Chapter 135: Gao Family Ghost Village
It was past midnight. You were all tucked into bed, dreaming, while I was still agonizing over a pretext to release an extra chapter. No valid excuse meant no bonus content, right? So, here’s an additional chapter, simply because I couldn’t find a good reason for one.
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Cheng Xu felt certain his end had come. Boulders surged and rained down around him, a relentless torrent. There was simply no way out, no sliver of hope for survival this time.
With a deafening roar, the mudslide swallowed him whole, plunging his world into absolute blackness.
Then, his great-grandmother's face materialized before him. From the pervasive gloom, a withered, skeletal hand snaked out, clamping onto Cheng Xu’s calf and dragging him fiercely, relentlessly, down into the earth...
He waited, quietly, for his descent into hell, for that long-awaited reunion with his great-grandmother in the Land of Springs.
Just then!
A thunderous crash sounded above him, as if some immense barrier had shifted. Sunlight, sharp and bright, tore through the darkness, washing over him. The great-grandmother’s withered hand, struck by the light, instantly dissolved into ash.
It was then that Cheng Xu realized he hadn't been swallowed by the deluge of mud and stone. An invisible wall had shielded him, holding the earth back, leaving only his lower legs buried.
Cheng Xu started to reach out, to feel the unseen barrier, but then the invisible wall stirred. With a resonant boom, it violently repelled all the surrounding mud and rocks, sending them scattering. The sheer, colossal might, displayed in that sudden shift from stillness to explosive force, left Cheng Xu's heart pounding, his body shaking with dread.
Had he not been at the very epicenter of this power, he would have long since bolted in panicked flight. But as it was, he didn't even know which direction to run.
Wait?
Wait, there *was* a direction!
The unseen power etched a colossal arrow onto the earth, its point aimed northeast.
A wave of unease washed over Cheng Xu.
What could this mean?
He didn't know.
Yet, he felt an undeniable compulsion to obey.
His heart still hammering, he lifted his feet and began to walk, inexorably, towards the northeast.
After several hundred paces, another colossal arrow appeared on the ground ahead, still indicating northeast, though with a slight deviation.
So, he simply continued to follow.
Cheng Xu was still draped in his thick, heavy armor. He had been fleeing for what felt like an eternity, having clashed with the Imperial Guards, and exhaustion had long since claimed him. His pace was agonizingly slow, each step a tremor as he faltered along the path the arrow laid out.
Dusk bled into night, the world steadily darkening around him.
As the last vestiges of sunset vanished, he finally lost sight of the guiding arrows. He lifted his gaze, and there, looming ahead, stood a towering, formidable fortress village. It was a silhouette against the fading light, dark and somber, with only faint, flickering oil lamps casting an eerie glow along its walls. Two sentries, their minds seemingly elsewhere, idly patrolled the battlements...
A jolt went through Cheng Xu. "Gao Family Village!"
His mind immediately replayed his previous visits to Gao Family Village, and Bai Yuan’s dire warning echoed: to enter Gao Family Village at night was certain death. Zheng Yanfu and Zhong Guangdao, after all, had perished during their ill-fated night assault on the very same walls.
"Why? Why was I brought here?"
A sudden, chilling realization struck Cheng Xu. "So that's it," he murmured. "The moment the mudslide came crashing down, I was already gone. All this time, I thought something had saved me, but it was nothing more than a delusion. I’ve simply passed from the land of the living into the realm of the dead, perhaps just bypassed the Bridge of No Return and avoided Meng Po’s tea."
"Great-grandmother, you must be waiting for me here, in this nocturnal Gao Family Village, aren't you? Your great-grandson has come, ready to bring you comfort and joy."
Cheng Xu, dragging his utterly spent body, slowly, deliberately, shuffled towards the formidable gates of Gao Family Fortress.
The two sentries on the fortress walls watched him with peculiar, unblinking gazes, yet made no move to sound an alarm. It was as if they had been expecting his arrival all along.
Cheng Xu paid the sentries no mind. He stumbled forward to the fortress gate, and just as he was about to raise a hand to knock, the massive wooden doors groaned, creaked, and swung inward. There, standing just beyond the threshold, was San Shier, holding a lifeless, dimly glowing lantern. A peculiar, unsettling smile stretched across his lips as he spoke: "General Cheng, do come in. We have been expecting you for quite some time."
Cheng Xu, convinced he was already dead, thought, *What more is there to fear?* San Shier’s eerie smile held no sway over him. *Even if you are a ghost,* he thought defiantly, *you can only feast on the living. I am already dead; what is there for you to consume?*
He simply lifted his foot and strode into the fortress.
San Shier drifted silently by his side. "General, your treachery has been exposed," he said, "and you are being hunted by the Imperial Guards?"
Cheng Xu felt no surprise that San Shier knew of his plight; indeed, it would have been strange if he hadn't. "Yes," he grunted. "So, I’m dead."
San Shier merely replied, "That may not be entirely accurate."
Cheng Xu pressed on, "Where is my great-grandmother? Did she send you to collect me?"
San Shier ignored the question, posing one of his own. "The Eunuch Party has fallen from power?"
Cheng Xu snorted, a laugh utterly devoid of humor, brimming instead with bitter self-mockery. "Overnight," he began, "the entire court of civil officials turned against the Eunuch Party. Years ago, to climb the ladder, I merely brushed shoulders with their influence, securing my minor post as military inspector. Now, I'm branded one of them. The Emperor desires my death, every last civil official craves my demise... so the Imperial Guards simply concocted a flimsy excuse to eliminate me..."
San Shier let out a low chuckle. "Was it truly... a fabricated reason?"
Cheng Xu fell silent, his expression stiffening.
That remark hit too close to home.
He conceded inwardly: *Alright, exaggerating and fabricating military reports had become such an ingrained habit in life that I couldn't shake it. Even now, in the underworld, I instinctively spin little lies about critical matters. What a damn terrible habit.*
Lies, it seemed, might deceive the living, but they held no sway over the dead.
Cheng Xu let out a low, unsettling laugh. "Master San has a point," he conceded. "I'm already dead, why bother with empty pretense? I never killed Wang Er. I procured a fake head to deceive those above and below. Whose fault was that, damn it? Was it not those curs of civil officials higher up? If I hadn’t falsely reported Wang Er’s death, I would have joined great-grandmother far sooner!"
His voice rising with indignation, he continued, "I had barely a hundred soldiers under my command! How in hell's name was I supposed to control an entire Chengcheng County, teeming with thousands of rebels? Damn them all! They cornered me, forcing me to lie. If I didn't lie, it was a death sentence. If I did lie, it was still a death sentence! That dog of an Emperor and those sniveling civil officials offered me no path to survival! Everything I did, I did simply to stay alive. Why did no one, not a single soul, grant me a sliver of a chance?"
"From the moment Zhang Yaocai began to press for taxes," he declared, his voice rising, "no, from the very first day the drought took hold, one of my feet had already crossed the threshold of the Gates of Hell, hahahaha!" Cheng Xu’s laughter turned shrill and desperate, brimming with unyielding resentment and fury. "I was dead long ago," he cried, "I'm merely being buried today, hahahahaha!"
"“Who in the blazing hell is cackling like a ghoul in the middle of the night? Shut your mouth! Don’t people deserve to sleep?”"
"“Laugh one more time, and I'll beat you senseless.”"
From a nearby dwelling, two distinct voices erupted in curses. One belonged to Gao Chuwu, the other to Zheng Daniu.
Cheng Xu's hysterical laughter choked to an abrupt halt, and slowly, a metaphorical question mark bloomed above his head.
"Isn't this supposed to be a ghost town?"
"Are there truly ghosts... sleeping?"
"No, wait, the voice just said, 'Don't people deserve to sleep?'"
"Could they be... the living?"
"No, no, no," he thought, shaking his head. "I must broaden my perspective: the dead are people too!"
Surely, "don't people deserve to sleep" meant not allowing the deceased their eternal rest.
They must be sleeping inside their coffins, then.
Cheng Xu ceased his laughter. In truth, he hadn't truly wanted to laugh in the first place.
With a grim face, he followed in San Shier’s silent wake. The two wound through long, labyrinthine corridors, turning this way and that, until they finally reached the foot of the watchtower. There, Gao Yiye was already waiting.
Cheng Xu’s thoughts raced: *A female specter! I’ve finally found you. You must be the most potent, most ancient ghost in this entire Gao Family Ghost Village, wielding the strongest demonic power, correct? As a newly arrived spirit, I suppose I’ll have to heed your commands, or else it’s a path to utter annihilation... Wait. Why in the hell would I fear annihilation now? I’m already dead.*
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