szfong, Justin, HPC, ycb, DongBin, Clown, Anh, Jaya, you are welcome. Ysabel, welcome back (from vacation, I hope?).
“Even if this is really a haunted house, I still want to take a look inside.” Liu Qingqing was afraid of hunger, she was not afraid of ghosts.
She was already knocking on the door. The copper ring door-knocker was more resounding than a gong, yet there was no response from the inside at all.
She was about to give up, but the door suddenly opened. It was opened just a slit, hence a slit of lantern light came out. A man was standing in the dark, with his back toward the light. He was staring at her with cold eyes.
Although the lantern light was dim, it was glaring to her eyes. By the time her eyes had adjusted, she looked at the man, and instantly did not dare to look the second time.
This man simply did not look like a human, but he did not look like a ghost either. If we say that he was a human, he must be a mud-man. If we say that he was a ghost, then he was a ghost that was formed of clay.
From top to bottom his body was covered in mud; his face, his nose, his eyebrows, even his mouth looked like it was stuffed with mud.
Luckily he could laugh.
Looking at Liu Qingqing’s expression, he suddenly roared in laughter; he laughed so hard that the dried mud on his face flaked off and ‘plop, plop’, it fell to the ground.
Whether he was a human or a ghost, as long as he was able to laugh, he did not look too scary anymore.
Finally Liu Qingqing put on a brave face and with a forced laugh she said, “We are lost …”
She only said one sentence, the man already cut her off, “I know you are lost; otherwise, how could you get to this ghost place?”
His laughter was even more cheerful, “But Old Lady, you need not be afraid, although this place is a ghost place, but I am not a ghost; not only I am a human, I am a good human.”
Liu Qingqing could not resist asking, “If you are a good human, how come there are so much mud on you?”
The man replied, “Anybody who dug earthworms for several days would have so much mud on him.”
Liu Qingqing was stunned, “You dig earthworms?” she asked.
The man nodded. He said, “I have already dug 783 big earthworms.”
Liu Qingqing was even more shocked, “What are you going to do with so many worms?” she asked.
“That many worms is still not enough,” the man replied, “I still need to dig 713 to have enough.”
“Why?” Liu Qingqing asked.
The man replied, “Because I made a bet with someone, whoever loses will have to dig 1500 earthworms, mustn’t be less even one.”
“And you lost?” Liu Qingqing asked.
The man sighed and said, “Although I haven’t lost yet, I know that I will lose for sure.”
Liu Qingqing looked at him; she stared straight into his eyes, “This kind of bet is very unusual, the person who made a bet with you must be a strange man.”
“Not only he is strange,” the man said, “He is also an a$$h01e [orig. muddled egg]. Not only he is an a$$h01e, he is a big a$$h01e.”
Lu Xiaofeng has been standing afar off, suddenly he interupted, “Not only he is a big a$$h01e, he is an especially big a$$h01e.”
The man readily agreed, “Totally correct.”
“If he is an a$$h01e,” Lu Xiaofeng continued, “What about you?”
The man sighed. “It seems like I am too,” he admitted.
Lu Xiaofeng was going to say something else, Liu Qingqing was already screaming, “You are not an a$$h01e, you are a good man. I know you will absolutely let us stay for the night here.”
“You want to stay overnight in this place?” the man asked in disbelief.
“Uh huh,” Liu Qingqing said.
“You really want to?” the man asked again.
“Of course I really want to,” Liu Qingqing replied.
The man looked at her in shock, as if it was more shocking than seeing someone digging earthworms from the dirt.
Liu Qingqing could not help asking, “We are lost, there are no other houses around here, we want to stay here for the night, what is so strange about that?”
The man nodded, and then he shook his head, finally he muttered under his breath, “Not strange, not strange at all.”
Although his mouth said ‘not strange’, his expression looked very strange indeed.
Liu Qingqing could not help but ask, “Is this place haunted?”
“No, it’s not,” the man replied, “Not a single ghost in here.”
“In that case, would you let us stay one night in here?” Liu Qingqing asked.
The man chuckled. He said, “As long as you really want to, you can stay here as long as you wish.”
He turned around and walked into the gloomy and desolate courtyard, while still mumbling to himself, as if he was saying, “I am just afraid that you might not even stay for half a sichen, because so far there has never been anybody who can stay here for long.”
Across the courtyard there were seven rooms, and there were quite a few lanterns in each room.
Surprisingly, there was still oil in the lanterns.
And surprisingly, the man lighted every single on of the lanterns in the room. And then he sighed in contentment, “No matter what kind of ghost place, as long as there are lighted lanterns around, it will look a lot better.”
Actually, the place did not look too bad. Although there was thick layer of dust accumulated everywhere, the beautiful and expensive looking decoration and furnishing did not look worn-out at all. In fact, it could be said that they were of the contemporary style.
Liu Qingqing tried to sound out the man, “Did you say that there has never been anybody who stay here?”
The man admitted.
It was only natural that Liu Qingqing probed further, “Why?”
The man replied, “Because there is something here that no one has ever been able to stand.”
“What is it?” Liu Qingqing asked, “And where is it?”
The man pointed with his finger, “Right there.”
He was pointing to a crystal case, which was on the sacrificial table right in the middle of the main hall.
The crystal was polished and ground that it was extremely thin, it was almost completely transparent. Inside the case there was something that looked like a withered flower petal.
“What flower is that?”
“That’s not flower; it’s not anything you can think of.”
“What is it then?”
“It’s a human eyeball.”
Liu Qingqing’s eyes grew big, but the pupil of her eyes shrank; she could not help taking two steps back in fright.
“Whose eyeball?”
“A woman’s, a very famous woman. This woman’s most famous feature was precisely her eyes.”
“Why was it famous?”
“Because she was the Divine Eyes. It was said that not only she could do embroidery in the dark, she could even hit a mosquito’s head with a needle from thirty steps away.”
“Are you talking about the Divine Eyes, Third Mistress Shen?”
“Other than she, who else?”
“Who put her eyeball in here?”
“Other than her husband, who else?”
“Wasn’t her husband the Jade Forest Swordsman Ye Lingfeng?”
“That’s right. There is also only one Ye Lingfeng in Jianghu. Fortunately there is only one.”
Liu Qingqing clasped her hands together tightly, the palm of her hands were wet.
Did she know the web of gratitude and grudges between Ye Lingfeng and Old Sabre Honcho? They reached this place, was it a coincidence? Or some unseen people secretly arranged all these?
The man who dug earthworms had his face completely covered with mud, nobody could see the expression on his face.
But his voice was rather hoarse, as he continued his narration, “There are a total of ninety-three rooms in this building, each room has a crystal case just like this.”
Each room had one? Liu Qingqing immediately burst into the second room. Sure enough, she saw an identical crystal case in it.
But the object inside the case was a whitered ear.
Like a specter the man who dug earthworms followed behind her, “When Third Mistress Shen died, Ye Lingfeng cut her off into ninety-three pieces …”
Liu Qingqing could not help crying out, “Why did he do that?”
The man who dug earthworms sighed and said, “Because he loved her too much, he wanted to see her all the time, no matter where he was or where he went, he wanted to see her. Even though he could only see one eye, one ear, he was satisfied.”
Liu Qingqing bit her lower lip, she nearly could not refrain from throwing up.
Lu Xiaofeng suddenly asked, “I heard that Third Mistress Shen’s cousin [orig. maternal older male cousin] is Wudang’s famous swordsman Wooden Taoist.”
The man who dug earthworms nodded.