Once the knife-credit was posted to the account, retribution followed.
That was why Ding Ling had become Zhou Yang’s retribution body.
If Zhou Yang had responded to the eight ink characters on the paper at that moment, his mind would instantly attach to Ding Ling, just like the previous night, and return to Daliang Village where Ding Ling was.
But now was not a good time for posting to the account.
So Zhou Yang turned past the second page, looking at the blank third page.
His heart stirred slightly: “Next, as I collect death last words and death afterimages, the content on the third page of the Knife-Credit Ledger will gradually appear.”
“I wonder what kind of retribution body the third page will bring me?”
Without thinking further, Zhou Yang closed the book.
He slipped the volume back behind his waistband, walked out of the shed, picked up the iron shovel leaning against the courtyard wall, and left through the courtyard gate to level the road.
In the afternoon, Afu walked into the blacksmith shed with a chuckle.
“I said yesterday I’d teach you to swing the sledgehammer at the forge. Why didn’t you remind me?”
Afu asked Zhou Yang with a smile on his face.
Zhou Yang replied in a muffled voice: “I was planning to tell you this afternoon. We thought of it together.”
“Fine.” Afu grabbed a pair of iron tongs from the tool pile, used them to pick up an iron ingot, and then stuck it into the charcoal furnace.
Zhou Yang crouched beside the furnace and pulled hard on the bellows facing the furnace mouth.
The bellows went huff and puff, and the fire on the furnace licked the iron ingot until it glowed red.
At that moment,
Afu reached directly into the charcoal fire and grabbed the glowing red iron ingot with his bare hands.
Although Zhou Yang had seen this sort of thing before, being there in person still made his hair stand on end!
“Ding!”
Afu grabbed the small iron hammer beside him, used it to tap the anvil, raised his eyes and glanced at Zhou Yang with a half-smile, then said in a sinister voice: “Forging iron is a job of strength…
“You look like you have no strength in your hands, frail as a reed.
“How many times can you smash iron in a day?
“If you can’t do the work, you can’t earn wages. How will you earn enough grease for the Opening Rite?”
The Opening Rite…
Zhou Yang heard this thing from Afu’s mouth once again.
He didn’t know why Afu suddenly said this, and just shook his head to protest: “I’ll try harder…”
“Just trying harder probably won’t work…”
“You should be like me—
“Use this skin of yours, use the pores all over this skin to exhale, to inhale… only then can strength grow endlessly…”
Afu said slowly and deliberately.
As his voice gradually fell, a fine sound of airflow, like a poisonous snake flicking its tongue, arose in the room.
That faint airflow sound became extremely sharp in a moment!
Like wild ghosts sitting on a grave and crying!
A chorus of ghostly wailing came from all over Afu’s body!
Zhou Yang saw that on Afu’s exposed skin, small holes as dense as ant nests appeared. Every small hole was stirring the airflow, and every small hole made that wild ghost wailing sound!
Afu’s entire “person” became extremely withered at this moment!
His exceptionally withered hand grasped the iron ingot that was gradually turning dark red!
The dark red iron ingot was kneaded round and flattened by him as if it were dough!
What astonishing strength!
Relying on letting his skin open its mouth to breathe, Afu’s strength instantly surged to an unbelievable degree!
At this time, his withered arm suddenly stretched toward Zhou Yang—
Zhou Yang instinctively wanted to dodge, but could not avoid it at all!
That palm covered in “ant holes” landed on Zhou Yang’s shoulder in one fell swoop.
Bone-piercing cold.
Ghostly wailing, following that piercing cold, seeped into Zhou Yang’s skin—
The pores on Zhou Yang’s arms instantly turned into pitch-black big mouths, and under extreme terror, they began to wail!
In this moment, Zhou Yang’s mind connected with all the pores on the skin of his own arms!
“These ‘Ghost’s Mouths,’ every breath they take inhales your blood and flesh, and what they exhale is ghost breath…
“You’d better learn to make them close their mouths now, or they’ll surely eat your flesh and marrow clean.”
“I can make this skin of yours open, and I can make it close its mouth. You have to listen to me first…”
Afu withdrew his arm. He looked sinisterly at Zhou Yang, whose arms were sprouting numerous black holes, and murmured.
On Zhou Yang’s arms, those “Ghost’s Mouths” breathed only a few times, and an explosive sense of strength arose within his arms.
This sense of strength continued to expand as the Ghost’s Mouths kept breathing.
Zhou Yang’s mind was shaken!
Within more than ten breaths, he felt his arm strength constantly increasing.
On his arms, thin as hemp stalks, muscle lumps gradually bulged out!
At the same time, Zhou Yang saw that the color of his fingernails turned deathly white in an instant!
The Ghost’s Mouths growing on his arms could indeed make his arm strength surge, but they also needed his own flesh and blood to feed them!
Cold sweat suddenly broke out on his brow. Zhou Yang stared wide-eyed, fixedly gazing at Afu across from him.
Afu’s entire body was covered with Ghost’s Mouths.
Those pitch-black mouths emitted ghostly wails in unison!
Compared to Afu, the breathing sounds of the Ghost’s Mouths on Zhou Yang’s arms rose and fell unevenly, chaotic like a tide, completely different from Afu’s!
“How do I make them shut up?!”
The eerie breathing sounds rose and fell like waves, and Zhou Yang’s mind became chaotic in an instant!
“As long as you listen to me, you can close these Ghost’s Mouths at any time…”
Afu spoke sinisterly. From the “Ghost’s Mouths” all over his body, blood mist surged out and condensed into a bloody flayed man.
The ghost breath exhaled by the Ghost’s Mouths on Zhou Yang’s arms was all seized by the flayed man.
On the exposed flesh of the flayed man, flesh buds sprouted profusely, and a skin sack exactly like Zhou Yang actually grew!
“Hah… inhale…”
Its chest rose and fell, emitting a steady breathing sound.
The Ghost’s Mouths between Zhou Yang’s arms opened and closed in sync, instantly forming a regular rhythm.
Following this rhythm, as long as Zhou Yang made up his mind to stop breathing, the Ghost’s Mouths on his arms would naturally close!
“Afu wants to control me this way!”
“If I do what it says, I’ll become its puppet!”
“Man is the knife and block, I am the fish and meat!”
“I refuse to accept this!”
A strong sense of crisis, like a steel chisel, chiseled through the chaos in Zhou Yang’s mind!
Unwillingness then ignited all his thoughts like fire!
“I absolutely will not be fish meat—”
Zhou Yang clenched both fists and suddenly pulled at his own ghost breath, trying to drag all that ghost breath back!
In a moment, the strange humanoid figure broke apart from its entanglement with Zhou Yang’s breath.
That gradually perfecting skin sack immediately began to rot!
Under the rotting skin sack, that bloody flayed man appeared again!
It trembled violently, wailing without cease:
“Wuu ah ah ah—”
Blood plasma spurted from it like a waterfall, smearing Zhou Yang’s vision red as well!
Intense fear at the same time stabbed at his eyes like a sharp knife. He instinctively dodged, not daring to look directly at that figure!
In this instant, he even had the thought of submitting to that flayed man again!
But in the next moment, Zhou Yang suddenly lifted his eyelids, his pupils trembling, his gaze meeting that flayed figure once again, meeting that sharp-knife-like fear that seemed to dig into his eyes:
“Come! I’m not afraid of you!”
“I absolutely won’t let myself be fish meat!”
Panic boiled in Zhou Yang’s heart like boiling water!
However, in this pot of boiling water, some of his thoughts, having been tested for a long time, became even more stubborn!
Those wisps of ghost breath floating and swaying wildly outside his body were guided by those stubborn thoughts, gathering outside his body into a blurry shadow!
“Hah…”
The moment this shadow formed, the Ghost’s Mouths on Zhou Yang’s arms exhaled their last wisp of breath and closed one by one!
Zhou Yang looked up at the opposite side again—
By Afu’s side, where was there any flayed figure?
“You’ve mastered the ‘Right Thought Lock’ so quickly…”
Afu looked at the black holes all over Zhou Yang’s body, now all gone, and examined Zhou Yang’s frame up and down, his gaze dim.
He vaguely felt that Zhou Yang’s “Ghost Breath” was not right.
But the ghost breath gradually dispersing outside Zhou Yang gave Afu no sign of anything wrong.
At this moment, Zhou Yang suddenly spoke up to press the question, interrupting Afu’s thoughts: “What’s wrong with me?”
“What did you do to me?!”
As he spoke, he casually grabbed a large iron hammer from beside the anvil.
That forge hammer weighing over ten jin—in the past, even just lifting it made Zhou Yang’s arms tremble and his knees knock.
But now he picked up the hammer and felt it wasn’t heavy at all.
For his current strength, it was even very handy!
He instinctively felt he could dance this big hammer around!
—Just now, his arm pores “opened their mouths to breathe,” consuming his qi and blood, but also making his strength surge for a moment.
Although this strength was like water, it would eventually flow out of his body completely as time passed.
But the feeling of holding strength right now was real and true!
Zhou Yang held the iron hammer and faced off against Afu.
With all his pores still open, Afu, emaciated as a skeleton, stared sinisterly at Zhou Yang: “You little brat are indeed a bit stronger than that Cao Qing, and have some guts.
“Otherwise it wouldn’t be Cao Qing who died, while you survived instead…”
“However, the method of ‘Ghost Breath’ was passed on to you by me.”
“Do you really think you can do anything to me with this bit of strength it gives you?”
Zhou Yang heard Cao Qing’s name from Afu’s mouth once again.
He had collected Cao Qing’s death afterimage, and knew even more clearly that Cao Qing was killed by Afu!
Afu killed Cao Qing, yet left him.
And even taught Zhou Yang this method to temporarily boost strength—Ghost Breath…
“What does Afu want to do?”
“He thinks Cao Qing isn’t worth him expending strength, so he killed Cao Qing—Cao Qing… and perhaps even ate him whole…” Zhou Yang looked at the black mouths covering Afu’s skin, his pupils shrinking, “But he left me…”
“Perhaps he sees some value in cultivating me.”
“So he’s temporarily raising me, teaching me Ghost Breath, so I won’t die too early.”
“He’s rearing me, and also treating me like a pig for meat.”
“An emergency can that can be opened and eaten anytime?”
Zhou Yang’s eyes were cold.
The strength brought by Ghost Breath within him receded like a tide.
He loosened his hand, and the large iron hammer clanged as it fell to the ground.
Afu looked at Zhou Yang’s current state and smiled with satisfaction, showing his teeth.
That feeling of something being off was stirred up by Zhou Yang’s action and completely dissipated.
He then used tongs to grab charcoal lumps from the furnace and threw them into the iron basin in the corner.
He squatted by the iron basin alone, took out a stack of round paper copper cash with square holes from his bosom, and threw them into the iron basin to light them.
Flames rose in the iron basin. The ant-hole-like pores on Afu’s body kept wriggling, sucking in the green smoke from the burning paper copper cash.
When the paper copper cash in the basin burned out, he stood up again, and his appearance was the same as before, with no sign of withering at all.
The paper copper cash Afu lit in the iron basin was the currency commonly used in Guancun.
Every day after Zhou Yang finished work, Afu would give him some paper copper cash as wages.
Zhou Yang’s daily wage was one liang of paper copper cash.
He had always thought that paper copper cash had no use other than being unlucky.
He never expected that burning these paper copper cash could actually make up for the depletion caused by “Ghost Breath”?!
Afu’s expression turned cold. He took out another stack of paper copper cash from his bosom and placed it on the table beside him: “The method of ‘Ghost Breath’ is beneficial and harmless to you.”
“You’ll discover it sooner or later.”
“But I’ve passed this method on to you, and you must not pass it on to other villagers.”
“If I see a second person using ‘Ghost Breath,’ both you and that person are as good as dead.”
“Today you can leave work early and take your wages.”
After speaking, Afu walked out of the shed without looking back.
Zhou Yang stood in place for a long time, then tremblingly stuffed the paper copper cash into his bosom and hurried away.
Upon reaching a secluded spot with no one around, he hid in a corner of the houses, then casually took out the Knife-Credit Ledger from behind his waistband.
The shock on his face had not yet faded, but his eyes were already clear.
He opened the first page of the Knife-Credit Ledger. In his personal record, Zhou Yang suddenly saw a new line of ink characters under the column “Ability”:
Ghost Breath: Right Thought Lock (First Layer).
Staring at this line, Zhou Yang’s eyes suddenly showed relief: “As expected, I can’t escape this Ghost Breath…”
“Since I can’t escape it, I might as well accept it.”
“I will learn Ghost Breath, and my life will be controlled by me alone!”
Chapter 16