Wang Qiankun stared blankly, utterly bewildered.

Si Teng frowned. “What? Do we need to greet each other again?”

Greet each other? She called this torturous interrogation a “greeting”? Wang Qiankun trembled all over, his lips quivering. “Let me think, let me think…”

“The Four Gates… the four famous Taoist mountains in China… if it’s the Taoist temples on those four mountains, then it’s… Qingcheng Mountain in Sichuan, Wudang Mountain in Hubei, Longhu Mountain in Jiangxi, and Qiyun Mountain in Anhui…”

“And what about the Seven Caves and the Nine Streets?”

Wang Qiankun continued to tremble. “The Seven Caves… the Seven Caves…”

He glanced at Si Teng; seeing her expression grow colder, his heart grew colder, and the tension in his mind snapped. He suddenly broke down: “I really don’t know! I don’t know anything about caves! I only know that there’s a Water Curtain Cave in Huaguo Mountain! What about streets? Beijing has Wangfujing, Shanghai has Nanjing Road—they’re all streets, shopping streets…”

Si Teng pondered for a moment, then said, “Oh, so you really don’t know.”

“Okay, then. As soon as it’s light, you leave and go back to Wudang Mountain. Remember… Hurry up! My vine poison takes effect every 12 hours… or 24 hours in your terms. Every second counts, and the sooner we get there, the less you’ll suffer. This young Taoist can take care of you along the way. As for this child, I’m keeping him as a hostage.”

“The vine poison will attack your heart after ten days. Ask your master to gather all the skilled people from the four Taoist sects, seven Taoist monasteries, and nine Taoist temples to save your life—if they haven’t found a solution by the ninth day, have them come to Qingcheng to find me. Otherwise, Little Taoist Priest, your life will be sacrificed. I’ll personally visit each and every sect, monastery, and temple, with a gift in hand, to announce my arrival.”

“And tell them my name is Si Teng.”