Chapter 135: [Harboring a Ghostly Secret] The Malice of Human Hearts
“Bring forth the newlyweds!”
Accompanied by the crisp voices of the Golden Boy and Jade Girl, the couple appeared before everyone’s eyes.
Just like in the dream, the bridal veil was draped over the groom’s head.
Ji Xiaolan was dressed up beautifully, yet there wasn’t a trace of joy on her face.
When her eyes swept over to Bai Cha, they were filled with a faint plea.
What was she pleading for? Pleading for this wedding not to happen?
Bai Cha glanced at Shao Lei.
He was entirely draped beneath crimson wedding robes, and with the veil covering his head, it was impossible to make out his features.
Looking over to the side of the grandmother, who was likewise glaring at them grimly, a sudden guess sprouted in Bai Cha’s mind.
She turned back to look at Ji Xiaolan, her fingertips twitching slightly.
Ji Xiaolan felt something growing on her wrist.
She startled momentarily.
When the dodder vine was first planted, it would go unnoticed, but once it broke through the skin, it could no longer be ignored. That sensation of being parasitized and fed upon was far from pleasant.
Yet at the same time, she realized what this thing was used for.
She looked toward Bai Cha, who was looking back at her calmly.
The dodder vine had fully matured. She could choose not to let it grow, but it would remain inside her body forever.
Ji Xiaolan was the core of this entire story, the most tragic core of it all.
She didn’t want to accept any of this.
Thus, Bai Cha was simply telling her that she could make a new choice now—she could kill her.
That way, she would finally be freed.
She clearly didn’t harbor any deep resentment herself, yet she was forced to remain trapped in this painful place.
Seemingly together with her beloved, but was she really? Was that still her beloved?
And then there was the grandmother. It was true she was a spirit medium, but being a spirit medium, how could she not know what kind of agony her own granddaughter was enduring? Why force her to stay here?
She had even ignored her granddaughter’s wishes, insisting on calling her friends here just to slaughter them.
Bloody tears streamed down Ji Xiaolan’s face.
Pale yellow vines suddenly sprouted rapidly from her wrist, piercing straight into Bai Cha’s wrist.
Murderous intent flared on the grandmother’s face. She muttered an incantation, and the surrounding villagers instantly transformed.
One by one, they turned into ceramic dolls—their skin paper-white, their cheeks blood-red, all wearing eerie, contorted smiles.
The lanterns went out all at once.
They lunged forward.
“Help me… Help me kill Shao Lei. He’s in so much pain,” Ji Xiaolan’s voice rang out amidst the chaos.
“He can’t control himself. He was fed human flesh… As long as he sees a living person, he wants to eat them. But he doesn’t want to… He can’t control himself!”
Following Ji Xiaolan’s voice, Shao Lei beneath the red veil finally revealed his true form.
It was the head of a snake—or perhaps a human head. The two had fused together into a twisted monster.
Snarling and snapping, he charged toward the crowd.
“And my grandmother…”
Ji Xiaolan looked toward her grandmother.
The older woman was staring back at her in fury.
“Xiaolan! Stop this!” she shouted.
Ji Xiaolan shook her head gently.
“Grandma, I’m so tired.”
The child in her belly had been a stillborn from the very beginning; it wouldn’t turn into a ghost.
Yet it had forcefully pinned her to the mortal realm.
Because she had died too, and a stillborn fetus could never be passed.
Back then, after suffering that tragic fate, she had preserved the evidence and pretended she was too terrified to speak out.
First, she wanted to know where Shao Lei had gone. Second, she couldn’t possibly leave in the short term anyway—all these people were keeping a close eye on her.
So she took her grandmother everywhere she went. With her grandmother present, they didn’t dare harm her again, but that was the extent of it.
She couldn’t find Shao Lei.
She realized that Shao Lei was likely dead.
Ji Xiaolan decided to go to the police.
Just as she was about to look for her grandmother, she learned that the older woman had suddenly broken her leg down by the water, and the villagers had already sent her to the hospital.
Ji Xiaolan knew she couldn’t delay any longer.
But everyone was watching her—every single person in this village.
They were all covering up the incident together, gagging her to keep her from spreading such a disgraceful affair to the outside world.
So she didn’t dare make her intentions too obvious, fearing she might suffer an even worse calamity.
Under these circumstances, someone even tailed her when she used the excuse to visit her grandmother in the hospital.
The village chief had even threatened her: if she dared tell anyone, her grandmother’s leg wouldn’t be the only thing breaking next time.
Ji Xiaolan was furious, but she had to swallow her rage and wait for her grandmother’s leg to heal.
Before long, however, Ji Xiaolan realized she was pregnant.
And what’s more, an older woman in the village had discovered it.
Her grandmother had also just returned.
And so, they decided to murder her.
Ji Xiaolan had intended to leave that very night.
She originally wanted to take her grandmother with her under the guise of going to the big city for a follow-up checkup on her leg.
But a child spotted them.
That little boy had peeked into their courtyard and seen the two of them packing their things.
They couldn’t leave anymore.
Ji Xiaolan was secretly locked inside the Water God Temple, her mouth gagged right under the tablecloth. The area around the table was sealed tight with wooden boards and blocked off with heavy stones.
Unable to get out, she tried desperately to make noise.
Yet no one ever came.
When her grandmother discovered that Ji Xiaolan was missing, the village chief lied and told her that Ji Xiaolan had just taken a hasty phone call and left in a hurry. He claimed it was the missing Shao Lei calling, asking to meet her in the city.
The grandmother didn’t think much of it at first. She simply assumed Shao Lei had ultimately looked down on their poor, backward village and didn’t want to marry her granddaughter, while her naive granddaughter still insisted on being with him.
In fact, she had scolded Ji Xiaolan before, telling her not to keep dwelling on that boy from the city—that there was a divide in their status and he wouldn’t view her as an equal.
And so, the grandmother had hurried off to the city as well.
Afterward, Ji Xiaolan was thrown into the lake.
When the grandmother returned and couldn’t find Ji Xiaolan, she sensed that something was wrong.
She was a spirit medium; she could consult the ghosts and gods.
And that was how she learned that Ji Xiaolan was dead.
She confronted the village chief, but he claimed that Ji Xiaolan had miraculously conceived and was carrying the child of a deity, having already been sent up to the heavens.
The grandmother collapsed on the spot from sheer fury.
At her advanced age, the surging rush of blood and rage triggered a stroke. Coupled with the villagers having no desire to save her—simply dumping her back at her house—the grandmother died as well.
Yet her ghost was exceptionally powerful, perhaps due to her innate spiritual talent.
She began her revenge.
Just as Bai Cha had deduced, after learning the truth, the grandmother stripped the skin off the backs of these people one by one, stretched it out, hung it up, and painted it.
Then she locked them inside the Water God Temple, released snakes, and let them be gnawed on alive.
The next day, she dragged them out while they were still barely breathing and ripped out their ribs while they were still alive to fashion the frames for lanterns.
By the time the frames were finished, these people were dead too. She bound their souls into the mud and lit ghost fires atop their heads.
Later on, she discovered her granddaughter, who had turned into a water ghost.
She knew it was nearly impossible for a water ghost to pass on to the afterlife.
So, she pushed the remaining villagers she hadn’t gotten around to torturing into the water, letting Ji Xiaolan drown them so she could claim a scapegoat substitute.
Ji Xiaolan tried, but it was useless.
The stillborn fetus in her belly had pinned her to the mortal realm.
Meanwhile, the water snakes that had consumed Shao Lei’s ghost and eaten human flesh regained a fraction of his memories.
Even if most of the time he remembered nothing, acting as nothing more than a common water snake, he would still coil around Ji Xiaolan’s wrist, clinging to her affectionately.
Ji Xiaolan felt that, if that was how it had to be, then she was technically together with Shao Lei now—both of them living beneath the water.
Having grown up in these deep mountains, she knew full well how dark and malicious human nature could be in ignorant, backward places, which was why she had ultimately chosen to return and teach.
It had nothing to do with the school itself; she had simply seen the beautiful world outside and wanted to help more young girls see it too.
Later, even when she knew she was trapped deep in the mire with no hope of escape, it didn’t stop her from yearning for the light.
Her grandmother, however, did not see it that way.
