51

Capítulo 59

Now he and Tang Chen are lying on the ground together. He struggles to get up and raises his fist, but Tang Chen twists his hand behind his back.

I covered my face; my cheek must have been swollen. It felt numb and burning to the touch, and it hurt terribly. How absurd, like something out of an eight o'clock soap opera—a slap!

It had been too long since I'd been hit, and maybe it was because it happened so suddenly that I wasn't prepared. When you get slapped, you have to clench your teeth to avoid getting hurt too badly, but this sudden slap caused me to bite through the mucous membrane on the inside of my cheek, and I even bit my tongue; my teeth are slightly loose.

But I neither cried nor screamed; it was all so surreal and absurd. I felt like I'd wandered into the wrong theater. I was supposed to be in class, but I'd stumbled into an eight o'clock soap opera slapping scene. People were running around in front of me, Tang Chen was still wrestling with him, and Huang E lunged at me, shouting repeatedly, but I felt so far, far away from them.

"Hengzhi!" Huang'e's grief and anger startled me. "I will kill him now."

"No, no," I said, cupping my face and trying to stand up. My classmates helped me up, saying, "Oh dear, don't make things worse."

After calming myself down, I called out to Tang Chen in a muffled voice, "Tang Chen, let him go... he's my father."

Tang Chen understood my words, which sounded like he'd swallowed a hard-boiled egg. He awkwardly let go of my dad, but then pounced on me like a mad tiger. Instinctively, I raised my arms to protect my head and face. What a pathetic instinct, learned from a young age.

But his punches and kicks didn't land, because Tang Chen and the other classmates rushed over, trying to persuade him while dragging him along, and the instructor came running over, panting.

"Lin Moniang... I mean, Lin Hengzhi, what happened?" The instructor looked at my face nervously.

Actually, I should have cried; that would have been ideal and normal. But I'm caught in a ridiculous feeling, even wanting to laugh a little. My face is just too sore to laugh.

“…I don’t know.” I shrugged. “Instructor, this is my dad. Dad, this is Instructor Wang from our school.”

“Calling the Emperor himself wouldn’t make a difference!” My dad suddenly lunged forward, and my classmate quickly grabbed him like a tidal wave, which was quite funny. “I’ll fight you to the death! How have I ever mistreated you? Food, clothes, and other necessities, what haven’t I taken care of? You jinx! I’ve raised you, and now you’ve raised a poisonous snake that’s biting me!” As he cursed, he suddenly burst into tears, “She’s already lame and disfigured, and you still won’t let her go! Why don’t you take my life too…” He lunged at me again, and my classmate, in a panic, pulled him back tightly once more.

The instructor tried to reason with him, "Can't you talk things out? She's a grown child, how can you hit her in front of everyone? Mr. Lin, please calm down and come to my office first. You can talk to me about it then..." He half-dragged, half-helped his father away, then turned and said, "Who can take Lin Moniang to the infirmary...?"

Tang Chen came over to help me up. "I'll take Xiao Zhi with me."

As I walked, my father's shouts and cries faded into the distance. I tried to stand up straight, but then I felt dizzy. Tang Chen carried me to the infirmary.

Huang E squatted on my left shoulder, crying all the way.

"You silly bird, I didn't even cry, why is she crying?"

"...Because you can't cry, I can only cry for you!" she sobbed.

Oh, so it's because I can't cry. I thought I was very calm.

When I got to the infirmary, I vomited. The school doctor was very worried and said I seemed to have a mild concussion and needed to be hospitalized for observation.

I waved my hand to indicate that it was nothing. Tang Chen brought an ice pack to help me put it on my face.

Why would I be so delicate? My dad has a strong hand and a bad temper. It was common for me to be beaten until I vomited, and that didn't stop until high school—because I moved out.

I'm so glad he always slaps me on the left; it wouldn't matter if I were deaf by now. If he slapped me on the right, I would have been in a school for the deaf long ago.

Unfortunately, only this layer of skin is a monster; the underlying dermal tissue isn't. If the injury were just on the surface, a simple application would have been enough. But right now it's probably bruised and swollen, and I'll be embarrassingly hanging on this five-clawed mountain for days.

It's okay, it's just a little embarrassing.

Tang Chen helped me to sit on the hospital bed and drew the curtains. "...Take a nap."

I waved my hand because shaking my head would hurt. He sat down and suddenly pulled me onto his lap, which startled me so much I almost jumped up.

“…You need to eat more.” He pressed my head against his shoulder, his voice trembling with a hint of tears.

"I have a bad stomach." I relaxed and leaned against him, tears welling up unexpectedly.

I've always hoped, always hoped, but I've suppressed that hope tightly. I wish my father could hold me with such tenderness, instead of hitting and kicking me.

Clutching his clothes, I sobbed silently, trembling uncontrollably. Only then did I truly feel the pain—from the inside out.

I always thought I was indifferent to my father. But facing this situation, I'm suddenly terrified. I'm afraid I'll have to say goodbye to my biological father and stepmother. I'm really going to become an orphan.

No matter how bad he was or how badly he hit me, he was the only family member I knew.

This is a pain etched deep into our bones. The only one who truly understands it is Desolation. We both wept together, feeling as if our tears were almost replaced by blood.

***

I guess I fell asleep in Tang Chen's arms. He was talking quietly to someone. I opened my eyes groggily.

"...Tell the instructor that Xiaozhi has a concussion and just fell asleep."

"Is it serious?" That must be one of my classmates, right?

"He threw up." Tang Chen stroked my hair. "His own daughter, whom he hadn't seen for so many years, and the first thing she did was hit him..."

The student lowered his voice, "The instructor said that Mo Niang's father seems to have some mental issues. He keeps talking about releasing talismans to raise ghost children..."

Ultimately, I can't hide in Tang Chen's arms forever, right? He's not my father. I've let go of my grief and gained the strength to face this.

"...I'm fine now." He was just a little slurred. "I'm going to the instructor's room."

Tang Chen tried to persuade me, but I waved my hand and got out of bed, looking down to find my shoes. He squatted down to help me put them on and then helped me to the instructor's room.

The instructor saw me, winked at my dad, and drew a few circles on his temple. I shrugged with a wry smile.

He seems calmer now, but he looks dejected and aged. I haven't seen him since my senior year of high school... I didn't realize he aged so quickly. Four or five years... I didn't even recognize him at first glance.

This is considered very unfilial.

"Dad, what's wrong with Aunt Huang?" I sat down in the chair in front of him.

"Do I need to ask you about the good things you've done?!" he snapped.

He is my blood relative, my closest paternal cousin. Reading his mind is as easy as reading my own mother's. It turns out he always believed that Aunt Huang's car accident, which left her lame and disfigured, was because I had placed talismans to raise a ghost. In the past two years, Aunt Huang has started showing signs of mental instability; once she even put a child in a pot of soup. Luckily, the water was cold, the fire had just started, and my four-year-old brother knew to cry and scream, so we discovered it early.

When he's mentally unstable, he acts like a beast or a ghost. When he's lucid, he often cries out in fear, saying that Hengzhi has sent little ghosts to claim his life again. Now the situation is getting increasingly violent, and even mental hospitals won't admit him. He's a man struggling to care for his child and sick wife, and the tutoring center's finances are in trouble. Beset by internal and external troubles, this volatile man finally snapped and turned his anger on me.

I feel exhausted. This slap was pointless. It's true I have many under my command… but aside from delivering messages, I haven't ordered them to do anything else.

I suspect that burning her altar and talismans back then caused a backlash. I thought her car accident would be the end of the trouble, but who knew it would leave such a lingering problem.

This is cause and effect. But I don't regret causing that cause. Perhaps I also influenced Shuo to learn from his surroundings to be ruthless and vindictive.

“Dad,” I stood up, “Aunt Huang isn’t telling the truth. Tell her that if she doesn’t tell the truth, there won’t be anyone left to save her. Tell me when she’s ready to tell the truth.” I took a few steps, then turned back and said, “Please tell her not to make a mistake.”

He turned and left, his expression gloomy as he squatted on my shoulder. "...You don't even know what you can carry."

"I owe him over twenty years of nurturing kindness." I tried to smile, but couldn't. "What's owed must be repaid."

We skipped class and went home in the afternoon. I pressed my face against Tang Chen's back and didn't feel like he was riding too fast.

Back home—yes, Shuo's home, my home—Shuo had already brewed herbal tea and placed incense with a strange fragrance in my room. Her expression was slightly sad as she took me from Tang Chen's hands. "She needs to rest."

I obediently lay down as she wished, and she applied fragrant ointment to my forehead and temples, softly humming a tune that was neither a song nor a melody. She also applied cooling herbs to the wounds.

After drinking the herbal tea, the pain became much less intense, and I felt drowsy. Looking at Shuo's back, I blurted out, "Shuo, I love you."

She suddenly straightened her back, her shoulders seeming to tremble slightly. Maybe it was just my imagination? I'm so sleepy.

“…I love you too.” Through a hazy whisper, Shuo gently stroked my forehead. “My last student. But I have to bear watching you end it all yourself. This is the fate of a sorcerer… just like my teacher looking at me, and my teacher’s teacher looking at my teacher… no one is an exception before the Great Dao.”

My eyes were already too heavy to open. "Wilderness?"

She pressed her face against mine, as if to share my pain and burden. What you owe, you must repay; there are no exceptions, none.

I fell asleep.

***

On the day winter vacation began, I received my father's phone call for the first time.

All these years, my phone number hasn't changed, so he knows it's not like he doesn't know my number. His tone was very humble, almost pleading. He said Aunt Huang had told him everything, "Hengzhi... I was wrong, please save our family."

Of course, that family doesn't include me.

Let's break it off, let's break it off. Rather than this lingering pain, it's better to end it cleanly and decisively.

"Dad, are you sure?" I chuckled softly. "Once we get through this ordeal, we'll never have any more connection. From now on, we'll be strangers."

"No problem, no problem!" he readily agreed. "As long as we can get through this disaster, I'll agree to anything you ask!"

After hanging up the phone, I laughed, but then I cried.

“Only the Fiend Bird is without father or mother,” Huang E muttered.

"You said I'm not that far off from being a monster." I shrugged, taking the opportunity to wipe away my tears.

We stared at each other for a moment, then patted each other on the shoulder.

That day we went north with Tang Chen. He insisted on going with us, but I said it was my own destiny, and I had to end it myself.

My father felt no love for me whatsoever. He only felt terror and disgust. His heart belonged only to his wife and children, my younger brother, a normal boy who could carry on the family line.

Even though his wife manipulated such evil schemes, he felt that she was driven astray by him and deserved to be forgiven.

He's not a man who doesn't understand love, to be honest. It's just that I'm definitely not the object of his love.

I don't need to... there's no need for me to cling to this relationship.

But Tang Chen still waited for me at the coffee shop across the street. He told me to keep my phone on so I could notify him immediately if anything happened.

“…Huang E followed me.” I smiled bitterly. “I’m not the helpless child I used to be anymore.”

"I know," Tang Chen nodded solemnly, "but I'm right across the street, understand?"

I gazed at him, then rested my head on his shoulder for a moment before turning and walking into the apartment building, the place I used to call home.

It's even more outrageous than the last time I saw it.

What used to be just a stench of greed has now permeated the entire room, creating a hazy, foggy atmosphere. Human faces, pieced together, their limbs intertwined in agony, grow along the beams and pillars like vines from hell, emitting groans and screams inaudible to humans.

The situation is indeed worse than I expected. I thought it was a backlash from before, but I didn't expect that Aunt Huang didn't give up raising ghosts after the car accident. Perhaps she has invested too much effort and can't bear to give it up.

I'm no longer that naive little girl from my senior year of high school. Now I know this is a twisted and evil art called "Ghost Stream." It's far more difficult than raising a single ghost; it's a very unique and unorthodox practice.

I didn't absorb much from my uncle's correspondence courses, but I treated these kinds of strange tales as just stories. Ghostly Stream is an evil technique that collects wandering ghosts and uses special magical artifacts and cruel restrictions to fuse them into one. The ghosts are stripped of their five senses and consciousness, leaving them only with endless pain and rage.

This kind of ghostly energy can bewitch humans and change their decisions. It can also be used to gather intelligence and gain the upper hand. Most terrifyingly, it can even kill people directly—like what Aunt Huang tried to do, to get rid of me.

But even raising a single ghost is an extremely sinister thing. Such a large number of wandering ghosts completely cuts off their chance to be reincarnated and start anew, which is extremely immoral and corrupt. The practitioner often suffers family ruin or brings disaster to their descendants. This evil art has almost been lost.

A new question arose in my mind: Where did Aunt Huang learn this?

As I entered the room, the ghost suddenly rushed to within inches of me, but then shrank back in fear, making a hissing sound as it moved toward the beam.

I wore a talisman personally crafted by my uncle, powerful enough to dispel the calamities that preceded my transformation into a human. Although these ghostly streams were numerous, they were powerless against my uncle's talisman.

The desolate creature perched on my shoulder, its fiery wings spread wide. With a sudden flap, the stream of ghosts parted the Red Sea like Moses parting the sea, clearing a clean path.

My dad and his family are waiting for me in the living room. Men have strong yang energy, and my dad has good fortune, so these ghosts won't possess him. But my half-brother already has some shadowy presence, and Aunt Huang is almost completely obscured by the shadows.

I asked Huang'e for a Fire Feather and started sweeping away the shadow on my half-brother. He screamed and cried in pain, and my dad held him anxiously, "What are you doing? What are you doing?!"

"Save him." I didn't want to say more. After the last shadow on him was driven away, I sprinkled moon water on him. The crying child gradually stopped crying, stared blankly for a while, and said he was hungry.