Chapter 65: Evil Qi Enters the House
He smiled mysteriously, then asked,
"Take a guess. Who do you think caught this fish?"
The moment he spoke, everyone at the dinner table froze.
"Did... Grandma catch it?"
Ling Zhiwei asked tentatively.
"Me? I can’t even hold a fishing rod steady. The line goes crooked with the slightest twitch of my hand."
Ding Qin couldn’t help but burst out laughing.
She pointed a finger at her little granddaughter beside her, her voice light and cheerful.
"It was Shanshan, your little cousin. She used a willow branch she snapped off by the river and a bit of line, and with a single WHOOSH, she hauled this big fish right out!"
The dinner table fell silent for a moment.
And then...
"What?!"
Ling Ancai’s eyes went wide.
"For real?!"
Yan Yaya was so startled she nearly spilled her soup.
"Shanshan? A kid that small?! How old is she, five or six?"
Ling Zhiwei shook his head again and again.
"It’d be amazing if she could even hold the rod steady, let alone catch a fish this big!"
The whole room instantly erupted in a flurry of excitement.
Everyone crowded around Shanshan, peppering her with questions.
"Little Shanshan, did you really catch it with a willow branch?"
"Weren’t you scared when the fish took the hook?"
"Did Grandpa help you pull it in?"
"You must have secretly used some bait, right?"
As for Shanshan, she sat on her little stool, puffing out her chest and holding her chin high.
She let them all pat her head and pinch her cheeks.
When someone praised her for being clever, she’d give a bashful smile.
When someone teased her, she’d tilt her head and reply,
"The fish got on the hook by itself. I’m not lying."
Her grown-up-like expression only made the whole family laugh even harder.
Ling Zhenkang’s health had just started to slowly improve.
But then, Ding Qin suddenly collapsed.
Ding Qin was already getting on in years, and her health was maintained through careful recuperation.
She had her share of minor aches and pains, but she had never fainted so suddenly and without any warning.
"Grandma! Grandma’s dizzy! Dad!"
Shanshan’s face went pale with fright as her small hands gripped tightly onto Ding Qin’s arm.
Ling Anxun had been in the backyard playing with Shanshan.
The two of them were squatting on the ground, watching ants on the move.
But in that moment of peace, Ding Qin swayed without any warning.
Her legs gave out, and her entire body sagged to one side.
She was still muttering about making a bowl of steamed egg custard for her granddaughter.
But before she could finish her sentence, her vision blurred, and the world began to spin.
Her knees buckled, and she almost collapsed onto the bluestone slabs.
How could a three-year-old like Shanshan possibly have the strength to hold up a grown adult?
She was so frantic she started to cry, her little face flushed red and tears streaming down, yet she gritted her teeth and refused to let go.
"Don’t fall, Grandma! Don’t fall!"
But she was just a child, after all. Her strength was limited, and all she could do was watch helplessly as her grandmother leaned further and further.
In that critical moment, she summoned all her strength and screamed for help.
"Dad! Dad, come quick!"
Fortunately, the others inside the house heard her and rushed out immediately.
They all rushed into the yard at nearly the same time.
"What’s wrong?"
"Mom! What’s wrong?"
"Grandma, don’t scare me!"
The Second Sister-in-Law gently pulled Shanshan away, holding her in her arms to comfort her.
But she kept her hand outstretched, refusing to let go of the hem of her grandmother’s clothes.
In a flurry of panicked activity, they got Ding Qin to the hospital.
No one spoke a word on the way there. The car was filled with a heavy, oppressive silence.
At the hospital, a series of tests were run immediately.
But after a full battery of tests, they found nothing.
The EKG was normal. The brain CT showed no abnormalities. Her blood pressure was a little low, but not dangerously so.
All her vitals were within a safe range.
The doctor just said, "She’s getting older. Make sure she gets plenty of rest and doesn’t worry too much."
’If she’s not sick, then why did Grandma suddenly faint?’
This vague conclusion only made their hearts sink further.
With no other choice, they could only take her home to rest and recuperate.
A heavy atmosphere once again descended upon the Ling family’s old home.
The doors and windows were shut tight, and the scent of burning mugwort filled the house.
Calming incense was placed by the bedside, and a pot of nourishing medicinal soup simmered on the stove day after day.
The women of the family who weren’t busy with work stayed behind to look after the elder and the child.
The Eldest Sister-in-Law voluntarily quit her part-time job at the town’s general store. The Second Sister-in-Law postponed appointments with several patients. And the Third Sister-in-Law moved back into the old house altogether.
They took turns keeping watch through the night, terrified of the slightest mishap.
But no one could have predicted that this was only the beginning.
After Ding Qin collapsed, Ling Anxun’s brothers also began to feel unwell, one after another.
"What kind of curse has befallen our family lately?"
The Eldest Sister-in-Law muttered, sighing and frowning as she placed the cleaned vegetables into a basin.
"Your eldest brother is usually strong enough to carry two sacks of rice, but now he’s laid up in bed, unable to even hold his chopsticks steady. Isn’t that strange?"
"Tell me about it. My husband complains every day that his back and legs ache. I took his pulse, but everything is normal."
The Second Sister-in-Law chimed in, her brow furrowed.
"His pulse is steady, and his qi and blood aren’t deficient, but he just insists he feels sick. I tell him to get it checked out, but he refuses and says it’s nothing. I’m worried sick."
"What’s the point of an examination? My husband went last week, had a CT scan, an MRI, the works. The doctor said nothing was wrong. It was all just a big waste of time."
The Third Sister-in-Law’s tone was indignant, but it couldn’t mask her worry.
"A couple of days ago, he even said he heard someone walking around at night, but when he opened the door, no one was there. You tell me, what could it be if not something supernatural?"
Outside, the wind made the bamboo curtain sway gently.
The soup on the stove bubbled, GURGLE GURGLE, and the steam blurred their faces.
The more they talked, the more supernatural the topic became, and the more it sent a chill down their spines.
But no one noticed that Shanshan, who was helping set the table nearby, had suddenly frozen.
"When... when did they start feeling sick?"
Her childish voice broke the heavy silence.
The three adults froze for a moment, then turned in unison to look at her.
Shanshan was standing on a little stool, a blue-and-white porcelain bowl still in her small hand, but her eyes were fixed on the Eldest Sister-in-Law.
The image of the black mist she had seen in the hospital room flashed through her mind, and her heart sank.
’I didn’t dare say anything back then, I was afraid of scaring Dad.’
’But thinking back on it now, not long after that mist appeared, Grandpa’s condition got worse...’
’And now, my eldest uncle and the others are having problems one after another. The timing is too much of a coincidence.’
’It wasn’t a hallucination, was it?’
But she couldn’t be sure. She had to ask each of them to find out for certain.
She set down the bowl, stepped off the stool, and tilted her little face up, her gaze sweeping over her three aunts.
She remembered secretly flipping through the Ling family’s ancestral medical books.
They mentioned concepts like "evil energy entering the home."
The three women doted on her. They all knew this child understood some esoteric medical arts, and they never treated her like an ordinary kid.
Ever since she was two and a half, she had accurately diagnosed her grandfather with "stagnation obstructing the lungs" and suggested the correct course of medication.
Later, when even the old traditional Chinese medicine doctor clicked his tongue in amazement, the family began to regard her with a certain degree of reverence.
She was usually quiet and well-behaved, but whenever she spoke of medicine, her eyes would become bright and her speech, crystal clear.
Seeing how seriously she was asking, they carefully recounted all the symptoms and timelines for her.
Shanshan’s little brow furrowed tightly.
She remembered that the black mist had appeared at almost the exact same time Ding Qin had fainted.
From that moment on, the house’s yang energy had gradually weakened, and its vitality had failed to gather.
Even the dogs began to bark wildly at night, and the chickens returned to their coops unusually early.
These were all things mentioned in the books.
The three women watched her, their hearts softening.
They exchanged a glance, and no one said another word.
In the kitchen, the only sounds were the soft bubbling of the soup pot and the whisper of the wind through the window.
At that moment, they suddenly realized this child might have truly seen something that was invisible to them.