Chapter 25: Ghost Birth Infant

Qi Ran glared at Miss Ah Qiao, who was fanning the flames with an air of detachment. But she also knew that Miss Ah Qiao was right. Right now, in the eyes of everyone—or more accurately, in the eyes of all these half-human, half-ghost creatures—she had to do something that projected a deterrent force. The moment she showed any timidity, her days ahead would truly become miserable.

She placed both hands on the edge of the coffin. The wooden coffin was much heavier than she expected, but still just barely movable. She paused for a split second. This might be her last moment for regret.

What would she see after pushing the coffin lid open? A dried corpse? Or would it be like opening a Pandora’s Box, releasing other demons and devils? Qi Ran didn’t know, and so her fingertips trembled slightly.

She took a silent, deep breath.

First, she clearly understood one inevitable fact: playing mind games was useless against these old foxes who would discard all shame for money. Whether it was the young man before her who had lived for gods know how long, or Li Siwen waiting outside, their experience and life wisdom far surpassed hers. No matter how meticulous or cunning she appeared, someone would always find a way to see through her with strange methods. More importantly, if she acted that way, she would be broadcasting a message to everyone—that she, Qi Ran, cherished her life. Because only those who cherish their lives scheme every step.

She, Qi Ran, was a young person with zero life experience, a naive student. What kind of young person, what kind of student, would make schemers fear them?

The answer was clear. The thing mature conspirators fear most is an angry student holding a gun, ignorant of the law, with a paranoid and antisocial temperament.

She might be immature, might have a screw loose, but the gun in her hand was absolutely real, and so were the bullets inside it.

A clueless, hot-headed fool who doesn’t understand the unwritten rules of the underworld, and an old hand deeply versed in the subtle codes of that world—the bullets they fire have exactly the same lethality. The old hand will have many considerations; he might calculate gains and losses, might be too attached to life to risk death. But the foolish student won’t have these worries. She is young and easily incited, cares nothing for profit and loss, doesn’t understand all the convoluted implications others speak of. Get on her nerves, and she fires in rage. Perfectly normal.

It was ridiculous, really. The “gun” she was using to protect herself now was actually the fake one Qi Jianguo had fabricated for her, the lie that had fooled everyone. It was also her only sliver of hope.

And now, she needed to deceive the young man before her. To make him believe that she truly held a gun, and would truly dare to pull the trigger.

Better to advance in a single thought than to hesitate in a moment of pause!

She mustered nearly all the strength in her body and slowly pushed the heavy wooden coffin lid before her, sliding it toward the other side to create a small crack.

The narrow gap was pitch black, revealing nothing. But the unease in her heart detonated directly. In that instant, she almost seemed… to see a pair of eyes staring at her?

Perhaps she was getting used to this kind of fear. She didn’t hesitate, just turned to Jiang Zhique: “Help me push it open. I’m not strong enough on my own.”

Hearing this, Jiang Zhique’s beautiful eyes widened. The look in them essentially read: If you want to die, don’t drag me into it. But ultimately, she recalled that Qi Ran now had leverage over her. Gritting her teeth, she glanced at the narrow pitch-black crack and nodded.

“Thanks,” Qi Ran said quietly.

The two of them moved to the front of the coffin lid. This time, with their combined strength, the crack clearly began to recede backwards, slowly.

The coffin lid was pushed completely off, crashing heavily to the ground. The noise it made was considerable, kicking up a cloud of dust.

Inside the coffin, there was… a smaller coffin.

Compared to the magnificent outer coffin, this smaller one was drastically reduced in size. There were no ornate decorations, no dazzling colors—just a simple, unadorned rectangular wooden box. On its surface, thick ink traced some incomprehensible Ghostly Talismans. The colors were somewhat faded and yellowed, clearly worn by the passage of years.

“What’s this? A nesting doll?” Qi Ran felt a sudden wave of absurdity at the sight.

But to her surprise, Jiang Zhique’s expression held no trace of levity. Her face was even slightly pale from fear.

Stammering slightly, she said, “This… is a Ghost Birth Infant.”

Qi Ran paused. Before she could ask, Jiang Zhique spoke first in a low voice: “Ghost Birth Infant is an evil art from Northern China from a long time ago. The Tao Family should have destroyed all of them back then—why would it appear here?”

Her speech was low and rapid, the corners of her mouth curving down slightly, trembling, as if she was trying desperately to suppress something, with no energy left to hide her inner tension.

“Don’t be afraid,” Qi Ran placed a hand on her shoulder and spoke in a low voice. “What exactly is a Ghost Birth Infant? What does it do?”

Jiang Zhique seemed to realize her loss of composure and took a deep breath. “A Ghost Birth Infant is an evil art. This arrangement looks very much like a family tree branching downwards, but in reality, it is the complete opposite. This is a family tree growing upwards.”

An upwards family tree?

Qi Ran looked at the rows of neatly arranged coffins before her. This time, it was her own complexion that turned grim. She quickly understood Jiang Zhique’s meaning. She had originally thought this was a branching family tree: the two coffins closest to her, at the very top, were the grandfather and grandmother. From there, it branched out: two became four, four became eight, eight became sixteen, forming the six generations coexisting under one roof that she now saw.

But clearly, the truth was not so. It was the opposite. The initial sixteen people, eight families, gave birth to eight children. These eight children then intermarried with each other and produced four children. Those four children mated and combined, giving birth to four children whose bloodlines were already hopelessly entangled. Finally, these four children, whose origins were now an unseverable knot, separately gave birth to two infants. These two infants would once again give birth to two more infants—the masters of those final two coffins.

It possessed the fairest, purest bloodline inheritance, never once defiled. This was the Ghost Birth Infant.

Qi Ran pondered for only a moment before the insane, perverse logic of it chilled her to the bone. She could no longer imagine just how horrifying and pitifully deformed the infants born from such a chaos of human ethics would be.

“You underestimate their level of depravity, you foolish girl.”

Just then, she suddenly heard Miss Ah Qiao’s voice, tinged with cold disgust.

“It’s called a Ghost Birth Infant, not a Human Birth Infant. Besides, these coffins are, at most, products from the 1980s. Do you think that if they were merely human, they could reproduce six generations in twenty-four years? That means becoming a mother at four years old?”

A Ghost Marriage!

Qi Ran figured it out in an instant and couldn’t help feeling the urge to vomit.

“The operating principle of the Ghost Birth Infant is to find sixteen boys and girls, all born in yin years, yin months, and on yin days. They are drowned in their coffins during the hour of the Ox,” Jiang Zhique explained quietly. She silently gazed at the dozens of coffins before them. For some reason, Qi Ran suddenly felt she glimpsed a flash of pity in Jiang Zhique’s eyes, the kind of pity called ‘sympathy for a fellow creature.’ “In the end, these poor wretches, like venomous insects in a jar, are reduced to just two coffins holding two Ghost Birth Infants. They possess intelligence no different from ordinary children and are born as beings of supreme evil.”

Qi Ran also looked out at the coffins before her.

She suddenly spoke in a low voice.

“Zhique, if I say I want to continue opening the coffins, will you stop me?”

Jiang Zhique hesitated for a moment, then finally shook her head.

She stepped backward, putting a considerable distance between them. It was clear she had no intention of stopping Qi Ran’s actions, but she was also unwilling to stake her life on it.

Qi Ran stood her ground. Before her were the two foremost coffins, the ones containing the Ghost Birth Infants.

She reached out first and pushed the lid off the other coffin in the same manner.

Now, the two coffins-inside-coffins were clearly revealed before her.

“…Will there be any difference between these two Ghost Birth Infants?” Seeing that Jiang Zhique had retreated far away, Qi Ran asked in a lowered voice.

Miss Ah Qiao nodded.

“They will be twin sisters. One will be the finished product.”