Chapter 7
On the third night, at around eleven o’clock, everyone gathered in the living room. Actually, it was three people and one ghost. The remaining ghost servants had all been sent elsewhere and were temporarily forbidden from appearing, lest they cause any unexpected problems.
A large table resembling an operating table had been placed in the middle of the living room, covered with a white sheet. Meng Shu nervously lay down on it. “Will this really work? Nothing bad is going to happen, right?”
Her martial nephew was growing rather impatient with him. “Don’t panic. Even if it fails, there won’t be any side effects. At most, that thing will become a little more cautious. What are you so worried about?”
“Easy for you to say. You’re not the one who’s pregnant,” Meng Shu complained pitifully.
Her martial nephew wasn’t annoyed. He merely adjusted his sleeves and replied calmly, “I’m not fortunate enough to experience that.”
Meng Shu was so furious that he rolled his eyes. What kind of fortune was that? This was clearly a curse!
“It’s almost time. Stop bickering,” Xie Chi said indifferently.
The little ball formed from black mist was happily wriggling all over her body. It seemed that simply being close to Xie Chi made her much happier than usual. At this point, she wouldn’t even deliberately avoid her martial nephew when he reached out to touch her.
They were waiting for midnight.
At twelve o’clock, yin energy would be at its strongest. It was the hour when yin and yang converged and a hundred ghosts roamed the night.
Her martial nephew brought over everything he had prepared in advance. The item that had taken the longest to prepare was a paper effigy, specially commissioned from a craftsman, with Meng Shu’s Eight Characters of Birth placed inside it.
The paper effigy was exceptionally well made, appearing remarkably lifelike at first glance. Her martial nephew had specifically sought out a highly renowned elderly craftsman in the profession, who had spent two days making it.
He placed a stone basin in front of the operating table, tossed some paper money inside, and set it alight to make offerings to the various ghosts and deities passing through, ensuring they wouldn’t interfere.
Meng Shu was already lying on the table, shirtless, exposing his increasingly rounded belly. It had only been two days, yet his stomach had grown another size.
Sudden weight gain or loss could stretch the skin and leave marks resembling pregnancy stretch marks, let alone having one’s stomach expand so dramatically in just a few days.
Meng Shu’s belly had been stretched until the skin was slightly translucent. Faint scar-like lines covered its surface, making it look rather frightening.
He lay there nervously, terrified that their plan wouldn’t work. However, there were no other options left, so he could only steel himself and wait for the results.
Xie Chi didn’t understand much about these matters, so she was only responsible for assisting.
After burning the paper money, her martial nephew placed the paper effigy beside Meng Shu, covered its waist and abdomen with a piece of red cloth, and began chanting incantations.
Xie Chi scratched her ear, feeling rather sleepy.
She hated memorizing incantations more than anything.
When it came to Taoist spells, incantations were extremely important for performing rituals and techniques. They were a special language humans used to communicate with gods and ghosts.
Unfortunately, Xie Chi genuinely had no talent in this area. Whenever she opened a book and read just a couple of lines, she would already be on the verge of falling asleep.
Before her master passed away, there had still been someone to force her to memorize incantations properly. But after her master’s death, there was no longer anyone capable of keeping Xie Chi in line.
Once her martial nephew finished chanting, he swiftly stuffed a pill into Meng Shu’s mouth and instructed him to hold it beneath his tongue.
Meng Shu closed his eyes.
His complexion gradually turned deathly pale, and the signs of life emanating from his body grew weaker and weaker until they were almost nonexistent.
Lying there, he looked exactly like a corpse.
Her martial nephew moved quickly, holding a red thread between his teeth. He tied one end around the paper effigy’s wrist, then swiftly wound the other end around Meng Shu’s hand.
The moment he finished, Meng Shu’s stomach suddenly began moving.
Pop!
The imprint of a tiny hand pressed outward from beneath his skin.
A few seconds later, the outline of a little foot protruded from another spot.
It looked as though an infant were trapped inside his belly, kicking and slapping against his abdominal wall.
Meng Shu’s face, already as pale as a corpse’s, contorted in pain. However, he clenched his teeth tightly and remained completely motionless.
At a time like this, he absolutely couldn’t open his mouth. Doing so would cause the vital energy being held inside him to escape.
The thing inside his stomach struggled for at least ten minutes.
Then, his entire belly suddenly began to deflate.
It didn’t instantly shrink back to its normal size. Instead, it gradually diminished until it was about the size of a watermelon. The skin was wrinkled and loose, resembling an elderly person’s deeply lined face.
It looked rather…
At the same time, the abdomen of the paper effigy beside him, which was covered with red cloth, slowly began to swell.
“Is it over?” Xie Chi reached out and touched Meng Shu’s belly. It was icy cold, and his body temperature was as low as a dead person’s.
Her martial nephew shook his head. “The fragmented souls have come out, but the ghost fetus is still inside. Still, things are going more smoothly than expected.”
“Then next…” Xie Chi hesitated, staring at Meng Shu’s stomach with a complicated expression.
Meng Shu, who had been lying on the table like a corpse, suddenly sat bolt upright as though rising from his deathbed.
Ptooey!
He spat out the pill, which had shrunk to less than half its original size.
His movements were astonishingly swift, hardly resembling those of someone who was pregnant (not really). He jumped down from the table, rushed to the dining table, poured himself a glass of water, and vigorously rinsed his mouth several times.
“The taste of that medicine is unbearable! It’s like taking a chicken that’s been left out in the summer heat for more than ten days until it’s practically rotten, then soaking it in a cesspit overnight! The smell would be bad enough, but it’s also horribly fishy! That stuff isn’t fit for human consumption!”
Xie Chi and her martial nephew: “Urgh…”
“Could you stop describing it so disgustingly? You’re making it sound like you’ve actually tasted the thing you’re comparing it to!”
Meng Shu looked terribly aggrieved. “I’m just trying to describe how it felt! Oh, right. What happens next? Why is my stomach still swollen?”
“Fragmented souls are intangible, so we’ve already transferred them into the substitute. But the ghost fetus has a physical body, so it needs to be removed.” Her martial nephew tactfully suggested, “How about going to the hospital for a C-section?”
Meng Shu: …
His expression was on the verge of collapse.
“I don’t want to end up on the national news…”
If he went to the hospital for a C-section tonight, tomorrow’s headline would probably read:
‘A Young Man in XX, Six Months Pregnant, Arrives at Hospital Seeking an Abortion! Is This the Decline of Morality or the Distortion of Human Nature?’
He let out an extraordinarily loud sob before turning a resentful gaze toward Xie Chi and her martial nephew.
“If I end up on the news tomorrow, I’m definitely telling the reporters that the child belongs to both of you.”
Xie Chi raised her head and stared at the ceiling.
Her martial nephew immediately found himself bearing the full brunt of Meng Shu’s resentment.
He covered his mouth with a fist and coughed before suggesting, “Then… how about giving birth?”
Meng Shu continued staring at him resentfully.
Her martial nephew dejectedly turned to Xie Chi.
“Then I’ll have to trouble you, Martial Aunt.”
Strictly speaking, the one being troubled wasn’t Xie Chi, but the little ball of yin energy she was raising.
Xie Chi patted her little darling.
The ball of black mist froze for a moment, looking somewhat reluctant. Nevertheless, she slowly crawled onto Meng Shu’s body.
She raised a tentacle formed from mist, aimed it at Meng Shu’s stomach, and plunged it inside.
Visually, the scene was rather horrifying.
A black tentacle went in, and a black tentacle came out. The tentacle stirred around inside his stomach, its movements remarkably similar to someone stirring coffee with a spoon.
About four or five minutes later, Meng Shu suddenly sprang to his feet.
“WHERE’S THE BATHROOM?!”
He rushed into the bathroom, howling the entire way, and didn’t come out for a very long time.
The little ball of black mist floated back onto Xie Chi’s body.
She now looked like a black octopus, with numerous tentacles pitifully rubbing against Xie Chi. However, whenever Xie Chi stroked her, the tentacles made of yin energy would shyly curl into little bundles.
“Well done.”
Xie Chi praised her, then stroked all the black mist from top to bottom, just as she would pet a cat, until the little ball had turned into a soft puddle of mud.
Her martial nephew could hardly bear to watch.
It was probably because this was the first time he’d ever seen someone raise a ghost exactly like a pet cat.
Besides, all those tentacles looked far too grotesque and bizarre. The sight was almost unbearable.
Meng Shu remained in the bathroom for a very long time.
When he finally emerged, his entire body radiated an air of utter exhaustion, as though he’d been completely drained.
His stomach had finally flattened, but the skin was still a little wrinkled, resembling an orange that had been left sitting around for too long.
He would probably need to exercise properly for quite some time before it returned to normal.
There was still a trace of horror on his pale face as he shuffled toward Xie Chi and the others on trembling legs.
After all, no matter who it was, anyone who had just expelled a puddle of blood and minced flesh from their body would find it impossible to remain calm.
As for which part of his body it had come out of…
Xie Chi decided it would be better to preserve a little of his dignity and not ask.
She was afraid that if Meng Shu became too overwhelmed with shame and indignation, he might try to kill them to silence all witnesses.
Therefore, she could only pat Meng Shu on the shoulder.
“Boys need to learn to protect themselves when they’re out in the world.”
Meng Shu looked as though he wanted to cry but had no tears left.
“I’ll never go looking for trouble again…”
What had happened to him this time certainly couldn’t be considered an undeserved disaster.
After all, he’d been so confident in himself that he’d decided to venture out and gain practical experience alone, without ever properly comparing his own abilities to those of the ghosts he might encounter.
That was why he’d ended up in such a miserable predicament.
An innocent young man had lost his “virginity” overnight. How could a single word like miserable possibly describe his suffering?
Meanwhile, her martial nephew had already lifted the red cloth and pasted several talismans onto the paper effigy’s stomach.
The fragmented souls inside the effigy had realized they’d fallen into a trap. They were now struggling desperately, trying to force their way out.
Naturally, her martial nephew wasn’t about to give them that opportunity. As an additional precaution, he applied another layer of sealing magic.
The method they’d used earlier had simply made Meng Shu appear dead, transferring all the vitality from his body into the paper effigy containing his Eight Characters of Birth.
The fragmented souls were composed of numerous incomplete infant spirits. Their intelligence wasn’t particularly high to begin with, so it was only natural that they’d been deceived. Like little fools, they’d obediently followed the transferred vitality into the paper effigy’s belly.
Unfortunately for them, getting in was easy, but getting out was another matter entirely.
Fragmented souls like these had no way of reincarnating.
To put it plainly, they were nothing more than traces of lingering obsession left behind by unborn infants, corrupted by impure energy and haphazardly pieced together into a single mass.
Calling them fragmented souls was already being generous.
Only the female ghost, whose obsession with having a child had persisted both during her lifetime and after death, would genuinely regard that thing as an infant spirit and go to such lengths to help it become human.
Xie Chi grabbed the little ball of black mist, who was drooling at the paper effigy and trying to sneak over for a bite, and pulled her back.
“You probably won’t need my help with the rest, so I’ll go to bed first.”
Dealing with the paper effigy was simple enough. All they had to do was burn it.
Her martial nephew had originally planned to let Meng Shu handle it himself so he could vent his resentment.
However, just as he was about to speak, Meng Shu had already hurried after Xie Chi with an extremely ingratiating expression.
“Boss? Boss! Don’t leave yet! Let’s talk about something else!”
Her martial nephew: …
He really wanted to go to the toilet, scoop up that pile of minced flesh, smear it all over Meng Shu’s face, and tell him:
Take your son and stay away from my martial aunt!
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