The Story So Far...

No-Face

Somewhere, Luo Binghe is biting a handkerchief and furiously taking notes

Major Players

Sexy Legs

Dec 20

chapters 24-34

Sorry I'm running late this week. Yesterday was my birthday so it's been a bit hectic. It's almost midnight (EST) and I'm still editing the write up...The ghost of lady general Xuan Ji has been wreaking havoc across the Ming Guang General's territory in the North. Crazy ex girlfriend has been busy, burning down all his temples and kidnapping and killing brides, stashing their corpses inside the lone Ming Guang shrine atop Yujun Mountain because General Pei hasn't been returning her calls or texts for, what I can only assume, centuries.Here to put a stop to it are: our crossdressing hero Xie Lian and his grumpy assistants Nan Feng and Fu Yao, who have been "volunteered" from the ranks of Generals Nan Yang and Xuan Zhen (Xie Lian's once mortal retainers, now martial gods of the Southeast and Southwest respectively).As Xie Lian fends off Xuan Ji with his magic sentient bandage weapon, the girl Xiao Ying tries to help and ends up fatally injured. As poor Xiao Ying lies dying, Xie Lian promises that he'll take care of the bandaged urchin she has been feeding.Day breaks to the sound of temple bells chiming and the arrival of heavenly troops led by...General Pei? Turns out this one is Pei Jr, a descendant of the Ming Guang General who ascended generations later. Pei Sr apparently has bigger fish to fry and couldn't be bothered to come collect his crazy ex gf himself.Xie Lian convinces bandaged urchin to remove his bandages, revealing the horrifying remnants of TINY SCREAMING HUMAN FACES growing in him which someone had at some point attempted to burn off. Shudders. Urchin is upset by Xie Lian's reaction and flees into the woods. Xie Lian is unable to track him down.The martial gods confer and deduce that Xuan Ji grew powerful working under the Green Ghoul Qi Rong, whose signature is stringing up bloody corpses.The "human face plague" was supposed to have been eradicated centuries ago with the defeat of. No not the cute one from Spirited Away or the lesbian crime lord from Jane the Virgin. We're talking Bai Wuxiang, white-robed apocalyptic force of demonic nature that wiped out the kingdom of Xian Le, leaving Xie Lian with intense PTSD. Can't wait to learn more later.Meanwhile, it's time to learn about Hua Cheng, precocious demon upstart who once picked a fight with 33 heavenly officials, publicly trounced them, and then — when the sore losers refused to honor their end of the bargain and descend to the mortal realm — proceeded to burn all their thousands of temples to the ground. Damn. Don't mess with Hua Cheng.Or at least that is the intended takeaway from all this. Xie Lian, however, thinks Hua Cheng's silver butterflies are pretty neat.Xie Lian is having a hard time fitting in in heaven. He's like a grandma on Facebook but nobody likes the recipes he shares in the godly groupchat. Fine. Xie Lian doesn't need you losers to like him. He's a strong independent refurbished god and he's going down to the mortal realm to find a fixer upper to build a temple to himself!Xie Lian cleans up a ramshackle hut and dubs it the Chestnut Sanctuary (Puqi Guan) because he's cute as fuck. This place is real rundown, it doesn't even have a door. At one point Fu Yao stands in the middle of the room and literally has a "You live like this?" bruh moment.Xie Lian falls back on his old m.o., heading down to the village to collect broken things and get some necessities for his temple-in-progress. On his way back, he hitches a ride on an oxcart and who should be on it but Sexy Legs himself!Sexy Legs introduces himself as San Lang (literally "third young master" of a noble house). This is convenient because we can just call him SL now if we want. He claims to have run away from home and is oddly knowledgeable about all things gods and demons.Xie Lian forgot to check the calendar before heading out; turns out it's the day when boundaries between the living and dead realms open up. The oxcart runs afoul of some highly incompetent headless ghosts, who disperse in fear when confronted by...Xie Lian? Oh come on now we all know it's really because of SL sitting behind Xie Lian showing them who's boss.SL's got mad game. Xie Lian invites him inside for the night, and they cut straight to the chase, the chase being bed sharing. Not only that, when he gets up the next morning, Xie Lian immediately offers to do his hair for him.And because SL is boyfriend virtuoso, he even carves a new door for the Chestnut Sanctuary. It isn't long after the door gets put in that the villagers come knocking with a dying man in tow.The dying stranger is dressed like a traveling Taoist priest and claims to have escaped from Half Moon Pass (Banyue Guan), which is like the Bermuda Triangle but out in the Gobi Desert. This is all that remains of a once great desert nation known for its military prowess, headed by two demonic sorcerers, one of whom was the head priest.Xie Lian and San Lang immediately sense something amiss with the recently revived traveler. Xie Lian has him drink some water, which reveals that his insides are hollow. San Lang stabs him with a chopstick because of course he does. Hollow stranger deflates. Turns out he was a skin puppet all along, but someone clearly wants Xie Lian to investigate Half Moon Pass.Nan Feng uses a teleportation spell to bring the gang 1000 li or roughly 310 miles away to the edge of the Gobi Desert. As they travel together, Nan Feng and Fu Yao are reasonably suspicious of San Lang and keep trying to get him to reveal his true form and intentions.Both magic swords and spiking San Lang's drink prove unsuccessful, and their priorities soon shift when a desert cyclone picks up Xie Lian. Xie Lian's magic bandage Ruoye grabs hold of San Lang, then Nan Feng and Fu Yao. The whole gang is caught up in the wind funnel eating sand. Not fun.Eventually, Ruoye grabs onto a big rock formation and the gang takes shelter in a cavern. Xie Lian remembers that earlier, he vaguely saw two figures through the sandstorm — one in black and one in white — he thinks the one in white looked like a female officer. He asks San Lang whether the famed head priest of the late Half Moon kingdom was a lady. San Lang affirms this.(Translation note: I'm seeing "Guoshi" either left in its romanized form, which is fine, or mistranslated as "Grand Tutor" based on — I can only surmise — interpreting guo = sovereign + shi = adept/teacher.)The gang is not alone in the cave. When Nan Feng uses his handy magic flame, it's revealed that another traveling party has taken shelter inside the rock formation. They've hired a guide named Zhao to avoid Half Moon Pass.By magic firelight, they read the inscriptions on the rock formation, which turn out to be a tribute to a dead military commander from the Central Plains (old way to refer to imperial china versus the northern lands belonging to mostly nomadic tribes at the time). This tragic commander defended innocent civilians on both sides, but what he had in moral aptitude he lacked in the ability to tie knots. Like he literally tripped over his untied bootlaces and got trampled to death in battle. He was well liked by both sides of the warring factions, and people from the Half Moon kingdom ended up erecting a memorial to him in this cave.SUDDENLY SCORPION TAILED SNAKES. Old man from the other traveling party is bitten. Xie Lian is also bitten, but San Lang sucks the venom out because of course he does. Also Xie Lian is a god so he's not in danger. But the old man is going to die in 24 hours if they don't venture into the cursed Half Moon Pass to fetch the only known antidote, the Benign Moon Herb.(I'm getting Scum Villain flashbacks and I love it!)The gang enters the ruins of the city. But they are not alone. The two figures in black and white that Xie Lian saw in the sandstorm are there. They're both women apparently. Xie Lian guesses that the lady in white is the priestess but he can't tell who her tall goth friend is. Monochrome girlfriends talk about killing the intruders. Nan Feng creates a diversion by blowing up the ruins he was hiding in; tall goth gf leaps to lady in white's defense, and Xie Lian and the gang book it to the palace grounds to hunt for the Benign Moon Herb.San Lang locates the first herb and uses it to fix Xie Lian's hand. The other travelers find a bunch more herbs but there is a talking face in the mud WTF? Turns out mr face in the mud has been there for half a century; missing travelers of yore got buried in the palace grounds and turned into (still living?!) fertilizer for magical herbs.Mr creepy face in the mud asks the group to come closer, insisting that he's seen someone among them before. Who could it be that traveled to the Half Moon kingdom fifty years ago?We weren't really introduced to any new main characters this week if you consider the fact that we metSan Lang already on Yujun Mountain.RIP Xiao Ying, you will be missed. ;n;Although we do meet the Banyue Guoshi (head priestess of the Half Moon kingdom), demonic sorceress and controller of scorpion snake hybrids, and her as-of-yet-unnamed tall goth lady friend?MXTX tends to group titles of chapters in clusters. One chapter title might span anywhere between one to six chapters. So going forward we'll aim to read chunks that tie out a chapter cluster.As always, feel free to ask questions about any confusion or inconsistencies!See you all next week () for! Warning for some MXTX typical body horror.