"Then should I book the bus tickets?" Ji Xinyue said instinctively—going to that little mountain village, of course you had to book tickets.
A-Xin still held the pen in her hand. "No need. Going by bus is too much trouble."
"If not by bus, then we'd fly there—" Ji Xinyue got this far and suddenly stopped. How could she have forgotten—her wife was no ordinary person. She seemed to be able to fly. Crouching to one side, both hands cupping her cheeks, her eyes bright, she said, "Are we really flying there?"
It wasn't that she'd never flown, but in this life she couldn't fly, could she? She'd have to transmigrate into a specific cultivation world to even get the chance to fly. Her wife was different—she could fly anywhere.
After five minutes, Ji Xinyue saw a flash of red light on the notebook. Those strange, uncomfortable patterns from before actually vanished.
"Done?"
"Done."
...
Ji Xinyue hadn't quite come back to herself when, the instant the curse was finished, A-Xin came over and took her hand. She felt a warm, mysterious power envelop her all around. In the blink of an eye, she was actually at Song Family Village. This wasn't flying—it was teleportation, wasn't it? Song Family Village was a long, long way from her home.
She didn't dwell on the question. Compared to how they'd come, she was more curious about what would happen after the curse was laid on this village. A-Xin said it could root out the trouble for good; she'd like to see just what the result would be.
She stood beside A-Xin and watched her draw those patterns out of thin air. The patterns were red, looking somewhat bloody—worthy of a curse. After drawing them, A-Xin gave them a gentle push toward Song Family Village. The curse first flew up into midair and enlarged, then settled over Song Family Village and hid itself from sight.
"The curse is laid," A-Xin said. "Not a single person in Song Family Village can escape it—unless he's outside and doesn't return to Song Family Village."
She took Ji Xinyue's hand and drifted straight toward Song Family Village. Ji Xinyue wasn't the least bit afraid of being discovered; if A-Xin dared bring her drifting down like this, she surely had a plan. Sure enough, when they drifted past a villager, the other couldn't see them at all.
"I really regret it so much. I should've left that day—I shouldn't have gone soft for a moment and stayed."
"I'll beat you to death, you stinking woman—you still dare to leave?? Huh? Still thinking of leaving—where would you go? I'm your man. You'll stay here your whole life and bear me sons."
In a certain house, a burly man pinned down a sobbing, sniveling woman and, with a wrist-thick wooden stick, struck her shin bone hard, blow after blow with great force. With each blow, the woman let out a wretched scream.
Ji Xinyue covered her mouth and was about to step in to stop it when the man, still mid-beating, suddenly let out a wretched scream and crashed heavily to the floor, his body curling up in agony, rolling endlessly on the ground, still screaming.
Ji Xinyue was stunned for a moment. The woman who'd been beaten on the shin also stopped crying, staring dumbly at the man writhing and rolling on the ground. Hearing the man's miserable screams, she too was frightened dumb, and hurriedly crouched to one side, asking, "Da Zhuang, Da Zhuang, what's wrong with you? Have you fallen ill?"
The man was already in too much pain to think; he couldn't make out the woman's words at all, busy only with screaming and rolling. This kind of pain was hard to describe—not only was every part of his body in pain, but a certain important part was in pain too, and that part hurt the worst, as if it were about to snap off.
After about half an hour, the man finally felt that pain vanish. The woman crouched beside him let out a small breath of relief. "Da Zhuang, are you all right? Shall I pour you a cup of water?"
"Get away from me—"
The man shoved the woman aside. Looking at the state of her, he remembered what she'd said just now about regretting not leaving. Because of the violent pain a moment ago, anger rose in him; he grabbed the wooden stick beside him and struck hard at the woman's waist—but before the stick could touch her, the man suddenly crashed to the floor again, the pain from before repeating itself, and this time it was even more violent than before, nearly making him pass out from the agony.
A certain unmentionable part hurt until it went numb, as if that thing were no longer there. This time, he was in pain for an hour. In the end he had no strength at all to stand, lying on the ground drenched in sweat, face ashen, his fingers barely able to move.
"A-Xin, what's going on?" Ji Xinyue had been left utterly bewildered. It seemed that as long as the man dared raise a hand against the woman, he'd be in unbearable pain. "This curse—does it make them suffer agony whenever a man hits a woman?"
"No."
No? But the scene before her—wasn't that exactly it?
"Da Zhuang, you really are ill. Let me change your clothes and wipe you down." Seeing that the man hadn't died, the woman wasn't actually that worried. Especially this man who was usually so vicious to her—now in such pain his fingers couldn't move—there was even a touch of satisfaction in her heart. If only he'd hurt like this every time he dared to bully her, how good that would be.
She actually wanted to leave too, but she'd been here twenty years. Her parents had never liked her to begin with; her hometown village, though it had no human trafficking, that was about its only virtue. If she went back, her parents would despise her, the neighbors would mock her—she probably couldn't last in that place. Better to stay here. It was suffering everywhere; she'd long since given up hope for this life.
The man had no intention of resisting. The woman carefully helped him up, fetched water to wipe his body, then changed him into clean clothes. Watching all this, Ji Xinyue only shook her head and made no comment.
"Ah! Da Zhuang! You... you..."
The woman's startled cry drew the attention of Ji Xinyue and the man. The man had recovered some strength and asked in a none-too-pleasant tone, "What is it, making such a fuss?"
"Da... Da Zhuang, you... your thing..." The woman pointed at Da Zhuang's lower body, her voice trembling. "Da Zhuang, how is your thing half the size it was?"
Half the size??
Ji Xinyue blinked, then her eyes went wide as she looked at A-Xin beside her. Thinking of what would become of that man, she couldn't quite hold it in. "A-Xin."
She gripped A-Xin's hand hard. "Why is this curse so wicked? Certain things will even shrink... shrink smaller?"
"Not only shrink. As long as the curse takes effect each time, once it reaches a certain count, it'll even disappear." A-Xin said in all seriousness. "Xinyue needn't mind. There are thousands upon thousands of curses; this is just a small one. Since you don't want me to wipe out this little mountain village, this is the only method. With the root of evil gone, they can't do evil. Once a few more things like this happen, they'll grow suspicious and go searching for why it's happening, and ultimately they'll work out that it's because they force, beat, and curse women that this happens. These benighted people will then believe it must be a punishment sent down from heaven. Over time, they probably won't dare do that buying-of-girls business anymore."
A-Xin took Ji Xinyue to several other households as well, where they also ran into men, in broad daylight, trying to force themselves on women—only to find they hadn't gotten what they wanted, and their things had shrunk by half, scaring them out of their wits on the spot. As long as they dared vent their anger on a woman, raising a hand to beat or curse her, their whole bodies would be wracked with pain, as if crushed by a heavy truck, and each time lasted longer than the last.
For a whole week, A-Xin brought Ji Xinyue over every night to watch. In just that week, there were still men in the village who refused to believe in the jinx, and so they all came to experience that violent pain, and the shrinking of their things by half, and never dared act up again.
"Village chief, what on earth do you think is going on?" The Song Family Village men's faces were knit with worry—at this rate, wouldn't their things just disappear?
The village chief smoked, puffed out a smoke ring, and said full of foreboding, "This matter is strange. It can't be man-made. Could it be we've angered the gods, and the gods are punishing us?" The village chief was actually a man of some learning who'd read many myths and tales of ghosts and spirits; the villagers believed in such things to begin with. Hearing the chief's words now, their faces all turned pale.
"Did we anger the gods? We haven't done anything bad—how would we anger the gods?" one man said.
"What do you mean, nothing bad? Who broke your wife's leg? Who was it that meant to beat his wife yesterday and ended up rolling all over the ground in pain? Qiangzi, your thing's probably shrunk quite a bit too, hasn't it?" a middle-aged woman mocked. "Otherwise, would you be in such a hurry?"
The man called Qiangzi flushed red all over. Yes—yesterday he'd meant to beat his wife, thinking that strange business wouldn't happen to him, but who'd have thought, after failing twice in a row, his thing had actually shrunk by half.
"It's the gods come to punish you men. If you still won't recognize your wrongs, that thing of yours will probably be gone."
The village women had already understood: these men now simply couldn't beat them. At the time they had a feeling of bitterness giving way to sweetness. At today's village meeting, they had to mock to their hearts' content. A few men, just thinking of raising a hand against them, would start to feel pain, drawing giggles from the women.
Seeing this, the village chief frowned and said, "Disperse. From now on, treat your wives a little better. For now, the village is forbidden to buy wives from outside."
"Village chief, how can that be? My son's already forty, the money's all ready—he's just missing a wife," an old woman said anxiously.
"I said no buying, so no buying!"
The village chief's voice scared the old woman into silence. But she still wouldn't give up. The chief wouldn't let her buy—but couldn't she just buy in secret? Though the heat was on lately, she could always think of a way.
Ji Xinyue frowned. "A-Xin, the men's problem is solved, but what about the women who do evil?"
"Keep watching."
In a couple of days, the old woman went to the city to find "connections" to buy a young girl. But at such a critical juncture, who'd dare do such a thing? The Song Family Village affair had already been exposed; some unaffiliated traffickers didn't dare act rashly at all, terrified of being caught and shot.
With no choice, the old woman had to take to the field herself, and unexpectedly she really did stake out a somewhat naive, sweet little girl, whom she tricked into the village.
"Son, I've gotten you a pretty little girl—see if you like her?" The old woman had already knocked the girl out and tugged at her son with a grin. "Go on, then—she's still unconscious."
Who'd have known her son, on seeing the girl, wasn't excited at all but rather, frightened, clutched at his crotch and let out a yell. "Ma, hurry and get her out of here." Then he scurried off in a streak. He didn't want that thing of his to shrink; better to have no wife than to be unable to be a man at all.
Ji Xinyue let out a pfft of laughter. This was a bit absurd.
The old woman sighed, her face full of worry. "What a fine girl—fair skin, big hips. She'd surely bear a son."
She tried persuading several more times, but her son wouldn't have it. She thought to ask the other men in the village whether anyone wanted the girl, but not a single man dared, all instinctively clutching a certain spot—it couldn't shrink any more, or it'd be gone.
In the end, once the girl woke, the old woman had someone send her back to the city.
She thought the matter was over, but the next day, when the old woman got up in the morning, she found her tongue had rotted. Recalling what she'd done before, she was so frightened that she spent all day praying to the gods and Buddhas, never daring to trick a young girl again.
"So, deceiving people will rot your tongue?" Ji Xinyue asked.
"Correct."
"A-Xin, you really are amazing—nothing can stop you."
"It's just a tiny little curse."
Ji Xinyue linked arms with A-Xin and tilted her head to ask, "Then, what's the extent of your greatest ability?"
A-Xin fell silent.
Under Ji Xinyue's curious gaze, she answered, "Destroying tens of thousands of worlds in an instant—does that count?"
Ji Xinyue shuddered. "It counts, it counts—but maybe don't do that sort of thing." Her wife really was something else, able to destroy worlds in an instant. This dangerous figure—she'd better keep a close eye on her; that counted as a blessing to all living things, too.
"Mm. With you here, I won't do it."
Ji Xinyue smiled like a piece of candy, sweet to the point of being cloying.