Chapter 68 (Insects)
Lin Chengye didn't understand a single word the sorceress was saying. What gods, what death, why did she have to see it with her own eyes?
She opened her mouth to ask, but the increasingly biting wind filled her mouth with snow, which melted in her mouth and turned into bitter saliva that flowed down her throat, making it taste even more bitter. Lin Chengye thought for a moment, then covered his mouth and called out to the sorceress.
"Where do you live? How much longer until we get there?"
"Almost there, almost there. It's in the alley ahead."
The fortune teller seemed to have stopped being sad. She smiled and raised her trembling finger, pointing to a white expanse ahead.
The two of them walked for the time it takes for an incense stick to burn before arriving at a particularly inconspicuous house. The wooden door was black and cracked, without even a lock. A few thin pieces of firewood stuck in the ground served as a fence, and the outer walls of the house were gray, with dirt falling off if you scratched them with your finger.
It's not that it's inconspicuous, because it's all alone, and the surrounding houses are all very far away, as if they're hiding from something, so it looks quite out of place.
The fortune teller pushed open the door with a grin and went inside. Lin Chengye followed closely behind her, all the way into the house.
The moment she pushed open the door, thousands of flickering candlelight suddenly rushed into her eyes, neatly arranged on the shelf, from the floor to her height, about five or six rows, filling the entire room to the brim. With someone on her back, there was almost no room to turn around.
Lin Chengye hadn't expected the room to be decorated like this. The sudden change from pale white light to bright candlelight stung her eyes, causing tears to well up instantly. As she wept, she looked at the sorceress. Through her blurry vision, she saw that the sorceress was also crying, and her smile had widened, as if she were mocking her.
"Who is this person?" Lin Chengye wiped his face, feeling utterly bewildered. The sorceress's words, her smile, even the room itself seemed strange.
Looking up, he saw black strips of cloth hanging from the rafters, with something written on them in red, but the characters were crooked and ugly. Finally, the tears stopped, and Lin Chengye squinted to examine them, taking a long time to make out that they were names.
"Put her down," the sorceress said.
Lin Chengye quickly put the now stiff and cold person off her back and carefully placed them in the small corner of the room. Just as she thought she was about to do something, the sorceress suddenly pushed open the door and went out again.
Where are you going?
Lin Chengye chased after her, puzzled, and grabbed the sorceress's peach wood cane.
What should we do with that woman?
"No rush, no rush, let her wait there."
The sorceress tried to pull her cane out, but after several attempts she couldn't get it out of Lin Chengye's hand. Finally, she stopped laughing and opened her mouth to explain.
"The gods say that someone is about to die again, this time it's in the west, three streets away from here."
Lin Chengye's heart skipped a beat. He released the sorceress's cane, and without bothering to ask her how she knew, he hurriedly squatted down and said.
"Come on up, I'll carry you across."
The sorceress was very old; she moved like a rusty object, her bones making cracking sounds. She slowly climbed onto Lin Chengye's back, hugged her neck tightly, and said, "Okay."
Lin Chengye immediately rushed towards that place, but he had only gone halfway when suddenly another heart-wrenching scream rang out, extremely similar to the one before. Lin Chengye's heart sank once again.
She rarely felt this way, so utterly lost, completely unsure of what to do. Lin Chengye ran aimlessly, once again wading into the blood-soaked ground, once again carrying the dead person on his back, and then walking step by step with the sorceress back to the inconspicuous house, pushing open the door and looking at the room filled with candlelight.
The sky had darkened, and there was no moon tonight. From the outside, the small house looked like a fire in the darkness, eerily quiet, a stark contrast to the bright and tranquil land of the Thousand Buddha Kingdom. It seemed like another world, but Lin Chengye found it surprisingly real.
However, such reality is far too bloody and terrifying.
"Alright, alright, there won't be any more today."
The sorceress, exhausted from her two trips, plopped down on a rattan chair in the courtyard and gave Lin Chengye her orders without any politeness.
“Drag them into the yard, I want them to rest in peace.”
How can one find peace?
Lin Chengye placed the two corpses in the courtyard and covered their wide-open eyes with his own coat.
Suddenly, the sorceress stood up from the wicker chair, took the peach wood sword, and circled the two corpses, drawing a circle on the snow. Her expression was not particularly devout, and her movements were far from cautious; it was as if she were just drawing a line casually.
Then, the sorceress went into the house, picked up the longest candle in the center, and came out with a white pot. She stood on top of the two corpses.
Suddenly, the sorceress shouted loudly towards the sky.
"I've sent two more dolls over there. Please bless them so they can have a safe journey! They're both good children!"
After saying that, she poured out the white pot, and with a splash, some viscous, yellowish substance instantly covered the two corpses.
Oil?
A sticky smell wafted into Lin Chengye's nostrils, and she instantly understood what the sorceress was up to.
"No!"
With a deft flick of her other hand, the sorceress sent the candle crashing down towards the two people.
Suddenly, a dark shadow pounced. The sorceress's eyesight was already poor, and for a moment she couldn't tell whether it was a human or an animal. When she finally saw clearly, she found Lin Chengye pouncing on the two corpses. The candle had just burned her temples, and a large clump of her hair had become ugly and curly.
The sorceress was startled and opened her mouth to curse.
"You blind fool, what are you doing..."
Unexpectedly, the one who was scolded became even more emotional and spoke up first.
"Lou Sanbai! What are you doing! Why did you burn it? We still haven't figured anything out!"
His upbringing prevented Lin Chengye from using foul language; he could only glare angrily at the sorceress.
"What kind of method is this? You're not going to say it's some kind of divine method you learned, are you? Explain yourself! I don't believe in gods, I don't believe in that kind of thing!"
The sorceress was stunned by the scolding and forgot what she was going to say to Lin Chengye. She stomped her foot in anger and looked up at the sky.
"Oh dear, you're such a difficult child. I already said three days later, three days later..."
The fortune teller sighed, squatted down, and spoke to Lin Chengye in a gentle voice.
“There’s no use keeping them alive. They’re dead, their bodies are hollowed out, and we can’t get anything out of them. After tonight, these two corpses will decompose rapidly and start to stink. I tried burying them underground, but it didn’t work; the smell will never go away.”
The fortune teller paused for a moment, then continued.
"Whether you believe it or not, it really was told to me by the gods that I should burn people who have been afflicted by ghosts. After they are burned, they will not be affected by this life in their next life."
After saying that, the sorceress turned around and went into the house to get the candle again. This time, when she threw the candle onto the two corpses, Lin Chengye did not stop her.
Lin Chengye stood to the side, clenching her fists so tightly that her nails dug into the flesh of her palms, her expression filled with resentment. But as she watched the flames grow ever stronger, enveloping the two corpses tightly, the only warmth in the icy snow seemed like a final act of mercy from the world upon these two.
She suddenly realized that it was indeed a good idea. The human world was perhaps too cold for the two of them, and they would only feel warmer after being burned by fire.
But what exactly happened here? Why... is there such a strange illness? Why... is it called an illness, yet there is no cure?
This was the first time Lin Chengye had ever been so completely clueless. Since entering this place, everything seemed strange, yet the people here all seemed to have their own set of rules, and these rules operated in a bizarre way.
Don't touch people with ghostly illnesses, pray to gods and Buddhas, wait for the shaman to take the body away... But, but no one questions why this happened, why everything here is so different.
When a flame burns, it always throws out crackling sparks.
"Lou Sanbai, is this illness incurable? And why did you get it?"
"You're asking me? I don't know either."
The sorceress grinned, her delight growing as she watched the two corpses turn to ashes in the flames. Her peachwood cane thumped the ground with a cheerful clatter.
Only after the flames had completely consumed the corpse did the sorceress's exaggeratedly curved lips gradually fall, and the tapping sound ceased. She watched the flames gradually diminish and muttered something.
"I know what you want to ask, but I don't understand how this place suddenly became like this. And I was even unwittingly chosen by everyone to be a fortune teller."
“Many people who come and go have visited the Kingdom of a Thousand Buddhas. I was asked and asked if anyone knew what this disease was. But none of them had heard of it. They discussed that there couldn’t be a disease like this. There must be a devil who enjoys killing people and digs out people’s hearts.”
The sorceress suddenly looked distressed, clutching her hair as if she were on the verge of collapse.
"No, no, I've seen it. Diseases grow from the body, but I can't catch up with them."
Lin Chengye looked at her and felt very sorry for her. She walked up to her and patted the shaman's hunched back, which protruded like a mountain on the earth.
She felt that Lou Sanbai was probably the one who was truly ill, with a kind of madness. Perhaps what she said about gods and such was just her conjecture. Maybe she was just desperate and in too much pain, which was why she grabbed him and said she could solve it.
This time, however, she truly didn't know where to begin. Lin Chengye adjusted his mask. Suddenly, an idea flashed through her mind. Lin Chengye's eyes lit up, and he leaped out of the sorceress's courtyard, leaving behind a single sentence.
"Someone might know; I'll go ask them."
"Why bother? I told you to wait three days!" the fortune teller shouted at Lin Chengye's back, but it was no use. The man ran away without looking back and disappeared in a flash.
She stomped her foot angrily again, then plopped back down in the wicker chair. She rubbed her frostbitten hands and muttered to herself.
"Bless her."
Seemingly feeling that she lacked momentum, the sorceress straightened her body and shouted loudly at the sky again.
"Did you all hear that? I said, bless her, she's a good child!"
...
"Give me your carrier eagle."
Lin Chengye returned to Shenlin Residence as quickly as possible. She saw Wei Jingchen sitting in the courtyard looking at the sky and said directly.
She went back into the house, took out a pen and ink, wrote a very brief passage on it, and stuffed it into the soft leather bucket.
Wei Jingchen said nothing, took the short flute Jiang Heng handed him, and played it. A short while later, a hawk's cry echoed from the sky. Lin Chengye tied the letter with a rope and, without delay, urged it to leave quickly.
Wei Jingchen watched the eagle fly away and suddenly said.
"I'll go see my aunt tomorrow."
“…Whatever you want.” Lin Chengye glanced at her and replied.
...
Perhaps because the two were not too far apart, Bian Yi's reply came quickly, and the carrier hawk flew back early the next morning.
Lin Chengye hurriedly opened the letter, and when she saw the familiar handwriting, she suddenly breathed a sigh of relief, feeling a sense of relief. Ever since arriving in the Kingdom of Thousand Buddhas, a sense of unreality had always surrounded her. She dared not trust anyone here, and only when she received a letter from someone who truly cared about her did she finally find comfort.
My dear friend Chengye, how I feel:
Knowing you are busy, I will avoid formalities and get straight to the point.
Upon careful consideration, the symptoms described do not belong to any of the illnesses I am familiar with. However, there is another possibility to consider. This art has long been absent from the martial arts world, and those skilled in this evil art have been in seclusion for over thirty years. Around the time I wandered the martial arts world, their reputation had already begun to wane, and now they have vanished without a trace.
"Moth".
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