Chapter 175
Chapter 175
When I was nine, I accompanied Granny back to Tafeng Village to help the villagers with some business. While I was there, I gave my little sister a piece of candy.
For a brief moment, that candy awakened the yearning for familial love I had buried deep in my heart.
Yet it was also that same candy that made me abandon the last of my hopes for that fragile bond.
And now, another piece of candy had appeared here.
As I stared at it, could I truly remain unmoved?
If anyone in Tafeng Village was innocent, it was the children whose fates had been manipulated since before they were even born.
During the incident at Wangting Mountain, I discovered that the names of the two children enshrined in the Buddhist altar were identical to those of two children from Tafeng Village.
They had been used in a Sacrifice at the pavilion on Wangting Mountain.
Just what secret was hidden behind all this?
What was the truth behind Qilin Bestows Children?
Where had the children bestowed upon Tafeng Village by the Qilin Deity come from?
All these secrets were waiting for me to uncover them with my own hands.
“Moqiong just sent word. The barrier around Tafeng Village has been removed, and every villager has disappeared,” Liu Junyan said, wrapping his arms around me from behind. “Xiao Jiu, I’ll go back with you.”
I didn’t turn around. I simply relaxed against his chest, suddenly feeling tired.
Weary to my very soul.
“Everyone disappeared? Have they figured out where they went?” I asked.
They couldn’t have simply vanished into thin air.
“They’re all on the mountain behind the village,” Liu Junyan said. “Perhaps… you should see the scene for yourself.”
He didn’t elaborate, but I understood. The sight was probably too horrifying to put into words.
I closed my eyes and let out a long breath. “What must be faced will have to be faced eventually. Tafeng Village is a thorn lodged in my heart, and I need to pull it out with my own hands!”
After breakfast, Li Qingying drove Liu Junyan and me to Tafeng Village.
Hui Moqiong had already sent people ahead to surround the entire village. The moment we arrived, he came over to meet us, his expression grim.
“It was terrifying. Yours truly has lived this long and never seen anything so bizarre. You should go up the mountain and see it for yourselves.”
Liu Junyan wanted to accompany me, but I refused.
“All of you need to withdraw and wait at the foot of the mountain. I’ll go up alone.”
“Absolutely not!” Liu Junyan rejected the idea immediately. “Xiao Jiu, you know perfectly well they’re targeting you. It’s too dangerous.”
“I came here alone once before,” I said, looking him straight in the eyes. “Back then, white smoke had sealed off the village, and barriers surrounded it on every side. I knew it was dangerous, so I retreated immediately. I was alone and had no one to back me up, so I couldn’t risk it.
“But today is different. You’re here, and so is everyone else. We have control of the situation for now, so I want to take the chance.
“Liu Junyan, if I want to pull this thorn out by the roots once and for all, I have to take some risks.”
Perhaps I was being a little impulsive, but I didn’t want to keep enduring the Jiang Family’s harassment again and again.
Nor did I want to keep facing Feng Lishu over and over.
Now that I had glimpsed a fragment of the karma tied to my previous life, I needed to resolve it as soon as possible.
After all, I was now the Manager of the Wufu Town Pawnshop. In the future, we might have to face the Four Great Fiends Formation, and behind it lurked someone profoundly evil.
If I continued to let the mystery of my birth hold me back, then when the time came to face those threats, I would only find myself beset on both sides and forced into an even more passive position.
Today, the Qilin Temple on the mountain behind the village was fraught with danger for me.
But it was also the perfect opportunity.
“Seventh Master, let Xiao Jiu’er face this one alone,” Hui Moqiong said, surprisingly supportive of my decision. “She isn’t some delicate flower raised in a greenhouse. Someday, she’ll have to charge into battle alongside us. We’ll stay at the foot of the mountain and make sure nothing gets past us!”
I gave him a grateful smile.
Liu Junyan’s large hand had remained wrapped around my right hand. Now, his thumb gently stroked the side of my knuckles. He was hesitating.
It was a long while before he finally let me go. “Xiao Jiu, I’ll be right at the foot of the mountain. If anything happens, retreat immediately and send up a signal with Fengwu’s flames.”
I nodded solemnly. “Don’t worry. I’ll protect myself.”
Hui Moqiong immediately went to redeploy his forces, while I headed up the mountain without looking back.
Although I had already prepared myself for what I might find, the sight of all the villagers kneeling inside and outside Qilin Temple still gave me a terrible shock.
Every last one of them-men and women, young and old-knelt with their bodies rigid and their heads bowed low, leaving the backs of their necks completely exposed.
Each person’s name had appeared on their nape.
It looked… like slabs of pork stamped with blue inspection seals.
Yes. That was exactly what it looked like!
They were like a group of Sacrificial Offerings awaiting slaughter, waiting for the blade poised above their necks to fall.
And I was that blade!
Tafeng Village wasn’t large, and it had even fewer children. There were only a hundred or so residents in all.
But with every one of them kneeling here in the same eerie pose, the sight was still horrifying.
My gaze passed over the crowd and into Qilin Temple.
The tower of incense in the three-legged bronze cauldron was slowly burning. At some point, the Qilin Statue-with a hundred children on its back and a golden phoenix beneath its feet-had been restored to its golden splendor once more.
All the cracks that had appeared before had been filled with gold powder and smoothed over. The entire statue gleamed brilliantly, creating the illusion that it was cloaked in Merit.
The moment I saw it, I inexplicably thought of the Buddha statue on Niuhu Mountain.
A ferocious beast had been hidden inside that clay Buddha, feeding on people’s incense offerings as it lay dormant for untold years.
What about the Qilin Statue before me? What was hidden inside it?
I slowly made my way through the crowd. At a glance, I spotted all four members of the Jiang Family.
The first person I noticed was Grandma.
How had she aged so much?
She looked as if all the blood and vitality had been drained from her body. Her face was sallow, and she had become frighteningly thin. Her name had also appeared on the back of her neck.
Her middle finger was gone, leaving stark white bone exposed.
Even more terrifyingly, cracks wound upward from the base of that finger joint like sprawling roots. They spread across her entire body, covering every inch of her sallow skin.
She looked like a pane of shattered tempered glass.
I narrowed my eyes and studied the cracks. It didn’t take long for me to notice something strange.
There seemed to be something packed beneath them.
Unable to resist, I bent down and leaned closer for a better look. The pungent smell of incense immediately rushed into my nose, making me sneeze.
“Achoo!”
Strangely, that single sneeze roused Grandma.
She slowly opened her cloudy eyes. The instant she saw me, her vacant expression transformed into delight. “Tongtong… Has Tongtong come back? Is that really you, Tongtong?”
She asked over and over, growing more excited each time, as though she had finally seen her beloved granddaughter after a long separation.
I instinctively backed away two steps, putting some distance between us.
Her reaction frightened me.
But what happened next was even more horrifying. When she saw me retreat, she suddenly shuffled after me on her knees, sobbing and crying out, “Tongtong, save Grandma! Grandma doesn’t want to die…”
As she moved on her knees, incense ash puffed out from the cracks in her skin, while wisps of white smoke curled around her.
And when she spoke, I finally saw it clearly.
There was incense ash in her mouth too…