Chapter 194 Farewell
--Why?
Ever since I can remember, loquat seems to always be asking herself why.
Why be born... Why live... And why always have to watch one life after another being forced to die in front of us?
If we insist on not seeing, not hearing, and not speaking, and pretend that nothing has happened, will the world become a better place?
Pipa once thought that perhaps it was possible.
So he did try to do that... but it didn't work.
Things never went as he hoped.
Those who deserve to die can't, and those who could live can't survive no matter what... Pipa asked herself, so why was she born into such a world?
—Or perhaps, why would such a world even exist?
He felt pain, and a deep compassion that went beyond the pain itself.
He gazed with pity at the frenzied villagers, looked up with pity at his dying mother, and saw pity for himself in their eyes as well.
Poor child...
A faint sigh reached my ears.
Why is it a pitiful child?
[Because this child was born to a poor woman.]
—Then why are there such pitiful women?
This time, no voice was needed to answer; the child answered himself: "Because of this world—this world created her, yet abandoned her."
[...]
Suddenly, the surroundings became quiet, as if another transparent dome had separated the open space a few steps away, isolating the reveling crowd and the powerless woman from the open space.
It's not that they can't hear or see at all.
But the sound and the image seemed to have become distant... as distant as an echo that came by chance from another time and space.
But Pipa knew that wasn't the case; all of this was happening right now.
Revelry, bullying, one group's self-righteous judgment of another... Not only here, but there are many other things he hasn't heard or seen.
There are also countless unspoken cries and screams.
They truly exist and happen, yet they are buried, forgotten, and their stories are repeated time and again.
I am but an ordinary speck of dust, a grain of sand... naturally, I am no exception.
So they were equally self-righteous and ambitious, yet equally powerless to reverse the situation.
"so……"
Pipa suddenly felt puzzled: "Who created this world and then abandoned it?"
The culprit that plunged this world into sin and chaos—
Where did the source of all this go?
Did He not see that His creation was calling for His return through a series of absurd dramas?
Like a child who has lost his gaze, he acted willfully and recklessly, crying, shouting, laughing, making a scene, hoarsely writing down a series of absurd tragicomedies, humbly and arrogantly begging for even a moment of His mercy...
So, did you finally get what you wanted?
—It seems not.
Because all of this has happened, is happening now, and may continue to happen in the future.
For some reason, Pipa suddenly felt like laughing.
And then he actually smiled.
The parched lips, stretched to the sides, burst open like ripe fruit, revealing cracks.
However, unlike real fruit pulp, what flows out is not sweet and fragrant juice, but moist blood.
Of course, it's also possible that, in essence, there isn't much difference between the two... After all, loquat is also the name of a fruit.
This is the taste—it's so familiar.
It smells exactly like Yuanxiao. This guy really did sneak off to pick and eat wild fruit behind my back…
What gluttonous fellows! If they hadn't been like that, they probably wouldn't have met.
Pipa thought about the bowl of glutinous rice balls she had promised Yuanxiao, realizing that she probably wouldn't have the chance to fulfill that promise.
He silently apologized in his heart, thinking that if they had the chance to meet again, he would repay the favor tenfold—provided that the other party still wanted to meet him.
After all, it seems that anyone who gets close to him, whether human or animal, is bound to have bad luck, even he himself...
That said, none of the people present seemed to notice the arrival of the loquat.
Even though he was a perfectly healthy person standing right there, behind them, the group of people didn't notice him at all.
Leaving your back exposed for others in such a blatant way is not a good habit.
If it had been some ferocious wild beast, there would probably have been a large number of dead or wounded by now.
pity……
Pipa thought with some regret that she wasn't some kind of monster.
He was just a weak child who couldn't even kill a chicken. Let alone killing or eating people, he would have much more difficulty escaping than ordinary people and was far inferior to them.
But Pipa still slowly walked over.
During that time, he heard people talking amongst themselves, almost all of them criticizing the woman who was tied to the high platform.
What jinxes, what wicked monsters, what sinners of the village... those words that used to sound harsh now seem so insignificant.
Pipa felt no anger whatsoever.
Because he knew they were all wrong. Completely wrong, ridiculously wrong, so why waste words arguing?
It was a bit strange, though, that he didn't see his father. Pipa, however, spotted a familiar figure in the crowd – the old village chief.
In just one night, the old man seemed to have aged considerably. His once upright body became somewhat hunched, and upon closer inspection, it was discovered that he appeared to be injured, with both arms immobilized in splints and tied around his neck with rope.
Seeing this, Pipa naturally thought of the dog leash that always hung around Big Yellow's neck... It really looked like it.
A slight smile appeared on his lips.
They all say dogs resemble their owners, but Pipa thinks that perhaps the reverse is also true.
At this moment, Pipa heard someone mention his father's name, so he pricked up his ears and listened for a few moments. He then learned that his father had died the night before, and that he had been killed by Pipa's mother.
"Just say he was bewitched by a fox spirit, completely lost in his desires, and did such a disrespectful thing, yet he still tried to protect this evil spirit. He deserved to die..."
"If you ask me, this family should have been kicked out long ago. It's just that the village chief is too kind-hearted, thinking about their ancestral lineage, and he thought the boy was honest and would repay kindness. You can only know a person's face but not their heart; he just happened to run into a heartless ingrate."
"Hey, hey, hey, don't talk about those unpleasant things. Didn't you see the fire is already set up? It's good to burn it all down to ashes, clean and tidy. It's just that I wonder where the little one has hidden. It would be more exciting if the mother and child were tied up and burned together."
"..."
Pipa stood there for a while and vaguely understood some of what she was saying.
It was simply that Mother tampered with the offerings, ruining last night's sacrificial ceremony.
Those who gratefully accepted God's gift—the soup in the large pot used to cook the offerings—all developed symptoms of poisoning.
Depending on the dosage, the severity of the illness can vary.
At first, no one suspected poisoning; they all thought it was just a simple case of stomach upset.
Since these offerings were always prepared by the old village chief and the chanting master, everyone wanted to find the two of them to demand an explanation.
Only then did they realize that the old village chief had disappeared sometime earlier.
The man who chanted scriptures was also quite ill; he lay down on the ground and lost consciousness.
The ceremony is not yet over; the village chief still needs to oversee the overall process, including the final step of sending off the gods.
According to the rules, other villagers are not allowed to enter the ancestral hall, so in previous years, the shrines were only sent to the front of the ancestral hall, and the old village chief would personally carry them inside.
It is said that it is easy to invite a god but difficult to send him away.
As the appointed time drew near, the villagers grew anxious, not so much because they were concerned about the old village chief himself, but because they worried that the entire worship ceremony would not be able to be completed smoothly.
They were afraid, and thus angered the one above, who would then punish the entire village, and eventually, their punishment would fall upon them...
So the group immediately launched a second search in the village.
This time, however, there were far fewer people. Those who remained were mostly those who had eaten little and whose symptoms weren't as severe. But after all the commotion they'd experienced, they were already quite exhausted, and their only reason for mustering energy was out of fear of divine punishment.
When people finally found the old village chief at Pipa's house, the old man was lying on the ground with his hands and feet tied, his mouth gagged, and his eyes wide with fear and confusion. He looked utterly pathetic, a far cry from his usual imposing manner.
The area beneath him was a patch of red and yellow, which not only looked disgusting but also smelled incredibly foul.
Some people vomited on the spot.
Someone with sharp eyes spotted pieces of nail and chopped-up knuckles among the filth...
Later, people found the loquat's mother digging a hole in the vegetable garden in the backyard. She had been digging for a while and had dug a fairly large hole with a corpse lying next to it.
It was Pipa's father, who had already passed away.
They all said that the woman was crazy, or that she was possessed by an evil spirit.
Or perhaps it was a combination of both, otherwise why would she kill her own husband—the man who had always cared for her and allowed her to settle down in the village?
The husbands were shocked and bewildered, and the wives were horrified and confused. These two emotions ultimately converged into anger.
Why would she do such a thing?
Why?
The woman did not answer; she simply gazed slowly and silently into the crowd, her two black eyes empty and eerily calm.
No one looked into those eyes. They tied the woman up and took her to the woodshed to await their fate.
By then, it was almost dawn.
Undoubtedly, the time for sending off the gods has passed, and almost everyone is suffering from both physical and mental torment, fearing the possible calamity that may befall them.
As if echoing their fears, the day that followed was the hottest day since the beginning of summer this year.
No one remembers whether summers in previous years were as unbearably hot as this.
But this was undoubtedly a day that will be etched in your memory.
After a short rest, the villagers received exciting news: the woman who had committed the heinous crimes of murdering her husband, injuring others, and blasphemy would be burned at the stake.
It is both a punishment for sinners and a consolation to the gods.
And to demonstrate their unwavering resolve against evil, each household had to send a representative to attack the woman possessed by the evil spirit with stones, mud, and words laced with venom.
According to the old village chief, this was a divine decree sent down in a dream.
"The more cruel you are to evil, the more you demonstrate your devotion to that One, and the easier it is to receive forgiveness and blessings."
The crowd erupted in cheers again.
The old village chief, in particular, stared intently at the woman on the high platform with his cloudy eyes, his gaze filled with barely suppressed resentment and excitement.
Pipa looked at all this, meeting the woman's numb and calm face. Her hands and feet were bound, and there were obvious wounds. Her clothes were tattered, and her dry hair was scattered down, hanging down on her bruised and dirty cheeks.
For a moment, Pipa felt that her mother could see her.
Because the corners of his lips, stained with dried blood, seemed to be slightly upturned, revealing a barely perceptible smile.
But Pipa wasn't sure whether it was smiling at him or mocking everyone present.
The loquat just watched.
Watching the emotions of that group of people rise to an unprecedented high the moment the flames burst forth.
At that moment, Pipa rushed into the crowd and knocked the old village chief, who was standing aside admiring the scene, headfirst into the blazing fire.
—It all happened too suddenly.
Most people were still caught up in the excitement of the previous moment and hadn't even realized what was happening when they were hit squarely in the face by the swaying and collapsing bamboo platform.
Being hit and crushed by the bamboo frame is secondary... the real problem is that those bamboo poles were covered with burning talismans, and a lot of oil was poured on them to help them burn.
The fire burned brighter and brighter, crackling and popping in the already scorching air.
The mournful cries were accompanied by the sound of hurried footsteps, the smell of thick smoke, and the acrid odor of burning flesh permeated the air.
Pipa felt her already burning throat was now completely blocked, and she began to cough incessantly.
I can't say I felt particularly happy; it was more of a feeling of relief and that everything had finally settled down.
He felt he had finally accomplished the thing he had always wanted to do.
He paid no attention to those being burned by the flames, nor did he care about those who scattered, either to escape or to fetch water.
He simply headed straight in the direction he had chosen, his steps unsteady but not hurried.
Finally he saw it—
The woman fell to the ground along with the collapsed bamboo platform.
"Mother..." Pipa had barely uttered a word when she burst into uncontrollable coughing.
He rushed over and fell to his mother's side, using his own flesh-covered, blood-soaked arms to extinguish the flames while trying to untie the woman's restraints.
"Loquat..." A weak voice pulled Loquat back from the brink of saneness.
He was stunned for a moment, then looked at his mother, who had opened her eyes at some point, with surprise and joy. His heart seemed to start beating again.
"Mother, Mother, you're awake! That's wonderful! Wait for me, wait for me to untie the rope, wait for me—" Pipa had a thousand words to say.
However, the woman looked at him and only said two simple words: "Go quickly..."
She shoved the child violently with her arms covered in blood scabs.
The loquat was pushed and stumbled. When it tried to climb back up, it was stopped by the woman's cold gaze.
"roll--"
"...Mother?"
"If you don't want to die with your eyes open, leave now... Get as far away as you can, get out!"
After the woman shouted fiercely, seeing that the child was still standing there blankly, she suddenly slammed her head into the gravel ground. Her already scarred cheeks immediately developed fresh cuts, and the blood that flowed out was scorched black by the flames.
Pipa stopped, realizing the other person's determination.
She wanted him to leave, but she also wanted him to live.
This may have been the woman's final request.
Thinking of this, Pipa wiped away her tears forcefully, not caring that it would smear more dirt and blood on her face. She glanced hastily at the woman in the firelight one last time, then turned and fled in utter disarray.
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