Chapter 48: Chapter 48: Scare the Evil Away
But Kuang Hongyi’s reaction was even more vehement than Yang Xiao’s, "Impossible, I was guarding right outside the door. How come I didn’t see any children?"
Not daring to talk back to Kuang Hongyi, Su Tingting could only plead with aggrievement, "It’s true, you all must believe me. I was also scared stiff at the time. Right, Mr. Chu stopped at No. 4 Offering Table, and I even stopped my singing to remind him. Those children were right beside him!"
Yang Xiao nodded, giving Su Tingting a reassuring glance, "There was indeed such an incident, and we have you to thank for bringing it up."
Kuang Hongyi surveyed Su Tingting’s face with an unfriendly gaze. After a moment, his tone carried a thinly veiled threat, "I warn you, if there’s something, there is something; if not, there’s not. I’ve encountered newcomers before in previous scripts who, to protect themselves and to highlight their importance, fabricated lies. In the end, these people all met rather ugly fates."
"That won’t be the case, I wouldn’t do that!" Su Tingting caught the implication in Kuang Hongyi’s words. Compared to Chu Xi, this Kuang Hongyi was much more frightening.
"Alright, Kuang, if you keep intimidating her like this, she won’t dare to speak even if she does have clues." Yang Xiao smiled, then turned to Su Tingting, "Continue telling us. What did these children look like? Were they boys or girls? The more detail, the better."
"It was... they should be girls. They were dirty, with plaits on their heads, that very old-fashioned kind of pigtails, each and every one of them," Su Tingting recalled.
"Girls..." Yang Xiao had a bad premonition, "What were they wearing?"
"They were dirty from head to toe, covered in dust, as if they had just rolled in the dirt, but... but you could make out a little. They seemed... to be wearing green clothes, yes, green, both their clothes and pants!"
Yang Xiao’s first thought was of the phrase ’red for boys, green for girls.’ Since these children were dressed in green, they must be girls. But where would so many girls come from in the Feng Mansion?
"Wait a second." Kuang Hongyi noticed something amiss, "You just said these child ghosts were dusty all over. Shouldn’t they be soaking wet?"
"No, not at all, these children are different from those... those things watching the opera below; they weren’t wet, but covered in dirt," Su Tingting intended to say they were different from the ghosts, but perhaps out of fear, she changed it at the last moment to ’those things.’
However, Yang Xiao had personally seen those Drowned Ghosts, their bodies bloated and decaying, their skin whitened and puffed by water, their faces as if they were melting away, easily identifiable.
A new problem arose, according to Su Tingting’s description, these girls were different from the rest of the servants and maids in the Feng Family; they had not died from drowning.
Not having drowned meant these girls weren’t killed by Xi Yao. Then who was responsible for their deaths?
Since they were attracted by the ghost play, it meant the girls’ corpses were buried nearby, somewhere within the Feng Family Manor. This matter must be inseparably linked to the Feng Family!
Suddenly, Kuang Hongyi seemed to have had a realization and inhaled sharply, "Damn, I know where these girls came from!"
Calming himself down, Kuang Hongyi slowly recalled, "The day we went out to gather information, the nearby villagers all said that the Feng Family had a very good reputation locally. Master Feng had a generous heart, he would help with disasters and emergencies. Many in the town owed favors to Master Feng’s family, and some impoverished families, unable to keep going and unwilling to sell their sons, would arrange to sell their daughters."
"Once the Feng Family heard of it, they would take the initiative to approach, offering silver to buy the girl," said Kuang. "They told the girl’s parents that she was being sent to the Nunnery Temple to eat vegetarian and recite Buddhist scriptures, and when she grew up, they would help find her a good family, claiming it to be an act of accumulating merit."
"It must be those children; who would have thought they all died at the Feng Mansion!"
Yang Xiao was shocked when he heard this; it seemed the situation was indeed as suspected, and he had not expected the Feng Family to be so ruthless.
"Yes, yes, Kuang is right. I heard it too!" Su Tingting also remembered, "But... but what does the Feng Family want with killing these children? Can these children deal with Xi Yao?"
"It’s not Xi Yao, it’s the child in the belly of the Young Lady," Yang Xiao suddenly said. "No wonder Master Feng was so sure that the Young Lady could give birth to a boy; so this was the reason!"
Su Tingting looked at him with a puzzled face, fear involuntarily showing in her eyes, "What... what have you thought of?"
"This is an ancient malignant practice, known as scaring away evil spirits. Some wealthy families, to produce male heirs, would buy girls and torture them until they were at death’s door, then bury them head downwards alive beneath the threshold of their houses or in front of the main hall, believing this would scare away the souls of female infants coming to be born into their family and ensure that the next child would be a boy," he explained.
Yang Xiao paused, then turned to look at Su Tingting, "You said those girls had their hair in braids, the straight kind, right?"
"Right," Su Tingting recalled. "Straight, standing straight up."
Nodding, Yang Xiao sighed softly, "Then there’s no mistake, there’s something wrong with those braids, they have nails hidden in them."
Even Kuang Hongyi was shocked, "Nails in the braids?"
"Yes, while torturing these girls, they hammered nails into their heads at specific points, the spiritual orifices of the soul. As long as these orifices are sealed, the girls will not be able to transcend after death; they can only guard the foundation of the Feng Family from generation to generation. Of course, they wouldn’t be able to turn into fierce ghosts and seek revenge against them," Yang Xiao explained with hesitation, then looked at Su Tingting with a complex expression. "You’re lucky you didn’t see the girls’ faces, for if I’m not mistaken, their eyes were also gouged out. That’s why they can only hold onto each other and line up in front of the offering table to beg for food."
Su Tingting fell silent. Previously, she had been afraid of those ghost children, but now, having heard of their plight, her fear turned more into sympathy, "The people of the Feng Family deserve to die!"
"Having done such an inhumane deed, they indeed deserve death, but we have our mission; let’s not be rash," Kuang Hongyi advised.
Now that the matter of the ghost children was clear, it’s no wonder Master Feng had behaved so strangely earlier. When they asked why he was certain of a male heir, Master Feng immediately interrupted the conversation and urged them to leave. So this was the reason.
The ghost children were covered in soil, not water, because they were buried alive. As for the fact that Kuang Hongyi didn’t see the ghost children, it was easily explained. These ghosts did not come from the lake; they were buried right in front of the Feng Family Manor’s main hall, and Yang Xiao even suspected they were beneath the stage.
After pondering, Kuang Hongyi lowered his voice, "Both of you, this matter is too delicate; I suggest we must not speak of it. Let’s not tell Shi Dali just yet, and most importantly, we cannot let the Feng Family know."
"Who knows how many girls they have harmed; just this one crime is enough for their entire family to deserve death three times over. If the Feng Family finds out that we are aware of this disgraceful affair, I’m afraid..." Kuang Hongyi’s expression darkened, "I’m afraid they won’t let us leave alive."
