chapter 3
The Mute Granny carried me inside, placed me on a prayer mat on the floor, and then turned and left the room.
I looked up and saw a statue of a goddess standing before me, sculpted with lifelike detail and grace. Even the small red mole at the corner of her left eyebrow was meticulously carved.
Three sticks of incense were burning in the incense burner, smoke curling upwards.
As I stared in a daze, I heard the soft sound of footsteps. The Mute Granny entered from outside, carrying a steaming bowl of rice porridge and set it before me.
I was both hungry and thirsty, so I ignored the heat, brought my mouth close, and gulped it down ravenously.
After finishing the bowl of porridge, I finally caught my breath and said gratefully, “Thank you, Granny, for saving my life.”
The Mute Granny said nothing. She grabbed a handful of incense ash and wrote a few words on the ground: “You managed to crawl into the temple, so you must have a connection with us.”
I was stunned for a moment, thinking, is this Granny mute?
Then I thought, no wonder she had just stood at the temple gate watching me earlier. If I hadn’t managed to crawl here, even if I died out there, she probably wouldn’t have intervened.
“Why did those people want to bury you alive?” the Mute Granny wrote again on the ground.
I was shocked. “Granny, you saw it?”
The Mute Granny nodded and wrote, “I saw someone bury a coffin in the mountain. After seven days, they dug it up again, and you were still alive.”
I was utterly astonished. I hadn’t expected that the Mute Granny had witnessed everything. After a brief hesitation, I recounted my experience at the Cao Family.
However, I skipped over the matter of the “King of Hell Fate.”
“Your tendons of hands and feet are indeed ruined,” the Mute Granny wrote on the ground.
A wave of bitterness welled up in my heart.
At that moment, a rumble of muffled thunder rolled overhead, and lightning flashed across the sky.
The Mute Granny glanced outside and wrote, “Tonight’s thunder will be fierce. The temple may not withstand it.”
I was taken aback and noticed that the walls and ceiling of the temple were covered with yellow paper talismans, making the place look rather strange.
“Someone needs to go out there to attract the Heavenly Thunder and share some of the pressure. Are you willing to go?” The Mute Granny pointed to an open space in front of the temple.
“To attract Heavenly Thunder?” I exclaimed in shock.
Wasn’t that just courting death?
“If you are willing to go and manage to survive, I can help reconnect the tendons of your hands and feet,” the Mute Granny wrote again on the ground.
“You can really reconnect them?” I found it hard to believe.
The Mute Granny nodded expressionlessly and wrote, “It’s up to you.”
I looked outside. The sky was thick with dark clouds and flashes of lightning. My heart pounded wildly.
“Granny, could you find me thirty-six copper coins?” I asked, taking a deep breath.
The Mute Granny got up and left the room.
After a while, she returned carrying a black cloth bag. She opened it, revealing a bag full of ancient copper coins.
“Please help me outside, Granny.”
The Mute Granny picked me up, carried me outside the temple, and placed me in the open space directly in front of the temple gate, then turned and went back inside.
I tried moving my hands, but they were so weak that I couldn’t even hold the copper coins. I had no choice but to pick one up with my mouth and place it on the ground.
What I wanted to set up was a Yang Locking Array, arranging thirty-six copper coins in a large circle around myself.
Having passed through countless hands, copper coins are full of yang energy.
This Yang Locking Array can suppress yin energy and imprison evil spirits. It also has another name: Thunder Pond.
It means that evil spirits and ghosts cannot cross the Thunder Pond by even half a step.
After thinking it over, of all the things I knew, only this Thunder Pond might be of some use in resisting the Heavenly Thunder.
Back when Grandpa taught me, he always required me to grab a handful of copper coins with one hand and toss them out so that they would stand upright, forming a circle around me.
Over the years, I had mastered this skill to perfection, but now I couldn’t use it at all.
Clenching the coins in my mouth, I painstakingly set each copper coin upright.
Thunder rumbled overhead.
Suddenly, with a loud crack, a bolt of lightning struck a pine tree not far away.
I tried not to think about anything else. After finally setting up the Yang Locking Array, I collapsed, exhausted, inside the circle of copper coins.
A few raindrops the size of beans fell on my nose, and then a torrential downpour followed.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Thunder exploded overhead, and in an instant, countless bolts of Heavenly Thunder struck all around the Small Temple, dazzling and brilliant!
I had no idea whether the Thunder Pond would work. Even if it did, with the pouring rain soaking me to the bone, if I was even grazed by the Heavenly Thunder, I would probably be reduced to ashes by the lightning fire.
In that split second, I suddenly recalled the conversation between Brother Hao and the other man. They said that Grave Mound Ridge was extremely sinister, and that every Fifteenth of July, there would be thunder.
But now it seemed that the truly sinister thing wasn’t Grave Mound Ridge, but this Empress Temple!
Boom! Crack!
Suddenly, a deafening crash erupted, and a bolt of Heavenly Thunder struck straight down.
The thirty-six copper coins standing around me suddenly began to spin wildly, then with a bang, they exploded into powder. I felt a numbness all over my body and immediately fell into darkness.
When I woke up again, I found myself lying on the prayer mat inside the temple. The thunderstorm outside had stopped, and daylight was streaming in.
I moved slightly, feeling stabbing pain all over. My wrists and ankles were covered with a layer of pitch-black ointment, giving off a pungent smell.
The Mute Granny came in from outside, grabbed my hands and feet to check them, then took a handful of incense ash and wrote on the ground, “You slept for three days and nights. I cut open your wounds and reconnected your tendons.”
I was shocked. I hadn’t expected to have been unconscious for so long. I asked nervously, “So… are they reconnected?”
The Mute Granny brought out a bowl of porridge and told me to drink it first.
While I was drinking the porridge, I saw her carry in an earthen jar taller than a person.
“Stay inside for three days.”
The Mute Granny grabbed me in one hand.
“What’s inside?” I asked hurriedly.
“Five Little Ghosts.”
The Mute Granny let go, dropping me in, then pressed a blue stone slab over the mouth of the jar, sealing it tight.