Chapter 102: Chapter 83: Incense Burner

Skinny barely recognizes a few characters. As he recounts past events, the narrative is clear, with one suspense following another, making Kou Yushan uneasy, while Sang Que becomes alert.

Now, as Skinny speaks, it seems just like the background introduction in those old mom’s novels, like the narrative voice.

This implies that Skinny is completely influenced by the storyteller’s tale, and now all they say and do are under the storyteller’s control and influence.

This makes Sang Que uncomfortable, like a puppet being manipulated, yet this story’s background cannot be ignored.

After listening, she briefly organizes her thoughts: Skinny’s maternal grandfather had three children—two daughters and a son.

His maternal grandfather worked as a helper in a funeral shop in the city, and in the year Skinny’s mother, the younger daughter, turned fifteen, the shopkeeper faced a family crisis and wanted to sell the funeral shop.

Skinny’s maternal grandfather then had the idea, going so far as to sell his two daughters to the Ming Family as slaves to buy the shop.

The Ming Family was wealthy and generous, allowing his grandfather to own the shop.

Unfortunately, the two daughters, aged sixteen and fifteen, became maids of the Ming Mansion and were to be matched by the owner’s family at the age of twenty, usually to their servants, hencefore becoming servants of the Ming Family for generations unless the family graciously released them.

The sisters were named for their qualities, the elder being Zhou Hui Lan, and the younger Zhou Huixin, who was Skinny’s mother.

Upon entering the Ming Mansion, they weren’t given new names; they simply dropped their last names and were still called Huilan and Huixin.

The sisters and other newly bought girls were bullied in the Ming Mansion, ostensibly to teach them rules but in practice, the menial labor no one else wanted was shoved onto them.

Fortunately, the sisters looked after each other and gave each other warmth. Though life was hard, they managed to carry on.

Until one day, the managing granny had to choose someone to take care of the Ming Family’s eldest daughter, who was always locked in the backyard—a freak of their generation.

The legend was that the freak was born entirely white, with blood-red eyes and white hair, resembling a beast, and had to drink human blood and eat human flesh daily.

However, it was a family rule of the Mings that such a freak couldn’t be killed casually but had to be sustained till natural death, claiming it warded off disasters for the Mings, much like a Village Guardian. Without the freak, the Ming Family wouldn’t have today’s prosperity.

Thus, the northeastern corner of the Ming Mansion contained a separate estate specifically for these freaks.

The previous maid serving the freakish eldest daughter was said to have been bitten to death and had her blood drained, hence the need to choose a new maid.

Huixin, the younger sister, was chosen because of her prettiness, leading to jealousy and lacking money to bribe the granny, causing her to faint from fright when announced.

Elder sister Huilan couldn’t bear to see her sister suffer and begged the granny, eventually taking over the duty herself.

Then, the sisters parted ways for a full three months, during which Huixin did not see Huilan.

Huixin prayed daily to various Ghost Gods for her sister’s safety, not expecting another calamity to befall her.

While others worshiped Wine Gods, the Mings dedicated a shrine to a ’Nie God’ on their back mountain, and the pure white color and unparalleled sweetness of Ming’s Jade Liquid were attributed to it.

Around Mid-Autumn Festival each year, a propitious day was chosen, and the entire family would worship this Nie God and offer a bride.

Every year!

Nine girls!

Huixin was chosen once more, or rather, the maid batch they were bought from was originally intended for the Nie God.

Thinking she was doomed again, who would have expected elder sister Huilan to find her the night before her wedding?

Huilan gave Huixin two talismans and some silver coins, sending Huixin out of the Ming Mansion through a broken wall in the rear yard, then wore the wedding dress to take her sister’s place in the sedan, buying her sister time to escape.

“…Later, my mother relied on those two exorcism talismans and fled all the way to Dongyang County, and soon after heard that a mountain fire broke out on Cuiyun Mountain that night, burning the entire Ming Mansion. The government and the Evil Suppression Bureau investigated, but no results were known, and for over fifty years, nothing has happened at that ruin.”

Skinny sighed and continued, “My mother resented my grandfather at the time and didn’t return home. Her contract was still with the Mings, so she was a slave by status. She then used the silver that Aunt Huilan gave her to hire a carriage and went to Tangyuan County. Shortly after, she met my dad, who said the village chief of Black Mountain Village was kind and willing to take her in despite her lack of household registration, and that’s where she finally settled.”

Kou Yushan nodded, as he and his older sister were also accepted by the village chief when they arrived at Black Mountain Village.

Most other villages were populated by residents with the same surname, like Shihe Village where everyone was a Shi, but Black Mountain Village had many surnames. The old village chief, Du Enfu, held scholarly honors and seemed to have connections, helping them with registration.

“After my mother got married, she had three children in succession, but none survived, leaving her dispirited and longing for her family. My father secretly wrote to my grandfather, and later, my uncle visited with a wagonful of goods.”

“Only then did my mother learn that soon after the incident at the Ming Mansion, my grandfather and grandmother fell ill and died painfully. My mother said it was retribution and cried a lot after hearing this. She was over forty when she had me, but unfortunately, my father passed away when I was ten, and since then my mother has alternated between lucidity and confusion.”

Sang Que was silently contemplating. There certainly were hidden facts in Skinny’s mother’s story, and the nursery rhyme she kept singing was related to the sisters being sold.

The thousand-headed Wan that Yan Daozi saw said the nursery rhyme was a curse, and staying away from the curse’s source would be safe. Thus, was the source Shouhou’s family’s well or the sister Huilan who died at the Mings?

The Nie God worshiped by the Mings, the freakish eldest daughter, and others—these would definitely be vital horror elements in the storyteller’s tale.

Sang Que looked at the door leading to the depths of the Ming Mansion, hesitating about entering the ’story’ to find the storyteller.

The previous page had a line written: ’I enter the game with my body.’ ’I’ is self-referential, indicating that the storyteller wrote himself into the ’story,’ so there’s a high chance he’s somewhere in the Ming Mansion.

But what is the purpose of writing such a story? Like a fisherman using himself as bait, he probably wants to catch a big fish.

“Could you tell me something about this ’storyteller’?” Sang Que asked Kou Yushan.

Kou Yushan thought for a moment and said, “The storyteller is one of the Nine Songs; the Nine Songs has nine members, all witch-exorcists under the Witch Lady, with each having their own duties. The storyteller is responsible for spreading the Witch Lady’s oracle, conveying messages to the people, and revealing injustices everywhere.”

“Bringing hidden truths out to the public, letting them know that Ghost Gods are always watching, good and evil have their rewards, it’s just the timing that’s uncertain, and evildoers will surely be punished.”

Sang Que nodded; this seemed akin to news and propaganda, showing that the Witch Lady’s Nine Songs had a well-structured organization.

“How many storytellers are there?” Sang Que continued to ask.

Skinny looked at Sang Que in confusion, “One is already frightening enough!”

Kou Yushan nodded, “The inheritors behind the storyteller will change, but there’s only one identity. Like the Nine Songs and the Evil Suppression Bureau, each has an ’incense burner’ representing them. Like the Evil Suppression Bureau Night Wanderer’s mask, what’s behind the mask isn’t important; as long as he wears it, people know he can travel the night as a Night Traveler.”

Sang Que suddenly understood, realizing why when encountering He Buning and the others, they all wore ghost masks. The mask was the incense burner, a vessel carrying the people’s Incense Fire Wishing Power.

The people believed in the Night Traveler represented by the mask rather than the person behind it. Regardless of who’s beneath it—male or female, old or young—it didn’t matter.

In this way, even if a Night Traveler dies, the good deeds and accumulated incense during their life wouldn’t dissipate as it would stay attached to the mask and continue spreading.

As long as the incense burner remains with the Evil Suppression Bureau, their authority and power won’t weaken despite personnel loss, and instead will grow stronger over generations.

The true iron-clad Evil Suppression Bureau!

“The storyteller has a pure white mask and a folding fan on which is written ’Expose all the injustices in the world and the universe will be bright again.’”

“So it seems the storyteller is a righteous individual?” Sang Que asked.

As soon as she spoke, Skinny shook his head forcefully, and Kou Yushan also looked grim.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep