Chapter 61: Deserted Village 3; Murdering Hungry Ghost
Translated by Shiya of Exiled Rebels Scanlations
Editor: Karai
Yi said, “Originally we intended to get ready first then enter the deserted village to explore the situation, but we found a group of young people snuck into the deserted village. During the time we only received a distress signal, so we came in early. Because we were not able to explore the situation in advance, and in order to save people, a Tianshi was injured.”
Chen Yang followed to see the injured Tianshi, his shoulder had a lacerated wound, the flesh was open and beginning to rot and blacken. The wound was simply treated with herbs to stop the bleeding, but it was obvious that the wound could not be stopped from decaying. The so-called ‘Ten Daoists, nine are doctors’, especially Ghost Arts users, could handle most wounds.
Chief Wu Yi said, “I used herbs to stop the bleeding, but this morning I suddenly found that his flesh was starting to decompose. The bad thing is that he doesn’t feel any pain.” While she spoke, Chief Wu Yi tore open a piece of skin at the wound of the Tianshi, and the wounded Tianshi’s face did not change without the slightest pain, “Stiff necrosis, I suspect that he was poisoned by corpse Qi.”
Chen Yang, “You did not bring vermilion sand and yellow talismans?”
“It was yanked off during the rescue.” Chief Wu Yi had an indifferent personality, but when mentioning this matter there was a slight mood swing. She seemed quite disgusted with the group of young people who had caused trouble and dragged their feet. “I can only find some herbs to cure the poison. I need glutinous rice or vermilion and yellow talismans.”
Du Shuo asked, “All of you can’t get out?”
“No, I can’t. Including them.” The Chief Wu lifted her long sleeve to show them the conch pattern on her arm. A long, tragic white thread coiling through the veins of her skin in the shape of a conch. She said, “We didn’t encounter any monsters at first when we entered the deserted village, just a few people who came out of the bus. They got separated from the rest of the people and went to the ancestral hall. That night we stayed overnight at the ancestral hall while saving the four youths.”
Chief Wu Yi used her chin to point at the three lost youths across the room, “They were three of the four youths. The other one died and was placed inside the coffin at the altar, the one you saw. When we stayed overnight here, we all ate our own stored food. We also told them not to eat anything from the deserted village. While we were out looking for other survivors, the youths caught some fish from the well inside the ancestral hall to make soup. They gave the soup to all the people present to drink, and secretly poured the fish soup into our hot water kettles as well.”
At that time, they were too tired and did not notice that their water was mixed with fish soup. They used the water to make instant noodles, the heavier taste masked the taste of the fish soup. They only noticed after drinking it, but it was all too late. All the people who drank the fish soup had thin white threads in the shape of conches on their arms, and no matter how they walked, they could not get out of the deserted village anymore.
That night, a young man was attacked by the monsters in the deserted village, and when they arrived, half of his head, an arm and half of his crotch along with a leg had been gnawed off. The first Tianshi to arrive at the scene was also bitten on the shoulder and has not been able to heal.
Chen Yang checked the face of the injured Tianshi, and although he was a bit pale and had a blackened forehead, there were no signs of him turning into a Jiangshi. Chief Wu Yi and the injured Tianshi said to him with certainty, “It’s not Jiangshi poison, Tianshi Zhong has no other symptoms of Jiangshi poison except the wound is rotten but not painful. I saw the monster that attacked Tianshi Zhong when I arrived with the other two Tianshis, it was thin and agile, definitely not a Jiangshi.”
Liu Quanning came forward and said, “Indeed, it is not a Jiangshi. For Jiangshis, except Maojiang and Feijiang have fast and agile movements, others all need to jump to move. Besides, if it is a Maojiang or Feijang, they should be sucking blood instead of gnawing on human flesh.”
Chen Yang was puzzled, “That’s strange. The wound is rotten but not painful, but there are no signs of turning into a Jiangshi. It must be a Corpse poison…” He looked back at Du Shuo, “Can you tell what it is?”
Du Shuo asked, “Did you see what the monster that attacked you looked like?”
“There was no light. The moonlight was blocked by the branches and leaves. I couldn’t see it clearly.” Tianshi Zhong tried to recall, “I only know that the limbs were as dry and thin as withered branches. Its hair is thin, the abdomen is swollen, and I could not see its features. I originally thought it was a hungry ghost, but the hungry ghost karma is horrible. A hungry ghost’s throat is like a needle point in size. Ingested food all turns into flaming sewage. Without the Taoist ritual to give food, they can not eat, so it is impossible for them to eat human flesh.”
Du Shuo said, “There are thirty-six kinds of hungry ghosts like the water-eating hungry ghosts and needle-mouth hungry ghosts. They are scattered all over the Yang realm and they depend on the grass and wood. Hungry ghosts who eat children, hungry ghosts who eat human essence, hungry ghosts who eat flesh and blood, and hungry ghosts who kill are all imprisoned in hell.”
Chief Wu Yi, “Does Du Shuo mean that such kinds of hungry ghosts escaped from hell and have hid in the deserted village?”
Du Shuo, “It is possible.”
Chen Yang remembered that Du Shuo had said that the root of the trouble had been planted when Wu Lingjiu escaped from hell and sowed seeds of problems in hell so they all burst out at once after twenty years. Could it mean that these killing hungry ghosts escaped from hell? It’s no wonder that Chief Wu Yi and Tianshi Zhong didn’t think of the hungry ghosts, nor did Chen Yang.
There are roughly 36 types of hungry ghosts. They are the lowest among Ghost Arts beings because their karma is too heavy and they become hungry ghosts. Hungry ghosts are unable to eat and suffer from hunger and cold all year round. They are monstrous and horrible looking, with throats the size of needles and painful when they swallow food. The food they eat turns into coals of fire and burns their throats. The clean water they drink turns into foul-smelling pus and blood. They suffer for years and years to repay their karmic debt.
These hungry ghosts either wander in hell, or drift around in the yang world in the grass and wood. However, there are also several kinds of hungry ghosts such as blood-eating hungry ghosts and killing hungry ghosts that are imprisoned in hell and are not allowed to appear in the yang world.
These hungry ghosts are scary and difficult to deal with, and there are countless of them. At this time Chief Wu Yi and several other Tianshis felt tricked. All faces were serious. Liu Quanning knew about Wu Lingjiu before he entered the deserted village, so he asked, “Are the hungry ghosts in the deserted village related to Wu Lingjiu?”
Chen Yang looked at Du Shuo, who nodded his head. Then Chen Yang said, “Indeed, it is related. When Wu Lingjiu escaped from hell, he let go of the hungry ghosts in hell.”
Du Shuo added, “Wu Lingjiu was locked up with the hungry ghosts, and the hungry ghosts feed on all things, including ghosts. So Wu Lingjiu was locked up with the hungry ghosts and was torn apart for seven hundred years by them. After feeding the hungry ghosts for so long, he released them from hell and brought them to the yang world, where they were sealed in the deserted village. The hungry ghosts eat human flesh and blood and cannot help but eat them when they see humans.”
The hungry ghosts eat human flesh, blood and essence, so along the way Chen Yang saw cat corpses that had been sucked of their essence and half-eaten corpses in the ancestral hall.
Chen Yang took out vermilion sand, yellow talisman, and other stuff from his backpack. He ground vermilion onto the yellow talisman to draw the exorcism charm. Although the exorcism talisman could not completely exorcize the hungry ghosts’ poison left on the wounds of Tianshi Zhong, it could still suppress it.
He said, “The Hungry Ghost Corpse Poison will assimilate people into a Hungry Ghost. You all have sea threads on your arms and are marked to be trapped in the deserted village. You may have been considered by the hungry ghosts as a plate of food” Before he finished, one of the nine ordinary people broke down and cried.
The girl cried, “I don’t want to die!”
When she cried, several other people looked uncomfortable and full of anxiety. Obviously they also knew that even the Tianshis were feeling difficult, let alone them who were just ordinary people. When their lives were at stake, they naturally did not look good. The woman carrying the baby rushed to Chen Yang and begged him to save her child, “He didn’t drink the fish soup, he’ll be fine. Will you take him out?”
Chen Yang lifted up the baby’s clothes and saw the thin white threads of the sea on them. The women were shocked at the sight, “How could that be?”
“He drank breast milk.” Chen Yang put down the clothes, the woman had already broken down and cried. Chen Yang turned back to Du Shuo and whispered, “What is that fish in the well? How come even the back of a baby’s hand that drank breast milk produces sea threads?”
“I’m not sure yet.” Du Shuo answered him, “Maybe we can go back and check it out.”
Chen Yang thought about it, “Let’s do it tomorrow.” Then he said to Chief Wu Yi and the others, “The poison on Tianshi Zhong’s shoulder needs to be pulled out, and now we can only use charms to suppress the poison. So we still have to find a way to leave the deserted village as soon as possible… How much do you guys know about the deserted village?”
Liu Quanning, “I am from South Guangdong, I am familiar with the deserted village. Before there were no missing person reports, so the deserted village was just an abandoned village, surrounded by greenery and looked gloomy. Indeed there were lonely ghosts occupying these uninhabited rooms, but people and ghosts were safe and sound. Later paranormal events occurred, and the scouting only rated it as a three-star level of danger. It wasn’t until a young Tianshi died that the danger level was re-evaluated to be at four stars or higher.”
Regarding the matter of the wrong rating of the deserted village, the Taoist Association specifically criticized the Guang Yue Taoist Association. But wrongly evaluating the deserted village case was not Guang Yue Taoist Association’s Tianshi’s assessment error, but because at the beginning the danger level was indeed only three stars. The deserted village upgraded in level gradually, leading them to now also be trapped inside.
Liu Quanning said, “The problem with the deserted village began in April last year, several people came to the deserted village to travel overnight. One of the girls disappeared, and another girl witnessed her disappearance and muttered seeing monsters in her delirium. The Taoist Association had not noticed the case until the police came to them, so they went out to investigate. A three stars evaluation was made, and there were Tianshis that took the order. The results were as you know. Later came several groups of Tianshis. They unanimously identified the order as three stars until this year they found the danger level at four stars.”
What happens next, Chen Yang also knows. They were all trapped in the deserted village, and one Tianshi was poisoned by a hungry ghost.
Liu Quanning, “The villagers of the deserted village moved out one after another due to the lack of transportation. Before moving out though they did not mention any paranormal event. On the contrary, after moving out of the village, the deserted village became a ‘ghost village’. The ‘ghost village’ and the ‘green plant kingdom’ attracted many people to come to travel and explore. They -” he pointed to the woman carrying the baby and five other people, ” were on the bus that got lost in the thick fog and entered this village. The engine went out and the bus was besieged by monsters. They had to run for their lives.”
Chief Wu Yi said, “I deduced that during this time the monster was in its formative stage and needed flesh and blood urgently. In addition, there should be someone who deliberately fed this group of monsters.”
Chen Yang was surprised, “How so?”
“You have seen the environment outside the deserted village. The whole Ergui Ridge is in the shape of a big iron wok and the deserted village is in the middle. Access to the village is not convenient. There was once a road connecting the deserted village and the outside world, but now that road has also been covered with weeds. The south rarely has fog. Even if there is fog it will not be so coincidental to just drive through the road covered by weeds to reach the deserted village,” Chie Wu Yi guessed, “So someone with the magic confused the whole bus load of people and sent them into the deserted village as monster food. “
It’s like there is an insect weaving a large sticky net to send food to the mouth of the monster in its formative stage.
The Witchcraft doll suddenly glared with round watery eyes. Its grotesque face became distortedly angry as it ran somewhere in the direction of the door while showing its teeth. Its sudden movement made several people in the room nervous, but it was the Chief Wu Yi who calmly said, “There is a cat ghost approaching.”
Chen Yang, “Fatty?” as his words just fell, Fatty, like a ghost, lightly landed in the house on an eight fairy table. His bowed ears pressed back to his body and his pupils were vertical narrow slits looking towards the Witchcraft doll’s grimacing teeth.
The next second the eight fairy table broke in pieces. It was too late for him to run, so Big Fatty fell on the broken eight fairy table top with a confused face. Big Fatty looked like a layered fat cake, hair fluffy. The top of his head was still in the center of the mass, both ugly and cute.
Chief Wu Yi and Liu Quanning and a few people were stunned for a moment. Liu Quanning said, “It seems that the eight fairy table can not withstand the pressure of 20 kg.” He shook his head and stared at the table and said, “The craftsman must have cut corners, otherwise even if it was left for another eighty or hundred years the table could withstand the weight of hundreds of kilograms.” He lovingly comforted Fatty, “It’s not your fault.”
Fatty’s tail hair stiffened, it has never been so humiliated. Hearing Liu Quanning’s comforting words, he took a sign in his mouth and stood in front of the crowd to clarify the truth, “19 kg.”
Fatty jumped to the roof beam and did not hide his contempt for Liu Quanning’s intelligence, from the moment he complimented himself on his thinness. Fatty knew he was being disingenuous.
Chief Wu Yi pointed out, “False-hearted man.”
Liu Quanning had a serious face, “I really think Fatty is not fat, not even 20kg. At best, it’s a little fat, not even enough to save up some blessings.”
Chen Yang thought of Ma Shanfeng for some reason. While he was silent, Du Shuo glanced up at Fatty on the beam, “Aren’t you afraid of crushing the beam?”
Blast.
Fatty jumped off the beam and balled himself up on the windowsill, showing the crowd a depressed, massive, and undulating back.
The Witchcraft doll let out a thin giggle, almost falling to the floor with laughter. The Witchcraft doll then protested and tried to go back to Chen Yang as it was held down. Chief Wu Yi said to Chen Yang, “I’ll take out the heart blood of the witch doll and give it to you.”
Chen Yang waved his hand, “No need. It’s your doll, I can’t take it.”
The other three witchcraft dolls she had left behind at the Guang Yue Taoist Association were completely different from the one in front of her. The other three did not have souls, and even if they were dripped with heart blood, they would not be as flexible and vivid as the witchcraft doll in front of them.
The ghost in the body of this witchcraft doll was a small child. It relied on the offerings and the heart blood of the head of Wu Yi to be able to move freely until enough merit is saved for it to be reincarnated. The witchcraft doll was actually the same as the gold-plated baby corpse and the yin tag in Southeast Asia.
The witchcraft doll felt sad after being rejected. It shrunk into the pocket of Chief Wu Yi, timidly revealing two big, very sad, watery eyes.
Chief Wu Yi, “It likes you. It can follow you and it can also save merit.”
Chen Yang smiled, “Following me is useless. It likes me, but you are its family. It loves to follow me now, but if I let it leave you for a week or a month, it will be sad.”
Chief Wu Yi was a calm and self-possessed person. Because the witchcraft doll could save more merits by following Chen Yang, and she saw that the witchcraft doll also liked him, she wanted to give him the witchcraft doll. Her initial thoughts were for the good of the witchcraft doll, but the witchcraft doll has been with her for many years. It has long regarded her as a relative. It will be sad to leave its family.
The witchcraft doll crawled out of its pocket, grabbed Chief Wu Yi’s lapel and swung itself onto Chief Wu Yi’s shoulder and said in a thin voice, “The doll likes Yang Yang, the doll doesn’t want to leave Sheng Sheng.”
The doll wanted to bring Chen Yang back to the Wu tribe so that it could keep seeing Chen Yang, whom it liked, without leaving Chief Wu Yi. As the doll, who had just had such a thought, came into contact with Du Shuo’s cold eyes, it hid behind Chief Wu Yi as if it had been seen through with fear and resignation.
Fatty turned his head with difficulty to see this scene and made a mocking grunt from his throat, almost angering the witchcraft doll. It grunted, hugged Chief Wu Yi’s hair and giggled. It crawled onto her shoulder and said, “I saw a body in the well.”
At that, the faces of the people present except Chen Yang and Du Shuo became extremely ugly. In fact, the four Tianshis such as Chief Wu Yi and Liu Quanning had already guessed this in their hearts. While the others might have known in their hearts, or pretended to be deaf and dumb. But as it was revealed that they had drunk the well water soaked by the dead, the heart and diaphragm choked as fear came up.
Two or three of the nine ordinary people restrained themselves from vomiting, including a middle-aged man that complained in disgust, “Now I can not help but feel nauseous. Who did not listen to the advice to salvage the fish in the well to cook soup? You know that the deserted village is a well-known ghost village, but you had to cook fish. Besides, it’s strange to have fish in the well and no one suspected anything!”
The girl among the three young people screamed, “Why didn’t you say no when you were invited to have fish soup? Why didn’t you have the courage to refuse? How come you didn’t listen to the Tianshi’s advice to drink the fish soup while they were away? You drank the most, I remember you drank the most!”
Someone came out to intervene, “Come on, you guys, they didn’t even complain when we dragged them down. What are you complaining about?”
“They are Tianshis, their own people, and have the ability to exorcise demons and eliminate evil. We are ordinary people. We rely on their protection. If they don’t protect us, we are dead.” Someone muttered in a low voice, but said the hidden worries in the hearts of the rest of the people.
Chief Wu Yi looked at them coldly and explained in a low voice to Chen Yang and Du Shuo, “They’ve been acting strangely for the past two days since they couldn’t find their way. Don’t pay any attention to them. Life and death is their fate. I can only do my best. Anyway, I can’t guarantee that they will leave here alive.”
“If you don’t handle things well, it’s easy to get into trouble.” Chen Yang, who knew how terrible it is to have a piggyback partner, stepped forward and said, “If you are worried, you can pay money for your life. How about you place an order? We will take the order and make sure you leave the deserted village alive?”
Nine people instantly rushed up to pay a high price for safety then reluctantly settled down after getting the guarantee. Although still fearful, no one has broken down.
Chief Wu Yi was quite surprised. She did worry about someone having poor resistance to stress, therefore collapsing. Also, if they broke down that would be a very troublesome thing, because they could not surrender and only be dragged down. She didn’t expect that a tricky potential problem could be solved so easily. Chen Yang was really perfect for a Wu leader.
Chen Yang said warmly, “What I am afraid of is that some people are paranoid and want to drag everyone to death together. It is more reassuring to receive silver and goods than to help for no reason. Besides, do you think the fish soup thing was really unintentional?”
In saying this, Liu Quanning and the others looked as usual, making Chen Yang understand that they all seem to have the same guesses. No matter which wave of people that came, they arrived at the deserted village one step earlier than the Heavenly Master. They perhaps unknowingly ate something from the dead village long ago that would produce the sea threads.
With the selfish idea of dying together with everyone, it was not impossible to trick the others into drinking the fish soup.
Outside in the miserable white moon, the house hall was dark, only half lit with candles. A thin, dry black palm slammed on the narrow window, silently peeking at the crowd in the tower. It made a few untraceable shrill sounds in its throat, reminiscent of the trembling mouthparts of insects.
Du Shuo cast his eyes down. His index finger wiped a bit of vermilion that was placed in front of Chen Yang and flicked it towards the narrow window. It hit the belly of the small headed hungry ghost with dried limbs. The hungry ghost let out a sharp whistle, the horrible face became more distorted. All of its body was wrapped in Yang Qi vermilion sand as it melted into black sewage while emitting a foul smell.
Chen Yang sprang onto his toes just as it scattered and jumped onto eight fairy table planks. After a few steps he held a beam with his right hand and moved the planks to block the window. The stench from the outside was blocked. Chen Yang held the beam and watched part of the black sewage that had seeped in along the window sill. The moss on the wall touched the sewage and immediately withered.
Du Shuo found an iron bar in a corner. He picked it up and weighed it then threw it up against the wall and nailed the wooden board Chen Yang was holding to the window.
The child-eating hungry ghost was nine inches long, with a small head and a large belly. It has a throat like a syringe and a mouth with serrated teeth. It specialized in eating small children. It feared vermilion, copper coins, and other pure Yang things.
Chen Yang looked at the woman who was holding the baby, “It’s a bit of a problem because it’s coming for the baby.” He handed half of the vermilion to the woman and said, “The child-eating hungry ghosts fear vermilion, saliva, or the blood of the index and middle fingertips. Try to avoid attracting the flesh-eating hungry ghosts and try not to let yourself bleed.”
The woman took the vermilion and was grateful. She hugged the child tighter with fear and worry.
Wu Yi said, “Let’s rest tonight. Those things do not dare to trespass on the towers with sufficient yang energy. This building is not entangled with greenery so the yang energy is still sufficient. It’s safe at night.”
Chen Yang nodded and found a corner by the window to sit with Du Shuo and whisper, “Brother Du, Wu Lingjiu released the hungry ghosts from hell and hid them in the deserted village, is it you… or me? Or both”
“You.”
“I guessed so.” Chen Yang nodded, and then said smugly, “Wu Lingjiu has escaped from hell for twenty years, so he probably doesn’t know that I have a big backer.”
If Wu Lingjiu was still in the underworld of hell, then he must have heard that the Fengdu Emperor had a partner in the yang world. Then even if he wanted to count on his physical body, he would have to think twice.
Chen Yang turned to ask, “What about the fish in the well water and the sea threads?”
Having fish in a well was not a strange thing in some small villages in the south. Chen Yang was not sure whether it was the fish in the shrine well that produced the sea threads, or whether it was the deserted village where any plant or animal that ate it would produce the sea threads.
Du Shuo squeezed Chen Yang’s hand and said, “Water burial.”
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