Chapter 3: What Second Master Told Me

  When I returned to Er Da Ye's place, the gate was ajar, but I directly rushed in and knocked over a paper horse that was placed behind the door, which made Er Da Ye furious at the time. He glared at me with his bulging eyes and started scolding: "You little rabbit, are you in a hurry to reincarnate? You don't even look carefully, and several hundred yuan worth of things are ruined!"

  The words were not yet out, but the face had already changed color, because at this time I had noticed my and Xiaoxue's appearance. Don't mention Xiaoxue's pale face, even my face had a hint of cyan gray, and we looked like we had lost our souls, hastily entering the house, the two of us were just panting heavily, completely ignoring Er Ye's scolding.

  The old man furrowed his brow, stood up shakily and walked in front of me, reached out to pat my face twice, his expression already turning serious: "Little Hai, have you guys encountered evil spirits?"

  The Second Master is indeed a master of the dark arts, although he can't exorcise ghosts or demons, he knows many evil and sinister things. I've heard people say before that the Second Master often helps children collect their souls or tells people about impending doom, so much so that people from all around come to him for help with these kinds of things. And most importantly, the Second Master doesn't charge a single penny for his services, sometimes he'll just drink a cup of wine when he's happy, and other times he won't even accept a glass of water, let alone money. I used to not believe it, just secretly laughing at the Second Master's superstitions, but today I truly believe that ghosts exist in this world. So when the Second Master asked me, I nodded my head with all my might: "Big... Big Pillar Brother has come back."

  This time, it really made the second master confused. Dazhu naturally knew who it was, and it was a relative of the fifth rank. However, did Dazhu need to be so afraid when he came back? At that time, I didn't think much about it, but just snorted: "You're not with Dazhu digging bird eggs since you were young? Can he still bite you? Look at your behavior!"

  But as soon as the words fell, Second Master's face changed, and his expression turned gloomy, as if he had understood something. When Dazhu comes back, I naturally won't have a ghostly face like now, and my whole body will be trembling, speaking incoherently, with only "heh heh" sounds coming from my teeth chattering. This is clearly being scared out of one's wits. Could it be... Second Master's mouth twitched: "You mean to say that Dazhu has already..."

  "Dazhu zi ge is already dead, this time he's back as a ghost to find someone to help him -" I was scared in my heart, so I poured out what had just happened all at once, although it was jumbled and disordered, but the general meaning was still understood by Er Ye, which was that Dazhu zi was already dead, and this time he was back as a ghost to find someone to help him seek justice.

  Listen to me ramble on and clarify things, Second Master's face really changed, grabbing my wrist with a tense tone: "Did you promise him?"

  I nodded vaguely, at that time I dared not to agree, almost scared me to pee, if I didn't agree, maybe Snow and I wouldn't be able to come back, it was just a subconscious "mm": "Agreed, how dare I not agree, I was almost scared to death at the time——"

  "This is terrible——" Second Master's body shook, releasing my hand, and pacing back and forth in the courtyard, visibly anxious, his eyebrows furrowed into a knot, muttering to himself in a low voice.

  Looking at the second master's appearance, I suddenly felt enlightened. It seems that things are not as simple as I thought. Could it be that I have gotten into big trouble? At that time, my heart was tight, and I just grabbed the second master's arm, my voice was a little hoarse: "Master, what will happen if I agree?"

  The old man was stunned for a moment, then let out a sigh, and suddenly looked older: "Young people just don't understand, when I was young, I worked with a Taoist priest, and I heard some things, it's said that if you promise something to the living, you can get out of it, but if you promise something to the dead, you must keep your word, or disaster will strike."

  "But-but-" I stuttered, for a moment unable to say anything, my words merely an instinctive attempt to calm my tense nerves, which had already been thrown into chaos at the first hint of disaster.

  The old man seemed to understand my meaning, and with a bitter smile, he pulled me over to the bamboo stool. Neither of us was in the mood to pay attention to Little Snow, as I was about to face disaster. However, Little Snow stuck close to me, not daring to fall behind, waiting for me to sit down. Only then did the old man let out a long sigh: "What this group of people says doesn't count as familiar, and after a long time has passed, it's all faded away. But when someone dies, only their soul remains, which is different from when they were alive. At the moment of death, everyone has one last breath that gets stuck in their throat - what we commonly call the desire to survive. No one wants to die, so they hold onto this one breath. This breath, because it can't be swallowed or spat out, will give rise to resentment. Of course, people who don't die normally won't have much resentment and will go on to reincarnate. But for those who do die, the longer this breath is held, the more intense it becomes, and many will become malevolent spirits due to their accumulated resentment. The good thoughts from their past life will completely disappear, so they'll harm people..."

  I still don't quite understand what's going on, and I'm just crying with a sad face: "But Dazhu isn't an evil spirit, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to come back. Besides, I always feel that Brother Dazhu doesn't mean to harm me."

  He glared at me and snorted, "You don't know the first thing, Big Pillar is not a malevolent spirit yet, but if you promise him something and can't deliver, he'll start to resent you. The more resentment accumulates, the more likely he'll become a malevolent spirit. By then, it'll be really hard to deal with."

  "It wasn't Haige who killed him, go find the one who did and avenge his death, why bother Haige?" Little Xue suddenly shouted out, her voice trembling slightly but still speaking smoothly.

  The old man furrowed his brow, glanced at Xiaoxue, and hummed: "Ghosts are different from humans. Because they've lost their bodies, the three souls and seven spirits condense together to form a shape, but they lack intelligence, so they become biased. If you promise something that can't be done, he'll hate you even more than the person who killed him. When the time comes, he won't necessarily go find the person who killed him for revenge, but he'll definitely come find you to settle accounts. Once a ghost becomes an evil spirit, it's hard to deal with. To avoid disaster and difficulties, it's still best to fulfill Dazhu's heart's desire."

  I swallowed hard, stunned for a moment, before I managed to squeeze out a wry smile: "Looks like I'll have to make a trip to Jiang City after all. Consider it fulfilling Big Pillar's wish, and not letting him down for bringing us together to play when we were kids."

  The Second Master also sighed, nodded slightly, and seemed to think of something again: "Right, I still have a Bagua mirror given by the master, which has been used to ward off evil spirits all these years. Xiaohai, you take it with you, in case something happens, you can handle it too. And take this notebook with you..."

  As he spoke, the Second Master turned around and took out a mirror and a book from an old-fashioned kang cabinet. He handed them to me, and I had heard that the Second Master had learned magic with a Taoist priest before, but I never believed it, just listening to it as a casual conversation after dinner. Unexpectedly, today I actually believed it, and without thinking much, I took the mirror and book from him. As soon as my hand touched the mirror, I felt an inexplicable sense of calmness in my heart, and the chaotic emotions earlier had settled down.

  The mirror is a simple copper mirror, the surface of which is polished to be smooth and shiny, with an eight trigrams pattern engraved on it. It can barely reflect people's shadows clearly, while the back is engraved with some strange texts that look twisted and cannot be identified as any language. In the middle, there is a round dot connected by textures to those texts, but its purpose is unknown.

  As for the book, there was a seal character on it that I could recognize - "Chen Xiangming's Manuscript". Apart from this, there were no other characters. However, when I opened it and took a look, I found out that Chen Xiangming claimed to be Chen Yingning's younger paternal uncle. Chen Yingning was quite famous, being a lay Buddhist of the Quanzhen Longmen sect, a leading figure in modern Chinese Taoism, the second president of the Chinese Taoist Association, a world-renowned Taoist scholar, and the founder of Xianxue (Mystical Learning).

  Although I didn't continue to translate it carefully, but I think Chen Yingming is not a simple person, for a moment I became interested, from childhood I have been very interested in these things, but before they were just for fun, after experiencing the big pillar event, I believe that since there are ghosts, then there must be gods, at least I believe that the contents of this note will definitely give me a surprise.

  Just as he was lost in thought, Xiaoxue hesitated beside him: "Brother, I'll go with you. If it weren't for me, you would have left long ago and wouldn't have gotten into this unlucky situation..."

  Just as I was about to speak, Second Master on the side said calmly: "Everything is destined, it has nothing to do with you, so don't get involved. Alright, Xiaoxue, go home early and don't keep your parents waiting."

  It's clear that Second Master doesn't like Xiaoxue, but I don't know why. At this moment, I also can't disobey Second Master's words, so I gave Xiaoxue a signal with my eyes and sent her out the door. Just as we were parting ways, Xiaoxue looked back at the house and whispered: "Brother, tomorrow morning I'll wait for you at the village entrance, let's go together, anyway I'm also going to Jiang City."

  I shouldered the responsibility, watching Xiaoxue leave, and shook my head back to Erdaye's house. Unexpectedly, Erdaye was still waiting for me. Seeing me return, Erdaye hummed: "Xiaohai, I'm doing this for your own good. From now on, don't get too close to Xiaoxue. This child is unlucky, and getting mixed up with her won't bring you any good fortune."

  "I got it——" Although I didn't know why Second Master disliked Xiaoxue, the fortune teller's words shouldn't be taken as true, but I still agreed to it. Later on, it turned out that Second Master's words were indeed proven true, but by then I was already in too deep. Seeing my nonchalant expression, Second Master couldn't help but sigh: "Xiaohai, take care of yourself when you go out, you're the only child of the Liu family, think things through carefully, and be careful with everything——"