Psychic Tattoo

Chapter 96 Nail the Soul
I asked what else Chen Xian’er did.

Chen Sanli said: “When Huang Erlang gave the ultimatum to Chen Xian’er, she felt afraid.”

She was just afraid of losing her luxurious lifestyle.

She got extremely anxious as her new baby grew up.

She found Huang Erlang preparing his luggage two weeks before she was due to give birth.

Chen Xian’er became so worried she got her elder family members and her father - the clan head - to discuss how to keep Huang Erlang around.

One family member told her that Huang Erlang had arranged for a small train of carts and he might be taking something back to the Northeast.

He told Huang Xian’er: “What else does he have to take back to the Northeast other than his gold?”

The elder members suddenly got excited.

They had but one proposal… to kill Huang Erlang and take those piles of gold.

There was only greed in their eyes.

Only Chen Xian’er disagreed, but it was not because she loved her husband. There were two other reasons.

Firstly, Huang Erlang could earn more money… it was not a good idea to kill him.

Secondly, Huang Erlang was a wild spirit, and it was not easy to kill the weasel of the Northeast.

When they considered this, they had to think over it again.

First, it had become clear that Huang Erlang would go back to the Northeast. If he left this family, Mr. Chen will have lost everything and gained nothing.

Second, Huang Erlang being a wild spirit would not be that big a problem… There was one boy in the Chen family who studied at Long Hu Mountain and learned the skills of killing ghosts and evil spirits. Now we might go and kill Huang Erlang.

Then, all that gold… would all belong to Mr. Chen.

Those elder family members even discussed the booty sharing ratios.

Mr. Chen and Chen Xian’er would take thirty percent of the gold, and the rest would be given to the other elders. They would also give some gold to that Long Hu priest.

After they made this agreement, they only waited for the Long Hu priest to arrive to kill Huang Erlang.

After five days, that priest arrived.

Chen Xian’er told a lie to Huang Erlang, saying that there was a quite prestigious cousin coming back home. A few of the elder family members had to receive him, and Huang Erlang also had to join in.

Huang Erlang didn’t refuse. He followed Chen Xian’er and joined that party.

But he never knew it was a trap.

The banquet started, and everybody wanted to drink with Huang Erlang.

It was rice wine, very strong stuff. Soon Huang Erlang could no longer hold his liquor, and passed out under the table.

At that point, the Chens removed the table and asked the priest how they should deal with Huang Erlang.

The priest said: “Cut his throat, so there is no chance for him to take revenge.”

Then the priest took twenty eight ox hair nails and tacked them into Huang Erlang’s throat.

This wild spirit had spent all its life cultivating… but it couldn’t use its skills since its throat had been sealed.

Then, that priest took one black nail, as thick as a finger, and drove it through the top of Huang Erlang’s skull… That black nail was a soul locking nail. When it was put on the crown of the clan head, the body would never have the chance to get up and its soul would be sealed inside of the body.

After blocking the weasel’s skills and soul, the priest began to kill him. He took out three big nails. He called them the heart-drilling nails… Once they were driven into the weasel’s heart, he could never return to life again.

When the priest finished this procedure, he told the people to bury the weasel in the Wild Dragon Valley, so that the weasel would never give any trouble to Mr. Chen’s family.

After all of this, the elders all rushed to Huang Erlang’s room and opened his luggage, finding tens of thousands of gold coins.

As they discussed previously, they distributed the gold.

Once they had distributed all of the gold those elders, Mr. Chen, and Chen Xian’er felt very satisfied, but they now had to explain the reason for Huang Erlang’s death to the public and give him an elaborate funeral. They said Huang Erlang died of a heart attack.

It seemed that everything was done correctly and Huang Erlang could not escape, but there was an accident on the way to the burial… The hearse driver had drunk too much that day, and he whipped the horse’s eyes by mistake.

The horse bolted, and the coffin dropped to the ground… The coffin rolled a few times, and the rivets in Huang Erlang’s throat were shaken out.

Without the suppression of those rivets, Huang Erlang’s ghost began to exact its revenge.

Since then, The members of the Chen family died one by one. Some of them were hit on the head by stones, some of them died when they used a hammer and hit themselves, and some just madly ran headlong into a wall.

Before they died, a pattern would appear on their skin the weasel in a wedding suit.

When the pattern appeared, it seemed to indicate that they would soon die.

The clan head was very nervous. He realized this was the revenge of Huang Erlang, so he asked somebody to turn to the priest, but just when they went out of the house, the pattern appeared on their face and they died immediately

This time, the clan head and Chen Xian’er got frightened.

They realized that now, Huang Erlang’s revenge would be ruthless.

Luckily, there was a wandering monk in the family.

After the monk was told by the clan head what had happened with Huang Erlang, he said the situation could only be solved by the conciliation of his soul. He asked the clan head to send a few family members to leave the house with prayers and bows, and then take out the weasel’s coffin and bury it under the ancestral hall.

Only after the burial could they appease the ghost’s resentment.

Hearing these words, the clan head called out a few reliable members and asked them to kneel and kowtow every three hundred meters, so that they could slowly carry Huang Erlang’s coffin into the ancestral hall and bury him there.

When the coffin was buried, the monk, as well as Chen Xian’er, holding the baby, and the clan head, burnt incense and asked: “Is Huang Erlang here?”

“Bald fool, none of your family will escape!” Huang Erlang said fiercely.

The monk said: “All the people in this world like money, and that’s why they made such a big mistake and killed you. Please forgive Chen Xian’er and her family. I know you are a broad-minded person, and you are her husband.”

“Forgive her? A day together as husband and wife means endless devotion for the rest of your life, damn it!” Huang Erlang growled: “I let Chen Xian’er enjoy the life of a queen for half a year because I loved her, and I also didn’t kill Chen Xian’er when she had an affair because I loved her… I just wanted to go home to the Northeast and leave Minnan, but the Chen’s brought a priest and tricked me. They robbed my gold and they even killed me with that heart-drilling nail and the rivets in my neck when I was drunk. They removed my powers and stuck a nail in the top of my skull to lock in my soul. l would have spent all of eternity inside that coffin if it hadn’t been dropped to the ground by that drunk hearse driver on the day of my funeral.”

Huang Erlang shouted loudly, and even that monk had to sigh: “I had no idea this was such a deep resentment.”

The fact was, the clan head hadn’t told the monk all the facts, and he didn’t tell him the reason he killed Huang Erlang.

But the monk wouldn’t help if he had told him the truth.

The heart-drilling nail, rivets, and the soul-sealing nails were the most vicious means used by the Taoists to suppress ghosts, and that’s why there was so much resentment when Huang Erlang’s soul escaped.

Then Huang Erlang said: “That priest who nailed me down was killed by me, and all of the Chens have to die as well.”

Finally, the monk said: “Well, Huang Erlang, you can kill the others, but … can you please forgive the child? It is your own child.”

Chen Xian’er also begged for mercy; she said she deserved to be damned, but Huang Erlang shouldn’t kill his own child.

Huang Erlang thought for a long time and only said: “Huang Erlang requited the favors of the Chen Family. He brought wealth from far away to show his appreciation, but the Chen family is very greedy and they tricked Huang Erlang to death.… Well, monk, just help me take my child out of this family and give him to another family. But the rest must all be killed.”

After these words, he continued: “Monk, one more thing from you. Please take one strand of my hair from my coffin, and also cut some hair from Chen Xian’er, and let my child have them. A man must cultivate three things all his life: character, virtue, and reputation. Therefore, let me give my son the name Huang Sanli… not Chen Sanli. I want nothing from this family.”

The monk left and took Chen Sanli, as well as the strands of hair from Huang Erlang’s body and Chen Xian’er. He went away to find a good family to raise the child.

As for the Chens, they all died within three days, and Chen Xian’er died the most miserably. She swallowed gold until she suffocated.

When this family died out, other people came to that place and brought a master to exorcise it.

Actually, there was no resentment at all from Huang Erlang anymore, as he had already taken his revenge, and he would never come out and make trouble.

But in fear that Huang Erlang might come out, the master from Miao Jiang built the towers around the house - The Yin and Yang towers to suppress the weasel.

No one touched those towers until fifteen years ago, when the modern villas in the area where built.

However, ten years ago, when Chen Sanli was almost seventy and came to Minnan to seek his heritage, he kneeled down in front of the villas, praying for the peaceful souls for his ancestors. However, this suddenly triggered a stronger sense of resentment from Huang Erlang.

“How did you trigger that?” I asked Chen Sanli.

Chen Sanli was Huang Erlang’s son, and theoretically, Huang Erlang’s soul should have been happy when Chen Sanli came to worship his ancestors.