Stranger Danger

Chapter 131: True Love

“Is there anyone who’d dare to emulate me?” The gambler yelled.

“I’ll do it!” An old man with white hair and beard stepped out of the crowd.

“...” Are these people stupid or suicidal? Wait, can a ghost even die? Hmm…

By now, Ye Qing had figured out that every single one of these villagers was a yin soul of sorts. The old man walked up to the cooking pot, dug out his eyeballs, and tossed it into the pot. The eyeball turned golden brown and even let out a fragrant scent almost immediately. Knowing he didn’t have much time, the old man tried to fish out his eyeball before it could sink to the bottom.

Something worse happened, however: his eyeballs had charred and melted into the oil in just the blink of an eye, never to be found again.

“My eyeball! My eyeball!” The old man wailed. He saw what had happened, but he refused to believe that his eyeball was gone. He kept fishing inside the pot until his arm had crumbled away as well. Still unwilling to give up, he stuck his left arm into the oil, then his upper torso, then his lower torso. Just like that, the old man was completely gone.

After that, Ye Qing was treated to a horror show that one could never find in a human society. The man would proceed to challenge his fellow ghosts to scoop their ear, their nose, their tongue, their head and so on from the cooking pot, and they all just went with it. It was an eye-opening experience to put it mildly.

Despite the variety, there was one thing that never changed. The gambler never lost a single game, and the losers were all cooking inside the cooking pot!

Inevitably, the gambler walked up to Ye Qing and challenged, “Would you like to bet with me, youngster?”

Ye Qing rubbed his nose and asked a reasonable question, “Can I say no?”

The second he said this, a terrifying amount of yin qi rolled out of the gambler’s body. The faces of the deceased yin souls also pressed out of the boiling oil to glare hatefully at Ye Qing. It looked like they would attack him all at once if he refused, and frankly it was a little scary.

“Fine, fine, since you invited me so passionately, it would be ungracious of me to say no.” Ye Qing shrugged. “However, you’re only betting your coins, your eyeballs, your head and whatever. Frankly, the stakes aren’t nearly high enough to pique my interest. Do you want to raise the stakes?”

“Raise the stakes?” The gambler was caught off guard. “I don’t understand.”

Ye Qing smiled. “What I mean is that you’re only betting one part of your body such as your hands, your ears, your eyeballs and so on. Instead, why don’t we bet our whole body? Let’s bet who can stay under the oil the longest!”

Faceless: “...” That’s one way to raise the stakes alright.

“Why not?” The gambler let out a confident chuckle. “If that’s what you want, then let’s go for it!”

“Good!” Ye Qing rubbed his hands excitedly. “Since you’re such a good sport, it’s only right that I reciprocate. You may make the first move!”

The gambler: “...” I don’t think you get how reciprocation works.

Ye Qing grinned confidently. “This is for your own good, brother. You’ll never win if I go first!”

Faceless hurriedly echoed in agreement, “Yeah! My young master is the greatest gambler of them all!”

The gambler had to resist the urge to facepalm. Just how shameless could this pair of master and servant be?

In the end, the gambler agreed. He had been “taking the first turn” the entire time anyway, so what was one more? He leaped into the air and dove into the pot like a professional diver.

“Magnifico!” Ye Qing yelled the only Italian word he knew, grabbed a massive stone slab from nearby, and slammed it over the pot in the blink of an eye.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

The gambler struggled with all his might as a matter of course. In fact, Ye Qing could tell through his spirit that the cooking pot itself was attempting to push the slab away or break it in half. Unfortunately for them, Ye Qing’s strength was at the level of a dragon elephant”, so their struggle was about as useful as a breeze.

When they thumpings became weak and useless, Ye Qing pushed both the slab and the cooking pot beneath it all the way into the ground. Once done, he clapped his hands in satisfaction and said, “What did I tell you? You should’ve made that first move count, brother! Also, gambling is bad for yourself and others!”

“Hahaha…” Faceless laughed dryly. Hell hath no fury like a shameless, brutal bastard!

They stepped around the big locust tree and continued down the road. This time, Ye Qing saw an old woman with a wrinkled face and gray hair sharpening an iron stick at a three-way junction. To be more specific, she was sharpening an unusually huge iron stick that was as thick as a bowl and over three meters long.

The iron stick was pitch black, dense, and shiny even in the darkness. It had to weigh twenty-five to thirty kilograms at least, a weight that even a young, fit lad would be hardpressed to carry. The old woman seemed to have no problem with it, however. She was grinding it against a whetstone the size of a millstone and sending sparks everywhere. She almost looked… cool, assuming that she was an allusion to that famous folklore [1].

There was a strange song mixed within the screeches of metal as well. It sang in a shrill, mocking voice,

“A granny lost her needle,

So she took an iron stick to make a new needle.

Eeeee screeched the iron,

Aaaaa squealed the whetstone,

Day after day,

Year after year!

But the stick never shrank,

Nor did it grow thin.

Day after day,

Year after year!

The granny’s shoes are torn,

Her hat is ripped,

And her clothes are covered in holes,

But the stick never shrank,

Nor did it grow thin.

Foolish old granny!

Foolish old granny!

Hehehehahahahaha…”

“Huh…” Ye Qing rubbed his nose curiously, “It sounds better than I expected!”

When Ye Qing got closer, he realized that the song was coming from the iron stick itself. As if on cue, the old woman looked up at Ye Qing and asked, “Tell me, young man. Do you think I can grind this iron stick into a needle?”

Ye Qing smiled and nodded firmly. “As long as your kung fu is up to par, who says you cannot grind an iron stick into a needle? You can do it, granny!”

“Kakaka… you have a sweet mouth, young man!” The old woman let out a strange cackle that literally sounded like a million crows cawing at the same time. It was extremely noisy and unpleasant to hear.

Faceless and Kung Fu Frog immediately covered their ears and staggered away from the old woman, proving that the cackle wasn’t as harmless as it seemed. However, Ye Qing continued to smile as if he couldn’t feel the sound attack at all.

Speaking of smiles, the old woman’s mouth kept widening until her cheeks split apart and revealed rows and rows of sharp teeth. It was incredibly unsettling to look at.

“But young man, I’ve been grinding this stick for one thousand and two hundred years, and I still wasn’t able to make a needle. Would you happen to know a solution?”

“Do you?”

“Do you?”

The extraordinarily unkind and malicious-sounding “do you”s didn’t come from the old woman. It came from inside the iron stick.

Ye Qing pretended not to hear the voice and thought for a couple of seconds. Then, he clapped his hands and declared, “I got it!”

“How? Please, tell us!” Both the old woman and the entity inside the iron stick asked in unison.

Ye Qing smiled. “It’s simple. You just need to beg me.”

“Excuse me?” The old woman could not understand what he meant.

“If you beg me properly, then I’ll grind that stick into a needle for you!” Ye Qing clarified.

Finally realizing that Ye Qing was toying with her, the old woman flew into a rage, “How dare you make fun of me!”

The old woman’s upper and lower jaw smashed together and sent sparks flying all over the place. The iron stick in her hands was vibrating ominously as well.

“I’m not though.” Ye Qing shrugged. “I’m serious! Or are you so jaded that you don’t believe I can do it? I can’t help you if you don’t want to be helped, man.”

The moment the enraged old woman opened her mouth to say something, Ye Qing immediately punched her in the mouth. She bit down on his arm expecting to taste his juicy flesh and blood, but instead her sharp teeth broke into smithereens. The next second, she let out a bloodcurdling scream and disappeared as the Burning Wind consumed her from the inside out.

The battle wasn’t over yet though. The three meter long iron stick let out a loud “Aaaaaaaaaahh!” and attempted to bash Ye Qing’s brain in. However, he easily caught it with both hands before shifting his grip to the center of the stick. It couldn’t break free no matter how hard it struggled. Ye Qing then squeezed it as hard as he could without snapping it in half before he started pulling toward both ends of the stick and rubbing it in a circular motion.

Sparks flew everywhere as entire chunks of metal were rubbed off the stick’s body. The entity possessing the iron stick let out a howl so terrible that it would’ve chilled even the most hardened man to the core. Ye Qing paid no attention to it, however. He just kept rubbing the stick until it had finally been reduced to a sewing needle.

“See? I told you I could do it. It’s really not that difficult!” Ye Qing admired his creation for a bit before shaking his head with a sigh. “It’s too bad you’re too impulsive, granny! You would have loved to see it!”

Ye Qing then looked at Faceless and advised, “Remember this, Faceless. Impulse is the devil, and you must never succumb to it.”

Faceless let out a dry laugh. I wonder. I’m pretty sure the real devil is standing in front of me!

With that done, Ye Qing stored the sewing needle in his Nature’s Shell. The Stranger inside the sewing needle wasn’t dead yet, so it was technically a Strange Artifact. He could probably sell it for money if he wanted to.

/p>

Thump thump!

This time, the village did not wait for him to stumble upon its next horror. The cheerful, celebratory sounds of drums and suonas quickly filled the air.

Ye Qing listened for a moment before muttering, “It sounds like a wedding parade.”

Before he could finish, another musical parade broke out from the other end of the village. However, this one sounded sad and mournful.

“And that’s… a funeral procession.”

Ye Qing didn’t know what expression to make to say the least. It wasn’t everyday that a wedding parade and a funeral procession happened at the exact same time!

Both music grew louder and clearer over time. It would seem that both processions were headed toward the village center.

“Are they going to clash?” Ye Qing couldn’t help but smirk at the idea. “It would be fun if they did!”

His prediction was spot on. Not long later, both processions encountered one another under the massive locust tree. The music ceased abruptly as they came to a standstill, leaving only eerie silence.

On one side, the people conducting the wedding procession were wearing auspicious colors such as red and green. Everyone looked happy and cheerful. The man leading in front of the wedding procession was dressed in wedding garments and riding a white horse. He was obviously the groom. However, his face looked blurry from Ye Qing’s perspective probably because the angle was bad, and the moonlight was somewhat blinding.

On the other side, everyone in the funeral procession was dressed in white and wearing white bands around their hands. Their expressions were dark and gloomy. At the center of the procession were eight people carrying a black coffin. What was strange was that a big red flower was tied to the center of the coffin, and the 囍 [2] word was taped to both sides of the coffin.

Finally, the person leading the procession was carrying a memorial tablet. The upper edges of the memorial tablet was covered in red cloth and the word 囍 as well. The center of the tablet read: “In Memory of Guo Yuniang”.

“A ghost marriage?” Ye Qing exclaimed in surprise. The deceased was clearly a woman judging from the name on the memorial tablet, and a real funeral procession would not have red flowers and 囍 words on the coffin and the memorial tablet. Therefore, this was most likely a ghost marriage, one between a living groom and a dead bride. Now he understood why the two processions had met each other at the center of the village.

For obvious reasons, ghost marriages were incredibly rare.

Guo Yuniang’s corpse isn’t actually in that coffin… right? Ye Qing thought, but there was no other explanation. This groom was so infatuated with the woman that he would go so far as to bring her corpse with him. It’s gotta be true love!

1. It’s a story about a granny trying to grind an iron stick into a needle, and Li Bai taking it as a moral lesson to never falter if a task seems impossible 👈

2. meaning double happiness/luck/fortune etc. 👈

Also some memes. Tell me if its too jarring.