9.
The monster charged and missed, then quickly turned and lunged again. I pulled Tưởng Thiếu Thiên behind me, took the Phục Yêu Kính from my belt, and stepped forward.
“Gods return to their temples, ghosts to their graves, and demons and monsters to the mountains and forests. True Lord Xuanwu, obey my command!”
The Phục Yêu Kính blazed with golden light.
The monster’s attack abruptly faltered. Wherever the light from the mirror struck, it sizzled, and black smoke rose.
Trương Quân stared at me in astonishment and stammered, “Y-you… who are you, really?”
I snorted. “I’m a demon slayer. If you don’t want to die, get out of the way!”
He came to his senses, scrambled to his feet, and staggered over to hide behind a big tree.
The monster’s attack had failed, and it had no desire to keep fighting. Its green eyes studied me for a long moment before it turned and raced into the dense forest, quickly disappearing from sight.
…
Everyone gathered again at the village chief’s house.
In the yard in front of the house, beside young Lý Hà’s body, were three more corpses.
They had all died the same way: their faces had been eaten away and their entrails ripped out.
The mood inside the house was tense.
My circumstances were much better now than before.
The village chief invited me to sit in the place of honor and brought out the finest tea in the house to brew for me.
“Master Ruyi, please have some tea.”
“We treated you badly before. We never imagined you had such abilities!”
“Tell us, how can we get rid of this monster?”
He was all smiles now, nothing like the man who’d just wanted to drag me up the mountain as a sacrifice.
I found it amusing and glanced at him. “Get rid of it?”
The village chief nodded repeatedly. “That’s right. We have to get rid of this monster!”
I sighed and said regretfully, “Unfortunately, this is a curse. It can’t be eliminated.”
Everyone’s expression changed. The fainthearted began breaking out in a cold sweat.
“Tống Lan Chi…”
Watching their reactions, I said softly, “She cast this curse.”
“What happened to her back then? Even now, are you still unwilling to tell the truth?”
They looked at one another, their faces betraying hesitation and inner conflict.
The village chief wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Master Ruyi, Teacher Tống had nothing to do with us!”
“After she finished teaching that year, she was robbed on her way home and lost her life. It truly had nothing to do with us!”
I was starting to get angry.
These people were nothing but liars!
And they expected me to save them? Save them from what, exactly!
10.
The village chief sent people to escort me respectfully back to the teachers’ quarters. They also cleaned out a room next door for Tưởng Thiếu Thiên.
Once they’d left, I called Tưởng Thiếu Thiên inside.
He yawned widely. “Sister Ruyi, why aren’t you asleep yet?”
I pointed outside. “We need to go find someone.”
…
We intercepted Hứa Thúy in front of the cornfield.
She was startled by our sudden appearance. “What is it?”
I smiled. “They don’t want to talk about Tống Lan Chi, so I had no choice but to come ask you.”
Hứa Thúy froze and instinctively shook her head.
Before she could react, I said, “Besides, you know that monster very well.”
Hứa Thúy stared at me in astonishment.
Ever since the monster appeared that afternoon, I’d been watching it closely.
This thing had formed from resentment; it was the product of sacrificing a living person.
But when Trương Quân shoved Hứa Thúy in front of it as a human shield, the monster seemed to change.
It seemed to be deliberately avoiding Hứa Thúy.
Even if I hadn’t pulled Hứa Thúy back, the monster probably wouldn’t have harmed her.
That was intriguing.
Then I caught a glimpse of Hứa Thúy, and saw the concern in her eyes as she looked at the monster…
So I could be certain that Hứa Thúy and the monster were connected.
Beside me, Tưởng Thiếu Thiên chimed in. “Sister Hứa, please tell us everything!”
“We’re not bad people. We’ll judge for ourselves who was right and who was wrong.”
Hứa Thúy fell silent for a while, then looked at us intently. She sat down heavily on the field’s edge and lifted her gaze to the moon that had just appeared.
“Tống Lan Chi was the first teacher to come to Thượng Liên Village, thirty-seven years ago…”
11.
Hứa Thúy still remembered the first time she saw Tống Lan Chi.
She wore a white dress with tiny flowers and a pair of dainty leather shoes. Standing at the entrance to the village, she gazed in with a look of wonder. She was like a pure lily, untouched by the dust of the world.
Back then, the adults said she was a young lady from a big city, an educated woman. The village had gone a long time without a teacher. It wasn’t until Teacher Tống arrived that the village children could wear their backpacks to school again.
Hứa Thúy was one of those children. The kids loved Teacher Tống. She was beautiful, gentle, and knowledgeable. She could pull colorful candies the children had never seen before out of her pocket.
Teacher Tống had the most beautiful smile, and all the children loved to see her smile. But Hứa Thúy had once seen her cry.
One evening, she’d forgotten her notebook and hurried back to the school after dark. Teacher Tống’s room was right behind the classroom. As Hứa Thúy passed by, she heard Teacher Tống crying…
“Is anyone there? Help me!”
The woman’s cries for help sounded especially heartrending in the night. Hứa Thúy immediately ran over and peered through a crack in the window. She saw a man inside Teacher Tống’s room.
The man was tall and burly. He had the frail Teacher Tống pinned helplessly to the bed. Hứa Thúy stared in terror, her eyes wide.
Teacher Tống was crying, tears streaming down her cheeks and soaking the pillow. Hứa Thúy realized that Teacher Tống was being assaulted!
She was only nine years old then, but very clever. She knew the principal lived nearby, so she slipped out and ran straight to his house to get help.
After listening to Hứa Thúy, the principal threw on his coat and hurried with her to the school. But when they broke down the door to Teacher Tống’s room, Hứa Thúy saw the man getting dressed. She also heard him call the principal “Uncle.”
…
The principal took Hứa Thúy home, then talked with her parents for a long time. After that, Hứa Thúy remembered, her family enjoyed a very happy period.
12.
After that, the children never saw Teacher Tống again. The principal said Teacher Tống found conditions here too harsh to bear, so she had returned to the city.
But Hứa Thúy didn’t believe him.
Once, unable to sleep, she wandered through the village and heard a woman crying. The sound came from the principal’s cellar. The crying sounded so much like Teacher Tống’s.
They had imprisoned Teacher Tống.
…
When Tưởng Thiếu Thiên heard that much, he frowned and couldn’t help asking, “What happened after that? Did they kill Tống Lan Chi to stop her from going to the police?”
Hứa Thúy glanced at him, a trace of mockery in her eyes. “Young man, you really are naïve.”
Tưởng Thiếu Thiên blushed and said nothing more.
“The drunk who barged into Tống Lan Chi’s room was the principal’s own nephew. When Tống Lan Chi came to, she screamed that she was going to the police. To protect his nephew, the principal locked her up.”
“But that rotten nephew of his still wasn’t satisfied. He’d gotten what he wanted and was still showing off. One time, while drunk, he bragged about it in front of his lowlife friends…”
Hứa Thúy’s eyes reddened as the memories she’d tried so hard to forget came back to her…
That drunk said the city girl had a slim waist and long legs, and felt wonderful to touch.
His lowlife friends were half doubtful, half intrigued, and started coaxing him to tell them more. Unable to resist the effects of the alcohol, he let everything slip while in a drunken haze.
“So what if she’s a city girl? When the time comes, I want her to give me a chubby little boy!”
“Her kid’s bound to be smart and beautiful!”
He thought of that night as one of his own love stories, hoping it would feed his delusional vanity.
His lowlife friends were both astonished and intensely envious.
Why could he do something like that? Why couldn’t they?
If a drunken good-for-nothing like him could do it, then of course they could too!
The more they drank, the bolder they got. After learning where Tống Lan Chi was being held, they crept there beneath the moonlight.
When they pried open the wooden door, Tống Lan Chi thought someone had come to rescue her. The smile on her lips had barely begun to form when several hands dragged her into the cattle shed.
That night, Tống Lan Chi cried until dawn.
…
Tưởng Thiếu Thiên was so furious he stomped and snapped a cornstalk beside him. I frowned too as I listened, then asked Hứa Thúy, “How do you know all this?”
Hứa Thúy smiled, though there was something strange about it. “My mother told me to go call my father home.”
“I secretly followed them there…”
Her father was one of them, too.
At that, Hứa Thúy smiled. “He didn’t get a lucky ending, either. Three years ago, he went up the mountain to hunt wild boar and fell into a boar trap. By the time anyone found him, he was stone-cold.”
“Karma. It was all karma.”