Become a Disciple
The room fell deathly silent in an instant—you could hear a pin drop. Even the sound of sobbing vanished.
There were only four people in the room, yet five distinct breaths—some shallow, some ragged—could be heard. No one dared to move or speak in the darkness.
Lu Congxing, who was closest to the light switch, reached out and turned the light back on.
A wisp of his karmic fire traveled down his fingertip and drove out the yin energy lurking in the wires. The room, which had gone dark from some eerie interference, instantly lit up again.
Lin Yang finally saw what was to his left—it was a voodoo doll, eyes shut tight, lying on the floor.
What he had touched earlier was likely the human skin fused to the doll’s face, which had hovered beside him, emitting sobs identical to Wen Yi’s.
Wen Yi’s voice trembled. “W-were its eyes shut just now?”
Lin Yang shook his head with difficulty and shifted to the side, wanting to distance himself from the unsettling doll.
But as he turned his head, he was met with another familiar face—another layer of human skin. This time, the voodoo doll’s eyes were open, blood-teared and only two centimeters from the tip of his nose. Even someone like him nearly had a heart attack. He screamed, staggering backward, nearly landing flat on the floor.
The voodoo doll had teleported in front of him.
Like a mischievous child pulling a prank, it let out a high-pitched, mocking laugh “Qi qi qi…” in Wen Yi’s voice, now laced with something sinister.
Qi qi qi…
The voice deepened, growing rough and distorted. Even the doll’s face began to melt. Its eyes and nose fused together into a fleshy lump, like a wad of beige modeling clay.
It was reforming its face.
“This doll is seriously cursed,” Lin Yang said, still shaken, clutching his chest as he frowned at it.
He had never seen a cursed object with this much autonomy. Voodoo dolls were supposed to require someone to control them, but unless someone was manipulating it remotely, this one seemed to act entirely on its own, even switching targets for its curse without warning.
Lu Congxing leaned toward the idea that the doll itself was innately evil. Even using a willow leaf talisman to check, he couldn’t detect any strings or links controlling it.
The grotesque human-skin face eventually finished merging into a new set of features, as if painfully struggling to emerge. First the nose, then the mouth and eyes. Finally, irises slowly appeared in the whites of its eyes.
It was Lin Yang’s face.
It opened its mouth and let out another chilling “Qi qi qi…”
A chill crawled down Lin Yang’s spine. He quickly pulled out a talisman and tried to slap it onto the doll. But the voodoo doll teleported behind him, its identical eyes glaring at the back of his head with intense resentment.
Sensing something, Lin Yang spun around and slapped the talisman in a swift motion. This time, it stuck.
The talisman, given to him by his master, worked immediately. The doll froze in midair.
Facing the twisted mimic of his own face, Lin Yang swallowed his fear. “Still caught you in the end.”
The talisman would hold for ten minutes—more than enough time to seal the doll.
But just as he reached out, the iron nails in the doll’s limbs suddenly drove deeper, as if pushed by invisible hands. Its neck also began to tighten.
At the same time, excruciating pain shot through Lin Yang’s body—four fresh wounds appeared on his limbs, each bleeding heavily. The injuries were deepening, bone faintly visible. His scream choked in his throat as a bruise-like mark appeared on his neck, strangling his breath. His eyes rolled back, his face turning from red to purple.
The voodoo doll mirrored Lin Yang’s agony, its expression contorted in pain—but its mouth still let out that eerie, gleeful “Qi qi qi…” Only now, it sounded even more mocking.
Terrified, Wen Yi instinctively rushed to support Lin Yang, keeping him from collapsing to the ground.
Lu Congxing stepped in and grabbed the doll himself. At his touch, the doll’s face twisted in rage, and in the next second, it burst into karmic flame.
Having witnessed the eerie power of these blue ghostly flames before, the doll panicked and spoke in human language, “You want him to burn too?!”
Lin Yang’s voice came from the doll’s mouth, but Lu Congxing remained cold and unyielding, letting the fire continue.
Yet instead of sharing the doll’s suffering, Lin Yang seemed to improve—the burning didn’t affect him, and his wounds stopped worsening.
Lu Congxing’s tone was calm. “My fire only burns worldly evil.”
Lin Yang, a man who had never committed evil and even carried a faint karmic merit for saving lives, was naturally unharmed.
The voodoo doll, supposedly impervious to fire or blades, began to blacken under the flame. It finally broke down and started begging for mercy.
Only then did the fire shrink, though a small flame remained perched on Lu Congxing’s shoulder, watching the doll like a predator. One wrong move and it would pounce again.
The doll’s human-skin face was scorched beyond recognition—just a mess of pitch-black charred flesh.
It feebly lifted a nail-pinned hand to touch its face, and let out a wail.
This time, it was a real, full-on sob, not the quiet mimicry of Wen Yi’s earlier whimpers.
Somehow, it was even more annoying.
He Zhouyan frowned, clearly irritated. “Shut up.”
His words carried the power of a divine beast’s revelation—whatever he said, reality obeyed. The doll’s mouth clamped shut against its will.
Its burned face glanced at He Zhouyan, who had been silent until now, and suddenly realized—this man was the scariest presence in the room.
The doll began trembling slightly in Lu Congxing’s hand. Whatever thoughts it had about escaping were instantly crushed by the overwhelming pressure. It could only remain obediently still, pretending to be nothing more than an ugly, harmless toy.
Lu Congxing looked at it with mild disgust, gave its leg a little shake, and casually tossed it to He Zhouyan.
The voodoo doll: Speak of the devil, and he appears.
Held in He Zhouyan’s hand like a powerless sacrificial offering, the voodoo doll found itself exposed under the gaze of a monstrous beast. As an evil thing, it was instinctively terrified. It was so frightened it didn’t even dare to tremble, holding its breath as it began to pray silently.
Lu Congxing took out a blood-stopping talisman and applied it to Lin Yang, who was pale from the pain.
Immediately, the bleeding ceased. Still, talismans weren’t miracle doctors—they couldn’t raise the dead or regenerate flesh. When it came down to it, you still had to trust science. Lu Congxing pulled out his phone, planning to call an ambulance.
Lin Yang hadn’t cried when the pain had been unbearable moments earlier, but now, seeing such a high-grade talisman—one that couldn’t even be bought with money—used up in an instant, tears started to fall.
It felt like he’d just used a whole house’s worth of money with one slap of a talisman.
He had never hated being injured as much as he did right now.
The ambulance arrived quickly. The doctors, shocked by the wounds on Lin Yang’s body, hurried to lift him onto a stretcher.
One of them even asked if they should report the incident to the police.
They suspected he had been assaulted by a violent criminal.
Only after Lin Yang weakly but firmly declined multiple times did they drop the idea. He still agreed to a medical report, just in case he needed evidence later.
The subdued voodoo doll looked no more than a burnt rag doll in He Zhouyan’s hand. It didn’t move a muscle, not even when taken to the hospital. At this point, its scorched appearance made it indistinguishable from an actual rag doll.
Upon hearing that his disciple had been injured, Lin Hude rushed over after checking the last name on the list. His white beard was even disheveled from the rush.
Lin Yang was deeply moved. He opened his mouth to say something, but was immediately cut off.
Lin Hude glared at him and shouted, “A single voodoo doll almost killed you? When we get home, copy the Dao De Jing1 ten times!”
The tears of gratitude in Lin Yang’s eyes instantly turned into tears of pain.
He pulled a long face. Yep, that was exactly what his master would say.
The Lin family exorcists were known for being strict. They knew all too well that in this line of work, one wrong step could cost you your life. Better to enforce harsh standards from the start than to lose someone they had painstakingly trained.
Before anyone could react, Lin Hude’s expression suddenly changed. His wrinkled face broke into a wide, blooming smile. “Mr. Lu, I’ve finished checking off everyone on the list.”
Lin Yang: …Somehow, the pain from his wounds suddenly felt worse after witnessing this favoritism.
Lu Congxing raised an eyebrow in surprise. “So fast?”
It was the first time someone older had called him Mr. Lu, so he added, “You can just call me Xiao Lu.”
Lin Hude replied solemnly, “That won’t do. In our line of work, we don’t look at age.”
In the exorcist world, only ability mattered. Talent was everything. Those with great talent and strength, no matter how young, would still be treated with respect by senior exorcists.
On the flip side, being older didn’t mean anything. There were plenty of aging exorcists who never achieved anything worthwhile and couldn’t even make it onto their clan’s ancestral records.
Listening to all this, Lin Yang started to feel something was off.
The stern master he knew had suddenly turned into a chatty old man, enthusiastically telling Lu Congxing stories—from his first ghost encounter at eighteen to what kind of dumplings he had for lunch and how many folds were on them.
The more he talked, the more excited he got, even shamelessly praising himself.
Lin Yang quietly thought to himself, Here it comes. He’s about to make the pitch.
If his master really took Lu Congxing as a disciple, he, as the senior disciple, would be under a lot of pressure. If the Lin family could truly gain such an extraordinarily talented person, they would no doubt rise to become the dominant force among the four great clans, breaking the decade-long deadlock.
Watching his master ramble on without getting to the point, Lin Yang was so anxious he nearly yanked out his IV drip to say it for him.
Maybe sensing this urgency from the sidelines, Lin Hude finally circled back to the main topic.
He adopted a dignified air, stroking his white beard like an immortal about to ascend, and said, “For exorcists, accepting disciples is all about fate. The moment I laid eyes on you, I felt a deep connection between us.”
Lin Yang nodded enthusiastically from the side.
Encouraged, Lin Hude continued, “At first, when Lin Yang said he’d met someone who could draw advanced talismans and even create a brand-new formation he’d never learned before, I didn’t believe it. But now, I see clearly—you’re a once-in-a-century genius.”
“No! I’ve been waiting for someone like you for a long time!” Lin Hude’s eyes sparkled as he spoke excitedly, even forgetting to stroke his beard. “Today, I finally have the chance to say this.”
“Please take me as your disciple!”
Lin Yang nodded with satisfaction… wait—no, what!?
He wore an expression like he’d seen a ghost, wondering if there was something wrong with his ears.
He had thought his master wanted him to have a junior brother… but it turns out he was being asked to be his master’s master???
Author’s note:
Lin Hude: Expanding the horizons.jpg
Taw’s note: AHAHAHAHAHA 🤣🤣🤣
- 道德经 (dàodé jīng) It’s an ancient Chinese philosophical text traditionally attributed to Laozi (Lao Tzu). Literal meaning of “道德经” would be “The Classic of the Way and Virtue.”
It’s one of the foundational texts of Taoism (Daoism) and also hugely influential in Chinese culture, philosophy, and beyond. ↩︎
Lin Hude is such an adorable old man!