After leaving the task of pacifying that sister, Bai Lixin and Dijia went back to following the slightly glowing green scaly powder.
The scaly powder eventually disappeared in front of an oval-shaped archway, and Dijia recovered them with his cloak and followed the scaly powder into the archway.
Inside the archway was an even larger glass window.
In the glass window, several paper figurines dressed in ancient surgical uniforms were busy with something around a hospital bed.
On the hospital bed was a frail and helpless woman in a simple hospital gown, her newly born child in her arms.
Her hair was damp with sweat, and it hung down messily, covering half of her face.
From Bai Lixin’s position, only her excessively pale cheeks and bloodless lips could be seen.
Outside the glass window, the horned man and the snake man he had just seen were standing at attention, their expressions serious and cautious.
Bai Lixin saw the woman’s lips twitch, as if she were saying something.
The next moment, the paper figurine dressed as a doctor took the child in his arms, and another paper figurine pushed the woman through the open door in the corner of the room.
As they watched the woman and paper doctors leave, the snake man and the horned man breathed a small sigh of relief, “Everything seems to be going well, nothing went wrong.”
Horned Man: “Yeah, not only did it go well, it was efficient.”
Snake Man: “I wish the rest were this efficient, I don’t know what the master wants with so many children.”
The horned man glared at the snake man and said, “What are you talking about? Don’t you want to live? How dare you speculate on the master’s affairs? The master is smart; he must have a reason for doing this.”
“We’re just following orders, so know what to say and what not to say, okay?”
“Do you want to go back to being a paper?”
The snake man covered his mouth and looked around fearfully, saying, “Look at my mouth, bah bah.”
“The doctor has gone in, so it looks like it’s over. There should be nothing more for us two; let’s go.”
The horned man: “Yeah, let’s go.”
Bai Lixin became vigilant, but the two did not return the same way but chose a different path to leave.
Not long after leaving, the paper men in surgical gowns also left one by one through the side door behind the glass window.
One of them was carrying a child in his arms, but the woman who had just given birth was nowhere to be seen.
That paper figurine also chose the direction the horned man and the snake man went, and when all had left, peace returned to the “operating theatre”.
Bai Lixin and Dijia soon arrived at the small side door where the paper figurine had just disappeared. The inside was very quiet, and only the faint sound of breathing could be heard.
The two looked at each other, then Dijia lifted his cloak in silence, and their figures were instantly exposed.
They stepped through the narrow door one after the other, and not long after, they saw a hospital room appear before them.
From the outside, the ward looked faintly lit.
Dijia stood in front of Bai Lixin and pushed the door open. The woman in the room was leaning against the bed, staring at the wall in a daze.
There was nothing special on the wall except a painting.
The painting was a landscape of a tranquil scene, with clusters of colorful flowers, a stream, and a distant, lofty green hill.
Hearing footsteps, she turned her head, and there was surprise in her indifferent expression. “Who are you?”
It should be because she had just given birth and her voice was dry and hoarse.
“We’re here to save you,” Dijia looked down at the woman and spoke lightly, “but it’s your decision to follow us or not.”
After a moment’s hesitation, her gaze swept back and forth between Bai Lixin and Dijia warily before her eyes finally fell on Bai Lixin: “Are you really here to save me?”
She paused and licked the corners of her dry lips with her tongue. “What if you’re someone sent by the Ghost Market Master to trick me?”
Bai Lixin: “I’m not on the same side as the Ghost Market Master; I just came here to investigate him. Can you tell me how you ended up here?”
The woman’s cheeks were bloodless. She once again observed them with a scrutinizing gaze before finally sitting up with her hands propped on the bed as if she had made up her mind, “Okay, as long as you can take me, I will tell you whatever you want to know.”
“I was originally a villager in Yanwang Town. About three years ago, Yanwang Town was suddenly haunted by an appalling and strange incident, and the whole town was not at peace after that.”
“That’s when King Yama started getting brides.”
“I was chosen by King Yama a year ago. I hid so as not to be caught, but I was still found by those red-clothed paper men and taken there to the palace.”
“I fell unconscious after that night, and I found myself here when I woke up again.” The woman pursed her lips; her face scrunched up as if she didn’t want to remember this past. “After that, my stomach grew bigger day by day, and I realized I was pregnant.”
“It later turned out not to be King Yama at all, it was the Master of the Ghost Market pretending to be Yama. It didn’t end with me, many other women were also captured by him. The reason we were all captured is simple: to get pregnant and have children.”
“I also found out by accident why the master of the ghost market wanted so many children.”
Bai Lixin: “Why?”
“I heard he wants to make a demon baby,” the woman thought seriously. “That he’ll use the body of the demon baby as a vessel to receive the soul of some saint. That way, the saint would become the unique demon god under the universal sky, and then he would be able to kill God and Buddha, turn his hand to the clouds, and turn his hand to the rain, and be omnipotent.”
“But I don’t know if what I heard is true, in my perception, there is no existence called ‘Saint’.”
Bai Lixin’s gaze fell on the woman’s wrist. “You heard correctly, there is indeed a ‘Saint’ in the underworld. According to what you have said, the Ghost Market Master and the Saint are in cahoots.”
The woman sighed. “I wouldn’t know about that. You’re really here to save me, aren’t you? Then hurry up and take me away. I want to get out of this hell as soon as possible; my parents are still in Yanwang Town, I’ve been missing for a year, so they must miss me a lot.”
Bai Lixin didn’t say anything.
The woman saw the expression on Bai Lixin’s face and suddenly realized that something was wrong. The indifferent, numb expression also had a hint of movement as she asked anxiously, “Why do you have that expression?”
“What happened to Yanwang Town?!”
Bai Lixin paused for a second, then told the woman what happened in Yanwang Town.
When she heard that Yanwang Town was now a dead city, she suddenly covered her face with her hands and burst into tears.
“How could this happen? How could this happen?”
The sobbing voice filled with grief came from behind her hands.
Bai Lixin sighed softly, and did not comfort her. He just stood beside the hospital bed, waiting until she had cried enough.
It was only after ten minutes of crying that she finally got over it; her black pupils were now crawling with hatred. She choked back tears as she spoke: “I refuse to accept this; I must kill that evil to avenge my parents!”
Bai Lixin: “Do you know who that evil is?”
The woman showed a ferocious expression: “Yes, it is the master of the ghost market!”
“He turned paper into all those monsters outside the glass door; he likes manipulating paper, turning it into life, and turning life into paper.”
“You said that all the villagers in Yanwang Town turned into paper figurines, and the paper figurines got life? Who else but him can do that? Is there anyone else who would be so sick?!”
“Please, you must be a good person since you could break in to save me. Please, kill that ghost market master and help us pitiful women and innocent children, and help the residents in Yanwang Town take revenge.”
“I have nothing to repay you, but I know a clue that can lead you to the Ghost Market Master. Aren’t you looking for him? I can help you with that.”
Bai Lixin’s bright eyes swept over the teardrops that slid across the woman’s cheeks and he nodded, “Okay, I promise you.”
“Wipe the tears away, we’ll talk after getting out of here first.”
The woman cautiously wipes the tears with her sleeve. She then braced herself against the bed, ready to stand up with difficulty.
But she had just given birth after all, and just as she stood up, her body leaned forward uncontrollably.
Bai Lixin’s eyes were quick, and he managed to grab her by the arm.
The woman glanced at Bai Lixin gratefully and said, “Thank you.”
“Uh, um, sorry,” the woman said with a very embarrassed expression. “I just gave birth, and my whole body is weak, my legs feel soft when I walk. Can you hold me or carry me out?”
Dijia’s face darkened for a second, and without waiting for Bai Lixin to speak, Dijia spoke, “I should do it.”
The woman looked at his outstretched hand with fear in her eyes, and she shrank towards Bai Lixin, saying, “I, um, am a bit scared of him.”
Dijia’s face darkened even more.
He was angry, but he couldn’t say anything. It was too petty to be jealous of a patient.
Bai Lixin: “Okay, then I’ll hold you up.”
The woman’s tense expression instantly relaxed, and her arms wrapped around Bai Lixin’s neck as she said, “I’m too slow to walk and will slow you down; can I trouble you to hold me?”
The air around her suddenly chilled, and the dim light bulbs overhead flickered.
Under Dijia’s dark, cold gaze, Bai Lixin easily picked her up: “Okay, as you wish.”
Woman: “You’re really kind, thank you.”
Dijia: “……”
He really didn’t like this woman.
The woman leaned into Bai Lixin’s arms comfortably, and Dijia pulled a stinky face as he followed them.
“Your chest is so comfortable,” sighed the woman, and she whispered, “If I hadn’t been disgraced by the master of the Ghost City market, I might have been able to find a good man like you. But now I am unworthy and have even given birth for him.”
Bai Lixin held the woman in a gentlemanly way, which calmed Dijia’s jealous heart a little.
Bai Lixin: “It’s not your fault, even if you have a child, there is still a chance to pursue happiness, there are many good men.”
The woman said grudgingly: “You don’t need to comfort me, I know what reality is like. All I want now is to hurry up and get my revenge, then find a place for me and my child to live in peace.”
“By the way,” the woman suddenly looked up at Bai Lixin pleadingly, “They took my child away. Can you help me get him back? My parents both died under the master of the ghost market, so this child is all I have left for me to depend on.”
Bai Lixin nodded and said, “Okay, I’ll do my best.”
Dijia followed behind Bai Lixin in silence, finding himself unable to interject at all.
They followed the scaly powder back the way they came and soon saw the woman from earlier, who was standing in front of a glass window in the hall.
She was walking around the glass window, and using her hands to make some signs.
Because she couldn’t speak loudly, her movements were very exaggerated but easy to understand.
