Chapter 303

Chapter 303

I lunged forward and pulled Chen Fuying away, my heart pounding like a drum. When I looked back at the Human-Skin Effigy, she had already returned to her former state.

“Are you insane? What were you doing?”

She had truly frightened me.

But Chen Fuying smiled.

Sweat covered her head. Her once luminous white skin had taken on a dull gray tinge, and she looked terribly weak.

Despite her smile, her words filled me with desolation. “That frightened you, Xiao Jiu? But this is only the tip of the iceberg!”

Even as she spoke, she strode toward the Dragon throne.

She pressed her hand against a Dragon’s head, activating a mechanism. With a rumble, the entire wall bearing the imperial robe swung aside, revealing a long passage that seemed to stretch on forever.

The passage was pitch-black, shrouded in dense Yin-Evil Energy. I couldn’t see what lay at its far end.

A moment later, another rumble sounded. The wall returned to its place, concealing everything behind it.

Chen Fuying stood beside the throne, a smile still lingering at the corners of her lips.

It was a weak, helpless smile, filled with boundless despair.

“Do you see, Xiao Jiu? This is Wufu Town’s secret. Today, I’ve torn it open and laid it before you. Are you frightened? Do you dare keep going?”

I heard the strain in my own voice as I asked, “What’s inside that black mist? Where does the passage lead? Chen Fuying, how many secrets do you know? You have to tell me everything if I’m going to help you!”

Chen Fuying shook her head. “You can’t help me. My fate was decided at birth, just like the fate of every one of Wufu Town’s Townsfolk.”

“In fact, I envy them. They muddle through their whole lives, and even if they die without ever knowing why, they don’t have to suffer too much. I caught a glimpse of the tip of the iceberg, and now I have to live in endless fear and despair.”

“Xiao Jiu, I’ve shown you that glimpse and dragged you into this endless hell. You won’t blame me, will you?”

I stepped forward and wrapped my arms tightly around Chen Fuying.

She loved to smile, and her smile was so sweet.

Only now did I truly understand the sorrow hidden behind it.

“How could I blame you? I was already in this endless hell,” I told her sincerely. “Do you know how much you’ve helped me by finding the courage to take this step? Yingying, you did wonderfully.”

Chen Fuying suddenly burst into tears. Burying her face against my shoulder, she sobbed quietly. “Xiao Jiu, I’d rather die than become a puppet and be denied rebirth forever. If that day really comes, will you end it for me with one stroke?”

“It won’t. That day will never come.” I kept reassuring her. “Trust me, Yingying. Chen Ping can’t succeed. You have to believe that evil cannot prevail over good. Heaven won’t tolerate what he’s done.”

That night, after emerging from the secret passage in the Teahouse kitchen, I walked back toward the Pawnshop along the road, taking each step very slowly.

I walked, stopped, doubled back to certain points, and felt my way forward again.

The short road should have taken very little time to cover, but I spent more than half an hour on it.

When I reached the West Street Entrance, less than a hundred meters from the Pawnshop, the last of my anxious hope died.

If my measurements were correct, the passage beneath the Teahouse, filled with Yin-Evil Energy, led straight to the Pawnshop!

Of course, that was only a single passage.

If it branched at the far end and spread in different directions… No. I abruptly cut off that thought and looked at the Pawnshop.

Then I let my gaze move outward from it.

No. I had been looking at it the wrong way.

Jin Wuya had once told me that the Pawnshop’s entire layout resembled a Pixiu, a creature that took things in and let nothing out.
So the Pawnshop was the root, the endpoint. The Teahouse was a source.

There was only one endpoint, but there could be countless sources.

The Teahouse was one, and the Zhu Pan River was another. What about the Wufu Town Assembly Hall? The Bai Family Medical Hall?

If all those sources went wrong, the Pawnshop would have to suppress all their karmic consequences. Liu Junyan would have to bear the entire burden!

Likewise, if the Pawnshop’s Seal loosened, or even shattered completely, those sources would run into trouble as well.

“Xiao Jiu, why were you gone so long?” Li Qingying still hadn’t gone to bed. She came over, looking concerned. “Did something happen at the Teahouse?”

I stared at her blankly, unable to work out where to begin.

I opened my mouth several times before finally forcing out a sentence. “Sister Qingying, I think I know why Mei Linshuang is willing to let the Town Head and the others control her. She’s trying to protect the Wufu Town Assembly Hall single-handedly.”

Li Qingying put an arm around my shoulders and brought me back into the Pawnshop. She closed the door, pressed me down onto the sofa, and poured me a cup of hot tea before asking, “What happened, Xiao Jiu? Take your time. There’s no hurry.”

I told her everything I had seen and heard at the Teahouse that night.

When I finished, Li Qingying fell silent, too.

Only after a long while did she say, “So you mean those Human-Skin Effigies can all come back to life?”

“In theory, yes,” I said. “If I’m right, there are many more Human-Skin Effigies in that passage we can’t enter yet. Most of the Townsfolk living in Wufu Town today are their descendants. Chen Ping wants to use the blood of those descendants in a Blood Sacrifice to the Human-Skin Effigies, filling them with flesh and blood and bringing them back to life, one by one!”

That was what Chen Fuying had been hinting at.

“That’s incredible.” Li Qingying couldn’t make sense of it. “But why would Chen Ping do that?”

“Because he can’t live forever,” I answered with certainty.

Chen Ping had dreamed of becoming emperor. He was a skilled commander with great generals such as Zhao Zixun under him, and he had eventually even created a force of Ghost Soldiers. Yet however powerful he was, he couldn’t escape the human cycle of birth, aging, illness, and death.

To venture a bold guess, could he have suffered an incurable wound in the battle at the Xiaoyingkou Ancient Battlefield?

Otherwise, how could he have found the desperate resolve to slaughter so many of his own soldiers and refine every one of them into Ghost Soldiers?

He had prepared his solid-gold throne and imperial robe long in advance. Yet before he could truly carve out a realm and crown himself king or emperor, his life was drawing to an end.

Could he really accept that?

How could he!

Suppose someone had told him then that there was a way to bring him back to life a hundred years later.

And not only bring him back, but preserve everything he currently possessed, exactly as it was?

The operas and performers he loved, the troops he wanted, even the servants he was accustomed to using in the Marshal’s Residence… They would all have to return to life along with him.

Chen Ping’s dynasty would rise again. He would resume his conquests, continually expand his territory, and finish what he had left undone more than a century ago!

Of course, Wufu Town had also contained many people he considered burdens: the old, the weak, women, and the disabled. And those flayed bodies of flesh and blood, with nowhere to pile them… How had they all been disposed of?

It made me think of the scenes I had witnessed on the First Day of the Eighth Month last year, when I sat in that bright-red bridal sedan and was carried step by step into the Main Courtyard.

Those bloody arms endlessly clawing at the bridal sedan. Those bodies burned black as charcoal, beyond recognition. Those agonized wails and despairing cries…