Chapter 210

Chapter 210

I could hardly believe my ears!

Although I had already suspected as much, hearing the answer directly from Hui Moqiong still made it difficult to accept.

My mother had been almost thirty when she gave birth to me. She was nearly fifty now.

And she… she was pregnant with her fourth child.

She had selected a boy named “Jiang Bin.” That meant somewhere in this world, someone named Jiang Bin had been chosen as the Sacrifice.

He would never enter the cycle of reincarnation. His Souls would fall into Tafeng Village, where they would remain imprisoned forever.

With that thought in mind, I pressed, “Has she been the only person in Tafeng Village to get pregnant recently? Are you sure she’s carrying only one child?”

Hui Moqiong said he was certain.

I turned to look at Du Chan, who was still kneeling on the floor. Then what was going on with her?

The child the Qilin Deity had “sent” this year was Jiang Bin, not Du Chan.

Could Du Chan be part of the preparations for next year?

No. It was far too early for that.

Besides, although there was something strange about Du Chan, her body appeared to be functioning normally. She was different from the people who had been made a Sacrifice to Tafeng Village.

“Xiao Jiu, come look at this drawing.”

I had just hung up and was staring at Du Chan when Liu Junyan suddenly called out to me.

He was standing in a corner, holding a discarded draft.

I walked over and saw that it was an unfinished sketch. The rough outlines seemed to depict a mountain.

The longer I studied the mountain’s contours, the more familiar they looked.

I frowned. “This… Doesn’t this look like the mountain behind Tafeng Village?”

Liu Junyan didn’t answer. Instead, he pointed at the upper-right corner of the discarded draft and said, “Xiao Jiu, look here.”

That upper-right corner was the very reason the drawing had been discarded.

I didn’t know what Du Chan had seen at the time, but she had stopped after sketching only half of its outline. After that, she had abandoned the entire drawing.

I stared at the upper-right corner for a long while, and an answer gradually took shape in my mind.

I looked at Liu Junyan. “It’s a burial mound, isn’t it?”

Liu Junyan nodded. “By the time she reached this corner, she was already working on the indistinct background. Du Chan probably didn’t notice it at first. She must have discarded the draft only after she saw it clearly.”

“But would she really abandon an entire drawing just because of a burial mound?” I still found the idea a little far-fetched.

A girl like Du Chan, who loved painting and often went out to sketch, shouldn’t have been particularly squeamish about such things.

Unless…

Liu Junyan and I exchanged a glance. We saw the same answer in each other’s eyes — unless Du Chan knew the person buried inside that mound.

Or there was another possibility: the person buried there knew Du Chan…

My eyes suddenly lit up. Yes, the second possibility was very likely.

The other party had recognized Du Chan and exerted some kind of influence on her.

But what kind of relationship could have affected Du Chan so severely that she ended up like this?

I pieced all the information together in my mind, then quietly discussed it with Liu Junyan. A relatively plausible sequence of events slowly began to emerge.

I turned toward the Du Family couple and studied Mrs. Du’s Facial Features with particular care.

Mrs. Du grew visibly uncomfortable under my stare. She instinctively touched her face and asked, “Are there any Dirty Things on my face?”

“No.” I probed further. “Ma’am, forgive me for asking, but is Du Chan really an only child?”

The moment I asked that question, the expressions of the Du Family couple changed.

That was when I knew my guess was right.

“If I’ve read things correctly, Du Chan should have an older sister. And she… she probably isn’t doing very well right now.”

That was what I had just deduced from Mrs. Du’s Facial Features.
What I hadn’t expected was for my next question to make Mrs. Du burst into tears.

Her eyes reddened instantly. She covered her mouth as tears streamed down her cheeks like beads from a broken string.

She leaned into Mr. Du’s arms. Already exhausted, she now looked as though she might collapse at any moment.

As Mr. Du comforted her, he sighed and said, “Du Chan did have an older sister, but she died many years ago.”

My heart lurched, and I instinctively grabbed Liu Junyan’s hand.

No, that couldn’t be right…

I was about to speak when Liu Junyan gently tapped the back of my hand with the thumb of the hand holding mine, signaling me to stay quiet for now.

Mr. Du continued, “My wife actually gave birth to twin girls back then. Du Chan really did have a sister who was born five minutes before her. Her name was Du Lian.

“But Du Lian was frail from birth, and she passed away at the age of three. We hadn’t moved here yet at the time and were still living in town. According to local custom, children who died young couldn’t have funerals. They couldn’t be placed in coffins or buried in the ancestral graveyard, either. There were people specifically responsible for handling their burials.

“We entrusted Du Lian to Granny Wu in town. I slipped Granny Wu five thousand yuan and asked her to find Du Lian a decent resting place…”

By the end, Mr. Du’s voice had also grown choked with emotion.

He paused and struggled to compose himself before continuing, “Later, both my wife and I were reassigned for work, so we moved here with Xiao Chan. To avoid unnecessary trouble, we always told everyone that Xiao Chan was our only child. Even Xiao Chan herself no longer remembers that she once had a twin sister.”

So that was what had happened back then.

But…

I looked over the Facial Features of the Du Family’s parents once more. No matter how carefully I studied them, something still felt wrong. “Are you certain Du Lian really… passed away back then?”

The Du Family’s parents were both startled. “Young lady, what do you mean by that? Life and death are no joking matters!”

I rubbed my nose awkwardly.

Tang Tang hurriedly tried to smooth things over. “You’ve misunderstood her, Uncle, Auntie. My little sister has some skill in Face Reading. She must have noticed something, and it could be very important if we’re going to save Du Chan.”

At that, Mr. and Mrs. Du managed to bring their emotions back under control.

Mrs. Du asked in a trembling voice, “Young lady, are you saying there may be more to Xiao Lian’s death than we know?”

I didn’t dare jump to conclusions. After thinking for a moment, I asked, “Could you tell me the Birth Date and Time for each sister? I’d like to ask someone to help verify what I saw in your Facial Features.”

Mr. Du quickly gave me both sets of Birth Date and Time.

I immediately called Yu Nian and asked her to perform a Divinatory Calculation for me.

On the other end of the phone, Yu Nian first let out a surprised sound. Then I heard her breathing quicken.

I hurriedly asked, “Sister Yu Nian, is there something wrong with the older twin’s Eight Characters? She should still be alive, shouldn’t she?”

“She should be alive, but her existence is worse than death,” Yu Nian said. “Xiao Jiu, what condition is the younger twin in right now?”

I answered honestly, “Very bad.”

Yu Nian drew a sharp breath, her tone turning grave. “Xiao Jiu, if I didn’t make a mistake in my Divinatory Calculation, the Fate Pattern corresponding to the younger twin’s Birth Date and Time closely resembles the Fate Pattern of your Apparent Eight Characters.”

My Apparent Eight Characters corresponded to the First Day of the Eighth Month in the Year of Yiyou.

However, neither Master Hui Quan nor Yu Nian had been able to perform a Divinatory Calculation to determine the true Fate Pattern of my Eight Characters.

And now, Du Chan’s Fate Pattern closely resembled that of my Apparent Eight Characters. What did that mean?

Yu Nian’s next words struck me like a blow to the head.

“Xiao Jiu, what happened to Du Chan may very well be connected to you. You need to be careful…”