Chapter 14 Gamble with Fate

My Soul-Seizing Hand had exhausted its strength, and there was no time for another move. I watched helplessly as Wang Xin’s soul was sucked into the whirlpool coiling within the ghost cauldron.

I stepped forward and kicked the cauldron over, spilling the fish soup across the ground, but Wang Xin's ghost was nowhere to be seen.

Ding Zhong said, his face pale, "It's over! This is the end! The fish is gone. How are we going to save the village?"

"Shut up! Listen to what Mr. Li has to say!" Zhao Zhuang said, his eyes bloodshot, gritting his teeth as he asked me, "Mr. Li, is there any hope?"

"We'll have to gamble with our lives!" I shook my head slightly. "The Dragon Fish is definitely gone. If we want to save people, we have to take a chance. If we win, everyone will be happy. If we lose, we won't be coming back."

I looked at Zhao Zhuang and said, "If you dare to gamble, come with me to the gates of the Underworld. If you don't dare, go back to Fish Basket Village and hide like before. Wait for your descendants to have a chance to leave the village."

Zhao Zhuang took out a cigarette and took two deep puffs. "I'll gamble! If I lose my boy, I'll have nothing left. What else is there I can't bet? I'd rather go out with a bang than suffocate in the village. Mr. Li, what do we do?"

I turned and looked around the room. "First, quickly gather all the dead fish. Don't leave any behind. Put them all in water tanks and carry them back to the village."

"Second, take all the ghost cauldrons. Dig three feet into the ground and find them all. Don't miss a single one!"

"Third, I need a boat, preferably a warship. Do you have one?"

Zhao Zhuang shook his head. "We only have fishing boats. If we really have to..."

Before Zhao Zhuang could finish speaking, Old Liu said, "There's a warship in the village, but I don't know if it can still sail."

Zhao Zhuang turned to him and said, "Uncle Liu, don't talk nonsense. That ship is hundreds of years old. It'll fall apart if we take it out."

After Old Liu explained, I learned that a warship from the old navy camp was hidden in the Fish Basket Village ancestral hall. It was a memento left behind by the founders of the village.

I pondered for a moment and said, "I'll take a look when we get back. Pack up and let's go!"

While the Ding brothers were busy cleaning up the fish corpses, I searched inside and out several times, and finally found seven ghost cauldrons. Adding the one from the old Wang family in the village, the total number of ghost cauldrons was eight.

Cauldrons never come in pairs, especially cauldrons of the same size. There should be another ghost cauldron.

But I searched the entire Yuanshan Village and couldn't find the last ghost cauldron.

On the way back to Fish Basket Village, I kept thinking about Wang Xin's last words.

Wang Xin's words seemed reasonable, yet there was something irrational about them. At the very least, Wang Xin gave me the feeling that he could foresee the future.

Did Wang Xin know that we would invade Yuanshan Village?

Did Wang Xin know that the gatekeeper would betray the Wang family?

Did Wang Xin know that we would take the Dragon Fish?

Wang Xin blamed everything on the old Wang family ghost who had already dissipated. If I were in the old Wang family ghost's place, I would have come to the same conclusion and made the same decision to fight to the death!

That's very reasonable!

But Wang Xin's soul is gone. Even if we summon the idiot woman's soul, it won't do any good. What can a soulless, idiotic ghost tell us?

It just didn't seem right to me that Wang Xin's dying words were used to write the final chapter on everything in Yuanshan Village.

As I walked along with my head down, I heard Old Liu comforting Zhao Zhuang: "Zhuangzi, there's no such thing as regret in this world! Nobody is a god who knows everything. Now that things have happened, you have to take it easy. We've done everything we can. That's all we can do."

"Don't think too much about it. You're still young. As long as you're alive, there's always hope!"

I was thinking about how to deal with the water ghost the whole way. I didn't hear what Old Liu said before, but his last sentence made me stop in my tracks.

I immediately quickened my pace and returned to Fish Basket Village as quickly as possible.

In just one day, Fish Basket Village had become a ruin. The front part of the village had been razed to the ground, and all that could be seen were the broken walls and debris washed away by the water.

The first things I saw were the bricks and tiles half-submerged in the water, and more than a dozen bodies half-immersed in the water.

Among the corpses were men, women, and several children around ten years old. All the corpses had been stripped of their upper garments, and their backs were exposed in the water like fish.

The remaining villagers of Fish Basket Village knelt neatly by the water, staring blankly at the pale corpses, motionless.

The Qu family's daughter-in-law failed to persuade the water ghost. Not only did she start killing people after we left, but she also flooded Fish Basket Village again. It was clear that some of the remaining villagers had been taken away. Those who managed to hold on until now were just a few sorcerers and a group of old, weak, sick, and disabled people.

Zhao Zhuang's legs trembled as he slowly moved to the water's edge. "Old Qu, where's my son?"

The sorcerer surnamed Qu suddenly laughed strangely. "Your son didn't die, but my wife is gone! It's all your fault!"