Becoming Immortal - Chapter 3 Part 4

After returning home, Lin-shi helped Old Zhao onto the bed to rest, then quickly and carefully burned the yellow talisman to ashes in a bowl. She mixed the ashes with water and fed the concoction to her daughter, breathing a sigh of relief when she saw that she had drunk it all. FInally, she returned to the bedroom to watch over her husband.

Seeing that Lin-shi had left, Ah heng spat out the talisman water.

Lin-niang was still crying inside the gourd. “I’m so happy, my father’s leg is alright…”

Ah Heng rested her chin on her hand, scratching at the dressing table with a finger. Lin-niang emerged from the gourd in a wisp of smoke, floating in mid-air. Ah Heng raised her eyes. Seeing that she was still sobbing, Ah Heng couldn’t understand why humans had so many tears. “If you had left that night, wouldn’t that mountain god take it out on your mother?”

“He wouldn’t!”

Lin-niang raised her reddened eyes. “The Mountain God pities women. He wouldn’t take it out on women. Only men would invoke the Mountain God’s wrath…”

“Then who made your father invoke his wrath?” Ah Heng asked.

“It’s my uncle”. Lin-niang continued, “Three years ago, my uncle left with a group of people and died outside.”

Lin-niang already felt that her attire was painful to look at. Seeing a face identical to hers on top of that, she was even more annoyed, and could not resist nagging at her. “Although that deity cured my father, he didn’t find anything strange about you. Now that you’ve pretended to drink the talisman water, you need to put in more effort so that others don’t suspect you anymore.”

Ah Heng looked indifferent. Lin-niang didn’t know whether she would heed her words. Fluttering around anxiously, she wondered what else she should say, when she saw Ah Heng reach toward her chest.

Under her clothes, it was still a bloody hole.

The sky outside was gloomy and wet. Ah Heng thought of the cultivator she saw today, recalling his face, his eyes, his long fingers with defined joints, the slightly pink fingertips, that drop of blood on the pen.

In retrospect, she detected a subtle, unique aroma. Her gaze drifted downward, at the puddle of talisman water that she had spat out. A hint of regret touched her face.

In the talisman water, there was a hint of his blood.

“Lin-niang.”

Ah Heng called out to her suddenly, her finger grazing past the drop of talisman water that had fallen onto the dressing table. She said slowly, “I want his heart.”

“…Who?”

Lin-niang didn’t get what she was talking about.

“That little deity.” Ah heng said.

Lin-niang’s entire body quivered, as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. A few days ago she couldn’t even tell who was beautiful or ugly, how could she… Disbelievingly, she said, “You’ve only met him once, is…this okay?”

“Why would it not be okay?”

Ah Heng looked up at her.

His blood had a unique fragrance. His heart should also be an excellent heart. If she used it to fill the bloody hole in the chest of this shell, then she could continue to live in it.

Lin-niang fell silent. Although Ah Heng had taken possession of her body, at the end of the day, it wasn’t Ah Heng’s fault. Even though she didn’t know what Ah Heng was, spending the past few days with her made her realise that Ah Heng was incredibly naive and unaware of the ways of the world. Remembering how she became a water ghost, Lin-niang’s eyes filled with sorrow. She said sincerely, “Listen to my advice. Love is not a good thing. A person’s heart is hidden within a thick layer of skin. You will never understand him fully.”

“Then I’ll see it when I dig it out.”

Ah Heng rested her head on her hand.

“…Could you not talk about digging someone’s heart out?” Lin-niang’s face contorted. She was someone who had her heart literally dug out, and by her lover on top of that, so hearing this was quite traumatic to her. At this moment, she was unaware that this was the same kind of ‘dig’ that Ah Heng was talking about, and thought that Ah Heng had fallen for his looks after learning to tell whether someone was attractive.

Ah Heng asked her again, “What is love?”

Lin-niang was a young lady of only seventeen. She was still shy when it came to matters of love. Blushing like a tomato, it took a while before she managed to stammer out a reply. “It’s…it’s the thing that you said just now, about you wanting the little deity’s heart.”