Chapter 21: Memory? Nightmare?

“You do not attack on the right when ordered; you are not obedient to the command.”
“If you fail to drive the chariot correctly, you are not obedient to the command. If you obey, you will be rewarded at the ancestral shrine.”

Xu Ye was certainly afraid, but even in his terror, he did not cease reciting the Six Oaths. His eyes remained wide open, unblinking, fixed on the ghastly infant as it lunged at him with bared teeth.

A thunderous blast erupted, a wave of foul, putrid air washing over him. Darkness fell before his eyes, and Xu Ye felt as if he had been swallowed whole by the mouth of the spectral infant.

But in the blink of an eye, the stench and the darkness receded from him like the ebbing tide. Blinking again, he found himself standing beneath the familiar teaching building of his old middle school. Glancing up, he saw a girl in a white dress standing on the rooftop.

“If you do not obey, you will be punished at the altar; I will visit ruin upon you and your kin.”

Though Xu Ye’s gaze had been calm at first, the sight of the girl made his pupils contract in terror. Yet the words of his recitation did not falter.

There could be no doubt: this was a dream woven by the Poison Widow.

With a dull thud, the girl in white leapt from the rooftop, hitting the ground before him in a spray of blood. An eyeball even rolled to a stop at his feet.

Xu Ye knew this campus, and he knew the girl. This was his alma mater, and she had once been his deskmate. After being harassed by street thugs, she became pregnant and was forced to have an abortion. The entire school called her vile names, and unable to bear the shame, she threw herself from the building one bright afternoon. Xu Ye had happened to walk by at that very moment.

The memory had long cast a shadow over his childhood. Even after transferring schools, he would still see her in his dreams. He remembered, too, the question she had asked him during their last class break before her death:

“Do you think I’m filthy, too?”

What the Poison Widow did not know was that Xu Ye never felt fear at the appearance of this girl in his dreams. What he felt was guilt for not answering her question as he should have. In fact, this was one of the reasons he later chose to work in criminal investigation.

“When Yi Yin aided Tang in his campaign against Jie, ascending from Er and fighting at the fields of Mingtiao, he composed the ‘Oath of Tang.’”

Xu Ye walked to the girl’s broken body, continuing to recite the second oath as he gently touched her shattered cheek.

Perhaps it was an illusion, or perhaps a trick of the Poison Widow, but Xu Ye thought he saw a faint smile appear on that broken face—a smile he had never seen before, not even in his dreams.

At the same time, he felt a burning heat in his liver and gallbladder, as if someone had set them over a fire.

A cold, fetid wind swept over him once more, and suddenly, the surrounding scene shattered like glass.

When Xu Ye came to himself, he was sitting in a police car, holding a tablet as he scrolled through case files.

“Boss, the evidence is ironclad this time. That bastard can’t get away—backing or no backing, I don’t care who his father or mother is. That animal, that scum, after hurting so many innocent girls, I will personally see him thrown behind bars!”

A short-haired female officer in the passenger seat turned to Xu Ye, her face alight with excitement.

Seeing her face, Xu Ye was stunned, almost losing his place in the recitation. He even reached out toward her, as if to push her head down behind the seat.

But he was too late—a speeding truck slammed into their police car, flipping it over.

“The king said, ‘Hear me, all my people, listen to my words. Who dares sow chaos but the prince’s lackeys? The Xia have committed many crimes, and Heaven’s mandate will destroy them.’”

Next, Xu Ye stood before the wreckage of the police car. The young female officer who had been in the passenger seat was now sprawled on the ground, coughing up blood.

Even so, she struggled to crawl toward Xu Ye, reaching out to him with all her remaining strength.

“Now you are many, and say, ‘Our lord does not care for us; he abandons our labor and seizes the rights of the Xia?’ I have heard your words. The Xia have sinned. I fear Heaven, and dare not be unjust.”

Xu Ye clasped her hand, gazing at her quietly. The words spilling from his lips seemed to come from another world.

“Boss, don’t let him go… You must not let him go…”

With her last ounce of strength, the young officer choked out these words.

“Xiao Yezi, rest in peace. I did not let him go. He got the punishment he deserved.”

Xu Ye answered her in his heart.

Her figure, along with the entire scene, then began to shatter and fade, until everything around him transformed once more.

This time, Xu Ye found himself locked in a pitch-black room lit only by a single incandescent bulb.

He was pinned to the ground, fists raining down on his face and stomach, the pain so real and raw that it gnawed at his will like a relentless tide.

“Tell me—where did you stash that shipment?”

A burly, dark-skinned man with a scarred face, clad in a black tank top, seized Xu Ye by the throat and hauled him up.

“Now you say, ‘What of the Xia’s crimes?’ The King of Xia suppressed the people’s strength and seized their lands.”

Looking at that familiar, hateful face, Xu Ye couldn’t help but smile. Even as he recited the oath, he mocked the Poison Widow in his heart:

“So unoriginal—your so-called nightmares are just a magnification of old pains, making people relive them all over again.”

As this thought crossed his mind, his dream-self was already tied to a bed, forced to watch as his captors shattered his kneecap and extracted it.

“When the people are remiss and uncooperative, they say, ‘When will the end come? You and I shall both perish.’ If the Xia’s virtue remains as such, then I must act.”

“You alone, assist me in carrying out Heaven’s punishment, and I shall richly reward you! If you are faithful, I will not break my word. If you break your oath, then your kin and all you love will be destroyed; there is no forgiveness.”

Xu Ye paid no further heed to the scenes around him. He simply lay there, staring blankly at the dark ceiling, his cracked lips mouthing the next lines of the Six Oaths over and over.

“The ruin or glory of a nation rests on one man; the fortune or disaster of a nation likewise hinges on one man alone.”

He had no idea how much time had passed—only that he had completed the recitation of the Six Oaths, while the burning heat in his liver and gallbladder felt like a brand pressed against flesh.

His dream-body was now battered beyond recognition.

“Why did you become a cop?”

“Why did you become a ferryman of souls?”

Suddenly, within the shattered dreamscape, two voices—strange yet familiar—merged together into one.

“Why? Because I was born for this, of course!”

Xu Ye answered with a weary smile in his heart.

At that instant, the world around him collapsed. The Poison Widow, her body riddled with ghostly infants, let out a heart-rending scream as the ghost infants burst like balloons, dissolving into shadows.

Before Xu Ye could grasp what had happened, a halo shaped like a gallbladder emerged from within him. Countless golden threads wove together, forming tiny golden characters that branded themselves onto the glowing sphere.

He looked closely. The golden letters were none other than the text of the Six Oaths.

“To open the gallbladder with the Six Oaths… Is this the Martial Gall?”

Xu Ye murmured in astonishment.