The Journey of Immortal Cultivation

This early spring weather is truly uncanny. He muttered, then turned back into the warm house.

The door closed right in front of Qiu Niang’s face, just a hand’s breadth away from her pale, deathly face.

Her body trembled involuntarily, after a long time she slowly turned around, staring at the two and screamed: "He, he can’t see me? Why! Why is there another woman here, and a child? He, he..." Did he find another woman again? But they just parted half a day ago, where did that child come from?

The exhaustion of coming in the middle of the night, the pain of being betrayed by her lover, finally struck her down ruthlessly. Her voice was shrill, her fingernails deeply embedded into her palms, and stars of red light sparkled in her eyes.

Ning Xiaoxian spoke, even though she was clearly ten meters away, her voice distinctly reached Qiu Niang’s ears:

"Three years ago on the third day of the first lunar month, the farmer Wu Shuisheng rescued a woman from the wilderness in Wu Family’s granary. The woman had been thrown into a water ditch, her head covered in blood, bruised and swollen all over, and had fainted from the cold. The people of Wu Family’s granary thought that the cyan marks on her were from frostbite, and naturally helped out of kindness. When the woman woke up, her first words were ’Where is my official?’ She claimed to be Qiu Niang, saying her official’s name was Yan Ming, a craftsman who made rice cakes, and the family relied on this to live."

More than three years ago? Qiu Niang listened in a daze, her mind blank. Is she talking about... her? But why doesn’t she know, and why does it sound familiar, as if she had personally experienced it?

"The villagers of Wu Family’s granary didn’t expect that rescuing such a weak woman, unable to tie even a chicken, would bring the most terrifying demon to their doorstep—plague." Ning Xiaoxian slowly walked over, sighing, "Back then, the plague ravaged the continent, the Southwest Southern Continent was a severely affected area, especially with inconvenient rural transportation, so the antidote arrived much later, almost more than a year later than in large urban areas. In the meantime, countless people died. But Wu Family’s granary was used to being isolated from the world, and didn’t know how terrible this epidemic was. This woman stayed in Wu Family’s granary for only two days before spreading the disease, the first victim was Wu Shuisheng’s family."

From her clear, water-like eyes, Qiu Niang saw her own wide-eyed and embarrassed appearance. "Incidentally, Wu Shuisheng is the father of the two children you just saw after entering the village - that’s why he hates you so much, if it hadn’t been for his rescue of you from the wilderness, Wu Family’s granary would still be vibrant—then, the epidemic swept through the entire Wu Family’s granary with unstoppable force, within five days almost everyone was infected, only two villagers saw the danger and fled."

"They, they all eventually...?" Qiu Niang choked, tears falling from her eyes, not knowing why she was heartbroken, and the red light in her eyes gradually faded.

"You’ve also seen that burial ground," Ning Xiaoxian said coldly, "that sign was incorrect, it’s not only the 430 people from Wu Family’s granary buried there, but there’s also one more person buried there. That person is—"

"You."

"Because your bones are there, your soul subconsciously returns there again and again." She looked at the seated Qiu Niang on the ground and continued, "You are the source of the epidemic in Wu Family’s granary. The two who fled the village didn’t dare return until the antidote was delivered to the rural county level, then they returned home to bury their fellow villagers. Only from their mouths did others learn the beginning and end of the matter."

Qiu Niang slowly raised her head, her eyes already large and hollow: "I’ve been dead for three years already? Then now, I, I am also..." Her lips quivered, unable to continue.

Ning Xiaoxian finished her sentence for her: "You are also a resentful ghost. But you are different from the evil ghosts of Wu Family’s granary, they obsessively want to find you, torment you, and relieve the suffering you caused them; but you, you only wish to find your official."

She paused, a look of sympathy finally surfaced in her eyes: "So every year on the third day of the first lunar month, you’ll appear in the icy ditch of the wilderness, begging passing travelers for help, sometimes they can see you, sometimes they can’t. But no matter the method, you end up going into Wu Family’s granary for help, then being repeatedly tormented by the group of evil ghosts you personally harmed, until the rooster crows at dawn. Then it all dissipates, until the next third day of the first lunar month arrives, repeating infinitely."

"This year marks the third. If it weren’t for the two of us testing the ominous... abnormal spirit energy there, we wouldn’t have saved you from this predicament."

Her voice was not loud, yet it was like thunder, shattering Qiu Niang’s thoughts nearly to a halt. So she herself was already an evil ghost, why fear wolves, fear the people of Wu Family’s granary, she had died three years ago!

She repeated out loud: "But I don’t understand, it’s all so real, how could my official..."

"Your obsession is too deep, apart from pursuing what you want, you see nothing else." Ning Xiaoxian shook her head, "You don’t remember the location of your marital home because a month after your marriage you caught the epidemic. Your in-laws took advantage of your official going out for business, wrapped you in three layers of cotton jackets, and brought you to the wilderness by carriage, leaving you there. By then you were already on your last breath, leading to the subsequent series of tragic events... On the day of your death, you never actually rode on a cart with your spouse, it was merely a delusion."

She spoke deliberately: "You subconsciously want to avoid such a tragic past, so no matter how you try to remember you can’t recall your in-laws’ looks or where the bridal chamber is, the only memories left are of happy times with your official. Now think carefully, do you truly not remember them?"

She spoke gently, her voice entering Qiu Niang’s ears like an invisible barrier in her mind, "crack," shattering. A tide of memories surged, overwhelming her.

She remembered, she was the daughter of Lin Family in Xilin Village, married to Yan Ming from Xiushui Village, a small merchant, on the second day of the twelfth lunar month. Their marriage was full of love, always blissful. But on the twenty-ninth day of the twelfth lunar month, she returned from outside feeling weak, a high fever wouldn’t go away, and small red dots appeared on her body, slowly expanding into blue-purple bruises.

She always lived alone with her husband in a small courtyard after their marriage. Her husband had gone out two days earlier, the in-laws found it strange she couldn’t come for morning greetings for several days in a row and called a doctor. The conclusion they got was exactly what everyone was whispering about outside: plague!

At this time, the only way to deal with epidemic patients was: let them perish naturally. (To be continued. If you like this work, please feel free to vote for it on qidian.com, your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users please read at m.qidian.com.)