Chapter 39: Ushi-oni
Perched high in the sky, gazing at the earth from under the boundless night sky, while marveling at the greatness of heaven and earth and the insignificance of humans like mayflies, Li Jiahong felt more panic and unease in his heart at this moment.
But as time passed, Li Jiahong instead sensed an indescribable peace from that pair of sharp claws. He suspiciously looked at that strange and terrifying bird-like human face, “Are you taking me to find my child?”
The two huge eyeballs on that expressionless face rotated half a circle, looking down and gazing at Li Jiahong. It opened its mouth but emitted a call of unclear meaning.
Li Jiahong gazed at the strange bird. After carefully observing it, his fear faded, but his eyes grew increasingly sorrowful. When what he saw was a familiar set of pajamas, and the black-edged white feathers scattered across the earth fluttered like falling snow, his pain replaced all emotions, and he couldn’t help shouting out the fact he dared not face.
“Wife…”
That night, a man’s anguished cries echoed through the night sky. Unknown feathers scattered along the path of the sound. The feathers landed and vanished like frost and snow, and only a few lucky ones who caught the feathers realized that the things falling in groups that night were pieces of unknown feathers.
“What is this?” The lucky ones looked at the black-edged white feathers in their hands, plunged into deep confusion, while the women among them sensed a longing magic power from them and were fascinated.
As the range of the anomaly gradually expanded, the matter soon reached the ears of He Jia’an and the other two who were driving.
“Feathers?” Yu Lianyun and Li Yingqi were stunned upon hearing this, and both simultaneously thought of the feathers that Li Jiahong had rented from the forest cabin. The two looked back and indeed saw faint light spots of white feathers slowly drifting down in the night sky from afar.
Tracing back along the trajectory of those falling feathers, Yu Lianyun soon discovered that familiar strange female bird, and vaguely saw a human figure clutched under the strange bird’s feet.
“It’s that strange bird! It’s grabbed a person? Wait… isn’t that person Li Jiahong?” Yu Lianyun felt the figure of the person clutched into the sky by the strange bird growing more familiar the more she looked, and she couldn’t help shouting loudly.
Li Yingqi looked at He Jia’an with a serious expression: “Captain He, what should we do?”
He Jia’an, however, seemed as if he felt no crisis at all, and said calmly: “Do nothing. Instruct the others that the other mystic investigators should also ignore that strange bird.”
Hearing He Jia’an’s words, Yu Lianyun and Li Yingqi both couldn’t help looking at each other in confusion, seemingly not understanding why the other was so calm.
“That strange bird seems to be following us?” Yu Lianyun then discovered a bit of strangeness.
“No matter.” He Jia’an sighed lightly and said, “Let them follow.”
Li Yingqi rummaged through the front passenger’s storage box and pulled out a pair of night-vision binoculars. When she saw the scene in the sky, her expression quickly changed from shock to prolonged silence, and Yu Lianyun, who then took the binoculars to observe, was the same.
“Captain He, so you knew all along?” Yu Lianyun looked complicatedly at He Jia’an who was driving the car, gritting her teeth and saying, “The true form of that strange bird.”
“Mm, after seeing Jiang Gu’s hospital room balcony, I vaguely guessed some things.” He Jia’an admitted generously and explained, “The claw marks left on the balcony wall were outward-facing and only outward-facing. Normally, if descending from outside, there should be inward-facing claw marks. This means that hospital room balcony was very likely the strange bird’s starting point.
If that strange bird doesn’t have the ability to appear out of thin air, it means the strange bird has the ability to blend into crowds. Moreover, the ‘miracles’ that happened to Li Jiahong’s wife during this time were too many? So at that time, I was thinking, is it possible that the true ability of those feathers is not summoning the strange bird, but transforming into the strange bird.”
He Jia’an quickly pulled out his mobile phone from his pocket and handed it to his two teammates, “Of course, what made me completely convinced of my conjecture was the records about that strange bird that headquarters found.”
Yu Lianyun and Li Yingqi leaned their heads together and flipped through the information about the strange bird that He Jia’an had obtained.
“It’s an anomaly called Ushi-Oni, legend says it’s the daughter of the Heavenly Emperor, or said to be the wailing soul of a woman who lost her child, shedding feathers to become human, donning feathers to become a bird…
Because they lost their own child, they have an abnormal love for other people’s children. When they see someone drying a child’s clothes outside at night, they will quietly take away that family’s child.” He Jia’an said.
As he spoke, he paused for a moment and continued: “And the sightings of this anomaly end 500 years ago; they haven’t appeared for a long time.”
Li Yingqi fell silent after hearing this, “Transformed from a mother who lost her child? This time it’s another anomaly born based on some principle, completely as elusive as the blessing.”
Feeling herself called out, Yu Lianyun inexplicably felt guilty, while also seeming to understand the reason such an anomaly could be born.
The blessing is born from the most primal fear, and fear is the most primal emotion, and emotion is a concept born alongside life, where life here even includes abnormal gods.
If emotions could be given physical form, then their weight for abnormal gods is no less than the “indescribable” of “abnormal gods to humans,” is it not?
The blessing has already proven that abnormal gods are not beings completely unaffected by emotions. Historical accounts of using the old seal to expel abnormal gods further prove that even among abnormal gods, the one who returns all to unity, the key to transcendence, also possesses emotions of disgust.
All this is enough to prove the potential power emotions possess.
Since the emotion of fear can give birth to the blessing, why can’t the emotions of love and resentment give birth to Ushi-Oni?
Perhaps because she thought the reasons for the birth of the blessing and Ushi-Oni were so similar, Yu Lianyun suddenly felt a sense of unease. Recalling her sudden realization of joy, she finally noticed a detail she had inadvertently overlooked, and immediately shivered violently.
“Are you cold?” Li Yingqi asked with concern, and helpfully raised the car air conditioning temperature.
Yu Lianyun looked at the two who hadn’t reacted yet with terror, tremblingly pointing out: “Captain He just said, if the feathers are not for summoning, but for transformation… then assuming those scattered feathers also…”
He Jia’an immediately trembled in hand and leg, the car swerving and accelerating, nearly crashing into the roadside.
Li Yingqi’s eyes bulged with bloodshot veins, tremblingly saying: “No, it can’t be.”
“If it can’t be, then why did Boss Lin say after discovering the second feather to immediately recover all feathers?” Yu Lianyun swallowed, nitpicking the words, emphasizing “all.”
In an instant, the two were speechless. The truth killed their last shred of naive hope, and a strong sense of suffocation nearly snapped the three’s reason.
Curse… it spread the curse again!?
“Hey ya.” Lin Ling inserted feathers all over the lycoris radiata potted plant, decorating the lycoris radiata gaudily yet with a touch of deformed beauty, “It’s really beautiful.”
“Boss, should all the feathers be burned?” Wei Jiang lit a fire in the stove at the door, dragging out a cart of feathers, and asked Lin Ling inside the house, poking his head in.
Lin Ling said with a squinting smile: “Yes, because there are already enough of them.”
Finished work early today, secretly typing, begging for collections, votes, and such.
