42 New Life
And then, all of a sudden, the whimpers and choked screams all stopped, replaced by deep heaving breaths and heavy, self depreciating chuckles.
Ming Cheng, still wrapped around tightly within Lan Chang's tightening arms, still clung on to her, asking for her to keep holding him tight as he tried to understand this new development.
This... was new.
He didn't remember any of his memories resembling this, or any real kinds of happy endings.
He knew that there had to be some good outcomes to dog attacks, bandit attacks, soldier attacks, and any kind of other violence inflicted upon the other children, who lived just like him and were abhorred by the world around them.
Ming Cheng listened closely to what he was ringing in his ears, rattling around in his brain.
He knew that some people could suppress their memories, forget about them, live on with their everyday lives, and then be driven mad by what they remembered much later on.
He remembered one magistrate casting out one of the ladies who worked in the small, government building, who had only gotten the job in the first place because of her contacts and because she had been recommended by a wealthy benefactor of the magistrate.
She had been apparently legendary at sorting out the accounts, reorganising the office structure, and she had quickly made herself indispensable, until she had begun having visions and nightmares, forcing her past to spill out before her, the events occurring as if they were projected on a screen, in her own words, and she was being forced to react to them.
Sometimes, entire sequences of memories overtook her mind, and she was forced to react to them as if she had been transported back in time to the horrific and traumatic incidents, as if she had been thrown into a terrible, terrible nightmare while still awake.
Eventually, the lady had lost her job, when she had been overtaken and her mind had been overridden by the things that only she could see.
She had attacked the magistrate with a brush, wielding the implement as if it were a knife, and he felt as if he had been wronged enough to throw her out back onto the streets, back where she had originally rose up from.
Ming Cheng wondered if the same thing was now happening to him, now that he was not living off of the harsh doses of fear that his body had grown accustomed to.
He needed to learn more.
He needed to know more about what he was feeling.
What if, one day out of nowhere, his mind was suddenly overwhelmed by the all encompassing fear that had possessed that lady and he ended up attacking one of the others, or even Lan Chang?
But... but...
How an earth could he possibly find out anything about his condition?
The physician was always an option, but that man had the eyes of a madman and it was far too likely, looking at the way that his face had twisted up - when he had looked over Ming Cheng's body when the ghost had told him to restrain himself and refrain from showing pain - and had practically glowed a poorly concealed sadistic glee, that he was extremely eager to begin slicing Ming Cheng up and finding out the exact condition of his body.
He did not trust the physician one bit, but the man was his only hope, unless Ming Cheng found some way to learn about his condition on his own.
But how?
The physician had almost certainly learned his craft through the use of medicinal texts, and other such books and scrolls, unlike the women and men that had inherited themselves herb stores and clinics, on the poorer sides of the city that didn't charge nearly as much for anything and everything, and had learned through the teachings of their parents and relatives through word of mouth and practical demonstrations.
The Imperial Physician must have been given a comprehensive education and an entire library's worth of materials to memorise to even pass his exams to work in the palace and treat the Emperor.
Unfortunately though, Ming Cheng didn't know how to read, so trying to decipher his exact condition, through the traditional means of doing so, was not possible, forcing another route to be taken on the path of knowledge.
Ming Cheng thought for a moment for any individuals he could speak to for any sort of medical insight, until, like a bolt of lightning, it hit him.
Qi Qing, when describing his frog catching initiation, had told him that Wang Yuan's brother needed those frogs for something, and considering that he was no cook, then it was only really possible that he was using them for medicinal practice or research, because there was no other reason that Ming Cheng could think of to use them.
Ming Cheng gripped Lan Chang's robes tight as he realised that he had a way in, and a method to move forward.
He would just need to speak to Wang Yuan about talking to his brother.
...
He would need to speak to... Wang Yuan... about speaking to his brother...
...
...
...
Ming Cheng suddenly decided that it was best to learn how to read instead, and that speaking to the ghost would be more preferable.
Even better yet, he could ask the ghost about teaching him how to read and write, as soon as he was able to understand whether the incident from last night still maintained his own safety.
If Ming Cheng was ever able to learn how to read and write, then he would be able to search up on how to perform an exorcism on his own, or even better yet, write a letter so somebody else could do it for him, and let him get a good idea on how the masters approach and handle such a situation.
Therefore, if Ming Cheng ever had to face another situation, involving ghosts, in the future, he would be able to help himself, instead of living under the thumb of that omnipresent, shadowy being.
But for now, that was all hopeful conjecture.
