Chapter 27 Part 1
Before the Wang family’s ancestral graves, male and female spirits stood in rows. At the front, Great-Grandpa Wang, head bowed, wrung his hands nervously and bowed. ‘Master Yin Messenger, please have mercy, don’t report our Wang family to Lord Xie, this… this wouldn’t be good for our descendants.’
If the Yin messenger reported them to the higher-ups, their Wang family would truly have no chance of producing successful descendants. Wouldn’t Wang Qiang point at their graves and curse them next year? What if she really dug up their graves? That would be disastrous!
The Yin messenger, Lai Jun, was counting the gold ingots, sneering, ‘According to you two, your family line is already broken, what do you even care?’
The weakened Father and Mother Wang lay prostrate on the ground, wailing, not daring to utter another word. They wouldn’t dare call their only daughter a broken lineage again. The “loving education” they just received made them deeply aware of their unforgivable mistake.
Lai Jun, being an out-of-town Yin messenger, would have to go through a lot of trouble to report them. He didn’t have the time or energy for that, but it didn’t stop him from exploiting these little ghosts.
Lai Jun pointed at the words “I, Yin Messenger, Pay Up” on his lantern and asked menacingly, ‘Illiterate? Need me to remind you?’
Great-Grandpa Wang was indeed illiterate. The other literate ghosts reluctantly handed over the joss paper and offerings they had collected tonight. Although combined, it wasn’t worth as much as one of Wu Heng’s gold ingots, the Yin messenger didn’t mind.
Lai Jun happily pocketed everything and hurried back.
The Hungry Ghost Festival was a good day. Spirits with living family members received money and offerings, some malicious lone ghosts would try to steal them, so Yin messengers like him had to maintain order and earn some extra income along the way.
As Lai Jun walked back to Nan Nuo village, he suddenly noticed that the numbers on his lantern had changed.
He had just become an Yin messenger, the newest one in town, his district code was 399. Now it was 352, a promotion.
He heard that Lord Xie and Lord Fan’s lantern codes were both national level 1.
Lai Jun pondered. He had just confiscated joss paper from several lone ghosts, which shouldn’t count as meritorious deeds. Unless—
He had beaten up Father and Mother Wang earlier!
That was the merit Wu Heng gave him.
Lai Jun thought of how he had treated the foolish Wu Heng when he was alive, not particularly cruel, but not kind either, and his pale face flushed slightly. Cause and effect were more pronounced in the afterlife, being inexplicably promoted thanks to Wu Heng was… embarrassing!
But he hadn’t really bullied Wu Heng. There was only one medical clinic in the village, who would dare offend Old Doctor Wu’s only grandson? Were they tired of living?
He couldn’t explain why he kept hearing a voice telling him to take Wu Heng to the dry well at the east end of the village. Wu Heng had fallen in and hit his head, and that fool Zhou Yi happened to see it and reported it to the village chief, making everyone think he was bullying a child with intellectual disabilities.
It wasn’t his fault! So accepting the merit Wu Heng gave him was fine!
Lai Jun snorted softly and muttered, ‘I owe you one.’
Having just visited the ancestral graves, the girls were still quite scared and begged Wu Heng not to disconnect.
Wu Heng reminded them, “Throw the talisman I asked you to bring into the bathwater, it’ll be more effective.”
Wang Qiang had already boiled the well water. She took the talisman and her clothes and went to the bathroom, while her roommates waited outside, chatting.
High school seniors naturally cared about the upcoming college entrance exams and kept asking Wu Heng questions.
Despite it being the Ghost Festival, sitting in the dark courtyard, they didn’t feel scared, their laughter filling the air.
“You should apply to universities in the west,” Wu Heng said to the dorm leader, looking at the girls’ faces.
Then, looking at the other two girls, he said, “You two should go to the coastal areas.”
The dorm leader, wondering why she should go to the west, asked curiously, “What about Wang Qiang?”
Wu Heng chuckled. “Barring unforeseen circumstances, she’ll go to a university in the north.”
[Could she be a potential Tsinghua or Peking University student? Her parents are truly awful. If their actions affect her mental state and she doesn’t perform well, the admissions offices would probably want to dig up their graves.]
[Having such a capable daughter, yet still wanting a son, I’m speechless.]
[Wu Heng is truly skilled, solving the problem remotely. I thought he personally visited the He and Fan families because he needed to be there in person.]
Why not be lazy when possible? Two stolen joss paper bills could make an Yin messenger work for him gratefully, why not?
As the most renowned shaman doctor in ancient times, Wu Heng understood one thing:
There were countless patients in this world, and he was just one person, he couldn’t treat them all. Developing subordinates to handle some cases was a good idea.
Whether it was Yin Messenger Lai or Chen Zhao.
Mrs. Wang didn’t know what was wrong with her tonight. After dinner, she felt drowsy. After asking her daughter-in-law to wash the dishes, she fell asleep on the sofa.
In her dream, two familiar yet unfamiliar figures appeared. Familiar because weren’t those the faces of Da Yong and his wife? Unfamiliar because their faces were bruised and swollen, not a single unblemished spot on their bodies.
Father Wang sobbed, ‘Mrs. Wang, we heard you’re looking for fetus gender-changing pills?’
It really was Da Yong and his wife. Why were these two dead people appearing in her dream? Mrs. Wang tried to wake up but, hearing them mention the pills, she became excited.
Did they know where to find them?
“Do you have any?”
Mother Wang wiped the blood from her face. ‘No, stop looking, they don’t exist.’
Mrs. Wang felt annoyed. Why weren’t these two appearing in their daughter’s dream instead, telling her this?
Did they also know that having a daughter was useless and wanted to ask her graduate student son for help?
In their dreams!
As Mrs. Wang was fuming inwardly, Da Yong and his wife delivered a devastating blow.
‘We found your son’s thing, we’re returning it.’
‘You should quickly ask Doctor Wu to treat your son.’
Mrs. Wang, seeing that thing, started cursing in her dream. She cursed and cursed until she woke up, covered in sweat. Two sets of muddy footprints led from the doorway to the sofa where she was lying.
Remembering the dream, Mrs. Wang felt uneasy. This wouldn’t do, she was still waiting for her son and daughter-in-law to give her a grandson!
Mrs. Wang got up and went outside, seeing her son washing something at the sink in the courtyard. As she approached, she saw it was a set of pink women’s underwear, and her face darkened. “Why are you, a man, washing women’s underwear?! You’re a graduate student, is this something you should be doing? Did your wife make you do it? I need to ask her if this is how things should be!”
Her graduate student son was irritated. “I wore it for a bit, can’t I wash it myself?”
Mrs. Wang stared at her son in disbelief. What? Her son was wearing his wife’s underwear?
This…this…
Mrs. Wang remembered the dream and collapsed to the ground, wailing and slapping her thighs. “My grandson! Will I never have a grandson?!”
So Da Yong and his wife had taken that from her own son and given it to their daughter?
At that moment, Mrs. Wang’s world crumbled.
Mrs. Wang wanted to rush to the Wang family’s ancestral graves, but remembering that it was the Hungry Ghost Festival, she went to Wang Qiang’s house instead.
Wang Qiang had just finished her bath and was chatting and laughing with her roommates and Wu Heng online when she saw Mrs. Wang storming towards her, and she instinctively recoiled.
Logically, it was her ghost parents who did something wrong, so she was in the wrong.
Wu Heng spoke up preemptively, “Did you repeatedly boast about your graduate student son to Wang Da Yong and curse his family line?”
Mrs. Wang’s face stiffened. So what if she did? Wasn’t she telling the truth?
“And because your son is a graduate student, an intellectual, and Wang Qiang is just a daughter, not counted as a person, you took more than half of the shared land between your families?”
Mrs. Wang remained silent.
“There’s cause and effect. There’s a reason why that couple targeted your family.”
There were plenty of men, why target Mrs. Wang’s graduate student son? Her own actions and words caused the couple’s obsession after their death, leading them to target her family.
[I knew it, there are so many men, why target hers? When she cursed Wang Da Yong and his wife, she should have considered the consequences.]
[This is her own fault, those terrible things she did.]
[Old woman, you caused your son to be “without descendants.” Remember that.]
[But that graduate student is truly… unlucky, being castrated is too tragic.]
The netizens online were ruthless, their comments increasingly harsh. Fortunately, Mrs. Wang had no time to read them now.
Mrs. Wang wailed, rolling around on the ground.
“This isn’t right! It was my fault, come after me, beat me, kill me! But I want a grandson, I want a grandson!”
“How much do you want? As long as you can cure my son, I’ll pay anything.”
The woman, no longer arrogant, was a mess, kneeling and kowtowing frantically at Wu Heng on the phone, even her forehead bleeding, eliciting both disdain and pity from Wang Qiang and her friends.
Wu Heng, looking at the crazed woman, felt her obsession with reproduction was even more terrifying than that of primitive people.
Wu Heng gave a time and ended the connection. “Wait, I’ll treat him within 24 hours.”
