After My Cross-dressing Cover Was Blown, the Movie Star Became My Accomplice - Chapter 25

Chapter 25

◎ Are you playing “Calabash Brothers Saving Grandpa”?! ◎

Painful cries from the Village Chief echoed through the dim cavern. A woman stood before him, gripping a dagger that was plunged into his abdomen. Blood flowed down the blade to the hilt, falling drip-drop, drip-drop onto the ground.

Mu Yao looked at the woman, who was both a stranger and someone familiar. It was Auntie Zhou—the very same Auntie Zhou he had rescued from the female ghost’s clutches during the day.

At this moment, Auntie Zhou’s eyes were clear and filled with hatred. Her expression was cold as she stared fixedly at the Village Chief; she didn’t look at all like the person who had been muddled and insane for years.

Mu Yao was shocked by her appearance and glanced at the Rakshasa beside him.

“You know her?”

The Rakshasa’s brow furrowed as he gave a slight nod.

“We’ve had contact.”

“When did you contact her? Forget it, now is not the time to dwell on that. We can’t let her continue.”

Mu Yao shook his head and stepped forward quickly, intending to pull Auntie Zhou away. Although she had a vendetta against the Village Chief, Mu Yao felt that the man was destined to be punished by fate; there was no need for Auntie Zhou to stain her own hands with blood.

The Village Chief reacted faster than Mu Yao. A flash of consternation crossed his face, followed by a grimace of agony. He raised his leg and kicked Auntie Zhou in the stomach, sending her flying.

“You crazy woman! So you weren’t mad. You’ve been faking it all these years!”

Auntie Zhou was kicked to the ground. She slowly crawled back up, her hair disheveled, still clutching the dagger tightly.

“Hehe… I was mad. But today I am awake, because I found my Nannan… Zhang Hao, I never expected it was you who harmed me! It was actually you!”

Auntie Zhou pointed the dagger at the Village Chief, who was clutching his wounded abdomen and barely standing. Her eyes were ablaze with fury.

“I never did anything to wrong you! You were the one who broke your word first! You told me to wait for you, and I waited for three years! It was you who didn’t return on time; you were the one who turned our promise into a joke!”

Auntie Zhou screamed at the top of her lungs. Zhang Hao’s face turned deathly pale.

“It’s not like you didn’t know how terrifying the gossip in the village is! When news came back that you weren’t returning, everyone mocked me. They called me stupid, called me a fool. Some even said you had found someone else outside and that I had become a woman no one wanted! I didn’t believe a word they said at first. I still wanted to wait for you to come back, but you just wouldn’t return! I had no choice! If… if I hadn’t followed my parents’ arrangements to get married and have children, I would have been drowned in the spit of those people!”

“Zhang Hao! You keep saying you love me, yet you left me there to face that gossip alone. What right do you have to harm me?! What right?!”

Zhang Hao staggered back two steps, muttering under his breath.

“No… that’s not what I heard. That’s not what they told me. They said you betrayed me. They said in the second year after I left, you got together with that man. I… I didn’t know you waited for me for three years!”

Hearing this, Auntie Zhou let out a mocking sneer.

“Heh? The second year? You actually believed… Zhang Hao, you never trusted me. You are so selfish! You… truly deserve to die!”

Auntie Zhou didn’t want to say another word to him. She raised the dagger and charged. At this point, talk was useless; the blood debt had accumulated, and she had to take her revenge personally. She had to kill the man who caused the tragedy of her entire life.

It was this man who destroyed her family, harmed her husband, killed her daughter, and even forced her daughter to become an executioner!

“Wait, Auntie Zhou! His crimes have been witnessed, and he’s already been captured. He will definitely receive the punishment he deserves! Killing him like this is too easy for him, and it will only stain your hands with blood. It’s not worth it!”

Mu Yao knew she was desperate for revenge, but he couldn’t stand by and watch her commit a crime. He couldn’t just watch from the sidelines.

He moved quickly to stand in front of her, catching the hand holding the dagger to stop her from stabbing Zhang Hao again.

“Let go of me! I don’t care if he’s punished, I want my revenge!”

Auntie Zhou struggled. She only wanted revenge and didn’t want to hurt the person in front of her; she tried to break free to attack from a different angle.

Zhang Hao hid behind Mu Yao, a smile of survival appearing on his face.

“I… regardless of whether I trusted you, in the end, you married someone else and had a child. You definitely betrayed our promise. What did I do wrong? I did nothing wrong. If there is a mistake, it’s that I wasn’t ruthless enough. I shouldn’t have only moved against your dog husband and daughter; I should have turned you into my puppet as well!”

“You! I’ll kill you!”

Provoked, Auntie Zhou struggled even more violently. A woman focused solely on revenge possessed surprisingly immense strength. Mu Yao had no choice but to bark at Zhang Hao.

“Shut up!”

The Rakshasa stood to the side with no intention of helping. He felt the whole scene was a farce. Even if Auntie Zhou took her revenge, she would have a life on her hands and would likewise be punished. At most, her years of faking madness and her status as a victim might lighten her sentence slightly.

The things Zhang Hao had done could only be handled in the shadows; they could never be made public.

If Auntie Zhou succeeded in her revenge, to the villagers, it would just look like a madwoman killing the man who had always taken care of her. They wouldn’t know everything Zhang Hao had done, nor would they know the deep-seated grievances between the two.

In this cycle of revenge, there was no winner. Whether it was Zhang Hao seeking vengeance for a perceived betrayal, or Auntie Zhou trading a life for a life, the result was a total loss for everyone.

The Rakshasa watched the Little Impermanence caught between the two with a complicated gaze. Since joining the Bureau, he had met quite a few living Impermanences.

Most of them had seen too much life and death; they were used to acts of revenge. Regardless of the person, everyone would be judged in the Underworld, and killers would be punished. Whether there were mitigating circumstances or not, a Judge would eventually preside over them. Living Impermanences generally did not interfere in others’ karma.

To the Rakshasa, the Little Impermanence in front of him seemed much more “human” than those he had met before.

“You… don’t just stand there watching! Didn’t you want to take him back for interrogation? You saw the person talking to him just now. He wasn’t performing the ritual alone; there are others behind him! If he’s killed, it will be hard to root out the people backing him!”

Seeing Auntie Zhou getting more agitated while Zhang Hao ducked back and forth behind him, Mu Yao glared at the Rakshasa in exasperation.

However, his face was obscured by magic, so his gaze lacked any real sting.

The Rakshasa heard the urgency in Mu Yao’s voice and decided to step forward to restrain Zhang Hao.

“Mama… you finally found me. Nannan missed Mama so much.”

Before the Rakshasa could get close, the most prominent ghost among those bound by the Soul-Hooking Chain—the female ghost—suddenly called out without any warning.

“Ah, Nannan!”

Auntie Zhou’s struggling stopped as she looked toward the ghost.

The yin energy in the cavern was extremely thick, and this was the site where a living sacrifice had been held; under the influence of the energy, even ordinary people could see the ghosts.

Auntie Zhou stood dazed for a moment, then suddenly dropped the dagger and rushed to the side of the red-clothed ghost.

“Nannan, Mama… Mama finally found you. If I had known it was him who took you away, I wouldn’t have let him off. I… I definitely wouldn’t have let him off easily!”

Tears streamed down her face as Auntie Zhou looked at her ethereal daughter.

In her memory, her vivid, lively daughter was now stained the color of blood. The red dress looked piercingly bright. She tried to hug her daughter, but her arms passed through nothingness.

“Mama, don’t cry. It’s not Mama’s fault, it’s Nannan’s fault. Nannan shouldn’t have just walked away with Uncle. Mama clearly told me… but Uncle smiled so kindly back then and gave Nannan candy. And Mama said Uncle was trustworthy…”

“No, no, no! It was I who couldn’t see people clearly! AHHHHH!!!!”

Hearing her daughter’s words, Auntie Zhou broke down into a fit of weeping. She knew her Nannan didn’t blame her; she was just stating the facts. She was explaining why she had been taken away silently by Zhang Hao, and why she had chosen to trust him even though she knew she shouldn’t leave with a stranger.

It was her mother’s words and Zhang Hao’s disguise that had led her toward a future of no return.

Realizing that her own trust in Zhang Hao had become the catalyst that killed her child, Auntie Zhou collapsed!

She threw herself onto the altar, carefully stroking the corpse of her daughter who had been dead for so long. At this moment, she no longer cared about Zhang Hao; her eyes held only her daughter.

“Sigh, things change and people pass.”

Mu Yao sighed as he watched the weeping woman.

Clatter.

The sound of chains hitting the ground suddenly rang out beside him. Zhang Hao, who had been hiding behind him, suddenly broke free from the Soul-Hooking Chain and bent down to grab the dagger. By the time Mu Yao heard the chains and realized he had escaped, Zhang Hao already had the weapon.

“Crap!”

Mu Yao was horrified. He was extremely close to Zhang Hao and had no time to dodge an attack.

Just as he thought the man would stab him, Zhang Hao suddenly pivoted and lunged toward the Rakshasa.

“Watch out!”

Mu Yao didn’t even have time to think. Seeing Zhang Hao charge the Rakshasa, he instinctively lunged forward as well.

“Ugh!”

Soon, Mu Yao felt a sharp pain in his left shoulder. Zhang Hao’s dagger had struck him, making him stagger.

“Little Impermanence!”

The Rakshasa had already prepared to counterattack the moment Zhang Hao charged, but he never expected this Little Impermanence to throw himself in the way. He caught the staggering Mu Yao and kicked Zhang Hao to the ground.

A wave of fury surged into his heart. He carefully placed Mu Yao on the ground and immediately went to Zhang Hao’s side.

He raised his foot and, without hesitation, stomped on Zhang Hao’s hand holding the dagger, applying pressure bit by bit until the bones were crushed.

Zhang Hao’s screams filled the cavern, but no one cared.

Once the bones in both hands were crushed, the Rakshasa quickly broke Zhang Hao’s legs to prevent him from crawling away.

Zhang Hao fainted from the intense pain of the first break, only to be jolted awake by the pain of the second.

The Rakshasa looked at Zhang Hao crawling on the ground, but the anger in his heart didn’t subside. If he didn’t need to keep the man alive for interrogation, he might have killed him then and there.

Leaving the barely-breathing Zhang Hao where he lay, the Rakshasa walked back toward Mu Yao with an aggressive stride.

“Uh, I helped you! What… what are you doing?!”

Mu Yao endured the agonizing pain in his shoulder as he watched the Rakshasa approach. He knew the man wouldn’t hurt him, but he was still a bit intimidated by the aura he projected.

“Help me? You were a hindrance. With his skills, he couldn’t have touched me, and I could have neutralized him easily. You, on the other hand—you’re like one of the Calabash Brothers rushing to save Grandpa; you just hurried over to get hurt for nothing!”

The eyes behind the Rakshasa’s mask glowed with a red light, and his tone was stern. Mu Yao instinctively shrank his neck.

“I… I… fine! It was indeed unnecessary for me to play ‘Calabash Brothers Saving Grandpa.’ You, this ‘Grandpa,’ didn’t need saving at all! I only went over because I didn’t want you to get hurt! To put it bluntly, it’s just my kind nature! Hmph, if I knew you were this… this strict, I wouldn’t have saved you! I should have just watched from the side!”

Seeing how the Rakshasa had dealt with Zhang Hao, Mu Yao knew his attempt to save him was redundant. But the injury was already sustained, and the intense pain brought up an unbidden surge of grievance.

In that split second, he truly hadn’t thought; he had just charged in. The left shoulder was very close to the heart; he had almost lost his life to save someone, yet the person he saved didn’t have a single kind word to say. He truly felt wronged!

“Tsk, I didn’t…”

The Rakshasa keenly sensed the grievance in Mu Yao’s voice. He raised a hand to scratch his head, suddenly feeling a bit at a loss.

“Ah!”

A cry of alarm came from Auntie Zhou in the distance. Mu Yao and the Rakshasa turned to look simultaneously.

The red-clothed female corpse stood up without any warning. Her teeth ground together rapidly, making a harsh, grating sound. Her handless arms swung wildly as she rose like a marionette, suddenly flying into the air.

After spinning once in mid-air, the corpse lunged violently toward the spot where Mu Yao and the Rakshasa were standing.