Chapter 184: Frightened

He did not bother weighing the consequences, for Tianling did not care about life or death, and so Yin Mao readily and firmly agreed to his request.

As for such a simple and rough man, Yin Mao had no suspicion that the words he spoke were false, for from their first meeting to this moment of close contact, he had judged that this bull-headed fellow, with his childlike temper, could not possibly harbor much cunning.

Just as Yin Mao had thought, Tianling was indeed a simple fool. His insistence on following Yin Mao up the mountain was exactly as he had said, with not the slightest deceit in it.

After agreeing to Tianling’s request, it was not long before Zhang Zhiming led the other two people in the hall to a dining room.

Before nightfall, after Yin Mao had eaten dinner at the Zhang residence, he took Tianling and set off toward the little hill west of the city, where the Zhang family’s eldest mistress had been buried.

When they entered the mountain, snow, which had ceased for a day, began to fall again. There was not much snow in the woods, and the mountain was not especially high, so the two of them reached a burial ground built halfway up the slope without much effort.

“Master Yin... M-Master Yin, why... why is there no snow in this burial ground? Did you clear it in the daytime?”

“What, are you scared?” Yin Mao did not answer the question, but asked one of his own in return.

“No, I’m not afraid. Zhang Zhiming said you’re the most famous master in this river-tortoise county, so I figure your abilities must be no small thing. With you here, I’m not afraid.”

Tianling’s words sounded like flattery, but Yin Mao did not take them that way, because the man was too simple-minded and too rough in character to speak such ingratiating words.

“You trust your brother-in-law that much?”

“Trust him? Trust my foot. I hate him to death. When my sister was still alive, she once told me that Zhang Zhiming was no good. He only made it to where he is today because he rose on the strength of my family’s connections.

“Even after my sister married into the Zhang family, she was the one who controlled all of the family’s finances, but behind her back, who knows how much private money Zhang Zhiming secretly stashed away.

“And look at him: lecherous by nature, marrying one wife after another, and my sister even told me he has several illegitimate children out there too.”

Though snowflakes were now drifting down, none landed within the burial ground. The two of them sat by a wall in the yard, and Tianling spoke at length about Zhang Zhiming’s shortcomings.

From the other man’s words, Yin Mao could tell they were not false, for someone as simple as this would not tell lies so fluently and naturally.

Among these matters, either his dead sister had misled him, or Zhang Zhiming truly was as he described.

But these details had nothing to do with him. Whether Zhang Zhiming was good or bad, what concern was that of his? Right now he was nothing more than a master taking money to ward off disaster for someone else.

In the end, this was only a trade. Once night fell and he had driven off the evil spirit for the Zhang family, the deal would be settled. Whether there would be any dealings with them in the future was another matter entirely, so naturally he did not care whether the other party was good or bad.

At present, the reason he was passing the time by chatting with this simpleton was only because the waiting was too tedious. If he could draw out the evil spirit and destroy it, he would never willingly sit here like a woman in this burial ground among the hills and woods, listening to such a fool discuss right and wrong and good and evil.

He remembered that ten years ago, Zhou Qing had once said this: “In this world, those who distinguish between good and evil, between right and wrong, are all children, or those who have not yet grown up. In the worldview of adults, only profit exists.”

The fool beside him went on and on, telling how despicable, how shameless his brother-in-law was, and Yin Mao would nod from time to time in response. On the surface, at least, it gave Tianling the respect he deserved.

“I’m telling you, Zhang Zhiming isn’t just narrow-minded, he’s also extremely vile in his conduct. Three years ago...”

Just as Tianling had found another fault in Zhang Zhiming’s character and was about to begin his condemnation, a strange wind suddenly swept through the once-silent burial ground.

The wind rose with a faint whooshing sound, carrying the bone-deep chill peculiar to winter.

Struck by that sudden gust, the two men sitting by the earthen wall could not help but shiver.

“Go wait outside.”

Yin Mao stood from the wall and reached out, pushing Tianling, who had also risen, beyond the earthen enclosure.

Tianling did not protest the shove. Instead, he hurried outside the wall. He might have looked foolish and rough, but he was not a fool.

So in this kind of setting, he naturally knew to keep his distance and watch the show from afar.

Before coming up the mountain, Yin Mao had given Tianling a small vial of ox tears and told him that if he smeared them in his eyes, he would be able to see the body of an evil spirit.

So after running out of the earthen wall, Tianling dashed several zhang beyond the burial ground, hid himself behind an old tree, and then took out the ox tears to smear them into his eyes.

As Tianling fled from the burial ground, Yin Mao gripped tightly the peach-wood sword struck by lightning that he had carried behind his back in his right hand. At the same time, he took in his left hand the talisman Zhou Qing had left him.

After the yin wind began to blow through the burial ground, about five breaths passed before it vanished into thin air. Then, from within the earthen wall of the graveyard, there came a sudden and peculiar cry.

The cry was piercingly mournful, carrying within it a chill that seemed to seep into the bones.

After hiding behind the great tree, Tianling heard the strange cry from the burial ground and could not help but tremble all over.

The sound was far too eerie, and from it he could tell that it was the cry of a woman.

Though he was forty-one this year, in all his forty-one years of life he had never once seen such sinister things. When he came here, he had actually not been afraid at all.

Because Yin Mao was standing in front of him, and because he had been bold since childhood, he had never given much thought to the word fear. But at this moment, with that uncanny sound drifting out from the burial ground, his heart began to pound violently.

Not only that, but Tianling’s face was now filled with deep terror. It was clear that the single ghostly cry from the burial ground had truly frightened the rough fellow.

There are many things in this world just like this: before you encounter them, or before you do them, you may hold a self-assured attitude toward them, but once you truly come into contact with them, you realize they are not at all what you imagined.

Of course, those with power and overbearing strength often turn matters back into the scope of their own control. In their eyes, there is no need for what you think they need only what they themselves think.

Yet such self-assured people often like to do things that lie beyond their own control.

Take Tianling now, for example: following Yin Mao up this burial mountain was something wholly beyond his own control.