After Transmigrating into an Evil God - Chapter 14

The two villagers left on the mountain were already stunned.

They had only seen Li Chi wave his sleeve, and their companion went whooshing through the air. Just as they were feeling anxious and fearful, in the span of two sentences, they saw him pull Tongdou’s mother back with him as they ran together.

That speed was even faster than swallows skimming over water, like a shadow.

“Don’t be anxious,” Li Chi said to the grief-stricken and worried mother of Tongdou before him. “With you here, I can find her.”

Li Chi looked at the karmic threads on Tongdou’s mother. Mortals had too much karma – the ever-changing karma was like a thick cocoon. To find the specific karmic thread connecting to a particular person among these dense and chaotic karmic lines was almost like finding a needle in a haystack.

But between blood relatives, karmic threads tended to be more substantial. This was why Li Chi sought out someone with close blood ties to Tongdou.

Tongdou’s mother was also surrounded by karmic threads as dense as mist, but among them was one particularly special thread. It extended deep into the mountain forest, solid as a bowstring. One end stretched out firmly and tenaciously from the woman’s body, while from the other end came vibrations like insect chirping, trying to scatter the solid karmic thread.

In those insect-like vibrations, Li Chi sensed a strange aura that was part-demon, part-ghost.

He looked toward the direction where the karmic thread extended, his gaze gradually becoming focused.

The scene unfolded like flowing water, karma manifesting:

In a small stone cave deep in the mountains, soft large leaves and dry grass were spread out. The sharp, rough parts of the stone walls had been smoothed over with mud. A woman whose features were seventy percent similar to Tongdou’s mother sat inside, lovingly playing with a four or five-year-old child in her arms.

“Little bug flies, looking for mama.”

“Little bug is gone, mama cried her eyes blind.”

“Green wings broken in flight, can’t see my child.”

“Green cash bug flies back again, mother and child never part.”

The woman hummed softly, her voice gentle like any ordinary loving mother.

The unknowing child had a blue-black larva crawling on his head, giggling and playing with the woman, calling her “mama.”

Tongdou had two special karmic threads: one extending here, connected to her birth mother, and one connected to that woman with the strange aura who was part-demon, part-ghost, neither fully demon nor fully ghost.

Both karmic threads vibrated with insect-like tremors. The thread connecting to Tongdou’s mother grew more scattered with each vibration, while the one connecting to the woman grew more solid.

By the looks of it, when the karmic thread connecting Tongdou to her birth mother was completely scattered, she would truly become this woman’s child.

Green cash bug… Li Chi roughly understood part of this woman’s origins.

In the world there exists a spiritual insect called the green cash bug. Green cash bug mothers and children are never separated – take the child and the mother will immediately fly over, regardless of distance; even if you secretly take the child, the mother will certainly know where it is.

Some heretical practitioners would take the blood of green cash bug mothers and children, paint it on different coins and refine them. After refinement, they would keep the coins painted with the child’s blood at home and use the coins painted with the mother’s blood to buy things. Afterwards, the mother coin would automatically fly back to the child coin.

Those with greedy hearts who harm spiritual insects are detestable, but Tongdou was not a green cash bug child – she was definitely an ordinary mortal. This woman who seemed to be a green cash bug mother was not seeking her child, but stealing a child.

Now Tongdou was controlled by the larva, mistakenly thinking that woman was her mama. The karmic thread between her and her birth mother was only held together by Tongdou’s mother’s desperate grip, struggling against the woman of unknown nature – demon or ghost.

This invisible struggle was too exhausting of heart and blood. Li Chi raised his hand and flicked, and the karmic thread between Tongdou and her mother suddenly solidified.

The woman seemed to sense something and suddenly raised her head, revealing a pair of empty eye sockets.

…..

Li Chi looked at Tongdou’s mother. “Found her. I’ll take you there.”

The other three villagers hurriedly said, “Take us too.”

Li Chi frowned. He wasn’t certain of that woman’s strength. Though she didn’t seem very powerful, if he had to protect three more people, there might be oversights.

“That… I was the one who brought aunt here, in case something happens…” The villager’s voice grew smaller and smaller. He worried about Tongdou’s mother getting into trouble, but was also afraid of this suddenly appearing divine being.

“Fine.” Li Chi shook his head, waved his sleeve to raise a wind, and carried these people along.

When they arrived nearby, Li Chi set the three villagers down. “You stay here, don’t come closer.”

The three nodded repeatedly.

“Jin Yan, Ding Qin,” Li Chi added, “Watch over them well.”

After speaking, he carried Tongdou’s mother as they floated down, waving his hand to conceal her aura and having her hide behind.

The woman in the stone cave was vigilant and uneasy – she had just suddenly had a bad premonition.

Tongdou had already been coaxed to sleep by her. She held the child tighter in her arms, turning her head uneasily in all directions, murmuring, “No one can take away my child…”

Li Chi saw the karmic threads on her body. Among them was one particularly special thread that extended from her body but drifted aimlessly without destination. It wasn’t connected to any living being, as if it had long been severed, persisting only because of the woman’s obsession…

This broken karmic thread revealed her past causes.

…Green cash bug flies back again, mother and child never part…

Before her death, Qing Fu had been an ordinary person. The first half of her life was as ordinary as the world’s most common expectations for women.

Growing up, marrying, bearing children.

Qing Fu had originally thought the second half of her life would pass peacefully like this too.

But on the day she gave birth to her child, her husband told her the family couldn’t afford to raise a girl.

…..

Li Chi emerged from the forest, his footsteps making soft sounds on the leaves and earth.

“Who are you?” the woman asked him warily.

“I’ve come to help a mother find her lost child.”

He stopped walking, his tone calm, his aura clear and cool.

The woman holding Tongdou relaxed slightly. “I lost a child too.”

“You lost a child too?”

“Yes.” The woman’s tone was dazed. Her hands instinctively rocked the child gently, but her thoughts seemed to have flown to the distant past.

“I traveled to many places searching for my child. Later when my money ran out, I begged for food while continuing to search. And then later…”

And then later, she obtained a pair of green cash bug coins.

…Green wings broken in flight, can’t see my child…

Who gave them to her?

Qing Fu couldn’t remember. She didn’t even recognize them as green cash bug coins, only knowing that according to what that person said, if she kept the child coin with her, she would always have a mother coin to use.

Would those who killed spiritual insect mothers and children to refine green cash bug coins also be moved by Qing Fu’s heartbreaking anguish in searching for her child?

One mother coin couldn’t change much, but it allowed her to buy a bowl of water when thirsty, exchange for a piece of bread when hungry.

Qing Fu survived on this pair of green cash bug coins, searching for her child.

And then later, she found her child.

She gently stroked Tongdou in her arms, seeming to have completely accepted her as her own child.

Li Chi sighed. “If that’s so, you must deeply know the pain of losing a child.”

“Of course.” The woman was somewhat agitated, seeming to sense unease.

“Then why make others experience this same anguish?”

“What do you mean?” The woman’s expression changed drastically. She turned and ran in another direction, wanting to leave, but before she had gone far, she was forced to stop. Li Chi was somehow already standing in front of her.

The woman faced Li Chi with her empty eye sockets. “Are you here to steal my child?”

“She is not your child.” Li Chi looked at her with compassionate eyes. “Mothers long for children’s return, children long for mothers to find them. If you take someone else’s child as your own, what happens to your real child?”

“No!” the woman cried out excitedly, forcefully hugging Tongdou as enormous insect wings spread from behind her back. “She is my child, she calls me mama!”

Tongdou was squeezed awake and cried from the pain.

Tongdou’s mother, hidden behind the trees, couldn’t bear it any longer when she saw the child cry and rushed over. “Let her go!”

The insect wings’ buzzing suddenly grew louder, mixed with the woman’s shrill shriek. “No one can steal my child!”

Holding Tongdou with one hand, her other hand transformed into a sharp insect leg. Amid the child’s cries, she attacked Tongdou’s mother, about to pierce through her chest!

Li Chi raised his hand, and a thread thin as silk shot out like an arrow, wrapping around the woman’s insect leg and pulling her back at the critical moment. His other hand swept his long sleeve, sending Tongdou’s mother back several steps, then plucked the taut silk thread.

A fearful sound suddenly rang out. The woman’s insect leg quickly returned to a normal hand. She curled up on the ground, her huge insect wings covering Tongdou beneath her body, trembling while crying and pleading. “Baby don’t cry, baby don’t be afraid, mama’s here, mama’s here… Don’t steal my child, don’t steal my child…”

……

“Don’t steal my child!”

That was the most terrifying moment in Qing Fu’s life.

That man forcibly took her child from her arms. She was still in confinement, half her body dragged off the bed by him.

She pulled so hard, her fingers digging into the man’s flesh.

“If you don’t let go, I’ll strangle her right now!” The man’s angry voice mixed with the child’s cries. Her heart panicked, her grip loosened…

When she stumbled after them out the door, she could never find her child again…

…Little bug is gone, mama cried her eyes blind…

No, no…

She found her.

She held Tongdou tightly. “Don’t cry, don’t cry, mama is here… Don’t take away my child…”

Li Chi walked before her. “Mother and child are heart-connected. Qing Fu, return the child to her mother.”

He plucked the karmic thread between Tongdou and her mother, and the solidified karmic thread shook the larva off her head.

Tongdou’s mind cleared, crying as she reached out from under the insect wings toward her mother. “Mama! Mama!”

…Little bug flies, looking for mama…

Tongdou’s mother stumbled forward and reached out to hold Tongdou back in her arms.

The woman stared blankly at Tongdou calling someone else mama. After Tongdou was taken away, she suddenly wailed mournfully. “But where is my child? Where is my child?!”

No tears could flow from her empty eye sockets. The larva flew around her, suddenly scattering into a bloody shadow before merging back into her body.

Li Chi looked at the broken karmic thread on her body, silent.

“…Where is my child?”

Qing Fu couldn’t remember how long she had searched. People treated her like a madwoman, and she didn’t care. She simply searched from when she was alive until after she died. Then this wisp of soul continued drifting through the world, searching.

…Green cash bug flies back again, mother and child never part…

Who killed my child? Who used my child’s blood to make coins?

Qing Fu had indeed gone mad. She went mad after seeing her drowned daughter, then searched the whole world for her already dead daughter.

The resentment and obsession remaining from the spiritual insects on the green cash bug coins merged with this wisp of soul, creating this being who was neither demon nor ghost, wandering everywhere seeking her child.

Li Chi sighed and placed his palms over the woman’s empty eyes, clear divine power flowing in. “Stop searching. The karmic thread is already broken. Since you have this obsession, why not become a deity instead, protecting the mothers and children of this world so they won’t encounter the same tragedy.”

The divine power was clear as spring water, washing away the resentment and obsession on her body. Under the palms covering Qing Fu’s eyes, tears suddenly flowed forth.

“My, my… child!”