Xingzi Finds Out

Chapter 27

Sha Niu’s Mother worried that the Immortal Lady might prefer the wealthy and capable Village Chief. This same anxiety was mirrored in the Village Chief himself.

The Village Chief worried that the Immortal Lady might prefer people like Sha Niu’s Mother and Sha Niu. How… how could that be allowed?

Setting aside Li Qingqing and Sha Niu, both Sha Niu’s Mother and that madwoman were trafficked brides, neither of them locals.

Yet both of these women were incredibly close to the Immortal Lady.

The Village Chief’s next generation had no daughters. He had only two sons; the eldest had a granddaughter, while the younger son had no children yet.

There truly weren’t many people in his family who could approach the Immortal Lady.

In the past, only men were permitted to worship the Immortal Lady, but now that she had become human and returned to the village, the Village Chief, a middle-aged man, found himself hesitant and fearful of overstepping.

After all, he was the Village Chief. If he had too much contact with a widow who had lost her husband, the villagers, ignorant of the truth, would surely gossip behind his back. He naturally wanted to avoid that.

Consequently, the Village Chief ordered his eldest daughter-in-law to take the child and deliver items to the Immortal Lady every day.

Fearing his daughter-in-law might be tactless and offend her, he naturally told her that the woman was the reincarnation of the Immortal Lady and must not be neglected.

At first, the daughter-in-law, Xingzi, thought her father-in-law had gone senile. How could Ming Wen be the Immortal Lady?

She delivered meals several times and naturally witnessed Ming Wen treating others’ illnesses on multiple occasions. A doctor from the city really was different; once, when a child had a dislocated hand, Ming Wen touched it, seemingly without using any force, and the hand was fixed.

Even so, she still didn’t truly believe this young woman could be a deity.

Until this day, when she arrived as usual to deliver a meal.

The clinic was empty.

“Xingzi, are you looking for Doctor Ming? They went to Old Li’s house.”

“Which Old Li?” There were several families with the surname Li in the village.

“Which one could it be but Li Lao’er! Li Lao’er’s wife has gone mad again.”

An older woman passing by the door saw her and explained the situation.

“It’s truly frightening. Didn’t Li Lao’er’s wife get better a while ago? Everyone was so happy, and the family stopped locking her up.”

Xingzi knew about this. She had encountered the woman at the clinic a few times. A woman in her thirties or forties, dressed cleanly, she had come into the clinic holding an injured rabbit. At the time, Xingzi had wondered who she was, only to hear others say she was the madwoman.

Looking at her then, she had seemed fine, no longer mad.

Had it started again now?

Xingzi hurried over, afraid the madwoman might strike Ming Wen.

As soon as she arrived, she saw Li Lao’er’s family members being shoved out by Sha Niu and Li Qingqing.

“Out, get out! You’re not allowed in.”

“That’s right, you all stay outside for now.”

Li Lao’er’s family was being unreasonable, shouting back, “This is my house! What’s wrong with me going in to look?”

“You said she was cured before, but now she’s at it again. How can anyone feel at ease?”

The man was quite rough. Sha Niu, caught off guard, was pushed aside and bumped her head against the wall.

Sha Niu rubbed her head; fortunately, it wasn’t serious.

Just as Xingzi was about to speak, Sha Niu spotted her.

“Sister Xingzi! Come here quickly, help us!” Over this period of daily meal deliveries, Xingzi had proven to be a gentle woman, and Sha Niu naturally considered her one of their own.

Xingzi hurried forward and spoke to the family, “You all wait outside for a moment.”

She was, after all, the Village Chief’s daughter-in-law and was heavily pregnant. The others truly didn’t dare to keep pushing and shoving.

And so, Xingzi was pulled inside, and Sha Niu shut the door.

Only then did Xingzi see the situation clearly. In the dim room, Ming Wen was lying on the floor, peering under the bed.

The madwoman was hiding under the bed, concealed like a frightened rat.

“Wang Xia, it’s me. Do you remember me?” Ming Wen spoke into the shadows in a gentle voice.

Realizing the woman inside might not understand her, she asked Sha Niu to repeat it.

Sha Niu said, “She is the Immortal Lady, don’t you remember?”

Hearing Ming Wen referred to as the Immortal Lady again made Xingzi pause. Her father-in-law believed Ming Wen was the Immortal Lady, and Sha Niu thought so too?

It was then that Xingzi noticed bloodstains on the floor.

Ming Wen saw them as well. She reached out her hand. The room was quite dark, but fortunately, she had made great progress lately; otherwise, she truly would have had no way to handle this moment.

She revealed her wrist.

Beside her, Sha Niu immediately said, “The Immortal Lady is going to show us the Merit Beads.”

Li Qingqing also leaned in immediately to look.

Xingzi couldn’t really see. The windows in Xinghua Village were very high, and although it was daytime, not much light entered. Furthermore, since they were on the floor, Xingzi couldn’t see clearly what was on that wrist.

However, in the next second, everything became clear.

In the dim light, through some unknown means of Ming Wen’s, a string of glowing beads suddenly appeared on her wrist.

Xingzi’s eyes widened, unable to believe what she was seeing. She was shocked by the realization that the other woman truly was the Immortal Lady, and equally shocked that Ming Wen didn’t treat her as an outsider at all.

It wasn’t that Ming Wen didn’t consider her an outsider, but rather that the Village Chief clearly already knew her identity.

Sha Niu continued to coax the woman inside, “Don’t listen to the Li family’s nonsense. Look, the Immortal Lady is the Immortal Lady. Once her Merit Beads are full, she can return to the heavens.”

“Only two are missing now,” Ming Wen said.

Before Xingzi had time to process these words, she heard the person hiding under the bed slowly crawl out.

“Merit Beads… you’re going to ascend…” The woman’s head emerged.

After she had hidden away, the men of the house had frantically poked at her with bamboo poles to drive her out. As a result, there was a significant amount of blood on her face and body.

The young deity cleaned her wounds, and Xingzi saw her shed tears.

When Xingzi returned home, her mind drifted between her father-in-law’s words about Ming Wen being the Immortal Lady, the glowing Merit Beads on Ming Wen’s wrist, and finally, the tears Ming Wen had cried.

She didn’t understand. She didn’t understand why Ming Wen had been crying at that moment.

But in her heart, she felt the other woman was a deity; her father-in-law had not been mistaken.

That afternoon, as she looked at her daughter at home, she thought of the second child she had lost, and then she touched her own stomach.

Thus, when she went to deliver food the next morning, she sought out Ming Wen in secret.

“Immortal Lady…”

Ming Wen seemed to know what she wanted to say.

The eldest daughter-in-law was sincere and lacked any guile, so she spoke of her situation directly.

“Immortal Lady, could you please bless this child of mine so that they stay healthy?”

As she spoke of her children, tears began to flow. “My eldest girl, when she was a little over a year old, went out to play on her own. I don’t know how it happened, but she was bitten by a snake and lost two of her toes.”

She didn’t like talking about these things. In the past, whenever she mentioned it to her mother-in-law, the older woman would say, “That’s nothing. Back in my day, I had a child who lived to be twelve before they passed away…”

Every time that happened, she could only shut her mouth.

But now, Ming Wen truly looked like a deity from a temple. The young goddess looked at her and listened intently until she finished speaking.

The pain in her heart poured out naturally.

“I was supposed to have another child, but they died not long after birth. In the beginning, I always dreamed of that child. I couldn’t understand why they were gone. Everyone said the child had returned to the Immortal Lady’s side to be a Child Attendant, but she was still so small…”

“Now, after so much effort, I’m pregnant again.”

“I… I’m already five months along, aren’t I? Can you bless the child in my womb to be healthy? Please don’t let anything happen again…”

There was a gaping hole in the young mother’s heart, carved out by the days and nights following the loss of her child.

In this village, the death of a child was not a rare occurrence. When she was little, she had often heard about which auntie’s newborn had stopped breathing.

Back then, being young, it had seemed like just a simple sentence.

It wasn’t until she lost one herself that she understood it wasn’t just a matter of words. In the months after losing the child, she couldn’t stop herself from reaching out to touch her belly, unable to comprehend how the life was just gone.

Until she became pregnant again. Touching her stomach brought her comfort, but it also brought fear.

She was terrified of repeating the pain of the last time.

“I haven’t been able to sleep lately because of this.”

The young deity simply touched her stomach and soothed her. “Nothing will go wrong this time. I will help you.”

The eldest daughter-in-law knew that the Immortal Lady was currently Undergoing Tribulation herself and did not have much divine power, yet as long as she spoke, those who listened felt a sense of reliability.

The heavy stone in her heart was suddenly lifted.

Xingzi slept well that night. She dreamed that the child in her womb grew up tall and strong.

When she woke up, she touched her belly, her heart filled with peace.