Chapter 595: Epilogue: Flies Don't Bite a Seamless Egg

Hearing Yu Nian say this, my spine stiffened suddenly; Yu Nian instinctively paused, looking at me doubtfully.

I opened my mouth and uttered four words: "Collecting corpses and combining medicines."

"Yes, that's exactly it—collecting corpses and combining medicines. After death one must go to hell, and the Seven Halls Yama oversee this." Yu Nian said sorrowfully, "If my father knew those pills were made from these ingredients, by such means, he would never let my mother take them. And my mother then…… her consciousness had already been enslaved by those pills, like an addict; if she didn't take the medicine at the scheduled time, she would go mad, even self-harm."

This is a dilemma.

Not taking the pills, Yu Nian's mother would die of illness; taking them, she would become increasingly abnormal.

Moreover, the source of these pills is dubious, and Yu Nian's mother was pregnant.

No matter how the ferryman chose back then, there would be no good outcome.

Yet a choice had to be made.

I asked cautiously, "What happened then?"

"At first, my father forcibly stopped my mother from taking the pills while going to the Feng Clan to look for that woman, only to be told the Feng Clan had no such person, nor such pills."

"My father blamed himself while also being extremely anxious; my mother's condition worsened, she was in a state of mania every day. The Great Witch of the Feng Clan prescribed a regimen, saying she must take the medicine for eighty‑one days without touching the previous pills, or else all prior effort would be wasted and my mother would be completely ruined."

As it turned out, long before that, Yu Nian, the ferryman, and Yin Dang Hang had already intersected with the Feng Clan, somehow bound by fate.

I ventured, "So she couldn't last the full eighty‑one days, right?"

"Hmm." Yu Nian sighed, saying, "A cracked egg, no matter how you hide it, flies will still find it by the smell."

After my mother took the medicine given by the Great Witch, her condition clearly improved; my father, holding an official post, had to keep her close, ferrying while caring for her.

I don't know when someone found a loophole, but my mother ultimately took the pills again on the seventy‑seventh day of her regimen, instantly went mad, seized the oar, knocked my father unconscious, and vanished without a trace.

"So hateful!"

"Really, so hateful!"

I gritted my teeth and asked, "What deep grudge could there be, why does the other side cling to your mother?"

"What grudge?" Yu Nian scoffed, "What my father dredged up from the tail of the Wangchuan River was a cuckoo."

"Yes! A cuckoo!"

"That settles it."

"Such an innately wicked creature, any vile act it commits is to be expected."

"She had my mother in her sights from the very beginning." Yu Nian said slowly, "My mother was born with a Buddha‑like bone, a natural outstanding talent, which is why she could single‑handedly establish Yin Dang Hang and bear so much karma. Although she was already terminally ill, to the cuckoo she was still a rare vessel; giving her the pills was actually a process of refining that vessel."

"I see."

Yu Nian herself originally had a Buddha‑like bone; it turns out she inherited it from her mother.

I felt uneasy; if Yu Nian's mother hadn't died, Yin Dang Hang wouldn't have declined to this point, and now wouldn't have been utterly shattered by a heavenly thunderbolt.

I gripped Yu Nian's hand, my heart in my throat: "What happened then?"

I knew that each of my questions was like rubbing salt into Yu Nian's wound.

But Yu Nian needed to confide.

Only by digging out that festering, pus‑oozing old scar, cleaning it thoroughly, can new flesh grow and true healing occur.

"After that……" Yu Nian said blankly, "My mother disappeared for months—no sign of her alive or dead—then one day she appeared herself at the tail of the Wangchuan River, skin and bone, covered head to toe in wounds, blood continually trickling down her legs……"

Yu Nian choked up several times: "When my father saw her, he could barely recognize her; he slowly brought the ferryboat close, and only then did he see my mother still cradling a newborn baby in her arms, the umbilical cord not yet cut……"

Hearing this, I couldn't hold back and silently shed tears alongside Yu Nian.

"She shoved the infant into my father's hand, opened her mouth to say something, but couldn't utter a word. My father knew she wouldn't survive; he seized her hand, helped her onto the ferryboat, and said he would accompany her to her last moment, personally ferrying her across the Wangchuan River to ensure she would be reborn smoothly."

"She wouldn't want that." I said firmly, "Having been tormented and controlled by the cuckoo for so long, yet still, after giving birth to you, she exerted all her strength to return you to your father—this shows her reason still lingered briefly; she was a person of conscience."

Her original intention in establishing Yin Dang Hang was also to ferry others across.

Yu Nian nodded: "Exactly, she was unwilling; she knew her sins were deep. Although none of this was her choice, karmic burdens clung to her, and she faced judgment in the eighteen levels of hell. If my father had forcibly ferried her across the Wangchuan River into reincarnation, he would have to bear her punishment, suffering unimaginable backlash… So she refused, turned, and threw herself into the Wangshui River, instantly swallowed by its waters, not even a bone fragment left."

A long silence and grief followed.

We spoke, we listened, but no one could truly empathize with the ferryman.

Impossible!

He watched with his own eyes as his beloved, his partner, the mother of his child, plunged into the Wangshui River and turned into a pool of blood.

Not entering reincarnation, no corpse could be recovered; from then on he vanished completely from this world.

I think, if it weren't for Yu Nian, the ferryman would surely have followed her mother then.

The more the ferryman's heart ached, the more he hated the cuckoo, and the more he hated himself.

He resented himself for having saved that woman onto the boat in the first place, and for believing her nonsense……

Only now do I finally understand how Yu Nian and the cuckoo became connected.

"So from the moment you were born, your body was already infected by the cuckoo, right?"

What I didn't expect was that Yu Nian was not sure: "Probably, but actually during my growing up, I always behaved normally. At first my father cautiously observed me, then as I gradually grew up, became a young lady, and inherited Yin Dang Hang, everything my father had imagined never happened, he also gradually relaxed, peacefully doing the Ferry, until that year, a Taoist leading his disciple walked into Yin Dang Hang…"