Taboo Mage - Chapter 50 - The Truth

I had just bitten into my finger, preparing to smear the blood on a human-shaped yellow talisman paper, when the words spoken by the male ghost made me pause.

The male ghost shifted his hands, which were tied with red string, and looked into the eyes of the little boy, filled with tears.

“Xiao Tao, come with Daddy…”

A sudden buzz in my head and a flash of insight finally made me understand what had happened.

Lin Huan, excited, tugged at my arm and whispered in my ear, “These two ghosts are father and son! Hahaha…” I couldn’t help but roll my eyes.

I looked at the poor woman possessed by the spirit. It seemed that the car accident had claimed more than just her Husband; likely… her son as well.

As for why this little boy could continue to exist in the world in human form, I figured it must be the same reason as his Father, choosing to possess someone.

And this woman, did she know her son was also dead? If she knew, why would she let her son be? If she didn’t know, then why hadn’t she noticed the change in her son, or if she had noticed, why hadn’t she spoken up?

So many complicated questions, and the answers would probably only be revealed after she woke up.

The male ghost struggled desperately, but the red string, soaked in black dog blood, was lethal to ghosts. With each struggle, the string tightened even more.

Hearing the call, the child suddenly turned his head and walked towards the male ghost, giggling creepily.

“Xiao Tao, don’t hurt people…”

“I’m not hurting anyone, Daddy… I just want to live… I want to go to the amusement park… I want to buy lots of toys…”

The child reached the male ghost and suddenly hugged his legs, crying, his head raised, much like a child pleading with a parent.

I sighed. The child’s obsession was too deep; he might not last until Jue Chi could exorcise him.

Thinking this, a pang of sorrow unexpectedly flashed through my heart.

The child still clung to the male ghost’s legs, crying pitifully. I took the soul-capturing bottle from my pocket and, holding the peachwood sword, slowly walked behind the child.

When the male ghost saw my actions, his eyes instantly filled with a crimson hue. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but after struggling for a while, he bit his lip, unable to speak.

Silently, I muttered “Amitabha” to myself-what a tragedy.

I aimed the mouth of the soul-capturing bottle at the child and recited the incantation. A black mist began to rise from the top of his head, and I quickly affixed the yellow talisman paper inscribed with talismanic incantations to his body.

The child’s wails of misery rang in my ears. Hardening my heart, I closed my eyes, the incantations on my lips growing faster.

When I opened my eyes again, the boy was lying quietly on the ground, his eyes closed as if he were asleep.

I sighed, sealed the bottle, and looked up at the male ghost, whose face was etched with pain, and thanked him.

I knew very well that if it hadn’t been for the male ghost capturing the child’s attention, I couldn’t have subdued him so smoothly.

The male ghost shook his head. “My son, he was a good boy.”

“I know,” I said, my voice thick with emotion, nodding with a smile.

Following the male ghost’s request, I sealed his spirit into a life amulet and turned it into a good luck amulet, which I hung around his wife’s neck.

As for the child, I made another trip to the Hanging Temple and handed his spirit over to Jue Chi for exorcism.

Three days later, I was lying on the couch, half-asleep.

The woman pushed open the door of my shop. It had been a few days, and the dark energy on her face had almost completely dissipated. Her ragged clothes had been replaced by a clean, crisp white dress.

I was taken aback for a moment, not realizing who she was until she told me her name.

I was surprised by the person sitting in front of me. I had thought she was a woman in her forties, but after changing her clothes and fixing herself up a bit, she looked incredibly young, barely in her early thirties.

She placed a basket of eggs on the coffee table, smiling shyly, a stark contrast to the image of the middle-aged woman in agony who had clung to my legs before.

“You…” I found myself at a loss for words for a moment.

The woman awkwardly smoothed out the wrinkles on her skirt before sighing and beginning to tell me the whole story.

It turned out that one day, when her Husband had gone out to restock their store, he took their son, who had just started summer vacation. The boy, lively and active, ran into the street while his Father wasn’t watching and was struck by a passing vehicle.

The Father died trying to protect his child, shattering a once happy family.

Unable to cope with the tragedy, her mental state began to deteriorate. Then, one day, she found a boy in the park where her son used to play. This boy was her son’s friend and an orphan. The moment she saw him, he reminded her so much of her own son that she decided to adopt him to ease her longing.

Unexpectedly, the child seemed normal during the day, but at night, he would start muttering to the walls alone. She noticed that the boy increasingly resembled her own son, in both behavior and habits, almost identically.

Eventually, she discovered that her son had indeed returned, but his spirit had taken possession of this boy’s body.

As a Mother, even just seeing her son’s spirit made her incredibly happy, so she kept this secret and lived with this half-alive, half-dead son.

However, she gradually noticed that her son was acting strangely. He would hug strangers and cry during the day, and the next day, those people would mysteriously die.

She realized that her son was no longer the sweet child he had been; he had become a Resentful Spirit.

She knew it was time to let her son go, but she couldn’t bear to do it, until one day, when her son hurt someone again, she was so heartbroken that she clutched her Husband’s ancestral tablet and cried, inadvertently summoning her Husband’s ghost, which possessed her.

The Husband wanted to take their son away, but the child, now a Resentful Spirit, clung to the beauty of the living world, leading to the incident a few days ago.

After she finished her story, there was so much I wanted to say, but I couldn’t find the words. Finally, I just remarked, “Good people will receive good fortune.”

The woman nodded through her tears, stood up, and took her leave. As I watched her, I noticed the good luck amulet around her neck and suddenly realized that the Cycle of Cause and Effect applies just as much to those who have passed on.