binnovel Chapter 299 Vanished into Ashes
Chapter 299 Vanished into Ashes
Chapter 299 Vanished into Ashes
The answer wasn't hard to guess, but it was precisely because it wasn't hard to guess that Yan Xun found it unbelievable and hard to believe.
"...So, she's long gone?"
According to Lou Yanchuan, his body became weak before he accidentally fell.
The statement that only the dead can communicate with the living almost implies that Yan Xun's grandmother was already gone the moment the spell succeeded.
"...My dad is a genius too."
Yan Xun sat on the carpet, his gaze slowly moving to Lou Yanchuan's bedside.
He still remembers how he recreated his grandmother's bedridden posture here, so when exactly did she pass away?
Why did his father hide this matter? He even went so far as to ask a master to use the same magic on his own younger brother in order to prolong his grandmother's life.
It is not difficult to see from the letter that this spell, which uses an illusion to connect life and death, was developed after the other party's son died.
The letter from 45 years ago, about the men in the village researching "heretical and unorthodox methods," could only be related to the notorious villain in Luoyin Village.
Yan Xun remembered that the son of that great villain died suddenly.
The other person eventually fell into a ravine and died while walking at night after drinking. It is said that on the night of his death, the villagers heard ghostly wails.
“But isn’t it strange?” Yan Xun said, “Since the people in this village all make a living by observing the schemes of the underworld, how could they think that what he does is crooked and evil?”
"Unless what he wants to do is beyond the understanding of the villagers."
“He wants to bring the dead back to life,” Yan Xun said.
“It seems that only he and my grandmother know about this spell.” Yan Xun let down two strands of hair that were tangled together. “They all say he’s crazy and that he’s a great villain, so naturally they won’t go near him.”
"In his letter, he said that he had met a little beggar who taught him some skills."
“If I remember correctly, the master was from Luoyin Village,” Yan Xun said.
Only three people knew about this spell: the owner of the letter, Yan Xun's grandmother, and the little beggar mentioned in the letter.
All the crew-cut man knew was that the master came from this village; he knew nothing else.
“Unless this instance plans to add more NPCs,” Yan Xun said, “this little beggar can only be a master.”
“He learned about this magic from the letter’s owner, made it into an amulet, and had my dad put it in your wallet so that you could extend my grandma’s life.”
Well, it can't really be considered a life-saving measure.
“My dad knew about the master’s existence long ago because of Dr. Du…” Yan Xun pondered, resting his chin on his hand. “Perhaps because of me, he trusted the master that Dr. Du introduced him to immensely, and thought that this master was a true superhuman.”
"No one knows the cause of Grandma's illness. He prayed to the master for talisman water, perhaps because the talisman water really worked."
As Yan Xun spoke, he suddenly recalled what Lou Yanchuan's father had said in his memories—
The master said that with this money, her safety would be guaranteed.
“Although he was desperate and grasped at straws, he must have seen the master’s true abilities before he was willing to believe everything he said,” Yan Xun said.
Yan Xun could imagine the scene: his grandmother had contracted a strange illness, and everyone was helpless.
As a friend of Dr. Du, and having also known his father, the master came to visit the seriously ill grandmother upon hearing of the matter.
As soon as the master entered the door, he immediately realized that the grandmother's strange illness was related to "witchcraft".
Out of consideration for his acquaintance with Yan Xun's father, he couldn't bear to see the other man's mother suffer like this, so he intervened and helped the grandmother's symptoms improve...
"In that case, he will definitely be completely devoted to the master and believe that he can really save his mother."
This led to the subsequent requests for talismanic water and the replacement of amulets.
“But the problem is…” Yan Xun looked at Lou Yanchuan.
"I don't think my dad is a particularly filial son."
What kind of filial son would let his younger brother prolong his mother's life? If he were truly that filial, why wouldn't he do it himself?
Yan Xun continued to flip through the letters hidden in the book.
The villain sent her letters intermittently, and in most of them he mentioned his longing for his son and the new magic he had developed.
The villagers didn't know that I had secretly buried his body in a place no one knew.
They insist he has a yin-evil constitution, and that his existence is bad for everyone, but he's clearly just a normal child.
I just got home a little late that day, and he actually died.
The villagers all said that he was playing and accidentally fell into the pond.
But he was walking unsteadily, how could he possibly go to that pond? I know they were lying to me.
When I went to see that world, I found he still had a trace of life left, so I devised a way to bring him back to life.
But a catalyst is needed.
The villain, having stopped there, didn't reveal the method and moved on to a new topic.
It is said that he killed a dog belonging to a family in the village and buried it in a certain spot in the earthen house in the middle of the night. A few days later, that family contracted a strange illness.
The bigger the better.
That's all he said.
"The bigger the better?" Yan Xun pondered his meaning for a moment, but didn't understand whether "big" referred to a house or something else.
"I should mean things buried underground," Lou Yanchuan said.
“He didn’t dare to be too direct,” Lou Yanchuan said. “Thinking about it, this strange illness is quite similar to your grandmother’s symptoms.”
The villain who discovered this was actually half of the master's mentor.
If the other party really did use this method to bury something in a certain location in Yan Xun's house, it's no wonder that Granny Shi contracted a strange illness.
"Perhaps you could ask your father if he has ever invited any masters to his home."
“But wasn’t my grandmother a well-known sorceress?” Yan Xun said. “Judging from the letters, they should be quite familiar with each other and often exchange technical information.”
"That person was apprenticed to a notorious villain, and he had previously hinted to Fang Shuo that he didn't have the ability to change people's names..."
He hesitated for a moment as he said this, "No matter how you look at it, my grandmother should be more capable than him."
"She already knew about this method of casting a curse from the letters. Shouldn't this be the first thing she thought of when she had health problems?"
People come and go in the old house. Even if the master himself doesn't come, he can easily arrange for someone else to come and place the items that have been cursed.
Grandma couldn't possibly not have noticed.
“Besides, there’s something I don’t understand,” Yan Xun said. “What deep-seated hatred does he have for my family?”
"Does it really have to be this elaborate scheme, manipulating one scheme after another?"
"Perhaps it's not a deep-seated hatred," Lou Yanchuan said.
Yan Xun gave him a look that said he was willing to hear more.
"He probably doesn't want your grandma to get in the way."
“If he really didn’t want her to get in the way, he shouldn’t have used that method to have my dad prolong her life.”
This is also what Yan Xun finds contradictory: if the master doesn't want his grandmother to ruin his plans, there's no need to extend her life.
“Speaking of which…” Yan Xun leaned her head against the edge of the bed, “why did she take on the job of changing people’s luck?”
Lou Yanchuan recalled that the old house was always crowded with visitors, all of whom came to ask Grandma Yanxun for help.
"She doesn't lack work, and Xie Qingdu's relative used him to shield himself from disaster. No matter how you look at it, it's a despicable method."
It wasn't that Yan Xun thought her grandmother had to be a kind saint, but judging from the evaluation of her magic for suppressing evil spirits, the other party didn't really approve of some of the more insidious magic.
Using a living person as a scapegoat to shield oneself from disaster contradicts this very point.
Yan Xun leaned against the edge of the bed, looking at Lou Yanchuan with a listless expression, "Why do you think so?"
Lou Yanchuan reached out and tapped Yan Xun's furrowed brow with his finger. "You're overthinking it."
“Instance NPCs don’t need such complicated motivations.”
“Perhaps her family is short of money, or perhaps she feels that her previous insistence was unnecessary,” Lou Yanchuan said. “Why she did this is not the point… Of course, if you really want to delve into the reasons, you might as well think about the simplest one.”
"She didn't want Xie Qingdu to live."
"The people in Luoyin Village used to make a living by observing spirits."
"Judging from the letter, the villagers seem to be extremely afraid of that man's son, believing that the man's child is the embodiment of evil spirits."
"There shouldn't have been any people in Luoyin Village who had the skill of helping others reincarnate before, otherwise they would all be making a living from it, so why would they be so afraid of Yin Sha?"
"That person also mentioned a method for resurrection in their letter."
Lou Yanchuan listed all the clues, "Du Yun's mother kept saying that Xie Qingdu was unlucky."
"The child was dug out of a grave."
"It should have been dead, but for some reason it came back to life; it's a complete monster."
Yan Xun looked at Lou Yanchuan, "I remember, you don't need to describe it to me specifically."
He felt that Lou Yanchuan was using Du Yun's mother's description as an opportunity to angrily scold Xie Qingdu.
"You suspect that Xie Qingdu is that person's child who died young...?" Yan Xun felt that this guess was a bit far-fetched. "You mean, he buried his child somewhere, and more than 20 years later, someone heard crying in the grave and dug the child up?"
"When did the people of Luoyin Village become so kind and virtuous?" Yan Xun wondered.
After all, according to the letter, the villagers conspired to kill his child and then lied that it was just an accidental drowning.
“Perhaps the villagers have finally stopped being so superstitious,” Lou Yanchuan said with a smile, adding sarcastically. “The people who dug him out of the grave might think he was deliberately abandoned there by his parents.”
"To ensure the child had no chance of survival, he was buried in the ground."
“Was the master still in the village at that time?” Lou Yanchuan said. “Maybe he made the decision that the child was deliberately abandoned in the grave to destroy the evidence. Such a young child is so pitiful, and everyone should show their love and raise the child.”
Yan Xun held up the letter, "It says that he was stumbling and staggering when he died."
"He must be very young."
“It’s not an infant; someone of a certain age who was buried in the ground and managed to survive until they were discovered…” Yan Xun said. “Although it’s a bit far-fetched, it’s not impossible.”
But if the villagers all believed this, there shouldn't be rumors about "yin evil spirits".
In the letter, that person said that the reason the villagers killed his son was because his son was a malevolent spirit.
Even if Xie Qingdu's origins, which were dug out of the ground, were somewhat bizarre, since the villagers had already accepted the idea that he was abandoned, there shouldn't have been any rumors of evil spirits circulating, let alone that Du Yun's mother would know about it.
Since the other party learned about the great villain from the kind people of Luoyin Village, they were probably worried that Du Yun was possessed by some evil thing, so they conducted a special investigation and learned about the rumors of Yin Sha.
"She didn't know Xie Qingdu at that time; she must have only heard these rumors."
"There must have been rumors in the village that the child in the grave was the reincarnation of a malevolent spirit."
“The kind-hearted person said that only the older people in the village had heard that kind of local dialect… That’s why the other person was able to tell her the truth. So there must still be quite a few elderly people in the village who remember that the villain hid his child’s remains.”
The young people accepted the explanation that Xie Qingdu was abandoned, while some of the older people who still remembered the villain and Yin Sha, perhaps recalling the "reincarnation" ritual, believed that Xie Qingdu was the reincarnation of Yin Sha.
"In the letter, he said that he had found a way to bring the soul back to life, but he needed some catalysts."
Yan Xun looked at the date on the letter and calculated that it was probably the same year that the villain had died in an accident.
The village elders heard that on the night the villain fell to his death, ghostly wails echoed through the valley... which might be related to this method of returning the soul to its source.
"In his letters, he kept expressing his desire to bring his son back to life, and he hid his son's remains in a place where no one knew."
"Is there any place that nobody knows about?"
Yan Xun answered his own question, "Of course, it's in someone else's grave."
Unless the grave is moved, Yan Xun really couldn't think of any reason to have someone dig up the grave of the deceased.
With this one-to-one correspondence, it's easy to explain why Xie Qingdu was dug out of his grave.
“Your grandmother probably realized that he wasn’t from this world,” Lou Yanchuan said, “which is why she didn’t want him to live.”
"Suppose that the master was present when Xie Qingdu was unearthed. He should have been able to adopt Xie Qingdu then, but he still let him be adopted by a strange couple," Yan Xun pondered. "Could it be that he was also trying to borrow luck?"
"Use the couple's anger to dispel the death aura on Xie Qingdu's body."
"Xie Qingdu is a distant relative. He's the one who orchestrated that spell that drains someone else's luck," Lou Yanchuan said. "With all his supernatural powers, surely he knows absolutely nothing about the spell of using someone else's life as a scapegoat?"
"Maybe he's deliberately saying he's not skilled enough. Only Granny Shi can pull off this kind of magic that uses someone else's life as a scapegoat."
"To bring Xie Qingdu and his distant relatives to Granny Shi's presence."
Granny Shi could naturally see that Xie Qingdu was not a person of this world at all, but a "ghost fetus" resurrected by someone else through evil magic.
Since that's the case, she decided to turn the tables and use Xie Qingdu as a scapegoat for a distant relative, so that this Yin Sha, which should have disappeared anyway, would be annihilated once again.