Chapter 883: The Plague Wretch Is Hiding Its Strength (2)

I desperately hope you don’t grow old.

But as desperately as that, I want you to grow old.

What kind of twisted story could produce such intense mixed feelings—love and hate like this?

And yet, it was a contradictory emotion that ordinary Central Plains people carried by default—

Toward the very chickens they raised!

Once an old laying hen grows so old it can’t lay eggs anymore, it fulfills its final duty through death.

Its duty as a tonic meal.

By being eaten by the owner who raised and fed it, becoming that owner’s nourishment—blood and flesh—merging into one in a solemn final Human-and-Chicken Unity.

And above all—

Chicken is delicious!

So Central Plains people wait for the day their pet chicken grows old.

But a pet chicken growing old means you can’t eat those delicious eggs anymore, so on the other hand, they also wish the chicken would never grow old—would flaunt its vigor with fresh eggs every single day.

That’s right.

Humans are that complicated.

Even in Qing’s homeland, wouldn’t office workers constantly carry the urge to quit their jobs and, at the same time, the desire to grind it out all the way to retirement to secure severance pay and a pension?

And today, the Jang family’s hen didn’t lay an egg.

No—maybe it was yesterday.

Which meant today was whole chicken day!

You might say it’s ridiculous to make such a fuss over a single chicken.

But a chicken eaten at the very end of winter—during the poorest season, when you have to survive on the income you brought in at harvest time—was something extraordinarily special.

Once spring came, you could pick wild greens and mushrooms, and you could even go hunting.

But at the tail end of winter, for an ordinary farmer to tear into a whole chicken, reality said it was still a bit of a burden.

Of course, it wasn’t a huge burden.

But precisely because of that, it was a small but certain happiness inside everyday life.

Where else could you boil a big chicken whole and stuff your mouth with meat and chew away?

You’d tear off and eat your fill, then shred whatever was left into strips, dump glutinous rice into the meat broth, stir it around, cook chicken porridge, break it up nicely, and eat that too.

So for the Jang family, today had been a truly long day.

How was it still winter, yet the sun was so long and refused to set?

And finally, the wife’s cooking began.

Vegetable-Broth Chicken—literally, it was a dish where you boiled chicken in vegetable broth.

Originally, Central Plains Vegetable-Broth Chicken was made by bringing the broth to a rolling boil, putting in the chicken, then turning off the heat and waiting about half a two-hour watch for it to cook in the residual heat.

In Qing’s homeland terms—primitive ancient low-temperature cooking!

That was the difference from boiled chicken, since it focused less on drawing out a deeply steeped broth and more on how the chicken itself was cooked.

So Vegetable-Broth Chicken was a dish that stayed soft even in the breast meat, never dry—an uncompromising, chicken-centered dish!

So Mr. Jang, Young Mr. Jang, and Boy Jang sat around the table swallowing hard, waiting for Mrs. Jang.

But why wasn’t she coming?

It was truly One Moment Feels Like Three Years!

One Moment Feels Like Three Years meant: one moment—about the time it takes to drink a cup of tea—felt like three autumns, meaning three years.

It was an expression used when you waited for something so anxiously that time felt like it wouldn’t move.

So that frozen, infinite time passed.

And at the end of a long wait, the wife finally appeared through the side door, carrying an entire huge pot in her arms.

At last! Now! Finally!

Chicken! It’s chicken!

And therefore, Vegetable-Broth Chicken!

The big and small Jangs—eyes rolled back in a battle trance—were about to begin the aggressive disassembly of the chicken—

At that exact moment.

THUD THUD THUD!

A violent pounding rattled the door.

Just as the Jangs were about to grab the chicken’s limbs, their hands stopped, and they looked at each other.

Who invited friends today? Big one? Little one?

Not me.

Who would invite friends on a day this important?

Then who the hell is it? Who’s so damn rude they’re pounding on the door at a time like this?

But BANG BANG BANG! BANG BANG BANG!! BANG BANG BANG!!!

The pounding grew louder and louder.

Mr. Jang’s expression rotted instantly.

Tch. You have to eat it while it’s warm for it to taste right.

Still, there had to be something urgent for someone to pound on the door at a time like this—pound like they meant to break it down.

Mr. Jang let out a deep sigh, got up, and opened the door.

And there—

“Kheh-heh-heh...”

A figure like someone had thrown limp seaweed over their head—

Filthy, shiny hair tangled and knotted together covered their entire face.

But through a fissure-like vertical split—one left eye, bloodshot and bulging, glaring wide!

If the people of Qing’s homeland had seen it, it would’ve been a moment terrifying enough to stop their breathing on the spot.

If Kayako, the most infamous kind of mother ghost among ghosts, came to visit, anyone’s heart would drop through the floor.

Mr. Jang was the same—when his eyes met that single venom-filled eye, his mind went blank, his knees went weak, and he let out a huge yelp as he toppled backward onto his ass.

Is it a ghost, or is it a ghost?

A sight so dreadful you’d be afraid to see it in a dream!

“H-HUH!”

“Krrr...”

With the growl of a hell-hungry demon, the ghost sprang on all fours and launched itself toward the table.

In Mr. Jang’s upside-down view as he lay fallen with his neck craned back, the four-legged ghost—and the table visible between those four legs—seemed grotesquely huge.

“N-no! Stop it!”

But it was already too late.

“Hiiik...!” “Aaaah!!”

Mrs. Jang’s eyes went wide. She forgot to even breathe, trembling like if she looked away she’d die.

The eldest son—Young Mr. Jang—wailed and flailed, and his chair skidded back with a SCREEE, then CRASH, then—NGHK.

In the middle of it, the ghost landed on the tabletop on all fours and SNATCHED—the chicken in the pot with a blackened hand—then brought it straight to its mouth—

Boy Jang’s pupils dilated.

The ghost’s mouth split open.

How could a human mouth open that wide—rather than opening, it looked like the mouth tore apart and the lower jaw dropped off.

Boy Jang’s waistband darkened rapidly from the crotch down.

And then the ghost began to tear into the entire chicken.

No—“eat” wasn’t quite right.

“Stuff it in” was more accurate.

CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP! CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP! CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP!

The filthy sounds of stuffing food into its maw and chewing with its mouth gaping wide filled every corner.

Mrs. Jang still frozen rigid, Mr. Jang wailing in pain like his tailbone was burning, Young Mr. Jang tangled up and flailing with his shin caught in the chair legs, Boy Jang shaking even after emptying his bladder—

In the midst of all that, the ghost whispered low.

“Heh-heh... chikkin tastes gud...!”

At that stupid little exclamation that shattered the horror in a single blow, Mr. Jang snapped back to himself.

Looking again, it wasn’t a ghost—it was that beggar bitch, the Plague Wretch bitch!

“Y-you crazy Plague Wretch bitch...!”

Mr. Jang sprang up and charged the table.

What he saw was a chicken already eaten down by a full three parts in that short time.

In a panic, he grabbed the chicken clutched in the Plague Wretch’s hand—

But—

Hngh—what kind of beggar bitch has strength like this...?!

Well, it was the Plague Wretch—Qing was a master.

Even if she weren’t, Qing’s raw muscle was already beyond humanity; without a shred of exaggeration, purely in brute strength she stood at the very top under heaven—“the human being itself is strong” was an expression made for Qing.

Mr. Jang tried to snatch the chicken back, but like he’d latched onto a stubborn ox, he couldn’t resist at all and got dragged along.

The chicken was pulled toward the Plague Wretch’s mouth, and Mr. Jang’s two hands holding the chicken were dragged toward that mouth too.

The Plague Wretch’s maw split open.

As if, if he didn’t let go right now, it would eat his fingers too.

Mr. Jang went cold inside.

No way. No way. She won’t really bite.

But Qing was the kind of person who did what she said she’d do.

And then—

CRUNCH!

“KRAAAH!!”

Mr. Jang screamed as his finger got bitten.

This crazy bitch—this crazy beggar is trying to chew live flesh! A crazy beggar, a crazy beggar!

Aaaah, someone save me!

“Father!” “Honey!”

At the head of household’s scream, Young Mr. Jang and Mrs. Jang rushed the table.

Young Mr. Jang tried with all his might to pry the Plague Wretch’s mouth open by shoving the finger in deeper, but it didn’t budge even a hair—as if he were trying to pry open a crack in solid rock.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Jang grabbed a fistful of the Plague Wretch’s hair and yanked with everything she had, but Qing’s roots were beyond human toughness, and even aside from that, hair was always hard to rip out when you grabbed it in a thick clump.

“Nggh—hhuuuuuh...!”

In the middle of this pandemonium, Boy Jang—pants soaked—burst into tears.

When a child doesn’t know what else to do, they cry.

That was the nature of children.

So for a while, the grand clash continued—Mr. Jang’s finger versus the Jang family versus the Plague Wretch’s bite force—while the background track was the wretched sound of a crying child.

“Waaah! Hwaaa! Aah! Aaaah...!”

Then—SPIT.

The Plague Wretch’s mouth opened, and Mr. Jang and Young Mr. Jang, who had been yanking with all their strength, went tumbling together—CRASH—rolling behind the table.

“Honey!”

Mrs. Jang let go of the hair she’d been clutching in shock and rushed to her husband.

Now no one remained to interfere with the Plague Wretch’s meal.

This chicken was hers now. She could eat it however she wanted.

“Waaah... waaah... hhuuuuh...!”

But that wretched crying stirred Qing’s round, round—very round—conscience.

The father threw rocks at a beggar, and his son saw it and threw them too—children learning by watching their parents really was like that.

But this little kid hadn’t been there back then, had he?

From the less-mangled side of the now-ruined Vegetable-Broth Chicken, Qing tore off a big piece of soft, moist, juice-packed brown thigh meat.

Then she slipped it right into the mouth of the child bawling his eyes out.

“Waaah—chep-chep—waaah—chep—hwaaa—chep-chep.”

Even while crying, if something delicious entered your mouth, you had to cry and eat at the same time.

That was the nature of children.

With the weight on her heart lightened, Qing clamped the chicken in her mouth and fled outside on all fours.

And so, at the Jang family’s table—Mr. Jang sprawled on the ground, the eldest son and wife slumped nearby, stunned into stillness.

Chep-chep, waaah— the sound of a child crying and eating.

“Honey... are you okay? Your hand—your hand’s... fine?”

And then, somehow, the expressions on the wife’s and son’s faces turned strange.

He’d screamed like his finger had been bitten off, but when they finally looked, it was perfectly fine—only a mark pressed into it.

“Ahem. That beggar bitch—the Plague Wretch—looks like she’s gone completely insane, but we’ll punish her after daybreak. For now, let’s eat first.”

But what remained on the table were only the wreckage of side-dish scraps, knocked over and spilled when the Plague Wretch climbed up.

And in the pot, nothing but broth—no chicken at all.

“...” “...” “...sniff.”

“At least there’s broth left, so let’s count ourselves lucky. Put in glutinous rice, dear. Tear in some dried meat too. Porridge is still a delicacy, isn’t it.”

“Haa...”

That was the moment.

TATATAT!

Quick footsteps rushed closer, and a black shape pounced in like a swift beast.

The Plague Wretch returns!

“Y-you crazy bitch...!”

“Yeah, you’re right where I—wait!”

Young Mr. Jang, face twisted with rage as he grabbed a chair, shouted for them to wait.

The returning Plague Wretch squatted on the tabletop and SNATCHED the pot.

Then, suddenly, the Plague Wretch grinned.

With teeth white as rice noodles—far too clean for a beggar—she smiled.

And then she swung it at the Jang family—

SPLASH!

Warmish meat broth slapped wetly over their entire bodies, leaving a clammy, miserable film.

“Hee-hee.”

“Y-you...!”

Just as Mr. Jang was about to roar, the beggar shot away like an arrow—on all fours—TATATAT—vanishing from sight.

All that remained was a wrecked table, an emptied pot, and a handful of chicken bones picked so clean they gleamed—when had she even spit them out?

“Nggh... ugh... waaah!”

Only the wretched crying of Boy Jang, bursting into tears again, filled the table.

This, then, was the miserable and horrific end of one who threw rocks at a beggar.

The Plague Wretch!

Truly terrifying—truly terrifying indeed!