Chapter 32: Chapter 32: The Fall of the Buddha Mother

Li Ruonan curled up on the ground, clutching her head and shouting uncontrollably, “I didn’t do it! I really didn’t! They came after me first! Please… let me go! The village chief is still waiting for me, I’m begging you…”

“Hmph! If we let you go, who’s going to give us justice?”

“My family has had no peace because of you! You’re a menace!”

“Oh, dear. It’s so cold in here. We can’t let our village’s great Goddess freeze, can we? Quick, find a quilt and cover the Goddess!”

A few of the girls giggled as they shoved her under the quilt as if she were a corpse. The quilt was thick, stuffy, and hot.

“Pile it on. We can’t have you catching a cold. We’re being pretty nice to you, aren’t we? This treatment befits your high station.”

“It’s the middle of summer. What if she dies from the heat under all this? If she dies, we’ll have no way to answer to the village chief!”

“She’s the Goddess. She has divine protection. She won’t die, don’t you worry.”

“Don’t you move! If you dare throw off these covers, we’ll call everyone over and humiliate you in front of the entire village!”

…

The sweltering August heat was already suffocating. Wrapped in layers of thick cloth, she felt like she had been thrown into a steamer.

’So hot… I can’t breathe… Someone, save me…’

Just as her consciousness began to fade, Shen Zhiyao’s shout suddenly cut through the haze. “Li Ruonan! Wake up! Snap out of it!”

The cool, crisp voice pierced the chaos, but her mind felt heavy as lead, refusing to clear. Seeing Li Ruonan’s breathing grow faint, Shen Zhiyao slapped her face twice, finally pulling her back to reality.

“What… what happened?”

“An illusion. It’s a common tactic of the Buddha Mother. If you get trapped and can’t wake up, your body gives out.”

’So… that suffocating feeling just now was real!’ Li Ruonan broke out in a cold sweat and quickly asked, “My daughter? Where is she?”

“On the rooftop!” Shen Zhiyao said, pushing open the last iron door.

The rooftop beyond was littered with human bones, piled layer upon layer as high as a staircase—it seemed the villagers had all met their end here.

Her footsteps made a crisp, cracking sound on the white bones.

Li Jiajun stood at the edge of the rooftop, still dancing ceaselessly. She would spin on her toes, each movement like a precarious walk along a cliff’s edge, making one’s heart leap into their throat.

Hearing the noise, she slowly turned around. Her eyes were blood-red, and her voice carried an eerie echo. “Li Ruonan… You’re finally here… I’ve waited for you for fifteen years…”

She threw her arms out, performed an exaggerated spin, and suddenly erupted in laughter. “Li Ruonan, Li Jiajun… HAHAHAHA…”

Her laughter was both crazed and mournful. Li Ruonan suppressed the terror in her heart and took a step toward her, then another.

Still laughing, Li Jiajun’s body began to tilt over the edge of the building. A few bones under her feet rolled away, and for a moment, it looked as though she was about to plummet.

Terrified, Li Ruonan rushed forward, screaming, “Don’t! Whatever you want, take it out on me! I’m begging you, don’t hurt my daughter! She’s just a child!”

“A child? She’s a child… So you do know how to feel sorry for someone!” The entity laughed even more wildly. “Then why didn’t you feel sorry for me back then? Do you have any idea how heartbroken I was?!”

Li Ruonan took a step back, watching her warily. “You’re not my daughter… Just who are you?”

“Forgotten me already? How hurtful.”

A sinister wind gusted past. An eerie red light began to glow from Li Jiajun’s body, and the talisman markings on her skin became increasingly clear.

Panicked and terrified, Li Ruonan turned to Shen Zhiyao for help. “Streamer, please, do something! She’s here to get revenge on me! She’s going to kill my daughter!”

Shen Zhiyao watched her calmly. “Eighteen years ago, you and she were both from Chen Family Village. Why did you treat her like that?”

Li Ruonan waved her hands frantically. “It had nothing to do with me! The others couldn’t stand her, so they ganged up to bully her! I’m innocent! I never laid a hand on her!”

“I was just… I was just angry. After she came, my dad’s attention was never on our family anymore. My parents were always fighting. I just said a few things without thinking, I never expected it to blow up like that… I really didn’t know it would end up this way…”

“You didn’t know it would get out of hand?” Shen Zhiyao scoffed. “Then do you have any idea how desperate she felt after those words of yours got out?”

“What you just experienced in that illusion was exactly what she went through back then!”

“You all spread rumors about her, making it so she couldn’t even hold her head up in the village. The women despised her, the men had lecherous intentions, and every night, people went to harass her.”

“Later, the matter was brought to the village chief. But he and the other followers of the Buddha Mother, far from helping her, felt she had stained the Buddha Mother’s reputation. She gave birth to her child in the most difficult of circumstances, yet you people stole the baby to offer to the Buddha Mother, and then you beat her to death…”

“Chen Letong was an orphan. The village chief brought her to the village to be its Goddess. She was just trying to find a way to survive, wasn’t she? But you spread rumors everywhere, making everyone isolate and despise her! You left her with no way to live in that village, and in her final moments, not a single person was willing to help her.”

“The villagers constantly attacked her with their words. They thought she was uncouth, unworthy of even being in Chen Family Village. And in the end, scorned by all, she died a miserable death…”

On that day, she stared at the ceiling in despair, waiting for death to claim her.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep