Chapter 9 A Promise

If this was sleep, Liu Ende would rather think that this was a coma that had kidnapped his entire body. He didn't know whether he was alive or dead, or struggling painfully in the flames. He wanted to open his eyes but couldn't. His mind was blank and he had lost consciousness, leaving only the instinct to struggle and resist. The tearing pain in his abdomen tortured his entire body every moment. In a daze, he thought of the pain of Prometheus, who was tied to the mountain and had his liver torn out by an eagle every day. It was so despairing.

Perhaps this is what hell looks like, where sinners are tortured physically, mentally, and spiritually all the time. After experiencing the pain of so-called atonement, even those who think they are innocent no longer understand or clearly recognize the meaning of atonement. In the end, they lose their last bit of humanity in the torture of hell and become ghosts.

Maybe, Liu Ende gradually became insane in this torture, and he wanted to die immediately. He was looking forward to dying in the next second to end this pain that made his life worse than death. It is better to live a miserable life than to die. That is bullshit! "Squeak..."

Liu Ende heard the burning sound in the dark, and then there was a sharp pain in his abdomen. It felt like a row of charcoal was placed on his stomach and kept burning the crack on his abdomen. A burning smell rushed straight to his head, and it was really an irresistible force that woke Liu Ende up from his coma. When he opened his eyes, he saw a man who looked like a Western quack doctor, with brown hair and a somewhat old face. He was skillfully removing the charcoal that had faded red from Liu Ende's stomach with a special metal clip and placing it in a burning brazier beside him.

"Luka, how do you feel?"

Seeing Liu Ende wake up, the doctor looked at him with a loving smile, and even called out his name as if he were an old acquaintance, and asked with concern.

"Me? Luka?"

This made Liu Ende feel strange. His surname is Liu Ende, so how come he has such a foreign name like Lu Jia here? "Old man, you must have recognized the wrong person." Liu Ende hurriedly explained: "I admit that there are people who look the same in this world, including the underworld, which makes it difficult for people to tell them apart for a while, but my name is really not Lu Jia."

"Hey! Don't fool me!" Liu Ende didn't know what was so funny about this sentence, but as soon as he finished speaking, the old man burst into laughter. What does this mean? Liu Ende was fooled by his laughter. Liu Ende had no contact with this old man. He might be the first foreign old man in ancient costume that he had seen in person. But why could he tell who Liu Ende was right away? He pointed at Liu Ende and laughed so hard that two more wrinkles appeared on his face. The old man continued, "Little Luca, don't play dumb with me. You haven't recognized me in just two years?"

I must have recognized the wrong person! Liu Ende still shook his head firmly. This was really the truth. He really didn't know this foreigner, and what he said was incomprehensible.

"Okay! You kid!"

The wrinkles on the old man's face smoothed out, and the original smile disappeared, replaced by an angry look, "Well, I didn't expect that joining the army would change a person so incredible, Lujia, I see that not only your stomach was cut open on the battlefield, but also your head was broken!" As he said this, the old man started to fight, swinging his fist and hitting Liu Ende's head hard. He cried out in pain!

"What's wrong? What's wrong?"

At this moment, the wooden door not far away creaked open, and an old woman wearing very simple linen clothes and with messy gray hair ran into the house in a panic, striding forward and backward. She must have heard Liu Ende's screams.

"Oh, Bella, what are you doing?"

The old woman stepped forward to stop him and glared at the old doctor. She said in a reproachful tone, "You must have hurt little Luca. Really, you still have a bad temper at such an old age. No wonder no one in the village wants to see you for treatment now!"

"That's enough, you old woman who can't even hold a spoon properly!" Old Doctor Bella was furious at the moment. Facing his wife's reproach, he fought back without hesitation: "This little bastard doesn't even recognize me now. I now suspect that there must be something wrong with his brain. Otherwise, if I let him play dumb like this, then who should I hold responsible for the money he stole from my herbal medicine when he was a child?"

"Hey, hey, hey!"

When it comes to petty theft, Liu Ende is not very happy. He thought: Hey, this old man, I am a person in the world of the living, but I have been in your underworld. Could it be that my soul in the underworld was reincarnated without telling them, and now I am waiting for my death and coming back? It has been so many years, is it worth it for such a small amount of money? I am full of doubts about everything here, but the most important thing at the moment is to comfort this angry old man first! "Old man, I am really a newcomer and I don’t know what the rules of the underworld are, but don’t worry, since I owe you a lot of money, I will definitely pay it back in full." Liu Ende deliberately slowed down his tone, otherwise he would offend the old doctor and be beaten.

"Return it in full?" Old Doctor Bella squinted his eyes and looked Liu Ende up and down. He probably saw that he didn't have anything valuable on him. Liu Ende felt bad when he heard his tone. "You poor boy, when you joined the army, you told me that you were going to do something big, but now it seems that you joined the army just to eat and drink for free and get a set of military equipment!"

"Old man, why are you talking so harshly!" The old woman at the side couldn't stand it anymore and opened her mouth to stop him. But this only angered the old doctor even more. He stood up, pushed down the stool he had just sat on, snorted coldly, and walked out of the cabin without looking back.

"This old immortal thing!"

The old woman was a little angry, but she still complained a few words in a low voice. She turned around and saw that the wound on Liu Ende's stomach was still covered with black charcoal residue, which made the old woman's heart burst with sympathy. She hurriedly stepped forward and brought the wooden basin that had been prepared long ago. There was clean water in it. She casually took a piece of linen, dipped it in water, and gently cleaned the useless debris from the wound that had been forcibly healed for me. After all, she was old, and her hands and feet were not as flexible as before. Holding the wet cloth, I could clearly see her trembling hands. She accidentally touched Liu Ende's wound several times. The wound that was healed by the burn continued to transmit the pain to his brain through the nerves of the skin. After experiencing the pain that felt like a whole year, Liu Ende was already exhausted.

Looking closely at the old woman, it is not difficult to see that although she is old and the years have covered up her youthful appearance, it can still be roughly seen that this old woman was a great beauty decades ago. It is only a pity that time has passed, her hair has turned gray, and her face has aged. Liu Ende is grateful to the couple. Even if they are mean, they have saved his life. I don’t know how to repay them in this completely unfamiliar underworld. Can they really wait until Liu Ende repays them? Is it to earn some ghost money from the Heaven and Earth Bank? Do the old couple abroad really recognize the money of Great China?

"Little Luca," the old woman said to Liu Ende while busying herself, "Do you remember when you were a kid outside the fishing village, I and other women would often see you fishing by the river while washing clothes. But you were young and clumsy, and you couldn't catch any fish. But you just wouldn't give up, and the women around me laughed at you for being stupid."

The latest novel is published first on Liu9shuba!

"So I have lived here since I was a child." Liu Ende was secretly surprised and asked the old woman, "I really can't remember what happened before, but I am very curious now. I want to know what I owe Dr. Bella?"

The old woman stopped what she was doing, looked up, and stared into my eyes with a very serious attitude.

"A promise."

She held up a finger. "That's not a lot, but it's not a little either!"

(End of this chapter)