Chapter 5

He didn't look badly hurt at all. His cloudy white eyes rolled in their sockets, fixed on us with excitement.

Something dawned on me.

I clenched my teeth and forced out the question.

“Where are Mum and Gran?”

The blind man twirled his cane and chuckled.

“Oh, little fellow. If only you'd come along quietly. You had to resist and make those two help you. You did this to them! You got them tortured to death.”

I clenched my fists until the knuckles cracked.

“Do you know how much they endured to buy you time? Oh, yes. I even gave your ugly mother a beauty treatment. Dug out every lump on her face. Nothing left but lovely white bone. Beautiful. Hmm... what else? She didn't die until there was only one last scrap of flesh left on her.”

Hatred swelled inside me. Fury seemed ready to rip my blood vessels apart.

“I'll kill you!”

The low roar came from the depths of my body.

Each step toward him felt like another step into hell. If I could, I'd trade my fate through countless lifetimes for his head.

He merely smirked and idly played with his cane, as though watching a tedious comedy.

Just as I reached him, he suddenly thrust the cane straight at my heart.

“Xiwa, look out!”

Grandpa immediately pulled me behind him.

The cane struck him instead.

He fell heavily and coughed without stopping.

“Oh? Feisty little thing, aren't you?”

The blind man grinned, exposing crooked yellow teeth.

Grandma swept back her trailing opera sleeves and pointed at him.

“If you hurt my husband, I won't hold back!”

He spread his arms and raised his brows.

“As long as you don't interfere with me taking this perfect corpse-gu material, I won't touch a hair on your heads.”

“Blind man!”

My shout echoed through the ancestral hall.

Biting my lip, I looked at him resolutely.

“I'll go with you. Leave my honorary grandparents alone!”

He barely paid attention. Whistling happily, he turned and strolled toward the door.

I looked back at them one last time, gritted my teeth, and silently followed.

“Xiwa!”

Grandpa stopped me.

Blood kept pouring from his mouth.

“You won't even listen to me anymore?” he demanded.

As though performing a trick, he took a brightly wrapped sweet from inside his clothes and pressed it into my hand.

Tears filled my eyes. I clenched my teeth until my jaw creaked.

“Hide in the coffin. Don't come out until the blind man's inside too. Don't ask why.”

He whispered into my ear.

Then his gaze sharpened, and his low, commanding voice sounded beside me.

“Now!”

Another mouthful of blood followed.

“Yes!”

I didn't hesitate.

Grandpa's words had to be right.

I immediately climbed into the coffin.

Lying there, I noticed the large opening in the roof directly above. It matched the coffin perfectly.

Moonlight poured through it, reaching every corner, as though covering me with a blanket.

13

“Oh? Where's the little fellow? Hiding? Want to play hide-and-seek with this old man?”

From inside the coffin, I could hear him approaching at a leisurely pace.

“Blind Wang, stop!”

Before Grandpa finished, he collapsed again.

He was too weak. No match for the blind man.

I could only pray silently.

Grandpa, please stop worrying about me. I don't want you to die for me too!

“Little fellow, I'm coming to find you. Once I do, you'll come along nicely, won't you?”

He drew closer.

He stood beside the coffin.

“Let Grandpa Blind guess... are you hiding in here?”

He bent and reached for me, deliberately waving his hand over my head.

His upper body was entirely inside the coffin.

I could see his white eyeballs clearly, bulging like enormous cicada cocoons and constantly wriggling, as if watching me from every angle.

Then I saw Grandpa behind him.

He gave a gentle push.

The blind man tipped headfirst into the coffin.

“Xiwa, out.”

Grandpa held out his hand.

I took it and immediately jumped free.

The blind man rolled over, brushed his shoulders, and chuckled again.

“Naughty little thing, teasing an old man. Hide properly. I'm coming to find you again.”

But when he tried to sit up, his head hit something.

He paused.

Then he tried to stand, only for his body to be forced back down.

I looked closely.

The moonlight!

What had covered me like a blanket had become a perfectly fitted rectangular lid, sealing the coffin without a gap.

The blind man was trapped.

He couldn't get out at all.

I was wild with joy.

But it quickly turned to worry.

He kept jabbing the invisible lid with his cane.

At every strike, the light there dimmed a little.

If this continued, he'd get out sooner or later.

I looked anxiously at Grandpa.

He'd noticed too.

He bit open his fingertip and smeared blood all over himself, from his forehead to his feet.

Then he walked to his own memorial portrait and approached a white candle.

The instant his hair touched the flame, fire swept over his body.

Like a living talisman, he became a blazing torch in a moment.

Before Grandma or I could react, he hurled himself into the coffin.

Flames roared up.

My cries were swallowed by the fire.

The heat dried my tears as they fell.

It felt as though everything holding me up had disappeared.

“Xiwa.”

Grandma gathered me into her arms.

I took out the sweet Grandpa had just given me and offered it to her.

She accepted it.

Then, with a look of disgust, she threw it into the burning coffin.

“At last, there's no one left to fight me for you.

“Now... you're mine alone.”

Her blood-red tongue slid out, slowly reaching to lick me...

If not for Guifen, Cuihua and I would have married long ago.

We'd grown up together and fallen in love early.

She was beautiful and kind, with a wonderful voice for opera.

My childhood dream had been to marry her.

Guifen said, “Drink this, and I'll give you my blessing. I'll let go.”

The three of us raised our cups and drank.

But we'd forgotten...

She was the junior fellow disciple of Blind Wang, the Gu King.

After that cup of wine, Cuihua became hideously ugly every night.

I still remembered the promise I'd made myself as a child.

Whatever happened, I would marry Zhang Cuihua in this lifetime.

As clan chief, I brought Guifen's hatred down on the whole village.

She put gu into the well, dooming everyone to dry into corpses over eighteen years.

Blind Wang was researching corpse gu.

Guifen said a large supply of dried bodies would be perfect material for him.

To destroy all my hopes of Cuihua, she decided simply killing her wouldn't satisfy her.

She inflicted another gu curse, tormenting Cuihua with desire every night.

Then she locked a strong bachelor in the room with her.

Finally, she laid a vicious curse on Zhang Cuihua's descendants: generation after generation would never escape that nightmare.

To save the village, I could only yield and marry Guifen.

By day, I quietly listened to Cuihua's opera songs, crying with my eyes closed.

At night, her shrill cries reached me, now near, now far.

My Cuihua...

My heart bled.

Sixteen years passed.

The villagers began to shrivel, moving sluggishly. Many inexplicably became dried corpses.

Cuihua's husband had long since died.

All those years, I'd secretly endured my humiliation and learned a great deal of gu sorcery.

I wrapped gu parasites in colorful sweet wrappers and smuggled them to Cuihua again and again.

To my surprise, she truly grew stronger.

The old and new gu fought each other. Poison countered poison, creating an entirely new power within her.

A power even Blind Wang feared.

Then Xiwa was born.

Guifen's curse never appeared in the child.

He was healthy and handsome, his skin fair and smooth, without a single growth on his face.

More astonishing still, the whole village began recovering from the moment he was born.

When Xiwa was ill, the village weakened.

When he was healthy, everyone was joyful and full of life.

Every villager did everything they could to protect him.

Blind Wang and Guifen turned their attention to Xiwa too.

He was the perfect material for corpse gu.

I often sneaked over to visit Cuihua's family and Xiwa, bringing them sweets.

He called me his honorary grandfather.

But what I longed to hear was simply...

Grandpa.

Guifen had wanted to use him for her sorcery for a long time.

I threatened to take my own life.

Seeing the eighteen-year curse was about to break, she became determined to act as soon as possible.

But long before, I'd placed a pair of twin gu in Xiwa and myself.

If he died, I would die too.

If I died, he would live.

When Guifen discovered it, she went mad with fury, tearing at her hair and slapping me.

“If I can't have your heart... I'd rather destroy everything!”

When I learned she was secretly plotting with Blind Wang, I knew Xiwa was in danger.

I'd prepared a trap in the abandoned ancestral hall long before.

I hadn't expected Guifen's devotion to be so great.

Every day, she kept watch beside my body.

She knew I loved opera, so she sang for me over and over.

...Terribly.

I'd made my own body the final talisman, waiting for the day I could take Blind Wang down with me.

What worried me most was Xiwa having to face that terrifying woman, Guifen, alone afterward.

So I'd already cast gu on myself and prepared many lingering images.

After my true death, those images would appear before her and urge her to let go.

I just didn't know whether she'd listen.

I...

Would never know...

The clan chief was the one who made me fall in love first.

Why, then, did he abandon me for Zhang Cuihua?

Was it because she looked so pure and beautiful?

Pure? Beautiful?

Ha... I had a way!

Zhang Cuihua, oh, Zhang Cuihua.

Let's see whether the clan chief still thought you pure when you moaned with desire every night!

Let's see whether he still thought you beautiful with a face covered in disgusting lumps!

My man was the clan chief.

A hero.

I'd make him an even greater hero.

So I cursed the whole village with gu.

Everyone knew they would all die in eighteen years.

What no one knew was that just before the end, I'd give them a wonderful gift.

I'd let my hero save the entire village.

Make my man a true savior.

Then he'd love me sincerely...

Wouldn't he?

But everything changed when Xiwa was born.

That child was like an anchor calming the seas.

As long as he existed, the whole land was at peace.

It infuriated me!

I had to pull out that thorn in my side.

By then, though, Zhang Cuihua was so powerful even my senior fellow disciple couldn't deal with her.

Luckily, Xiwa was foolish. So innocent it was almost adorable.

A few words from my senior brother were enough to trick him.

But...

My hero was dead.

Even at the very end, his heart held only that ugly woman.

In truth, he'd been tender to me once.

I was softly singing a folk song when he suddenly embraced me from behind.

The first time he held me.

The first time he kissed me.

I was so moved that tears streamed down my face.

My hero...

If he'd given me just a little more love, even the air would have tasted sweet.

So I stayed beside his body, singing that old song to him again and again.

Until my heart felt cut apart.

My husband... do you know?

I've always craved Xiwa's blood.

But for you, I restrained myself all these years.

Because after every visit to Xiwa, you'd be happy for days.

Before you and Blind Wang perished together, I saw you give the boy a sweet.

Yet you didn't leave me a single word.

In all your life...

Was there truly no affection for me in your heart?

If only...

You'd said one caring word to me, I'd have raised Xiwa well.

But you didn't.

I hate you!

I want...

All of you...

To die!