Chapter 265: Shadow Puppets and Lamplight (31)
When he heard Zheng Shumu’s question, Yan Shixun fell silent for a moment before lifting his gaze to look at him again.
He could sense that the person standing before him now was the same one he had seen in Zheng Shumu’s home before.
And Zheng Shumu’s presence here confirmed the suspicion Yan Shixun had already harbored—
Zheng Shumu was the one behind the shadow puppet play.
Master Bai’s guilt was directed at Zheng Shumu. He had personally witnessed Zheng Shumu change from a child full of innocent dreams into a vengeful ghost consumed by hatred.
Because of that guilt, Master Bai indulged Zheng Shumu in everything he wanted. No matter what Zheng Shumu asked for, Master Bai would only nod and agree—never once refusing him.
That was how Zheng Shumu managed to pull the entire village into the shadow puppet play. He had swapped the roles of the puppets and real people and even managed to deceive the heavens and earth.
But Yan Shixun still felt puzzled.
Why did Master Bai say Zheng Shumu wasn’t the mastermind behind everything? Why did he even ask him to save Zheng Shumu?
Save him from what? Clearly, Zheng Shumu was the one orchestrating this entire shadow puppet scene. Wasn’t Master Bai the one who actually controlled the play?
Yan Shixun furrowed his brows. The protective feeling he had just held toward the boy shifted quickly into wariness of Zheng Shumu.
Zheng Shumu noticed this change in Yan Shixun’s attitude, but he merely gave a bitter smile and shook his head. He didn’t offer a single word in his defense.
“Thank you, Mr. Yan.”
Zheng Shumu’s gaze swept over the villagers writhing in pain on the ground. When he finally looked back at Yan Shixun, his reddened eyes were wet with unshed tears.
His voice was hoarse, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as though he was desperately trying to suppress the urge to cry.
“Back then… no one was willing to help me. No one would help a child save his mother—and his little sister.”
A twisted smile pulled at Zheng Shumu’s lips, uglier than crying. “At least now, someone’s willing to help that child and stand up for him. Even if—even if it’s all fake. Even if it’s fake, it’s enough.”
Even if this was just an illusion inside a shadow puppet play, that tiny sliver of change was enough to comfort the pain of losing his mother in that moment.
Zheng Shumu trembled as he looked up at the boy in the lake whose strength was slowly giving out. His lips quivered, his throat tightened with bitterness, and not a single word came out.
Before he could speak, the tears had already started to stream down his wrinkled face.
But they weren’t ordinary tears.
They were tears of blood.
Yan Shixun was startled. He instinctively stepped forward.
But the hand he had raised, clenched tightly into a fist, slowly loosened after a brief pause.
Even if he had doubts and suspicions about Zheng Shumu, the person standing before him now… was just a child who had lost his mother.
To treat Zheng Shumu with hostility in this moment—it didn’t feel right.
Blood covered the knuckles of Yan Shixun’s hand, scraped raw. His hand dropped back down to his side, and he slowly turned around, following Zheng Shumu’s gaze toward the lake.
That small, powerless child from long ago had cried until he was exhausted. He had used up every ounce of strength and finally fainted in the freezing lake water, sinking deeper and deeper.
“You want to watch yourself die, Zheng Shumu?”
Yan Shixun asked the now middle-aged Zheng Shumu beside him in a low voice, “Aren’t you going to save him?”
Zheng Shumu watched as his younger self slowly sank beneath the water, and with a bitter smile, slowly shook his head. “Let’s just say… the me from back then already died that night.”
“Mr. Yan, do you know what it feels like… to watch your own mother drown right in front of you?”
Zheng Shumu lifted his head, blinking rapidly, trying to force back the tears that were ready to fall.
But the hoarseness in his voice betrayed him.
“I know.”
“I watched my mother die right in front of me—and I couldn’t do a thing. There was no Mr. Yan back then, there was nothing. I stood by the lake and watched as my mother sank to the bottom. And then…”
Zheng Shumu’s body trembled, and after a long pause, he finally said in a voice hoarse beyond control, thick with sobs, “I watched her corpse float back up from the bottom of the lake.”
Hearing that, Yan Shixun’s eyes widened slightly.
He looked at Zheng Shumu with a complex expression and was silent for a while.
“I wanted so badly to die with my mother that night. Dying with her in the lake—that would have been a blessing to me. I longed for that kind of peace. But…”
Zheng Shumu shook his head with a bitter smile. “I’m a sinner. I don’t even deserve that kind of happiness.”
To him, death would have been a mercy granted by the ghost deities.
Ever since that night years ago, when he escaped the Bai family’s village after watching his mother die, Zheng Shumu had been living in a hell of hatred.
The image of his mother’s death kept replaying in his nightmares, tormenting him every single day and night.
It was as if she crawled out of the freezing lake, drenched and weeping blood, asking him why he didn’t save her, why he didn’t save his sister.
Why… he didn’t avenge them.
Every time he jolted awake from those nightmares, screaming and turning over, he would already be drenched in tears.
The only thing that filled his thoughts day and night was the desire to kill everyone who had participated—or stood by and watched—back then. To avenge his mother and sister.
That once-bright-eyed child who had looked up at the shadow puppets with awe had turned into a youth full of dark, seething hatred.
There was only one thing left in his life—
Revenge.
To make all those villagers who were worse than beasts pay for what they had done.
As Zheng Shumu struggled to stay calm while speaking to Yan Shixun, the boy in the lake had already completely sunk and disappeared.
Yan Shixun stepped forward, his arm instinctively reaching out.
Zheng Shumu noticed the movement and understood that this exorcist had acted on reflex—he wanted to protect that child and pull him out of the water.
Even after enduring countless trials and walking the line between life and death more times than he could remember—even after long forgetting what death was supposed to feel like—Zheng Shumu was still moved in that moment, when he saw someone willing to selflessly risk everything to save the version of him who had once been helpless and alone. It stirred the last soft part left in his heart.
If only… if only all of this were real, how wonderful that would be.
If he and his mother, once forced into a dead end, had encountered someone like Mr. Yan back then… would his mother and sister still be alive? Would he himself have avoided becoming this ghost of a person—neither human nor spirit?
Zheng Shumu closed his eyes and let out a long sigh that drifted into the cold, damp night.
Unfortunately, everything had long been set in stone…
He grabbed Yan Shixun’s arm—not to let him save the boy sinking into the lake—but to silently indicate that he should simply watch what would happen next.
In the next instant, the changes brought about by Yan Shixun’s appearance began to recede.
Reality returned to the way it was meant to be.
It was like a puppeteer seated quietly behind a curtain, skillfully manipulating the rods and strings, making each shadow puppet move exactly as intended, changing scenes without a sound.
Before Yan Shixun’s eyes, everything rapidly rewound.
The villagers who had collapsed to the ground howling in pain now stood back up. Torches that had fallen were once again in their hands. The boy was back in the villagers’ grasp, each fist falling hard upon him.
But the boy seemed to feel no pain. The light in his eyes had gone out. He stared fixedly, hollow and dark, at the surface of the lake, his heart in agony as he pleaded with every ghost and god he had ever heard of—begging them to save his mother, to save the unborn sibling still inside her.
He was like a punching bag, taking the villagers’ unchecked excitement and fury. Before long, he was covered in blood, his face swollen and bruised beyond recognition.
When the villagers finally tired of beating him, the boy was barely alive, his body a mess of injuries. Someone grabbed him by the hair, dragging him along like a corpse.
Only his eyes still stubbornly locked on the lake, hoping—desperately—for a miracle.
Kicking him and cursing him, the villagers joked and decided to lock the boy in the woodshed for the night—planning to repeat their “hunt” the next day.
Just as they turned to leave, ripples stirred in the center of the lake, as though something beneath the surface was moving.
The boy’s eyes lit up instantly.
He didn’t know where the strength came from, but he broke free of their grip and scrambled toward the lake on hands and knees. Stretching his arm desperately into the water, his throat battered and full of blood could no longer form words, only guttural cries. Tears streamed down his bloodied and scarred face, carving two streaks through the grime.
He was waiting—waiting for his mother to return.
The villagers had no idea how this boy, already beaten to the brink of death, had managed to escape. But they cursed and chased after him, quickly catching up. One of them bent down, grabbed the boy by the hair, and tried to yank him up.
But the ripples in the lake were growing larger, and the commotion finally caught the attention of the villagers.
When they looked up, they saw a woman’s corpse slowly surfacing in the middle of the lake.
It was the same woman from before.
She floated there silently, arms crossed over her belly in a protective gesture, her expression calm and serene.
It was as if she had not been murdered, but had died under the tearful gazes of her loved ones, solemnly buried in the lake.
Everyone who saw this froze.
And in the boy’s eyes, the faint spark that had just reignited… completely extinguished.
Not even firelight could warm the cold and despair that gripped his soul.
The boy no longer had the strength to struggle. He was dragged by the hair, his fingers digging deep into the damp soil in a futile attempt to resist. All he left behind were ten long gouges in the earth, nails broken, fingers scraped to the bone.
A pitiful sight, soaked in blood and filth.
Yan Shixun watched it all unfold. Several times he tried to rush forward and shield the boy—but each time, Zheng Shumu held him back, gripping his arm tightly and refusing to let go.
“Mr. Yan, this is what really happened to me.”
Zheng Shumu quietly watched the boy—who looked so much like himself—being dragged away like a dead dog. After a long pause, he finally spoke again: “I truly appreciate that you want to save me, Mr. Yan. But… it’s too late.”
“You’ve come too many decades late. Even the gods and spirits of heaven and earth can’t save me from the hell I’ve already fallen into.”
Yan Shixun’s chest heaved violently. The muscles under his black shirt tensed, his teeth clenched, his eyes locked with hatred on the villagers’ retreating figures.
He looked like a predator crouched low, growling softly before striking its prey.
If it had been an adult, perhaps he wouldn’t have felt such rage.
But the victims had been a pregnant woman… and a child.
Those young, strong villagers had murdered the helpless mother and child just to seize the carpenter Zheng’s property.
What enraged Yan Shixun most, however, was their cruelty toward the weak.
—If your opponent had been a strong adult like you, would you still have done this?
—If your opponent had been me, would you even dare think of trying?
Cowards, the lot of them—bullies who only dared attack those weaker than themselves.
The villagers’ cruelty—the way they toyed with the boy like a cat with a mouse—infuriated Yan Shixun.
He wanted to return the favor—to make them feel what it was like to be hunted and humiliated.
But this time, the roles were reversed.
—He would be the hunter.
And the villagers? They would be the prey.
To Yan Shixun, only this could bring true justice—only this could settle the karmic balance.
Yet even in his fury, he knew Zheng Shumu was right.
The villagers were already long dead. Zheng Shumu’s mother had drowned in this lake decades ago.
There was little he could do for them now.
Only Zheng Shumu, still alive, could perhaps be saved.
Yan Shixun clenched his fists at his sides, breathing heavily, trying to calm the storm within him.
Zheng Shumu slowly released his grip on Yan Shixun’s arm and took two small steps back, eyes glistening with tears as he looked once more at the lake.
Yan Shixun’s sharp features gradually softened. His lips, pressed into a straight line, seemed to be holding back both anger and sorrow. He stood there for a while before finally turning around to face the woman’s body in the water.
Unlike the villagers, who had quickly dismissed the sight as unimportant, Yan Shixun—who had long traveled the mountains and rivers of the south and north—knew better. Ordinary drowned corpses did not float to the surface so quickly. Only those who died with resentment in their hearts…
Would refuse to decay quietly at the lake’s bottom. They would rise again, full of bitter energy.
Returning as vengeful ghosts.
According to folk belief, when a corpse rose from the lake, it was because even the King of Hell couldn’t bear the injustice—and had released the spirit to return for vengeance.
Yan Shixun knew full well that the King of Hell had been long gone—there was no god granting this woman revenge.
But he also knew this: the woman’s body was now filled with ghostly energy.
And that ghostly energy… where did it come from?
His gaze fell on her abdomen.
Her body had gone cold, skin pale and bluish-white—but beneath the round, swollen belly, something stirred violently from time to time, as if something inside was kicking, trying to break free.
At that very moment, Yan Shixun’s eyes flew open in shock as he turned abruptly to look at Zheng Shumu beside him.
“Zheng Tiantian…”
Yan Shixun’s lips moved slightly.
Before he could finish his words, Zheng Shumu already understood what he was about to ask.
He silently lowered his head. Crimson tears of blood trickled from his eyes, falling heavily onto the ground.
The next second, Yan Shixun saw the woman’s fingernails suddenly grow long and sharp like blades, slicing open her own stomach.
A mass of blackness was pulled out from inside her.
—It was a ghost infant!
Yan Shixun felt as though an invisible hand had clutched his throat. Darkness clouded his vision, and he struggled to breathe, suffocating from the pressure.
This wasn’t the first time he had seen a ghost infant.
Whether it was Yang Duo from Family Tomb Village, who almost became a ghost deity, or Chi Yan, who fed ghost children with the fetus in her womb, both had gained power far beyond that of ordinary humans. But even they couldn’t compare to the ghost infant before him.
In both Yang Duo’s and Chi Yan’s cases, the dominant force was always the mother.
Although Yang Duo had greatly surpassed all other vengeful spirits in the struggle to become a ghost deity because she had died while pregnant, she had little emotional connection to the fetus. The fetus merely survived by clinging to Yang Duo.
But this ghost infant was entirely different.
It had already reached full term. The mother had been at the brink of giving birth, only to die at the final moment, causing the child to suffocate to death in the womb.
The fury and resentment born from being denied reincarnation at the very last step were so intense and deep that they far surpassed all other emotions. The ghost infant, consumed by rage, bore a blind hatred for the human world and everyone in it.
What made it even more dangerous was that the mother had harbored deep hope and affection for this child.
The woman willingly split open her own stomach, sacrificing her corpse to deliver the infant. This act caused all the ghostly energy originally gathered in her body to flow into the infant, following her will.
From the moment of its birth, this ghost infant was destined to become a powerful ghost king, far above ordinary vengeful spirits.
Yan Shixun’s heart pounded in fear. Then he remembered—everything he was witnessing now was what Zheng Shumu had wanted to show him.
It had all happened decades ago.
No matter what he saw, it couldn’t change anything.
This ghost infant had already grown over the decades into something beyond control.
And the identity of this ghost infant…
It was Zheng Tiantian.
In that instant, Yan Shixun felt as if his heart had sunk to the bottom of a lake, cold and piercing.
He couldn’t help but wonder—having arrived decades too late, how could he possibly reverse a fate that had long since been sealed?
Yan Shixun gave a bitter laugh in his heart and sighed. Heaven had truly handed him a riddle with no answer.
This question…
Was unanswerable.
Yet the scene Zheng Shumu wanted to show him wasn’t over.
Black blood gradually spread across the surface of the lake.
The woman raised the black lump of flesh high above her head with both hands, then swam from the lake toward the shore, her body soaked as she stepped onto the land.
The damp ground dirtied her legs and the hem of her skirt. Her internal organs and intestines spilled from her torn-open abdomen, dragging on the ground. With every stiff, slow step she took, they swayed and scattered, then were crushed under her own unaware footsteps.
With no swaddling cloth, she tore her own clothes to wrap the infant in her hands.
With no food, she fed the newborn—born from her hope and hatred—with her own blood.
The woman held the infant in her arms with motherly affection, as if death had never touched them. Using vocal cords that were gradually stiffening, she hummed a hoarse, raspy lullaby, gently rocking the child to sleep.
The ghostly energy and power flowed with her blood, transferring from the woman to the infant.
The originally pitch-black baby quickly grew and took form. Its skin became soft again, its cheeks rosy and cute. It smacked its lips like it had eaten its fill and slept peacefully in the woman’s arms.
Meanwhile, the woman grew weaker as her body deteriorated and her strength faded.
By the time she reached the fields, she could no longer support herself. She collapsed heavily onto the ground, her body falling apart into a pile of bones.
But even then, she had used the last of her strength to keep the sleeping infant from being startled awake by the fall.
Her skeleton lay still amid the weeds, lovingly watching the child she had birthed with all her life and ghostly power.
The weeds rustled.
A boy in tattered clothes appeared on the ridge between the fields.
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