Chapter 12
Three o’clock in the morning, the crossroads.
The cool wind of the summer night blew through the empty and spacious street, and the clean and handsome youth stood in the middle of the road, looking at the golden light with an earnest expression and a sincere gaze. Lian Xi’s eyes grew hotter and hotter as he watched this mass of golden light come closer and closer, closer and closer, and then!
He brushed his shoulders and walked in front of the old woman ghost.
“It’s time for you to reincarnate.”
A low and indifferent voice faintly rang out, magnetic and nice voice, but without a hint of emotional colour.
Lian Xi: “….”
Su Jiao: “….”
Old woman ghost: “…..”
F*ck?!
The old woman ghost completely quit, she rolled on the ground: “Give the ghost a chance to live, is there any ghost rights left? What about the promised respect for the old and love for the young! One wants to help me cross the road, and the other wants to reincarnate the old woman? You told me to reincarnate and I did? Who are you ah? Are you my good grandson? Have you fulfilled my last wish? What makes you think that I want to be reincarnated? I just don’t …”
Suddenly!
The voice came to an abrupt end.
Only to see a well-boned hand land in front of the old woman ghost.
Without a doubt, it was an extremely good looking hand, thin and slender, white as jade. This hand pierced through the bright, blinding golden light and was laid out naked in front of the old woman ghost’s eyes. But what attracts the attention of the crowd at this moment is not this beautiful hand, but … a thin small book held in this hand!
This book is about the size of a person’s palm, black cover, simple and plain, the kind that is sold at a random kiosk in front of the school. The only difference is….
Its cover is printed with three big words: certificate of Wu Chang (demon regarded as the messenger of death).
In the golden light, came the man’s indifferent voice: “Just by virtue, I am the local Hei Wu Chang.”
Old woman ghost: “…..”
Lian Xi and Su Jiao: “….”
The next second,
“Die young! Killing ghosts!” The old woman pulled her legs out and ran, but the hand lightly grabbed her collar and yanked her back.
Casually throwing the Wu Chang Certificate back into the golden light, the golden light man picked up the old woman’s collar and unceremoniously dragged her across the road.
The old woman ghost struggled desperately, “I won’t cross the road, I want to wait for my good grandson! My good grandson told me to wait for him here, and that he would come back after helping my old man to help me cross the road! He promised me!”
GOLDEN LIGHT MAN: Keep dragging her over.
Old Woman Ghost: “I’m not going over, I’m not going!”
GOLDEN LIGHT MAN: Almost finished dragging.
The old woman ghost’s body trembled, repeating the phrase “I’m not going over there” over and over again. Her voice trembled more and more, and her eyes gradually turned crimson.
Lian Xi couldn’t see the man enveloped in golden light, but he could see the old woman.
This old woman was originally just an ordinary ghost with an unresolved obsession, but now, there was a tendency to change towards an evil ghost!
“Wait a moment!”
The golden light man was unmoved.
Lian Xi clenched his teeth and ran up. His hand passed through the golden light and grabbed the other man’s wrist.
The moment their bodies touched, both were stunned.
With a boom, the golden light that enveloped the man’s body in infinite brilliance suddenly collapsed!
Like crystalline glittering golden fireflies all over the sky, the dazzling points of light surrounded the man, gently enclosing him. They did not scatter, but floated in the air, as if they were all the stars cupping themselves around the moon in the night, all of them surrounding the person in the centre of the starlight.
Lian Xi slowly raised his head, and the man lowered his head.
In the next moment, the four eyes met, and the lines of sight met in the air.
The air was quiet for a moment.
Lian Xi’s gaze fell into a pair of dark and deep eyes.
Those were deathly silent eyes, like a deep and bottomless abyss, so cold that the surrounding area seemed to be entangled in endless blackness. And at the end of that extremely lonely blackness, in the depths of extreme coldness, was the harsh coldness of eternal solitude.
No one can touch, no one can reach.
Cold, merciless, lonely, and silent.
Lian Xi came back to his senses, he slowly lowered his head and looked at the place where his skin and the man’s skin touched.
This man’s hands were so cold.
This thought flew through his mind, Lian Xi silenced, let go of his hand, and said in a solemn tone, ”She never reincarnated because her last wish was for her grandson to help her cross the road. This old woman ghost died in the 1980s, when she and her companion went to the city to see a doctor, and just as she crossed to this intersection, she suffered a cerebral haemorrhage (stroke) and walked away, unable to make it through. She’s been wandering around here ever since.”
The golden man lowered his eyelids and looked at the youth in front of him who was explaining himself seriously.
The rightful phrase “None of my business” was on his lips, but a sudden unfamiliar heat came from his wrist. His eyes flickered, and after a moment, he let go of the hand holding the old woman’s ghost, looked down at the person in front of him, and curled his lips, “Oh, so what?”
Smack one’s lips (in alarm, surprise, etc.), the old lady ghost falls to the ground again.
Old Lady Ghost: “…..”
Su Jiao kindly walked over and helped her up.
Lian Xi looked at him with a calm expression, “If you don’t do anything like you just did, and aren’t even willing to pretend to be her grandson to help her cross the road, but instead force her to reincarnate, she will become an evil ghost.”
“Oh.” The handsome and peerless man opened the Wu Chang certificate and flipped through it, “It says —- Evil Ghost, beat to death, no responsibility.”
Lian Xi: “….”
Old woman ghost: “…..”
Seeing that the man was going to carry the shivering old woman ghost again and drag her hard across the road, Lian Xi shouted, “Wait!”
Su Jiao fearfully pulled the corner of Lian Xi’s coat and scowled at him: Black Impermanence aka Hei Wu Chang, the local Black Impermanence of Su City!
How could Lian Xi not understand what he meant?
Su Jiao had said more than once that Dark cultivators should keep their tails tucked tightly in the land of Su City. Once discovered by the local petty dead rabbit Black and White Impermanence (HeiBai Wu Chang) they would be made to die!
But this time …
Lian Xi clenched his teeth and said, “If you really think it’s too much trouble, it’s fine for me to help her cross the road.”
Su Jiao looked at Lian Xi in surprise, seemingly not understanding why he was being kind to this old woman ghost.
The golden light man, however, raised an eyebrow, his gaze flicked over Lian Xi and the old woman ghost, and he smiled, “Are you her grandson?”
Lian Xi: “No.”
Golden Light Man: “Then?”
Lian Xi took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, “But she helped me before.”
When these words came out, Jin Guang Nan aka Golden Light Man and Su Jiao both looked at Lian Xi with curiosity, only the old woman ghost still lowered her head, everyday kept repeating the same sentence, “I am waiting for my good behavior grandson”
Lian Xi closed his eyes and a helpless smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.
It was sixteen years ago.
His father died in a car accident. At the funeral, he sat quietly on the side, not crying or making a fuss, just quietly looking at his father’s cold and stiff face in the crystal coffin.
There were many voices ringing in his ears, many people walking by, but everything was inaudible and invisible.
He just watched his father silently.
Would Dad wake up if he kept watching?
Of course he would not wake up.
The body was taken to the crematorium, with Grandpa pulling him with one hand and holding his father’s ashes in the other.
Grandpa had experienced this twice before, once with his mother and once with his father.
In a trance he thought he heard someone from the relatives behind him say,”That’s the ill luck star!” He subconsciously tried to turn his head back, but Grandpa pulled his hand hard and didn’t let him look back. He raised his head, Grandpa was looking at him and smiling, “It’s nothing to do with Xi Xi. Xi Xi, if you want to eat something for lunch, Grandpa will make it for you.”
He nodded in confusion.
But Grandpa could control the gossip among relatives, but not the kids at school.
“Lian Xi, I heard your dad died!”
“Your mum died and so did your dad, so you’re a feral child without parents!”
“My mum said that he is an ill luck star, his mum and dad were both killed by him, let’s not play with him.”
On the way home, he squatted at a crossroads, hugging his knees and staring blankly ahead.
“At this intersection, when I was a kid, a little girl in a red dress looked back at me from the zebra crossing and asked me if I wanted to play with her. I thought she was human at the time and almost ran over with her.” Lian Xi said in a flat tone, he didn’t say the previous part, he just started from here, “When I was about to run over, it was this old granny who grabbed me.”
Lian Xi turned his head to look at the old woman who was squatting on the ground, shouting over and over again, “I’m waiting for my good grandson”, and said, “She said that I was the same age as her good grandson. When I turned back to look at the little girl, just as a car crashed past. That little girl had long disappeared.”
Su Jiao came to a realization, “No wonder you are so clear about what happened to this old woman before her death, and you even know when she died.”
Lian Xi nodded, “I investigated for a long time before I found out the cause of her death, but her family can’t be contacted at all, it seems like they moved away from Su City many years ago.” Lian Xi walked over to this old woman ghost and squatted down, “If you are willing, treat me as your grandson and I will help you over. You’ve been waiting here for forty years, every day you’ve waited with such bated breath. Now if you want to find your grandson, it’s almost impossible,as if you try to find a needle in a haystack.”
The old woman ghost shook her head desperately, “No, I want to wait for my good grandson!”
Lian Xi: “If I don’t help you over, look at him.”
The golden light man slightly raised one eyebrow.
Lian Xi: “He is going to beat you to death.”
Old Woman Ghost: “….”
The old woman ghost trembling stood up, she looked thin and weak, even Lian Xi’s hand over her shoulder and his other hand holding her left arm, so assisted her, step by step, slowly towards the opposite side of the road.
Gradually, the old woman ghost really treated him as her grandson. She touched Lian Xi’s hand and said with a smile, “Xiao Jun ah, how are you doing in school in the city, did you get any red marks.”
“I heard Old Li from the next village say that his granddaughter and you went to school together and you got better grades than his granddaughter. Every time I tell Old Li Guy about this, his old cucumber face says, ‘Oh, aiyou, you didn’t see it yo.”
“Xiao Jun, did mummy burn meat for you to eat.”
“Do you still have enough money?”
“Grandma’s room sewn many handkerchiefs , inside it, a lot of money, when you come home in the New Year, all for you to wrap the money given to children as a gift on Chinese New Year’s Eve!”
……
The road is not wide, he only walked for a minute, and then arrived.
After forty years, the old woman ghost took the last right step and finally walked to the opposite side of the road.
She let go of Lian Xi’s hands.
Lian Xi lowered his hands and looked down at her.
A pair of vicissitudes eyes, full of wrinkles. The old woman ghost stretched out her hand, Lian Xi bent down slightly, and just when that hand touched his hair, Lian Xi abruptly shook all over.
He raised his head.
This hand is just as …. warm and full of strength as in memory.
The golden light man and Su Jiao stood on the opposite side of the road.
The old woman ghost stroked Lian Xi’s hair, smiled at him, and said amiably: ”Don’t cry, a person sneakily squatting on the side of the road to drop golden beans, and almost being cheated by a ghost, let the old woman heartache. From now on, you will be a man, and it will be a shame to drop a golden bean shaped thing again!”
Lian Xi froze, he opened his mouth, his voice hoarse: “Granny….”
The old woman smiled, “Go!”
The author has something to say:
General Lie: hehe, the golden light man
Who’s that?
Fuwa (the five mascots of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games): Your laudatory title; good name! Honourable title! A term of endearment!
CC: What a big golden light [swallows Saliva].