Chapter 5: 4. Yinsheng Mother (Thank you, Boss Shuaige!)

4. Yinsheng Mother (Thank you, Boss Shuaige!)

Zhou Chang was carried out the door on Zhou Sanji’s back.

His arm hung limp, the banner clutched passively in his hand swaying and snapping in the dark wind.

Everyone followed behind the grandfather and grandson.

These men abandoned their inconvenient tools, each attaching their hatchets to long poles, turning the clumsy, heavy hatchets into deadly broadswords.

They gripped their weapons and scanned their surroundings; perhaps to bolster their courage, several kept muttering idle chatter.

The low murmur of voices stood out sharply in the darkness.

Zhou Sanji knew he couldn’t silence this bunch—he shifted Zhou Chang on his back and whispered, “Little grandson, stay sharp, watch our things—might run into some emergency…”

“Got it.” Zhou Chang replied.

Though the old man hadn’t spelled it out, Zhou Chang understood his implication: to watch out for Sun Yanshun’s group.

This crew could never share a boat—staying with them would only lead to capsizing.

Zhou Sanji had already decided to jump ship.

In the darkness, the grandfather and grandson fell silent for a while.

The old man spoke again: “You can’t move now? Doesn’t matter—I’ll think of a way when we get back.”

Zhou Chang clenched his lips without answering; his gaze was fixed on the red cord around his right wrist—since leaving the house, tendrils of black mist had surged from all directions, all absorbed by the red cord.

The red cord grew longer, and in one instant, it plunged abruptly into the tar-like thick darkness.

The tendrils of black mist absorbed by the cord came from the mounds of graves towering around them.

The black mist continued to gather.

Each grave mound contributed at least one tendril; in some thickets of wild grass, though no raised mounds were visible, several streams of black mist burst forth.

Wild grass and vines concealed the uneven, pitted terrain.

A stench of dead rats drifted from those unknowable thickets.

Hidden within those thickets lay corpses—human or beast, no one could tell.

Zhou Chang deduced that the black mist absorbed by the cord existed only on the dead.

These mists, together with the strand of hair given to him by the Paper Face, had “activated” the red cord.

The red cord, taut and straight in the darkness, after drinking in the black mist, slowly retracted toward Zhou Chang’s wrist.

Others, smelling the pervasive stench of decay, fell silent; none noticed the long, stretched red thread on Zhou Chang’s wrist—they couldn’t see it at all.

The cord on his wrist grew redder; Zhou Chang watched it retract two or three zhang, then suddenly snap taut again—

It had latched onto something.

A strange sensation rose in Zhou Chang’s heart; though he couldn’t move his arm, he merely thought of it—and the cord on his wrist trembled like a plucked string.

Zhou Chang drifted into a momentary daze.

Faint scenes flashed through his mind.

He saw a towering grave mound enclosed by stones, its peak lush with vegetation.

Dense clusters of red threads were tied to the branches above, their other ends stretching down into the thick darkness below the grave.

At the base of the grave mound lay offerings of incense and food.

The offerings had rotted; the incense burned only to stubs and broken sticks.

A chilling mist curled around the grave mound; within it, shadowy figures loomed.

Zhou Chang recognized this grave mound—it was the shrine of a highly efficacious spirit in his hometown, commonly called “Yinsheng Laomu.”

Yinsheng Laomu was famed for granting children and warding off calamities; according to his grandfather, Zhou Chang’s parents had been unable to conceive until they returned to their hometown to worship Yinsheng Laomu, after which they bore Zhou Chang—and thus Zhou Chang took Yinsheng Laomu as his adoptive mother.

The red cord had been obtained from Yinsheng Laomu.

But in reality, Yinsheng Laomu’s shrine was bustling with worshippers day and night, now a major attraction in Zhou Chang’s hometown, surrounded by temples and staffed by dedicated caretakers… yet the “Yinsheng Laomu” flashing in Zhou Chang’s mind was desolate and ruined, radiating an inexplicable, eerie aura.

The red threads draped over the grave mound were as deep red as blood.

They hung motionless, yet seemed to flow ceaselessly, as if staining the entire grave mound with blood.

Within the towering grave mound, something seemed ready to burst forth at any moment!

“Bang!”

The strange sensation lingered in Zhou Chang’s heart; as he thought of it, he saw one red thread on the grave trembling violently, retracting—its end deeply embedded in the grave, the other stretching into the dark depths, like an exposed vein of the mound.

As the thread retracted swiftly, the thick darkness around them grew slightly lighter.

The shadowy shapes within the black mist took on distinct outlines—

Dozens of tiny boxes, palm-length and half-finger-high, lay scattered among the wild grass around the grave.

Closer inspection revealed each box was shaped like a coffin.

Some were wooden, some stone, even jade; and there were tiny golden-yellow coffins—whether gold or copper, no one could say.

These tiny coffins were too small to hold even an infant’s bones, yet before each stood a spirit tablet.

The tablets faced away from Zhou Chang, toward the coffins, hiding their inscriptions from view.

He saw only the red thread now wrapped around one small coffin; as the thread yanked sharply back, the coffin slammed into its corresponding tablet, revealing the characters etched upon it: Spirit Tablet of the Deceased Zhou Chang!

Zhou Chang?!

Same name as mine?

Or—

Zhou Chang’s heart churned with shock and doubt; he stared at the wooden coffin entangled by the red thread, being dragged closer and closer to Yinsheng Laomu’s grave.

The coffin had lain there for countless years; its wood had rotted away.

As the red thread pulled with brute force, the coffin shattered into several planks as it neared the grave.

Among the splinters, a faint, translucent, whitish thread-form flickered— the red thread yanked the shape from the debris, and Zhou Chang saw it clearly: a garment woven entirely of fine, translucent white threads, capable of wrapping a person from head to toe!

Whoosh!

The red thread yanked the garment straight into the grave!

In that instant, time flew by like a white horse passing a crevice.

Zhou Chang snapped back to awareness; the red cord on his wrist and the strand of black hair from the Paper Face remained entwined, unchanged.

Yet in his mind, the garment of white threads still drifted gently.

As his thought touched the garment, threads unraveled from its sleeves, connecting to his mind—his will drew those threads from his third eye, weaving them densely over his face…

In the darkness, no one noticed the corpse-like “Zhou Chang” twitching his facial muscles, revealing a strange expression.

The “garment” in Zhou Chang’s mind was swiftly stripped of all its threads.

His mind was empty.

But Zhou Chang’s physical body now wore a garment of translucent, whitish threads—visible to no one else.

Zhou Chang slightly curled his fingers.

His eyes held firm certainty.

He could move.

…

Through the graveyard, the group followed Zhou Chang and his grandfather for a long stretch without incident.

Their courage rose; they clustered around Sun Yanshun, talking.

“Master, could you be mistaken? This sudden change in weather is just ordinary—maybe not that Li—cough!—that person has spotted us?”

“Yeah… it’s just dark here, colder than usual—nothing else seems different.”

“Mistaken? Hah! Wouldn’t that be good? No need to keep worrying then.”

Sun Yanshun oriented himself within the graveyard, his old face relaxed.

Another one or two li, and they’d exit this graveyard.

Perhaps he’d been wrong—the “Li Xiamei” hadn’t been watching him.

He’d brought these new disciples to the graveyard to search for “ghost treasures,” but he hadn’t even determined the treasure’s location when black-hair winds swept in and the sky turned pitch black.

The sudden change made him instinctively think of the “Lao Feng family” guarding the ghost treasure; the black-hair winds led him to suspect it was Lao Feng’s wife, “Li Xiamei.”

But now, recalling carefully—he’d done nothing yet when this weather shift occurred. He’d likely panicked and misread the signs.

Li Xiamei had no reason to be awakened by him.

“Man, I’ve got to pee so bad—I need to find a spot to let it out…”

“Better be careful. Careful won’t capsize the boat. Hold it.”

“That old man won’t even let us fart, let alone pee. You’re lucky you can breathe and talk—still want to piss? Hold it till you burst!”

The babble from behind reached the two ahead.

Zhou Chang still lay slumped on Zhou Sanji’s back; he tilted his head slightly and saw the old man’s eyes blazing with fury, nearly igniting his face.

The old man’s ink-red eyes now seemed faded.

“I advise you all to speak quieter!”

“No matter what, you’re still carrying the sedan for Lady Zhong and her husband—you’re acting like fools, joking, talking about piss and farts—you might offend their wedding!” Zhou Sanji hissed, voice low and cold.

The three youths, hearing this, didn’t wait for Sun Yanshun’s order—they instantly quieted down.

They still owed respect to “Lord Zhongkui.”

Besides, the “Lady Zhong” seated inside the coffin, though silent, was no ordinary person.

“These people won’t listen to reason—good advice won’t save a doomed ghost…” Zhou Sanji whispered, shaking his head; he scanned the surroundings—what did his ink-red eyes see?

Zhou Chang saw the old man slowly lower his head and murmur: “Something’s definitely happened now.”

They say it’s a mistake, that there’s no Li Xiamei—I don’t believe it.”

“Little grandson, when danger strikes, don’t think of others. Your own life is what matters most!”

“That Li something-Mei… is she human or ghost? If it’s just her and her few dogs, how come all these people here, armed to the teeth, can’t even fight her once?” Zhou Chang asked.

As he spoke, he already had a faint answer in his heart.

Zhou Sanji’s reply confirmed that hidden answer without doubt. Zhou Sanji said: “Li Xiamei is a ‘Thought Demon.’”

“A ‘Thought Demon’ can be human or ghost—it depends on how others think, how others see…”

“Don’t even think about fighting her—she can take your life at will. You might not even be able to touch her, so how could you possibly fight her? Most Thought Demons are like this…”

Zhou Chang nodded, then asked: “What about you?”

Zhou Sanji gave a self-deprecating smile: “Your grandpa’s just an old conman scraping by—what am I, really?”

“Then where did this Thought Demon come from?”

“It crawls out of ‘thoughts’…” Zhou Sanji tapped his temple, murmuring softly, “A roadside stone, an old donkey grinding grain, living bodies and corpses scattered everywhere, clouds in the sky… these days, anything can give rise to ‘thoughts.’ When many such thoughts gather around one thing, and the timing is just right, a Thought Demon is born…”

He paused, then added: “Old Feng and his wife Li Xiamei were once an ordinary living couple, hundreds of years ago. But later, it was said they both became Thought Demons.”

“It’s said that at the time, Li Xiamei was pregnant with their fourth child. But when a physician examined her pulse, he found the child inside was already dead—he wanted to prescribe medicine to induce a miscarriage. She refused. She went to several other physicians, all of whom confirmed the child was dead.”

“After that, she didn’t leave her house for months.”

“It was from then on that rumors spread: Li Xiamei had obtained a cure from another Thought Demon, the ‘Ghost Physician,’ and began eating the internal organs of living people to revive the dead child in her womb—until one night, Li Xiamei opened her door and truly began dragging people home, feeding the corpses to her dogs, and consuming their organs herself…”