Paper Effigies (纸人, Zhǐ Rén) are funerary items that are originally intended to be burned as companions to the dead, but can also be used as spiritual weapons.
Description[]
The paper effigies are painted to resemble different kinds of people such as aristocratic beauties, maid servants, young children, and Yin Musclemen. The Yin Musclemen are intended to protect deceased people from the bullying of other spirits and judges in the underworld.
The effigies have garish red circles painted on their cheeks to resemble the blush of living people.[1]
Use[]
Yi City[]
Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji first encounter the paper effigies by spotting a Yin Muscleman's head left on the path to Yi City.[2]
Later, Wei Wuxian and a group of young disciples including Jin Ling, Lan Sizhui, Lan Jingyi, and Ouyang Zizhen discover many more paper effigies inside a shop they had entered to take refuge from the fog.[1]
After seeing a lone cultivator battling against a group of fierce corpses, Wei Wuxian uses his own blood to summon two spirits to possess a pair of paper effigies that had been pained to resemble twin servant girls.[3]
Wei Wuxian orders the paper effigies to help him defeat the fierce corpses and bring the cultivator back inside, and after completing their mission the twin effigies stand guard outside the door.[3]
When more fierce corpses arrive alongside the powerful corpse of Song Lan, Wei Wuxian puts all the paper effigies to use. He draws extra lines with his own blood on a talisman to simultaneously summon enough spirits to possess all the paper effigies in the shop.[4]
These paper effigies are easily defeated by Song Lan, and it is unknown what happened to the spirits after their paper bodies are torn up.[4]
Wei Wuxian eventually speculates that the Yin Muscleman's head was deliberately left on the path by A-Qing as she attempted to save the group of junior disciples.[5]
Trivia[]
- Originally, paper effigies were translated as "paper mannequins".[6]
References[]
<references/ >
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Novel, Chapter 35
- ↑ Novel, Chapter 33
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Novel, Chapter 36
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Novel, Chapter 37
- ↑ Novel, Chapter 38
- ↑ Novel, Chapter 35 [Exiled Rebels Trans.]