Chapter 402: Chapter 344: The Punishments of the Five Precepts_3
It seemed that someone was coming, and noises began to emanate from the deepest darkness, the giggling sounds, and the flapping of wings. Soon, a flock of "chickens" emerged, their physique incredibly robust, larger than geese. Three or four chickens gathered together, their necks twisted into a knot, sharing a human head. As their mouths opened, they let out the "giggling" sounds, overturning everyone’s understanding of reality.
Quan Doufeng grabbed his own hair. He wondered if he had gone mad, or... or if he was hallucinating due to overwhelming pressure. He couldn’t even dream of such ghostly things!
Yang Xiao finally forced himself to calm down, "These... are the chickens that crow in the morning and the cows that moo in the evening."
"Yes," the Du Family Patriarch nodded in agony, "They are all villagers of Du Family Village, my fellow villagers and kinsmen, but I cannot save them. I can only help them sustain their lives this way."
Pausing for a moment, Tong Han spoke, "If it were me, I would rather die. Perhaps death is the best fate for them."
Slowly shaking his head, Patriarch Du looked sorrowful, "You are right, but we cannot do it. The people of Du Family Village have been cursed, forever unable to leave this village, even... even the right to die has been stripped away. Our bodies rot, but our heads do not; we feel ourselves decaying every moment, a feeling you won’t understand, and will never understand."
Yang Xiao noticed that the "chickens" and "cows" were also covered with rot-like substances, and from the rotten flesh in the sores, clusters of plants were sprouting, which he immediately connected to the medicinal herbs the villagers often chewed on.
"It was that monk, he’s too evil... he cast such an inhuman curse on us, just because we wouldn’t help Mangjia Village!" Patriarch Du gritted his teeth with hatred, "Has he forgotten how the people of Mangjia Village treated us?"
"Patriarch, calm down," Yang Xiao tried to console, "Take it slowly, tell us more details so we can understand how to help."
With Yang Xiao’s comfort, Patriarch Du’s complexion improved slightly, and everyone finally understood the whole story.
Originally, although Du Family Village and Mangjia Village were not far apart, the two villages had very bad relations and could indeed be considered mortal enemies. Mangjia Village was not long-established, formed by refugees including leftover soldiers and bandits. The villagers didn’t focus on fishing, hunting, or farming and had a fierce nature, often raiding nearby villages, and even well-traveled merchants turned pale at the mention of them, preferring to take detours.
But Du Family Village was populated by locals, who had lived there generation after generation. The surrounding walls of the village were constructed to fend off attacks from Mangjia Village, and indeed, they had been quite successful; once the protective walls were up, the people of Mangjia Village, after several setbacks and losses, no longer troubled them.
Things were peaceful for a few years until one day news came that Mangjia Village had met with a catastrophe; they had accidentally let a few people escape while trying to kill a group of merchants, offending someone they shouldn’t have, and now an army was sent and would soon arrive, determined to wipe out the entire Mangjia Village.
Initially I didn’t believe it, but the next day, people from Mangjia Village, with their families, numbering hundreds, mostly women and children, came to our Du Family Village. They asked to take refuge in Du Family Village, saying they would change their names and merge into our village, or even if we couldn’t shelter them, just to open the gates and let these women and children hide until the danger passed, promising they would leave immediately afterward.
"I didn’t initially believe them, as the people of Mangjia Village saw us as a thorn in their side, and I feared it was a ruse. If we opened the gates, I worried their men hidden nearby would surge in, so I ordered the gates not to be opened."
Patriarch Du fell silent for a moment, then sighed softly, "I admit, I had personal reasons as well. There’s too much blood feud between our two villages, it’s not something that can be explained in a few words."
"The people of Mangjia Village begged throughout the night by the walls until dawn, when several bloodied villagers from the direction of Mangjia Village ran towards us, screaming that the soldiers had come and were killing on sight, all the men left in the village had been slaughtered, and they were now heading this way."
"Things got even more chaotic under the walls, everyone was crying, kneeling and begging us to shelter them, to give them a way to live." Patriarch Du’s brows furrowed, "That’s when a traveling monk stepped forward, pleading for us to show mercy, to open the gates, at least to shelter those poor children."
"Our Du Family Village is a community of devout Buddhists, and the monk had a kind face, but... but who would dare in such a situation? What if the chasing soldiers thought we were in collusion with them, then... then what about Du Family Village?"
"We lowered a basket, lifted the monk onto the wall, and despite his repeated pleas in front of all our villagers, I did not agree."
"Not long after, the soldiers came killing. I had never... never seen such ferocious soldiers, they were excellent riders, able to race horses on the rugged mountain roads, drenched in blood, and their saddles were tied with freshly severed heads. The monk continued to plead, but we were already terrified. The soldiers, wielding their sabers, charged into the crowd, slashing left and right, quickly killing everyone, and heads were taken."
"Long after the soldiers had massacred and left, we came back to our senses, but it was already too late; there were no survivors. The monk walked out of the gate, sitting in a pool of blood, facing us. He used a torch plugged into the ground to ignite one of his own fingers. We were all horrified by the monk’s face as he cursed our Du Family Village to live in perpetual fear, suffering the torments of the Five Precepts, alive yet not alive, careless yet not destroyed. Then he slammed his head into the blade’s edge, taking his own life."
