Chapter 94

Chapter 94

I looked at the old, cowardly woman slumped in the passenger seat, and an endless sorrow filled my heart.

Why?

What heavenly law had I broken to deserve such injustice?

“Grandma,” I called softly.

Her murky eyes instantly lit up, and her face broke into a smile. “Tongtong, you’re agreeing to come back with me, aren’t you? Good child. As long as you go back and apologize to the Qilin Deity, everything will get better.”

I laughed.

It must have been an ugly laugh.

When I laughed, my grandma laughed too.

The other two villagers in the car stared at me as if I were some kind of monster.

Amid that laughter, I said coldly, “Grandma, are you afraid to die?”

My grandma froze, her smile stiffening on her face.

“Since you say my existence threatens the survival of all of Tafeng Village,” I raised an eyebrow, biting down harder on every word, “then shouldn’t you be worshipping me properly and trying to please me instead?

“In my opinion, the one enshrined in Qilin Temple shouldn’t be some Qilin Deity. It should be me!”

“You’re insane!” My grandma was so frightened she lunged at me, trying to cover my mouth. The other two villagers were stunned senseless by what I’d said.

I shoved my grandma away, got out of the car, righted my electric scooter, and rode off without looking back.

From far behind me, I could still hear my grandma screaming curses.

“Jiang Wantong, you Jinx! How dare you insult the Qilin Deity? You’ll die a horrible death!”

“Back then, your mother prayed in Qilin Temple for three years and still couldn’t conceive. Everyone said it was because the Qilin Deity wouldn’t allow her to have a child, and sure enough, they were right! She defied the Qilin Deity, and that’s how she gave birth to a wicked thing like you!”

“If you don’t come back with me today, you won’t end well either. You’re also a child of the Qilin Deity. You’ll suffer the agony of your flesh splitting open and fire burning your body, and you’ll die a miserable death!”

“I’ll be waiting for you to go to hell!”

“…”

The front rack of my electric scooter had been damaged in the crash, and it rattled loudly as I rode, but it still couldn’t drown out the sound of my grandma’s venomous Curse.

In truth, when I first heard them say that the children of Tafeng Village were all doing badly, and that my younger brother and sister had fallen ill too, my heart had wavered for a moment.

But I knew very well that even if I returned to Tafeng Village, what could that possibly solve?

Other than tying me up and sending me into Qilin Temple as a Sacrifice to the Qilin Deity, what else could they do?

I felt sorry for other people, but who would feel sorry for me?

Who cared about my little life?

I rode all the way back. As soon as I turned in from West Street Entrance, Li Qingying saw me and hurried over.

She had been waiting for me the whole time.

“Xiao Jiu, what happened to your scooter? Did someone hit you?”

“Are you hurt? Let me see.”

“You just got your license, and it was such a short trip. How did you still manage to get hit? Look, your elbow’s all scraped up. I’ll put some medicine on it.”

She helped me push the electric scooter inside, then turned to get the first-aid kit and carefully treated my wound.

The wound was shallow. It didn’t hurt at all.

But when the hydrogen peroxide touched it, my eyes still reddened.

Li Qingying smiled. “Why are you crying?”

I only shook my head. My heart felt sour and swollen, and I was truly about to lose hold of my tears.

No matter how badly wronged you are out there on your own, you can endure it. What you fear most is coming home and having someone rush up to you with genuine warmth and concern.

The moment that concern arrives, all the grievances in your heart start bubbling up like boiling water, and all you want to do is cry.

I threw my arms around Li Qingying and sighed again. “Sister Qingying, I’m so glad I have you.”

She gave me a strong sense of belonging to this home.

I was Xiao Jiu, and the Wufu Town Pawnshop was my real home.

After dinner, Li Qingying saw that I wasn’t in a very good state and urged me to wash up and go to bed early. She would watch the Pawnshop for me.
I slept in a heavy, muddled haze until sometime after three in the morning, when a sharp sting in my arm jolted me awake.

I sat up and turned on the light.

On the inner side of my upper left arm, right where the pain had come from, it looked as if I had been burned by fire. The surrounding skin had turned an ashy gray that spread outward in a faint halo, forming a burn mark about the size of a button.

What was going on?

All at once, I thought of the words my grandmother had used to Curse me. She had said we were all children of the Qilin Deity.

She said I would suffer the same agony as the children in the village-flesh splitting open, my body consumed by raging flames.

How could the timing be this perfect?

Had her Curse really come true?

Fortunately, the burn mark did not continue to spread. I pressed down hard on it with my fingers, but the searing pain was gone.

Maybe I had just burned myself by accident. It would probably heal in a few days.

After all, I had to draw a bow, and the entire bow was covered in flames. Getting lightly burned without noticing was normal enough, right?

Even so, I couldn’t fall back asleep. I leaned against the headboard and scrolled through my phone.

Close to five o’clock, Tang Tang suddenly sent me a picture on WeChat.

I tapped it open. It was a painting.

The overall mood of the painting was rather dark, but the first thing I noticed was actually the background behind the easel.

Wasn’t this the same background from when Tang Tang had video-called me before, while Song Ruoqing was painting?

Was this the painting Song Ruoqing had been working on that day?

I turned up my screen brightness and zoomed in on the painting.

At first glance, the entire painting felt suffocatingly oppressive.

It depicted two children, painted in a very stream-of-consciousness style. You could tell they were a pair of boy-girl twins.

But the strange part was that both children in the painting were kneeling, their little heads hanging desperately low, exposing the backs of their necks.

And on the tender, pale napes of the two children, a name had been written on each.

The boy’s was Song Xunian.

The girl’s was Song Mingxuan.

After staring at my phone for too long, my eyes felt dry. I blinked a few times to moisten them, and when I looked again, I scared myself.

Because at a glance, the postures of those two children looked like two gravestones.

But the two children in the painting were kneeling on a long table. Fruit was arranged all around them, and behind them, in the center, a tiny statue was enshrined.

The statue was truly small. If I hadn’t zoomed in, it would have been easy to miss.

But the moment I made out what that statue looked like, my heart lurched. My hands and feet went cold, and my temples throbbed violently.

It was a Qilin Statue.

The qilin’s body was densely covered with children’s heads on its back.

This… this looked almost exactly like the Qilin Statue enshrined in Qilin Temple in Tafeng Village.

The one in Qilin Temple also bore a hundred children on its back.

The only difference was that the one in Qilin Temple was tall and massive, with a golden phoenix beneath its hoof, while the one in the painting did not have that.

Could this really be a coincidence?

I hurriedly saved the painting and exited the image.

I was just about to video-call Tang Tang. I wanted to talk to Song Ruoqing about this painting as soon as possible.

But Tang Tang’s message had already come through: Junior Sister, Qingqing is gone.

Song Ruoqing was gone?

Judging by the time, she should have just finished her medicinal bath, right?

Had all the remaining poison in her body been drawn out?

Where could she go at a time like this?

I started a video call, and Tang Tang picked up immediately. I asked at once, “Senior Sister, where did Miss Song go?”

“She’s gone. She snuck out in the middle of the night,” Tang Tang said helplessly. “She left me a note saying she was going back to the Song Family. She said she wanted to face the Song Family on her own. She also said this painting was for you and asked me to pass it along. Xiao Jiu, do you want to come pick it up, or should I bring it over when I have time?”