Chapter Thirty-Three: Slaughter

As Little Jiu’er’s words, sharp as death, left her lips, Boss Bai suddenly convulsed as if struck by lightning, his whole body trembling uncontrollably. I told Wang Hou to shield him, but… it was utterly useless! We had no idea what was actually happening.

At that moment, I couldn’t tell what Little Jiu’er had done to the fat man, but he began to claw wildly at his own neck with both hands. The violence and speed of it was shocking; he scratched his neck until it was carrot-red, and gouged out bloody welts so dense they looked like blood-sucking snakes writhing across his throat.

In less than a minute, the fat man stopped struggling. He lay on his side, eyes wide open, hands still clutching his neck as fresh blood streamed rapidly from his mouth. His body stiffened completely.

Throughout the ordeal, he barely managed a sound. Wang Hou and I could do nothing—absolutely nothing—because everything happened so abruptly, so suddenly.

When the fat man finally ceased all movement, Wang Hou reached out and touched his forehead, only to whip his hand back, his face draining white in an instant. He looked up at me and uttered a sentence that sent chills through my entire body.

“His neck’s broken… the bone’s snapped right through.”

My face twitched; I didn’t react at first. But just then, Little Jiu’er, who hadn’t moved at all, began to laugh. Her laughter jolted me out of my daze. I turned to look at her, stupefied, and saw that her smile was as radiant as pear blossoms in the rain, brilliant as a sky full of stars. There was no trace of gloom or coldness in her expression—she looked like any ordinary, innocent eighteen-year-old girl, simply smiling.

Yet within that smile was a confidence, an indifference so chilling it could frighten anyone. She hadn’t moved, but I knew she had orchestrated this; she had used some unseen force to twist and snap the fat man’s neck in an instant.

I couldn’t help but lift my head, filled with terror, and offered her a biting “compliment”: “Someone remarkable came out of the Temple of the Two Ancestors… You could have stayed a cook, but you’d rather kill for fun!”

Wang Hou didn’t know what the Confucius Temple was, nor the Temple of the Two Ancestors, but he understood my meaning—he knew I was mocking this madwoman. The anger and fear at such a vile act were impossible to suppress.

Wang Hou exploded! For the first time ever, he roared at a woman, “You kill without blinking, you monster!”

But Little Jiu’er only answered him with a contemptuous smile. Then she pointed at the fat man’s bleeding head and said, “He should have known this would be the price for betraying me. He deserved it.”

Her tone was as casual as chatting about household matters, but it sent another shiver down Wang Hou’s and my spine.

It was then I realized the thing that truly terrified me about Little Jiu’er wasn’t her methods, but her attitude—her utter ruthlessness, her cold detachment that looked down on everything and everyone.

Only now did I understand the true meaning of “cold-blooded.” Only now did I grasp what it meant to kill without a flicker of emotion. This Little Jiu’er was on the verge of becoming a demon.

And as we cowered in fear, she gave us no time to collect ourselves. She seemed to sense some change in us, paused, and smiled at me again, a pure and cunning expression flickering across her face, leaving me unable to decipher her intentions.

But what she said next left me even more perplexed.

She asked, “You, a cook from the Confucius Temple, what are you doing in this ghost town? Breaking the rules—aren’t you afraid of losing your life?”

I hesitated briefly, then answered, “To save someone…”

“To save someone?” Little Jiu’er bent slightly, lifting her nose as if sniffing me. After a moment, she nodded, as if suddenly enlightened. The enchantress continued smugly, “It’s that woman called Xian Hongye, isn’t it? I thought she wouldn’t last five days, but it seems she’s met her savior. Lucky fate…”

Her words always came so naturally, so easily, but each hit me like a firecracker exploding at my ear.

I was stunned by this woman’s uncanny perception! For a moment, I wondered if she was blind, yet her “insight” surpassed anyone I’d ever known. To be seen through or sniffed out by someone—it was like being a bird stripped of all its feathers, helpless and exposed.

I was lost in confusion and despair. But just as Little Jiu’er had me cornered, Wang Hou stepped forward.

He shouted at her with unwavering resolve, “I’m here to save someone, you hear me? If you know what’s good for you, behave! Otherwise, I’ll twist your head off too!”

As he spoke, Wang Hou grabbed an inkstone from the table and snapped it in half with a loud crack, tossing the pieces at Little Jiu’er’s feet.

I stared, momentarily stunned by the shattered inkstone. Wang Hou’s unyielding energy helped us regain some momentum, pulling me back from the abyss of fear and doubt.

Thanks to him, I didn’t continue to sink or even surrender.

At that moment, I realized my own foolishness. From start to finish, I’d been led by this woman, forgetting that we were actually the ones in control. After all, she was only a frail woman. No matter how formidable she was, if we didn’t eat her food or fall for her tricks, what could she actually do? Her earlier posturing was, to a large extent, just bluff and bluster.

Steeling myself, I told Little Jiu’er, “Hand over the black meat, or lift the spell of the Parasite of White Consumption! I… I might consider letting you go!”

My demand was hesitant, as I wanted to feign a compromise. After all, when dealing with a woman like her, I wasn’t sure of the best approach, so probing for her bottom line seemed wise.

But Little Jiu’er only answered with another enigmatic smile.

To be honest, this time her smile disgusted me.

I’d had enough!

So I shot back without restraint, “You love to laugh so much—think you’re some kind of mascot? If you want to laugh, do it properly; your voice sounds like a screeching owl, it’s awful! I’m not dead yet! No need for you to start wailing!”

My words were vicious, hitting wherever it hurt, all to crush her arrogance.

And this time, I think I managed to shock her a little. Her expression changed subtly; she quickly stifled her smile and shook her head in mild surprise. “Black meat…? You mean the mother of the Parasite of White Consumption? Isn’t that it?”

As she spoke, Little Jiu’er extended her pale arm and pointed behind Wang Hou.

My heart leapt—had she given in?

With that thought, Wang Hou and I turned to look where she pointed.

My pupils contracted sharply! I saw that the fat man, who had already breathed his last, suddenly “came back to life”!

At that moment, Boss Bai, whose neck had been snapped by some unknown force, suddenly raised his head. His swollen head twisted unnaturally, making gurgling noises from his throat. His half-open, half-shut eyes made both Wang Hou and me intensely uneasy.

Could it be that Boss Bai wasn’t dead?

Impossible!

I knew that once a person’s neck was broken, there was no way to survive. Yet his head was definitely moving, swaying from side to side in a disturbingly rhythmic way.

“Why does it look like he’s breakdancing? Almost comical,” I muttered in bewilderment.

Wang Hou was equally astonished. “How can that be? His neck’s broken, how can his head move?”

We watched a while longer before suddenly realizing the truth.

“No, it’s not his head moving,” I told Wang Hou. “There’s something… something trying to crawl out of his mouth.”

Sure enough, as soon as I spoke, the fat man’s swollen head snapped open its blood-soaked jaws, baring blackened teeth.

And then, something emerged from his mouth.

A snake’s head the size of a palm slowly wriggled its way out. The serpent continued to squirm, inch by inch, sliding itself out of the fat man’s corpse.

Wang Hou and I were dumbstruck by the sight.

Then a wave of unprecedented nausea surged in my gut.

I swear, I’d never seen anything so revolting in my life.

The snake, if it could be called that, was almost entirely without scales—so you could see its pink flesh, its blood vessels, and its bones at a glance.

Its color was disturbingly like a human tongue, pale pink shot through with blood and raw tissue, so grotesque you couldn’t bear to look at it directly.

Confronted with such a creature, we were at a total loss for words.

But one thing was clear to me.

This bizarre, monstrous serpent was the true form of the Parasite of White Consumption.

Was it a tongue that had become a snake? Or a snake that had become a tongue?

As we pondered the creature, Little Jiu’er spoke, her voice trembling with suppressed fury.

“Take a good look! This is the adult form of the Parasite of White Consumption! Once it’s mature, it replaces a person’s tongue, intestines, even parts of their nerves. It turns the host into a machine of appetite—driven to eat and eat and eat, endlessly. Isn’t it terrifying? Disgusting?”

I kept my eyes fixed on the sticky, slimy “snake,” unable to answer.

Because I didn’t know how to answer.

At that moment, Little Jiu’er suddenly began to weep, two clear tears slipping down her chin. With deep hatred in her voice, she said, “I lived with this disgusting thing for six whole years! The person I trusted most sold me to a shaman, and the shaman… turned me into a vessel for this parasite!”

As she spoke, Little Jiu’er slowly lifted her skirt—

And what lay beneath was anything but alluring…