Chapter 1 The Kind Woman and the Beggar

The kind woman who took in the beggar was called Mei Gu. She was just over thirty. Although not strikingly beautiful, she was definitely attractive. In this small village, she was considered a village beauty. Moreover, she had the simplicity of a rural woman, unlike the made-up women in the city. She was the type who seemed ordinary at first glance, but the more you looked, the more beautiful she became.

With such a pretty young woman bringing a tall, strapping beggar into her home, while her husband had to work in the fields every day, well, people could imagine what might happen. The villagers all speculated that this woman was bound to have trouble.

Normally, someone would have spoken up to warn her of the danger, but Mei Gu's saintly behavior that day had annoyed everyone in the village, so they couldn't be bothered with her affairs. Some were even waiting for her to make a fool of herself.

Sure enough, after the beggar had been living with Mei Gu for three days, her husband came back from the fields and found Mei Gu in bed with the beggar, doing things they shouldn't be doing.

What could be more unbearable for a man? He immediately flew into a rage, grabbed a kitchen knife, and tried to kill the beggar.

Caught in the act of such shameful behavior, the beggar showed no sign of panic. He leaned back on the bed, casually put his arm around Mei Gu, and brazenly touched her. Seeing the man with the knife, he even spat at him.

"Ignorant fool, who let you in? How dare you interrupt my pleasure? Slap yourself!"

The man had only picked up the knife to scare the beggar, hoping to make him leave. Instead, the beggar provoked him further. The man’s anger flared. He gulped down half a bottle of liquor from the table and swung the knife at the beggar.

But before the knife could reach the beggar, a force pushed the man away.

Before he could react, he was slapped twice across the face, which immediately swelled up. The beggar, however, remained lying down, embracing his wife, without even a slight movement.

The man, for no reason, had been slapped twice. He didn't even know who had hit him.

A little frightened, he worried that the beggar had hidden accomplices. He uttered a threat and planned to go find his own help.

But as soon as he reached the door, it slammed shut.

"Now that you're here, why leave? Don't you want to know why your wife is with me, and not with you?"

The man's face turned crimson, but he couldn't say a word.

"Because he's useless. If he wasn't, would I need to find someone else?"

Mei Gu leaned against the beggar, looking at him with admiration. Then, they began to do their business in front of the man.

As the saying goes, even a clay figure has some temper. No matter how honest, weak, or easy to bully the man was, he had to do something after being mistreated like this.

He happened to have the kitchen knife in his hand. Unable to bear it any longer, he rushed forward and began to hack at the beggar again.

The beggar was still protected by his evil magic. No matter how the man swung the knife, he couldn't hurt him. The beggar and Mei Gu even mocked the man.

Finally, the man couldn't take it anymore. He roared and ran out of the house, up the mountain behind it. There, he hacked wildly at the trees, then knelt on the ground and wailed. Exhausted from crying and cursing, he fell asleep on the mountain.

When he woke up, he saw police dogs sticking out their tongues and stern-faced police officers.

The man stood up in a panic, and saw the beggar lying dead beside him, and the knife in his hand.

So, the man was taken away.

Mei Gu told a completely different story. The beggar had never done anything improper in their home. Instead, he had diligently helped with chores. Even when the man made him sleep in the woodshed, he was still grateful.

The man was just paranoid and couldn't stand the beggar. Not only did he kill the man, but he made up a bunch of lies to slander him. The beggar was clearly helping to clean the pigsty when the man dragged him away and killed him on the mountain.

The police naturally believed Mei Gu. After all, the man's story was too bizarre, and there was no evidence in the house or on the mountain to support his claims.

In the end, the man was sentenced to life imprisonment. Mei Gu, meanwhile, was pregnant. Because of her pregnancy, she never visited the man once.

A relative of the man visited him once and told him about Mei Gu's pregnancy. The man went crazy and died inside shortly after.

The man was indeed impotent. He was certain that he was unable to impregnate Mei Gu. Everything that day had been real. The beggar had committed adultery with Mei Gu. The child had nothing to do with him.

The relative took the man's words back to the village and advised Mei Gu to have an abortion. But Mei Gu didn't accept the advice. She cursed the man's relative, saying that he didn't think this family was ruined enough, that he thought she had some hope in her life, and wanted to cut off her last bit of hope.

The relative didn't bother with the matter anymore. Mei Gu continued to go in and out of her house as usual. Amidst the villagers’ gossip, her belly slowly grew. Ten months later, she was finally about to give birth.

Mei Gu was all alone. No one took her to the hospital. In the middle of the night, she screamed in agony as the baby was about to be born.

Although the neighbors didn't have a good impression of her, they couldn't watch her die alone from difficult labor in the middle of the night. Several brave women went to take a look and called the village's former midwife.

The midwife was over ninety years old. Her eyesight was poor and she couldn't do much, but having someone was better than nothing. She had seen a lot and could give people courage.

As soon as the women entered, a baby cried. Mei Gu had given birth.

For some reason, when that cry echoed in the dark night, the women shivered at the same time. They all subconsciously wanted to step back, and slowed their pace. Only the seriously hard-of-hearing midwife stepped forward, picked up the child, and prepared to cut the umbilical cord.

But as soon as she picked it up, the midwife's voice became stern. "You shameless woman, what did you sleep with? You gave birth to a snake!"

Mei Gu looked terrified and struggled to sit up. She asked the midwife, "Grandma Wu, what's wrong? Isn't this a healthy child? Are you mistaken?"

Mei Gu had been living alone all this time. She had to cook for herself when she was about to give birth. She was already pale and malnourished. Now, she anxiously asked the midwife what was wrong, and the other women began to feel sorry for her.

One of the women quickly went over to support Mei Gu, telling the midwife not to talk nonsense. It was clearly a chubby baby boy; how could it be a snake?

The midwife didn't say anything. She dragged a chamber pot from under the bed and prepared to drown the child in it.

The women snatched the child away, frantically comforted Mei Gu, and wrapped the baby in a blanket, ignoring the midwife.

But the midwife took advantage of everyone's inattention, grabbed an empty bowl from the table, and smashed it against Mei Gu's forehead. Mei Gu was unable to dodge, and was struck heavily on the forehead, bleeding on the spot.

The women rushed to pull the midwife away. The newborn baby seemed to know that the old woman wanted to hurt his mother, and stared straight at the midwife.

A newborn baby's eyes should be the purest, but being stared at by such a baby, the midwife cried out in fear, slipped, and fell to the ground, accidentally pulling the baby from the woman's arms and falling to the ground with him.

Everyone present was startled and rushed to help. The baby was fine and still crying. The midwife, however, was no longer breathing. She couldn't be saved even when she was sent to the hospital.

The midwife was already over ninety years old. Even if this hadn't happened, she probably didn't have many years left. Everyone knew Mei Gu's impoverished state, so the midwife's family didn't say anything. They hastily buried her, and the villagers collected money to buy Mei Gu some tonics, so that mother and child could live well.

Regardless of what had happened before, at least the child was innocent.

The matter would have passed just like that, but on the seventh day, the midwife's grave was struck by lightning. Then, lightning kept striking the village's ancestral graves.

The midwife's family dreamed that the midwife was covered in blood, reaching out her hand and begging her family to save her. But when her family asked her what had happened, she wouldn't say, she just struggled to crawl towards her home, but no matter what, she couldn't enter her own gate.

All night long, the midwife's family spent the night in endless fear. It wasn't until the rooster crowed the next day that the midwife reluctantly left.

Even more eerie things were yet to come. The midwife had just died, and it was understandable that she was unwilling to accept the fact that she was dead and wanted to return home, but everyone else in the village also dreamed of their ancestors, and the situation was exactly the same as the midwife's. They were all covered in blood, struggling to crawl back home.

Some people who had deep feelings for their deceased relatives couldn't bear to see their relatives struggling and crawling so painfully, so they wanted to reach out and help their dead relatives, so they could rest at home.

But as soon as these filial descendants went out, the struggling ancestors suddenly changed their faces, opened their mouths wide, revealed their bloody teeth, and bit the family members before running away.

The other family members wanted to chase after them, but as soon as they reached the entrance of the village, many snakes blocked their way. A fierce-looking child stood in the center of the snake formation, babbling and shouting that if anyone dared to leave the village, the snakes would bite them.

The next morning, many families in the village were crying. Those who had been dragged away in their dreams, and those who had been bitten to death by snakes, were really dead, bleeding from all seven orifices, and their deaths were extremely gruesome.

Because the child in the dream stood in the center of the snake formation, and the midwife had said before her death that Mei Gu had given birth to a snake, people naturally associated it with Mei Gu and her child. They went to Mei Gu's house to take a look, and the child really looked like the child in the dream.

Combining the previous events, people naturally suspected that this child was a demon.

Mei Gu's husband was infertile. This child was the child of that unknown beggar, and the man never admitted that he had killed the beggar, even until his death.

When the midwife saw the child, she said it was a snake demon, and people dreamed of a child with a group of snakes. The village's graves were struck by lightning starting from the day this child was born.

Finally, several brave villagers rushed into Mei Gu's house. The child was indeed the same as the child in the dream. The villagers immediately decided to drown the child.

Mei Gu, of course, refused and desperately protected the child, even calling the police.

Regardless of whether this child was an evil spirit, he looked like a normal child. The police couldn't let the villagers do whatever they wanted. The police even took away some of the people who were making the most trouble for education.

In this way, the child and Mei Gu were saved, but the strange events in the village didn't stop. They would still dream every night, and those ancestors who were supposed to be lying peacefully in their graves would still come to beg for help and capture people every night. The village held funerals almost every day, and the wreaths at the funeral shops in the surrounding villages were selling out.

The villagers didn't dare to really kill anyone, so they could only come to Mei Gu's house to make trouble every day. When Mei Gu called the police, they would quickly run away.

The police also knew that many things had been happening in the village recently, and they were reluctant to come to this village, but when Mei Gu called the police, they had to come and take a look. As long as they arrived and the villagers had left, they wouldn't seriously investigate who was responsible.

"Auntie, is no one taking care of the things happening in the village? Has no one looked for a master to exorcise the evil spirits?" I asked, stopping a middle-aged woman.

The woman sighed and said, "You've seen what the village is like. If someone could subdue that demon, would we still be living in fear every day? We've encountered this kind of thing, there's no way around it."

I was puzzled. Wasn't Qin Shuguang supposed to have come to this village to deal with it? Why were the villagers still using their own methods to make trouble for Mei Gu?

Where was Qin Shuguang?

Where were the people from Fengshuitang (geomancy hall)?

I immediately took out my phone and planned to find the Qin family fan I had contacted before to ask, but when I opened the chat window, I realized that he had already blocked me. Another fan had posted Qin Shuguang's itinerary.

The great feng shui master Qin had indeed gone to the village to catch demons, but he had gone to another village more than ninety miles away.

Qin Shuguang had never said that he was going to deal with the haunting snake demon. The direction I was following was completely different from Qin Shuguang's route.

Looking at this chaotic village, and the villagers who scattered and fled before the police arrived, I could only smile wryly.

Qin Shuguang was indeed not here, but just because he wasn't here, could I just dust myself off and leave? Of course not.

Qin Shuguang not being here meant that no one was taking care of the haunting in this place. People in this village would continue to die. Since I'd already come, I naturally had to see what kind of thing was causing the haunting.

This kind of thing where an entire village was affected by evil spirits was different from Boss Xu's misfortune. If Boss Xu didn't actively look for me, I could only offer a word of reminder. I couldn't directly intervene. But this kind of thing where evil spirits were harming people in the village, any feng shui master who passed by here could take care of it.

If you have to ask why? It's because this thing was causing deaths.