Otherworldly Merchant

Li Mazi and I immediately stormed forward to stop the farm owner’s family members. The woman had been yearning for her young son so much that she went crazy. She screamed and bit us. However, Li Mazi and I were both stronger than her, so we were able to subdue her with ease.

The express delivery guy wobbled toward the pigsty.

“Son, son, where are you going? Mother’s here!” The old woman cried her heart out. “Why are you stopping me? You bastards!”

“He’s a dead man,” I said. “He can’t even understand what you’re saying!”

“You’re talking nonsense!” The old woman yelled, “My son’s alive! We don’t need you to put your nose in our family’s business. Get lost!”

“What’s wrong with you? We’re here to help! Can’t you be a little grateful?”

“Who asked for your help?! Get off of me! Son, your mother is here!” The old woman screamed louder.

Ru Xue and Yin Xinyue were also annoyed by the woman.

In the meantime, the express delivery guy had reached the pigpen. He saw the door and was about to enter when the farm owner charged over.

He hugged his son’s corpse and wept. “Son, you’re my life! You can’t die. If you are gone, then I won’t be able to live any longer!”

Then, he knelt by the pigpen and cursed, “You slut! If you want to take revenge, pour it on me! Let go of my son! I’m going to freaking kill you! I’m going to kill you!”

While he was cursing, his son seized the opportunity to enter the pigpen. The horde of pigs that were surrounding the ancient dress now rushed toward him and started to gnaw on him. Although his body was already stiff, blood and fluids still splashed everywhere.

The delivery guy didn’t mind the pigs and headed toward the ancient clothing. Despite all the dung and blood on his body, he eventually slipped into the garments then lay still on the ground.

The pigs crazily nibbled and devoured his body. These types of animals didn’t usually eat meat, but the pigs there were extremely ferocious. They soon tore the corpse apart and exposed his white bones, giving birth to a ghastly scene.

The old woman fainted in grief while the farm owner was petrified. He stared for a while then went crazy. He stormed into the house and returned with a butcher knife. He jumped into the pigsty and wielded his knife around crazily. “I’ll kill you all... I’ll kill you all!”

Three or four pigs were slashed dead. Blood splashed around, dyeing the pigpen red; the scene looked terrifying.

The farm owner was devastated and lay in the pool of blood as he gazed at his son’s remains.

The horrible stench born from the combination of blood, pig urine, and dung made it difficult for us to breathe.

After confirming that she wasn’t going to kill herself, Li Mazi exhaled and put the old woman down. “This is karma. It seems this family is hiding something.”

We waited there until dawn. By that time, the family had accepted the heartbreaking truth.

When the farm owner got a hold of himself, I asked him, “What happened? If you tell us, perhaps we can come up with a solution to help your son ascend. Otherwise, I’m afraid he would be pestered by the otherworldly item forever. He won’t be able to reincarnate.”

Then, the farm owner told us the whole story.

Things had to be tracked back to ten years ago.

Ten years ago, although he already had some savings, the farm owner was just a vendor that sold flowers by the street.

Eventually, he bought the piece of land where we were standing to do some farming during his leisure time, which could help him earn more money for his family.

When he dug up the soil to make a pigpen, he reached an ancient foundation; the foundation was made of stones stacked onto each other. He also dug up a lot of pig bones, along with a small wooden box.

At the time, the family came to the conclusion that the place was once a pigpen. However, they did not understand why would anyone bury a small wooden box inside a pigpen.

When the farm owner opened the wooden box, he found a red-and-white set of ancient garments inside.

Needless to say, the ancient clothes they saw at the time were the clothes we were now watching.

When they found the clothes, there were a lot of bloodstains above; the old woman had to use a lot of bleach to wash them away.

They knew that the ancient clothes were valuable. However, they didn’t dare to sell them since they had heard that all the unearthed items belonged to the country.

Their son happened to work for an express delivery company that did online activities. The farm owner asked his son to sneakily hold an online auction for the clothes.

Soon after, the son found a buyer. The buyer was the mistress of a coal company boss. Since the woman heard that ancient dresses could help increase one’s charm, she wanted to buy one.

But then, something happened. The delivery guy met up with the woman, and they had an affair. In the end, the woman became pregnant.

The woman began to pester him. She wanted him to make money and take her away from the hands of the coal company boss. However, the boss had a lot of influence, and the poor delivery guy could do nothing about it.

The express delivery guy felt a tremendous amount of pressure and finally cracked. His murderous intent arose, and he hanged the woman in her apartment, discreetly moving her body away after the deed.

He thought that no one, not even a ghost, would discover what he had done. However, several days later, he discovered that things weren’t going to be that simple.

At first, the express delivery guy often heard knocking sounds on his door. However, when he went to check, there was no one outside. Moreover, even in broad daylight, he would often smell a horrible stench in his apartment.

Later on, he began to dream of the mistress. In his dreams, her face was pale as her body hung from the ceiling, swaying left and right while wearing that red-and-white ancient dress. The delivery guy was afraid. He knew that the mistress had returned to take revenge.

In fright, he begged his parents to find someone to save his life.

They eventually found a skilled geomancer. After a mere glance, the geomancer concluded that the house’s geomancy was terrible. The place was cursed, and they would have to move out.

However, this piece of land had cost them several decades of savings. They weren’t willing to leave, so they begged the geomancer for an alternative. The geomancer told them that helping them was no different from going against the will of the heavens. Although karma wouldn’t come after them today, in the future, it would come and pour on their heads.

At the time, they didn’t really think about it much. As long as they could save their son’s life, they didn’t consider anything else.

The geomancer eventually asked them to build a pigsty right above the ancient foundation they had dug up. They were told to keep some female pigs there to subdue the negative energy; that was how they could force the evil soul out.

The plan worked. The same day they built the pigpen, something happened. When night came, the horde of pigs became crazy. They ran and bumped around disorderly. The people in the house could hear a woman crying and screaming in pain.

However, since the geomancer had ordered them to stay inside, they didn’t go out to check. After dawn, the noises finally stopped. They then went out to check the pigpen.

They all gawked in shock at the sight. A set of ancient clothes was found in the pigsty. There were bloodstains here and there, and even some pieces of skin.

Moreover, all of the pigs seemed well-fed, and one of them still had a human ear hanging from the corner of its mouth.

They all knew that last night, the corpse of the mistress had come to their house and was cleaned up by the pigs.

They were scared out of their wits because they were worried that the woman’s resentful soul would come and harm them later. However, after that night, their house was calm and quiet. No ghost had come to trouble them.

The family heaved a sigh of relief and resumed their daily activities.

However, the calmness didn’t last for a long time. One year later, strange things started to happen in their house again.

The farm owner often heard people weep. The horde of pigs in his pigsty had become strangely fierce; they grunted and roared continually.

The farm owner went to check and was almost scared to death. His son, the express delivery guy, was wearing a set of ancient clothes as he stood inside the pigpen gracefully dancing. The cries the farm owner heard had actually come from his son.

No matter how many joss sticks he burned, how many time he pounded his head, or how hard he tried to wake his son up, nothing worked. Feeling helpless, he looked for the geomancer again.

However, when they arrived at the geomancer’s place, they found out that the master had passed away a few days ago. Before passing away, he left his disciple a message for the farm owner. The message was, “Everything in this world has a cause and an effect. You reap what you sow.”

Karma was getting back at them, and it was even scarier than they had thought. Not only was the geomancer dead, but even their young son went missing with the ancient clothes a few days later.

He went missing for nine whole years. During this period of time, the farm owner and his wife never gave up on searching for their son. However, it seemed like he had disappeared into thin air. No one had ever seen him ever since.

Their pigsty never stayed calm. Every night, the pigs would create horrible noises and commotions. During these nine years, the farm owner never had a peaceful day.

Then, several days ago, his horde of pigs began to create even louder commotions. His son’s return had triggered a series of supernatural events.

I took a deep breath. I didn’t expect that this set of ancient garments was related to such a bloody murder.

However, there were so many similar homicide cases in this world. If each victim became a resentful soul and returned to take revenge, how chaotic would the world be?

I guessed the reason the mistress’s ghost could return to take revenge was that set of ancient clothes. It was an otherworldly item, after all. No matter who owned it, when someone died, their soul would be affected by the otherworldly item if they were close to it.

The mistress’s soul was likely affected by the otherworldly item, which allowed her to stay in this world and take revenge.

However, what was the story of this otherworldly item?

Later on, I surfed the internet and searched for a historical figure that matched these ancient clothes.

From the style and texture of this set of ancient garments, it should be an item from the late Qin and early Han Dynasty era. Back then, the was a famous woman whose death was similar to the express delivery guy’s.

That person was Lady Qi!

Liu Bang had founded the Han Dynasty, becoming its first Emperor. He loved and cherished the beautiful Lady Qi, and he almost deposed the Crown Prince and made Lady Qi’s son the future emperor.

This made Liu Bang’s main wife, Empress Lu Zhi, discontent.

After his death, Lu Zhi decided to take revenge on Lady Qi. She chopped off Lady Qi’s arms and legs, scooped out her eyes, cut her tongue off, and made her deaf. She then threw the poor woman into a pigsty and made her live with the horde of pigs. Once a beautiful woman, she was now called ‘human swine.’

There was no doubt that the ancient pigsty found on the farm owner’s land was the same pigsty where Lady Qi had been imprisoned. As she was forced to live in such horrible conditions, it didn’t take her long to die. After Lady Qi passed away, her followers interred the pigsty. Since her remains were gone, they had no choice but to bury only her clothes, setting up an empty tomb for her.

Time flew quickly, and more than one thousand years passed. Lady Qi, who had been brutally tortured before her death, was full of resentment and couldn’t find peace. Her soul attached itself to the ancient clothes and continue to relive her tormented life…

According to the records, after Lu Zhi turned Lady Qi into a human swine, she asked her son, the young Crown Prince, to take a look at her. This was to strengthen their position in the royal family. However, the gruesome image shocked the young Crown Prince so much that he lost his mind. He died when he was only twenty-four years old, and some people suspected that it was because Lady Qi had haunted him.

This was karma!

Be it a hundred or a thousand years, one could never escape fate!