Witchcraft Curses Harm People

"Quick, quick, over there—see if he's all right..."

By the time the village's young men had lit their torches and found Hu Ma, he was sitting beside the felled crooked-neck tree, resting.

He was drenched in cold sweat. When the night wind blew over him, it chilled him to the bone.

But perhaps because he had sweated so much, the burning heaviness inside his body had completely vanished, leaving him feeling light and refreshed all over.

The ruthlessness he had summoned just now had not been entirely born of anger. More than half of it had come from fear. This world was deeply strange—there were Evil Spirits, Flesh Mountains, and Ghost Walkers—but Hu Ma had realized that there were things even more terrifying than those.

Even if an Evil Spirit came to harm someone, he could see it and sense it. There was a process before it harmed him, leaving him at least some chance to resist.

But what had he encountered now?

What exactly had the other party done to make him fall gravely ill out of thin air? Even the furnace fire throughout his body could not suppress it, and Xiao Hong Tang could not even see where the enemy was?

Things that defied all logic were the most frightening. They also kindled fierce rage and killing intent in Hu Ma, who already treasured his life dearly.

"Little Hu Ma, are you all right?"

Second Master had long since been restless with worry. Leading people to search for Hu Ma, he found him here—and the crooked-neck tree made every inch of his body feel uneasy.

He was not skilled in Ghost Walking, but sixty years of virginity were no small thing. The moment he felt uncomfortable, he knew there had to be remnants of sorcery nearby. Then, seeing Hu Ma here after all, his heart trembled with anxiety.

"This old tree was harming people."

Hu Ma caught his breath and pointed at the crooked-neck tree. "If Grandmother hadn't warned me, it would have killed me."

"An old tree?"

Second Master hurried forward and shone his torch around. Spotting the loose soil beside the tree, he kicked it away with both feet, revealing a black bundle in the pit.

He kicked the bundle open and found paper dolls cut from red paper inside, marked with Hu Ma's birth characters. There was also a tattered cloth shoe, so old that no one knew how long it had been lying there. The people present did not recognize it, but they could vaguely guess whose shoe it was.

"Not me, not me..."

At the sight of the bundle, the Cui Family's second daughter-in-law, who had been brought over amid the crowd, immediately clutched at her hair and screamed:

"It was the eldest and third who buried it, not me! Don't come looking for me..."

She had already been scared out of her mind, but the words she blurted out were all the more honest for it. The villagers' faces changed at once.

"That old hag..."

Second Master was so furious his face twisted. "After lying low all these years, she still hasn't forgotten her vile sorcery!"

The older villagers understood the moment they heard Second Master's words and saw those things.

The younger people only remembered the Hu Family's Ghost Walker Granny. But before the Hu Family came to the village, Great Sheep Village had also had a disciple skilled in nightmare arts—Grandmother Cui. Seeing what she had buried under this tree, then thinking of what had happened to the Cui Family, there was nothing left to wonder about.

"So... the Cui Family tried to harm someone and suffered retribution?"

"Pah! They deserved it! How could we let people like that, who bring harm to others, remain in our village?"

For a time, everyone in the village changed color. Regardless of the great calamity that had just befallen the Cui Family, they began cursing them.

Among fellow villagers and neighbors, harm was the hardest thing to guard against.

When Hu Ma was born, Grandmother Cui had already been in the village. She had even helped boil hot water and deliver red-dyed eggs. How could Hu Ma's birth characters possibly have been hidden from her?

And that filthy shoe—who knew when Hu Ma had worn it? She had secretly kept it away to use for harming him. Against people from the same village, such things were truly impossible to guard against—and naturally, they were what villagers hated most.

If she could harm Hu Ma, then who in the village could she not harm?

Still cursing, the group helped Hu Ma into the house. Someone scooped up half a ladle of water and fed it to him.

"They found it..."

Amid the chaos, someone hurried back from the direction of the Old Fire Pit, holding up a half-burned bundle that was still giving off wisps of blue smoke for the Old Clan Leader and Second Master to inspect.

"The Cui Family's daughter-in-law went there to burn this. Someone saw her, but no one knew what it was. We searched twice before finding it."

The moment the Old Clan Leader saw such a huge incident erupt in the village, he had sensed something was wrong.

With the Ancestors in the Old Fire Pit watching over them, things should not have turned out this way. So he had immediately sent people to inspect the Old Fire Pit and see whether anything unusual had happened.

Second Master took the items. After one glance, he disgustedly tossed them out the door. "A woman's menstrual cloth, Black Taisui soaked in dog's blood, rotten wood, and dung... these are the filthiest things there are."

"She took them to burn at the Old Fire Pit, so the Ancestors could no longer see what was happening in the village. With Evil Spirits causing trouble here, of course they had no way to protect us..."

The people around them were even more enraged when they heard that.

The pit contained their own Ancestors. Who could do something so disrespectful to the Ancestors?

"Heh, the Cui Family was also struck by retribution."

The Old Clan Leader was usually one to smooth things over, but now he too was furious. After thinking it over, he understood the crux of it and gave a bitter, cold laugh. "The Cui Family wanted to harm someone. Afraid the Ancestors would interfere, they first burned this filth to blind the eyes of their forebears."

"But they never expected their harmful sorcery to be broken. When the backlash came, the Ancestors still could not see—and that was why it killed everyone in their family..."

"Letting her whole family die was letting her off too easily."

"Otherwise, people like that should have been driven out of the village. Who would dare keep them here?"

"What? They all died?"

Hu Ma, who had only just come back to his senses, was suddenly jolted with alarm.

When murderous intent had surged through him just now, he had only focused on chopping down that crooked-necked old tree. Vaguely, he had sensed that it might bring a backlash upon whoever had harmed others.

But he had never expected the backlash to be this vicious.

He had merely hacked at it a few extra times in a fit of venting, and the Cui Family had lost so many people?

As he thought this, he suddenly noticed that while the people of the village were cursing in the heat of the moment, some could not help glancing in one direction—at the Cui Family's second daughter-in-law, who had already gone mad, her clothes torn to shreds as she cried over and over that it had nothing to do with her.

Beside her stood a tall, skinny young man holding her as he sobbed softly. He seemed utterly at a loss, unable to spare any attention for what the people around him were saying.

Cui Xie'er...

Complex emotions slowly welled up in Hu Ma's heart. Just by chopping down that crooked-necked tree, he had killed the man's entire family?

"Then this..."

As he pondered it, his heart abruptly skipped a beat. "...Then this one can't be left alive either!"

Before he had chopped down the tree, he had not known it would wipe out the Cui Family. But now that they had already been exterminated, leaving this one behind—wouldn't that be inviting future trouble?

While Hu Ma was thinking this, Cui Xie'er was also holding his own mother, only wanting to quiet her down. He had taken every curse from the villagers to heart, and all he felt was indignation and panic.

The Cui Family had suddenly suffered a catastrophic change, and he was terrified too. Yet a brimming resentment still rose in his heart, and he shot a fierce look toward Hu Ma inside the house.

Unexpectedly, the instant their gazes met, his heart shuddered.

Hu Ma was looking at him too, and the killing intent in Hu Ma's eyes was several times thicker than his own.

"Mother, let's go home first. Let's go home first..."

He could only forcefully haul up his disheveled mother and slowly squeeze his way out through the crowd.

The villagers now had not the slightest goodwill or pity for the Cui Family. But seeing that he was only a half-grown youth, with a mad old woman and a household struck by calamity, they could not bring themselves to make things difficult for him. Slowly, they made a path for him.

Even the Old Clan Leader, despite the rage filling his heart, could only say, "Find coffins and lay them to rest first!"

"We can't just leave them out in the open, can we?"

Everyone in the village understood that putting them into coffins represented the clan leader's stance.

Still, now that people had just died, once the first blaze of anger had passed, no one said much more. Some warmhearted villagers came out to help as well. Together with the other members of the Cui Family, they hurriedly found wood, collected the bodies of those few Cui Family members, and dragged the several mad ones back to the Cui Family home.

In the latter half of the night, the Cui Family's home was already hung full with White Lanterns, and faint crying drifted from the building.

"Come on, little Hu Ma. Come back to the manor with me first."

Second Master had spent the whole night helping out. First, he checked whether there were any other problems in the village, then arranged for people to keep watch beside the Old Fire Pit, afraid someone else might do something like the Cui Family and offend the Ancestors. Only when the sky began to pale did he return to Hu Ma.

"You can't stay in this village for the time being..."

Taking advantage of there being no one around, Second Master quietly instructed Hu Ma, "The Cui Family harmed people first, but what happened to them this time was just too tragic. The Cui Family is one of the village's great clans, and they have plenty of uncles and cousins."

"I think you can't remain in the village for a while. The Cui Family may have no grounds to stand on, but who knows whether they'll come looking to do something?"

"Come stay at the manor with me!"

"Alright..."

Hu Ma agreed, then could not help asking, "How is Cui Xie'er?"

"How else could he be?"

Second Master let out a heavy sigh. Thinking Hu Ma was concerned about this peer who had learned the craft alongside him, he said, "He's only a half-grown child himself. He was scared senseless on the spot. But with the villagers helping out, the funeral can still be managed. As for what comes afterward..."

"...We'll talk about that later!"

"For the next few days, he probably won't be able to leave the village."

Hu Ma silently committed this to memory, packed his things, and went with Second Master.

Before leaving, he pressed the pouch of pit ash against his chest, and warmth could not help rising in his heart.

This time, he had survived entirely because of the Old Woman's protection...

And he finally understood. Ordinary people had to enter the Old Fire Pit only after they died, yet the Old Woman had merely needed to make a trip to the ancestral shrine, but she had insisted on burning her mortal remains in the Old Fire Pit.

She had done it so that a trace of her spirit could remain in the Old Fire Pit and continue protecting him?