Chapter 171: Thousand-Faced Corpse

Thousand-Faced Corpse, also known as the Thousand-Faced Mountain Sprite, is one of the ghostly spirits passed down in folklore.

Such resentful spirits are mostly those who, in life, were disfigured or flayed to death, then discarded in cold, dark places, becoming ghosts. Every July 15, when the gates of the ghost realm open, Thousand-Faced Corpses assume human form and come out to lure people.

One might think that those who come out to lure people on July 15 are just water ghosts.

Actually, that's not right. Although the Thousand-Faced Mountain Sprite resembles the water ghost, its resentment is far more intense. In life they were disfigured; after death they were abandoned in cold, dark places. Each time around July 15, they endlessly relive the agony of being flayed and disfigured, never able to transcend.

Therefore, the Thousand-Faced Mountain Sprite has a habit: the faces of those it kills are usually mutilated beyond recognition. Furthermore, out of resentment, whenever it harms a person, it peels off that person's face, after which the Thousand-Faced Corpse can assume the appearance of that face's owner.

Aunt Wang was almost killed by a Thousand-Faced Mountain Sprite on a pitch‑black, windy night.

That day, it happened to be just before July 15; after finishing her work, Aunt Wang did not go home directly but stayed in the dormitory to look after the sick Xiying,

Xiying was a fellow villager from Aunt Wang's household, a few months younger and slighter in build. However, her family background differed from Aunt Wang's.

She had lost both parents from childhood and was raised by her uncle, often bullied by her stingy aunt. After joining the production team to work, that aunt cared nothing for her life or death, locking the door even when she slept. At night, if Xiying finished her work and returned home, the aunt still wouldn't open the door. No matter how Xiying called, she pretended not to hear and wouldn't let her husband get up to open the door for Xiying.

Helpless, Xiying could only stay in the production team's dormitory.

Perhaps from excessive sun exposure in the fields and overwork, Xiying came down with a fever—what ordinary people call a fever.

Although she had taken some herbal medicine, Aunt Wang was not entirely reassured. So that night she stayed behind, moved into the dormitory, and shared a bed with Xiying.

Back then, the production team did arrange dormitories for its members. Of course, those dormitories were nothing like the refined, elegant lodgings people know today.

In short, they were shabby houses built of kiln bricks, leaky in winter and when it rained.

Around midnight, Aunt Wang picked up her flashlight and got up to relieve herself.

Anyone born before the 1980s would understand the architecture of the time. Back then, toilets were generally not built inside homes; the wealthy would set up a privy in a corner of their compound.

Those without money usually kept a chamber pot at home. When their stomachs felt upset and needed relief, they went to the public toilet.

It's possible that the whole village had only a few public toilets. It's also possible that villagers, to use the toilet, had to carry a flashlight from the village head to the village tail, or they could simply use a bucket to collect waste for use as fertilizer in the fields.

This had much to do with the technology of the era and people's attitudes. First, people of the time considered excretion unclean, so toilets shouldn't be built in houses. Second, it was limited by the era's technology and standard of living; building a toilet was very costly.

Naturally, the production team had no toilets either. The only two toilets were located several hundred meters away; to relieve oneself, one had to grab a flashlight and walk for about ten minutes.

Flanked by pitch‑black bamboo groves, the path was broken and uneven—three steps a pit, five steps a steep slope—so Aunt Wang, holding her flashlight, walked very carefully.

Just then, a mournful wail suddenly came from the path.

Aunt Wang listened closely; the sound sounded like a wailing wind, yet also like a neighbor's child crying.

When Aunt Wang stopped moving and listened intently, she finally realized it wasn't wind at all but a real child crying.

Upon suddenly hearing it was crying, Aunt Wang's heart tightened, even though the prevailing ideology of the time held that only the Party's line was supreme and all demons and monsters were mere clouds.

However, Aunt Wang, born into a Fa Teaching family, naturally believed in spirits and gods. Yet the Old Wang lineage, like many Daoist masters, followed an unwritten rule: when choosing an heir, it was to pass the tradition to sons, not daughters.

Of course, teachers generally take on students with great care; even a biological son, when young, usually receives only martial arts instruction and some basic theory to lay a foundation.

This is because, once a person reaches a certain stage of growth, their thoughts in all aspects gradually mature. Children in or below puberty tend to be hot‑tempered, their edges unpolished, making them prone to conflict with others.

To prevent a son from hurting others with misapplied magic due to petty grudges, any teacher, no matter how skilled, will refrain from teaching sorcery as long as the son's temper remains unpolished and he has not learned tolerance.

Thus, even if the Old Wang family were willing to pass mountain techniques to female descendants, Aunt Wang, due to her age and the fact that her father had moved away, knew no sorcery at all, so she could not tell whether the one crying was a person or a ghost.

When Aunt Wang stopped to listen and confirmed the sound was crying, she felt her scalp go numb in that instant, even suspecting that a water ghost was about to emerge to lure souls.

But then she thought: the village's only pond is a hundred‑and‑eighty thousand li away, so even if there were a water ghost, it could not possibly run all the way here.

If it were an ordinary person, hearing a child's cry in the middle of the night on a deserted mountain pitch dark, they would surely drop everything and run as far as they could—how could they sit and speculate like Aunt Wang does?

Yet the Old Wang family has a congenital flaw that's neither wholly good nor wholly bad.

Almost QingSongShu, Pangzi, and Aunt Wang share a common trait: they are kind‑hearted and soft‑hearted.

Whenever they see someone in trouble, they feel distressed, even guilty; even if they don't consider themselves, they will help others. Even knowing they might suffer loss or be deceived, they still foolishly reach out a hand.

People of this disposition are rare good souls in today's society, yet from another angle they are also prone to suffering loss and being taken advantage of.

Aunt Wang hesitated on the spot for a long time; finally, her softness overcame her reason. Kind‑hearted, she feared it was a lost child from the village, and without a second thought she grabbed her flashlight and ran toward the source of the sound.

The sound came from the left‑hand bamboo grove; as Aunt Wang carefully pushed aside the tangled weeds, she immediately saw the source of the crying.

It was a little boy only a few years old, wearing torn nylon cloth, his arms wrapped around his knees, crouched in the weeds.

Aunt Wang approached, squatted down, and looked at the boy with pity, asking: 'Child, why are you alone out here crying at this hour? Come with Auntie quickly—there are snakes about.'

The boy lifted his dirty face, looked at Aunt Wang, and cried: 'Mom brought me out today to herd cattle; I played truant, went off to catch butterflies halfway, and got separated from her.'

Aunt Wang's heart softened, and she immediately lifted him up, intending to take him straight home.

Frankly, Aunt Wang is rather dense. By normal reckoning, a child of that age who had been crouching for so long in a desolate bamboo grove, upon seeing a stranger, would surely be startled out of his wits. Yet this boy, upon seeing Aunt Wang, immediately burst into tears and explained everything clearly—nothing like the usual reaction. How could a child long exposed to an unknown environment, corroded by fear, have such a clear train of thought?

But Aunt Wang, holding the child, didn't think about any of that. At that moment she considered only two things: first, that the child had been missing for so long, his family must be worried sick; second, that the child, unable to find home, must be terrified.

After picking up the boy, Aunt Wang immediately asked: 'Child, where is your home? Auntie will take you back right away.'

The boy pointed in a rough direction; Aunt Wang gave it no further thought, carrying him as she walked that way.

But Aunt Wang failed to notice that, after she picked up the boy, where he had been sitting there lay a skeleton—only as high as a person's knee, clearly the remains of a child.

The moon overhead gradually slipped behind black clouds, and its light on the earth grew ever weaker.

Thus Aunt Wang continued to hold the strange boy, clutching an antique flashlight, feeling her way slowly along the mountain path.

The boy, held by Aunt Wang, rested his head on her shoulder, as if asleep.

But if someone were walking behind Aunt Wang, they would see that the boy was actually not asleep.

Not only was he not asleep, he also gazed at Aunt Wang's pale cheek, wearing a meaningful smile, his hand stroking her cheek lightly, lightly stroking.