Chapter 22: The Origins of the Jar People

“Huff… huff…”

The jar figure’s face twisted into a grimace of pain. The jar and it were one entity, yet now it was being forcefully broken open. To it, this was no different from having its chest torn open. But since its throat was constricted, it could not make a loud sound.

Zhang Zhiwei’s mastery of the Golden Light Spell was profound; the golden light was piercingly sharp, unstoppable by the jar. With a crack, the jar shattered, revealing the scene within.

Flesh and blood— the jar was filled with putrid, blackened flesh and blood.

Amid the mass of flesh was a small, pale body.

As the jar broke apart, the howling abruptly ceased, and the struggling jar figure fell silent.

“Neither human nor ghost… dead?!”

Zhang Zhiwei thought the jar figure had died. But upon closer inspection, he saw it quietly gazing at him.

That pale, paper-white face held clear eyes, no longer filled with the previous malice and deceit.

Seeing those pure, childlike eyes, Zhang Zhiwei was taken aback: “This is…”

Then he watched as the blackened flesh inside rapidly decayed, the pale body wrapped within also decomposing, turning little by little into black ash.

At the verge of death, the once fearsome jar figure looked dazed, murmuring softly:

“Mom… it hurts… Mom went to buy me candy… Mom’s gone… gone… they took me to find Mom… they put me in the black jar… it hurts… it hurts…”

The jar figure’s words were incoherent, whispered in fragments, growing weaker and weaker,

Until finally fading away completely.

Zhang Zhiwei lowered his eyes, silently watching the jar figure’s rapid decay, the flesh turning to black ash, leaving only a skeleton.

It was a child’s remains.

From those fleeting, dying words before death, Zhang Zhiwei gained a vague understanding.

Apparently, the jar figure was a child kidnapped by traffickers when its mother went out to buy candy, then stuffed into this jar, transformed into its current state.

“Eat candy… when we get out, I’ll burn some for you!”

***

Zhang Zhiwei stared at the small skeleton for a long moment, then withdrew his gaze and moved to the corner to examine the group of children who looked somewhat dazed.

He found they were unharmed, merely drugged and temporarily confused in mind. He breathed a sigh of relief—there was still hope for them.

Next, Zhang Zhiwei approached the child who had lost all limbs, resembling a seal, and examined him. The child’s eyes were skewed, mouth crooked, mind completely gone, already driven mad by torment.

“What should be done with these children?”

Zhang Zhiwei sighed and looked toward the third-class carriage. So far, his master had not intervened even once, clearly leaving all matters to him.

Seeing this, Zhang Zhiwei did not trouble Zhang Jingqing; he couldn’t expect his master to handle everything.

“If this were the future, I could just report it to the police, but now, in the Republic era, how should such matters be dealt with?”

After a moment’s thought, surveying the bloodstained floor of this carriage, Zhang Zhiwei recalled the way the Axe Gang handled such things in “Kung Fu” movies. Better to leave the cleanup to professionals—there was little he could do.

But most of these children had been stolen on the train. The Republic’s police, though incompetent, surely could locate the parents of missing children.

With that resolved, Zhang Zhiwei let the golden light around him dissipate and openly walked out of the coal carriage.

This time, he did not part the crowd with his powers but squeezed through the bustling aisle with everyone else, moving slowly amid the throng.

The scene vaguely reminded Zhang Zhiwei of the morning subway rush hour from his past life.

“Hmm… thinking carefully, the subway is still more crowded. Even if this third-class carriage is packed, you can still move through. The subway during rush hour? You can’t even budge!”

Just then, his ears twitched. Among the crowd, he faintly heard someone crying out about a lost child—likely a parent whose child was stolen by the beggars.

Zhang Zhiwei said nothing; he had spared the two train drivers, and soon enough, they would summon the train police, and then the children would be saved.

After some time, he returned to the second-class carriage seat.

The young couple was still there, holding their child, still asleep.

Master Zhang Jingqing sat on the seat, eyes closed in meditation. When Zhang Zhiwei returned, she opened her eyes and looked at him:

“Resolved?”

“Yes, resolved. But Master, I encountered a person trapped in a jar, who could blow paper into blades, impervious to weapons. It seemed to be controlled by this bell!”

Zhang Zhiwei handed the magical bell to Zhang Jingqing, then briefly recounted the situation in the coal carriage.

***

After listening, Zhang Jingqing toyed with the bell for a while, then said, “Have you heard of raising little ghosts?”

Zhang Zhiwei nodded. “I have. I heard that in Nanyang, raising little ghosts—called ‘Kuman Thong’—involves using an infant’s soul, binding it to a bone tile, and feeding it with one’s own blood. It is said to bring good luck and wealth.”

Zhang Jingqing replied, “That’s one version. But the sorcery of raising little ghosts in Nanyang is nothing compared to the Left Dao’s practices in the Central Plains.”

“Generally speaking, in the Central Plains’ Left Dao, raising little ghosts falls into two types: one without a physical form, targeting a person’s ‘nature’; the other with a physical form, targeting a person’s ‘life force.’ The one you encountered just now was the latter.”

“To create such a little ghost, first you must find a child under twelve, trap them in a specially made jar filled with a concoction that rots their skin, then feed them bowls of drugged raw meat.”

“If the child endures the poison without dying, after completing these steps, a strand of their soul is extracted and sealed into the bell, while the jar is wrapped in talisman cloth and sealed for forty-nine days.”

“After the period, the seal is broken. If successfully raised, the little ghost becomes a handy tool—impervious to weapons and fire, able to turn paper into blades. Ordinary supernatural beings are no match for it.”

“However, the success rate is very low. At every stage, the child is likely to perish. I estimate it takes over a hundred children to produce one successful little ghost.”

Zhang Jingqing spoke without emotion.

Zhang Zhiwei listened silently.

Afterward, the two sat in silence, the only sound that of the train clattering along the tracks.

After a pause, Zhang Zhiwei said, “The leader of those beggars said before he died that they belong to the Caobang gang.”

Zhang Jingqing nodded, “The Caobang is large, with Left Dao sorcerers among them. Not surprising.”

“How big?” Zhang Zhiwei asked. “Is it as big as our Heaven Master’s Mansion?”

“What do you think?”

Zhang Jingqing looked at him calmly, expressionless but with a hidden fury.

She was pleased with how Zhang Zhiwei handled things but disliked his comparison of the Caobang to their Heaven Master’s Mansion.

Faced with her question, Zhang Zhiwei did not hesitate. He raised his hand, flipped his palm, pressed down lightly, making a gesture as effortless as turning over a hand, and said matter-of-factly:

“A bunch of lowly scum, not worth so much as smelling the wind from our Heaven Master’s Mansion. I could wipe them out with a flick!”

But as soon as he finished speaking, Zhang Zhiwei caught his master’s deep gaze upon him.