Human Face Disease

The **Human Face Disease** is a contagious disease that contributed to the fall of the Xianle Kingdom.

## Symptoms

The person who suffers from the disease will have skin deformations develop on their body. They start out as little, dark bumps that are said to actually feel good when nudged. Once fully developed however they look like faces, hence the name of the disease. The faces appear realistic and life-like, thus being horrifying to look at.

A person can have many of such faces on their body, and they are even able to make sounds, such as small whining or cries.

## Cure

For the longest time it was believed that there was no cure for the Human Face Disease, as even Xie Lian, who was a God, couldn't heal the people. However, White No-Face later reveals that there is a way to prevent or get rid of the disease. One has to kill another person, then the disease would naturally vanish or never appear in the first place. This is why most of the soldiers of the Xianle Kingdom never got infected.

## History

Originating from the Kingdom of Wuyong, there were two known waves of the disease: the first 2000 years ago starting with Junwu, the second 800 years ago with Xielian. The first case of the disease was due to the resentment from three of the Guoshi's after they were pushed into the Tonglu volcano. The resentment followed to Junwu where he contracted the first case of the human face disease. When it came back during the reign of Xianle, the faces came from the dead souls of Yong'an citizens. Those who died from battle or from the drought harbored a deep grudge and hate toward Xianle. After a person passed away, their souls would go through a period called "Period of Confusion". And in this time the soul will be affected by their family or lovers status and emotions. Since their families were also affected by the drought and war, the soul's will to help and fight back for them grew. White No-Face then used their strong wills and convinced them to turn their will power into hostility towards Xianle, urging them to take on the living flesh of a host and deriving nutrients from the host's body like a parasite.

Lang Ying's dead son which had been buried in Buyou Forest became the fuse for the curse. The first known cases discovered by Xie Lian and the population were two men of the royal capital. Later that day it was confirmed five people in the capital already have visible faces on their skin, while over ten others had shallow bumps developing. They were sent into quarantine in Buyou Forest. In the first six days since the outbreak, over fifty became infected. Soon the numbers rose into the hundreds and the quarantine camps in the forest expanded. The cases increased to five hundred with around one hundred new infected people per day.

One day when Xie Lian was visiting the camps, they discovered the faces were able to eat and make sounds such as crying and soft screaming. Xie Lian cut off that patient's leg in hopes to stop the spreading of the disease, but this still sent other patients into panic and several began to harm themselves in order to get rid of the disease, such as burning themselves or cutting off their own flesh. Some lost too much blood and thus there were multiple deaths.

As Xie Lian was holding up the Celestial Pagoda, the infected people started a riot in the camps and broke out in order to search for him. The patients had become even more desperate, a lot were missing limbs and had bloody scars from cutting themselves. After the fall of the Celestial Pagoda and continuous losses of the Xianle army, the number of the infected rose to at least three thousand, becoming the true catastrophic factor of Xianle's ruin.

## Trivia

* Cutting off infected limbs is ineffective and the disease will spread on the body nonetheless.
* It was hard to die from the disease, but because the symptoms were assumed to be incurable many, especially young women, chose to end their lives after getting infected.

## References

1. ↑ Novel, Book 1, Chapter 12: Red-Clad Ghost; Burning of the Martial and Civil Temples
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Novel, Book 2, Chapter 84: From the Earth of Buyou Forest; Human Face Disease Breaks Out
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Novel, Book 2, Chapter 85: From the Earth of Buyou Forest; Human Face Disease Emerges II
4. ↑ Novel, Book 4, Chapter 190: Heart Pierced By a Hundred Swords; Savage Ghost Takes Form
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Novel, Book 2, Chapter 87: Gilded Figure; Exertion to Block Celestial Ruin
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Novel, Book 2, Chapter 88: Vow to Never Forget, Never!