Chapter 90
Chapter 90
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 90
>Chapter Title: Lass
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“Hee hee, you broke the rules.”
The voice was very thin, a bit like a woman’s but not entirely.
The instant he heard this voice, Li Huowang inexplicably recalled the small-footed woman who had summoned the Joy God back then. She had the exact same voice.
When Li Huowang led the others out from the house into the courtyard, faces full of wariness, they saw a little head propped up on the wall to the left of the house.
A yellow-haired little girl who looked only five or six years old was hanging off the tall wall, giggling down at them. Her sheep-horn braids, tied up with red string, stuck out high and perky.
“Red!”
The moment Li Huowang spotted the red string on her head, his heart thumped hard.
“Could this child be the one from the eighteenth of the twelfth month?”
Seeing the girl still chuckling there, Li Huowang thought for a moment before slowly speaking.
“I broke the rules, but you’re not much better. Isn’t it forbidden to go out at night? So why are you still outside?”
“I’m a kid! Adults can’t come out, but of course kids can play outside.”
Facing Li Huowang and the others, the child showed no hostility whatsoever.
She shifted her head to the side and continued giggling.
“If you give me some candy, I won’t tell anyone.”
Seeing the little head move, the others’ eyes went wide. The walls of the Wu family compound were very high—at least two zhang.
Yet this little girl moved so effortlessly along the top of the wall. That meant she wasn’t standing on a ladder—she was just standing there!!
Li Huowang stared at that tiny head and the dusty gray wall stretching down below it.
No matter how he tried, he couldn’t picture what kind of body went with an ordinary little head that was six meters off the ground. A stick insect?
“Hee hee, are you gonna give me candy or not? If you don’t, I’ll yell for people.”
The little girl on the wall kept chattering.
“Of course! Don’t rush me. I don’t have any candy on me right now—I have to go get some first.”
After playing along with her words, Li Huowang turned sideways and quietly instructed Gouwa beside him.
Hearing Li Huowang’s words, terror spread across Gouwa’s face. But when Li Huowang stuffed the ritual bell into his arms, Gouwa finally nodded and turned to head back into the house.
“Alright, he’s gone to get the candy. Wait just a bit. Since we’ve got nothing to do, how about we chat?”
“Sure! Sure! I love chatting.”
The little girl seemed utterly innocent.
Facing this unknown entity, friend or foe, Li Huowang kept his tone extremely gentle.
“Whose kid are you? How come I didn’t see you at the village entrance before?”
“I don’t know whose kid I am either. They all say I’m the Kitchen God’s child, but I don’t look anything like that Kitchen God plastered on the wall.”
“Oh? You don’t look like the Kitchen God? I think you do—a little. You both love candy so much. I remember during the Kitchen God festival, my grandpa used to smear pastries right onto his portrait’s mouth.”
As Li Huowang spoke, his right hand quietly rested on the red bamboo slips behind him.
The girl’s sheep-horn braids swung back and forth as she shook her head.
“You’re talking nonsense. The Kitchen God clearly has four pairs of eyes and five hands, and he doesn’t have any feet. How do I look anything like him?”
Hearing her blurt out these words without a care, a chill ran down everyone’s spines. This was nothing like the Kitchen God in their minds.
“Little girl, you’re making this up, right? How could the Kitchen God have five hands? And if he has no feet, how does he walk?”
Hearing Li Huowang’s deliberate doubt, the little girl got anxious.
“How am I making it up? I saw it with my own eyes! And who says you can’t walk without legs? The Kitchen God can stick his red intestines out from his belly button to use as feet!”
The instant she finished speaking, Gouwa’s terrified voice came from the other side of the wall, sounding like he was on the verge of tears.
“Senior Brother Li!! This damn girl has no body!! It’s just a head!!”
Whoosh!
The girl’s head instantly vanished below the wall, followed by Gouwa’s utterly miserable scream.
“Ring the bell!!”
Gritting his teeth, Li Huowang rushed toward the Wu family compound’s gate.
When they reached the other side of the wall, they saw Gouwa shivering and wailing on his knees, kowtowing nonstop. His pants were soaked through.
Li Huowang glanced around the pitch-black alley and yanked Gouwa up by the collar, snatching back his bell.
“Stop kowtowing! Quick, tell me! Where did that head go just now!”
Seeing Gouwa’s trembling hand point east, Li Huowang tossed him aside, sword in one hand and lantern in the other, and gave chase.
In the pitch blackness, everything around seemed to turn into man-eating monsters, clawing and snapping between the shadows and the lantern light.
But after sprinting for a good while, Li Huowang hadn’t caught up to the girl’s head. Instead, he’d ended up in unfamiliar surroundings—it looked like he’d reached the end of the village, with the bamboo grove in the distance.
Cursing under his breath at having found nothing, Li Huowang turned and regrouped with the others rushing over with their lanterns.
No matter what that girl was, he could basically guess it was closely tied to the one from the eighteenth of the twelfth month—even if it wasn’t that entity itself. He was in the right place. The one from the eighteenth of the twelfth month was here.
When Li Huowang approached those lanterns, he froze. They were his companions, but they all stood rooted in place, holding their lanterns straight ahead, their backs turned uniformly to him.
“What are you all doing??”
Li Huowang warily stepped back half a pace and gripped his ritual bell tight.
The moment he asked, they all turned around at once. Their faces had changed! Every single face had become the girl’s face!
These identical girl faces giggled in unison.
“Hee hee hee, you broke the rules again. You didn’t give me candy, so I’m telling everyone. They’ll come find you.”
Ding ding ding ding~~!!
The piercing bell rang out, and in that instant, the figures vanished like darkness hit by light.
The shrill bell in the blackness was impossible to miss. Before long, the other fellow disciples rushed over—but this time, their faces were their own again, no girl heads.
After cautiously verifying with them details only Clear Wind Temple disciples would know, Li Huowang finally breathed a sigh of relief. These were real.
“Senior Brother Li, what happened?”
“Nothing. Just an illusion.”
Li Huowang shook his head, scanned the surrounding darkness—no anomalies—and led the others back the way they’d come.
Yet shortly after they left, a pair of blood-red eyes snapped open in the darkness.
(End of chapter)