"Han Li, you truly know how to bow and bend with the wind. But as for letting you go — do you think that possible at all?"
The young face of Doctor Mo broke into a faint smile, and the sunny radiance of it was such as might drive a woman to distraction. Yet the voice that accompanied it was enough to startle Han Li afresh.
For he spoke now with a certain magnetism beyond all telling, a timbre that fell on the ear with inexpressible ease, a world apart from the harsh and parched rasp that had been his food before. It seemed that his voice, were nothing to yield to his countenance in beauty.
It was the first time Doctor Mo had called Han Li by his very name. Not that the words were welcome tidings, yet even so it gave Han Li a strange sense of being acknowledged, far better than the endless refrain of "boy" here and "whelp" there; and in some measure the turmoil of his heart lightened a little.
To look at him from the mere outside, there was now no flaw whatsoever to be found in Doctor Mo. Even the lift of a hand, the turn of a limb, was graceful beyond all measure — a very fine gentleman indeed, in whom no trace remained of the broken-down old codger he had been. No doubt in former years that very face of his had turned the heads of a good half of the chivalrous ladies of the rivers and lakes.
"Tell me plainly, then — what is it you mean to do with me?" Han Li asked. He was no woman, and so would not go soft and courteous before this man merely because he was exceeding fair to look upon; and besides, since the man's words held not the least hint of letting him go, there was the less need to show him any kindness of face.
"Do with you? Heh heh!" Doctor Mo worked his arms and legs, newly filled with strength once more, and stretched himself out long and leisurely. He smiled but said nothing in answer to Han Li's question; instead he drew yet another object forth from within his bosom.
This time it was a little package folded up in silk — a silk of a blazing, dazzling red, bright as flame, every thread and stitch of it worked with the most exquisite care. It was clearly no common thing.
What could be wrapped up in this silken cloth? Could it be yet another of those strange and monstrous instruments, like the silver blade? For the time being Han Li forgave the urge to press his question, his curiosity rising mightily.
Doctor Mo did not keep Han Li guessing overlong. In two or three movements he had undone the silken wrapping, and with the greatest care drew forth from it a crumpled, yellowed strip of paper.
Han Li was, if anything, a little disappointed — yet at the bottom of his heart a cold shiver passed over him, and he gathered up his wits with all twelve parts of his attention. For he knew well that the more commonplace a thing appeared, the more unlooked-for uses it might conceal. The man should not have brought out a strip of paper save for some roguish purpose, and when he called to mind all the demoniacal goings-on that had gone before, he could not doubt that there was no small craftiness hidden within it.
With two fingers Doctor Mo lightly pinched up the yellow paper, and with due ceremony smoothed it out a little. It was only then that Han Li could make it out clearly: the strip was not large, no bigger than the palm of a hand, cut into a long narrow slip of paper, its hue somewhat faded, as though it bore a great many years upon it.
What drew the eye most of all was that it glittered with silver light, for upon it were painted in gleaming silver lacquer several strange symbols — symbols of a most outlandish form, such as Han Li had never seen before.
Yet the instant they came within his gaze, he felt a mysterious power stir in his heart, and even the Art of Eternal Youth running within him began to swell and stir beyond its own command, as though it had been roused from slumber by these very marks, so that Han Li was stricken with the utmost astonishment.
Han Li knew that something was amiss, and addressed all his mind to the staring at these symbols, seeking to pluck out from them some hidden mystery.
For those symbols wound this way and that, crooked and clinging, and yet within them there lurked a certain ordering; from their arrangement to their very shape, they held a deep and profound meaning. Only, the time was all too short; for the moment Han Li could not begin to make them out.
For in that same instant Doctor Mo had come to stand before Han Li, and seeing the strange look upon his face as he fixed his eyes, entranced, upon the yellow paper in hand, a fleeting pity rose in the old man's gaze — but it passed in a twinkling, and the face returned to its wonted calm.
He bent his head low, set his lips close against Han Li's ear, and said slowly in a voice so soft it scarce reached:
"Han Li, do not blame me. I have no help for it. Go you early on and be reborn in your next turn of fate! For this body of yours — I mean to take possession of it."
"What do you say? Whatever do you mean by such words?" Startled from his daze by these words of Doctor Mo, Han Li's very soul fled in terror; dimly he sensed that some worst of all fates was about to descend upon his head.
Heedless of the hulking giant looming behind him, he began to writhe and struggle with all his might, for he still carried upon him a few small implements, and could he but lay hands upon them, he might yet throw the place into confusion and seize some chance to flee.
"Iron Slave, hold him fast. Suffer him not to stir."
But at this icy command of Doctor Mo, Han Li's last resistance was quelled. Two enormous palms, like a pair of small mountains, pressed down with redoubled force upon his shoulders, so that he could not move a whit.
Upon Han Li's face beads of sweat as large as soya beans rolled one by one down his temples and from his brow, and with his eyes stretched wide and his lips bitten fast, he watched helplessly as the man before him began to chant murmured incantations.
The yellow paper pinched between Doctor Mo's fingers, at the sound of the spells, began to flutter of itself, though no wind stirred.
The silver symbols upon it began, one after another, slowly to kindle and throw forth their mysterious silver light.
Though his body could not stir, Han Li's mind was still clear, and he understood that when every last symbol had kindled into light, that would be the very moment his end was dealt him.
Doctor Mo's countenance was grave; he kept his eyes upon the yellow paper. When at last even the final symbol shed its silver light, a flash of joy crossed his face. Then, in a certain peculiar gesture of the hands, he swept the paper through the air a time or two.
Then the single word "PIN!" burst from his lips, ringing out like the crack of spring thunder.
At that selfsame instant the strip of yellow paper was pressed hard against Han Li's forehead and pasted fast there.
The moment the paper touched his head, Han Li felt himself stripped of all mastery over his body. He could not even blink an eyelid, nor feel the least sensation in his frame; yet he could still see, and still hear. Only his will was now a stranger to his flesh, unable to command it in any wise — so that he hung there like a dead thing that yet breathed, a walking corpse.
This sensation was altogether different from the numbing of a point-sealing. For when one is point-sealed, though one may not move, still the body retains a benumbed sense of its own being.
A cold panic seized Han Li. He knew not how the other meant to work his will upon him, how he would come to seize his body. Did it mean, then, that his ruin was already wrought?
"Do not fret. This body of yours you may yet keep for a short space of moments." Doctor Mo spoke as though he meant specially to tell him so; or perhaps he was but muttering to himself.