Translator-Rhapsodite
Editor- Koneko, Proofreader-Ghostie
The shadow responded by reacting quickly. At the most critical moment, the figure rolled on the spot, narrowly avoiding the fists of Wei Fuyuan and Jiang Nan’an. It scraped along the ground, then rolled out two metres away. Suddenly, the mysterious shadow creature jumped three feet into the air and fled into the woods.
The surrounding darkness couldn’t block Wei Fuyuan and Jiang Nan’an’s vision, but the lush vegetation and rugged terrain made it extremely difficult to keep focused on their tracking abilities.
Following their senses, they reached the junction of the village which was positioned at the back of the mountain. An iron fence with a height of two and a half metres greeted them, with a path leading to Yue Ling Mountain visible behind the border.
For ordinary people, the height of this iron fence would not be easy to climb, but the black shadow possessed the ability to pass through walls and objects with ease. It jumped up without a second’s pause, and made its way over the wall– as it moved with such agility, Wei Fuyuan and Jiang Nan’an both knew that a mere railing would not stop it.
Observing that the shadow was about to escape further afield, Jiang Nan’an immediately took out another item from inside his sleeves and threw it towards the black figure.
This time, the black shadow was too late to dodge the surprise attack, and a flash of red light radiated from the shadow creature’s back, knocking it down to the ground.
“Yah!!”
Wei Fuyuan and Jiang Nan’an both heard a sharp and harsh scream.
The black shadow obviously was hit and fell down with force, but it still got up tenaciously and crashed headlong through the fence, fleeing towards the mountain.
Wei Fuyuan and Jiang Nan’an, unlike the figure, didn’t have the ability to pass through walls. Even if the two were agile, it would take some effort to climb over the railing.
The black shadow was like a little beast driven into a dead end by a hunter, disregarding its own injuries, and only thinking about escaping for its life.
In the mere two seconds that Wei Fuyuan and Jiang Nan’an were blocked by the fence, it had escaped the range of their Eyes of Heaven, and disappeared further into the dark forest.
“Tsk!”
Jiang Nan’an jumped off the fence and clicked his tongue harshly.
“Even if it was hit, it still ran away!”
Wei Fuyuan also jumped down, “What did you throw just now?”
“Oh.”
Jiang Nan’an spread out his hand, showing the little items that he had saved inside his sleeve.
It was a copper coin with a red thread tied to it. The shape seemed very familiar, and Wei Fuyuan knew exactly where it came from within a glance.
“Before leaving, Bei Quan gave it to me and said that I should carry it.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Sure enough, Jiang Nan’an confirmed Wei Fuyuan’s suspicions.
“…… Ktfc kts vlv tf ulnf la ab sbe jcv cba ab wf?”
Qfl Mesejc ibbxfv ja atf mblc lc Aljcu Rjc’jc’r tjcv, jcv tlr tfjga kjr oeii bo fcns. Llr abcf jirb ecmbcrmlberis ygbeuta bea rbwf uglfnjcmfr.
Aljcu Rjc’jc, tbkfnfg, vlv cba kjca ab atlcx jybea gfqislcu ab atf rfmbcv qjga bo atja defralbc.
”Because, I have practised using hand-thrown concealed weapons, ah!”
——The implication was that even if you were to throw it, would you know what to do and how to use it accurately?
Wei Fuyuan was originally trying to find fault, but when he heard this, he wilted like a deflated ball.
Jiang Nan’an searched the grass for a short while and found the two copper coins that he had thrown at the target.
These two coins were genuine Great Five Emperor coins, collected by Bei Quan through some special channels. In terms of historical value and monetary value, they were very valuable by themselves. More importantly, they were expensive and were not available in the general market, so it was difficult to obtain such genuine coins.
The warding off of the evil effect from ancient coins, comes from the contamination of Yang Qi that gets embedded on them. If the Yang Qi becomes depleted due to improper storage or for other known reasons, it will become a small copper piece without any special features or spiritual effects.
“Look at this.”
Jiang Nan’an showed Wei Fuyuan the copper coins he picked up.
These coins should have shown a bright crimson colour, instead, the red layer had almost faded. The coins were densely covered with tiny cobweb-like cracks, and the edges were covered with patina, as if they were funerary objects that had just been dug out of the soil.
Wei Fuyuan frowned, pondered carefully to himself, and quickly understood the reasoning behind the coin’s sudden transformation, “Because of that black shadow just now?”
Jiang Nan’an nodded, “That thing is too heavy with Yin Qi, it’s not easy to deal with ah!”
Wei Fuyuan’s brow knitted tightly, “But it ran away ……”
Jiang Nan’an also had a bitter face, “Yes! We have to think about what we should do next!”
Wei Fuyuan thought to himself again, and had a realisation, “No matter what that black shadow’s real body is, its target is Su Lan. I think it will come back.”
“You’re right.”
Jiang Nan’an scratched his hair, “Mm, this is all we can do for now.”
Originally the two planned to have a one-hit kill, but they unfortunately let the target get away. They would need to get this one-goal tiebreaker into overtime, and wait to see when the dark shadow would appear again.
“Ugh!”
Jiang Nan’an let out a long sigh.
“We still have to figure out how to explain all this to Cai Mingjian and Xiao Lan!”
——————————–
Saturday, August 7, 10:20 am.
A car stopped at the entrance of the Maoyang village.
The village road was very narrow, and inconvenient to drive along. Two police officers led Bei Quan, Qingzhu, and A’Liu to the house of the deceased Wang Baotai on foot.
Wang Baotai’s house resided in the east of the village, an old two-story building that was surrounded by a small courtyard with earthen walls.
Some poultry wandered inside the yard, but were forgotten about, due to no-one caring about the poor little birds who only lived their lives being hungry and quacking, pecking at people’s heels and just causing a general nuisance.
The news of Wang Baotai’s death had long spread back home, but due to the extremely heinous nature of the murder, the body still laid in the County Public Security Bureau morgue, inside the cold cabinet. There were no ashes to return to the family, since they were unable to host a funeral or cremate the body.
Wang Baotai’s two brothers and a sister returned home three days ago, as they originally intended to see their father one last time. They however, did not expect to be burdened with their 23-year-old brother’s funeral at such a time.
When Bei Quan and the others arrived, they saw that the Wang family had not properly arranged the ceremony. Instead, the weather reflected the bad tone of the situation, with high winds and rain that drizzled. Everyone was dressed in black, and wore a mourning band around their arms.
A large fire pit was set up in front of the hall, and several women cried while throwing paper money into the flames. Several men gathered to take inventory of all the items needed for the mourning hall and were busy contacting Feng Shui masters to visit the cemetery.
Wang Baotai’s eldest brother, who apparently recognized the two police officers, immediately gathered his brothers and sisters-in-law around as he questioned about the case. “When will my brother’s body be cremated? We are waiting for the funeral, you do know that missing the first seven days can be a real problem…”
The two officers hurriedly explained that the case was still under investigation and that Wang Baotai’s remains had to be stored in the bureau for a few more days.
The eldest brother immediately became anxious when he heard these words and suddenly grabbed the hand of one of the police officers, stating that the case could be solved slowly, but to let them bury their brother first!
The village was located in the old land of the Qin Dynasty, the importance of death was the same as life. Two decades ago, people were stubbornly trying to conduct burials, but the customs have since changed. Funeral rites were seen in high regard, and there were a lot of traditions that were still followed.
The Wang family understood that the situation would not be an easy one for the police to investigate, and continued to support them in solving the case. They only wished and hoped for their brother, Wang Baotai to be buried in time.
The youngest members of the Wang family surrounded the two police officers as they begged, whilst the older relations stood crying in an almost outer circle formation. With squawking poultry and barking canines, the house seemed as lively as a vegetable market!
Bei Quan silently took a few steps back, pretending he was just a passerby.
In the midst of all of the noise, his eyes fell onto an old man who stood in the distance.
The old man’s skin was dark in colour, his face etched with deep wrinkles and his hair was completely grey. His back was hunched as he held a stick in one hand, whilst he wiped tears from his face with the other, as he cried softly.
Bei Quan had a very good memory and could never forget something important.
Although he had only glanced at the ID photograph, Bei Quan almost immediately recognized that he was Wang Baotai’s biological father by a mole on the old man’s face.
“Grandpa Wang.”
Bei Quan beelined through the rowdy crowd and walked straight towards Grandpa Wang, asking in a gentle tone.
“Are you feeling better now?”
As old grandpa Wang saw such a jade like, handsome and strange brother suddenly walk over to talk to him, he became choked up and opened his eyes widely. “Good, much better…”. His voice had a local accent.
Bei Quan narrowed his eyes.
He clearly remembered that around ten days before, the old man had collapsed when he went outside, falling seriously ill. He stayed at the county hospital for a few days, and was even taken to the ICU, but still didn’t get better. The doctor asserted to the family that any treatment would be hopeless, and asked them to take him home and “wait things out”.
It was precisely to see the old man for the last time that Wang Baotai took leave from his job, and rushed back to his hometown overnight.
Although the old man was heartbroken and was crying heavily, he appeared to be very haggard looking, and was barely able to support himself upright with his crutches. However, he didn’t look like he was going “anywhere” anytime soon.
There was no reason for the Wang family to pretend that the old man was sick just to deceive their three sons and one daughter to come back home.
There were only three possibilities for a dying old man who had to rely on intense care to survive just a few days earlier to now be in this state – either the intensive care unit of the county hospital has a quack doctor and there was nothing really wrong with the old man, or some medical miracle really did occur, or something fishy has happened.
The two police officers were still talking and explaining to the Wang family when Qingzhu and A’Liu had already noticed Bei Quan’s movements.
The three discreetly led grandpa Wang away from the crowd, and walked to the corner of the main room, as they spoke quietly.
The old man was surrounded by three strangers and appeared to be very apprehensive. But, after he heard that they were sent by the city to investigate the case and had a few questions to ask, he quickly nodded and warily stated that he would fully cooperate with them.
Before asking the questions, Bei Quan said to A’Liu, “Please.”
A’Liu nodded without saying anything. She stretched out her arm and proceeded to hold Uncle Wang’s wrist, resting her two fingers to ascertain a pulse.
A few moments later, the young girl released her grip off the old man and turned to face Bei Quan and Qingzhu.
“It is indeed a disease of “exogenous evil” invading the body.”
Bei Quan and Qingzhu exchanged a look, both seeing the same guess in each other’s eyes.
The “exogenous evil” that Miss A’Liu mentioned was not the same concept as the one in Chinese medicine, which referred to pathogenic factors that invade the human body from various environmental factors, such as the wind, cold, summer heat, dampness, dryness, fire, and epidemic qi. But, it literally referred to something evil.
In other words, the old man was not just physically sick.
Someone deliberately introduced something evil into his body, making him unconscious. This, alongside the high fever, convulsions, and spasms, made it look like he was dying of a truly awful illness which was untreatable.
For someone to become possessed, one of the simplest ways would be to take that person with eight characters, weak Yang Qi, weak health and poor luck to a place where Yin Qi gathers, such as a cemetery.
Not only must there be a precise hit, the person doing this must also carefully control the symptoms of the illness after the possession has taken hold. Evidently, this is something that could only be done by professionals.
This situation only brought forth more questions than answers. grandpa Wang, a rural farmer from the Northwest was over sixty years old– who would want to spend so much time and effort in torturing him with such meticulous methods?!
I hope WFY and BQ meet up soon!
Thanks for the chapter!💖
The mysteries deepened…
Thank you for the translation. 🍫
I think the reason why Grandpa Wang become sick was to draw out Wang Baotai and killed him. Probably due to his Pure Yin Constitution.