Chapter 22
Chapter 22
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 2
Chapter Title: The Endless Fog
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After this battle, Chen Shi felt both tired and drained. He dozed off in the cart, and by the time he woke, the wooden cart had already arrived at Huangpo Village.
Grandpa decocted the medicine, bustling back and forth until late into the night when it was finally ready.
Chen Shi drank down a whole basin of medicine and soaked himself in the medicinal vat, gradually falling asleep inside it.
Fortunately, the night passed without incident, and his old ailment did not flare up.
"Could my illness already be cured?"
He woke in the morning feeling quite happy, even finding Grandpa's breakfast not quite so unpalatable.
Moreover, Grandpa hadn't broken his promise on this trip to the county seat. He had indeed brought back treats: candied hawthorns, rice cakes, stinky tofu, and sugar figures, leaving Chen Shi grinning ear to ear.
"Grandpa's medicine works, and cultivating the Three Lights Righteous Qi Art every day works too. Maybe I really can cure my illness!"
Chen Shi dreamed of his future life and redoubled his efforts. After paying respects to Godmother, he cultivated the Three Lights Righteous Qi Art, borrowing the power of the Big Dipper to temper his body.
The day felt deeply fulfilling. In the evening, Chen Shi drank his medicine and took his medicinal bath. He cultivated the Three Lights Righteous Qi Art a little longer before finally lying down to sleep.
He slept for who knew how long, lost in sweet slumber, when suddenly a pain more intense than any before exploded in his chest. His heart convulsed violently!
Chen Shi jolted awake, realizing his old heart condition had struck again. He struggled on the bed, trying to sit up and circulate the Three Lights Righteous Qi Art to fight it off.
But the pain came on too fiercely, sapping every ounce of his strength. His heart felt crushed flat, squeezed into a lump, halting the blood flow through his body!
He tried to gasp for air, but no breath would come.
The air in his lungs seemed drained away by some cyan ghostly hand!
"Grandpa! Grandpa!"
Terror engulfed Chen Shi. He opened his mouth to call out, but no sound emerged from his throat.
It was still the dead of night, and Grandpa wasn't home. There was no way for him to sense the danger.
"Blackie Pot! Blackie Pot!"
Chen Shi tried to call for Blackie Pot, but still no sound came out. The big black dog in the yard seemed to hear something. It lifted its head and pricked up its ears, then shook its head and settled back into sleep.
Chen Shi's vision grew dimmer and dimmer, blackness swallowing the moonlight outside, then the rafters overhead.
His eyelids grew heavier, his mind more muddled. His body twitched uncontrollably, like a fish flopping on dry land.
His body thrashed violently on the bed twice before going still. His limbs twitched now and then, but slower and weaker with each spasm.
In the end, Chen Shi lay quiet.
In the darkness, a faint light pierced the blackness before his eyes.
He opened his eyes. Thick, snowy mist surrounded him on all sides. From the distance came piteous howls—humanlike, yet like those of wounded beasts.
Chen Shi stared wide-eyed, straining to peer into the surroundings, but saw nothing.
"Grandpa!"
He shouted at the top of his lungs.
"Grandpa!" "Grandpa!"
Voices echoed back from the mist—from every direction, every corner—calls for "Grandpa," whether echoes or something stranger, he couldn't tell.
Fear closed in around Chen Shi. He knew he should stay put and wait for Grandpa to find him, but his feet moved of their own accord.
His body felt lighter than ever before, weightless as if it didn't exist. The mist flowed through him like fine grains of weightless white sand, icy cold.
"I'm probably dead," Chen Shi thought sadly.
Footsteps sounded in the mist. He turned toward the noise and saw another figure: a young woman, pale-faced and dazed, shuffling forward.
Blood oozed from her neck. As she walked, fresh blood gushed from a slit there, staining her clothes.
She opened her mouth as if to speak, but Chen Shi heard nothing.
She bowed her head in sorrow—and it tumbled off, hitting the ground.
The woman crouched and groped blindly around her, unable to find her head.
Her helpless sobs echoed through the mist.
After a moment, she found it. She cradled the head and placed it back on her neck, then silently fell in step behind Chen Shi, neither hurrying nor lagging.
Another figure emerged from the mist: a potbellied man who looked like someone of wealth and power. Gold and silver adorned him, and he carried an air of arrogant command. But now he was wretched, stabbed countless times, blood still pouring from his wounds.
His belly especially—a mass of fat intestines had spilled out, dragging on the ground.
Laboriously, he scooped up his guts with both hands and followed after Chen Shi.
Chen Shi trudged onward in a daze, encountering more souls in the mist. Each had died in their own horrific way: some missing arms or legs, some with skulls caved in, hearts and livers burst open, bodies oozing pus. Others were half-blown away, charred to cinders...
Strangely, Chen Shi felt no fear. He had seen too many ghosts and spirits by now.
"I must be dead."
Gloom settled over him.
"I died in agony on my bed. Grandpa didn't notice. Blackie Pot didn't either. When they find my body tomorrow, they'll be heartbroken."
He wondered what his face looked like. If it was too twisted and gruesome, Grandpa would cry.
He didn't want Grandpa to cry.
Ahead stretched a long procession, endless to the eye, countless figures marching mechanically through the snowy mist toward some unknown destination.
Chen Shi led his bizarre followers forward and merged with the column.
They pressed on, more souls joining the throng.
Now people crowded in front of and behind Chen Shi too—other processions converging. They shuffled along like walking corpses, endless in both directions.
More columns appeared ahead, a vast black mass. Strangest of all, for all these numbers, not a sound rose from them.
Only the occasional piteous howl drifted from the mist.
Suddenly, a massive claw thrust from the fog—bony and scaly, nothing like a human hand. It seized one soul and yanked it back into the mist, followed by the sound of chewing.
"Hee hee hee!"
Something laughed from the mist.
Fear gripped Chen Shi's heart, but those around him paid it no mind, trudging numbly onward.
More claws emerged from the mist, snatching souls one by one and dragging them away. Chewing and giggling echoed from all sides.
It was as if they had stumbled into a gluttonous feast held amid the fog. They were the banquet's fare, while the monsters lurking in the mist savored them like connoisseurs.
Chen Shi didn't dare go forward, but his legs ignored him, marching mechanically ahead.
The "connoisseurs" multiplied in the surrounding mist, their giggles growing louder. More claws reached out, plucking away souls who offered no resistance.
Chen Shi's scalp crawled. A bony hand lunged for him. He tried to dodge, but his body kept marching straight ahead—he couldn't escape!
Just as the hand was about to close on him, a "dong-dong" drumming sounded. It was like a drum—or perhaps a battered gong—muffled and rasping, startling the claw into retreat.
"Chen Shi—"
A call came from behind him, faint, accompanied by the drumming.
A trace of incense smoke wafted into Chen Shi's nose, equally faint.
"Little Ten—"
This call rang clearer—Grandpa's voice. The gong grew distinct too.
"Grandpa!"
Tears streamed down his face.
Grandpa's voice came again.
"Little Ten, follow the sound!"
Chen Shi strained with all his might to halt his steps. Turning around was agony. Each stride toward the sound felt like treading a mountain of blades or wading through fire—searing pain tore at his legs.
He pushed forward, guided by the intermittent sound, carried only on the drumbeats and whiffs of incense. Without them, he lost all sense of direction.
The crowd surged around him. He alone moved against the flow, battered and stumbling.
He walked for what felt like forever, still trapped in the feast. Claws lurked everywhere—he could be snatched away at any moment.
Just when he thought he could bear no more, the snowy mist parted. A colossal beast charged through, nostrils flaring with smoke and fire, feet pounding the earth in quakes.
Up close, Chen Shi saw it was a black dog—like Blackie Pot, but enormously larger, the size of a small hill.
"Blackie Pot, is that you?"
The black dog resembled a demon god from the underworld—fierce and savage, eyes blazing. It scorched the reaching claws, then snapped one clean off with a crunch of fangs. Its nose twitched, sniffing the incense. Its burning eyes rolled, fixing on Chen Shi.
"Huff huff!"
The mountain-sized Blackie Pot wagged its tail in excitement, whipping up gusts of wind. It crouched low, letting Chen Shi clamber onto its back, then wheeled and bolted away.
"Dong dong!"
The drumming grew louder, Grandpa's calls clearer. Chen Shi clung to the black dog's fur atop its back when suddenly light flooded his vision—blindingly bright.
He threw up a hand to shield his eyes. A joyful voice rang out.
"Awake at last—Little Ten's finally awake!"
Chen Shi blinked, adjusting to the light. He looked around in confusion. He lay in a dim, unfamiliar room thick with incense smoke that blackened the walls.
In the corner sat an old woman with white hair wrapped in a turban. She held something gonglike and tapped it gently, producing a sound like drum and gong mingled with a rasping hiss.
A large brazier sat on the floor, paper talismans burning inside. The flames leaped high—taller than a man.
Behind the blaze crouched a big black dog, its eyes aglow like embers, nostrils puffing wisps of smoke. It was Blackie Pot.
Grandpa sat on the brazier's other side, a swirling orb of water and fire hovering above his head.
"Where am I?" Chen Shi wondered to himself.