Chapter 161

Inside the small general store in the township, the old man stood staring blankly at the abacus on the counter.

It had once been broken, its beads scattered all over the floor. He had picked them up one by one and repaired it.

His craftsmanship was exquisite. No outsider would have been able to tell it had ever been fixed. But he could not deceive himself. Some things, once shattered, stayed shattered in the heart.

At the old man’s feet sat a small incense burner, packed densely with incense sticks of many different kinds. Yet without exception, every single one had gone out before burning even a quarter of the way down.

In the practice of fate-reading, this was called “beheaded incense.”

When the incense dies out midway, it signifies a severed natal life-mark. When every stick does the same, it means all vitality is gone.

The old man’s expression was terrifyingly grim.

When he was young, even if he lit incense for death-row prisoners about to be executed, at least one stick out of ten would burn to the end. That did not mean there was still a chance of survival. It was simply because the principles of fate always hated fullness and sought out deficiency.

But now, when he lit incense for himself, for his wife, for his daughter-in-law, and for his two grandsons, every single stick was cut off midway. And when he lit incense for his son, who had left home, he coughed up blood three times and nearly fainted.

That meant the vitality in his family’s natal life-marks had suddenly dropped to a state far worse than that of condemned prisoners.

A condemned prisoner could still hope to hear someone shout, “Stay the execution!”

For his whole family, even that tiny shred of hope was a fantasy.

The old man muttered, “Who exactly did the main family provoke this time?”

The main family had unsealed the summons and called for members of the branch families. Clearly, it was for some major undertaking. He was too old, so his son had answered the call in his place.

Now it seemed the matter had not only failed, it had also triggered an unimaginably dreadful karmic backlash.

Judging from the incense, the old man no longer even had the will to flee and hide. There was no point. He could neither escape it nor outrun it.

“What are you spacing out for? The rolling shutter is broken. Hurry up and fix it.”

His old wife came over with a rag in her hand.

The old man nodded numbly, got to his feet, and went upstairs to fetch his tools.

His wife called after his back, “How much longer before our son comes home from visiting relatives this time? I miss him.”

The old man replied, “No rush. Our whole family will be reunited very soon.”

Along the town’s main street, the first floor was a shop, the second floor was their living quarters, and the third floor was an illegally added level they had built themselves. In the past, only the old man and his son were allowed up there, and it was usually kept locked with an iron padlock.

Recently, the old man had started bringing his two grandsons up there from time to time, teaching them to recognize certain talismans and memorize certain arts.

From the outside, their household looked only moderately well-off, nothing close to rich or powerful. But some things could never be bought with money, no matter how much one had.

For example, the destiny of one’s own family.

Before the daughter-in-law entered the family, her natal life-mark had already been read. She was destined to bear sons, and her fate was compatible with the family’s. She should have brought blessings, good fortune, and peace.

The two grandsons had only just begun their “lessons,” but they already showed exceptional talent in this line of work. In the future, they would be able to inherit the craft. But according to the main family’s tradition, once they came of age, they too would have to split off into separate branches and scatter like fallen leaves, never seeing one another again for the rest of their lives.

For ordinary people, whether it was weddings or funerals, asking for fortune-telling or divination was just part of the process, a way to feel reassured. Anyone who truly believed in it usually had a bit of foolishness in them.

But for this family, these things were real and tangible. A modest but prosperous life, ancestral blessings, freedom from illness and disaster, passed down from generation to generation.

As the old man climbed the stairs, he heard the sound of a ceiling fan turning in the second-floor living room.

Winter had already begun. Who would still be running a fan?

When he reached the doorway to the second floor, he saw his daughter-in-law and his two grandsons hanging there in the living room.

The spinning fan stirred their hair.

Their faces were blue-green, their tongues protruded, and rigor mortis had already set in.

They had clearly eaten breakfast together not long ago. How much time had passed? And yet they were already like this.

The old man wiped his eyes, picked up the tools from the corner of the living room, and walked back downstairs.

The rolling shutter of the first-floor shop was already closed. His wife, who had been speaking to him just moments ago, was pressed flat against it, shriveled and emptied, as if all her flesh and blood had been sucked out, leaving behind nothing but a sheet of blessed paper.

Terror filled her eyes, as though she had seen something unspeakably horrifying.

The old man set down his tools and drew in a deep breath.

He knew that next, it would be his turn.

He closed his eyes.

Then ghostly figures appeared one after another beside him. Some could be found recorded in the local gazetteers. Others looked exactly like the statues enshrined in nearby temples.

The old man’s body began to twist and fold in on itself. The sounds of bones snapping and flesh tearing rang out without end. Agony spread across his face. He wanted to scream, but no sound would come.

Worse, the process was slow, as though the local specters had deliberately chosen to drag this punishment out for as long as possible.

By the time everything was over, a group of mischievous children came running past outside. One of them used the incense in his hand to light a small firecracker. By strange coincidence, he tossed it upward and it landed through a second-floor window.

Bang!

The children, afraid the homeowner would come out and scold them, scattered at once like startled birds.

But the fire caught.

It started on the second floor, then spread to the first and third.

Neighbors and the people from nearby shops rushed over as soon as they saw the blaze. But for some reason, though they had heard the woman of the house mention days earlier that the rolling shutter was broken, now no matter how hard they kicked or smashed at it, they could not force it open. All they could do was fetch water and try splashing it inside from below.

The flames raged fiercely. Tongues of fire poured from the windows in a terrifying sight.

But the fire was strangely selective. It burned only this one building. The neighbors on both sides had assumed they would be caught in it as well, only to discover in shock that the flames did not spread outward at all.

After the fire engines arrived, the blaze was finally extinguished, and the rolling shutter collapsed with it.

But the inside had already been burned beyond recognition. Two bodies on the first floor, three on the second. At most, only vague human shapes could still be made out.

Even the firefighters, seasoned as they were, were stunned by how bizarre the fire was. Logically, this was not some factory storing special materials. In an ordinary residential fire, things should never have burned to this extent.

The onlookers gossiped endlessly too. A story like this would likely become one of those horrifying extermination tales passed around the local area for ten, twenty, or even more years.

Only the elderly people, huddled together, muttered under their breath:

“What kind of sin did this family commit?”

...

“Do you really think it works?”

“I didn’t believe it either at first, but Old Qiu said so himself. He came here, invited his late mother, and even spoke to her. You know what kind of person Old Qiu is. He’s shrewd as hell. He wouldn’t be fooled so easily. So this old medium must really have some ability.”

“Then let’s give it a try.”

The husband and wife carried gifts and red envelopes in their pockets as they followed the village path to the home of a local spirit medium.

Once they entered the yard, they found all the doors and windows tightly shut, with no sign of anyone inside.

“Is anyone home?”

“Hello? Excuse me, is anyone home?”

They called out for a long while, but got no answer.

The husband pressed his face against the living room door and peered through the dark glass in the middle.

The moment he looked, his eyes widened.

The living room was full of the family’s dismembered corpses.

The sight was so shocking that his mind had not even caught up when his gaze lifted higher, and he saw the spirit medium sitting on the long household altar cabinet in bright red clothing, pulling out her own intestines and stuffing them into her mouth as she gnawed on them.

“Ah—!!”

...

“Forget about me! Run! Run!”

With tears in his eyes, the man abandoned his older male cousin, who had been cut in half at the waist by an iron slab, and began running out of the tomb.

Originally, they had gone deep into the mountains that day for nothing more than to locate an ancient tomb and gather some materials. Before leaving, they had done the calculations. The trip was supposed to be favorable and smooth.

But who could have known that after the team entered the mountains, they would first encounter a sudden outbreak of miasma, then find the pointer on their Bagua Compass malfunctioning? Luckily, they were no ordinary people. After overcoming those difficulties, they finally found the tomb.

The tomb itself was not dangerous. It was only a small Qing-era landlord’s grave.

With their setup, a tomb like that should have been an easy job.

But once they went down, the corridor first became impossibly long, and they ran into a ghost-wall. Then came ghostly howls. After that, one bizarre danger after another kept erupting.

They had only come to “borrow” a few things from a landlord’s small tomb, yet what they encountered was more perilous than some imperial mausoleums.

Though every one of them was highly capable, they still died one after another inside. When the last man came sobbing out, he had only just crawled out of the tomb entrance when he saw that the area around the opening was packed with dense, sinister figures standing there.

He was overcome with despair.

...

At the doorway of the old house, the old woman who had been mending shoe soles sat on her little chair.

Dead.

She had used her own needle to pry out her eyeballs and placed them in her sewing box.

Her family members, old and young, men and women alike, everyone who came close and called out to her, silently sat down beside her, took the needle from her hand, gouged out their own eyes, and placed them into the sewing box.

By nightfall, the sewing box was overflowing with eyeballs, some already rolling out.

The whole family sat gathered around the old woman.

Under the moonlight, they looked like a picture of domestic harmony.

...

When the old man who liked to fish with a straight hook saw that all the koi in his pond had floated belly-up dead, he ran back to the ancestral home with an ashen face.

His family was not skilled at head-on combat. Their foundation as a clan lay in deduction and calculation. On top of that, they excelled at hiding, avoiding karma, and practicing the method of splitting the family into separate branches living apart. That was how they had evaded disaster and prolonged their lineage.

But the reverse was true as well.

If their burrow was found by an enemy, their end would inevitably be miserable beyond words.

In the shadows, they were terrifying.

But once dragged into the sunlight, they were actually very weak.

Now that the location of the main family had been discovered, could those branch families really hope to escape?

The ancestral residence was large, but there were not many people in it, and the place felt cold and empty.

He ran into the Ancestral Hall and saw a middle-aged man kneeling on a prayer mat.

That was his son. After the old man had grown advanced in years, he had passed the position of family head of the main branch to him.

His other two sons had both split off into branch families, settling in other provinces under different surnames to continue the line. As long as they lived, they were forbidden to return home.

“The last time you unsealed the summons and called the branch families back, what exactly was it for? What exactly was it for?!”

The old man shouted himself hoarse, but his son did not react at all.

Clatter... clatter...

When he looked up again, the old man was horrified to see that every memorial tablet on the offering table had fallen to the ground.

His son’s body tipped forward, while wisps of black qi rose from him.

“Grandpa, it hurts!”

“Grandpa, it hurts so much!”

Crying rang out from the courtyard.

The old man immediately ran out of the Ancestral Hall and saw that his grandson and granddaughter, who had once been as delicate and lovely as porcelain dolls, now had faces twisted into savage, grotesque shapes as they crouched on the ground and began curling up in unnatural ways.

“Who are you? Who are you really? What grudge does my family have against you? Why go this far? Why go this far?!”

The old man rushed forward, preparing to drive the evil out of his grandchildren. But just as he was about to act, the two children suddenly sprang up like vicious ghosts possessing living bodies and bit into his chest and neck.

Looking at his grandson and granddaughter, their glabella dark purple and their eyes rolled entirely white, the old man knew there was no saving them.

They could not be brought back.

Only an exceptionally terrifying vengeful ghost, one willing to destroy its own cultivation, could forcibly possess a body and, in so short a time, smash away a person’s soul and consciousness.

Two streams of tears slid down the old man’s face as he howled unwillingly:

“No matter how great the grudge, why did you have to lay hands on the children? How could you do this to children?!”

...

Fengdu, Ghost Street.

Most of the time, this county town was quiet and peaceful. Although tourists from other places had gradually become more common in recent years, the town was only truly packed and bustling during holidays or temple fairs.

On an ordinary day, the weather forecast had been predicting sunshine for several days in a row, yet in reality the skies had stayed dark and overcast for just as many days.

The locals were long used to that sort of thing, so they did not bother complaining that the weather bureau was incompetent and getting paid for nothing. After all, there was an old saying in the area:

The weather in Fengdu depends on the mood of The Great Emperor of Fengdu.

At last, the rain passed and the skies cleared.

The sun finally came out, and on the gloomy Fengdu Ghost Street, which had been stifling for days, people began to appear again.

Little by little, people started noticing that many of the ghost statues and ghost carvings in front of the shops had developed cracks. Many of the deity statues in the scenic area had cracked as well.

In the center of the county stood a sculpture topped by a giant ghost head, something of a local landmark.

At some point, no one knew when, that ghost head had fallen from its high perch to the ground. It hit no one, yet it had made no sound at all when it landed.

When a construction crew arrived with equipment and a crane to reinstall it, the moment they disturbed it, bright red fluid began gushing from inside the ghost head. After pooling into a large puddle, it flowed into the stream beside the street and stained the downstream waters red.

The younger people only found it curious and treated it as little more than conversation material.

But in households with elderly people, braziers were set outside, candles lit, and paper offerings burned.

As they burned the paper, they kowtowed and scolded the younger people nearby who looked on with disdain.

“What do you little idiots know? The Great Emperor is angry, angry!”

...

Ah Li was playing the zither.

But today, her music kept being interrupted by noise.

That noise did not come from her heart. In fact, ever since the young man had forcibly used The Twelve Edicts of Fengdu to drag out an entire spirit and form, her inner world had been frighteningly quiet these past two days.

At night, even when she entered that dream, there was no movement outside the threshold. Even the whispering was gone. It was so quiet a pin drop could be heard, and that actually made her a little unaccustomed to it.

One source of noise came from the second floor. Every so often, a thread of killing intent would radiate from her grandmother.

Another came from the kitchen. The kitchen door had been sealed with forbidden talismans, and every time Aunt Liu went in or out, she painstakingly removed the seal first and then restored it afterward.

Originally, there had been another source of noise in the courtyard, but Uncle Qin had left the house yesterday.

The loudest noise came from the third floor.

The room that had once held the memorial tablets was now locked.

The first time Ah Li wanted to go up and take some memorial tablets as materials, she had failed to get her grandmother’s permission.

Ah Li did not insist and simply returned downstairs.

Because at that moment, she could sense that behind the door, many terrifying things had appeared.

Those were special objects her grandmother had ordered Uncle Qin to bring out from the old residences of the Qin Clan and the Liu Clan.

There was no way she could keep playing the zither. With so much “noise” around, she could not settle her mind to do anything.

The old her would not have been disturbed by such things. She had long been used to them.

But now that she had gradually become accustomed to quiet, she found she could no longer go back.

Ah Li got up, left the zither table, and stepped out of the study, just in time to run into Aunt Liu, who had just finished affixing the sealing talismans to the kitchen.

Aunt Liu gave Ah Li a gentle smile.

Ah Li looked at her and smiled too.

Aunt Liu suddenly felt a stab of pain in her heart.

Ah Li was becoming more and more obedient, more and more normal. If only days like this could continue peacefully forever, how wonderful that would be.

Aunt Liu knew very well that deep down, Granny Liu was probably regretting things too.

In truth, Aunt Liu was mistaken.

Ah Li’s smile was not for her personally, but for what they were doing.

The girl knew what they were worrying about and what they were preparing for, but from her perspective, all of it was meaningless.

How could he possibly fail?

How could he possibly lose?