Chapter 173 Borrowing 3 - A really enjoyable episode.
You really want to look back... just one look... but you can't!
"roll..."
"Get out of here!!"
As you growl, the shimmering gold nail polish on your body emits a faint glow.
The light had no heat at all, yet the thing emanating the chilling aura behind my ear was sizzling and burning.
A sharp shriek exploded in your mind, followed by an extremely grating laugh, like iron needles scraping inside your skull.
A burst of colorful stars explodes before your eyes, and in an instant you feel dizzy, the light and shadows in front of you distort.
After finally recovering, you braced yourself on the ground with your hands and could barely see the blood lines on the ground receding rapidly and then disappearing completely, while the area under the bed remained deathly silent.
Are you alright?
But when you look down at your reflection in your phone screen—pale and bloodless, with lips that are dark purple, as if all the blood in your body has been drained.
You staggered to your feet and stuffed the energy bars you bought from your bag into your stomach one after another.
As you chew heartily, your vision, senses, and bodily functions finally recover, and the anger in your chest can no longer be suppressed.
That beast! He wouldn't even spare his own daughter!
WeChat is still vibrating; the man whose identity is your father is still sending messages from that alternate account, urging, hinting, and threatening—you're too lazy to read them anymore.
You stuff the rest of the snacks to replenish your energy and stimulate your brain into your mouth, tilt your head back and gulp down water, roughly chewing and swallowing everything. Your mind becomes much clearer. Then, you suddenly push open the door.
The corridor was pitch black, with only a dim nightlight flickering in the corner. You first went to the kitchen and hid a small fruit knife in your sleeve, then without saying a word, you kicked open the door.
The door slammed against the wall with a loud bang, startling the man inside.
Instead of the cleansing scent of incense, what hits you is a nauseating smell of cheap, low-quality incense. The pungent odor, mixed with the acrid smell of burning plastic, instantly stings your eyes, making them sting and blur your vision with tears.
The room was crammed with items from the livestreaming studio, but without the studio's lighting and filters, these amulets, talismans, and ritual implements were obviously cheap fakes at a glance. The metal plating was rough, the Buddha statues had stiff expressions, the lines on the talismans were sloppy, and some even had mold marks. On the straw mats on the floor were piles of colorful, low-quality pendants and beads—in short, it looked like a junkyard.
And it smelled terrible!
Before your father could even finish his pose, grinning like a mouse while still clutching his phone, his eyebrows barely raised, you had already snatched the phone away in three quick steps.
"You—!" He froze for a moment, then sprang up and pounced like a brave man.
You sneered, then kicked him squarely in the chest. The man let out a muffled groan and crashed to the ground, knocking over the small table beside him.
"Splash—"
Fake Buddhist amulets and talismans rolled down the floor, lying like dead fish, reflecting a cold, eerie light.
He was panting and struggling to get up when your eyes flashed, and you lifted the overturned low table and slammed it down on him. The wooden legs wedged his arms tightly, and he groaned and cried out, his face turning bright red.
You straddle the low table, and your entire weight presses down on him. No matter how much he twists and struggles under the table, he can only roll around on the ground in vain like a stupid pig that has been stepped on and is waiting to be slaughtered.
"Ah! Let go! You dare lay a hand on your father?!" He was furious, his eyes bloodshot.
You didn't bother to look at him, so you just waved his phone at him. He tried to reach for it, but you stepped on his hand.
"Aaaaaah—!!"
"I can't blame you for selling this junk to fool others; the law will punish you one day. But you don't even spare your own family? Do you even deserve to live?"
You can't understand the existence of people like that—why don't they just die?
Your father's hand was almost broken by your foot. His pain was contorted into a grimace as he cursed and swore to ease the pain, but the more he struggled, the weaker he became. You were clutching the phone that had just been snatched from him. The screen was still lit, and the WeChat conversation was stuck on those few lines that disgusted you to the core: "You can exchange your wife's life for money, and your daughter's photos for luck. You can send more."
nausea.
You open your phone and quickly scroll through the pages.
Sure enough, this account had hundreds of groups. They were all fake prosperity—screenshots of "customers reporting miraculous results," "master's blessing ceremony," and "blessings for the whole family to be wealthy."
But each one was so poorly done that it looked like a primary school student's homework, with even the typos being exactly the same.
— Foolish and arrogant.
You look down at the man who is being held down under the low table. His eyes are bloodshot, as if they are about to be squeezed out, and his face is bluish-purple from the exertion.
"You'd better cooperate, or I can just kill you and no one will know," you said.
The father's breathing was rapid, his chest heaving with a hoarse sound. He opened his mouth, wanting to curse you again, but ultimately held it back.
The room was filled with the pungent smell of cheap incense, so sweet it was almost unsettling; you thought the smell was like the stench of a rotting corpse.
You enter the contacts on his phone and start scrolling. After a short while, the phone vibrates in your hand, and a new message notification pops up on the screen.
You glanced at it: it was a so-called "master" account, which your father respectfully labeled "Master X" in the contact list. He sent you a cold message: "Where are the photos?"
Found it.
Go directly to his chat history.
Then, you feel like you've stumbled into a stinking, rotten food stall.
The chat history on the screen was completely undisguised, a veritable open book of incriminating statements.
Ironically, most people, knowing that what they are doing is shameful, would secretly use code words or delete records periodically, but he didn't even bother to delete records; the earliest records could be traced back five or six years.
In the eyes of someone like him, these despicable things, these things that treat the lives of loved ones as possessions, are simply "legitimate" business.
You scroll down and soon see words that are heartbreaking.
The first one is about raising "little ghosts".
The master gave him detailed instructions: to use the remains of a fetus less than a month old or a child who died young as a "vessel" to create the so-called "Kuman Thong".
The message even included several photos, so blurry they were unrecognizable, but enough to make you nauseous.
The tradition of raising ghosts among the black magic practitioners of Thailand is not fictional; many legends say that "offering to ghosts can bring wealth." The earliest legend comes from a male general who was betrayed by his wife and concubine. He killed the woman who betrayed him for the sake of her country, cut out the infant from her womb, roasted it into a Kumanthong (a type of spirit doll), and carried it with him to fight against the woman's country.
Modern "passing-by Kuman Thong" are no longer the terrifying and sinister figures of legend. They are made by firing different types of clay and then supposedly "inviting the spirit" into the body. This father, however, actually chose to bring in a Kuman Thong made from the corpse of an infant, as described in legends, for worship and veneration.
You feel a chill, but even if you don't know much about these witchcraft and folk customs, you can logically tell that the shadow in your room is definitely not caused by the spirit of the infant.
That was at least a mature and extremely insidious creature.
Keep scrolling up.
Finally, in the chat, you see this master and father sometimes scolding employees like a boss, and sometimes instructing their beloved son like a loving father, saying that they will set up a formation in your house and use specific cursed objects and blood sacrifices to "borrow" things for him.
What did you borrow? Luck, energy, vitality. From whom did you borrow it?
The master said that women are naturally "yin" and are most suitable as "substitutes".
The mother in this identity thus became the "offering" in the master's words, gradually withering and becoming timid under the influence of some unknown formation. This was not only due to the constant torment she suffered at the hands of her father, but also because her life force was being slowly drained away.
As for "you"—you understand now.
This father brought his daughter to Thailand not for schooling, but to make it easier for the master to "take care" of her and use her young body as a new vessel.
You stare at these words, your breathing rapid, your palms sweating and tingling. A burning sensation churns in your chest, and you feel your scalp tingling.
You held back. You exhaled the air from your stomach and, mimicking your father's usual tone in this chat history, typed a few words in WeChat.
"Master, today was a real miscalculation. That coward (referring to the useless middle-aged man you played), the duck that was almost in your hand flew away."
"Sigh, my master was right. He told me not to get entangled with people who only talk big."
"However, there's something I'd like to ask. Something seems a little off about my daughter."
You deliberately wrote in a greasy, obsequious style, occasionally interspersed with a few swear words.
This was just to test the master's abilities, so you simply wrote down all your real experiences from the past few days—for example, how your "daughter" dared to disobey her father, and how she somehow became incredibly strong, even though she looked like a high school girl, she was able to subdue him, and so on.
After sending the message, you feel a surge of tension, waiting for the other party's response.
If he's truly capable, then you've found the right person. But you're also worried that he's too skilled, that he might be able to tell through the screen that this isn't your father.
Not long after, the screen lit up.
The "master" replied with several long voice messages, which you didn't dare open, fearing strange noises might come from inside the room. You let WeChat automatically transcribe them into text, and cold sweat immediately broke out.
"That's right."
“Your daughter was just an ordinary girl, destined for nothing.”
"The original plan was to find a new woman after your wife died. You should continue to set up the formation until the lunar eclipse ceremony ends this year. After that, you will definitely have ten years of great fortune."
"But now, she's showing unusual signs, which means she's a successor delivered right to your door. You're blessed to have a daughter who can give back to you like this."
You stare at the screen, each word crawling up your back like a centipede, into your scalp. You can almost feel those cold insects burrowing into your bones, sending chills down your spine.
But this also proves one thing—this so-called master is not a charlatan. He really can "see" things.
At least, he saw through your current situation and realized that you now have a new opportunity.
You stared at the ceiling, at something unknown and unseen, for a long time.
You lower your head, continuing to pretend to be the father, and type: "Alas, Master, I am ashamed. It really is my daughter's fault. Please, Master, see the truth... Could you please come again? The array you set up earlier seems to have been destroyed. Did she secretly sabotage it?"
Sure enough, the other party replied shortly after the message was sent.
"Impossible. I set up the formation myself; it won't be easily destroyed. I didn't sense any change."
Is his skill level really that high?
Immediately afterward, my phone vibrated again; a video call had come in. The image that popped up on the screen was that of the "master."
You glanced at your father; he was staring intently at you, his eyes filled with fear and rage. It seemed he desperately wanted this master to save him.
But even the most powerful master is probably no match for this.
You scoff, and the knife you had prepared beforehand slides out of your sleeve, the cold back of the blade pressed against your father's neck.
"Answer it," you said softly.
The father hesitated for a moment, then you exerted a little force on your wrist, and the blade flashed. He was so frightened that he immediately nodded, trembling.
The call connected, and a sinister laugh came from the other end.
“Something’s not right with you,” the master said, his voice strange, as if he were talking to water.
Father's throat tightened, and he forced his eyes away from you. He was genuinely afraid that you might slit his throat if you were dissatisfied. So he could only stammer obsequiously, "N-nothing, Master. It's just... a little problem. Can you come over tomorrow? I'd like you to take another look."
There was a few seconds of silence on the other end of the phone, as if they were weighing something.
Will he come? You're staring at the screen from the side, so you can't quite make out the master's face.
After a long pause, the person on the other end finally said quietly, "Okay. Tomorrow."
He hung up immediately.
The room fell into a deathly silence.
As you look at your phone, in the calm after figuring out everything at home, anger and nausea surge up again.
You've finally figured it out: everything in this house is inextricably linked to this beast in front of you and the "master" behind him.
This man, who always claims to be the head of the household when he's drunk and causing trouble, immediately tries to break free again when he sees you staring blankly for a moment. In reality, he's just a dog cornered.
You grabbed him by the back of the neck with such force that he was instantly rendered speechless, forced to tiptoe as you dragged him around the room.
You are looking for—the most crucial offering.
Where is the Kumanthong?
As you witnessed in the last instance, in this already unnatural instance world, such unnatural witchcraft phenomena are even more terrifying. Regardless of what this infant spirit is all about, the father must be properly worshipping it, so you can't just confront it head-on based on a moment of anger.
Spirit.
Another person's handwriting keeps appearing in your mind.
That diary.
She—the original owner of this body.
You read it carefully. Her untrained and ugly handwriting, with its protruding top and protruding bottom, was angrily arranged line after line.
The words filling the notebook pages almost leaped off the page, exuding a piercing, bloody aura.
"I hate him."
Why doesn't Mom resist?
Why was I born into this kind of family?
"Go to hell!"
But she also wrote:
"...If I disappeared, would everyone be relieved?"
She hated this world so much, but in the end, she began to hate herself.
The hatred of adolescence is so intense, and it's often the easiest thing for adults to overlook. They think, "What do kids know? It's just a tantrum. They'll forget about it when they grow up."
But you are still an adult who has only recently become an adult, and sometimes you even feel like you are still pretending to be an adult, so you know that those are the most genuine signals. A child is the most sensitive sensor in a family; she can smell the tension in the air and see through the cracks behind the silence.
She hated her father's violence and greed, her mother's cowardice and silence, and she also hated that she had the same blood as that man flowing in her veins.
She repeatedly wrote "unwilling to accept it" and "wanting to destroy everything" between the lines. That kind of desperate despair was more real, sharper, and more destructive than any adult sophistication.
This extreme emotion can either be tamed, leading to a peaceful life; or it can erupt inward, leading to self-destruction; or it can explode outward, ruining her entire life.
Now you stand here in her place, and two forces surge within you: your own calm anger as an observer born of empathy, and her youthful, vibrant hatred, like two fiery serpents intertwined.
So, you made your decision.
It's not just for yourself—after all, what so-called "phenomenon" is nothing more than your own descent into this body? This man and the so-called master are trying to sacrifice yourself.
It was also for her sake—her pent-up, unfulfilled hatred; and her overwhelming fear: she was afraid that the cowardly half of her blood would succumb to the base half, so she became someone who understood her father, respected him, and became a father herself. Did she still deserve to be human? She truly became a dog without dignity.
Then you will have to do it.
You held the father tightly, and he mumbled curses until you suddenly slammed him down in a corner.
There, you finally found it.
On an altar, there is an incense burner, bowls and plates, and a black wooden "Kuman Thong". Its eyes are wide open, it is painted with gold powder, and its mouth has a half-smile.
The moment you make eye contact with it, you feel something change in the air, as if something heavy is pressing down on you, and you can almost hear a faint child's voice echoing in the corner of the room.
The father's face turned deathly pale instantly, and he shook his head desperately, pleading, "Don't touch it! It's there to protect us! You mustn't touch it! Please!"
"Don't worry, I respect it very much." As you said this, you actually followed the instructions from the records you found on your phone and put your hands together in a gesture of respect to the Kumanthong.
You heard the children laughing and giggling happily.
Then, you slammed your hand down, pressing the father's head hard against the floor. The wooden board made a loud thud, and his forehead turned bruised.
"What you're worshipping isn't protection, it's the spirits of those who died unjustly." Your voice was low and filled with clenched teeth. "You trade other people's lives for money, you trade your wife and daughter's lives for luck, and you still have the nerve to look up at it?"
The father roared, but you held him firmly in place with your arms. He could only struggle on the ground, writhing like an insect.
You forced him to kneel, slamming his head hard against the offering table. Incense ash splattered, choking people.
"kowtow."
He gritted his teeth and refused.
You applied force with your hand, the blade lightly slicing through the back of his ear. Blood trickled down his neck, dripping onto the offering table. The Kumanthong's eyes seemed to be smiling, its red tongue appearing and disappearing.
The father trembled and finally gave in, banging his forehead heavily against the statue of the god, the sound echoing throughout the house.
"Continue," you commanded coldly.
Once, twice, three times.
Bloodstains seeped onto the wooden board, mixing with incense ash and congealing into dark red marks.
Before the offering table, his father's forehead was bruised and swollen, blood mixed with sweat streaming down his face. He finally had no strength left to struggle, and could only kneel trembling before them—
With your other hand, you looted another consecrated statue. You don't recognize what kind of god it is. But you've already noticed the furnishings in this room; the good, genuine items are all sold at high prices, and they're all carefully wrapped in red cloth, displayed in a perfunctory manner.
You pressed your father's head to the ground one last time, and said with a smile, "This is for her, and also for me."
The room was silent, except for the Kumanthong on the altar, whose laughter grew even more eerie.
My father's forehead was bruised and swollen from kowtowing, and his blood mixed with incense ash to form mud that flowed in front of the offering table.
He didn't say anything, but you know that while he was kneeling and worshipping, he was sincerely praying that the spirits he was worshipping would protect him and bring retribution upon his unfilial daughter.
But—the seventh general rule: Learn to be devout, learn to be content, learn to be loyal.
He clearly accomplished nothing.
Money, lust, and greed filled his heart; and without even glancing at the idol he didn't believe in, he knelt before the Kumanthong he devoutly worshipped, showing no loyalty whatsoever.
He hadn't realized he was worshipping the wrong god and was still muttering incantations.
Suddenly, a wisp of black smoke rose from the nearly extinguished sandalwood incense burner, coiling around the father's neck like a snake. The Kumanthong's already wide-open eyes slowly moved before your eyes, a faint red glow emanating from the whites.
Only then did the man lift his face, which you had smashed into a grotesque mess. When he saw the other statue in front of him, his eyes widened in disbelief.
"Impossible! How could this happen!"
Looking up at the raging Kumanthong again, he thought you were still binding him, and with a mighty struggle, he rolled to the side. Having already fallen flat on his face, he could only cry out in a hoarse voice, terrified, "Don't play tricks! I've worshipped it for so many years, it wouldn't—"
His words were abruptly cut off.
The Kumanthong's mouth split open, and the wooden puppet's lips suddenly bulged out a baby's cry. The sound didn't come from the air, but went straight into your ears.
The man shuddered, and with a gurgling sound, blood gushed from his mouth and nose.
The black smoke tightened, like an invisible rope constricting his neck. Veins beneath his skin bulged, like countless earthworms crawling. The man's face turned from ashen to purplish-red, his eyes bloodshot, and he uttered hoarse sounds as if his trachea had been severed.
The Kumanthong on the altar gradually "came to life," its tiny arms wriggling in the gold dust, its fine fingernails as sharp as fish bones stuck in its throat. It slowly extended one hand, as if gesturing, or perhaps asking for something.
The man shook his head frantically: "No! I can still offer you sacrifices! I'm your father—"
This ruthless man who wanted to sacrifice his wife and daughter actually claimed to be the father of the "little devil"!
The small hand suddenly grabbed, and a soft "rip" sound came from the air, like cloth being torn. You saw the man's shadow twist violently on the ground, and something black was forcibly pulled out and yanked toward the Kumanthong's small mouth.
The man let out a heart-wrenching scream, his entire body convulsing as if his bones were being ripped out. Blood spurted from his seven orifices onto the offering table and the floor, still warm when it splashed onto your arm. The Kumanthong chewed on the black mist, the laughter and cries of the infants mingling together, and the room suddenly felt like hell.
The father was still begging for mercy, but his voice had already turned into a baby's whimper, breaking into words: "Spare...my...life...I...will...offer...to..."
The Kumanthong ignored him and reached out again, its fingertips digging into its father's heart. Blood gushed out like a fountain, splashing onto the gold dust of the statue and instantly turning into dark red runes.
It climbed onto the man's body and tore off pieces of his flesh, wailing until the man was completely dead.
You just watch all this, your heart churning with complex emotions: it's her burning hatred, and it's also the fulfillment of karma for this little family.
Once the man had turned into a pool of bloody humanoid imprint, the Kumanthong had already sat back down, its eyes returning to their inorganic, dull state, and its little hands retracting.
The air was thick with the stench of blood, which masked the original smell of burning plastic, yet carried a strange, sweet aroma. The incense ash on the offering table collapsed, forming a deep mark.
It looks like a word with a floral meaning—"The End".
You wiped the blood from your face; your fingertips were stained crimson. Silence returned to the room, broken only by your mother's trembling, panting breaths as she collapsed to the floor.
Her eyes were vacant, and she was so scared she didn't dare breathe. She witnessed the whole thing, and now she looks at you with the same fear she once had of her father.
Your lack of reaction is perfect. She's afraid of you, so she won't get in your way. At least, she can still live a decent life.
This mother is very hardworking. Although she will live in fear for a long time after losing her "husband," at least her weak maternal heart—otherwise she should have stood up long ago and stood by and said "that's your father" like you did on the first day when you beat up the man, right?—and the biggest emotion that drives her to survive, fear, can still support her to continue living with "you," who is still a child.
And this girl, after you leave this body, leave this copy, may be able to truly take control of her own life.
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Author's Note: I'm going to go write about the pseudo-humans next door now... Hello Earth, this is Tiger Star. Here, a day is 32-48 hours, mainly depending on its orbital speed around the star Tiger King... Okay, I'll stop rambling, sob sob. After finishing the pseudo-humans, I might take a nap, and then continue updating this when I wake up. There's a giveaway on Wednesday, so no updates that day^^
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