Ouch as the Command!

"Jia Le~ Jia Le~, wait while I call your senior brother out."

Four Eyes blew out the soul-guiding lamp and called for Jia Le. He had been back for quite a while, so why hadn't anyone come out to greet him?

He called his name for ages without an answer. Four Eyes raised an eyebrow. Where had that little brat run off to?

At the mortuary, he had boasted that his Jia Le was at least more hardworking and filial than Wen Cai and Qiu Sheng, but now he couldn't even find him.

"Mm, I'll wait for you." Lin Yu knew that in the original story, Jia Le was still asleep at this point. How could calling him bring him out?

"Hey! That's strange." Four Eyes went to the door and knocked for ages, but there was still no sign of anyone. He pushed the door, but it was locked too. If nobody was there, how had the door been locked from the inside?

Four Eyes reached out and poked through the paper on the door, then reached inside and opened it.

"Martial uncle, senior brother is asleep. Should I wake him?" Lin Yu asked, looking at Jia Le sleeping on a recliner.

"Shh, not a sound. Why, you little brat. I told you to watch the house, and you're slacking off and sleeping." Four Eyes smiled darkly.

He glanced at Lin Yu. With an outsider present, he couldn't very well hit him.

Four Eyes's eyes darted around, and he looked at the corpses outside the door. A good idea occurred to him.

"Xiao Yu, don't make a sound no matter what you see in a moment." Four Eyes told Lin Yu in advance.

After saying that, Four Eyes set down his gear and picked up the wooden sticks piled on the ground.

There were so many that he dropped one or two.

Lin Yu watched the bamboo sticks fall slowly, wondering whether to catch them. If he caught them, Jia Le might not be woken up, and then Jia Le would get beaten.

But if he didn't catch them, his martial uncle would make a fool of himself, just as in the original story. It seemed Jia Le hadn't been beaten either, had he?

While Lin Yu was thinking, the bamboo sticks had already fallen to the ground.

Forget it, never mind. Who told martial uncle to love playing around so much?

Inside, Jia Le was naturally startled awake. Calling his name hadn't woken him no matter what, but the sound of the sticks woke him at once.

Jia Le looked outside through the hole Four Eyes had made.

"Huh? Why did Master bring a child back with him? And why is he giving the bamboo sticks to the hopping corpses?" Jia Le watched what Four Eyes was doing, his face full of confusion.

"Martial uncle, are you trying to beat senior brother to death?" Lin Yu had also noticed Jia Le behind the door and spoke loudly.

"That's what the brat gets for dreaming of the Duke of Zhou when I told him to watch the house. I'll teach him a lesson," Four Eyes said viciously.

"Heaven's spirits, earth's spirits."

"Hopping corpses have spirits, hopping corpses have natures."

"Forget the bell's sound. On 'ow,' strike; on 'ouch,' beat. 'Ow' and 'ouch' are your commands."

Holding a talisman, Four Eyes gave them new instructions one by one, just as in the original story.

As the last one came down, the dead bodies raised the bamboo sticks in their hands.

"Let's try it." Once Four Eyes was finished, he clapped his hands and picked up a porcelain basin from nearby.

"Well, Xiao Yu, do you want to try?" He suddenly caught sight of Lin Yu watching the show nearby and thought Lin Yu wanted to try.

"No, no, martial uncle, you play with them yourself." Lin Yu hurriedly waved his hands. With his copper skin and iron bones, his martial uncle was better suited to this.

Seeing that Lin Yu wouldn't play, Four Eyes held up the porcelain basin himself and crouched in front of the dead bodies.

"All right, I'll try it myself. Ouch!"

As soon as Four Eyes gave the command, the bamboo sticks in the dead bodies' hands came down in an instant, smashing the porcelain basin.

"Not bad, not bad." Four Eyes looked at his masterpiece in satisfaction.

"Heh heh heh." Then he turned toward the house with a wicked grin.

"Whoa, I'm done for. Master's going to beat me to death!" Seeing this and recalling Four Eyes and Lin Yu's conversation, Jia Le knew Four Eyes was going to get him.

Jia Le hurried back to the recliner and pretended to be asleep.

By then, Four Eyes had brought the hopping corpses over and surrounded Jia Le.

"I'm in for it now."

Jia Le squinted at them, then closed his eyes again in fear, not daring to look anymore.

Lin Yu stood by the door, looking forward to the scene about to unfold.

This was much more exciting than watching it on a screen.

Four Eyes had already rolled up his sleeves. He raised a bamboo stick and brought it down hard.

Lin Yu felt pain just watching. Four Eyes was really hitting him. He wasn't like Uncle Nine, who would strike a couple of times and then soften up again.

Jia Le was really tough too. He took it head-on without making a sound.

Four Eyes looked at Jia Le in puzzlement. He was hitting him so hard, yet he wasn't making a sound?

"Ouch, I'm hitting him so hard, and he still won't say ouch?"

As a result, he got the worst of it himself. The dead bodies hadn't moved at the first "ouch," but Four Eyes had courted death by saying it again, and this time they beat him.

"Ouch! Stop hitting me! It hurts so much! Ouch, ouch, it hurts, hurts, hurts~!" Four Eyes ran around as he was beaten, but every time a blow landed, he couldn't help saying "ouch."

"Haha, martial uncle, so this is the good show you were talking about?" Lin Yu couldn't hold it in and burst out laughing.

"You little brat, you're still watching the show? Hurry up and get your martial uncle out of here! Where's Jia Le? Don't let me catch you, or you'll have more than you can bear! Ouch, it hurts, hurts, hurts! Oh, my mother~, it hurts so much, ouch!"

Four Eyes kept shouting even as he was being beaten.

"Ah~!" Jia Le, hiding under the chair, turned pale with fright when he heard that.

"Hopping corpses, heed my command. Forget 'ouch.'" Seeing that they had beaten him enough, Lin Yu pulled out a talisman, channeled his magic power, and threw it at the dead bodies.

Actually, even if he hadn't intervened, Jia Le was about to help, but he stepped in anyway. After all, he wasn't Jia Le. He had watched the show for so long; it wouldn't do not to do something.

"Martial uncle, was that fun?" Seeing that they had all dropped their bamboo sticks, Lin Yu walked over. Looking at his martial uncle's battered face, Lin Yu couldn't help laughing.

"You little brat, you stood by and watched me die, did you? Your martial uncle doted on you for nothing," Four Eyes said irritably, clutching his injured forehead.

"Master, are you all right?" Seeing Lin Yu and his master "chatting and laughing," Jia Le finally dared to come over and show concern for his master.

Unfortunately, that depended on the person. At the sight of Jia Le, Four Eyes's fury shot three thousand feet high. Thinking that his own disciple was responsible for what had just happened, he picked up a bamboo stick from the ground and gripped it tightly.

"M-Master." Jia Le stared at what Four Eyes was doing and his furious expression, freezing in fear for a moment. Then he tried to awaken his master's affection.

"Senior brother, shouldn't you take the corpses back?" Lin Yu spoke up to remind him when he saw this.

"Oh... oh, all... all right." Trembling, Jia Le picked up a corpse and ran off.

"Oww, at least the brat knows what's good for him." Four Eyes painfully rubbed his aching shoulder.

"Here, martial uncle, try this."

A talisman was held out in front of Four Eyes.

"What's this? Do you think your martial uncle is a zombie, that sticking a talisman on me will fix me right up?"

Thinking Lin Yu was fooling with him, Four Eyes took it irritably and glanced at it.

"Huh? How come I've never seen this before? What kind of talisman is it?"

Four Eyes suddenly caught sight of the talisman markings on it and examined them carefully, puzzled.

"Here, stick it on the wound like this, and it'll be better right away." Lin Yu took out another one and stuck it on Four Eyes's forehead.

"Mmm~ that feels good~." In an instant, Four Eyes felt as though it were snow in the sixth month, so comfortable that he shivered.

"Xiao Yu, do you have any more? I feel sore all over now. One isn't enough. Give me ten or a hundred to use."

Four Eyes stared at Lin Yu, his eyes shining. Where had Lin Yu gotten such a good thing? He had to wring more out of him.