Chapter 48: Scaring Away the Evil

Unexpectedly, Kuang Hongyi's reaction was even more intense than Yang Xiao's, "Impossible. I was guarding right outside the door; how could I not have seen any children?"

Not daring to talk back to Kuang Hongyi, Su Tingting had to explain aggrievedly, "It's true, you must believe me. I was scared silly at the time too. Oh, right, at that moment Mr. Chu had stopped at the 4th Offering Platform, and I even interrupted the singing to remind him. Those children were right beside him!"

Yang Xiao nodded and gave Su Tingting a reassuring look, "That did happen. Come to think of it, I have to thank you."

Kuang Hongyi scrutinized Su Tingting's face with an unkind gaze, and after a moment, his tone carried a hint of threat, "I'm warning you: if it's there, it's there; if it's not, it's not. In previous Scripts, I've encountered precedents where newcomers fabricated lies to protect themselves or to highlight their own importance. In the end, those people met very ugly ends."

"I wouldn't, I wouldn't do that!" Su Tingting caught the subtext in Kuang Hongyi's words; compared to Chu Xi, this Kuang Hongyi was far more terrifying.

"Alright, Brother Kuang, if you scare her any more, she won't dare to speak even if there really are clues." Yang Xiao smiled, then turned his head to look at Su Tingting, "Continue, what features did these children have? Were they boys or girls? The more detailed, the better."

"They were... they should be girls. They were dressed in rags, and their hair was tied in braids—that very old-fashioned, sky-pointing style. Every single one of them," Su Tingting recalled.

"Girls..." Yang Xiao had an ominous premonition, "What kind of clothes were they wearing?"

"They were covered in dirt from head to toe, all dusty and gray, as if they had just rolled around in the dirt. But... but I could tell a little, they seemed to be wearing... they seemed to be wearing green clothes. Yes, they were green, both the tops and the pants!"

Yang Xiao's first reaction was the phrase "red men and green women"; these children wearing green clothes meant they were likely girls, but where would so many girls come from in the Feng Mansion?

"Wait." Kuang Hongyi noticed something wrong, "You just said these ghost children were covered in dust. How come? Shouldn't they be soaking wet?"

"No, no, no, these children are different from those... those things watching the opera under the stage. They don't have water on them; they are all covered in dirt, filthy." Judging by her lip movements, Su Tingting had originally wanted to say they were different from those ghosts, but perhaps out of fear, she changed it to "those things" on the fly.

However, Yang Xiao had seen those drowned ghosts with his own eyes—bloated and rotting all over, their skin turned white from being soaked in water, their faces looking as if they were melting. They were very easy to identify.

A new problem emerged: according to Su Tingting's description, the girls were different from the other servants and maids in the Feng Mansion; they had not died by drowning.

If they didn't die by drowning, it meant these girls were not killed by Xi Yao. Then who had harmed them?

Since they could be attracted by the Ghost Opera, it meant the corpses of these girls were buried nearby—that is, somewhere within the Feng Mansion. This matter definitely had to be related to the Feng Family!

Suddenly, Kuang Hongyi seemed to think of something and gasped, "Damn it, I know where these girls came from!"

Forcing himself to calm down, Kuang Hongyi recalled slowly: "The day we went out to gather intelligence, the nearby villagers all said the Feng Family had an excellent reputation locally. Master Feng was even more warm-hearted, providing relief during disasters and helping in emergencies. Many families in town had received favors from the Feng Family. Among them, some poor families who truly couldn't survive and couldn't bear to sell their sons would arrange to sell their daughters."

"When the Feng Family heard about this, they would take the initiative to visit, pay silver to buy the girls, and tell the girls' parents they were being sent to the Nun Temple to eat vegetarian food and chant Buddhist scriptures. They said that when they grew up, they would help them find good families, which was considered accumulating merit and doing good deeds."

"It must be these children. I never expected these children all died at the Feng Mansion!"

Yang Xiao was also shocked when he heard this. It seemed that was exactly how it was; he hadn't expected the Feng Family to be so ruthless.

"Yes, yes, yes, Brother Kuang is right, I heard that too at the time!" Su Tingting also remembered, "But... but why would the Feng Family kill these children? Can these children deal with Xi Yao?"

"It's not Xi Yao; it's the child in the Second Young Mistress's womb," Yang Xiao said suddenly. "No wonder Master Feng was so certain the Second Young Mistress could give birth to a boy. So that's how it is!"

Su Tingting looked at him, her face full of confusion, her eyes involuntarily revealing fear, "You... what did you think of?"

"This is a long-circulated evil art called 'Scaring Away the Evil.' Some wealthy families, in order to give birth to a son who can carry on the family line, will buy girls, torture them until they are on the verge of death, and then bury them alive upside down under their own doorsteps or in front of the main hall. It is said that this can scare away the female infants coming to be reincarnated into the family, ensuring the next child born is a boy."

Yang Xiao paused here and looked at Su Tingting, "You said those girls had braids on their heads, the straight kind, right?"

"Right," Su Tingting recalled, "They were straight, sky-pointing braids."

Nodding, Yang Xiao sighed softly, "Then that's it. There's a problem with those braids; there are nails hidden inside."

Even Kuang Hongyi was shocked by this, "Nails inside the braids?"

"Yes, when they tortured these girls, they drove nails into their heads. The placement of the nails was specific—it was the spiritual apertures of the human soul. As long as these spiritual apertures were sealed, these girls would never be reincarnated for eternity and could only guard the foundation of the Feng Family for generations. Of course, they would have no way to turn into vengeful ghosts to seek revenge." Yang Xiao hesitated before looking at Su Tingting, his expression complex, "Fortunately, you didn't see the faces of those girls. If I'm not mistaken, their eyes were also gouged out, which is why they could only hold onto one another and line up to come to the Offering Platform to beg for food."

Su Tingting fell silent. Before, she had been very afraid of those ghost children, but now, hearing what they had endured, her fear turned more into sympathy, "The Feng Family deserves to die!"

"Having done such an inhumane thing, they certainly deserve to die, but we have our mission. Don't let your emotions get the better of you," Kuang Hongyi advised.

Now that the matter of the ghost children was clear, it was no wonder Master Feng had acted so strangely before. When they asked why he was so sure he could have a boy, Master Feng immediately cut off the topic and urged them to leave. The reason was actually this.

The ghost children had no water on them, only dirt, because they were buried alive. As for Kuang Hongyi saying he didn't see the ghost children, that was also easy to explain: because these ghost children didn't come from the lake at all; they were buried right in front of the hall in the Feng Family Courtyard. Yang Xiao even suspected they were under the opera stage.

After thinking, Kuang Hongyi lowered his voice, "You two, this matter involves too much. I suggest we absolutely do not let this out. Let's not tell Shi Dali for now, and most importantly, we cannot let the Feng Family know."

"They don't know how many girls they've harmed. This crime alone is enough for their whole family to die three times over. If the Feng Family finds out we know about this scandal, I'm afraid..." Kuang Hongyi's face looked grim, "I'm afraid they won't let us leave alive."