Chapter 54: CH 37.1

“Zhao Hongtu!”

“Quick, stop the bleeding!”

Zhao Hongtu’s face turned pale with anguish. His brow was drenched with perspiration. His grip on Wang Pengpai’s arm was nearly so tight that his fingers dug themselves into Wang Pengpai’s skin. Because of the pain, he was almost unable to breathe. Zhao Hongtu still wanted to continue, but he lacked the strength to wield the longbow.

The baby in his stomach only had a leg!

The stench of blood filled their nostrils once again, and Zhao Hongtu was drenched in blood. Everything that had just occurred was completely unexpected. Xu Chen and Yu Hean became anxious and rushed to stop the bleeding. Only Wang Pengpai was the quickest to react. He tightened his grip on Zhao Hongtu’s bow and narrowed his gaze. He stabbed the same place of Zhao Hongtu’s stomach, which Zhao Hongtu had already pierced. His hands were remarkably steady, and he moved at a fast pace. Everything occurred in the blink of an eye.

“Umph!”

Wang Pengpai flipped his hand around and stabbed the tip of the bow into the ground and in doing so he was able to nail the baby’s hand and foot, continually twitching and squirming, between the bow and the ground

“Hiss——ha——”

Zhao Hongtu almost passed out from the severe pain. Fortunately, the haemostatic he had previously taken had been effective. Although his face was still as pale as paper, the amount of blood flowing out wasn’t as frightening as it had been.

“Little Brother Zhao, you…”

Wang Pengpai paused and just shook his head. He had seen Zhao Hongtu taking a hemostatic, but he didn’t anticipate the boy to be so ruthless and cruel to himself that he ripped through his stomach and extracted the baby’s hand and foot, but……

“Physical exorcism wouldn’t work. You, sigh.”

How could it be so simple to get rid of ghosts this manner when they were experiencing a supernatural attraction? The baby’s hands and feet continued to twist and struggle. The baby’s limbs exhibited incredible strength. The infant broke free from the bow in the blink of an eye and rapidly climbed on Zhao Hongtu, like two ugly and disgusting reptiles of different genders. This time, Xu Chen and Yu Hean responded as well. Yu Hean immediately pulled out a yellow talisman, recited it, and placed it on the baby’s hand. Xu Chen clenched his teeth, drew his blade, and slashed at the baby’s foot.

“Ah——!!”

Zhao Hongtu, on the other hand, screamed bitterly as the talisman and blade dropped on the baby’s hand and foot. His left hand was red and bloated, as if he had been scalded, and his right foot had a cut with blood pouring constantly from it.

“Stop it!”

Wang Pengpai screamed with panic. Of course, there could be no such crude and straightforward solution. They could only return the wounds to themselves when they damaged the baby’s leftover limbs since they couldn’t discover the source of resentment.

“This, what should we do?”

Yu Hean’s face was flushed, but he didn’t dare to move. He observed the baby’s hands and foot attempting to crawl into Zhao Hongtu once more. Zhao Hongtu was panting in pain and gasping for air. With a fearful and disgusted expression on his face, he glanced at the baby’s hands and feet moving towards him. He attempted to dodge it, but there was nothing he could do. He could only clench his teeth and watch them crawl into his stomach again, with clenched teeth and tears almost falling down his cheeks.

But just then, Zhao Hongtu’s stomach suddenly cooled.

“Ktlr, atlr lr——”

Te Lfjc’r fsfr klvfcfv lc rtbmx. Rb bcf xcfk ktfgf atf jclwji mjwf ogbw, yea tf rjk j yielrt ktlaf jclwji rdeffhf ab Itjb Lbcuae’r rlvf. Qtfc atf yjys’r tjcv jcv obba rdeffhfv yjmx lcab tlr rabwjmt, atf jclwji yla la jcv j mgecmtlcu rbecv kjr fwlaafv.

“Ah——ah——!”

Zhao Hongtu wailed miserably, as if all of his bones had been crushed and chewed. He was convulsing badly. He fainted every now and again, but he awoke in agony the following second, as if he was about to die from this uncontrollable torment.

“Let go!”

Xu Chen’s expression suddenly changed. He rushed over and wanted to grab the baby’s hands and foot from the animal’s mouth.

“Uwa, uwa——uwa, uwa——”

The ferocious animal who chewed the baby’s hand and foot was very timid when it saw people. It cried and wailed like a baby. Before Xu Chen acted against it, afraid, it spit out the baby’s hands and foot it was chewing on. It shrank and lay on the ground, whined, and roared, but dared not resist. It simply cried.

“Wait.”

Wang Pengpai handed Zhao Hongtu to Yu Hean and picked up the baby’s chewed hand and foot. The talisman and the blade did not cause any damage to the limbs, but the animal’s bite marks remained on the baby’s hands and feet. They shook weakly in Wang Pengpai’s hands, and the power the limbs possessed when struggling had vanished.

“Brother Wang, what are you doing?”

Xu Chen was surprised. Before he could stop it, he saw Wang Pengpai throw the baby’s hand into the animal coop again. In an instant, the gentle and quiet animals rushed to the baby’s hand as if they went nuts, fiercely competing to tear it up and chew it.

“Uwa——!!”

Screams rang out, as Zhao Hongtu collapsed in pain. The scream came from somewhere outside the animal coop, not from him. They heard a baby crying. The baby’s left arm, which had a large fracture, began to rot. However, in a fraction of a second, the entire left arm deteriorated to white bone.

“I understand.”

Wang Pengpai became aware of this sudden new information and turned to face the animals. These animals became calm and numb after eating the baby’s hand, much like a lamb. Only two or three heads circled Wang Pengpai’s side, as though waiting for him to toss out the baby’s foot.

“This, what’s going on?”

Yu Hean stuttered. He also saw the strange thing that happened to the baby. The baby’s hand eaten by the animal did not regenerate, and Zhao Hongtu’s left hand was no longer bleeding.

“The baby’s hand is gone?”

“It’s gone. It’s truly gone.”

Wang Pengpai replied, but he did not throw the baby’s foot to the animals to eat. Instead, he pulled out the cinnabar rope, wrapped it around the baby’s foot tightly, and threw it into the animal coop. The animals surrounded it, but they were afraid to approach it, and the baby’s foot surrounded by the animals were motionless and scared.

After watching this scene, Xu Chen was in deep thought, but Yu Hean couldn’t understand it. He urged, “Brother Wang, what’s going on? Little Zhao, is Xiao Zhao okay?”

“Roughly.”

Wang Pengpai said with a smile. His round face looked more relaxed: “Old Yu, what happened is as you hypothesized.”

“I, what did I say? What did I say?”

“You mentioned the villagers visiting for beating three dynasties banquet.”

Wang Pengpai said, “What did you think of it?”

“Ah, ah, this.”

Yu Hean was a little confused. He rubbed his face and muttered, “I just think the people who wanted to drink the fetal flesh broth the most were the village head, villagers and visiting villagers of Cordoned-off Village.”

“Since Leader Miao and the others are dealing with matters at Cordoned-off Village, should we deal with the visiting villagers here? Ah, I just thought, the people in the village died and became rotten corpses. If the visiting villagers died, they must have become something. I, I’m not sure. I’m just speaking nonsense.”

“You’re not talking nonsense.”

Xu Chen smiled and understood, “The villagers, who were visiting to drink fetal fetus, drank fetal flesh broth and have become babies.”

“Fuck his grandmother, this damned thing isn’t scared of Wu Laoliu.”

Wang Pengpai scolded. He gazed at Zhao Hongtu’s pallid face and poured a bottle of blood tonic down his throat. The young man’s physical endurance was impressive. Zhao Hongtu moaned and awoke after a while. He appeared to be a little confused, but he managed to push himself to sip hot water.

“Look, the babies have been moving over there.”

When Wang Pengpai used his fingers to point at the babies, he saw that the babies were no longer moving. They stayed about ten meters outside the animal coop and looked at Wang Pengpai. Their eyes seemed to be filled with poison and resentment.

“When Wu Laoliu came down just now, these animals didn’t hide from him.”

The locals didn’t have to behave in a disciplined manner like tour guides and tourists. Previously, Wang Pengpai had been schemed against on a tour by a local and so on the next tour, he brought a spiteful ghost to a local’s house, in case of emergency. As a result, the spiteful ghost was directly torn up by the locals.

If the babies were scared of Wu Laoliu, they should have hid even more after he left the house.

“They are afraid of these……”

Xu Chen took a glance at the animals in the animal coop. They were white and round. They looked a bit like pigs. However, their face had no facial features and only a big mouth. They looked very strange and terrifying.

“In the beginning, Wu Laoliu brought a bamboo basket from the Little Dragon Stream. Inside, there was a baby wrap. Do you remember?”

Xu Chen said, “He fed them the baby wrap.”

“Bamboo baskets correspond to ghost babies, baby wrap, corresponds, corresponds to……”

Yu Hean stuttered and looked at the seemingly numb and stupid animals around them in shock. No, they were not animals, they were——

“The fetal flesh was eaten by the visiting villagers.”

Wang Pengpai stated, shook his head, “What sinners.”

At that banquet, there was more than one fetus. Pingping’s child was also devoured because her baby’s flesh had special properties and was a tonic to the people who ate the flesh. The flesh was swallowed by the villagers of Cordoned-off Village. The visitors drank broth made of other fetuses’ flesh.

This was a horrible tradition that lasted for a long time in history, but no one knew why something horrible occurred this time. Under the accumulation of resentment, all those who had drunk fetal flesh broth died, but their souls did not dissipate and turned into babies. The resentment of those who had eaten fetal flesh did not dissipate either.

Their souls were incomplete, and their grievances did not hold the shape of human beings. They were as confused as livestock. They were the mortal enemies of the “babies”.

An eye for an eye.

The people who ate the babies before they died were now getting eaten by the babies when they died.

“What babies really fear is them.”

Wang Pengpai patted the animal next to him, “This is retribution. When they finish eating all the “babies”, the resentment should be dispersed.”

“Then why not feed the baby’s foot to them?”

Zhao Hongtu had eased slightly and looked at the baby’s foot surrounded by animals. He didn’t want to see the foot again.”

“Don’t be in such a hurry.”

Wang Pengpai smiled cunningly, like a fat mouse who was secretly drinking oil, “We have to lead the “babies” to Mourning Stream.”

Wang Pengpai speculated that it was essential for the “babies” to have their full body. Thus despite their fear, they remained outside the animal coop and refused to leave. At this time, the limbs of the “babies”that were cruelly remaining in Wang Pengpai and the others’ bodies have become bait to gather them over.

Everything was clear now. Yu Hean, Xu Chen and Wang Pengpai followed what Zhao Hongtu did to “physically retrieve the ghosts out from their bodies” and tied the remaining limbs of the “babies” with cinnabar rope and put them together with Zhao Hongtu’s baby’s foot.

The soul of the fetal flesh was unstable and they did not dare to get close to the cinnabar rope full of Yang energy, but they surrounded it. This way, the “babies’” limbs of the “babies” could not return to Wang Pengpai and the others’ side.

The four took advantage of this break to regain their strength. After all, they had all undergone “minor surgery” and lost a significant amount of blood. Wang Pengpai graciously grabbed several bottles of blood tonic from his bag. The four men regained their strength and bound the animals with a rope soaked with cow tears. They remained until five o’clock in the afternoon, when Wu Laoliu arrived to clean up the animal coop and tried to drive them out.

“Lord Wu, we will send these poor babies to reincarnate.”

Wang Pengpai shamelessly went to make small talk with Wu Laoliu. Zhao Hongtu and Yu Hean secretly opened the door of the animal coop and led the fetal flesh outside. While leading them, they resembled guilty thieves when they looked at Wu Laoliu’s face.

Although Wu Laoliu’s expression wasn’t good, he did not stop it. Wang Pengpai flattered Wu Laoliu again and again. Seeing that he impatiently wrinkled his eyebrows, Wang Pengpai immediately smoothly rolled away.

When Wang Pengpai came back, Zhao Hongtu said happily. “It’s really the same as what you said, Brother Wang.”

“They’re following us!”

T/N: I’m taking a two-week hiatus from this week to focus on some rl stuff. Will be back on the 29th. See you guys two weeks later.