Forbidden Land – CH 108

After the madwoman left, Chen Rong rushed to check on Zhang Chao. He had his eyes closed, seemingly asleep.

Chen Rong shook him, calling, “Zhang Chao, Zhang Chao, wake up!”

But there was no response.

Chen Rong shook him harder, but still nothing. This time, Chen Rong was truly worried. She shook him repeatedly, shouting, “Zhang Chao, Zhang Chao, wake up!”

Still no response.

Finally, Chen Rong burst into tears, slapping his mouth as she cried, screaming, “Zhang Chao, don’t scare me… don’t scare me; please wake up, please wake up!”

After a while, Zhang Chao slowly opened his eyes, glanced at Chen Rong blankly, and then stared at the ceiling without saying a word.

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“Zhang Chao! Zhang Chao! What’s wrong with you?” Chen Rong was even more frightened by his current state than when he was unconscious.

Zhang Chao, however, seemed oblivious, his eyes lifeless. He would occasionally glance at the ceiling, then at Chen Rong, whose face was streaked with tears, seemingly unaware of anything.

“Zhang Chao!” Chen Rong cried, shaking and hitting him, but no matter what she did, Zhang Chao remained blankly staring, unresponsive.

Just then, “smack…thump…smack…thump,” the sound of the madwoman’s footsteps echoed downstairs again.

Chen Rong screamed angrily, grabbed a wooden stick, and rushed down the stairs. Just as she reached the first floor, where the lights were off, only the madwoman’s white paper lantern cast a dim glow. The madwoman stood in the middle, her sharp eyes fixed on Chen Rong.

Chen Rong noticed that in the madwoman’s hand holding her cane, she was also carrying a sickle. In the countryside, farm tools were usually left outside after work; clearly, the madwoman had taken her grandfather’s sickle.

Looking at the woman’s wrinkled, dirty face and seeing her carrying a sickle, Chen Rong felt a pang of fear. She took two steps back down the stairs, then mustered her courage and shouted in her local dialect, “What do you want?!”

The madwoman cursed viciously, “You’ve killed Ah Bao! You’ve killed Ah Bao!” She wailed and staggered towards Chen Rong.

Chen Rong hardened her heart, picked up a wooden stick, and struck the woman on the head. The woman screamed in pain and fell to the ground. Chen Rong used the stick to deflect the sickle, preventing the madwoman from reaching it, then hit her feet, yelling at her to get lost.

The madwoman, still crying and cursing in pain, staggered to her feet with a cane and moved towards the door.

Chen Rong followed closely behind, occasionally hitting her feet with the stick and urging her to hurry.

The woman, terrified, cried and jumped, falling twice more in the process.

Strangely enough, a normal person would have been exhausted by now, either breaking a bone or being too tired to move. But a madwoman was often a madwoman; despite all that, she could still hop and skip.

After driving her out the door, Chen Rong continued to urge her along the path, telling her to hurry home.

The madwoman stumbled and staggered to the entrance of the path. Suddenly, she let out a strange cry and lunged to the side, reaching for an axe lying on the ground. Chen Rong reacted quickly, not letting her get the axe, and swung the stick at her face.

“Ouch!” the madwoman cried out, losing her balance, staggering a few steps, and then tumbling down the slope beside the path, rolling dozens of meters down until her lantern went out and disappeared into the darkness below.

Seeing this, Chen Rong was startled. She hadn’t expected that a single blow would knock the madwoman down the slope. She’d rolled dozens of meters down, and although there were terraced fields below, a rock or something in the middle could easily cause an accident. If the madwoman had really died, things would be in serious trouble.

Chen Rong rushed back into the house, grabbed Zhang Chao’s high-powered flashlight, and ran to the path, shining it down.

In the dim light, she could see a figure lying on the edge of the terraced fields below—it was the madwoman dressed in her funeral clothes.

After waiting a while, seeing that the madwoman still wasn’t moving, Chen Rong grew anxious and shouted down, “Are you dead?! If you’re not dead, get back down here!”

The madwoman remained motionless.

Now, Chen Rong was frantic. After a moment’s thought, she quickly ran to the other side of the house and down a path leading to the fields below.

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When she reached the fields, Chen Rong saw that the madwoman was gone.

Just then, the flashlight shone, and about ten meters ahead, the madwoman was hopping along, one foot at a time.

However, her cane wasn’t touching the ground; instead, one end was held horizontally in the air in front of her, as if being pulled forward slowly by some unseen force. The madwoman continued to sob and mutter, “Ah Bao, don’t play with them anymore; they all hit me. Waaah…”

Chen Rong stood there, suddenly realizing how cold the night on the mountain was…