Chapter 180

Fortunately, Liu Guozhong, who is the uncle-in-law, also seemed to know that this nephew was somewhat unreliable, so he didn't really mind what Pangzi said; as long as he knew about this matter, that was enough.

It seemed he wanted to spend some quiet time with Pangzi, so Liu Guozhong waved and had the other young apprentices leave. The whole room now had only four people left: besides him and Pangzi, there were also me and Song Lin.

"En, not bad, Xiaoqiang, you've gotten stronger again." Liu Guozhong patted Pangzi's shoulder, smiling kindly.

"Actually I've lost weight, I've been eating less lately." Pangzi scratched his head, rarely bashful, lowered his head. To be honest, I still have never seen Pangzi show such an expression before.

These two relatives caught up for over half an hour, finally getting straight to the point.

"Uncle, where are the brothers from the theater troupe now? I want to go see them with Hai Sheng right now." Pangzi eagerly asked Liu Guozhong.

Liu Guozhong, who had been smiling all along, hesitated and furrowed his brows, puffing on his dry pipe, and remained silent for a while.

"Uncle, what's wrong? Are you feeling unwell?" Noticing the strange expression on Liu Guozhong's face, Pangzi asked cautiously.

"No... nothing?" Liu Guozhong set down his dry pipe, lifted his head and said: "Xiaoqiang, you just need to look into this matter. If you're not confident, definitely don't take risks."

"The palm is flesh, the back of the hand is also flesh; Uncle only hopes you act within your capabilities, definitely don't hurt yourself!" Liu Guozhong patted Pangzi's back of the hand, earnestly advising.

Pangzi lowered his head and replied: "I've got it, uncle, don't worry. Although I'm not as capable as my dad, I've still inherited some of his skills. Even if I can't handle it, those things won't hurt me!"

"En... alright then, go check on those youngsters; if you can cure them. The Liu Family Troupe is leaving soon, so don't go digging for details. Having enthusiasm is good, but you also need to think more for your dad and uncle." Liu Guozhong waved at Pangzi and said: "After you're done, hurry back; uncle wants to have a couple drinks with you tonight."

"I understand, uncle, don't worry, Hai Sheng and I will go and come back quickly." Pangzi said with a beaming smile, following Liu Guozhong's lead, then he and I followed behind Song Lin and walked out.

Song Lin led us along the potholed village road, winding around for about half an hour, and finally arrived at the clinic they had mentioned.

Upon closer inspection, to be honest I don't even know if this counts as a clinic—the whole building is just a poor family's small kiln; the walls have had a large patch of plaster peeled off, the interior light is extremely dim, there's no ventilation, and a strong medicinal smell hits you as soon as you wave your hand.

Seven or eight grown men were lying in a small room under forty square meters; the rickety beds and yellowed quilts cobbled together counted as a bed.

As I and Pangzi followed Song Lin inside, we almost couldn't breathe from the stuffiness. The space for us to move in this room is extremely narrow, especially for Pangzi's build—one person takes up the space of two, making this already crowded room feel even more cramped.

"Brother Lin..." Seeing Song Lin leading us in, a young man with a slightly sallow complexion struggled to sit up. As this young man rose, the other patients on the beds also gasped and greeted Song Lin.

"Everyone stay lying down, I just brought two friends to have a look, don't get up! Yangzi, hurry and lie down." Flustered, Song Lin hurried to soothe the injured person struggling to sit up, then pressed down the one who was about to sit up.

"Hai Sheng, what do you think of them?"

Just as Song Lin was about to ask, I waved my hand, pointed to this young man whose complexion was sallow but whose condition was the best among the injured, and then told Song Lin: "Let's first help this brother outside; out there we can see more clearly."

Without hesitation, everyone helped the injured man named Yangzi to the bench outside the clinic and sat down.

As soon as Yangzi sat down, Pangzi eagerly took his pulse.

Everyone reacted differently; Song Lin and I looked at Pangzi with anticipation, while Yangzi appeared utterly bewildered.

As for Pangzi, who was acting as the doctor, his facial expression was varied—from contemplation, to gradual, to solemn. Afterwards, Pangzi's hands roamed all over Yangzi's body, and it seemed that wherever Pangzi touched, Yangzi would grimace and shout in pain.

"Besides pain, do you feel anything else?" Pangzi, now acting like a professional doctor, pointed to the spot he had just felt and said to Yangzi: "Tell me, when did you feel the pain, what sensations did you have when it hurt, and what unusual feelings do you normally experience?"

Yangzi described the sensations of pain and the timing of its onset to Pangzi, then after carefully recalling it again, he scratched his head, lowered his head, and said embarrassedly: "Besides feeling pain, I sometimes feel strange. It's as if there's always a force inside me that makes me want to grab a knife and slash people, and I also get angry very easily..."

"Don't you feel like the whole world is against you, that anyone who looks at you seems displeasing, and when you look at the people around you, even if nothing's wrong you sometimes just want to beat them up badly!" I couldn't help but interject.

Yangzi had a moment of astonishment, then nodded while recalling: "It seems, that's exactly it—not just me, it seems everyone's like that. These past few days we in the ward almost got into a fight; luckily we're all fellow disciples from the same sect, otherwise we would have come to blows."

After Yangzi said that, I became even more certain he was affected by yin qi or malignant qi.

The reason I asked that is actually based on my own reasoning, which is also common knowledge in the field. First, a spirit body can not only influence a person's brainwaves, making them emotional, but also affect the person's aura, causing the possessed to be out of sync with the entire environment and rejected by everything around them.

In other words, if a person is entangled by a spirit body carrying resentment, they will unknowingly become infected with that resentment. At that point, people around them will develop an illusion: seeing them makes them angry, seeing them makes them displeased, and in severe cases they even want to beat that person badly. But afterward, when they suddenly look back, they don't know why they were so angry and can't find the cause. At the same time, this subtle influence also makes the victim develop a misanthropic mindset.

Put bluntly, it's actually resentment at work, affecting a person's vital energy and spirit; while being rejected by the environment, the person also ends up rejecting everyone around them.

Yangzi's current condition is extremely similar to that of someone invaded by resentment, except his situation is somewhat different—it seems the influence invading him isn't just simple resentment; I've never heard of resentment being able to, beyond affecting a person's emotions, actually manifest as physical pain.

After Pangzi finished asking those questions, everyone helped Yangzi back to the ward together.

After we came out to the outside of the clinic, Song Lin handed me and Pangzi a cigarette; while smoking, I asked Pangzi whether the diagnosis had been concluded.

Pangzi exhaled a puff of smoke and slowly said: "It's definitely resentment invading the body, no mistake."

I was puzzled and said: "Resentment invading the body doesn't seem like that; even if it can affect a person's mind and cause environmental rejection, it can't lurk inside the body to cause substantive harm."

Pangzi shook his head and said: "You only know one side, not the other."

While I and Song Lin were puzzled, Pangzi took a drag of his cigarette and then said to me: "You only know that ghosts have resentment, but you don't know that ghosts also have will."

"After a ghost dies, if there's unfinished business, that's an obsession; if it's hatred, it's a grudge. But if during life they had faith, and even at the moment of death they still held fast to that faith, or were carrying out some act for their faith, then after death their grudge will carry that steadfast will from life!"

Pangzi's lengthy discourse was hard to understand—not just for Song Lin, even I didn't grasp it fully, and it was somewhat vague.

"Put simply, it's like a religious fanatic, the kind with a problematic, obsessive mind—his head filled with faith, and even at the brink of death he's still killing people for his mistaken belief. After being struck down, he still retains his obsession, and within that obsession there remains a biased faith, a will—do you understand?" Pangzi spread his hands, patiently explaining to us with rare patience.

I exchanged a glance with Song Lin, and in the end we just shook our heads helplessly.

"What Brother Qiang means is, the ghost haunting our troupe was, in life, a fervent religious believer?" Song Lin asked weakly.

Pangzi: "……"

"Let's get back to the point!" Pangzi said with a defeated expression, his voice dejected: "I was just giving an example. In short, the haunting ghost was either a soldier, utterly loyal to the country! Or a gangster who licks blood off the blade… Of course, such a tough guy must belong to an organization and be deeply devoted to it!"

Pangzi spoke haltingly, explaining: "I just examined Yangzi's condition and found his inner resentment extremely fierce; the reason it lurked along his wound into his body is because these breaths carry the ghost's will. Thus this intangible resentment can turn into tangible force, flowing within a person's body. If not expelled, it will forever remain inside a person, damaging their organs—this is the same principle as internal martial arts' inch power! And those who can possess such stubborn and domineering willpower are either gangsters or soldiers."

Willpower truly is a terrifying thing. Take, for example, the fallen Wen Tianxiang: though he died, his spirit has been passed down through the ages, and later generations flock to it.

Likewise, the predecessors who fell under enemy gunfire during the War of Resistance—even though they died on the battlefield, their will still wanders across every inch of our Chinese land. Any battlefield tempered by gunfire and fire, later generations of hot-blooded descendants can still feel that bone-deep sorrow.

This is willpower, this is faith; even if one gives up their life, they still play a final, resounding note with unwilling obsession, driving descendants to inherit this will and sacrifice their lives to fulfill the predecessors' unfulfilled great undertaking.

Pangzi gazed at the slightly desolate village and sighed wistfully.

At that moment, Pangzi felt moved and gazed toward the nearby manor, where the seniors had once battled the invaders, staining the ground with blood.