Ambush

"Xuan!"

Just when I had nearly lost all hope, a miserable roar made the blood corpse pause for a moment.

Then, a tall man suddenly rushed in through the doorway and stabbed a sharp object into the blood corpse's back.

The blood corpse seemed to lose all its strength in an instant and collapsed beside me.

I got shakily to my feet, bent over to vomit filthy matter at the side, then looked at the blood corpse. The sharp object was a pair of scissors, wrapped with a talisman.

I looked at the man. He wore a dead man's clothes made of oiled paper and paper shoes. He was panting heavily, kneeling on the floor with his face covered as he repeatedly called Zhou Xuan's name.

Who else could this be but Zhang Yidan? I cried out, "Yidan?"

"Sniff... Brother Tian! Why did you still come... Xuan is dead... She really is dead... Your sister-in-law... sniff." Zhang Yidan held his wife, whose face was no longer recognizable, and wept bitterly. When he heard me call out, he looked up at me, and the dependent look he had often worn in his youth naturally showed in his eyes.

I did not know what to say. Faced with Zhou Xuan, the villagers who had died outside, and everything happening now, I had no solution at all. I was not Grandma. Grandma knew everything; with a flip of her hand, she could save people.

If Zhang Yidan had not appeared in time, I would probably be dead now.

Yu Xiaoxue cried, kneeling on the ground and wiping her tears, looking like pear blossoms drenched in rain.

There were not many households in the village. She had been close with Sister-in-law Zhou Xuan, often playing cards and watching dramas together in their spare time. Sometimes they would go to Dragon-Carrying Village or into town to shop together. Seeing such a horrific scene now, it was already fortunate that she had not suffered a mental breakdown.

I looked at the talismanic marks drawn over Zhou Xuan from head to toe. Though my heart ached, I realized she had not been turned into a blood corpse. She was only a resentful corpse.

The scissors stuck in her body bore a soul-sealing paper talisman. The obviously hasty handwriting showed it was Grandma's work.

Perhaps Grandma had been frightened at the time. If Zhou Xuan had been a blood corpse, a single paper talisman would have had no effect whatsoever. Even so, Zhou Xuan had died unjustly. She had suffered torment in life, had her soul refined after death, and now that her husband had sealed her soul, reincarnation was no longer possible for her.

Wife Sister had not warned me again, so Zhang Yidan was alive. But why was he wearing a dead man's clothes?

After a long silence, Zhang Yidan rearranged Zhou Xuan's clothes, carried her to an empty spot, and then sat down beside me.

"Brother Tian, now that you've come, none of us can leave..."

Zhang Yidan's first words left me dumbfounded. Yu Xiaoxue's eyes went wide as well, and she fearfully pressed herself closer to me.

Wife Sister still made no movement. I took a deep breath. "Why? Who told you that?"

"A few days ago, Granny told the people in the village to leave. If they didn't leave, they wouldn't be able to leave anymore. She died, and everyone had to die here. Someone said they were being buried with her."

Zhang Yidan's face was so pale that even I started worrying about him.

"Then why didn't you leave?" I continued, because Yu Xiaoxue had said earlier that he had only left with Zhou Xuan on the day Grandma died. Something must have delayed them.

Zhang Yidan shook his head and glanced at Zhou Xuan, who lay not far away.

"Brother Yidan, wasn't Sister-in-law that day..." Yu Xiaoxue covered her mouth after speaking, too frightened to continue.

Zhang Yidan looked at Yu Xiaoxue and said, "It was your sister-in-law. But Xiaoxue, do you remember? Some time ago, your sister-in-law went back to her parents' home. She never returned to Little Yi Village."

Yu Xiaoxue was completely stunned. She had never returned? Then who had she seen?

"After that, I went to your sister-in-law's home, but Xuan had never gone back there. I searched everywhere and couldn't find her. I knew something was wrong, so I called the police. The police told me to return to the village and wait for news.

"I waited for several days. With no other choice, I went to Granny for a divination. After Granny finished calculating, she stood there frozen. When she came back to herself, she grabbed a broom and whipped me like mad, asking why I hadn't come to ask her sooner. She said I was the one who had gotten Xuan killed." After saying that, Zhang Yidan wiped away more tears.

"Later, Granny asked me for a pair of scissors Xuan had used and hurried into the mountains. I asked her about it, and she said she was going to settle accounts with someone. A few days later, she came back. I thought Granny had settled the score, but she said she was about to die. She had even prepared a coffin and told everyone in the village to leave. Not one day could be delayed.

"She looked as if nothing had happened, so I asked her several times. Only then did she say someone had laid an ambush for her. The other side had long been prepared. Not only had they ruined the village's feng shui and switched the Gate of Life into the Gate of Death, but they had also spent twenty years making something called the Blood Cloud Coffin to trap something of hers. She said she would not live past seven days. By the time she came back, she only had two days left. She told me to leave immediately and not delay for even a moment."

Zhang Yidan gave a bitter smile, looking thoughtful, before continuing. "Thinking about it now, Granny told me to leave, and I should have left. It would have been best if I knew nothing and was left with a good memory.

"But I understood then that things were not so simple. Otherwise, Granny would not have beaten me with that broom that day. Later, seeing me stubbornly refuse to leave, she held out until she had no choice but to tell me that Xuan had been made into a walking corpse... She had gone to settle accounts with that person because of it.

"I didn't believe Granny after she told me. But when I saw Xuan, I cried for a long time. I got Xuan back, but she really had become a walking corpse. Those same scissors were still stuck in her body. I swore I would avenge her.

"Granny said she couldn't avenge her, and neither could I.

"Then she gave me talisman water to drink and prepared a set of dead man's clothes. She told me to take Xuan to the village entrance and bury her. But when I brought Xuan to the graveyard, I couldn't bear to bury her just like that. So I pulled out the scissors, hoping she might come back to life... And she did. I was wearing dead man's clothes, so Xuan didn't recognize me. In the blink of an eye, she ran off without a trace."

Yu Xiaoxue froze where she stood, her little face turning cold as she remembered. So they had been going to bury Sister-in-law Zhou Xuan back then.

"Only then did I wake up to the fact that she was no longer Xuan. I ran back and told Granny. Granny sighed and told me to pretend to be dead and lie in wait on the road for Xuan. If I still couldn't find her, I had to leave and never come back for her. I waited two days. Xuan never came, but Brother Tian, you did.

"So I pretended to be a ghost and told you not to return to the village. You didn't listen. I thought I couldn't disobey Granny this time, no matter what. I absolutely couldn't expose the identity of the dead. So I hid again and waited for Xuan. I held out until midnight, and she finally came. But she ran so fast that I chased her for a long time before catching up to her here. Brother Tian, you know what happened after that."

Zhang Yidan's words left Yu Xiaoxue and me staring blankly. Still, he had not received much education, so it was already impressive that he had tried so hard not to curse.

After a long while, connecting everything with what Yu Xiaoxue had said earlier, the situation roughly matched up. I pieced together the course of events. Zhou Xuan was not the beginning of this entire affair. Someone had spent decades preparing the Blood Cloud Coffin to ambush Grandma, and Zhou Xuan had merely been the fuse.

"They ruined Little Yi Village's feng shui and turned its Gate of Life into a Gate of Death." I remembered why Wife Sister had not allowed me to return to Dragon-Carrying Village while I was on the way to Little Yi Village. I had entered the Gate of Death. I did not know much about feng shui, but if someone who entered the Gate of Death turned back, it was a road to certain death. If one wanted to leave without breaking the formation, one could only depart through the Gate of Life.

Just as I was thinking about the feng shui formation, I suddenly felt Wife Sister tug at me. I immediately rose to my feet.

"Waaah! Waaah!"

Right afterward, a child's crying came from somewhere nearby. I followed the sound and looked over!

At some point, Zhou Xuan's stomach had swollen. Then something seemed to tear it open, and a blood-red infant crawled out from inside!

Zhang Yidan froze, staring at the ghost infant covered in blood, his mouth hanging wide open.

Yu Xiaoxue and I were stunned as well. In that instant, the ghost infant pulled the scissors from Zhou Xuan's body and came lunging at us with a wail!

The father had killed the mother, and this ghost infant wanted to kill Zhang Yidan!

In that split second, I had no idea why I thought of it, but I quickly swung the bloody stool Yu Xiaoxue had dropped earlier and smashed it toward the ghost infant!

The ghost infant ignored me completely. It dodged the stool and stabbed the scissors at Zhang Yidan. At the critical moment, I leaped up and kicked the ghost infant away!

The ghost infant rolled out through the doorway, split its mouth in a sinister grin at me, and fixed its two blood-red eyes on Zhang Yidan. Then it swiftly vanished into the night.

Using a walking corpse to raise a little ghost! They had even created the appearance that Zhang Yidan had killed Zhou Xuan. That little ghost must hate Zhang Yidan to the bone. If it killed Zhang Yidan, would that not become the human tragedy of a father killing the mother and a son killing the father?

My heart pounded wildly, and I did not dare think any further. Who could be so vicious as to devise something this cruel?

Grandma's talisman had destroyed Zhou Xuan, yet she had not expected Zhou Xuan to be carrying a baby. After calculating every possibility, she had still been outmaneuvered by that person.

The ghost infant might look small, but once it returned to that person's hands and went through all sorts of secret techniques, ordinary talismans and methods would soon be unable to deal with it. When that time came, Zhang Yidan would face certain death. But would it truly be only Zhang Yidan's life at stake?

I thought not. It could not be that simple! The ghost infant held grudges. I probably would not have an easy time either.

Zhang Yidan's face had turned a frightening shade of green. He could not even speak. I shook him several times, but he did not come back to his senses.

"Yidan! Listen to me! That child isn't really your child at all! Everything you saw was only on the surface!" I shouted at Zhang Yidan.

But Zhang Yidan's eyes were empty. That was his child. His wife had just died, and now his child had become this. The courage that had supported him through life was gone as well.

"It's all the work of the person behind this!" I practically roared at Zhang Yidan.

"No... Brother Tian, that is my child..." Zhang Yidan had gone numb. No one could easily recover after suffering something like this.

It seemed Zhang Yidan was finished.

I immediately looked at Yu Xiaoxue. Though she was terrified, she was still all right. But after something this serious had happened, whether we should remain here for the vigil or leave had to be decided.

I could not simply bring Yu Xiaoxue along and wait here with Zhang Yidan for death. If Grandma were still alive, she probably would not want us to lose our lives just to guard her corpse.