Chapter 5

4. Yinsheng Laomu (Thanks to 帥̶哥̶゛ for the Alliance Leader!)

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

One of his arms hung down, the banner clutched loosely in his hand swaying back and forth, flapping loudly in the Yin wind.

Everyone followed behind the grandfather and grandson pair.

These people had abandoned their inconvenient tools, each one lashing a wood-chopping blade onto a long pole, turning the clumsy, heavy wood-chopping blade into a lethally effective battle-sabre.

They gripped their weapons and scanned their surroundings, and perhaps to bolster their courage, a few of them couldn't help muttering idle chatter.

The low murmur of conversation stood out jarringly in the darkness.

Zhou Sanji knew he couldn't seal these people's mouths. He shifted Zhou Chang on his back and said in a low voice, "Little grandson, stay sharp. Keep an eye on our things. We might run into some kind of emergency..."

"Okay," Zhou Chang replied.

Though the other man hadn't finished his sentence, Zhou Chang already understood the old man's unspoken meaning—he was telling him to guard against Sun Yanshun's group.

That lot simply couldn't pull together; sharing a boat with them would capsize sooner or later.

Zhou Sanji was already thinking of jumping ship.

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

The old man added, "You can't move right now, that's fine. Once we're back, Grandpa will figure something out for you."

Zhou Chang pressed his lips together without replying. His gaze was fixed entirely on the red cord around his right wrist—after he had left the house, wisps of black Qi had come swarming from every direction, and all of it was being absorbed by that red cord.

That red cord grew longer and longer, and at one moment it suddenly plunged straight into the pitch-black darkness, thick as tar.

And the wisps of black Qi the red cord absorbed came from the grave mounds rising all around.

The black Qi kept gathering without pause.

Every grave mound contributed at least one wisp of black Qi; in some patches of wild grass, though no mound rose up, several streams of black Qi burst forth from within.

Wild grass and creeping vines concealed the uneven terrain, its pits and gullies.

Waves of dead-rat stench drifted out from those depthless thickets.

Hidden within those thickets were corpses—whether of man or beast, he could not tell.

Zhou Chang surmised that the black Qi being merged by the red cord existed only on the dead.

Together with the strand of hair that 'Paper Face' had given Zhou Chang, they had 'activated' the red cord.

The red cord, stretched taut in the darkness, drank its fill of black Qi, then slowly retracted toward Zhou Chang's wrist.

The others, sniffing the corpse-stench spreading through the air, fell silent for the moment, and none of them noticed the red thread stretched to an enormous length on Zhou Chang's wrist. In truth, they couldn't see this red thread at all.

The cord on his wrist had grown redder. Zhou Chang watched it retract by two or three zhang, and then at a certain instant it snapped taut again—

It was as though it had latched onto something.

A strange feeling rose in Zhou Chang's heart. He clearly couldn't swing his arm, but following that feeling in his chest, he merely shifted his thoughts, and the red cord on his wrist began to tremble like a plucked zither string.

Zhou Chang drifted into a daze for an instant.

Many blurred scenes flashed through his mind.

He saw a tall grave-mound ringed by stones, its summit thick with grass and trees.

Dense clusters of red threads wound at one end around the branches of those plants, while the other ends stretched down from the mound and plunged into the thick darkness.

At the foot of the grave-mound, offerings of incense and sacrifices were laid out in abundance.

The offerings had already rotted; the incense had dwindled to guttering candles and broken joss sticks.

Ghastly mist coiled around the grave-mound, and within the mist, shadows of figures flickered.

Zhou Chang recognized this grave-mound. It belonged to a deity quite efficacious in his old hometown, commonly called 'Yinsheng Laomu.'

Yinsheng Laomu was renowned for granting children and averting disaster. According to Grandpa, Zhou Chang's parents had been unable to conceive; only after the couple returned to their hometown and worshipped Yinsheng Laomu were they able to bear Zhou Chang. Because of this, Zhou Chang acknowledged Yinsheng Laomu as his godmother.

That red cord, too, had been obtained from Yinsheng Laomu.

But in reality, Yinsheng Laomu's incense burned bright and thriving; worshippers came day and night without cease, and it had become a major attraction in Zhou Chang's hometown. Temples had even been built around it, with dedicated staff to manage the Yinsheng Laomu temple... Yet now, the 'Yinsheng Laomu' flashing through Zhou Chang's mind was utterly desolate and ruined, exuding an ineffable sense of the uncanny.

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

They lay deathly still, yet seemed to flow ceaselessly, as though plasma were spreading across the grave-mound from top to bottom.

Within the towering grave-mound, it seemed as though something might burst from the earth at any moment!

"BANG!"

That strange feeling lingered in Zhou Chang's heart. The moment he shifted his thoughts, he saw a red thread on the grave-mound trembling and retracting without pause—one end buried deep within the mound, the other stretching into the depths of the darkness, like a vein exposed on the mound's surface.

As this red thread rapidly retracted, the thick darkness around them thinned somewhat.

The vague shapes within the black mist revealed their individual outlines—

'Boxes,' each the length of a palm and half a finger tall, lay scattered in the wild grass around the grave-mound.

Looking closely, those boxes were unmistakably shaped like coffins.

Some were wooden, some stone, some even jade, and there were also little coffins of a gleaming yellow—whether gold or bronze, he couldn't tell!

These tiny coffins couldn't hold the bones of even a single infant, yet before each coffin stood a spirit tablet.

The tablets had their backs to Zhou Chang, facing their respective coffins, so Zhou Chang could not read the characters inscribed on them.

He only saw that red thread, now also wound around one small coffin. As the red thread abruptly retracted, that coffin slammed into the tablet standing before it, and the inscription on the tablet was finally revealed to Zhou Chang: Spirit Tablet of the Deceased Zhou Chang!

Zhou Chang?!

Same name as me?

Or—

Zhou Chang's heart churned with surging waves; shaken and uncertain, he watched the wooden little coffin bound by the red cord being dragged relentlessly closer to Yinsheng Laomu's grave-mound!

That coffin had lain here for who knew how many years; the wood had long since rotted.

As the red cord yanked with brute force, the moment the small coffin drew near the grave-mound, it suddenly splintered into several planks!

Among the pile of planks, a shadow woven from translucent, faintly white threads flickered in and out of sight. That red thread dragged the shadow straight out from the heap of planks, and only then did Zhou Chang see clearly that it seemed to be a 'garment' woven of translucent, faintly white threads, capable of wrapping a person from head to toe!

Whoosh!

The red line tugged at that garment and abruptly shrank back into the graveyard hill!

In that instant, a white colt flashed past a crack—time itself seemed to leap.

Zhou Chang came back to himself. The red cord on his wrist and the strand of black hair from the "Paper Face" were still entwined as before, as if nothing had changed.

But in Zhou Chang's mind, the garment woven of faintly white silk threads still drifted and swayed.

The moment his thought brushed against that garment, several thread-ends spilled loose from its cuff and latched onto his thought—his mind drew those thread-ends out from between his brows, layering them densely over his face…

In the darkness, no one noticed that the corpse-like "Zhou Chang" suddenly twitched the muscles of his face, producing a strange expression.

The "garment" in Zhou Chang's mind was quickly stripped of every silk thread.

His mind was utterly empty.

And Zhou Chang's body had put on a faintly white, transparent silk-thread garment that none of the others could see.

Zhou Chang slightly bent his fingers.

His eyes were filled with quiet certainty.

He could move now.

……

In the mass grave, the group had trailed behind Zhou Chang and the others for a stretch, and none of them had noticed anything out of the ordinary.

Their courage grew, and they clustered around Sun Yanshun, chattering.

"Master, could you have been mistaken? This sudden change in the weather is just an ordinary shift, not that Li— ahem! Not that whatever-his-name discovering us?"

"Right… it's just a bit darker here now, a bit colder, nothing else seems different."

"Mistaken, heh. If it's a mistake, isn't that a good thing? No need for you lot to be on pins and needles anymore."

Sun Yanshun was sorting out the bearings within the mass grave, his old face relaxing.

Another li or two of walking and they'd be out of this mass grave.

Perhaps he really had been mistaken, and that "Li Xiamei" hadn't set her sights on him.

This time he'd brought a few new disciples to the mass grave, truly intending to search for and dig up the "Ghost Treasure," but before he could even pin down the treasure's location, a black-furred wind had kicked up across this mass grave, and the sky had gone pitch-black in an instant.

The change in the weather instinctively made him think of "Old Feng's family," the guardians of the Ghost Treasure, and the black-furred wind made him guess he'd run into Old Feng's wife, "Li Xiamei."

But thinking it over carefully now, he hadn't even started digging before this kind of celestial change appeared—most likely he'd just been scared and got the situation wrong.

There was no reason for Li Xiamei to have been "awakened" by him.

"Sigh, I'm holding in a piss right now, dying to find some spot to let it out…"

"Better stay careful. Careful means no capsizing. Hold it in for now."

"That old fart won't even let us fart, best not even breathe if it were up to him. You're lucky enough to be able to breathe and talk right now, and you want to piss? Hold it till you burst!"

The chatter from the people behind drifted in a noisy tangle into the ears of the two in front.

Zhou Chang was still lying on Zhou Sanji's back. He tilted his head slightly and saw that the fury in Zhou Sanji's eyes had almost taken solid form, as if about to set his whole face alight.

Yet those crimson ink-black eyes of the old man had now somewhat faded.

"I advise you all to keep your voices down!

No matter what, you're still porters and escorts carrying the bridal sedan for the Zhong family's Young Lady, the Zhong family's son-in-law. Giggling like that, mouths full of piss and fart—if you carry on, you might just offend the family's happy occasion!" Zhou Sanji pressed his voice low and said coldly.

Hearing this, the three young men didn't need Sun Yanshun to tell them—they all immediately lowered their voices.

"Zhong Kui the Great Master's face, they still had to respect.

Moreover, the "Zhong family's Young Lady" sitting in the coffin, though she'd been perfectly still the whole time, was no ordinary person.

"These people won't listen to reason—good words can't save a ghost that deserves to die…" Zhou Sanji murmured, shaking his head. He lifted his gaze to study the surroundings; in those ink-black eyes of his, the world he saw—who knew what it looked like?

Zhou Chang only saw the old man slowly lower his head again and say softly, "Given the situation now, we've definitely run into something.

They say it's a mistake, no such Li-so-and-so Mei—I reckon that's not certain…

Little great-grandson, when danger comes, don't count on others. Your own life is what matters most!"

"That Li so-and-so Mei… is she human or ghost? If it's only her and the few dogs she keeps, can't all these people here, armed as they are, take her on for a round?" Zhou Chang asked.

As he spoke these words, he already had a vague answer in his heart.

And Zhou Sanji's reply undoubtedly confirmed the answer in his heart. Zhou Sanji said, "Li Xiamei is a 'Thought-Demon.'

"A 'Thought-Demon' can be a person, can be a ghost—it all depends on how others think of it, how they see it…

Don't even think about fighting her—she can take your life whenever she likes, and you might not even be able to touch her, so how would you fight? Most Thought-Demons are like this…"

Zhou Chang nodded and asked again, "You can't either?"

Zhou Sanji gave a self-mocking smile: "Your grandpa's just an old swindler scraping out a living—what kind of thing am I?"

"Then where did this Thought-Demon come from?"

"It crawled out of 'thoughts'…" Zhou Sanji tapped his own temple and muttered, "Roadside stones, the old donkey at the mill, the living and the dead scattered across the land, the clouds in the sky… these days anything can give rise to 'thoughts.' When many things' thoughts gather upon a single matter, add in a 'chance meeting,' and a Thought-Demon is born…"

He paused, then went on: "Old Feng and his wife Li Xiamei, several hundred years ago, were a normal living couple. But later it's said the two of them both turned into Thought-Demons.

They say at that time Li Xiamei was carrying their fourth child in her belly, but once when a physician took her pulse, he found the child in her womb was already dead, and wanted to prescribe for her to expel the dead child… She was unwilling, and went to several more physicians in succession, each of whom confirmed the child in her belly was a dead fetus.

From then on, she didn't step out of the house for months on end.

And from that time on, rumors spread that Li Xiamei had obtained a secret recipe from another Thought-Demon, the 'Ghost Physician,' and had begun eating the innards of living people to revive the dead fetus in her belly—one night, Li Xiamei opened her own door and truly began snatching people everywhere and dragging them home, feeding the corpses to the dogs while she herself ate human innards…"