The Night Watcher of Great Jing - Chapter 80

The carrying pole creaked as it bobbed up and down.

Yang Jian had walked only a few steps when he stopped, panting.

The load he normally carried with ease had felt heavier every day recently.

After only a short distance, his waist and back ached terribly.

He rested outside his neighbor’s house for a long while before recovering.

Remembering the fresh, hot tofu from the neighboring workshop, he swallowed.

Newly made tofu came steaming from the mold.

Even eaten plain, it filled the mouth with rich soybean fragrance.

Craving it, he turned to look.

Normally, the neighbor’s courtyard would already be filled with the grinding of the stone mill.

Today, for some reason, it was completely silent.

Perhaps something had happened.

Unable to get his hot tofu, Yang Jian felt wretched. He shouldered his load again and decided to buy some at the market.

He rested again and again along the way.

After eating hot tofu, he began salivating at the sight of roast duck hanging from an oven.

He recalled how little money remained in his purse, smacked his lips, and could not bring himself to buy it.

“Yang Jian.”

A hand landed on his shoulder and frightened him half to death.

He turned and saw an armed officer from the Five Cities Military Patrol Office.

It was Head Constable Xing.

Yang Jian hurriedly set down his load and bowed with servile politeness.

“Head Constable Xing.”

The head constable frowned as he studied him.

They had not met for only a few days, yet Yang Jian looked terribly depleted.

His cheeks were hollow, his complexion dark and blue, and he swayed when he walked.

He had grown so thin that only skin seemed to cover his bones.

“Come along. Someone wants to see you.”

Head Constable Xing patted his shoulder.

They walked through the streets, with the head constable stopping from time to time to wait for him.

At last, they crossed the long avenue and arrived at a breakfast stall.

Yang Jian had been anxious, but then he saw a group seated around a table eating fried dough.

The rich aroma of soybean milk entered his nose, and he instantly swallowed.

“Thousand-Household Commander Zhao, I’ve brought him.” Head Constable Xing smiled ingratiatingly.

Yang Jian saw an exceptionally beautiful girl raise her head.

She studied him for a moment, gestured for him to sit, then asked the stall owner to bring him a bowl of soybean milk and two plates of fried dough.

Yang Jian should have been full of questions, but the fragrance consumed his thoughts.

He buried his head and ate so greedily that he did not even notice the girl speaking to him.

“She’s asking you a question.” Head Constable Xing raised a hand to slap him, but Zhao Li stopped him.

“Let him eat.”

Zhao Li pressed lightly between her brows and closed her Mind’s Eye.

The pale yellow demonic aura surrounding the young man was so dense it could not be ignored.

Even someone who lived for years beside a monster would not carry this much.

Unless he had been parasitized.

Zhao Li watched him devour his food, swallowing three soybean-milk-soaked pieces of fried dough in a single bite. She signaled the owner to bring several more servings.

Lu Zhao and the others at the neighboring table stopped eating and stared at the famished-ghost spectacle.

Zhao Li had a large appetite herself, but she would never eat this messily.

The young man before them looked like a pig rooting through a trough.

After he poured eight or nine bowls of soybean milk into his mouth, some awareness finally seemed to return.

Zhao Li asked, “What exactly did you and your wife obtain from that foreign merchant?”

Yang Jian froze and looked up. Soup and liquid dripped from his face.

“You… believe what I said?”

He stared at Zhao Li and addressed her respectfully.

Even a complete stranger believing him felt like deliverance.

Zhao Li nodded. “Tell me.”

Yang Jian lowered his head and wiped his face with his sleeve.

“We bought a cocoon from that foreign merchant.”

A black cocoon.

Yang Jian had been born and raised in the capital. He later married Zhang E.

They made their living from his peddling through streets and alleys. They were neither wealthy nor destitute, and the couple treated each other with courtesy.

Most people in this era muddled through an entire lifetime that way.

But the absence of children weighed heavily on Yang Jian.

They tried everything. They drank medicines and prayed to Buddhas.

No matter how diligently they worked at it night after night, Zhang E’s belly remained unchanged.

Just as Yang Jian was considering renting a wife to bear him a child, something happened.

He accidentally saved a foreign merchant from drowning.

The merchant wanted to reward him with money, but Yang Jian had heard that the man dealt in medicines and possessed remarkable abilities. He asked him instead for something that would produce a child.

The foreign merchant knew how much the people of the Central Plains valued descendants.

After struggling for a long time, he gritted his teeth and gave Yang Jian a black silkworm cocoon the size of a thumb.

It was unlike any ordinary cocoon.

Its entire surface was pitch black and cold to the touch. A fingernail striking it produced the ring of metal.

The foreign merchant told Yang Jian it was a sacred object from the Western Regions.

Under a full moon, it should be exposed to moonlight and then swallowed by a woman. It would make her fertile and beautiful.

The longer it absorbed moonlight, the stronger its effect.

No matter what, however, it must never be exposed for more than a quarter of an hour.

After swallowing it, both man and woman had to eat only vegetarian food and avoid all meat until the child was born.

Yang Jian took the object home and discussed it with Zhang E.

She was a large, sturdy woman who loved food and drink. Asking her to avoid meat would be harder than climbing to Heaven.

Yet Zhang E swore by Heaven and Earth that as long as she could have a child, she would eat vegetarian food not merely until the birth, but for the rest of her life.

Yang Jian also felt they could not let such an opportunity pass.

After discussing it, the couple secretly prepared an incense table and offerings.

The appointed night arrived.

The moon was enormous and perfectly round, shining with impossible brightness.

Watery moonlight fell across the black cocoon on the table.

The cocoon seemed to possess magic, drawing the light into itself.

Awed by the sight, the couple decided to expose it longer and strengthen the miraculous effect.

They cast the foreign merchant’s warning from their minds and left it beneath the moon for most of the night.

By the time they stopped, the black cocoon had absorbed so much moonlight that it had turned entirely silver-white.

That same night, Zhang E impatiently swallowed it whole.

The couple went to bed together and spent the night beneath the red waves.

After their strenuous labor, both woke the next morning feeling as though every bit of vitality had been drained from their bodies. Their legs shook when they walked.

Yang Jian was not too badly affected.

Zhang E, however, fell into a state of terrifying hunger.

She looked ready to gnaw the table raw if someone sprinkled cumin over it.

That day, Yang Jian returned home with his peddler’s load.

Zhang E did not come to greet him. Instead, rich waves of cooking meat drifted from the kitchen.

Knowing something was wrong, Yang Jian dropped his burden and ran inside.

The kitchen was thick with the scent of meat and a faint trace of blood.

Zhang E crouched beside the stove, reaching bare-handed into the pot as though she felt no heat and pulling out enormous chunks of meat.

She caught a strip of fat in her mouth and sucked in the long, gleaming white ribbon.

Each piece was as large as a palm. She barely chewed, swallowing it in two or three bites.

She consumed the entire pot without leaving a scrap, then carefully sucked every smear of grease from her fingers.

From that day forward, Zhang E changed.

Not only did she grow visibly thinner, but layers of old skin began peeling from her body.

She became fairer, softer, and more beautiful.

In only a few days, she had been remade from the inside out.