Chapter 134
Chapter 134
While I wrestled with my confusion, Xia Dong released the vicious entity in the red dress. Her trembling hands caressed its cheeks as she spoke.
“My sweet girl, you have to go. Go far away and hide in the mountains. Don’t come back to see Mommy again. A powerful young ritual master has come to the village, and he’ll kill you.”
“And Mommy knows you’ve changed, but if you still recognize me, then please don’t kill anyone else, all right?”
“You were such a sweet, obedient child. How could you do something like killing people? Fifth Elder Xia used to love you too. He held you all the time.”
I felt rather helpless as I listened to Xia Dong ramble.
Even though I had dispelled her obsession and the yin energy infecting her, seeing this vicious entity in her daughter’s body still stirred powerful emotions.
Still, perhaps my efforts had done some good.
At least Xia Dong no longer insisted on keeping the entity beside her. Instead, she urged it to leave all inhabited places and hide deep in the mountains.
She also told it not to kill again.
Watching the scene, I sighed inwardly.
“Xia Dong really can’t let go. Her daughter’s body has already become a murderous vicious entity–and one born from an empty shell at that. How could it possibly listen to her?”
Its body’s instincts might keep it from killing her, but expecting it to possess any humanity was impossible.
Sure enough, after listening to Xia Dong, the entity emitted a peculiar moan and shook its head.
Xia Dong froze.
Then she clutched its arms tightly and cried in agitation, “Xia Mi, won’t you listen to Mommy anymore? You truly can’t keep killing people, and you can’t stay here… Be good. Listen to me and stop killing. If you’re hungry, eat wild animals in the mountains instead, all right? Please, hurry and leave.”
It seemed she could actually communicate with the entity.
That surprised me.
The whimpering sounds from the entity’s throat resembled a peculiar form of corpse speech that even I couldn’t understand. Yet Xia Dong was an ordinary person. How could she comprehend it?
Or was it because she was the mother of the body it occupied? Xia Mi’s soul had dispersed, but the bloodline carried by her body remained connected to Xia Dong’s, granting the woman some special understanding.
Perhaps the same was true of Xia Degui.
That would explain why the entity had spared his life twice. Otherwise, like the unfortunate Fifth Elder Xia, no matter how fond of Xia Mi he had been while she was alive, a single encounter with this entity would have doomed him.
I couldn’t understand the words of this thing, neither wholly corpse nor ghost, but I could still infer certain details from Xia Dong’s side of the conversation.
Just as I suspected, the entity might restrain itself from attacking Xia Degui and Xia Dong, but it would never show mercy to any other living person.
No matter how earnestly Xia Dong begged it to stop killing, it appeared to have refused.
“Xia Mi, why won’t you listen to Mommy? You used to be so good. You aren’t allowed to kill anyone else. Hurry back into the mountains…”
Xia Dong kept rambling.
The vicious entity had clearly run out of patience.
With a bizarre shriek, it thrust out both hands and shoved hard.
Xia Dong, who had been sitting upright, tumbled back onto the bed. She groaned in pain and began crying out.
My heart jolted.
“Now!”
The entity had lashed out and pushed Xia Dong down in anger. There should be a momentary delay in its movement, making it difficult for it to defend effectively against my attack.
“Corpse-Suppressing Talisman, go!”
I hurled the talisman I had prepared in my right hand. Powerful qi flooded the paper, turning the weightless sheet into an arrow as it streaked through the air.
Smack!
The talisman struck the entity squarely on the back.
Its body instantly stiffened and froze in place.
“It worked!”
Joy surged through me, and I prepared to launch my follow-up attack.
But to my utter disbelief, the black mist surrounding its body stretched toward the talisman like a tentacle.
It shaped itself into a five-fingered hand, peeled the talisman off, and crushed it amid a burst of sizzling. The paper became black powder that drifted to the floor.
“Holy shit! How is this thing so powerful?”
My eyelids twitched wildly.
I never imagined this ghostly thing could use its will to control the yin and corpse energy surrounding its body, making that energy affect physical matter.
I had never seen anything like it.
Wasn’t that effectively the same as the entity having two more hands, ones it could reshape at will?
That was ridiculous!
Even as these thoughts flashed through my mind, my hands didn’t stop moving.
I already held a talisman between the fingers of each hand.
“Twin Fire Talismans, go!”
Fire Talismans were very effective against sinister beings like this one. Their light would also let me see the yin-shrouded bedroom more clearly.
Whoosh!
Two balls of orange flame flew toward the vicious entity in the red dress.
The effects of the Corpse-Suppressing Talisman had only just worn off. The entity spun around, and in the firelight, I saw its face for the first time.
It had the form of a little girl, but its entire face had rotted away.
The delicate, flowerlike features Xia Mi had possessed in life were now a bloody ruin. Black fluid oozed from the mangled flesh, mingling with dirt from the grave.
The sight was hideously savage.