Chapter 64.2 Deserted Village 06
<Previous Chapter<Table of Contents>Next Chapter>
The old professor’s gaze remained calm as he turned to Du Shuo. “Mr. Du, do you think she’s telling the truth?”
Du Shuo: “No trace of a bloody aura.”
The old professor nodded and addressed Xu A’ni, “Did you hear that? Even mischievous spirits have their strengths and weaknesses. Not all supernatural beings can simply don someone’s skin and impersonate them. Firstly, you’re not adept at such skills. Now, tell me, why did you follow us into the deserted village?”
Xu A’ni looked at Du Shuo, and spoke lightly, “Ask him. He knows everything.” Then, she scanned all the ordinary people and celestial masters present, her gaze ethereal yet particularly fierce. She suddenly laughed. “He can save you but refuses to intervene, watching you fall into despair. The starving ghosts, ghost larvae, and dried-up corpses in the deserted village could be effortlessly dealt with if he took action. Yet, he chooses to stand by and see you all in desperation. Don’t believe me? Didn’t he recognize me and bring me here? I’m a zombie.”
The celestial masters were naturally not swayed by her words, but it might not be the same for the ordinary people. Some of them looked at Du Shuo with suspicion. Seeing this, Chen Yang pulled Du Shuo, who was a head taller than him, behind him. “Xu A’ni? You followed the professor and the others for two reasons: to protect the professor and to expose the starving ghosts and ghost cocoons in the deserted village. The thick fog that caused the bus to accidentally enter the village was also your doing. The goal was to provide sustenance for the starving ghosts in the deserted village. As for the others who intruded here—” He pointed at three young individuals, “They were originally residents of the deserted village.”
The three youths looked uneasy and slightly frightened. As for the other six people, their faces contorted in anger upon hearing that Xu Ani was the culprit behind the dense fog that had led the bus astray. However, the sight of Xu Ani’s grotesque visage quickly replaced their anger with fear.
Xu A’ni tilted her head. “You’re mostly right, but it’s too late. The incident in the deserted village will be exposed. There are more people who believe in ghosts than gods. As long as they have seen ghosts…” She paused for a moment, her face suddenly stern. “Chen Yang, what kind of relationship do you have with him?”
She pointed at Du Shuo, who walked to her and drew out his peachwood sword, plunging it into her heart. Before Xu A’ni lost consciousness, she only heard Du Shuo say, “Husband and wife.”
Xu A’ni suddenly burst into laughter. “Chen Yang, do you know that your bedmate has been deceiving you all along?”
“I just found out about Brother Du’s identity. Your instigation came a step too late,” Chen Yang said in a hushed tone, taking advantage of her confusion to throw a lit talisman onto her. The fire quickly ignited, reducing Xu A’ni’s body to ashes.
Zhao Yao suddenly rushed forward. “We haven’t asked about Zhao Gang’s whereabouts.”
“I’m guessing that if you call Zhao Gang after leaving the deserted village, you’ll be able to hear his voice on the phone.” Chen Yang stopped Zhao Yao.
Zhao Yao felt much more at ease after listening, but she was still surprised. “Was he really ‘Xu A’ni’? No wonder he seemed feminine. When did he sneak in?” She asked Du Shuo, “How did you figure out she’s a trouble? Is it resolved now?”
Du Shuo, with a cold and understated aura, turned the space within two meters of him into a vacuum zone. He didn’t want to answer, but Chen Yang was also waiting for him to answer. “Brother Du?” Against Chen Xiaoyang’s curious, puzzled, and admiring gaze, Du Shuo had no resistance at all.
Du Shuo raised his hand, patted down Chen Yang’s cowlick, pinched his neck gently, and said mildly, “I’ve seen her before, so I recognized her. Besides, it’s inevitable that someone from Wu Lingjiu’s side will infiltrate the deserted village. They’ll disguise themselves as humans, so it could be Zhao Gang or someone else.”
Chief Witch Yi asked, “So, Xu A’ni is one of the masterminds, and now she’s been dealt with?”
“No. She escaped,” Du Shuo said indifferently, “As a zombie hovering at the level of a flying zombie, she has many means of escape.”
Chen Yang: “I’ll go after her.”
Du Shuo pulled him back. “No need for you to go.”
No need for him to go? That meant someone else would pursue the fleeing Xu A’ni. Chen Yang subconsciously scanned the room, realizing that Chonky had already run out some time ago. Xu A’ni was a millennium-old zombie, and Chonky was a millennium-old cat ghost. Moreover, Chonky bore the sins judged by Fengdu, and with additional merits, he might not be incapable of dealing with that millennium-old zombie.
“Leave Xu A’ni to that cat ghost. In addition to her, there are starving ghosts, dried-up corpses, and the well-fish curse in the deserted village. You deal with these matters first. Wu Lingjiu hasn’t appeared in the deserted village.” Du Shuo patted Chen Yang on the shoulder, pushed him forward a step, and kissed him on the cheek while he was still distracted. Chen Yang came to his senses abruptly and looked at the others in the room first.
Chief Witch Yi and the others remained unfazed, indicating they had long been aware of the relationship between Director Du and Chen Yang. Chen Yang whispered, “Be more discreet, it’s not a good influence.” There were still children around.
With unwavering composure, Du Shuo pulled Chen Xiaoyang in for a few more kisses. Blushing, Chen Xiaoyang said awkwardly, “Wu Lingjiu isn’t in the deserted village, so let’s not worry about that. Drive the starving ghosts into hell, let the dried-up corpses rest in peace, and as for the unnamed tablets in the ancestral hall and the fish in the well…” Chen Yang’s expression turned cold as he sternly demanded, “You need to explain everything!”
The three youths were startled, realizing that Chen Yang was pointing at them. “What does it have to do with us? We’re not villagers from the deserted village. You have no evidence, so don’t make baseless accusations. The villagers from the deserted village have long moved away. We don’t know where they’ve scattered. Don’t accuse us randomly.”
Chief Witch Yi and Liu Quanning shifted their steps, blocking the escape route of the three youths. Seeing this, one of them grabbed the baby from the woman beside him and threatened, “Let us go! You’ve been wanting to kill us, haven’t you? Just because we poured the fish soup into your water flasks, you hold a grudge! Please, what’s wrong with what we did? We just didn’t want to die. Ask them, don’t they also want you to be trapped in the deserted village like them? Everyone is selfish. I haven’t done anything wrong.”
The woman, robbed of her child, cried out in despair. If not for those nearby holding her back, she might have rushed forward to become a new hostage. Chen Yang reached behind his back, removed the red string, and let the ancient copper coin on it slide through his palm and clip between his fingers. He said, “I didn’t intend to harm you. I just want you to reveal the secret of the water burial in the deserted village. If you haven’t done anything wrong, why are you so afraid?”
The young man broke down and cried, “We’ve been saying we have nothing to do with the deserted village. We were just having fun.”
Chen Yang: “Oh, today, I saw a ghost cocoon in the woods near the deserted village. The corpse inside was very fresh, dead for no more than two or three days. In the woods, there are other ghost cocoons, ones that have been there for a month, half a year, or a year. The deserted village has been abandoned for many years, so how can there be ghost cocoons without anyone living here? The ghost cocoons are tree burials, the funeral ritual of the deserted village residents. Therefore, the bodies inside the ghost cocoons are all villagers from the deserted village. These bodies, not yet completely decomposed, have special markings.”
The young man holding the baby looked bewildered. “W-what markings?”
“Spiral patterns.” The young man froze, and Chen Yang took the opportunity to throw an ancient coin, hitting him square on the forehead. The young man winced in pain, loosening his grip on the baby. Chief Witch Yi quickly caught the child and returned it to the woman’s arms. Chen Yang kicked over the young man. The other two, attempting to flee, were subdued by Liu Quanning and Celestial Master Zhong.
The three were tied up, pleading and denying in terror. Chen Yang unbuttoned the clothes of one of them, and the others gasped in horror, their skin breaking into goosebumps. The young man’s chest and back were densely packed with spiral patterns, forming a terrifying image of a demon. It looked incredibly frightening, with layers upon layers of these small, thumbnail-sized spirals covering the young man’s body.
The other two youths also had these spiral patterns on their bodies. They had long possessed these spiral patterns, deliberately serving fish soup to others back then. They cried out, “We were just too miserable and confused for a moment. Honestly, from our fifteenth birthday, we started growing these spiral patterns. These spiral patterns are alive. They gnaw at our flesh and blood, gnawing down to the bare bones. We must feed them the blackfish from the well in the deserted village’s ancestral hall, but the more we feed them, the more spiral patterns grow on our bodies. When they’re hungry, they all wake up and devour us. The pain of having our skin and flesh torn open is truly terrifying. We didn’t want this either.”
Chen Yang: “Isn’t it the consequence of your own actions?”
At these words, one of the youths excitedly retorted, “It’s not us! It’s our elders! They took the wrong path with cruelty. What does it have to do with us? Our elders are our elders, and we are us. Since those things sought revenge on our elders, why should they retaliate against us?”
Chen Yang: “If you can distinguish yourselves from your own elders, why lure outsiders into becoming sacrifices for the water burial? Why make so many people drink the fish soup?”
“W-what luring of outsiders? Making them drink the fish soup was our fault. But for other things, we don’t know anything.”
Chen Yang continued, “Yesterday, in the coffin behind the ancestral hall’s memorial tablets, there was a corpse that originally belonged to your group, your companion. However, he encountered an attack from starving ghosts and died. This morning, I found that he had undergone a water burial, with dismembered body parts thrown into the well. I remember he didn’t have spiral patterns on his body. He wasn’t a villager from the deserted village.” He then turned to Celestial Master Zhong for confirmation.
Celestial Master Zhong nodded. “Indeed, he didn’t have spiral patterns, and it was their idea to place their companion in the coffin behind the ancestral hall. Speaking of which, they also claimed to have discovered the coffins and ancestral hall by accident. Thinking about it, they must have known all along.”
Out of the eight youths who had sneaked in, only three survived until now. Excluding the one who died in the ancestral hall, the whereabouts of the remaining four were unknown. However, it was certain that one among the four didn’t have spiral patterns, meaning they weren’t villagers from the deserted village. They were instigated to explore the deserted village but were actually intended as sacrifices to feed the blackfish in the well.
The old professor took out a notebook recording today’s observations of the ghost cocoon corpses and said, “Almost all the bodies that haven’t decomposed have spiral patterns, and these bodies mostly died within the past six months. The abandoned village has been deserted for a considerable time, so the presence of such a large number of tree burial bodies is perplexing. Unless there’s a compelling reason for your return and a mandate for tree burial near the abandoned village after death. Furthermore, most of the people who died in the ghost cocoons are quite young, not exceeding forty years old.”
Zhao Yao: “It’s like a curse. Even if you move away from the deserted village, you’re forced to come back to continue the cycle. And all of this is closely related to the well in the ancestral hall and those unnamed memorial tablets.”
Chen Yang: “My speculation is that the deserted village often faced famines, and the corpses of the deceased piled up on the Egui Mountains. Your ancestors obtained some dark art, ostensibly practicing water burials but actually using human flesh to sacrifice to the river god, in order to ensure good weather and bountiful harvests for your village. Those who were ‘water-buried’ were all from other villages. Their bodies were dismembered after their ‘accidental’ deaths and fed to the fish. To prevent these unjust souls from complaining in the underworld, your ancestors built the ancestral hall, set up nameless memorial tablets, and imprisoned the unjust souls inside. Unable to seek revenge or reincarnate, day after day, they possessed the black fish, becoming ghost resentments.”
The well in the ancestral hall had an underground current connecting to a river in the deserted village. All villagers drew and used water from this river, unknowingly ingesting the curse of the ghost resentments. As a result, descendants suffered from strange illnesses. Those who consumed the curse in the well died mysteriously, while those who didn’t would from strange illnesses until death.
The parents of the three youths died this way. They didn’t want to be tormented by strange illnesses or die prematurely, so they came to the deserted village seeking a way to lift the curse. Luring outsiders was an ongoing sin for the deserted village. Since there were so few blackfish, they would eventually be consumed. Hence, they needed to continue luring outsiders to feed the blackfish.
Zhao Yao shivered, rubbing her arms in horror. “Are they still human? They’re more terrifying than those starving ghosts outside. At least the starving ghosts openly express their intention to eat people. Even if you lose in a fight, you can still reincarnate. But you guys, deceiving and killing people, dismembering them, throwing them into the well to feed the fish. Then trapping the souls in the ancestral hall, forcing them to become ghost resentments. You’re really something. You deserve to be cursed. You should endure these curse generation after generation, never finding liberation for ten lifetimes.”
The three youths’ faces turned pale. “We didn’t want this either. If we had a choice, we wouldn’t want to kill.”
“You could have chosen not to, but you were selfish,” Chen Yang said indifferently. Du Shuo had warned him about the cycle of karma and retribution, and it seemed to hold true. They had to resolve the ghost resentments in the ancestral hall, or more people would be killed. He stood up and addressed Chief Witch Yi, “There’s a new corpse in the coffin in the ancestral hall. There might be another water burial tonight.”
Chief Witch Yi: “Who will conduct the water burial?”
Chen Yang: “The villagers from the deserted village among the ghost cocoons in the woods.”
Chief Witch Yi nodded. “Understood.”
If you enjoy this novel, support the Translator ginevre on her ko-fi account :))
<Previous Chapter<Table of Contents>Next Chapter>
