Chapter 20
Chapter 20
Miss Chang?
I froze, not understanding.
“The translucent serpent you mentioned,” Aunt Qin explained.
“Oh!”
I nodded hurriedly. “Yes, I saw her clearly. She came out of the ground and swallowed the old ghost in one bite. Uh… wait. Aunt Qin, why do you call a snake Miss Chang?!”
Only after speaking did I realize how strange it was. How could anyone call a snake “Miss”? And give her a surname too!
Aunt Qin did not answer directly. After a moment of silence, she said, “I’ll tell you when the time is right. For now, rest. The old ghost wounded you, and malicious ghost energy has entered your body. Strong emotions will make the ghost poison spread faster. Once we return, I need to draw it out immediately.”
Only then did I notice something strange about my shoulder.
I turned my head.
The five finger marks left by the old ghost as I tore free had turned pitch-black.
The torn flesh inside the wounds was black too!
The gashes no longer bled and did not even hurt noticeably. But the flesh around them had swollen high.
I touched the skin nearby with my left hand. It had a strange texture, almost like plastic.
Truth be told, I was frightened!
The elders in our village had spoken of corpse poison and ghost poison. Once infected, the consequences could be severe.
Wujia Village had existed for nearly four hundred years. According to legend, zombies once appeared in the nearby mountains during the late Qing dynasty. One villager was scratched, and corpse energy entered his body, leaving him neither fully human nor ghost.
Eventually, the villagers found a folk Taoist master who used a secret rite involving glutinous rice to draw out the corpse energy and poisoned blood, saving the man’s life. But he remained frail forever afterward, gasping after only a few steps…
“Am I going to become like that too?”
I did not know the difference between corpse energy and ghost energy, but I was still worried.
The thought that Aunt Qin was with me offered some comfort.
After everything I had endured, I was exhausted. Lying against her back, I unknowingly fell asleep.
When I woke in a daze, we had reached my front gate. A circle of long, slender needles had been inserted around the wound on my right shoulder, presumably sealing the black energy inside.
The sun had risen in the east.
My mother opened the door just then, preparing to feed the chickens in the yard. She was still ill and looked weak.
Then she raised her head and saw Aunt Qin carrying me inside. The locked gate in the fence opened by itself without anyone touching it.
Clang!
The enamel basin filled with chicken feed fell from my mother’s hands. The chickens immediately gathered around and helped themselves.
She hurried toward us, her voice already breaking with tears.
“Immortal Lady, m-my baby… what happened to him?”
Aunt Qin said nothing. I answered cautiously, “Mom, I encountered a ghost feast on the way to town. Aunt Qin saved me.”
What?!
A ghost feast!
My mother’s face went white. She clutched her chest, and her legs weakened.
Fortunately, my father heard the commotion and rushed outside. He caught her in one arm. “Don’t panic. Our boy is back, and the Immortal Lady is with him. That means he’s safe.”
To our surprise, Aunt Qin calmly added, “Not necessarily. We’ll have to see how things go.”
My parents stiffened.
I stared at her.
“Aunt Qin, don’t scare them.”
“I’m serious. That old thing had not yet become an evil spirit, but it was no ordinary ghost. Your bazi is light and your fate unusual. Once ghost poison and malicious energy enter your body, they are difficult to expel.”
Seeing my parents’ faces grow worse, she added, “But I will do everything I can. This is Little Wu’s second life tribulation.”
So that was it.
I had long known that I was different from other people.
My light bazi and strange fate had left me weak and sickly from childhood. Despite all my parents’ and my efforts to improve my health and pay careful attention to diet and nutrition, I had never grown sturdy.
Worse still, before the age of fifteen, I was destined to face three life tribulations–and failing even one meant death!
The first happened when Wang Fei, Liu Erwa, and I went swimming and a river-log seized my ankle. I survived thanks to the small wooden tablet given to me by a wandering Taoist.
The second was happening now.
I traveled to market by night, only for a ghost to “invite” me to a banquet in a wild graveyard.
Poor old ducks, and that basket of farm eggs. I had hidden them in the grass beneath a ridge between the fields. Who knew whether the ducks would survive until I could retrieve them…
Judging from Aunt Qin’s words, I had not yet survived my second life tribulation!
“I’m going to expel the malicious energy and ghost poison from Little Wu’s body. Prepare seven braziers, plenty of spirit money, mugwort ground into powder and mixed with cinnabar, then blended with rooster blood. Bring a writing brush too. Hurry.”
“Yes, of course.”
My parents did not dare delay. They split up to gather everything.
Aunt Qin carried me into the main room, set me down, and had me sit in a chair. She gently touched my wound. “Does it hurt?”
I shook my head.
It truly felt numb.
But cold had begun spreading through me. Although it was summer, I felt chilled enough to need a thick coat.
While my parents gathered the supplies, I asked Aunt Qin how she had known something happened to me and what the graveyard actually was.
She said a karmic debt now connected us. Since she had also promised to help me survive my second life tribulation, certain methods of the esoteric arts allowed her to calculate its approximate location.
The result was not exact, but she could still sense it.
She had awakened abruptly from a dream that morning and immediately come looking for me.
As for the so-called Zhao family mansion, its owner might have been a wealthy rural notable from the late Qing or early Republican era. After his death, his descendants built a grand tomb in that mountain graveyard.
But as dynasties changed and historical tides swept across the country, the Zhao family’s descendants gradually moved away. Some might even have emigrated overseas. Naturally, the tomb was abandoned.
Without offerings from his descendants, Master Zhao may have developed resentment and transformed into a vengeful ghost. He occupied the cemetery and became the leader of every evil entity within a dozen li.
There was no telling whether the old village legends about ghost feasts had been Master Zhao’s doing as well…
My parents soon returned with everything Aunt Qin requested.
With my safety at stake, their efficiency was frightening.
Following her instructions, they arranged seven braziers in a circle, filled them with spirit money, and set them alight. Flames roared, raising the temperature in the room.
Aunt Qin told me to remove my shirt and sit inside the circle.
Then she produced a yellow paper talisman from somewhere and began chanting.
Whoosh!
The paper ignited by itself. She dropped it into a small bowl of clear water, where it dissolved completely without leaving even a trace of ash.
“Drink this talisman water first, Little Wu. Then I’ll use the brush to draw an evil-suppressing spell across your body.”
I obeyed.
To my utter shock, something inside me shifted violently the instant I swallowed the talisman water!