Part 2
The madwoman hadn’t died. Her head was still swaying slowly and steadily with her breath, but she was in a trance, unable to perceive the outside world, her mouth only knowing how to repeat one sentence.
“Everyone in the Hirakawa family deserves to die.”
In the ancestral hall, the Dukou suddenly raised a sharper voice, shouting repeatedly: “They all deserve to die! Every single one of them! Those animals, I cannot tolerate a single bastard living!”
The hollow sockets used all their strength to project her hatred as she recounted the rest of the story.
“I stayed in that wooden box for exactly one year and three days. I don’t even know how I endured it. I felt insects crawling all over me. My body, which hadn’t seen the light of day inside the box, was constantly rotting, emitting a foul, nauseating, and pungent gas. The maggots on the rotten meat wantonly gnawed on my flesh and blood, burrowing into my blood vessels to lay eggs, and then countless insects roamed through my body.”
“Some insects crawled up my face, into my hair, into my ears, and from my ears into my eyes, eating my body bit by bit. In the end, I couldn’t see clearly with either of my eyes. My tongue, my noseāall were eaten clean.”
“They caused it all. Everyone knew how to save me, but not one of them wanted to.”
“But the Hirakawa family didn’t know that while the insects were gnawing on my body, I was also gnawing on theirs. Relying on them, I held on for a year. I knew I was waiting for the box’s final time. It could help me take revenge. Anyone who approached the box would be drained of their life force and die.”
Jiang Si looked down at the small Dukou rolling on the floor and asked, “Who dismembered your body?”
There was only a head in Ning City, which meant the body had been distributed and placed in other cities.
The Dukou sneered. “It was a high monk they hired. He said my resentment was too heavy and that they had to find several identical boxes, divide me into four pieces, and lock them in separately. Only then could my curse be diminished.”
“Do you know? The Hirakawa family home was a very large and damp wooden estate, just like this ancestral hall, with the smell of mold everywhere. Those people thought they could solve the problem by dismembering me. To keep outsiders from knowing, they spent a lot of money to silence the high monk and buried the four boxes in the four cornersāEast, South, West, and North. They called it ‘using human aura to suppress the curse’.” The Dukou hummed a laugh. “They were wrong.”
“They thought it was just me, but actually, I have many people with me. Inside this box, there are countless fingernail marks scratched by people. Each mark is a person. Those fools even found four identical boxes to lock us in. It was simply seeking their own deaths.”
“So everyone else died because of you and these boxes?” Jiang Si asked. “Then how did Hirakawa Haruhara escape?”
“…” The Dukou said, “He was like you; he wanted to set me on fire. I let him go, and he ran away.”
“Just when I thought he would never return, decades later, he actually came back. He was still afraid that the family curse would spread to him, so he specifically came to resolve us ‘hazards’. He felt that since I wanted revenge, he would simply find a group of people to block the death for him. Once I had vented my anger, he could live well.”
Jiang Si pursed his lips. “So, he specifically opened a script murder game shop and decorated it like the Hirakawa home, inducing unknowing players to come in for soul-summoning rituals. In reality, it was to let you absorb their fortune to calm your anger?”
“Thatās right.” The Dukou sneered. “He’s afraid of death; he didn’t even dare to come. He found one of your countrymen to be a partner and tricked him into ghostwriting a story. As soon as I was brought over, that partner died. He was also a fool, believing anyone.”
The disdain in its tone was obvious to everyone. The people present were not cold-blooded animals; hearing that so many innocent people had died in the calculated plots of this family, it was impossible not to be angry.
Jiang Si kicked the Dukou and said coldly, “Itās one thing to seek revenge on the Hirakawa family, but everyone else is innocent. They not only did nothing wrong, but many were even sympathetic to you. Do you truly feel no guilt for absorbing their fortune like a parasite?”
“Whatās there to be uneasy about? Human nature is inherently lowly and filthy. What does sympathy count for? Could it let me out of the box?” The Dukou spoke as if it were only natural and even laughed a few times, floating into the air as if eye-to-eye with Jiang Si. “Don’t forget, I can take your life too!”
Jiang Si looked past it at Jiang Laotou and suddenly felt an indescribable sense of peace. He didn’t care at all about its threat. He even reached out and grabbed it, smiling. “You can try and see if I’ll turn you into ashes.”
The Dukou was silent for a long while, then said hatefully, “Today, I must kill Hirakawa Haruhara.”
“No one from the Hirakawa family can be left.”
“Do you know where he is?”
“He’s too far away; I can’t sense him.” The Dukou cursed, “Maybe he’s already run to another country; he’s so greedy for life and afraid of death.”
“I’ll find him.” Hai Di finally spoke, ignoring the other gazes as if no one else were there. He looked at Jiang Si earnestly and said, “I should know how to contact him.”
“Mhm.” Jiang Si nodded.
The Dukou added a requirement: “I want him to appear in this city. Only then can I act.”
Before Hai Di could speak, Jiang Laotou said in a heavy voice, “According to Dongying custom, a woman takes her husband’s surname after marriage. You yourself are a member of the Hirakawa clan. Do you remember?”
“…”
Jiang Laotou didn’t care if it responded and continued, “In the mortal world, those who slaughter an entire clan are punished with lingering death. The judgment in the underworld for slaughtering one’s own kin is even heavier. In hell, one must suffer through each of the eighteen levels. Are you sure you’ve thought it through and want to kill this last person?”
“I must kill him.” The Dukou gritted its teeth. “The blood in him is so filthy; it should have been extinct long ago. His father… was born of my being forced. I regretted sparing his life back then.”
“Fine.” Jiang Laotou nodded. “At the hour of Zishi, the Yinchai will promptly take you to the Yellow Springs.”
“Even if you are temporarily left behind, this box can no longer remain.”
The wooden box had become a spirit, a plague upon the world.
Spirits and monsters are not like human ghosts; when they do wrong, there is no underworld to punish them. Once such a thing turns to the evil path, there is only one way: destroy it.
Jiang Si turned around and took out a stack of yellow paper, lighting it and tossing it toward the empty wooden box.
The Dukou was about to say that the box couldn’t be easily burned, but it didn’t expect that when the paper caught fire, it faintly shimmered with gold light. When it touched the wooden box, it consumed it almost instantly.
“What kind of paper is this? How can it be so strange?” Xiang Guxun, enduring the foul odor, spoke in surprise.
“It’s just ordinary yellow ritual paper,” Jiang Si said. “I kept it pressed under a Taishan Shi stone all night. Itās perfect for burning evil spirits.”
The paper ash flew like white butterflies, drifting outward.
When the wooden door was pushed open, gold light poured in. Before Jiang Si could even step over the threshold, he saw both Hai and Lin looking over. The two were not only similar in age, but their expressions were also perfectly synchronized, like puppies with damp eyes full of expectation.
“How is it?” Hai Moyun was the first to lose patience and ran over.
“It can be settled today,” Jiang Si said, looking at Hai Di. Hai Moyun followed his gaze expectantly. “Brother.”
Hai Di nodded in agreement.
Hai Moyun noticed there were only the two of them and asked in surprise, “Is one missing? Where is Daozhang Xiang?”
“He’s dealing with that pile of spirit tablets.” Jiang Si looked back inside. Although there were no ghosts, they were still formal spirit tablets, and Xiang Guxun had to perform a ritual to properly settle them before destroying them.
Jiang Laotou, after explaining the matters, had left directly without a single extra word.
Jiang Si hadn’t seen him in years; to say he wasn’t disappointed would be a lie. But with official business at hand, he could only push those emotions aside. Seeing Xiang Guxun finish and come out, he asked, “About what comes nextā”
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