Chapter 168

Chapter 168: Strip Away the Halo, You Are Only a Cursed Brat

Yu Zhi Yi, the woman, and Du Zi Heng all looked over. Liu Fei Yang hurried to wave his hands, then explained with an awkward grin: “I didn’t mean anything else, really. I’m just curious.”

Yu Zhi Yi said little. She looked at the wound on the woman’s head with pity and said: “She really was beaten to death, but not because of what happened this time.”

Cao Zhao Di was finally handed over to Cao Da Li’s family as their daughter in law. She could not accept it at first, but when she thought of Sister Fan and her five-year-old son, she comforted herself: she would care for Sister Fan’s boy to make up for her sins.

But though she wanted to care for Sister Fan’s son, the boy did not want her care. After that day, everyone in the village said she killed Sister Fan and made Cao Yao Zu lose his mother. Cao Yao Zu was only five, yet he heard and believed it. Do not look down on the malice of a five-year-old child.

He hated Cao Zhao Di to the core. The whole Cao Da Li family also treated her badly, beating and scolding her for any little thing. She had no place in that house. Because of that, Cao Yao Zu respected her even less and kept urging his family to hit her.

Sometimes he would pick on her on purpose. If her washing was not clean enough, if a meal was late and he went hungry, even if she accidentally ate a little more rice, he would use it as a reason to attack her.

She stayed in Cao Da Li’s home for two years and ended up covered in wounds.

She hated Cao Da Li’s family. She hated the villagers. But she alone did not hate Cao Yao Zu, because he was Sister Fan’s child.

Yet it was that same child she did not hate who caused her death.

Cao Yao Zu kept hating her for killing his mother. He pushed the Cao family again and again, hoping they would beat Cao Zhao Di to death. But two years passed and she was still alive. Cao Yao Zu was not satisfied.

One day, while playing with friends, he heard that a young woman in town had been drowned in a pond for eloping with a man. He did not know what eloping meant, but he heard the women say that being drowned meant you died. An idea came to him. He ran home and told the Cao father and son that Cao Zhao Di wanted to run away with a wild man.

Just like that, with no proof at all, the villagers decided to drown her.

That night, Cao Zhao Di’s sister slipped into Cao South Village’s ancestral hall, untied the ropes on Cao Zhao Di, and told her to flee.

Sadly, heaven did not pity this poor woman. The same man from two years before still went out to the latrine at night and saw Cao Zhao Di again.

This time, Cao Zhao Di did not want to live. After they surrounded her, she screamed herself hoarse to tell Cao Yao Zu that he had blamed the wrong person. She told him that his mother and his uncle had once been the children of a high official’s family with bright futures. But because the people of Cao Clan Village were selfish, greedy, ignorant, and vicious, his mother and his uncle both died here.

She told him that if his mother had escaped that day, he would have been taken away too and would have lived a good life.

But all of that was ruined by the people of Cao Clan Village.

She stared at every villager with hatred, as if she wanted to remember all their faces. She cursed to the sky that even in death she would not spare anyone who killed the Fan siblings.

She tried to do what Sister Fan had done and smash herself to death against the old locust tree, but this time the villagers were ready and blocked her. Before dawn, they tied her and sank her into the river at the village entrance.

Liu Fei Yang listened with his mouth wide open and blurted: “That’s too outrageous.”

He still doubted and said: “No offense, but… why do you sound like you saw it with your own eyes?”

A rough, gravelly voice answered him: “She is not wrong. These things truly happened to me.”

As the memories rose, the killing chill around her grew fiercer. She snarled: “Those vicious people, I want them dead. I want to kill them and avenge Sister Fan.”

She threw her head back and laughed wildly: “I do not only want them dead. I also want to plant the seed of hatred.”

The words she shouted before she died were meant to plant a seed of hatred in Cao Yao Zu’s heart. That way, even if she could not become a Vengeful Ghost to hunt them herself, Cao Yao Zu would, under the push of hatred, avenge his mother and his uncle.

“Afterward, Cao Yao Zu really started to doubt,” she said with a cold smile. “Once you strip away the halo of being Sister Fan’s son, he is just a cruel, selfish brat raised rotten by Cao South Village.”

“He kept thinking about how his mother was an official’s daughter. He went to ask his father and his grandfather, but neither would say a word.”

“That brat has had a mind of his own since young. At five he could lie low for two years just to have me beaten to death. To live a better life, he chose to lie low again. This time, he hid for eight full years.”

“At fifteen, he got his father drunk and forced out the truth.”

“Then…”

She suddenly grinned and asked: “Guess how he planned to take revenge?”

Seeing that the woman was not striking at them and even spoke quite calmly, everyone was less afraid. You Bing Yue said: “Did he use talk of ghosts and spirits to murder people?”

The woman chuckled and said: “Right.”

“He was only fifteen, yet he was already thinking of using me to kill.”

“At that time I had not awakened. He led people to the small river by the village, pushed them in, and brought me offerings. He forced me awake.”

“Later I learned he had somehow picked up a summoning ritual.”

“He said he had figured out the truth of that year. He said he had wronged me and knew that his mother and uncle were killed by the villagers. But he was weak alone and could not avenge them, so he wanted to use my hands.”

“In the end he even asked me if I knew what official post his maternal grandfather had held.”

She laughed again. This time the laugh was hoarse and ugly, and it held endless sorrow: “Of course I knew. How could I not? But I did not want to tell him.”

“I knew he never wanted my soul. He wanted Sister Fan’s and Young Master Fan’s. He could not summon them, so in the end he chose me.”

“He lured people to the river not for revenge, but to please me, to make me believe he truly loved his mother and truly wanted revenge for his mother and his uncle.”

She suddenly raised her voice and said: “So I just watched him act.”

“I may lack learning, but I am not a fool. He did not kill for Sister Fan and Young Master Fan. He killed to please me. So I watched him kill his own grandfather, his own grandmother, his own father, the Cao San Er who made Sister Fan and me flee, and the village chief couple and their three-year-old grandson.”

“In the end, to get rid of suspicion, he faked an accidental fall into the river so everyone would think the female ghost in the river killed him too.”