C17 The Wife of the Dragon King

Upon returning to the village, I was overwhelmed with emotion. The check for six hundred thousand yuan represented Old Master Jiaang's life.

I visited my adoptive father's quarters, and seeing him in a frail state, I was torn about whether to share Grandpa Jiaang's fate with him.

To my surprise, as soon as he saw me, my adoptive father calmly inquired, "Changsheng, has Grandpa Jiaang passed away?"

"Dad, how did you know?" I glanced at the small wooden table before him, strewn with toothpicks, and it all clicked.

My adoptive father was once a renowned diviner who didn't rely on tortoise shells, coins, or compasses, but could foretell fortunes using simple items like stones and twigs.

"You should not have meddled with the Ghost Dragon King, nor should you have dredged up that undecaying female corpse. You've all been manipulated by that old crone," he stated icily.

"What do you mean? Dad, do you know something?" I asked, taken aback.

"Start from the beginning. What happened today?" he pressed. I recounted the day's events in detail.

With a dismissive snort, he responded, "That undecaying female corpse was the Dragon King's wife, sacrificed as a living offering, but she's old enough to be that old lady's mother."

"What!" I exclaimed in shock.

"The incident took place around 1915 during the Republic of China era. Due to frequent flooding, the ignorant villagers sacrificed a young girl to the river. Moreover, the reason this female corpse hasn't decayed for nearly a century isn't the Ghost Dragon King, but rather the stagnant waters known as Weak Water."

"Then who is that old woman? Why did she deceive us? What does she want with the undecaying corpse?" I questioned, bewildered.

"I'm not sure of that old woman's background, but I do know that unearthing the undecaying corpse will bring calamity, potentially affecting not just the villagers but us as well," my adoptive father warned gravely.

"How could this have happened? It's my fault. I'm responsible for Grandpa Jiaang's death," I said, overwhelmed with remorse.

"Don't be too hard on yourself," my foster father consoled. "Whether it was Sunn Xingwang or Old Master Jiaang, you simply hastened the inevitable for those whose time had come. In fact, I had calculated two days ago that Old Master Jiaang's days were numbered. He had already lived longer than his fate had allotted."

I sighed deeply. At this point, my foster father gave a wry smile and whispered to himself, "Aren't I in the same boat?"

His words triggered a sudden realization, and I couldn't resist asking, "Father, when Old Lady Jin received that undead corpse, her shackles vanished, just like yours... Father, are you keeping something from me? Or rather, how much are you keeping from me?"

Like me, my foster father had a secret he'd been hiding for over a decade: he bore no shackles either!

My question caused his brow to twitch, and his face shifted with indecision. After a long pause, he finally spoke, "The time isn't right yet. I'll tell you everything in a few days."

He coughed a few times and drifted back to sleep. With the weight of Old Master Jiaang's death on my mind, I didn't press any further.

I buried Old Master Jiaang's smoking pipe in the yard and arranged for a gravestone to be made. Regarding the six-hundred-thousand-yuan check, I planned to catch a bus to the county bank first thing in the morning to cash it and then purchase some health tonics for my foster father.

That evening, I went to the kitchen alone, opened the fridge, and took out some meat, intending to prepare a hearty meal for my foster father.

However, as I began to cut the meat, I uncovered a horrifying truth. The meat on the cutting board wasn't pork—it was human flesh! Amongst it, I found strands of human hair and fingernails...

It dawned on me that the body Old Master Jiaang had hacked to pieces with the firewood knife had not been burned after all. The thought of all the meat dishes I had consumed recently made me sick to my stomach, and I couldn't help but gag with disgust.

In the evening, I prepared a simple vegetarian meal. My adoptive father sipped some porridge before succumbing to sleep. With a heavy heart, I retreated to my room, my mind swirling with thoughts that kept sleep at bay for hours.

Old Master Jiaang had passed away, and my adoptive father was bedridden, ill all day long. I felt an overwhelming sense of loneliness; there was no one left to even share a conversation with.

I found myself missing home, despite the deep-seated hatred I harbored for the villagers. There were still some fond memories that clung to me.

Lost in these reflections, I didn't notice how much time had passed until the moonlight outside my window began to fade, and a chill seemed to seep into the air. Through the dim light, I could barely make out the silhouettes of two dark figures entering the yard.