Chapter 47

46、The Root Form of the Thought Demon

PS: I revised and adjusted the plot of Chapter 45. If you haven’t seen it yet, refresh to view the changes.

“Dad… Wuwuwu … I’m scared, Dad, come save me…”

Inside the firewood shed, the child’s sobs came in broken bursts.

Suddenly, he heard a frantic pounding of footsteps outside.

He scrambled up from the pile of firewood and crept cautiously toward the firewood door, already riddled with cracks, peering through the gaps—

Outside was utter blackness, not a glimmer of light; the child saw nothing.

The faint hope that had just risen in his heart instantly turned into heavier despair.

Pressed against the firewood door, he wept again pitifully: “I want to go home, Dad, save me and take me home, Wu …”

At that moment, he noticed the unyielding darkness behind the door suddenly writhed—this impenetrable blackness was a woman’s wild, tangled hair!

As her black hair whipped about, her horrifying, deathly pale face appeared before the child’s eyes!

She extended her bony arm and slashed the wooden door with a single blow, carving out a massive hole!

Splinters and shards rained down over the child’s head; he froze in place, forgetting to cry, forgetting to flee!

Fear rose like a tide from his heart, about to drown him completely!

Then, a palm wrapped in thick black iron threads suddenly reached out from behind the woman’s long hair—

That large hand clamped over the woman’s terrifying face, hurling her entire body backward!

A tall, gaunt man in tattered short robes appeared in the hole torn through the door; through the swaying firewood, he stared at the child with a pale face.

“Child, don’t look.

It’ll be over soon.” The man grinned.

His figure lingered for a moment in the hole behind the door, then vanished.

Outside the hole, the sky remained pitch-black; the fear that had nearly swallowed the child slowly receded. He curled back into the corner of the shed, listening as muffled sounds echoed outside, then abruptly ceased with a woman’s piercing scream.

…

Zhou Chang knelt, pressing down on Li Xiamei’s chest; he lifted her chin with both hands, just as before—

Threads of iron thought-flow seeped from his fingertips, piercing Li Xiamei’s face, stitching tightly around her eyes, ears, and nostrils, over and over.

Finally, after she let out a shrill wail, he sealed her mouth.

Not far away.

Li Xiamei’s headless body, its feast-essence burned away, still could not recover the head taken by Aoduji.

The headless body, charred black by flame, and the head clutched in Aoduji’s jaws, both turned to blue smoke and vanished into heaven and earth.

Li Xiamei, whose eyes, ears, nose, and mouth had been stitched shut by Zhou Chang, likewise dissolved into grayish smoke; this smoke swirled around Zhou Chang, and as he breathed in the lingering feast-thoughts, he saw old, deep memories:

Before a dim oil lamp.

A broad-shouldered, square-faced man held a clay pot, ladling out a spoonful of oily broth, in which floated a human fingertip.

The man, expression cold, fed the spoonful of meat broth to the woman lying on the bamboo bed.

The woman’s long hair fell smoothly behind her; she gazed at the man’s face with boundless tenderness, utterly unaware, swallowing the spoonful containing the human finger, chewing slowly and swallowing.

She finished the broth in the pot, ate every scrap of meat, then timidly asked the man as he rose to leave: “We don’t have much money left, do we? Is it enough to buy the ingredients for the ‘Mother of Ghosts’ prescription?”

“If we follow the recipe and eat for forty-nine days, and the child in my belly still doesn’t awaken…”

“What then?”

“It won’t happen.” The man stood, his face hard. “Don’t worry about money.

I’ll sell the donkey if I have to.

Rest now. I’ll go feed the donkey.”

“Alright.” The woman with waist-length hair and an oval face hesitated, then nodded.

She watched him leave the room, then closed her eyes to rest.

Eating the medicinal meat prepared by the “Mother of Ghosts” prescription always made one drowsy.

The woman dozed off, half-asleep, and seemed to hear the old donkey braying—its cry sounded almost like laughter:

“Eh—ah—hahaha—eh…”

In a daze, she thought she saw her husband tossing bloody objects into the donkey’s feed trough.

The donkey picked up the meat chunks, chewed slowly, then burst into loud laughter—

At this point in the dream, the woman jolted awake in terror.

She wiped the cold sweat from her forehead and looked toward the oil lamp on the table.

The lamp oil had been used nearly halfway; why hadn’t her husband returned from feeding the donkey?

She felt uneasy.

Fortunately, not long after, her husband returned.

He carried a larger clay pot and sat before her.

On his face, which had never smiled, now bloomed a vivid grin.

He looked up at her, a faint circle of blood encircling his neck.

Seeing her husband’s pale face and the large pot he brought, she felt something was wrong.

But before she could speak, he spoke first: “Come, come—the prescription has arrived… Eat this prescription, and you and your child will surely be resurrected—”

The flame flickered, casting the man’s shadow on the ground.

On the broad-shouldered shadow, rested a donkey’s long-eared head.

He reached into the large clay pot and lifted out the head of the woman’s own husband—always stern, never smiling.

“Eat.”

The thought demon with the donkey’s head held the human head toward the woman.

…

“What is this?”

Zhou Chang stood and opened his left palm toward Bai Xiue/Bai Ma.

On his left palm, woven tightly with iron thought-threads, a pair of jet-black lips had grown.

The lips opened and closed, revealing a set of sharp, saliva-dripping fangs within.

Zhou Chang tried to retract the thought-threads and purge these terrifying lips from the web, but whenever he pulled them in, the lips reappeared on the left side of the thought-robe in his mind.

He could not now remove these terrifying lips.

“This is Li Xiamei’s ‘root form’ as a thought demon.

In the Hidden Realm, great monks have methods to nurture such ‘root forms’ and turn them into their own ‘guardian deities.’

You lack the ability—do not dare feed it.

Otherwise, Li Xiamei might be reborn through your feeding.” Bai Ma stared at the terrifying lips on Zhou Chang’s palm, her face grave. “When it finally dissipated, its residual emotions carried an overwhelming hatred toward you…

That’s why it fixed on you.”

“Then here, it has no chance of reviving.” Zhou Chang grinned.

Bai Ma fell silent, then couldn’t help asking Zhou Chang: “You turned back just now—did you… feel your own ‘omen of death’?”