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墨書 Inktalez
As I rubbed the back of my neck and woke up, I found myself surrounded by many pairs of eyes staring at me.
The eyes glimmered in the darkness, but none of them sparkled with life; they resembled the dull, lifeless eyes of a dead fish.
Once my gaze focused, I realized I was locked in a dark room. In the dim light, I could see that the owners of those lifeless eyes were a group of bare-chested children. The older ones looked to be around ten years old, while the younger ones seemed to be about three or four.
Each child was thin and emaciated, their arms and legs nearly the same width, making them appear pitiful.
"Where are your parents? How could they let you be locked up in a place like this?" I asked softly.
The group of stick-like children merely widened their eyes and continued to stare at me.
I wondered if all these kids were mute. Undeterred, I pressed on, "What is this place?"
Just as despair began to creep in, a faint voice emerged from the corner. Fortunately, my hearing was sharp; otherwise, I would have completely missed it.
I pushed through the crowd and approached closer, only to find that the figure lying on the ground hardly resembled a living person. Aside from a slight rise and fall of the chest, it was indistinguishable from a corpse.
The body was covered in wounds, oozing a foul-smelling yellowish liquid, with white maggots writhing in the flesh.
The child's eyes were half-closed, and their lips moved as they said, "This is Masang Town. We were all sold to Sang Ji..."
I held back my disgust and leaned in closer to hear the child's words clearly; they spoke in a southern dialect of our country. I could grasp the general meaning...
"Who is Sang Ji? What did he capture you for?" Although I suspected we had left our homeland, hearing it confirmed stirred an unsettling feeling within me.
The boy coughed gently, dark red blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.
His cheeks were deeply sunken, and his cheekbones protruded sharply. His hair was long and straw-like, sticking out messily on his head.
Although I wasn't a doctor, I understood a bit about saving lives. I pressed my fingers against his pulse with one hand, channeling a trace of Vital Energy from my Dantian into the boy's body. After a thorough examination, I realized he had reached a state of utter exhaustion.
At the same time I was channeling the Vital Energy, the Qi in my Dantian seemed to awaken as if it sensed the aroma of food, stirring and rising within me.
It then flowed directly through the meridians into the boy's body.
Seeing that the boy's breathing stabilized, I felt a bit more at ease. I took out some external wound medicine from my Qiankun Bag and began to treat him.
However, the light here was too dim, forcing me to lean in closely to pick out the maggots from the rotting flesh one by one before applying the medicine.
Even though I was determined, after finishing the treatment, I couldn't help but run to the side and vomit violently.
What kind of monster was this Sang Ji? How could they so cruelly torture a child? It was a fate worse than death—making a half-grown child suffer endlessly while watching themselves decay to death.
I couldn't help but curse under my breath and slammed my fist into the ground in frustration.
The onlooking children seemed frightened by my reaction and quickly backed away.
After a while, when the Qi returned to my body, the boy woke up again, looking slightly better.
"Thank you, brother..." he said gratefully as he glanced at me.
I was a bit curious. Since this place is a country, how come there are people from our country here? I asked, "No need to be polite. What’s your name? How did you end up here?"
The boy spoke in fragments, and I pieced together that his name was Mao Junjie. He lived in a village near the border and had run into the mountains after a quarrel with his family. He ended up getting lost and was later sold here by a group of traffickers.
It had been about three years now…
That Sang Ji seemed to be quite an impressive figure. Everyone treated him with utmost respect, but there was also an air of fear surrounding him. I heard that Sang Ji was a Xiang Tou Shi…
This Xiang Tou Shi came from our country’s Gu Technique, no wonder Fo Gua couldn’t wait to enter Mao Junjie’s body; it turned out it was for a feast…
"Brother, can I ask you for a favor?" Mao Junjie whispered.
He then dug out a wooden carving from the straw on the ground; it depicted a vividly lifelike monkey.
Mao Junjie placed the carving in my hand and said, "Brother, when you get out, could you please deliver this carving to the house at the easternmost end of Maojia Village?"
I tossed the carving back to him and replied, "You should do this kind of thing yourself..."
Mao Junjie lowered his eyes. "I know I can never go back in this lifetime. Brother, just quietly leave this carving at their doorstep. You don’t have to say anything… just let them think I died outside..."
I found it hard to listen further, gripping the wooden carving he handed back to me and nodded.
"Thank you. Brother..." A strange flush appeared on Mao Junjie’s face, and he seemed to struggle to catch his breath.
"Brother, you must visit my hometown someday. It’s so beautiful there, with flowers blooming all over the mountains and flocks of birds... and... my dearest Father... A Ma... A Ma's cooking is so delicious... It’s a pity... I’ll never be able to eat... it again..."
The eyes of Mao Junjie erupted with an astonishing brilliance before quickly dimming.
I reached out to gently close his open eyes. His body had already been hollowed out, and all I could do was ease his pain as he departed.
Fortunately, he left this cruel world with a smile in his own illusion, at an age that had not yet bloomed before it vanished.
I sat cross-legged on the ground, reciting the Amitabha Sutra.
Yet, I found it impossible to calm my mind. For the first time, I felt that guiding him to the afterlife was not the best destination.
I employed the Soul Binding Technique and watched as the restored Mao Junjie bowed to me in midair, silently thanking me with a smile at the corners of his lips.
For the first time, I doubted my master's words. My master said that when a person dies, it is like a lamp extinguished; they should go to where they belong.
I temporarily sealed Mao Junjie's soul within a Monkey Wood Carving...
"Junjie, don't worry. Just for your call of 'brother,' even in death, we must die on our own land... die on the soil of our hometown... die beside our loved ones..." I made a vow to myself in my heart.
Returning the soul to its home. This was a promise to Mao Junjie and to myself.
"Creak..." The sound of the iron door opening interrupted my thoughts.
All the children squeezed toward me, desperately trying to hide behind me as if a flood or beast had entered through the iron door.
I opened my arms to shield the children behind me, as if we were playing a game of eagle catching chickens.
I looked around, noting the lack of laughter and the unsettling environment.
My gaze fell on the iron door as a middle-aged man of average height, with a crooked mouth and squinting eyes, stepped out from the shadows.
The man seemed surprised to see me. "You actually woke up so quickly?" he said.
I was taken aback; his Mandarin was surprisingly unrefined.
"Are you Nationals? Are you Sang Ji?" I asked in return.
Sang Ji remained silent, gesturing for his subordinates to take me away.
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