Judge of Souls - Chapter 119

Given Liu Shan’s current condition and state, taking him down the mountain was absolutely impossible. That would only get himself killed.

Since they couldn’t find the Judge’s mortal remains, they still needed to find the Mountain God of this area first. Liu Shan had already gone all the way to A City to search, so he probably didn’t have many clues either. It would be better for him to ask other people.

Seeing that they were about to leave, Liu Shan gazed longingly from behind and shouted, “Let’s discuss this more! Wait for me, I know our Mountain God! The particularly handsome one! Maybe I can find him!”

Jiang Feng thought he must be truly seeing ghosts to believe him.

Liu Shan floated behind them all the way, chattering incessantly. When they approached the foot of the mountain, he eagerly stepped forward to try something, but was intimidated by Jiang Feng’s glare and retreated. The old chimei beside him sighed and patted his head. “Be good now, go back. Be careful or you’ll get beaten.”

Then he was helplessly dragged back.

“What kind of chimei is this? Even more demonic than demons,” Chu Xuanliang felt utterly exasperated. Looking back, he couldn’t help but worry. “Is it really okay for them to stay on this mountain? I see the Mountain God… the living beings of this generation are also dying out.”

Jiang Feng said, “The life energy here is abundant. Even if spiritual energy scatters, the environment shouldn’t be greatly affected. These chimei weren’t originally nurtured by the Mountain God’s energy anyway. If they can’t hold on, we’ll send them to another Mountain God.”

Chu Xuanliang: “…Mm.”

Those with a little Mountain God had such confidence.

The car was still waiting at the foot of the mountain.

The group got back in the car, and the driver asked, “Are we going to our town?”

“We need to stay overnight tonight.” Chu Xuanliang asked, “Do you have a place to stay there?”

The driver said, “There are no good hotels, but there’s a guesthouse. It’s fine if you’re not picky.”

Chu Xuanliang: “Of course we’re not picky. Let’s go.”

The driver started up his old, broken minivan again and drove bumpily toward his own town.

As their car entered the town entrance, people began to appear. Street vendors and various unofficial sheet metal tricycles wandered around the intersection, along with passing buses blocking the road. The driver could only roll down his window and slow down.

Since this place wasn’t large, most people knew each other. Having nothing better to do, they would greet each other when they saw someone. An electric tricycle driver leaning against his position cracking sunflower seeds raised his hand and shouted, “Hey! Old Sun!”

The driver replied, “Hey!”

The other person said, “Someone was just asking about you!”

They were speaking in dialect, which the three couldn’t understand well, so they didn’t pay attention.

“What do they want with me? Just give them my phone number.”

“Someone was looking for the three people you took today, those outsiders. It seemed urgent. I asked where they were.”

“They’re in the car. I brought them back.”

“Oh, a woman was looking for them. She searched everywhere and is now at the guesthouse.”

Since they were going to the guesthouse anyway, the driver didn’t say much more, assuming they knew each other.

After the car stopped, the three of them got out. While they were still outside the guesthouse, through the glass window they could only see a blurry figure inside, but someone rushed out.

“Ah—–-cough cough……woo……”

The woman ran out and began crying, collapsing weakly in front of the three people, grabbing Chu Xuanliang’s pant leg and emotionally venting her distress.

Six or seven young people, both men and women, followed behind her.

Chu Xuanliang hastily stepped back to distance himself from them.

This couldn’t be some new style of insurance fraud, could it?

Chu Xuanliang immediately said, “I don’t know you people, do I?”

Without knowing the context, one might think he had done something that angered both heaven and earth.

A man behind them couldn’t stand it anymore. Seeing that the woman wouldn’t speak, he helped explain, “You met her this morning. You gave her a talisman this morning, right?”

Chu Xuanliang: “Is there a problem?”

“There’s a big problem!” the man said. “She wants to ask you where you bought that talisman, and whether you can pull some strings to help find a capable monk or Taoist priest.”

Chu Xuanliang felt relieved. This supernatural incident was much easier to handle than insurance fraud.

Chu Xuanliang asked, “Looking for a Taoist priest? What happened?”

Several people started talking at once, still mixing in a lot of dialect.

“Her, her daughter encountered something evil.”

“I said it was encountering evil, but she insisted it was congenital! Look, look, it really is.”

“Why are you arguing about this now? Can’t you say something useful?”

The woman was the person who had given them directions that morning. She wiped away her tears, stood up, and said, “The peace talisman you gave me today burned up, turned to ash.”

She opened her palm, revealing a burn mark where the skin had peeled.

When they first met her, she had no yin aura, and she still didn’t now. But if the talisman burned, it most likely meant she had encountered a ghost.

Chu Xuanliang said, “I am a Taoist priest. Tell me about it first.”

The woman’s eye sockets were red, and her tied-up hair had quite a few silver strands mixed in, now messily scattered around her face. She pointed to the side, asking the three to get in the car first to head to their town. Then, speaking in not-quite-fluent Mandarin, she explained to them.

****

Her name was Xie Zhihua, a local whose traceable generations had all lived in this place.

Though this place wasn’t as developed as big cities, it had gradually become prosperous in recent years. Networks, electrical appliances – they had everything they should have, but overall public facilities and cultural standards remained at a relatively backward level.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, a group of people faced with livelihood difficulties and no way out, while social economy was rapidly developing and new knowledge was constantly changing, decided under the leadership of some bold young people to go abroad together to make their fortune.

At that time, policies were relaxed and international economies were all developing. They went out on tourist visas, and after expiration, they stayed abroad illegally to work, engaging in various trading and reselling. The unlucky ones went to prison for various reasons. Years later, those who were honest and hardworking had opened shops back home, obtained green cards, and returned to their hometowns to build roads and houses.

Xie Zhihua’s family had always remained local residents.

Due to everyone’s different choices, the wealth gap in this place began to widen rapidly.

Because of the stark contrasts in the town, friends who used to steal bird eggs together now drove buses, so she inevitably felt envious of others’ lives. But she only talked about it. Compared to before, life now had improved tremendously. Her daughter didn’t feel this way though.

With advanced technology, through bombardment of various information online and on TV, plus constant influence from friends showing off their wealth, she had been particularly obsessed with money since childhood, always thinking about making big money.

“She really, really wanted to make money, thinking about it all day. Our family situation isn’t very good, we couldn’t give her much help. I don’t know when it started, but anyway, our relationship became very bad. After she graduated junior high, she didn’t want to study anymore. Her father and I had to chase and beat her to get her into school. But that high school wasn’t a very good one. Our schools are public, and the teachers they hire barely graduated high school themselves. Some didn’t even have good grades and spoke Mandarin unclearly, with English that had a strong dialect accent…” Xie Zhihua sighed. “She refused to study here. As soon as she went to school, she would skip classes. I couldn’t watch her all the time, right? She said she wanted to attend a good high school. Rich people all go to other places to study, good high schools. Her father and I went to ask… it was too expensive. The entrance fee or something, with her poor grades, it would cost over 100,000 yuan to get in! And that was just for some kind of class? I heard it was all classes for poor students. The admissions teacher, seeing their poor conditions, also very tactfully told us that if it wasn’t necessary, we shouldn’t go there to study…”

Chu Xuanliang: “Did she go in the end?”

“Ah? No. How could we bear to spend that money? Making money isn’t easy! Besides, with her poor grades, she definitely wouldn’t get into university. We can’t encourage this competitive atmosphere. Rather than waste money, it’s better to save some money to open a small shop for her in the future, right?” Xie Zhihua said. “This child doesn’t know how to consider the future. She’s never suffered, you know? This child…”

She started crying again as she spoke, “She thought 100,000 yuan was easy to make, could be earned casually, didn’t take it seriously at all. She thought we were poor because we were too incompetent. She would always talk about internet celebrities, becoming famous overnight, earning millions in a day, buying villas worth hundreds of millions in wealthy areas by their twenties. She said she didn’t want to study anymore. Even studying to get a PhD was useless – working hard would only get you a few thousand yuan, which wasn’t respectable. She even looked down on civil servants. She just wanted to be an internet celebrity and asked us to spend money buying her cosmetics…”

Yama frowned and interrupted.”What’s an internet celebrity?”

Chu Xuanliang said, “Internet celebrity.”

Yama: “What do they research? Why can they make so much money?”

“…” Chu Xuanliang found this very difficult to explain. Mainly because facing Yama’s underage face, he didn’t dare speak carelessly from the bottom of his heart. “Well, it’s similar to being a star. But they’re stars on the internet, singing songs, chatting?”

Yama lost interest and said to Xie Zhihua, “Continue.”

“We don’t have money! And she’s so young, why does she need makeup? I heard people who wear makeup easily damage their faces, so I didn’t agree.” Xie Zhihua covered her face and cried. “She thought we were useless, wouldn’t agree to anything. In her sophomore year of high school, she ran away with a female classmate from next door.”

Yama: “Where did she run to?”

Xie Zhihua: “She ran to the neighboring province, said she was going to make money.”

Chu Xuanliang asked: “How old was she?”

Xie Zhihua: “She’s quite old now. She’s already twenty.”

Chu Xuanliang: “Did she come back?”

Xie Zhihua said dejectedly, “Three or four months ago, she came back. Now she’s living at home and won’t go anywhere. I thought she was sick, but I didn’t expect she had encountered ghosts.”

The driving brother interjected. “She went crazy!”

Xie Zhihua: “She’s not crazy! She’s always been like that! It’s just that encountering ghosts made her a bit different!”

The brother said, “Wasting food like that, if that’s not crazy, what is? Eating and then vomiting, eating and then vomiting, and specifically eating good food. Does your family own a gold mine? I’m not criticizing you, but you’ve just spoiled her too much. Look at what you’re wearing and what your daughter eats. Other people work like oxen and horses, but you’re working like shit and urine, not even living beings. This kind of daughter should be treated as if she was never born. Why bother with her?”

Xie Zhihua: “But I gave birth to her!”

The two argued and became a bit unhappy, then fell silent.

This person who could drive Xie Zhihua over should be a friend from the same place with a good relationship. After a while, he started speaking again, “Have you finished talking? You haven’t finished talking!”

Only then did Xie Zhihua remember.

“I saw she was a bit strange…”

“Very abnormal, okay?”

Xie Zhihua continued on her own. “Some elderly people in the village said that going up the mountain to gather those kinds of firewood roots and boiling them into medicinal tea could cure illnesses. Many people’s chronic ailments got better thanks to this. So I’ve been cutting those things recently. This morning after gathering them, I happened to meet you all and got your peace talisman, which I hung directly on my hand.”

“When I got home, I boiled and peeled those firewood roots. The smell was a bit pungent, so I went in to check on my daughter and close her window. She was lying on the bed eating. When I went over and touched her, she suddenly started screaming, looking very agitated. Then I held her, and she began struggling very hard and tried to bite me. That’s when your peace talisman started getting hot.” Xie Zhihua said. “I was scared at the time and felt there was definitely a problem! I grabbed that talisman with my right hand and pressed it against her body. Later the talisman caught fire, she fainted, and I immediately came to find you. But she only went crazy that one time!”

Chu Xuanliang asked. “After talking for so long, what exactly is abnormal about her?”

“This is very hard for me to say. I think she mainly damaged her body, and then encountering ghosts might be dangerous. I was so agitated before mainly because I was frightened by that talisman.” Xie Zhihua said quietly, “Please go help take a look. I’m begging you.”

This wasn’t really a big problem. They had already decided to go anyway.

The big brother who was driving couldn’t help but speak up again, “What’s there to see? She just eats a lot, like a starving ghost! She eats everything without being picky, then vomits after eating. Isn’t this child asking for trouble? Tsk.”

“No, that child has always eaten a bit more than others since childhood. She was fat as a child, then gradually became thin, thinner than most girls. There’s no problem.” Xie Zhihua looked at the scenery outside the car window and patted the glass. “We’re here, we’re here.”

Their house was a renovated old residence. The exterior walls looked a bit old, but inside it was new. They had water, electricity, and gas, with wooden floors laid down, just like an ordinary bungalow.

It had three floors total, quite large in area. Her daughter lived on the top floor.

Xie Zhihua led them upstairs, pushed open the door, and found that the girl inside had already woken up and was sitting at the table wolfing down food.

Rice cakes, instant noodles, crackers, and various snacks – she ate everything. Packaging was scattered on the floor. If it wasn’t from earlier mess, she must have already eaten a lot.

“Miumiu, you’re awake? Are you feeling uncomfortable anywhere?” Xie Zhihua walked over.

The other person didn’t answer, focusing intently on eating.

Chu Xuanliang was greatly shocked by her appetite.

The girl nicknamed Miumiu looked no different from ordinary people in appearance. Her height was probably between 1.6 and 1.65 meters, slender but slightly heavy, with an estimated weight still under 100 pounds. She had her hair in a bun and delicate features. She was currently makeup-free and quite a pretty girl.

“I used to think her eating so much was abnormal, but the doctor said this was a normal phenomenon. She digests very quickly and her stomach has been stretched out from habit.” Xie Zhihua said. “Her stomach can stretch to several times the size of a normal person’s, so she can eat over ten pounds of food at once. She’ll be fine after vomiting it up. But this method is bad for the stomach, body, and throat. I don’t know what kind of training she did outside, but she came back like this. Although she used to eat a lot before, it wasn’t this kind of lot. I was almost scared to death at the time.”

Chu Xuanliang asked, “When she left in her sophomore year, she should have been gone for several years, right? What was she doing all these years?”

Xie Zhihua: “She told me about it. She went to be an internet celebrity, doing what…”

Chu Xuanliang: “Competitive eating?”

“Yes, yes, yes!” Xie Zhihua said. “Her stomach is really big, isn’t it? How can she damage her body like this? Can the money she earned be enough to treat her for the rest of her life?”

Chu Xuanliang was amazed. “…I always thought all competitive eating videos were fake eating or spliced together. I didn’t expect people could really eat so much food.”

“Some people can eat a lot naturally. Like Xue Rengui with his natural divine strength – he had the appetite of seven or eight grown men. There’s also Yu Dingguo, who’s ‘able to drink several shǐ of wine without getting drunk.’ There’s also the famous Lian Po.” Yama said.

Chu Xuanliang: “Lian Po is old, but can he still eat?”

Yama: “Yes, he could still eat over ten pounds of meat at that time.”

Chu Xuanliang: “…”

“When we used to work, we could eat a lot too. I could drink five or six bowls of thin porridge at once, and I’d get hungry again soon. I can’t do that now.” Xie Zhihua added. “So I think she… isn’t too abnormal, right?”

Everyone: “…”

Chu Xuanliang said, “Those who can be competitive eaters must have stronger body structure, at least stronger digestive systems than ordinary people. Natural is natural, but if your daughter wasn’t such a big eater as a child, then it was stretched out later, which isn’t good.”

Xie Zhihua said urgently, “I know that! But she insists on eating, can’t help it. Can I stop her?”

They had talked for so long at the door, but Miumiu hadn’t even lifted her eyelids, completely treating them as if they didn’t exist. This was clearly not just a matter of eating a lot.

Xie Zhihua: “She’s just like this. She doesn’t like talking to people I bring back, acts indifferent. I’m sorry.”

Xie Zhihua walked into the room. “Miumiu…”

Miumiu had almost finished eating. Seeing her approach, she shrank back in fear, then suddenly burst out with hostility, charging at her as if to bite.

“Ah!” Xie Zhihua hurriedly ran back. “What are you doing!”

Chu Xuanliang stepped forward first, pressing against her forehead to push her back.

Her daughter’s strength was greater than imagined. As a grown man, Chu Xuanliang almost couldn’t hold her down. Jiang Feng helped from the side, immediately locking her arms and pressing her onto the bed. Yama drew out some kind of cloth strip from somewhere in the room, and the two men tied her hands and left her on the bed.

Chu Xuanliang took out a talisman from his body and stuck it to her forehead. Miumiu screamed twice and fainted again.

“This… this,” Xie Zhihua held Miumiu’s face, at a loss, and asked Chu Xuanliang, “What’s the situation? What should we do?”

Chu Xuanliang and Jiang Feng observed the girl for a while and decided to wait and see.

Chu Xuanliang said, “Let’s wait for her to wake up. Next time she wakes up, she should be lucid.”

Xie Zhihua: “But she is lucid! She talks to us normally. She remembers everything from before. When I ask her about what happened after she left, she answers too. What just happened was the first time!”

Chu Xuanliang had heard her say “first time” twice already and said helplessly, “The situation is worsening. Once there’s a first time, there’s easily a second time. These things can’t be rushed. We have to take it slowly.”

****

About an hour later, the girl on the bed woke up.

She opened her eyes, scanned around the room, then sat up very quietly.

Chu Xuanliang put down his phone and asked, “Are you lucid? Do you know who you are?”

“I’m very lucid. I just don’t want to pay attention to you all.” Miumiu said with mature disdain. “I only fainted when my mom came close to me, but I could still hear what you said afterward. I’m telling you, don’t think you feudal superstitious charlatans can trick our family’s money! You’re the ones who are abnormal!”

The group didn’t argue with her.

Chu Xuanliang asked, “What exactly happened during the years you were away? Did you encounter anything strange?”

Miumiu found her mirror among the messy snacks and began combing her hair, “I was making money!”

Yama: “So did you make money?”

Miumiu replied dissatisfied. “I will make money!”

Jiang Feng: “Looks like she didn’t make any.”

Miumiu: “F*ck!”

Chu Xuanliang: “…”

Are you two demons?

Miumiu tied up her hair, touched her bulging stomach, got up and went to the bathroom to induce vomiting.

She looked very skilled at it. The whole process took less than ten minutes. She used a tube to block her throat opening to prevent her voice from being corroded by stomach acid and becoming hoarse.

She walked back to the room shaking her hands, looking somewhat pale. Sitting at the table looking at the things on it, she couldn’t help but start unwrapping packages.

What kind of pathological eating habit was this?

Chu Xuanliang pressed down on her things with one hand and asked, “After all these years outside, why did you suddenly come back?”

Miumiu: “I…”

Jiang Feng understood. “She’s in debt.”

Miumiu bit her lip and looked at him with hatred.