Chapter 158: Interrogation at the Ancestral Hall

Axi and Alu sprinted all the way to the main gate of the Gu family residence. Axi raised his foot and kicked the gate, but it remained completely motionless; it was clearly barred from the inside. Alu glanced at the fence and said, "Let's just jump over." With that, he drew a deep breath, leaped upward, and vaulted into the courtyard.

By then, Axi had also reacted. Following Alu's lead, he leaped straight over as well. Neither of them knew where Jiaoyan was. Finding the front courtyard empty, they hurried around to the rear. No sooner had they rounded the corner than they saw a wooden pillar erected in the middle of the second courtyard, and tied to that pillar was none other than Jiaoyan.

Jiaoyan was covered in blood, her hands and feet tightly bound, and her mouth stuffed with a piece of cloth. With her back to Axi and Alu stood a woman in Daoist robes, just a single step away from Jiaoyan. Holding some unknown object in her hand, the woman was advancing toward Jiaoyan. Jiaoyan's face was a mask of terror, and she was desperately twisting her body, trying to break free from the ropes.

Axi sprang forward in a few strides and kicked the Daoist-robed woman aside. Having trained in martial arts under Gu Chengyang for many years, Axi's skills were extraordinary, and this was a blow driven by pure fury. Instantly, Daoist Priestess Hu was sent flying. She crashed into a corner of the wall, vomiting blood and curling into a shivering heap.

Before Lady Li, Lady Xu, and the others could even process what had happened, they saw Daoist Priestess Hu kicked away. Recovering their senses, they watched as Axi and Alu approached them with murderous, fiendish expressions. "Fourth! Stop them quickly! Don't let them rescue that little demon!" Lady Li shrieked at the top of her lungs.

The moment Gu Chengxin saw Axi and Alu's expressions, his legs turned to jelly with fear; how could he possibly dare to step forward? Ignoring them entirely, Axi strode straight up, untied the ropes binding Jiaoyan, and pulled the cloth gag from her mouth.

The moment she regained her freedom, Jiaoyan burst into tears. "Brother Axi, they were going to kill me!" She threw her arms around Axi's neck and refused to let go. That terrifying scene had dredged up the harrowing memories of the day she had been buried alive. No matter how resilient a person might be, enduring such repeated brushes with mortal peril was too much. At that moment, Jiaoyan was truly reaching her breaking point.

Lifting Jiaoyan in his arms, Axi cared nothing for the dirt and blood staining her clothes and carried her straight out. Meanwhile, Alu grabbed the Daoist priestess from the corner, snatched a length of rope, and tied her up securely.

By then, the members of the Qi family and Second Uncle Gu's family had also arrived. Chengjia scaled the fence, removed the wooden bar wedging the gate, and the crowd surged in.

"Go search! See where Jiaoniang is, and tie up those heartless beasts too. Send them all to the ancestral hall!" Second Uncle Gu was consumed by fury. When had such a monstrous thing ever happened in the old Gu family? What were they trying to do? Commit murder in broad daylight?

Chengjia and the others were about to head toward the back when Axi happened to be carrying Jiaoyan from the inner courtyard. Running into each other, Second Uncle Gu and the others were finally reassured to see that Jiaoyan had been rescued. "Why is she covered in blood? Is Jiaoniang hurt?" Second Uncle Gu had naturally noticed the blood on Jiaoyan, and he was instantly seized with shock. With that much blood, could the child possibly survive?

Hearing Second Uncle Gu's voice, Jiaoyan broke down crying again. "Second Grandpa, I'm not hurt. They poured I don't know what all over me."

Second Uncle Gu stepped forward and gently took Jiaoyan into his arms. "It's black dog blood! What are these people trying to do? Axi, go and tie up everyone from the old Gu family for me. I don't care who it is—anyone who was in this courtyard today and tried to harm Jiaoniang, leave none of them out. Tie them all up!"

Without a moment's hesitation, Axi turned back with the others. Together, they rounded up Lady Li, Lady Xu, and Gu Chengxin, binding them all tightly with ropes.

Lady Li struggled violently, hurling curses at the top of her lungs, "You ungrateful bastards! Have you grown leopard livers and bear hearts? How dare you tie us up? Release us at once, or see how I deal with you!"

Second Uncle Gu approached Lady Li and let out a cold snort. "Vile woman, what a venomous heart you have. Jiaoniang is only a six-year-old child, yet you are so vicious that you tried to murder her? Your heart is utterly blackened. You wicked hag, today I am going to demand an answer from my eldest brother: what on earth is he trying to do?"

Seeing Gu Mingda, Lady Li's arrogance dimmed somewhat, but she was never one to admit defeat easily. She shrieked, "She is an abomination! A vixen, a thousand-year-old demon spirit who has come to destroy us! Because of her, nothing ever goes right for the Gu family. I went through all the trouble of hiring someone to exorcise the demon, and what are you lot barging in here to disrupt? Don't be so smug; just wait, sooner or later you will all be destroyed by her!"

Second Uncle Gu frowned and glared at Lady Li. "Nonsense! Jiaorur is a perfectly fine child; when did she ever become a vixen? Chengjia, take a piece of cloth and gag her mouth. All this screaming and shouting is giving people a headache."

Second Uncle Gu was afraid that Lady Li's shrieks would attract villagers. People in those days were still deeply superstitious about ghosts and spirits. Once the townspeople started believing that Jiaoyan was a demon, the situation would become very difficult to manage.

Gu Chengjia cared nothing for such concerns. Since his father gave the order, he carried it out. Finding some rags, he gagged the mouths of Lady Li and the other two. Then, dragging and hauling, the crowd carted the four people—including Daoist Priestess Hu—all the way to the Gu family ancestral hall at the east end of the village.

Naturally, people along the way witnessed the spectacle and were utterly bewildered. What on earth was going on today? Some villagers didn't even bother eating their midday meals; they simply fell in behind the Gu family members and followed them straight to the exterior of the ancestral hall.

Outside the Gu clan's ancestral hall, the elderly clan patriarch, Seventh Grandpa, stood with a gloomy expression, surrounded by his sons and grandsons. He watched as Lady Li and the others were shoved forward by Second Uncle Gu and his group. Wenju had just arrived with the news that members of the Gu family were trying to kill Jiaoyan, and Gu Mingda had implored Seventh Grandpa to open the ancestral hall. Upon hearing this, the old man flew into a rage and immediately led his descendants to the doors of the hall.

Seeing Gu Mingda approach with a blood-soaked Jiaoyan, and spotting the three bound prisoners, Seventh Grandpa felt a surge of wrath he could no longer suppress. "Open the ancestral hall. Get inside, all of you, and explain yourselves."

Seventh Grandpa's son stepped forward and pushed open the heavy doors of the ancestral hall. With a creak, the doors swung wide, revealing the slightly grim interior of the Gu clan sanctuary. Seventh Grandpa stepped inside, and the rest followed. The ancestral hall was normally used for ancestral sacrifices during festivals and for clan meetings, so it was quite spacious. Once everyone stepped inside, it did not feel crowded at all.

At the northernmost end of the ancestral hall were five main rooms, where the spirit tablets of the Gu clan's ancestors were enshrined. Seventh Grandpa did not enter the main hall; instead, he stopped right there in the courtyard. When someone brought out a stool, he sat down.

"Speak! What is the meaning of all this today? Wife of Mingcheng, did you put none of the warnings I gave you to heart? Are you still making trouble? Today, I will let you know that the old Gu family has family laws, too!"

"Someone, give this woman Li twenty blows first, let her know the consequences." Seventh Grandpa was genuinely furious. The Gu family had lived in Green Mountain Village for nearly a hundred years, and he had never once heard of a grandmother attempting to murder her own granddaughter. Such a hateful woman deserved a harsh lesson; otherwise, where would discipline be? Without removing the cloth gag from her mouth, he ordered them to give her a beating first.

Immediately, men stepped forward, forced Lady Li facedown onto the ground, and delivered twenty heavy blows with a wooden staff. Lady Li had never suffered such humiliation in her entire life, and the agonizing pain nearly caused her to faint. She wanted to scream, but with her mouth gagged, no sound came out—she could only writhe in agony on the brink of unconsciousness.

When the twenty blows were finished, the men stopped. Agonized with pain, Lady Li rolled back and forth on the ground. Only then did Seventh Grandpa order the cloth to be removed from her mouth, and he asked, "Lady Li, have you learned your lesson now?"

Lady Li's mind was too muddled by pain to think clearly. "Learned my lesson, my foot! You senile old fool, what right do you have to beat me? You old ghost, who do you think you are, daring to have people beat me?"

Seventh Grandpa's courtyard was filled with children and grandchildren. Hearing Lady Li speak thus, some of their faces darkened. "Grandfather, this hag simply lacks discipline. In my view, the beating was too light; let me thrash her again!" Daring to curse the patriarch of the Gu clan meant she was tired of living.

Seventh Grandpa shook his head. "No need. Lowering ourselves to the level of an ignorant woman is not the way of the Gu family. Lady Li, I can overlook your cursing me. Now, explain yourself: why did you try to harm Jiaoniang? What wrong did that child ever do to you that you sought her life?"

Hearing Seventh Grandpa's question, Lady Li's chaotic wits cleared slightly. "What Jiaoniang? She is a monster! Daoist Priestess Hu herself said so—she is a thousand-year-old vixen who possessed that dead girl's body and came to ruin our Gu family. If I don't get rid of this abomination, sooner or later everyone in the Gu family will be destroyed by her!"

"My son went to the prefectural city to take his exams, and he came back with only half his life left. People said it was this monster causing mischief! Otherwise, my fifth boy would surely have passed this time." Thinking of her son, Lady Li burst into loud, bitter tears. "An abomination, she's a fiendish monster! I want to get rid of her and eliminate the disaster for the Gu family! You lot are just meddling busybodies who ruined the ritual and wrecked our great enterprise of exterminating the demon!"

At Lady Li's outburst, everyone inside and outside the ancestral hall stood utterly stunned. Never in their wildest dreams had they imagined Lady Li would utter such words. An abomination? That little girl who smiled so adorably and was always eager to help others—a demon? Many people shook their heads, refusing to believe a word of Lady Li's claims.

"Nonsense! A gentleman does not speak of strange powers and chaotic spirits. How can you spout such reckless madness in broad daylight?" Seventh Grandpa thundered in anger.