Chapter 8: 7. Little Baby, Tummy Ache

7. Little Baby, Tummy Ache

Zhou Sanji looked after Zhou Chang with care, untied a string of keys from his waist and handed them to Zhou Chang, saying, "These are the keys to our house. You, you know where we live, right?

Once you leave here, head west.

The place we live is called 'Qingyi Town.' Once you get to Qingyi Town, just find anyone in town and ask around, ask them where Zhou Laoduan lives, and they'll point you the way…"

The old man instructed Zhou Chang down to the smallest detail, as if he were delivering his last words.

Hearing the barking drawing closer, his expression suddenly hardened. He gazed at Zhou Chang and said, "Once you can move, Grandpa can leave with peace of mind—"

"Leave where?" Zhou Chang asked with a furrowed brow; he had guessed Zhou Sanji's intention.

The other man had still been persuaded by Sun Yanshun, and was preparing to sacrifice himself in order to invite a god to help Zhou Chang pass the trial.

Zhou Chang lowered his eyes, pressed his voice, and said, "I've told you, I have a way. It might let us dodge Li Xiamei's pursuit."

"What kind of way could you possibly have?" Zhou Sanji sped up his words. "Do you get it? As long as we're still breathing, still able to move, that Li Xiamei can sniff us out, hear us coming after us!

Only by borrowing a god's power can we cover the sounds we make, the scent we give off! Only then can you get away!"

Zhou Chang was startled by the words.

He had heard Sun Yanshun say something similar before, but hadn't paid attention at the time.

He thought of Sun Yanshun's skinny disciple who had wet himself halfway—after Zhong Kui stopped shielding everyone, the skinny one, because he had wet his pants, gave off the strongest scent, so that after Li Xiamei appeared, the first one she killed was him!

Zhou Chang was silent for a moment. Then he raised his eyes again to look at Zhou Sanji, his gaze pitch-black: "It doesn't matter. My way is to kill Li Xiamei—once she's dead, she can't possibly still smell the living or hear us moving."

Zhou Sanji stared at his youngest grandson two or three steps away, his mouth slightly open.

Looking at the person before him, he could not connect him with the grandson in his memory.

This 'Zhou Chang' felt like a stranger to him.

This sense of strangeness had already appeared in Zhou Sanji's heart earlier; only at that time he could still find reasons to gloss it over, to cover it up. But after the argument with Sun Yanshun just now, all those details he had tried to ignore and conceal finally came into sharp relief—he could no longer hide anything.

"You—" Zhou Sanji's lips trembled slightly; his somewhat low tone suddenly turned fierce. "Why won't you listen!

I've told you, you can't kill a Thought-Demon!

It's a 'Thought-Demon,' a ghost born from thoughts. Don't think that just because you hold a knife in the real world, you can slash it—you can't even scratch it!"

The smile on Zhou Chang's face did not waver.

He knew that with just the knife in his hand, he naturally could not kill a Thought-Demon.

What he relied on was actually the garment covering his body.

A Thought-Demon is a ghost born from thoughts, yet its power can act upon reality. And this garment of transparent silk threads likewise exists only in Zhou Chang's thoughts, yet can act upon reality.

Things in reality cannot deal with the 'Thought-Demon' of the mind; perhaps the garment of the mind can.

"How sure are you that you can summon a god?

And how sure are you that the god you summon will help us?" Zhou Chang gazed into Zhou Sanji's eyes and asked aloud.

At this, Zhou Sanji lowered his eyes, clearly hesitating.

He did not answer Zhou Chang's question, but asked Zhou Chang in return, "What about you? How sure are you of your own way?"

"Not even one in ten," Zhou Chang answered frankly. "You don't have even one in ten confidence in your way either, do you? It's just a shot in the dark—then take that shot in the dark, but try my way first."

He said no more to Zhou Sanji. He suddenly raised his foot and kicked over Sun Yanshun, who had been pricking up his ears to listen to the grandfather-grandson exchange.

The commoner's saber in Zhou Chang's hand followed through and slashed across Sun Yanshun's shoulder; blood immediately gushed from Sun Yanshun's shoulder!

The change came so suddenly that Sun Yanshun had no time to react. He screamed several times, trying to struggle free, but Zhou Chang had already pinned his chest under one foot, leaving him unable to move!

Looking at Zhou Chang's deathly pale face, he felt a terror as if facing a natural enemy, and begged in helpless panic, "Don't kill me! Don't kill me!"

Zhou Chang's gaze was cold. He knelt on Sun Yanshun's chest, dropped the commoner's saber, locked both of Sun Yanshun's flailing hands, flipped him over, and used a rope to bind his hands and feet behind his back.

He did not perform these actions with any great skill.

But his strength at this moment was tremendous; his hands were like iron pincers, able to subdue Sun Yanshun with ease. So in the blink of an eye he had bound Sun Yanshun, tying him up as securely as if trussing a goat!

Sun Yanshun was still flopping like a beached fish, blood staining half his shoulder.

A heavy stench of blood filled the air, sharp and acrid.

Earlier, the skinny one had wet his pants in fright and become the first person Li Xiamei caught and killed. Now Sun Yanshun had blood all over half his body, and was likewise the most likely to be Li Xiamei's first target.

Zhou Chang picked up the commoner's saber and led Zhou Sanji to hide behind a large tree a few steps away.

The barking that had been ringing in all three of their ears fell silent after a moment.

A wisp of fog drifted through the wild woods, and within the fog there seemed to be faint, shadowy figures.

Those slender figures, trailing long hair, swayed unsteadily in the fog.

The drifting figures sang in thin, soft voices: "Little baby, tummy ache, go find Old Feng.

Old Feng's not home, so go find his mother and her three.

Bring Li Xiamei along, grab that one peach-petal in the belly, twist it, pull it, yank it—

When that peach-petal falls out, little baby, the tummy's all better…"

Like a mother humming a lullaby to a baby, the song drifted softly and gently through the woods.

Gauzy fog, along with the singing, drifted over Sun Yanshun's body in the clearing.

The fog hid Sun Yanshun's form; Zhou Chang could only see a few hazy shadows over there.

The song winding around his and Zhou Sanji's ears now grew even softer, the breath within it growing so faint it was barely there, indistinct.

Zhou Sanji's expression, following that song, gradually grew calm.

Even Zhou Chang's mind gradually settled.

His face was wooden; he still held the commoner's saber in his hand. Strand after strand of transparent, faintly white silk thread, under his control, wound around the blade of the saber layer upon layer.

The wrapping of those transparent silk threads did not make the commoner's saber look clumsy or blunt. Each strand was pulled taut, covering the blade densely and tightly, and instead lent the saber an even greater air of being able to slice a hair on the breeze and cut through iron as if it were mud.

It seemed as if it could cut through anything—this was the result formed when Zhou Chang's will, channeled through the transparent silk threads, was applied to the blade.

"Little baby, tummy ache, go find Old Feng…"

The singing voice rose slowly.

A long-haired woman in a black satin jacket stood quietly behind Zhou Chang and Zhou Sanji.

She raised the dagger in her hand,

and Zhou Chang, who had her back to her, turned around as if he had expected it all along.

Turning around with him was the broadsword wrapped in transparent threads—the broadsword spun half a circle in the air, slicing through Li Xiamei's neck in an instant, faster than the dagger in Li Xiamei's hand could fall!

Swish!

A head tumbled to the ground!

Li Xiamei stood there silently, holding the dagger, the cut on her neck smooth and complete.

The singing voice that had lingered all around suddenly fell silent, and the mist slowly dispersed.

Li Xiamei had her head chopped off by Zhou Chang with a single strike.

And Zhou Chang's head suddenly throbbed with pain!

With that strike just now, he had almost exhausted all his strength, pouring all his spirit into that one blow.

The price he paid for such an act was equally terrible.

As if an iron chisel were hammering into his brain again and again with force, the faint white transparent threads wrapped around the broadsword in his hand had all turned to burnt incense ash, blown away by the wind until no trace remained.

The transparent threads that had originally been enough to completely cover Zhou Chang's body could now only cover half of it.

His body trembled uncontrollably, and everything in his vision swayed back and forth.

The results he achieved after paying such a huge price were equally significant—

Li Xiamei's headless body stood in place, already dead.

The dark sky slowly brightened, and the black wind swirling through the forest gradually subsided.

Zhou Sanji, only now realizing what had happened, turned around, saw the headless body standing just inches away, his pupils contracted, and he sprang up, jumping far away!

"Dead! Li Xiamei is dead!" Zhou Chang said in a slightly relaxed tone, raising his voice.

At this moment, Zhou Sanji also noticed that Li Xiamei's neck no longer had a head; he looked at the broadsword Zhou Chang held in his hand, then at Li Xiamei's smooth-cut neck, his eyes filled with shock and doubt: "Dead?

A Want-Demon, just like that, dead?"

"This isn't right..."

"Go, go, go! Now that things seem to be getting better, let's hurry and leave!" Zhou Sanji said, grabbing Zhou Chang's arm and pulling him, ready to run.

Zhou Chang, shaking his head, followed Zhou Sanji past Sun Yanshun.

Sun Yanshun lay on the ground, motionless.

Blood spread beneath him; he had become a corpse at some unknown time.

Zhou Chang turned to look again and saw Li Xiamei's headless body standing in the forest, silent and still.

The black satin jacket could not cover her protruding belly.

In that instant, Zhou Chang seemed to see Li Xiamei's headless body's belly swell suddenly; his eyes narrowed!

Zhou Sanji, who was pulling him forward, suddenly stopped.

Zhou Chang heard the old man's muffled whisper: "Little child, my belly hurts..."

Startled by the sound, his scalp went numb; he turned around and saw Zhou Sanji had also turned to face him—Zhou Sanji's face was full of terror, his mouth tightly shut, clearly not speaking, yet sounds came from the old man's eyes, nose, and ears.

That burst of singing, at first just Zhou Sanji's original tone, later turned into a soft, gentle female voice: "Old Feng is not at home, so find his mother and three..."

"Grab that peach slice inside the belly, twist it, pull it, drag it—

"That peach slice fell, little child, the belly is all better now..."

As soft, gentle singing continued to flow from Zhou Sanji's eyes, ears, and nostrils, streams of illusory, colorful mist like saliva also poured out from them; within that illusory, colorful mist were Zhou Sanji's cries of terror, shock, or madness, all surging toward Li Xiamei's headless body in the black forest!

"Li Xiamei is coming back to life again!"

"It's over! It's over!"

"I told you long ago, you cannot kill a Want-Demon, yet you wouldn't believe me!"

"Let me summon the gods instead; I will summon the gods, you run quickly!"

"Run! Run quickly, youngest grandson— is he still my youngest grandson?"

Li Xiamei's belly swelled and protruded even more, bursting all the buttons on her black satin jacket—all the illusory, colorful mist poured into her belly through her navel!

These colorful mists surging from Zhou Sanji's eyes, ears, mouth, and nose were Zhou Sanji's chaotic thoughts!

All these noisy thoughts had become food offered to the Want-Demon!