My Brother Has Been Following Me Since His Death
CHAPTER 5:
20.
Xia Shang looked at me with disdain, rolling his eyes.
“Now you know your brother is good?” he asked. “Still throwing a tantrum? Are you going to run off with that… that… thing?”
I shrunk my head, not daring to speak.
“Who exactly is Dr. Xiao?” I asked. “Why can he live so long without dying?”
Xia Shang scoffed. “Who knows what he is.”
Then he turned to me. “Xia Yuan, I'm going to use your body!”
I felt my mind go blank, and my body started to float.
Looking down, I saw another me standing on the ground.
But unlike my pitiful and cowardly self, the Xia Yuan before me had cold eyes and a faint smile playing on her lips.
With a single kick, the heavy wooden door was flung open.
This wasn't me; this was Xia Shang.
He really could control my body!
The people inside were startled by the noise and looked at her with frightened eyes.
“Xia Yuan! What are you doing?”
“Are you crazy?”
Xia Shang laughed coldly. “It's you who are crazy, not me!”
Then, he strode directly towards Master Li.
“Li Chenfeng, return my things!”
Master Li, hearing Xia Shang's words, froze for a moment, then his face changed.
“You… you're not Xia Yuan?”
Xia Shang sneered. “I'm your grandfather!”
The two of them started fighting.
Xia Xi was so frightened she tried to get out of the coffin.
“Mom and Dad! What's happening?”
Xia Yang was also crying loudly, calling for his parents.
Master Li shouted at my father, “Hold them down!”
“Xia Yuanbin, don't forget how you made your fortune.”
“I can make you rich and powerful, and I can also leave you with nothing!”
Master Li's words were like a bolt of lightning, instantly burning away all of my father's reason.
He fiercely walked over and pushed Xia Xi, who was sitting up from the coffin, back down.
“Didn't I tell you not to move? Why aren't you listening?”
“Do you want to see your father go bankrupt and our family lose everything before you're satisfied?”
Xia Xi was frightened back down by his fierce gaze.
Xia Yang, on the other hand, was crying even louder.
My mother, seeing that Xia Xi had been restrained, hardened her heart and held Xia Yang down as well.
The couple seemed to be competing with each other, ignoring their children's cries and struggles.
Xia Shang and Master Li fought fiercely.
Xu Man was petrified with fear.
I was stunned too.
Because, I watched as the black child statue on the altar began to move on its own.
Its eyes flashed with blood-red light as it stepped down from the altar.
All the spirit tablets in the room started to move.
Master Li was horrified. “You… you're the child from back then!!!”
Xia Shang laughed, and the black child statue laughed along with him.
21.
Master Li's expression instantly became ferocious. “I underestimated you!”
“Sixteen years… I was the one who gave you your name back then!”
“It's a joy to meet an old friend again.”
Master Li made a hand gesture, chanting under his breath.
Xia Yang in the coffin struggled even more violently.
Floating in the air, I clearly saw the black shadow, a giant rat.
And the black mist surging in the coffin was countless little rats.
At this moment, those rats were savagely gnawing on Xia Yang.
My father and mother, however, couldn't see.
They were holding down Xia Yang and Xia Xi respectively.
The louder Xia Yang's screams, the darker the black energy around Master Li.
My father saw Xia Yang's pained and pale face and said to Master Li, “Master… my son… is he going to be alright?”
“We agreed, it was supposed to be my daughter, right?”
My mother, upon hearing this, instantly changed color.
She turned her head and stared blankly at my father.
“Xia Yuanbin, what are you saying?”
My father panicked, his eyes darting around. “No… nothing…”
“Meiyun, believe me, whatever I do, it's for you and the children, and for this family.”
But my mother, as if she had already understood something, released Xia Yang and lunged at my father, clutching his neck tightly.
“Xia Yuanbin, you're not human!”
“What do you mean for me and the children? You're doing it for yourself, and for that bastard you had with Xu Man!”
My mother, a normally meek and mild housewife, somehow found incredible strength, pinning my father, a grown man, to the ground and choking him.
Xu Man came to her senses and tried to pull my mother off.
“Lin Meiyun, what are you doing!”
“Let go of Yuanbin, are you going to strangle him?”
Xia Yang in the coffin, however, let out a heart-wrenching scream, his body arching violently. His fingers curled into claws, digging into the edge of the coffin, blood pouring from his orifices.
“Yang Yang!”
Xu Man rushed towards Xia Yang, trying to grab his hand.
But Xia Yang's hand suddenly slipped, his whole body went limp, collapsing in the coffin, lifeless.
A red light flashed across Master Li's body, and he licked his lips, letting out a satisfied sigh.
“Truly a delicacy…”
Then, he looked at Xia Shang with mockery. “My power has increased greatly now, what are you going to do to fight me?”
22.
Xu Man looked at Xia Yang in the coffin in disbelief, trembling as she pulled him out, gently caressing his face and limbs.
“Yang Yang... you’re okay... you won’t be hurt…”
“Husband! Didn’t you say it would be your daughter who would die?!”
“My son, my son!!!”
She let out a heart-wrenching cry, mingling with the swirling shadows and howling winds in the room, sounding like the wails of spirits.
Xia Shang looked at the lifeless Xia Yang and burst into laughter.
“Hahahaha… retribution!”
“Xia Yuanbin, you are destined to have no son to carry on your name!”
“When you sacrificed your own son for wealth and power, you should have known this day would come!”
My mother and sister huddled together, utterly confused.
“What are you all talking about?”
“Yuan Yuan, please don’t scare Mom.”
Xia Shang turned his head, gazing deeply at my mother, and said with a faint smile, “You’ve got it wrong, Mom; I’m Xia Shang!”
My mother’s eyes widened in shock as she looked at Xia Shang, who was controlling my body.
“You… you…”
Xu Man suddenly burst into hysterical laughter.
“Hahaha!”
“Lin Meiyun, you don’t know, do you?”
“You think your good son died naturally? It was him! It was Xia Yuanbin who used his life for a wealth-attracting ritual for his business.”
My father's face turned pale, and he slapped her across the face.
“Shut up! What are you talking about?”
Xu Man's son had died, and she seemed to have gone mad. Even with a bleeding mouth from the slap, she didn't seem to feel the pain and laughed even louder.
“Didn’t you tell me all this yourself?”
“You said you didn’t like daughters at all!”
“You knew your wife was carrying twins, and you planned to use the unborn daughter for a wealth-attracting ritual!”
“But it was your son who ended up dying! Hahahahahaha…”
She stood up, walked over to my father, and placed her hand on his shoulder.
“Xia Yuanbin, you killed one of your sons, and now you’ve killed your other son!”
“This Master Li, he’s nothing but a child-eating monster!”
“Retribution! Retribution! Hahaha!”
She suddenly lowered her head and bit down on my father's neck.
Cries, screams, blood, and laughter echoed through the hall of the manor.
I looked up blankly at the gloomy sky, feeling that this world was more terrifying than hell.
On Xia Shang’s side, he was losing against Master Li and grabbed the black child statue.
I was pulled back into my own body by a force of suction.
Just as I was about to collapse from weakness, a figure in white robes suddenly descended from the sky, landing beside me and catching me before I fell.
23.
I blinked, wondering if I was seeing things.
The person in front of me had Xiao Qingzhi’s face, but he was different from Xiao Qingzhi.
He was clearly much taller, wearing a long white robe, with cascading black hair, glass-like eyes, and a cold, ethereal aura.
He was the man in the old photograph.
Seeing me looking at him, he looked down at me, smiled, and his voice was warm and gentle, like a spring breeze. “I told you to stay home and wait for me. You’re scared, aren’t you?”
For a moment, I didn’t know what to say.
It was Master Li, the one called Li Chenfeng, who spoke.
“No wonder you have my master's scent on you.”
“Little Uncle, long time no see!”
Xiao Qingzhi's voice, authoritative and resounding, echoed through the entire manor.
“Li Chenfeng, you betrayed your master, colluded with the rat demon, and killed innocent children to prolong your life, violating heaven’s will. Today, I will personally execute you on behalf of your master…”
As his voice rang out, the giant, ten-meter-tall puppet of a celestial being reappeared in the sky.
He held a giant sword in his hand and brought it down towards Master Li.
With a deafening roar, the room was filled with the screams and wails of tearing space.
The shadows of the little rats were torn apart, their souls dissolving into nothingness.
Li Chenfeng was crushed under the giant sword, his body split in two, his face constantly shifting between a rat and a human, terrifyingly grotesque.
But he wasn’t willing to accept defeat. Even with his body split in two, he dragged himself towards me and Xiao Qingzhi.
His face was filled with resentment and unwillingness.
“What did I do wrong? I just wanted to live!”
“Why… why didn't you teach me the art of immortality…”
With a final breath, the giant rat shadow that had possessed him flew up to escape.
But Xia Shang, who had merged with the black child statue, grabbed it in one hand.
“Trying to run?”
“It was something like this that ruined me? How ridiculous!”
“Every single spirit tablet here, every single one, is the vengeful spirit of a child!”
“Xiao Qingzhi, use your purifying flames to burn this entire manor to the ground!”
The enormous rat demon was caught in his hand, tears streaming down its face.
Xiao Qingzhi: “Arson is illegal.”
Xia Shang: “Cut it out! Is killing people legal?”
Xiao Qingzhi thought for a moment: “Oh, well, then burn it clean.”
I furrowed my brow, looking at the two of them, unsure whether they were friend or foe.
“You… what’s your relationship?”
Xia Shang: “We’re not related!”
Xiao Qingzhi: “Yuan Yuan doesn't need to know about things like this.”
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