Chapter 284
Chapter 284
In response to my question, the Ninth Concubine said she did not know either of the men.
Nor could she understand why anyone would want to kill her after she had lived in seclusion for decades.
She felt no anger over it, however, and would not linger as a Ghost consumed by resentment.
“I am a disciple of the Red Lotus Fa Sect, and the Red Lotus Fa Sect and White Lotus Fa Sect are mortal enemies.”
The Ninth Concubine rested both hands on her cane and sighed. “I never did much evil in my life, apart from taking revenge and buying that Qiongqi from members of the White Lotus Fa Sect.”
“What I did was wrong. That Qiongqi was an evil object refined from human lives.”
“Ultimately, I committed a terrible wrong. I deserve this retribution.”
I comforted her. “Mortals all possess emotions and desires. We love, hate, resent, and form attachments. These things are only human nature. How can they be reduced to right and wrong?”
The Ninth Concubine smiled. “You know how to comfort people, young man. I don’t have much time left. Since you’re investigating what happened back then, I’ll tell you the whole truth while I still can.”
“After I returned to Xujia Village, I never spoke of these events to anyone again. But everything that happened back then remains vivid in my mind. I have never forgotten a moment of it.”
I asked, “Did you intend to revive your elder sister, Xu Miao?”
She nodded. “She was my closest family. Of course I wanted to bring her back to life. I had my cousin seek out a method called Seven Deaths for Life Exchange. Someone had used it successfully before. It revives one person using the lives of seven others.”
“But I could never murder seven innocent people to bring my sister back, so I set my sights on the people of the Luo Mansion. Not one of them was decent. They spread rumors that ruined my sister Xu Miao’s reputation, then tormented my niece Xiuzhu. I already intended to take revenge, so I decided to use the people of the Luo Mansion to perform the Seven Deaths for Life Exchange.”
Just as Seventh Master and I had suspected, the Ninth Concubine intended to use the Seven Deaths for Life Exchange to revive the Seventh Concubine. Her seven chosen victims were the other six concubines and Master Luo. But her revenge plan would claim everyone in the Luo Mansion, including the servants and the concubines’ children.
Those people would become Living Sacrifices for the Seven Deaths for Life Exchange, increasing the chance of a successful revival.
But there was no way she could slaughter the entire Luo household alone, which was why she devised the plan to fake her death.
She would first feign death, then exploit Master Luo’s devotion to her and turn him into the man who carried out the Seven Deaths for Life Exchange.
Yet another step was needed to ensure that Master Luo obediently carried out her plan: the Qiongqi.
That was the Ninth Concubine’s entire scheme, just as she now described it.
“When I awoke again, the bodies of the concubines lay scattered across the main hall. Luo Baichuan had hacked every one of them to death.”
The Ninth Concubine should have felt deeply gratified while recounting the other concubines’ deaths, but after living more than a century, she no longer seemed so obsessed with what had happened.
Instead, she was remarkably calm.
“Luo Baichuan was standing in the hall, staring numbly at his wives’ bodies. I knew he had completely lost all will of his own by then.”
“When he saw me, he was ecstatic, jumping and dancing. He thought killing those wives had truly brought me back to life. I did feel vindicated at the time, because every one of those women had tormented my Xiuzhu. The Second Concubine was the worst. She was the one who beat Xiuzhu to death.”
“But the true culprit was Luo Baichuan. As a husband, he believed malicious rumors and drowned my sister in the well with his own hands. As a father, he neglected Xiuzhu and denied her the care she deserved, which ultimately led to her horrific death in the Luo Mansion.”
“Naturally, I couldn’t let him live. I wanted him to die inside the lie I had woven for him. I told him I had not truly returned to life yet and could not be with him. There was one final step before we could be together, and that step was for him to hang himself.”
I was puzzled. “Had he really gone that mad? He could see you standing in front of him. Didn’t he know you were already alive? Besides, he revived you because he wanted to be with you. Then you told him to die. No matter how insane he was, surely he wouldn’t commit suicide…”
The Ninth Concubine laughed. “Young man, you must distinguish between a lunatic and someone under an influence. He wasn’t insane. He had his own system of logic, but that logic was no longer under his control. I told him that killing his wives would revive me. That became an unquestionable truth embedded in his mind, so he had to act on it.”
“If I told him that when a person fell ill, there was no need for medicine and eating his own excrement would cure him, he would defecate and eat it again without hesitation.”
“I told him there was only one last step before he and I could remain together forever. All he had to do was hang a rope from the roof beam, put his head through the noose, and kick away the stool. Then everything he wished for would come true. And in the end, that is exactly what he did.”
“That’s simply how people are. Anything capable of beguiling you completely is also capable of destroying you.”
I stared at her in a daze for a long moment.
Anything beguiling enough could destroy a person.
What a profound statement!
Gamblers were destroyed by money. Money beguiled them, and so it destroyed them.
Master Luo coveted women. Lust beguiled him, and in the end it destroyed not only him, but the entire Luo Mansion.
The Ninth Concubine truly was a master!
“Since you succeeded in taking revenge, why did you ultimately… fail to revive your sister Xu Miao? And how did everyone else in the Luo Mansion die?” I continued.
The Ninth Concubine’s smile vanished, and her expression changed dramatically.
“Why did I fail…”
“There was nothing wrong with the procedure. Someone had tested the Seven Deaths for Life Exchange my cousin gave me and had successfully used it. By all rights, I should have been able to revive my sister.”
“But something unexpected happened. After confirming that Luo Baichuan was dead, I walked out of the room and found the entire Luo Mansion filled with corpses. Everyone besides those concubines was dead too. They had all died within an extremely short span of time. It was as if they had seen something horrifying that robbed them of their lives in an instant.”
We had finally reached the crucial part.
I hurriedly pressed her. “Didn’t you know what killed them? You were inside the Luo Mansion at the time. Didn’t you see the thing that did it?”
The Ninth Concubine said, “I had originally intended to release the resentful spirit inside the Qiongqi and have it kill the rest of the Luo household, completing the Living Sacrifices for the Seven Deaths for Life Exchange. But when I came out of the room, they were already dead.”
“At the time, I saw… I saw…”
As she spoke, a trace of terror actually appeared on the Ninth Concubine’s face. For a long time, she could not finish the sentence. “I… I don’t know how to describe it to you. I did see that thing, but… I simply can’t put it into words.”
“Never again in my life did I encounter anything so terrifying.”