Chapter 53: A Matter of the Heart

A cold evening wind swept through.

Li Zhuiyuan and Runsheng shivered at the same time—then both noticed something uncanny: the two men who had been playing cards under the mourning tent were now inexplicably seated on top of a grave.

All around them, bathed in moonlight, stood rows of red-and-green two- and three-story houses. Beside them was Granny Niu’s grave, still topped with a fresh mound of earth.

“I want three eights with a three! I want three eights with a three!”

A shrill, eerie woman’s voice rang out beside them, chanting the card game.

Li Zhuiyuan and Runsheng exchanged glances. Runsheng stepped in front to shield him, and they crept around the mound to its far side.

There, to their shock, was a hole. The entrance was jagged, smeared with bloody handprints—it looked like someone had clawed it open barehanded.

Peering in, they saw the grave hollowed out. A woman lay inside, hands raw and bloodied. Her left hand mimicked holding playing cards, the right flung out as if dealing them.

“I want three eights with a three!”

She kept twisting her face in a manic frenzy, sending hair and dirt flying. It was Niu Lian—Granny Niu’s youngest daughter.

She had dug into her mother’s grave with her own hands and crawled inside.

But within the grave, aside from the thick stench of decay and a foul puddle of murky water, all they saw was a crumpled straw mat—no trace of Granny Niu’s remains.

Even in a burial, there should be a coffin. These days it wasn’t the post-war era with mass graves. Granny Niu must’ve used a rented coffin during the wake and had it swapped out before burial—to save the cost of a proper one. The reason was obvious.

Li Zhuiyuan instinctively clamped his nose shut, fighting the urge to gag. Runsheng, however, seemed unfazed.

As the imaginary card game ended, Niu Lian seemed to regain a flicker of lucidity—but just barely.

“No more playing, huh? Fine. Then I’ll get back to work.”

She mimed throwing down her cards and turned to keep digging with her bare hands.

If she kept going, the grave might collapse and bury her alive.

“Hey, stop digging! It’s dangerous! Let me help you!” Runsheng called out.

But Li Zhuiyuan caught his arm.

“What is it, Xiaoyuan?”

“Go check on your grandpa. He might be in danger!”

“Oh, right—but what about her...”

“Who’s more important?”

“Grandpa!”

Without hesitation, Runsheng grabbed Li Zhuiyuan and bolted for the mourning tent.

They arrived, panting, but the Niu brothers were nowhere to be seen.

Instead, Liu Jinxia was crawling in circles around the altar, meowing like a cat. Her palms were raw, leaving a dense trail of bloody prints on the ground.

Grandpa Shan was barking “woof woof woof” by a tree, one leg raised like a dog urinating. The urine soaked through his clothes, making a sorry sight.

When he was done, he even started clawing at the tree roots with all four limbs.

“Grandpa!” Runsheng cried out. “What’s happening to you?”

The shout snapped both elders’ attention toward them.

Like beasts, they dropped to all fours—one cat-like, the other dog-like—charging them with feral glares.

Runsheng spread his arms to shield Li Zhuiyuan. “Xiaoyuan, get back!”

Li Zhuiyuan obeyed, stepping back two paces. Then two more, just to be safe.

In the next second:

Liu Jinxia pounced on Runsheng, wrapped her legs around his waist, and began clawing and biting at his chest.

Grandpa Shan latched onto one of Runsheng’s legs and bit into his thigh, tearing out a chunk of flesh—along with two of his own old teeth.

“Grandpa, what’s wrong with you?! What’s wrong?!”

Runsheng didn’t fight back. He just stared down anxiously at his grandpa gnawing on him.

Li Zhuiyuan shouted, “Fight back! Don’t just stand there!”

“But... he’s my grandpa. How can I hit him?”

“Remember the book I showed you? It said corpse demons can mess with your mind—just like that card game trance. The way to break the illusion is to slap them. Hard!”

Actually, the book listed other methods too—pure yang black dog’s blood, rune water, consecrated artifacts.

But Li Zhuiyuan doubted any dog blood around here came from a chaste, pure-yang mutt—village dogs were notoriously unchaste.

As for rune water, he hadn’t read far enough to understand what it was.

And consecrated artifacts? Real ones required spiritual refinement. No way the Linyi Furniture Factory had a bunch of Taoist masters blessing their peachwood swords on the assembly line.

So that left the simplest method: beat sense into them. If one slap didn’t work, try more.

Runsheng hesitated. “Will that really work?”

Even as he was being torn apart by two crazed elders, his tone stayed calm—as if it weren’t his own body under attack.

Li Zhuiyuan stood firm. “You’re saving them. If you don’t snap them out of it, they’ll keep hurting themselves. Hit them!”

Your Grandpa Shan’s gonna chew your leg down to the bone and lose all his teeth!

“Alright, I trust you, Xiaoyuan!”

Runsheng nodded with resolve. Once he made a decision, he acted swiftly.

He grabbed Liu Jinxia by the throat and hoisted her off the ground.

She flailed wildly, but her limbs were too short to reach him.

Then, he started slapping her.

“Smack! Smack! Smack! Smack!”

Her face swelled visibly. Blood ran from both corners of her mouth. But she finally stopped struggling. The vicious light in her eyes faded, replaced by the milky haze of cataracts.

“Wha... what’s going on...?”

“You’re amazing, Xiaoyuan!”

After praising Li Zhuiyuan, Runsheng kicked Grandpa Shan off his leg.

The old man landed face-first and skidded several feet.

Sitting up, he touched his own face—already semi-lucid—and muttered, “I... what’s going on...”

Before he could finish, his foster grandson approached with another mighty slap.

“Smack! Smack!”

Runsheng had gone gentler—only two slaps, then paused.

“Grandpa, are you back?”

“Ptooey!”

Grandpa Shan spat in Runsheng’s face—along with two teeth knocked loose by the slap.

“Still not lucid?”

Runsheng raised his hand again.

Grandpa Shan yelped, “Wait! I’m awake, I’m awake!”

“Grandpa, you’re finally back! I was so scared just now!”

Runsheng threw his arms around him.

Grandpa Shan: “…”

With Liu Jinxia and Grandpa Shan recovered, Li Zhuiyuan turned to look for his own great-grandpa—his real concern.

He found him soon enough.

And was left stunned.

Not because Li Sanjiang looked pitiful or distressed. Quite the opposite—he was still lounging in his spot, snoring away peacefully.

It was as if none of the chaos around him had touched him at all.

Relieved yet deeply puzzled by this contrast, Li Zhuiyuan recalled what had happened at home that night.

A new thought began to form.

Could it be that the Cat-faced Granny was too afraid of his great-grandpa...

To even try messing with him?

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