Chapter 54 - The Mirror of Truth
The Green-Eyed Zombie remained trapped in the throes of a lingering madness, a hollow shell of the creature he once was. When the celestial messengers descended to Guantian Garden to inspect his condition, they found him wandering aimlessly through the mist, his gaze vacant and his mind seemingly lost in a fog of delirium. They did not linger to investigate the cause of his affliction or offer any divine remedy; to them, he was merely a variable in the celestial mechanics of rain and drought. Satisfied that his presence was not actively disrupting the natural order, they returned to the heavens. Their report to the Heavenly Emperor was perfunctory and cold, confirming that the zombie remained in his erratic state but posed no immediate threat to the divine mandate.
As time passed, the zombie—whom Qiao'er knew as Hou—began to absent himself from the tranquility of Guantian Garden with increasing frequency. He offered vague justifications for his departures, claiming that his absence allowed the spiritual energy of the garden to replenish itself, thereby ensuring that the local rainfall would remain unaffected by his heavy, turbid aura. Qiao'er, possessing a heart as vast and clear as the summer sky, never pressed him for details. She did not ask where he went or what he did during those long hours of absence, nor did she wonder why his eyes seemed to flicker with a strange, distant light whenever he returned. She simply accepted his words with a gentle smile, trusting in the bond they shared.
Left to her own devices, Qiao'er found joy in the small things, her days filled with the creation of whimsical new spells. Her three disciples—the transformed shrimp and crab spirits Yaoguang, Tianquan, and Kaiyang—were often lax in their studies, their focus wavering like reeds in the wind. To sharpen their mental discipline and cultivate their willpower, Qiao'er devised a rather mischievous lesson. She placed an enchantment upon the garden's privy. From a distance, it appeared as a standard, humble outhouse; even upon closer inspection, it looked perfectly ordinary. However, the moment a disciple let down their guard—and their trousers—the spell would trigger. Suddenly, they would find themselves squatting not in the privacy of the garden, but in the middle of a bustling thoroughfare in the eastern or northern districts of the nearby town. The shock of being exposed to the public gaze was a brutal but effective way to force them to maintain their spiritual awareness and "perception of reality" at all times.
Her magical repertoire soon expanded to include more sophisticated techniques. She developed the Stealth Art, a profound spell capable of erasing one's presence from the world in a mere heartbeat. Unlike simple invisibility, this art masked the very essence of a being—the essence, Qi, and spirit that defined a living soul. It suppressed the rhythm of the breath and the vibration of the spirit, rendering the practitioner a ghost in the eyes of both man and demon. It was the ultimate tool for evasion, a way to become a shadow among shadows, invisible to the senses and the memories of any pursuer.
Finally, she perfected the Water Mirror. By channeling her spiritual energy into a basin of still water, she created a portal that could reveal the whereabouts and actions of anyone the viewer held in their heart. For Yaoguang, the commercial potential of such a device was immediately apparent. In an age where news traveled slowly and secrets were buried deep, a tool for clandestine observation was worth its weight in gold.
The mirrors were snatched up by the wealthy and the curious as soon as they were made, though Qiao'er remained indifferent to the social chaos they wrought. The mirrors exposed hidden infidelities, revealed clandestine meetings, and shattered the illusions of many a "happy" marriage, turning once-devoted couples into bitter enemies overnight. Qiao'er watched the fallout from her garden with a detached melancholy. She realized that while humanity often claimed to crave the truth above all else, the truth itself was rarely as beautiful as the comfortable lies they chose to believe.
