God of Pets

Chapter 419 The Messenger from Heaven

“Outsiders…there’s nothing here that you’re looking for…go back…there’s nothing here…” The old man muttered to himself, smoking his cigarette without looking up.

His lips were chapped and his voice was hoarse.

"You knew we came here to look for something?" Xiu Jieming asked.

“I know… how could I not know… but it’s all gone… there’s nothing left… if you really want it… take these old bones of mine with you… there’s still a little meat on these bones… enough to make a pot of soup…” the old man said, pulling open his dark, tattered cotton coat to reveal his skin-and-bones chest.

He was so thin, so thin that he didn't look like a human being anymore; his skin was clinging to his bones.

He said he had two ounces of meat, but judging from his appearance, he probably couldn't even cut two ounces off of it.

“Grandpa, you’ve misunderstood. We’re not the people you think we are. We’re just strangers who have wandered into this place by mistake.” Xiu Jieming softened his tone and looked at the old man, saying, “It seems you’ve been bullied by other strangers. Can you tell me what happened?”

“You…you really aren’t those outsiders…” the old man said, looking at the three of them with some doubt.

“No, that’s not it. Can you tell us who those outsiders are?” Xiu Jieming said seriously.

The old man stared at the three men for a long time before pulling up his cotton coat and wrapping himself up tightly, as if he were very cold, his body shivering.

“Those outsiders…they are not human…they are evil spirits…the King of Hell…” The old man’s eyes were bloodshot, and his hoarse voice was filled with deep hatred in every word.

Chen Guan listened quietly, showing no intention of speaking.

Xiu Jieming, too, patiently waited for the old man to continue.

"Severe drought... From the beginning of spring until the wheat harvest, not a single drop of rain fell. The ground cracked, and the wheat planted in the fields all withered and died..."

"A hemp rope always breaks at its thinnest point, and misfortune only finds those who are unfortunate. In this year of severe drought, a locust plague has struck, leaving the land barren and devoured, with not a blade of grass growing, and even the bark of the trees has been eaten away..."

“We thought we would have to endure this year, but then some strangers came. They said they were messengers sent from heaven, divine messengers sent by God to save us. They said they would give us food and help us get through this famine.”

"Everyone was overjoyed, thinking that this time there was finally hope, and that our lifelong honesty and hard work had moved the heavens."

"But unexpectedly, those outsiders were not divine messengers at all. Not only were they not divine messengers, but they were also a group of man-eating demons who would not spit out the bones..." The old man's teeth were almost ground to dust, and Chen Guan and the others could even hear the grinding sound of his teeth clenching hard.

“What did those outsiders do?” Xiu Jieming asked.

"They say the drought and locust plague are caused by evil spirits, and they must kill the evil spirits to end the drought and locust plagues. But their strength alone is not enough to kill the evil spirits, so they need our help..." The old man's voice was filled with despair and helplessness. "Our children, those young children, in order to keep us old folks alive, in order to avoid suffering next year, they followed those outsiders to Gujing Village to find the evil spirits, even if it costs them their lives to kill them..."

"Your children were all killed by evil spirits?" Chen Guan couldn't help but ask. It did sound like a sad story. What puzzled Chen Guan was that this was Gujing Village, but the old man said that outsiders had taken young people to Gujing Village to kill evil spirits.

“They’re dead…all dead…we gave everything we had…to help them kill the evil spirits…each family even gave them some of their meager rations…so they wouldn’t have to go hungry to kill the evil spirits…”

“As you know, we just suffered a great disaster. Where was there any food? We only had a little bit of food, which was reserved for life-saving purposes. Even that was far from enough to survive. If we gave them a bite, the people in our village would have to eat one less bite, and one less bite meant one more person would die. At that time, many people were already on the verge of starvation.”

“But those outsiders… those evil spirits… they used our children as bait… as cannon fodder… they all died in Gujing Village… until their deaths… they never ate a single grain of wheat… their stomachs were full of tree bark and clay… those evil spirits… they didn’t even give our children a single grain of wheat to eat… not a single grain…”

Chen Guan and Xiu Jieming listened in silence. They didn't know if the story was true or false, but the old man's hysterical and desperate emotions infected them.

“After those beasts returned from Gujing Village, not only did they not provide disaster relief as they claimed, they also stole the last of our life-saving food supplies…”

“Those beasts deserve to die.” Xiu Jieming couldn’t take it anymore: “Where are they? Tell me.”

“I don’t know… They say they are messengers from heaven… They come from heaven… They are messengers of God… Messengers of God… Haha…” The old man’s laughter sent chills down Chen Guan’s spine, and a feeling of pent-up frustration welled up in his chest, making him feel suffocated.

“We went to Gujing Village and saw our children there. Their bodies were incomplete. Some had their stomachs cut open, and their stomachs were full of undigested tree bark and clay. There wasn’t a single grain of wheat…” The old man’s voice trembled and he sobbed, “They struggled to live until they died, but they never received anything. They never even had a full meal.”

"Beside that ancient well, we also found a corpse, a headless corpse. But it was different from us. It was not human, it did not have the body that a human should have. It must be the evil spirit that those people were talking about."

The old man wiped away the tears from the corners of his eyes with his thin, dry hands and continued, "Those outsiders cut off the head of the evil spirit and took it away, leaving only the headless corpse of the evil spirit. They thought they had successfully killed the evil spirit, but they did not expect that the evil spirit could live even without a head. It did not really die."

"That evil spirit told us that as long as we worship him and honor him as a god, he will be able to resurrect our children and let us have enough to eat when he regains his supernatural powers..." The old man lost control of his emotions and was sobbing uncontrollably. He was unconsciously banging his pipe on the ground.

Chen Guan and Xiu Jieming exchanged a glance; they both understood that trying to reason with a ghost would inevitably lead to being disturbed by it.

If these villagers truly believe in that evil spirit, they will likely suffer even more misery.

Sure enough, the old man told them that after the evil spirit received their offerings and grew a new head, it became a man-eating demon and was almost wiping out the villagers.

Hearing this, Chen Guan and the others roughly understood that the inheritance of the Netherworld Emperor would probably fall into the hands of that evil spirit.

(End of this chapter)