Chapter 16 - 4

Words : 1140 Updated : Sep 10th, 2025

Chapter 16: Chapter 4Li Sanjiang carried Li Zhiyuan on his back when he arrived home, just as the dawn was breaking. Cui Guiying took the child, and after Li Sanjiang spoke with Li Weihan for a while, he left. Li Zhiyuan was settled on a mat bed; his eyes closed for a moment and then opened again. He couldn't sleep; every time he closed his eyes, he seemed to see Little Huang Ying dancing in the fish pond again. Cui Guiying and Li Weihan did not go to rest in the back room but sat in the kitchen instead. The woman incessantly rubbed her fingers, rubbing them red; the man continuously smoked a water pipe, one pot after another. Glancing at the sky that had already brightened, Cui Guiying stood up and said, "I will make breakfast for the children first." Li Weihan exhaled a puff of smoke and said, "It's a bit early for cooking." Cui Guiying had no choice but to sit down again, looking at her husband, "Then, until when do we wait?" "Wait for someone to notify us." "Who will come to notify?" Li Weihan did not answer, just continued puffing on his pipe. After sitting for a while longer, there came a knocking sound: "Cui Guiying, Cui Guiying." It was the neighbor from next door, Zhao Simei. Li Weihan tapped his water pipe and said, "The notification has arrived." Cui Guiying stood up, yawning and rubbing her eyes as she opened the door, asking in confusion, "What's the matter, Simei?" Zhao Simei grabbed Cui Guiying's arm and shook it vigorously: "Someone died at Big Beard's house!" "What?" "Two died, Big Beard and his younger son, just found floating in his home's fish pond, everyone's gone to look, come on, let's go have a look!" "Let's go!" Before leaving, Cui Guiying shouted back into the house, "Yingzi, the rice has been rinsed; you make breakfast later." Sёarᴄh the Novёlƒire.n(e)t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality. "Got it, mom." After getting a response, Cui Guiying went out with Zhao Simei. Li Weihan waited a bit, touched the opened cigarette in his pocket, set the water pipe on the table, and also left. The previous knocking by Zhao Simei had actually awakened the children, knowing that something extraordinary had happened, they also got up and ran out to see what the commotion was. Despite Yingzi shouting "brush your teeth, wash your faces" from behind, she couldn't call them back. Now, Big Beard's house was surrounded by people near the fish pond, and more villagers kept arriving on the village road, men and women, young and old, families in tow. Two bodies floated on the fish pond, unattended, even though there was a small boat moored right at the edge. Although Big Beard's reputation in the village was not good, the villagers were not so indifferent; The reason nobody helped to retrieve the bodies from the pond was that the bodies looked like biscuits soaked too long in a bowl, bloated and misshapen, with their outer appearance becoming a translucent meat-jelly color, resembling two large pieces of humanoid pork aspic. Many knew that drowned bodies would swell if soaked too long, but how could two people, alive and well just yesterday, swell up overnight like blooming wood ear mushrooms? This was too bizarre, leading to no one daring to touch the bodies. Big Beard's wife knelt by the pond wailing, but though she knew to cry, she didn't know what else to do. People tried to comfort her, but she ignored them, simply wailing about her own tragic fate. Finally, Big Beard's eldest son rushed back from the town, and there was finally someone to take charge. Except, seeing the state of his own father and brother on the pond's surface, the eldest son faced twitched in fear; he also dared not retrieve the bodies, so he asked others to call for Li Sanjiang. Li Sanjiang came pushing a cart, which was loaded with his implements. Upon arriving, Li Sanjiang first looked at the situation on the pond, then immediately started waving his hands retreating: "I can't dare retrieve them, it'll shorten my life, shorten my life! Find someone else, quickly find someone else!" With his scaremongering, the surrounding villagers became even more tumultuous, beginning to whisper about what grievous sins Big Beard's family must have committed to attract such malevolence. Soon, villagers brought up the incident with Little Huang Ying from the day before; after all, the drama almost escalated to a fight at Big Beard's house, and in the village, it was very difficult to keep any secrets hidden. At this point, Li Weihan also began to share with people around about the incident the day before when he took his grandchildren out on the river, recounting how his grandson fell into the water, had nightmares about a woman walking in the water, was so terrified he fell into hysteria, and neither Zheng Datong's visit nor Liu Xiazi's rituals were of much help. Immediately, quite a few people specifically gathered around to listen to Li Weihan's recounting, continuously expressing their opinions. Cui Guiying stood next to Li Weihan, looking very tense; on any normal day, if she didn't need to cook or wash clothes, she could sit with the village women and gossip for three days and nights, but today, she was unusually silent. Inside she felt empty and anxious, like a thief shouting to catch a thief, or a cat hypocritically crying over a mouse. Panzi, Leizi, Hu Zi, and Shitou also began to tell their story, recounting seeing a female water ghost yesterday, which nearly pulled down Little Yuanhou to replace her in death - she had come for revenge! Suddenly, it was as if a grand open-air tea party had started; after the matter with Little Huang Ying was discussed in depth, the still unsatisfied villagers began to dredge up and stir-fry the old, trivial matters of Big Beard's family. Before long, Big Beard's second son arrived home with his wife; their two daughters brought their husbands too. Both daughters embraced their mother and started crying together, while the sons and sons-in-law stood together discussing payment terms with Li Sanjiang. Li Sanjiang sternly took a hefty sum, using the excuse of a double retrieval and the sinister nature of the bodies to charge ten times the normal fee for retrieving a single body. After agreeing on the price, Li Sanjiang set up a ceremonial table, lit candles, burned paper offerings, and additionally presented a half-hour of ritual chanting and summoning, attracting the attention of everyone present.

Chapter 16 - 4

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