Chapter 51: Making up

We returned to the village in silence. After sending Su Rou home, Old Master Jiang and I went straight back to my house. Because of my mother’s deliberate publicity, the villagers knew that Old Master Jiang had adopted me as his godson within a day. It was no longer strange for Old Master Jiang to come to my house often.

“Master Jiang, why are you back with Sanwa?” My mother was very surprised to see us back. She couldn’t understand how I could meet Master Jiang, who had left early in the morning, when I was just out for a bit of fun.

“Xiu Yun, are you feeling better? I went to the town and bought you some herbs. Boil them and drink them.” Old Master Jiang didn’t rush to explain anything, but just handed my mother a bag of herbs.

My mother was grateful and took the medicine from the old man. For a moment, she didn’t know how to thank him.

But the old man seemed to have read my mother’s mind, and waved his hand: “I didn’t spend much time or money on this medicine. I have someone I know, so just boil it and drink it. Is Ermei awake yet?”

“Yes, yes, I’ve been awake for a long time.” My mother replied in a hurry.

Old man Jiang smiled and nodded, also sincerely happy, and went to see my second sister on the way.

Dinner was eaten at my house, and the whole family ate together in a lively atmosphere. I don’t know when we started to regard Old Master Jiang as a family member, but at the dinner table I talked about the snake group, the snake spirit, and the underground stone gate, which made my family members jump in surprise.

Old man Jiang didn’t mind, he just kept drinking the sugarcane wine. What else didn’t my family know? So he didn’t mind me talking about it.

After I finished talking, he said, “Tonight, I’m going to guide the lonely spirits there. Tomorrow, I’ll find someone in town to organize the people in the village to move the cemetery. But even so, it’s still very evil there. Before the evil spirits are exhausted, only a ‘big building’ can suppress it. Therefore, people must be discouraged from going there, lest there be more trouble.”

“What is a big building?” I asked, still not forgetting to ask this.

“Buildings with a lot of people, like schools, but you can’t take that risk. It’s better to let the evil spirits dissipate naturally.” Old Jiang obviously didn’t want to talk about that place anymore, and just explained it lightly.

I originally wanted to ask about the hungry ghost, but when I thought about it eating people, I was scared. I thought that I wouldn’t run into it anyway, and that I had my master to protect me, so I didn’t bother to make myself uncomfortable and simply didn’t ask.

After finishing the meal, the old man took a break and then a few people came to the door. I recognized them as the soldiers from the small courtyard in the town. The old man said that he had to go with them to perform a ritual to help the lonely souls.

I refused. He had originally said that he would take me with him to help the lonely souls, so why didn’t he take me with him?

The old man glared at me and said loudly, “You have to go to school tomorrow. I almost forgot that you have to go to school.”

After that, he turned and left, and my family and I were speechless. It turns out that after two days of hanging out with him, he really forgot that I had to go to school.

But it was good that my parents were obviously relieved. No matter what storms they had experienced outside, in their hearts, they still revered knowledge. It was a good thing to see that old man Jiang valued my studies.

In addition, I had only just become Jiang Laoren’s disciple, and I hadn’t learned anything yet. In my parents’ view, these supernatural things were beyond human control, and it was best that I didn’t get involved.

Old Master Jiang was busy for a week. I went to school in the village, so I naturally knew what he was doing. He was helping the villagers move their graves.

I don’t know how he helped the lonely souls that night, but I do know that the next afternoon, the leaders of the village said that the cemetery would be used to build a village hall, and they asked the villagers to move their graves.

In any case, the leaders had their own way of reassuring the people. The next afternoon after the announcement, some people started to move the graves, and old man Jiang helped them throughout the process. In addition, some of the graves that no one was taking care of also needed to be dealt with.

I went to school near there, so after school every afternoon, I ran to the old man Jiang’s place, but he wouldn’t let me near the graves.

“Master, I want to see it.” I don’t know what’s wrong with me. After being exposed to these things, I’m very interested in everything related to them.

“What the hell, you know you’re prone to these things.”

“But you’ve exorcised the lonely soul.”

“It’s one thing to transfer, but some ghosts can’t be reincarnated just by transferring. Before that, they will still return to their ancestral home at a certain time. You don’t know shit. Don’t go. Don’t go. There are many things to be careful about when moving graves. Don’t bother me with this.”

In this way, I was ruthlessly excluded by the old man Jiang, and I could only stare in curiosity, but I couldn’t see anything at all, which made me lose interest in learning.

Another week passed, and we had a test in class. I got a 64 in math, and even worse in Chinese, I got the lowest score in the class, 56. I was sweating cold sweat, I was finished, I had to endure my father’s ‘iron fist’ again.

I was thinking about a countermeasure, but I didn’t realize that there was someone even more powerful than my father waiting for me, and that was the old man Jiang!

“Sanwa, why don’t you just not tell your old man about the exam?” Su Rou gave me this idea.

This guy, although his grades are average, he still got two 80s this time. Even if he gets scolded, he won’t get beaten up, unlike me. It’s really easy to give me this bad advice.

“Bullshit! You’re not going to tell your parents about the test results? Even if you don’t, Liu Chunyan got a perfect score. She’s going to tell them. Liu Chunyan’s mother has a big mouth. Within an hour, the whole village will know that her daughter got two perfect scores.” I hate to think about Liu Chunyan. She’s the reason I got beaten five times out of ten.

I couldn’t think of a way to deal with these crispy meats, so I sat on the side of the road with them, lost in thought. After a while, I suddenly thought of a way to deal with them. I took the crispy meats and ran straight to the small supply and marketing cooperative in the town.

On weekdays, I still occasionally had a penny or two to spend. Although we were country kids, my capable father never neglected us three siblings. Although it was only occasionally, I still got it, didn’t I?

But what could be sold in the market? Even the people selling snacks on their backs were only there occasionally. I had saved 8 cents without knowing it, and now I could use it for something important.

“Sanwa, what are you going to do?” Su Rou was puzzled.

“I borrowed my sister’s pen two days ago and haven’t returned it yet. Now I’m going to buy some red ink and write my name on it.” I said simply as I walked away.

But who is Su Rou? He is my good friend. We know each other so well that he immediately guessed my intention. Naturally, his body fat began to tremble.

He gets excited or scared like this.

“Sanwa, are you saying you want to change your score?” Su Rou was a little unsure. He guessed that the reason the kid was shaking this time was because of the score change, which was too exciting for him.

“Well, what else can I do?!” I said with gritted teeth.

I got a bottle of red ink for 5 cents, cleaned my sister’s pen of its original blue ink, and filled it with red ink. After practicing for a long time, I had the courage to change my math score to 84 and my Chinese score to 56. It was hard to change, so I just added an 8 and changed it to 85.6!

As for Su Rou, he only got 81 points in math, but I don’t know if he was just being a show-off, so I changed his math score to 87.

“Are you sick?” I don’t understand why Su Rou would change his score by 6 points.

“Oh, good friends should share the same fate.” Su Rou smiled like a fool, probably just looking for excitement.

So I cheated and went home with a heavy heart.

As soon as I entered the door, I saw my father standing there, looking serious and asking me, “Sanwa, did you take the exam? Did the results come out? How many points did you get?”

My face twitched, and I asked my father, “Dad, how do you know we took the exam? The exam papers have been distributed, right?”

“Nonsense, Liu Chunyan got a perfect score, and her mother came to my house to tell me that she got a perfect score. What about you?” My father looked displeased, probably because he was provoked by Liu Chunyan’s mother.

“Oh, I got 2 scores over 80, and I’ll try to catch up with Liu Chunyan in the future.” I handed my father the test paper, which I had taken out with trembling hands.