Chapter 215
Chapter 215
Beneath the Migu Flower Lamp, the Monstrous Beast soaking in moss and filthy water raised its head to look at Qin Ying.
It had been trapped in this strange space for a century. Its skin was deathly pale, and most of its fur had fallen out.
The one remaining tuft did nothing to improve its appearance. It hung limply against withered bone and rotting flesh, only making it look even more grotesque and terrifying.
It bared its teeth in a low chuckle. “Of course. They came.”
As it spoke of the people who had tried to find it years later, smugness crept unmistakably into its voice.
“But I was no longer the helpless prey they could butcher as they pleased. I hid myself very well.”
It snickered, revealing a crooked set of herbivore-like teeth.
The filthy water in which the River God soaked cast no reflection. It clearly had no idea how venomous the expression on its twisted face now looked.
It was a far cry from the pitiful act it had put on before.
Qin Ying did not call it out. She remained beside the stone railing above.
The Thunderbird tucked inside her hat sensed its malice and shifted slightly, like a tiny ball of fluff.
The River God laughed to itself for a while, but under Qin Ying’s expressionless stare, its laughter gradually petered out into an awkward silence.
“Was that not funny?” it asked.
Qin Ying had no interest in answering such a pointless question. “How did you know that I…”
“…was also a test subject?”
Those last words scraped from her throat like a rusted blade.
The River God jerked its head up. Its mismatched eyes stared straight at Qin Ying. “You carry the same scent of fear I do.”
Perhaps it was afraid Qin Ying would lose control again, flee, and never return.
It toned down its blustering, manipulative manner and tried appealing to her sympathy instead. “The horrors I have suffered and witnessed are no fewer than yours.”
Having taken a moment outside to collect herself, Qin Ying no longer showed any of her earlier panic when she resumed the interrogation.
Holding the Migu Flower, she strolled around to the back of the pool as casually as if she were out for a walk.
The moment she stopped in front of the decrepit machinery, the chains stretched across the pool clattered loudly.
The River God wheeled toward her in alarm. “What are you doing?”
Those ancient machines had clearly left it with deep psychological scars.
Thanks to that fear, when it turned around in the pool, Qin Ying caught sight of what it had hidden beneath the water, or part of it.
The River God had the mangled carcass of a beast for an upper body and stitched-on human legs below. Beneath those legs, a brood-pouch tail sprouted like a tumorous growth, with a fetal pod hanging from it.
She caught only a fleeting glimpse, but the pod formed no more than a small bulge. Even at a glance, she could make out the shape of a tiny, civet-like creature curled beneath the fetal membrane.
It was still far too small and emaciated, too underdeveloped to be born.
Qin Ying brushed a finger over the machine’s starting lever.
There was little dust in this sealed underground chamber, but the lever’s wooden grip had split with age. Her fingertip grazed rough, prickly rust.
“Don’t move!”
That careless gesture seemed to clutch the River God’s heart and squeeze. It shouted urgently, “Don’t touch that.”
Chained inside the pool, the River God clearly knew little about human technology.
It had no idea that machines could rust and decay with age. In its mind, that steel contraption remained the stuff of nightmares.
Qin Ying smiled gently and lifted her right hand away.
The gesture looked harmless and friendly, but her amused words were merciless. “When did you start luring brides here to eat them?”
“I didn’t!” The River God was determined to play the victim and denied it outright. “That was merely something those humans pinned on me.”
Qin Ying gave a noncommittal smile. “Did you awaken again a little over ten days ago?”
“And after you woke, you exhaled Earth-Lung Yin Miasma to create illusions.”
Back in the ancestral hall of Qingzhai Village, most of what the old man had said was a lie.
All that talk of Ghost Shadow, the medium who practiced Wenmi Spirit Divination, and the Mountain God was made up.
But one thing was true: the whole affair really had begun more than ten days earlier.
The eerie black-and-white pantomime in the fog over Qingzhai Village and the long-necked shadow beneath the lanterns had most likely been tricks the River God used to lure people in.
“You terrorized the people of Qingzhai Village so they would offer you a bride?”
The River God could create illusions, so fooling a few people should have been effortless.
What it had failed to account for was that times had changed.
Unlike in 1910, human lives were worth considerably more these days.
Most of the people in Qingzhai Village had chosen to take their families and leave.
After all that effort, the River God had only managed to deceive Yin Minmin and Zhang Yuqin.
Its plan to devour women, form a pill-fetus, and cast off its ruined body had ended in failure.
Qin Ying did not even glance at the River God in the pool. Her attention remained fixed on the machine before her.
The wooden handle had been left to rot amid the rust, but Shiye and the others must have intended to return when they had the chance. That was why they had coated the machine itself in a thick layer of rustproofing grease.
The grease had congealed into black grime, leaving the control panel filthy and obscured.
As she examined it, Qin Ying said, “Anyone who has touched the Yellow Springs Eye Stone in your navel, the Puppet Stone in other words, falls under your control to some degree.”
Recalling the Yellow Springs Eye Stone that had been made into a protective amulet for Xiaoyu, Third Uncle Xu’s granddaughter, Qin Ying raised an eyebrow at the River God in the pool.
“You ordered the people of Qingzhai Village who believed in you to deliberately distribute the Puppet Stones, didn’t you?”
It had intended to lure people here in droves, devour all nine hundred and ninety-nine it needed, and then be reborn from the pill-fetus.
“But you overestimated your own power.”
Its influence only extended to the area around Qingzhai Mountain.
Beyond that range, all it could do was cause seizures in small children.
Even Qin Ying, whose mental strength had been severely damaged at the time, had merely been startled. It had been nowhere near enough to control her mind.
As Qin Ying laid everything out, the River God’s unnaturally long eyelids drooped.
It said nothing, but its silence was an admission in itself.
Qin Ying sighed. “Within Qingzhai, anyone who touches a Yellow Springs Eye Stone becomes your puppet.”
“How dare you pin all of this on humanity, River God?”
Her words were biting and merciless, painfully so to this Monstrous Beast that had spent untold years in the darkness.
After a moment of silence, the River God lifted its head.
This time, it dropped its pitiful act. Its hairless, raccoon-like face twisted with mockery. “Look at what I’ve become. Don’t I have every right to hate?”
Qin Ying fell silent for a moment, then nodded. “From your perspective, yes. You have every right!”
The unexpected answer startled the River God, and a trace of delight crept over its face.
Before it could enjoy that delight, however, Qin Ying placed her hand over Di Shang and rested it on the machine’s starter lever.
“But I’m human, one of the humans you’ve trapped here.”
She would have to be completely out of her mind to side with a man-eating Monstrous Beast that wanted to trap them here until they died.
Under the River God’s horrified, furious stare, Qin Ying caressed the oil-stained lever as though petting a beloved animal. “Enough evasive nonsense. Tell me the truth. How did you recognize that I was an experimental subject too?”
“That crap about the scent of fear? Save it for the ghosts.”
“I hear you’re terrified of electric shocks.”
Her smile resembled that of some abomination from the abyss.
The murky water in the pool rippled as the River God began to tremble. “Don’t.”
Her countdown was its only answer.
“Three.”
“Two.”
“One!”
As she made to pull the lever, the River God managed to choke out an answer.
“The eyes.”