Chapter 89

The raging fire consumed more than half of Gu Family Town. Those hiding in the mountains could hear the gunshots and screams echoing from the foot of the mountain, and could see the crimson glow of fire and smoke. As they gazed down from afar, their faces bore heavy pain and sorrow, mingled with fear. Yet they comforted each other, saying it was enough to be alive-so long as they lived, everything they once had could still be regained.

It wasn’t until dawn that a gentle rain began to fall from the sky, softly weighing down the blazing flames.

A middle-aged man walked cautiously down a small alley, when suddenly he heard the cry of an infant. He intended to ignore it, but in the end, could not steel his heart. Carefully following the sound of the baby’s wails, he was stunned to discover, at the end of the alley, a Little Girl sitting on the ground. There was a bloody hole in the center of her brow, and the blood had smeared her entire face blood-red. Her eyes were wide as copper bells, gray and silent, yet within them glimmered a chilling ferocity and malice that made his body tremble and forced him to take a step back!

He turned to flee, but then thought the Miss looked somewhat familiar-wasn’t she the second Miss of the Gu Family?

The second Miss of the Gu Family was lively and adorable. Whenever she saw elders, she would always greet them as Uncle or Aunt, and her fondness for smiling, her round, cheerful face, made her as lovable as a fortune doll. After school, she and a group of children could often be seen on the street buying “ding-ding candy.” He used to set up a stall nearby selling trinkets, so he had seen her several times.

There was a fortune-teller in their village who once said the second Miss of the Gu Family was destined for great wealth and fortune, though she would face a calamity. If she survived it, she’d live a long and prosperous life; if not, she’d become a short-lived ghost. At the time, no one believed it, thinking the fortune-teller was just talking nonsense, as his predictions were never accurate and his reputation as a fraud was well known.

But unexpectedly, this prediction had come true-she really did die here.

The middle-aged man couldn’t help but sigh. Hearing once more the infant’s cry from behind the second Miss of the Gu Family, he stepped closer and found, sure enough, that there was a small baby tied to her back, wedged in the corner of a stone, whimpering. Could this be the very child from Gu Chong’s wife’s womb?

Suddenly, he understood why the Little Girl had died in such a posture-not lying face down, nor cowering in terror, but instead facing death with such dignity and resolve-because she was protecting him.

The middle-aged man hurriedly picked up the baby, discovering he was pitifully small and wrinkled, his eyes unable to open, and even his cries growing weaker.

He soothed the baby until he stopped crying, then gently set him aside. Next, he moved the corpse of the Little Girl under the eaves, fearing that if the rain grew heavier, her appearance after death would become even more tragic. He planned to bury her properly once the chaos subsided.

He dared not linger long-gunshots echoed nearby. Cradling the child, he carefully made his way home.

He hadn’t gone far when, all of a sudden, more than a dozen bandits rushed past, screaming. Startled, he shrank into a nearby corner, watching them with vigilance. Only then did he notice that the faces of these people no longer bore the vicious pride of murderers, but were instead filled with terror-their faces pale, sweat pouring down. In the firelight, they looked even more terrifying.

As the middle-aged man wondered, he saw one of them suddenly raise his gun and shoot a companion at point-blank range. With a bang, blood splattered, and the man fell to the ground before anyone could react.

The abruptness of it stunned the fleeing bandits. They turned in alarm, only to see the shooter’s face twisted in a bizarre grin. After firing the shot, he licked the blood from his hand, looking more monstrous than any demon.

“Ahhh! He’s possessed! Possessed by a ghost! Kill him, quick!”

“You devil, die! I’ll kill you!”

“Bang! Bang! Bang!”

Several more shots rang out in quick succession, tearing through the shooter’s body. His eerie expression stiffened, slowly transforming into pain and confusion. Eyes wide with disbelief, he collapsed to the ground.

The others had barely caught their breath when they saw a blurry ghostly figure float out from the corpse. Her feet didn’t touch the ground, long hair cascading down as she stared at them, her hand clutching a misty, smoke-like figure. Looking closely, they realized it looked exactly like the body lying on the ground! He seemed to struggle desperately, but could not break free from the grasp of the Long-haired Female Ghost.

Then, under the horrified gaze of all present, the Long-haired Female Ghost brought the struggling ghost to her mouth and, bite by bite, devoured it. Her cold, evil gaze fixed on them, as if sizing up her next prey!

What-this ghost eats ghosts? That meant even in death, they couldn’t escape her clutches! Not only would their bodies die, but their souls would be lost as well. Without a soul, there would be no next life!

“Ah!!!”

“Help! There’s a ghost!”

“Help!”

……

The middle-aged man had never imagined he would witness such a scene. He was so terrified he was dumbstruck, frantically covering his mouth to stifle any sound. Wide-eyed, he watched as the Long-haired Female Ghost toyed with the bandits, driving them to slaughter one another. The gunshots and wretched screams echoed endlessly.

Though he felt a surge of satisfaction, he was still overwhelmingly afraid. He cowered in the corner, trembling, drained of all strength, clutching the little baby and praying he wouldn’t cry out again. Even from a distance, he seemed to hear the screeching and howling of the Long-haired Female Ghost, and even the crisp chewing sounds from her mouth.

Crunch, crunch, crunch……

He dared not move anymore, maintaining the same stiff posture throughout the whole night. The rain from the sky grew heavier and heavier, and the sounds of gunshots and screams gradually faded away, washed out by the pouring rain. The raging flames across the sky were slowly extinguished bit by bit.

The whole world quieted down.

The first ray of sunlight appeared in the sky. He looked up, and finally, it was dawn.

……

Gu Family Town was destroyed overnight, leaving countless dead and wounded. Yet, what surprised people even more was that none of the robbers who had launched this raid survived either.

A quick count revealed as many as forty corpses!

All of them died miserably, either riddled with dark gunshot wounds or with throats slit by some sharp weapon. Each dead face was twisted with terror, eyes wide open, bloodshot, as if they had seen something horrifying-a look of disbelief and fear frozen on their faces.

“How did they get killed?”

“I heard gunshots all night. I thought everyone left in the town was doomed. How come the ones dead are these robbers?”

“Look at these wounds. Don’t they look like they were clawed out by some beast? Could it be that the fox spirit revealed itself, knowing we were in trouble, and came to save us?”

“Thank heaven, these evil beasts are finally dead!”

The villagers were filled with relief. The middle-aged man was also overjoyed, but when he thought of the scene he saw last night, a shiver ran through his heart. He hugged the child tightly and went to the Gu Family.

But the Gu Family was filled with the stench of death. Gu Xianxi and his wife, along with Gu Chong, lay in pools of blood, their bodies already stiff. He knew that the first place those robbers headed in town had been the prominent Gu Family. Remembering the little girl who died outside, he hugged the child in his arms even tighter-perhaps this was the Gu Family’s last surviving seedling.

Perhaps the child felt something too. Sound asleep, he suddenly burst into loud wails.

Stunned, he muttered, Cry, cry, in times like these, who isn’t just living day by day? Since he had survived, he should live well. No matter how hard or tiring it was, he would raise the child.

Just as he was about to leave, Gu Family’s eldest daughter-in-law came stumbling out of nowhere. When she saw the corpses on the ground, her already pale face turned ghastly. With a scream, she rushed over, shouting frantically, but the people on the ground were long dead, unable to respond to her. At last, she couldn’t help but break down and cry, her voice full of despair.

She had never imagined that after collapsing from exhaustion and waking up, what she would face would be the corpses of her husband and in-laws.

Her crying was joined by the wailing of the baby.

The middle-aged man walked over, holding the child.

“This is your child. I found him on Second Miss Gu’s back.”

“Don’t be afraid, I’m not a bad person. My surname is Yu, Yu Lifeng. I sell steamed buns outside the academy.”

……

When Gu Feiyin woke up, it was already broad daylight. Opening her eyes, she saw Old Lady, Jumpy, and the woman in red ghost standing by her bed. Their faces were pale and bluish, their ashen eyes silently fixed on her. Gu Feiyin acted as if she hadn’t seen them, closing her eyes again and quietly lying there for a while, because today her eyes seemed to have some problems-hurting a bit when she opened them, with a lot of gunk at the corners. She couldn’t help but rub her eyes, and sure enough, felt much better.

She closed her eyes, intending to lie down a bit longer. The dream from last night weighed heavily on her heart, stuffy and suffocating, as if it troubled her even more than all her past job losses.

Standing at the bedside, ignored, Old Lady, Jumpy, and the woman in red ghost: “……”

She can still sleep like this? As expected of a Long Black Straight Hair. The woman in red ghost crossed her arms, looking down at her and said, “Long Black Straight Hair, did you know you cried all night? What did you dream of?”

Gu Feiyin was stunned for a moment, saying in disbelief, “I cried all night? That’s impossible.”

“Why is it impossible?”

“I’m so strong, how could I cry?”

“Of course you cried. We saw it with our own eyes. Otherwise, why do you have so much gunk in your eyes?”

“……??!”

Gu Feiyin was bewildered. Why would she cry?

Was it because of the scenes in the dream?

Those strange yet familiar scenes replayed in her mind again and again, the pain and despair resonating with her as if they were her own experiences.

In the dream, she kept following the Little Girl, watching Gu Family’s three members shot to death, watching the Little Girl turn from a person into a ghost, and witnessing the Resentment Energy around her grow heavier and heavier. Especially after slaughtering and devouring those dozens of robbers, the suffocating aura almost engulfed her entirely-clearly, the transformation was complete. Yet she just stood there, dumbly, amid a pile of corpses, unmoving black eyes staring ahead.

Suddenly, a torrential downpour fell from the sky, and a heaven thunder struck straight down, crashing right onto the Little Girl’s forehead. The Little Girl didn’t dodge, closed her eyes, and fell.

Gu Feiyin was shocked; she didn’t even have time to curse “Goddamn Heaven,” rushing forward to save her. She knew well the power of that heaven thunder-a strike like that, how could any soul survive? Surely it would be scattered!

But as she stepped forward, the scene shifted, and she found herself in another place-a place deeply familiar to her. Especially the appearance of that pit, it was almost identical to her memory-wasn’t this her own pit? Looking up again, she saw the Little Girl lying on her favorite stone bed!

The Little Girl seemed to have just woken from a dream. She sat up, looking around blankly, rubbed her stomach and muttered that she was so hungry, so hungry, then floated down the mountain to find something to eat.

Down the mountain, everything flourished. The fires and corpses from before were gone, as though the previous tragedy had been just a dream, and many years had already passed.

Houses rose and fell, smoke curled from chimneys, adults worked the fields, children played, cats and dogs and chickens called-just like Mu Village in her memory.

The Little Girl was actually her!