Chapter Thirteen: A Life for a Life

“Do you take me for a fool? I won’t drink anything you left behind,” I replied.

Now that my marriage with Ye Weiyang was off, she likely wouldn’t get involved in my grandfather’s affairs either. With the situation so urgent, I had to go home immediately and find another way.

As I turned to leave, Ma the Cripple spoke again, “Back when your grandfather went into the mountains, he saw a naked child surrounded by a giant white python. He chased away the python and saved the child. Yi Wa, do you know who that naked child was?”

His words made my steps falter.

Still, I had no intention of paying Ma the Cripple any mind. He was a master at sowing confusion; I refused to listen to another word he said.

But he just wouldn’t stop.

“Sigh! Compared to your grandfather, your courage falls short. If you don’t dare drink that wine, so be it. Let me tell you what will happen if you touch alcohol. When you were little, you were mischievous and drank a bit once with that chubby Lin Wu from your village. I think you still remember that. Actually, I came to see you then—you broke out in scales all over, frightening everyone. Your grandfather was afraid you’d worry, so he gave you sedatives to make you sleep for three days…”

I couldn’t say why, but even though I believed Ma the Cripple was lying, his words left a sour taste in my heart.

He was like a venomous snake, every syllable dripping poison.

Ignoring him, I raced down the mountain, running all the way home.

But his words kept tearing at my mind, making my head throb with pain.

When I arrived, our front door was wide open.

Niu Dahuang had promised to look after my grandfather and not leave his side, but now he was nowhere to be seen. I found this odd.

Worried about my ailing grandfather, I rushed straight to his room.

Thank goodness—he was still there, lying on the bed with his back to me.

“You’re back?” my grandfather asked.

Surprised, I answered, “Mm.” I hadn’t expected him to speak.

He turned to face me, forcing a smile. “Child, don’t worry. This is just a small hurdle, nothing that will take this old life of mine. It’s a pity about your marriage. Looks like the Ma family will benefit after all!”

“Grandpa… you’re alright?” I was so emotional I hardly cared about the marriage. As long as he was alright, nothing else mattered.

“Yes, I’m fine.”

Wang the Spirit Woman had said that only if Ye Weiyang agreed to the engagement and helped would my grandfather survive. Seeing him recovered now—could it be that she saved him even without the engagement?

As my mind raced, my grandfather called, “Child, come here. Let me have a good look at you.”

He seemed frail, but he actually sat up in bed—he truly seemed recovered. Though I didn’t know why, at least he was alright.

The weight in my chest finally eased.

I sat down. My grandfather fixed me with a strange, hollow gaze. Just as I was about to ask if he was hungry and wanted something to eat, he suddenly reached out and grabbed my throat.

It happened without warning!

I didn’t have time to react.

His hands, icy and unyielding as iron pincers, locked around my neck with such force I thought he’d break it.

“Gra… Grandpa… cough… what are you…” I coughed, unable to speak.

But he stared at me, an icy, vicious smile on his lips, his grip unrelenting.

“Child, I’m truly sorry. To be honest, Ma the Cripple wasn’t wrong. When I brought you out of the mountains and raised you, it was never for anything but to shield me from calamity. My allotted years were up over a decade ago. I stole eighteen more, but no matter how much I take, it’s never enough. Child, I don’t want to die…”

Hearing this from his lips was like thunder striking my soul.

I felt my mind blur.

“No… I don’t believe it…” I refused to accept his words, struggling to break free, but I could not match his strength.

He looked at me kindly. “Child, I know this is hard to accept. Anyone in your place would find it impossible. But the truth of this world is often cruel and inescapable. Tonight is the end of my time. There’s only one way to save me now: to use you as a shield, life for life. Don’t worry—I won’t let you suffer. It’ll be over quickly…”

At those words, I grabbed the side of the bed, mustered all my strength, and rolled beneath it. The move threw us both off balance and we crashed to the floor.

I tumbled away, finally shaking off his iron grip, though my neck burned with pain.

I scrambled up and ran.

Grandfather chased after me. As I reached the front door, it slammed shut before I could escape. Through the window, I saw Niu Dahuang outside. He gave a cold, sinister smile and locked the door tight.

“Niu Grandpa, why are you locking the door? Let me out!” I shouted, but he didn’t respond. I never imagined he’d conspire with my grandfather to kill me.

Was everything Ma the Cripple said true?

I dared not dwell on it—the truth was too terrifying.

Leaning against the door, my body nearly gave out. My grandfather stood in the middle of the courtyard, the flickering lamplight casting a dim glow over his back. His face, cloaked in shadow, was sinister and cold.

He held an axe in his hand.

The axe gleamed as he approached. “Child, I raised you for eighteen years. It’s time you repaid that debt. Why are you hiding from your grandfather? Don’t you want to repay your upbringing?”

“No… You’re not him… You can’t be my grandfather…”

“That word, ‘grandfather,’ you’ve called me for eighteen years. How can you say I’m not?” he retorted.

With that, he lunged at me with astonishing speed. The axe whistled through the air as I dodged desperately; it smashed into a stone stool, sparks flying.

“Child, why do you run? Rest assured, my hand is quick—you won’t feel a thing…” He circled around and swung the axe at me again. This time, I stumbled backward and fell against a stone table. In the blink of an eye, he was upon me, crouching to seize my throat, the axe pressed to my windpipe.

Pinned, I couldn’t move.

In that desperate instant, I suddenly remembered the protective talisman Wang the Spirit Woman had given me. Out of sheer panic, I pulled it from my pocket and slapped it onto his forehead.

To my astonishment, the talisman sizzled on contact.

A plume of white smoke rose from his brow.

He screamed—a sharp, piercing wail.

His grip loosened. I kicked him in the shoulder, rolled away, and finally freed myself.

The ghosts on Old Grave Hill weren’t afraid of talismans, but this one subdued my grandfather—how unexpected.

Could it really be, as the peddler’s doggerel said, that my grandfather was a ghost?

After I escaped, he clutched his head, writhing on the ground, smoke still curling from his forehead, screaming in agony.

When he finally stilled, a charred black hole had been burned into his brow.

Then, his face began to change and shrivel.

In just a blink, his human features became a paper-white mask. From the hole in his forehead crawled a yellow weasel, barely alive as it landed on the floor.

The “grandfather” who had chased me was nothing more than a straw-and-paper effigy.

Gritting my teeth, I stomped the weasel dead and kicked it aside.

Staring at the effigy, my heart surged with emotion. I knew it—he wasn’t really my grandfather. How could my grandfather harm me? This was all Ma the Cripple’s doing!

The straw-and-paper man and weasel puppet were his usual tricks.

Now that I understood the truth, my nerves loosened and I sank to the ground, still shaken.

But I had no time to rest. Since that thing had been a puppet, not my real grandfather, where was my grandfather now?

I searched his bedroom, then his shrine.

Since the last time I’d seen that grinning paper figure, I hadn’t dared enter the shrine, haunted by a deep fear. But now, with my grandfather missing, I had to search, yet found nothing.

Nor did I see the paper-hanged ghost I dreaded so much.

I’d once wondered if the soul attached to that paper ghost was Hanzi—because the way it smiled was just like him.

With my grandfather missing, I had no choice but to seek Wang the Spirit Woman for help. There was no one else I could turn to; at least regarding Ye Weiyang, she hadn’t deceived me—it was my own failure to secure the engagement.

The door was locked, so I climbed the wall to get out.

But as soon as I landed, I saw someone standing in the middle of the road ahead, blocking my way.

He stood with his back to me, dressed in black funeral robes. On his shoulder crouched a black civet cat, its green eyes glowing eerily in the dark.