The Village Chief Finds Out

Chapter 29

The Village Chief hurried to the Immortal Lady’s temple to confess his sins, repenting for the fact that he had mistaken a mere mortal for the Immortal Lady.

“It was all my own blindness. I hope the Immortal Lady will not take offense.”

He kowtowed repeatedly as he spoke.

Inside the temple, the clay sculpture of the Immortal Lady sat high above.

This was the image the Village Chief was familiar with, the one that brought him peace of mind. The more he looked at it, the more he felt that things were better this way. The Immortal Lady should stay in her temple like this, rather than suddenly turning into a person and entering the village.

The Village Chief placed the rapeseed oil he had brought as an offering on the altar and hurriedly kowtowed again.

He felt it once more – the Immortal Lady was standing above him, looking down at him.

By the time he descended the mountain, his heart felt light and unburdened. When his eldest daughter-in-law rushed over to find him in a panic, he was even able to say, “What’s the rush?”

The eldest daughter-in-law was not a bad person by nature. She was young and relatively kind-hearted. Now that she knew Sha Niu and the others had to go to the city for surgery, she naturally wanted to help.

“Father-in-law, Sha Niu’s head needs surgery in the city…”

She was interrupted before she could even finish her sentence.

“Don’t concern yourself with this matter. You don’t need to go to Ming Wen’s place anymore, and you don’t need to go to the clinic either.” He had sent her there before because he thought Ming Wen was the Immortal Lady. Now that he was certain she wasn’t, there was naturally no need to go.

Before the first issue was resolved, another one had cropped up.

“Father-in-law?”

“Don’t say another word about it. My decision is final.” Being both an elder and the Village Chief, he was long accustomed to giving orders.

The daughter-in-law quickly followed after him, saying, “Father-in-law, this won’t do. Ming Wen-“

“I know exactly what I’m doing regarding Ming Wen.”

No, you don’t, the daughter-in-law thought. Looking at her father-in-law now, it was obvious he had no idea.

“Father-in-law, I don’t understand. Didn’t you also know that Ming Wen is the Immortal Lady? Aren’t you afraid she’ll hold a grudge if you treat her like this?”

She knew how much the Village Chief revered the Immortal Lady, so she couldn’t understand what was happening.

“We were mistaken before. She isn’t the Immortal Lady.” The Immortal Lady possessed boundless divine power; how could she possibly be unable to cure Sha Niu’s illness?

The daughter-in-law breathed a sigh of relief. So her father-in-law had simply made a mistake.

She believed that as long as she convinced him Ming Wen was the Immortal Lady, he would surely listen to her and send Sha Niu to the city for treatment.

“Ming Wen is the Immortal Lady. I can guarantee it. I’d stake my life on it.”

“If she were the Immortal Lady, would she need to beg us to take someone to the city for treatment? Couldn’t she just perform a miracle and heal her instantly?”

The daughter-in-law quickly explained, “She has descended to the mortal realm to undergo tribulation. She doesn’t have her divine powers right now.”

“I saw it with my own eyes. She can accumulate merit now to transform back into the Immortal Lady. Whenever her hand touches water, many beads of merit appear. Those beads even glow! I saw it myself. She’s only two beads away from returning to the heavens.”

What?

The Village Chief’s hands began to shake. It was impossible. Absolutely impossible.

The daughter-in-law gritted her teeth and lowered her voice. “She is the Immortal Lady. She’s undergoing tribulation right now.”

“If it weren’t for the fact that saving people doesn’t count as merit, she would have ascended already…”

The daughter-in-law’s entire argument was that they must help the Immortal Lady this one time.

“Father-in-law, didn’t you tell me to get on the Immortal Lady’s good side? This is the best opportunity.” Xingzi felt her father-in-law was being foolish. At a time like this, how could he afford to offend the Immortal Lady?

“We have to agree to her request immediately. Not only that, we have to provide the money to send Sha Niu to the city for treatment.”

She knew very well how much the Immortal Lady cared for that child, Sha Niu.

The Immortal Lady was currently crossing her tribulation. Once she finished and returned to her true state…

The Village Chief seemed not to hear the rest of his daughter-in-law’s words. His mind was entirely occupied by a single sentence.

Saving people doesn’t count as merit.

Saving people doesn’t count as merit.

Back then, all of Honggu’s merit came from saving people. She had performed good deeds and accumulated merit by saving people in the village for over eighty years before finally ascending to immortality.

But now, saving people no longer counted as merit. Even saving animals counted, but not people.

The daughter-in-law was still young and didn’t understand the implications of this. But the Village Chief was of an age where he had grown up listening to stories of the gods.

He understood instantly.

A wave of profound sorrow washed over the Village Chief.

How great a sin had they committed? Why had things turned out this way?

It was like a crack opening up, making him realize another terrifying problem.

Since the Immortal Lady arrived here, aside from Li Qingqing, she had only been close to several of the trafficked brides.

Their Immortal Lady – had become the Immortal Lady of those outsider wives.

The Village Chief didn’t sleep all night. His thoughts were filled with the Immortal Lady he had worshipped since childhood.

Since his earliest memories, the elders of his family had carried him on their backs to the Immortal Lady’s temple to worship and pray for her protection.

One year, the harvest was poor. He remembered the corn cobs being exceptionally small that year, not even enough to feed the family. Yet his grandparents still insisted on making those ears of corn into cakes to offer before the Immortal Lady.

He was young then and didn’t understand. Since the food just sat there and the Immortal Lady didn’t actually eat it, why did they have to give it to her?

His grandmother had said, “If it weren’t for the Immortal Lady’s protection, how could that crazy mother of yours have given birth to such a smart son like you?”

Later, watching his mad mother, especially when he saw her throwing filth at passersby, he began to thank the Immortal Lady from the bottom of his heart.

Thank you, Immortal Lady, for your protection. He was not a madman.

Because of his mad mother, he had suffered a lot in the village as a child. Back then, other children would quickly dodge away when they saw him. They would gather on the other side and shout at the top of their lungs, “Run! He’s going to throw filth at us like his mom!”

They laughed as they spoke. They weren’t truly afraid he would suddenly go mad; they just wanted to mock him.

And when he went home, what he saw was the giggling madwoman, constantly babbling nonsense he couldn’t understand.

He couldn’t understand why his father would ever take an interest in such a madwoman. Her presence had made him the laughingstock of the entire village.

He had secretly gone to the Immortal Lady, praying for her protection and begging for her help.

Not long after, that madwoman died. For no apparent reason, she had taken a rope and strangled herself to death.

He had been terrified when he first saw it, but very quickly, a sense of secret joy welled up in his heart.

He felt certain that the Immortal Lady had protected him. From then on, he became just like his grandmother; as long as there was even a scrap of food in the house, he would offer it to the Immortal Lady first.

Now that the Immortal Lady had descended to the mortal realm, she didn’t care about the people of Xinghua Village who had respected and worshipped her since childhood. Instead, she felt that saving the villagers didn’t even count as merit?

What was this? Was she even their Immortal Lady anymore?

The more the Village Chief thought about it, the angrier he became.

Had those Trafficked Brides ever worshipped the Immortal Lady? Did they respect her?

The Village Chief’s mind was a chaotic mess. Unable to sleep, he walked outside.

The infirmary was not far from the Village Chief’s house.

His mind flickered between the image of the Immortal Lady he had worshipped since he was a boy and the image of Ming Wen in the village.

At first, he considered whether things would work if he brought more offerings, brought sesame oil, and knelt before Ming Wen to beg for her forgiveness…

Would it work?

It wasn’t the same.

He thought of the protective divinations that had always appeared.

The Village Chief preferred the Immortal Lady when she was in the temple. Back then, she could only protect everyone.

The Village Chief walked out of Honggu Mountain and reached the infirmary.

He walked from the presence of the Immortal Lady on the cliff to the presence of the true Immortal Lady.

Inside were the animals the Immortal Lady had rescued.

These were all the Immortal Lady’s merits. With these merits, the Immortal Lady could ascend and return to the heavens once more.

The Village Chief quietly looked at these “merits.” These merits were actually so weak and small.

In the quiet village, a place where they had only ever received the Immortal Lady’s affirmation, the Village Chief thought that the Immortal Lady was truly unfit to descend to the mortal realm, unfit to live among humans.

The Village Chief’s outstretched hand was trembling. Soon, his hand rested on a turtledove.

A thought quickly formed in his mind.

A mad and daring thought.