Chapter 156: The Village Tyrant

At this moment, I could only manage a bitter smile.
How could it end up like this? Was the heavens playing a cruel joke on me?
Waner sat down by my side, took my hand, and said, "Brother, don't worry so much. Things will slowly get better. I think Sister Ying probably hasn't fully expelled the residual yin poison from her body yet. As time passes, she will gradually recover."

Her words made sense. Wang Ying had originally been kind and pure, but was instantly transformed into a malicious ghost. The poison she had contracted must have run deep, so an instantaneous recovery was impossible. I would just have to wait patiently.

"Waner, it's getting late. You should get some rest," I said, looking at Waner with a deep sense of guilt in my heart.
Waner smiled slightly. "Brother, you should rest soon. I don't need to sleep. Did you forget again?"
"Waner, I want to go and check on Wang Ying."
Waner nodded. "She is your wife. Of course you should go."

I smiled sheepishly and walked toward Waner's room. Pushing the door open, I saw Wang Ying sitting there, still wearing a dazed, foolish expression.
"Wife, it's getting late. You should rest early," I said, looking at Wang Ying with an abundance of affection, yearning for her to recognize me, hold me tightly, and speak to me.
"What is wrong with you? I am not your wife! The one outside is. Get out, get out..." Wang Ying picked up a pillow and hurled it at me, her face flushed with anger.

Speechless, I had no choice but to retreat.
Waner was standing right behind me. "Brother, go and get some rest. You've been busy all day, your body won't hold up. Just leave her to me to take care of."
With no other options, I could only agree, firmly believing that she would eventually wake up.

The night passed quietly, and I woke up very early the next morning. The outside world was bright and clear. Waner was busy preparing breakfast for me, while Wang Ying sat in the courtyard with her chin cupped in her hands, the morning glow casting a radiant hue over her like a sculpture of a beauty.

I fetched a basin, poured in some water, placed a towel inside, and carried it over to her. "Wife, let's wash your face."
Wang Ying blinked in surprise. "Don't call me wife! I am not your wife. If you must call me something, call me Yinger. If you don't want to, then don't." Snatching the basin from my hands, she began splashing the water around to wash up.

Waner walked over and shook her head, mentioning that she had already helped Wang Ying wash her face earlier. It seemed her memory lapses were quite severe—she had already forgotten that she had just washed her face moments ago.

Wang Ying needed time to recover, but life had to go on. After breakfast, I hoisted a hoe over my shoulder and walked out of the house. Writing this down, readers might feel the contrast is a bit too jarring. An Yin-Yang sorcerer who once wielded the divine Phoenix Pool weapon, rode the purple-gold steed, and practiced the Soul-Sucking Great Art was now shouldering a farm hoe—doesn't that sound a bit too cliché?

In truth, just a few months ago, this was precisely who I was. I was simply a farmer who usually tilled the fields with my Second Uncle, occasionally helping people perform ghost marriages, while spending the vast majority of my time working diligently in the farmland from dawn till dusk.
I suppose this was just a return to my true nature.

The season was already mid-autumn, and the harvest had begun in the central region of Shandong. Since I had only been away from home for two months, I still remembered clearly where my fields were located. On the way to the fields, as I passed by the Murder Ravine, I deliberately paused for a moment to take a look, but found nothing unusual. Remembering the events of the previous night, it all felt like a dream.

I just hoped those Japanese ghosts wouldn't come out to cause trouble; otherwise, I would certainly show them no mercy.

When I reached our family's plot, I was utterly stunned. The few mu of peanuts belonging to my family were gone—meaning someone had already harvested them.
Since none of us were home, it was theoretically understandable for someone else to harvest them. But now that I was back and intended to put down roots and live here, I had to reclaim my harvest. Having stepped out of the Yin-Yang underworld, I now had to rely on farming to survive.

Hurrying over to the village chief's house, Village Chief Wang Feng was startled when he laid eyes on me. "Why are you back?"
The village chief had an ordinary relationship with my family and didn't usually interact with us much. The main reason was that he was a village cadre, educated, and disbelieved in superstitions. Everything my family did looked eccentric and bizarre in his eyes, naturally creating conflict. My Second Uncle had never paid him any mind, and he found my Second Uncle even more intolerable. Consequently, the farmland allocated to our family was always the poorest quality.

"Village Chief Uncle, I've come to ask why the peanuts in our family's field are gone? Were they harvested by someone?" Whatever grievances existed in the past were left behind by my Second Uncle and had nothing to do with me, so I tried to keep my tone amiable.
"Do you men still rely on this tiny bit of land to make a living? Don't you guys make a living by selling dead bodies!" Wang Feng said indifferently, his eyes filled with contempt. And it was hardly surprising—rural grassroots cadres didn't rise to power through competence, but through clan influence. Generally speaking, in any given village, whichever family had the largest clan produced the village chief and party secretary. Those from smaller clans could only watch helplessly as they suffered bullying and cold stares.

Although our family also shared the surname Wang, it was secretly rumored that we were "outsider Wangs" who had migrated from Wangling Village during the Great Leap Forward, unrelated to the Wangs of Wangpu Village. Together with the Sun and Li families, we were labeled as "outsider surnames" and had secretly suffered quite a few injustices. When my Second Uncle was around, our family didn't rely heavily on farming, maintaining our livelihood through ghost-walking instead, so we generally didn't care much. But now that I was the head of the household, how should I handle this complicated relationship?

"Village Chief Uncle, you can't put it that way! A living is a living, no matter how it's made. The state even advocates diversified management." I forcibly suppressed the displeasure rising in my chest.
"Does advocating management mean letting your family sell corpses? Does it mean letting you dig up graves (slang for grave robbing and corpse theft)? Do you know that lacks virtue?" Probably assuming I was easy to bully, Wang Feng didn't say a single pleasant word.

Here, I needed to clarify something. The ghost marriage business my Second Uncle and I ran was truly not an immoral endeavor. First of all, we did not rob graves or dig up tombs. Performing ghost marriages for people was done out of consideration for lonely wandering ghosts. If these wandering ghosts received no comfort, they would only cause chaos.

There was no need for me to explain all this to Wang Feng. Since he was being discourteous, I had no reason to be polite either. I said, "Village Chief Uncle, I didn't come here to discuss that. My family's peanuts were harvested by someone else, and for this matter, I have to hold you responsible!"

"Wang Dachang, your family's peanuts went missing—why on earth are you coming to me? I'm not a watchdog guarding your property!" After saying this, Wang Feng suddenly realized he had misspoken and hurriedly corrected himself: "With nobody home in your family, am I supposed to assign someone to stand guard specifically for you?"

"Whether you guard it or not is none of my concern. Since things went missing from my family, I'm coming to you—unless you stop acting as this village chief." I was growing genuinely angry.
"Wang Dachang, whether I remain village chief or not is none of your business. Even if I step down, it's still none of your concern, so don't even dream about it!" the village chief snapped angrily.

"Stop spouting useless nonsense! If you don't help me retrieve my family's peanuts, I'll keep coming after you. You collect your monthly salary, living off the sweat and blood of the common people, yet you shirk your duties and still act so righteous?" My Second Uncle used to keep me on a tight leash, and I had endured this man for a very long time. Now that there was no one left to restrain me, I naturally wanted to follow my impulses and act accordingly.

"Get out, get out, get out! My family doesn't like you, you carry an aura of misfortune! Don't bring your bad luck to my doorstep!" Wang Feng waved his hand impatiently at me.
I truly wanted to slap him unconscious, but ultimately managed to exercise restraint. There is plenty of time in the future—I refused to believe I couldn't outfight him.

Underneath Wang Feng's disdainful gaze, I walked away. Seething with anger as I walked down the street, I nearly collided head-on with Li Xiaofei just as I neared my doorstep.
"Brother Chuan, what's wrong? Who have you been feuding with?"
"Wang Feng! My family's peanuts were harvested by someone, and when I went to him, he just gave me the runaround," I said irritably.

Li Xiaofei put his arm around my shoulder and pulled me aside. "You just got back, so I forgot to tell you—your family's peanuts were actually harvested by Wang Feng. A few nights ago, he led a group of people to secretly harvest them, and someone in the village saw it."

Hearing this, I nearly burst with rage. Damn it, no wonder he hadn't given me a pleasant look; it turned out he was the thief! "I'm going to find him." I turned on my heel and marched straight toward Wang Feng's house. Li Xiaofei grabbed me in a flash. "Do you think he'll admit it if you confront him? He stole them at night, and barely anyone saw him. With his influence, even if someone did see, who would dare testify for you?"

At that moment, Li Xiaofei was still unaware of my true capabilities. In his eyes, I was merely someone who put on a charade of ghosts and gods to arrange ghost marriages for people.

I stopped in my tracks, reached into my pocket, and pulled out the money Li Zheng had given me the previous night. Counting out ten thousand yuan, I handed it to Li Xiaofei and said, "Here! This is the money for the motorcycle from the Huang family."

Li Xiaofei looked at me incredulously. "Ten thousand yuan? This much? My bike cost less than 6,000 yuan even with registration."
"Just take it. This is what he owes us as compensation." I felt a lingering irritation. Damn it, Wang Feng dared to harvest my family's crops behind my back! Then I dared to settle accounts with him after the fact. Just you wait!