Chapter 19

Chapter 19

“Has Aunt Qin come? How could she be here? Or am I hallucinating because I want so desperately to be saved…?”

Half believing and half doubting, I looked toward the entrance of the ghostly banquet hall.

A filthy woman with disheveled hair was slowly walking inside. It truly was her!

“Aunt Qin, I’m here! Over here!”

I jumped and shouted in excitement, waving both hands frantically.

The surrounding evil entities all turned toward her, uncertainty and alarm on their faces.

Aunt Qin strolled forward and suddenly swept one broad sleeve through the air.

“Begone!”

Her cool voice rang out. I felt an invisible wave spread from her and engulf the entire ghostly banquet hall.

Smoke immediately billowed from every “person” surrounding me. They gave strange cries and visibly shrank and withered.

At the same time, the luxurious manor rapidly lost its color, decayed, and silently collapsed…

My vision blurred. Everything changed!

When I focused again, there was no Zhao family mansion, no grand nocturnal banquet, and no hall packed with guests.

We stood in an abandoned, desolate graveyard!

Earthen graves surrounded us, most long neglected. Some had collapsed, exposing the timber of the coffins inside.

Others had been dug open by animals years ago. Their coffins were broken, and bones lay scattered around the mounds.

I stood beside the largest, grandest tomb in that wild cemetery.

It was no ordinary earthen mound, but a structure of stone and cement occupying nearly a thousand square feet.

Two walls extended forward from either side of the main tomb, enclosing a fan-shaped forecourt raised by three stone steps.

Our region had a saying: a great fan before the grave means its descendants will never lack money.

Building a fan-shaped grave both displayed a family’s wealth and expressed the hope that the tomb would continue blessing later generations with prosperity.

I now stood beside the headstone within that fan-shaped forecourt.

Old bowls and braziers once used to burn spirit money lay around my feet. Their offerings had rotted away long ago, though I could still make out the bones of an entire chicken. No one had visited for at least several decades.

What made my scalp crawl was the sight of dozens, perhaps a hundred, yin-heavy animals filling the forecourt: toads, snakes, rats, foxes, weasels…

They scattered rapidly into the surrounding grass and woods.

Clearly, the hall full of guests I had seen earlier was a glamour spell disguising those creatures!

A ghost feast invited the living into a graveyard!

Beside me stood a vicious old man dressed in black burial clothes. His face was rotten, his eyes hanging partly from their sockets, and one withered hand clutched my shoulder tightly.

Weren’t ghosts supposed to be insubstantial spirits?

Then why did my shoulder hurt? Why couldn’t I move?

The old ghost glared at Aunt Qin and spoke with madness in his voice. “Who are you? How dare you disrupt my birthday banquet? Aren’t you afraid I’ll eat you too?”

“Hah.”

Aunt Qin laughed coldly. “I’ve killed more ghosts like you than I can count. Release him now, and perhaps I’ll consider granting you a quick end.”

“Release him?”

The old ghost chuckled and traced a hand near my face. “You seem to care for this child. Since you’re no ordinary person, your blood must be valuable too. Fill these bowls and braziers, and I won’t eat him. What do you say?”

As he spoke, the broken offering bowls and braziers before the headstone floated into the air and slowly landed before Aunt Qin.

I pulled a miserable face. “Great Ghost, please don’t eat me. I’m afraid. I’m really so afraid.”

Aunt Qin remained silent.

“Shut up!” the old ghost snarled before turning back to her. “Hurry! Don’t think I don’t know you’re stalling until dawn. I’ll count to three. If you don’t bleed, I’ll bleed the child instead. Three…”
Now!

I could tell that my deliberate show of fear had made the old ghost lower his guard slightly. Moreover, all his attention was fixed on Aunt Qin.

I wrenched my shoulder with all my strength.

Rip!

I tore free from his hand. But because I had forced myself loose, the old ghost’s sharp nails carved several long gashes into me. They probably tore away a fair amount of flesh. Blood streamed from the wounds, and pain twisted my face.

But at such a critical moment, I had to endure it.

As I escaped the ghostly claw, I put my left middle finger in my mouth and bit down hard.

Ordinarily, I was terribly afraid of pain.

“Aunt Qin, get him! Kill him!”

I screamed and spun around, smearing my blood across the old ghost’s face.

Hiss!

It sounded like hot oil poured over skin. Blue smoke rose in clouds.

I immediately dropped, rolled, and tumbled behind the headstone.

“Aaaah! I’ll eat you! I’ll eat you!”

The old ghost shrieked in agony. He had suffered at my hands twice that day.

Once from urine, once from blood.

But I knew he would get no third opportunity. Aunt Qin would never let him attack me again.

Sure enough!

A huge serpent suddenly burst from the earth beneath the old ghost’s feet.

Its body was as thick as my waist and partly transparent, similar to the ghosts around us. It was probably a spiritual entity as well.

The serpent bit down on the old ghost’s thigh and dragged him to the ground.

He cried out in terror, “Ah! Th-this thing is…”

Before he could finish, the enormous serpent swallowed him whole.

Crouched behind the headstone, I stared in amazement!

Whatever Aunt Qin had summoned was incredibly powerful and ferocious!

After swallowing the old ghost, the translucent serpent dissolved into mist and vanished.

“Can you stand, Little Wu?”

Aunt Qin’s voice sounded. Somehow, she had already reached me.

I struggled several times, but my legs were weak and my whole body ached. I truly could not stand or walk on my own.

“Come. I’ll carry you.”

She bent down, helped me up, and let me climb onto her back.

Strangely, although Aunt Qin usually looked filthy, she never smelled bad. Instead, she carried a faint, lovely fragrance.

I rested my head gently against her back, overcome by an indescribable sense of safety and comfort.

I was embarrassed too. I was nearly thirteen and only half a head shorter than her. I was a growing boy, yet she had to carry me.

“Honestly, Little Wu. You know your light bazi attracts these ghostly things, yet you traveled all this way to town alone before dawn.”

“Mom is sick, and I wanted to help her. Dad is exhausted from working on the brick kiln too.”

Faced with Aunt Qin’s scolding, I answered obediently.

Perhaps she thought I had been filial. She smiled and said no more about it.

I asked curiously, “Aunt Qin, how did you find me? If you hadn’t arrived today, I probably would’ve died. And what was that translucent serpent? It was so powerful! It swallowed the old ghost in one bite…”

Aunt Qin stopped abruptly.

I felt her body stiffen, as though something had deeply shocked her.

Worried, I asked, “Aunt Qin, what’s wrong?”

“Little Wu, are you saying you could see Miss Chang? You could see her?”

Her voice held a degree of astonishment I had rarely heard.

Even while dealing with the drowned revenant or negotiating with the Corpse King in the Hundred-Bone Pagoda, she had never sounded like this.