Chapter 29: Tell You a Secret

Chapter 29: Let Me Tell You a Secret

Cullen looked at Ron, and then at the copper coin in his hand;

So,

The money the old woman spent all day looking for had been stolen by you?

Last night, he and Purr had almost lost their lives, all thanks to your meddlesome hands?

But looking at it from another angle,

When an employee of one's own company stole someone else's property during work hours, it seemed only natural that the victim would seek out the "young boss" of this family business.

Yet,

Here lay the problem:

Was that old woman truly a Bewitching Aberrant?

If she was, why did she end up lying in the mortuary as an unclaimed corpse?

If she wasn't, did it mean the old woman's mutation was caused by this copper coin, implying that this coin could mass-produce Bewitching Aberrants?

But looking at Ron's current "idiotic and paralyzed" state,

It was truly difficult for Cullen to compare him to the old woman from last night, who could employ such dark methods and possess a corpse;

Was it because Ron's time in contact with this copper coin was not yet long enough? Or was the old woman inherently not an ordinary person before her death? Therefore, the changes in the two of them after being influenced by this copper coin differed greatly.

At the moment, the only thing that could be certain was that there was absolutely something wrong with this copper coin.

Cullen remembered "Purr" mentioning something called a "Holy Relic." Ordinary people needed to go through a process of "purification" to become divine servants, and "purification" required borrowing the aura of a "Holy Relic."

So, "Holy Relic" was also just a proxy term; it didn't specifically mean a "holy object," just as Purr had said—aberrants and priests, were they not essentially the same thing?

"My money... my money... my money..."

Ron was still drooling, his mouth still muttering.

"Ron, what's wrong with you?" Paul seemed to notice Ron's abnormality.

Cullen, meanwhile, raised his hand. He intended to return the copper coin to Ron first, allowing him to temporarily return to normal.

Ron was a worker at home and wouldn't slip away; besides, they were almost home. The moment they arrived, they could call for Diss, so there was no harm in letting Ron hold the "copper coin" to be happy for a little longer.

But,

Just as Cullen prepared to hand the copper coin over,

A dense, heavy wave of reluctance suddenly surged from deep within his heart.

This feeling was difficult to describe...

It was like finding a penny by the side of the road; handing it over to a police officer was easy;

But if you were to find a gold brick by the side of the road, even if you ended up giving it to the officer, your heart would certainly have gone through a bitter struggle.

No matter how noble one's character or how excellent one's integrity, as long as he was still human, he would possess the desire of "greed."

Cullen took a breath, steeled his heart, and still stuffed the copper coin back into Ron's hand.

Ron smiled immediately, his expression returning to normal as he kissed the copper coin;

While Cullen's heart was met with a wave of loss and emptiness.

I only held it for such a brief moment, yet this copper coin has already influenced me to this extent?

The power of this copper coin is truly astonishing.

One must know, it is merely made of copper; it isn't worth much money!

The hearse finally drove up to the front door of the house. At this time, the last batch of mourning guests was walking out; today's condolences had come to an end.

"Whose funeral?" Cullen asked Paul.

"Today is Old Darcy's," Paul replied.

"Old Darcy?" Cullen froze for a moment, then asked, "Who paid for Old Darcy's funeral expenses?"

Old Darcy had a family and friends, but clearly, for a cremator, no matter how much extra money he skimmed, his family wouldn't be willing to spend it at the Inmeles residence to hold a funeral for him.

The last person who said she would help Old Darcy hold a grand funeral, Mrs. Hughes, had already absconded to avoid punishment in the eyes of the police.

"Mrs. Hughes's property was confiscated, the cremation society is preparing to be auctioned off, and the remaining property will prioritize compensating the victims," Paul replied.

Uncle Mason, who had just turned off the engine, turned his head and said, "We are considering whether or not to acquire the Hughes Cremation Society."

"What about the price?" Cullen asked.

"That's still unclear. In a couple of days, I'll go out for a meal with the official in charge of the auction and ask about the benefits fee they want. In this day and age, who actually goes straight to an open bidding?"

Paul and Ron together lifted Cullen out from the comfortable coffin and transferred him onto the stretcher cart;

"Cullen?"

A familiar voice rang out; it was Piaget.

He wore a solemn formal suit today, clearly having come to attend Old Darcy's funeral.

"Old Darcy did, after all, once collect Linda's ashes for me, so I came to mourn him. At the same time, knowing you were being discharged this afternoon, I waited a bit longer."

Piaget's smile was still so warm, and his voice was gentle.

"One, two, three!"

Paul and Ron lifted the stretcher cart down from the hearse.

Ron carelessly let the copper coin pinched in his fingers slip out, and it rolled onto the ground.

In an instant, Ron wanted to let go of his grip to grab the copper coin.

Fortunately, Uncle Mason, who was nearby, hurriedly reached out to catch the stretcher; otherwise, Cullen would have taken a side flip right at his front door. If he accidentally tore his wounds open again, he would have to be sent right back to the hospital before even stepping inside.

Piaget bent down and picked up the copper coin.

"Mine, mine, mine," Ron said repeatedly, walking toward Piaget at the same time.

Piaget handed the copper coin over to Ron;

What made Cullen feel a bit strange was that when Piaget gave up the copper coin, his expression didn't change in the slightest, still maintaining that warm smile.

Yet he himself had only held it for a brief moment earlier, and there had been a noticeable sense of loss.

So,

Was it because Piaget was simply too rich?

Whether finding a penny or a gold brick by the side of the road, to him, there was actually no difference?

"My copper coin, my copper coin." Ron held the copper coin to his chest, as if cradling an infant.

After Uncle Mason coordinated with Paul to set the stretcher cart steadily on the ground, he came straight over and kicked Ron, knocking him to the floor, but even so, Ron still tightly gripped that copper coin.

"Were you out of your mind just now, Ron!"

Ron remained unmoved, merely grinning foolishly at Mason.

Uncle Mason gritted his teeth, but said nothing further, pushing Cullen into the house alongside Paul with a grim expression.

Piaget took off his hat and bid Karen farewell:

"I will come back to see you in a few days. Get some good rest."

"Alright, Piaget."

The stretcher cart was pushed into the living room; had it been pushed toward the basement, it would have been quite convenient, just straight down the ramp.

Fortunately, this time Paul and the others did not suffer a relapse of their occupational habits.

The stretcher cart on which Karen lay was carried up to the third floor and pushed into Karen's room.

Lunt, Mina, and Chris had to attend school today, and because Old Darcy’s funeral standards were relatively low, there was no shortage of hands, so there was no need for the three of them to ask for leave today.

After Karen was settled into bed, Aunt Mary walked in carrying pastries and water.

"My Karen, you have truly suffered. Rest well now that you are home, and tell your aunt whatever you wish to eat."

Because of the matter with Mrs. Hughes, Aunt Mary felt a deep, genuine guilt toward Karen from the bottom of her heart.

"Auntie, is Grandfather at home?"

"Yes, yes, he is in the study." At this, Auntie smiled; she knew well that Diss placed great value on this grandson, but bound by the dignity of an elder, he could not bring himself to personally welcome his grandson home. "I will go call Grandfather over."

Before long,

Diss's figure appeared at the doorway.

Without any delay, without even exchanging pleasantries or greetings, Karen spoke directly:

"Grandfather, Ron has a copper coin on him that he stole from the corpse of an old woman in the hospital mortuary last night. That bewitching deviant must have been looking for this. I held that copper coin and after a short while I could feel myself being drawn to it. Right now, the copper coin is still on Ron!

Hiss... Huu..."

Karen finished relaying the matter directly without a single pause;

He certainly did not want to waste time, only for Diss to go downstairs and find that Ron had already finished his shift and gone home, which would then entangle them in some chaotic developments and trouble.

Diss did not delay either; he turned around and walked straight out.

After about two minutes,

Ron walked into Karen's room, followed immediately by Diss, who closed the door behind him.

"Master, is there something you need me for?" Ron was still somewhat perplexed; even if they were to discuss work matters, it should have been in the study. "I accidentally slipped up earlier while lifting the Young Master, and I feel very remorseful in my heart. It won't happen next time."

Ron could only guess that he had slipped up earlier when carrying the young master and had been reported for it.

"Ron, give me that copper coin."

"The copper coin?"

Ron pulled the copper coin out from his pocket, yet he clenched it tightly in his hand.

"Give it to me," Diss said.

Diss’s aura of authority was heavy;

Ron took a deep breath, and finally, still slowly spread open his palm.

Diss reached out and took the copper coin away.

Watching the copper coin leave his possession, Ron's gaze began to gradually turn blank once more:

"My money... my money... my money..."

Muttering all the while, he made a move to snatch the copper coin back from Diss's hand.

While examining the copper coin, Diss used his other hand to grip Ron's neck. With a forceful squeeze, Ron knelt on the ground in pain. Suppressed under Diss's single hand, Ron lost the ability to resist and could only begin to drip mucus, looking as though he were suffering from an addiction withdrawal.

"How did it end up here?" Diss said with some perplexity.

Karen asked curiously, "What is this?"

"The source of evil of the Church of Rax."

"The source of evil?"

If money were called the source of evil, it seemed not entirely inappropriate, though perhaps a bit narrow-minded.

Diss had no intention of hiding it from Karen; that day at the hospital, he had said that once Karen’s injuries healed, he would tell him everything he wanted to know.

"The Church of Rax has many believers on the Eastern Desert Continent. What they advocate is using this life to endure suffering in pursuit of the soul’s liberation in the afterlife. They require believers to maintain simplicity in the face of material conditions and to hold an indifferent heart toward any material goods exceeding what is necessary for their survival."

Hearing Diss's introduction, Karen did not feel any surprise at the doctrines of the Church of Rax, nor did he even find it unusual.

Aside from a few individual extremes, general orthodox grand churches actually catered to the needs of the ruling class during their initial creation, emphasizing the patience and obedience of the lower classes to erode away the unstable elements within the social structure.

The Church of Rax was considered a rather typical one, taking a path opposite to that of the Bury Church.

Diss's thumb lightly rubbed against the copper coin:

"Legend has it that the True God Rax felt deeply that his people were so tempted by wealth that wars were constant. Therefore, upon his death, he cast a bronze coffin inlaid with nine demonic pythons;

He then ordered his believers to gather the world's sources of evil and melt them down into nine coins of the source of evil, which were sealed into the bronze coffin along with his corpse."

As Diss spoke, Karen was also retrieving his own memories—to be precise, the memories of the previous "Karen":

"The Treasure of Rax?"

"Yes." Diss nodded. "Many people imagine the burial site of Rax as a hiding place for mountains of treasure, an element that also appears in the plots of many novels and movies."

In the memories of the previous "Karen," there was an adventurer's novel that told of the protagonist discovering the tomb of Rax, finding the treasure, but subsequently triggering the curse of Rax.

Diss sat down by Karen's bedside and placed the copper coin before Karen:

"Mainly because in the stories of the Church of Rax, the arrangements made by the True God Rax before his death resembled too closely the gathering of treasures to be buried with him. Yet in reality, what Rax gathered and sealed within the bronze coffin was human greed. Greed transformed into nine coins, rather than mountains of material wealth.

Only now, it seems the vision of the True God Rax was still far too beautiful and simple. Even if he truly gathered and sealed away all the greed of the region where his believers resided at that time, greed will continue to breed, and it still breeds remarkably fast."

"Then this copper coin is the source of evil of Rax, one of those nine?" Karen asked.

Diss shook his head: "No. If it were one of those nine, it would not merely affect the person holding it in their hand. Wherever it appeared, it could even attract the people of an entire city to go madly scrambling for it, killing one another for its sake.

This should be a coin crafted by a certain high-realm priest of the Church of Rax, mimicking the actions of the True God Rax before death to gather greed, intended to be buried with him.

The function is similar, but the effect and influence cannot compare to the craftsmanship of the True God Rax.

I surmise that the priest's tomb must have been plundered, causing this copper coin to circulate out, and its era is likely untraceable.

Of course, for ordinary people, it still possesses an extremely powerful capacity to bewitch. After all, few ordinary people possess a spiritual dam capable of resisting the impact of immense wealth.

Moreover, even if one can guard their selfhood at the very beginning, keeping it by one's side for a long duration makes it very easy to be slowly permeated, until eventually they influence each other, or even merge into one another.

It is a 'Sacred Artifact'; if classified under the sequence of the Church of Order, its ranking would not be low either."

"How does Grandfather intend to deal with it?"

"I will hand it over to the higher-ups. Keeping it sealed at home is not secure. Once handed over, it will be properly settled."

Hearing that it was to be handed over, Karen felt a strange pang of heartache.

It wasn't the kind of heartache felt for money, but rather that this sort of "item" with a special effect, or "Sacred Artifact," always felt better kept by one's side. Like a little squirrel hiding pinecones, regardless of whether it was useful or useless, just hoarding it brought happiness.

But what Grandfather said was indeed correct; if something went wrong while keeping it at home, perhaps one day when he returned home:

His uncle, aunt, paternal aunt, and a whole crowd of male and female cousins would all be sitting there blankly, crying out over and over again:

"My money... my money..."

The mere thought of that scene sent a visible shiver down one's spine.

"Then why was that Bewitching Aberrant from last night so powerful?"

Ron still bore his usual simple-minded look, and Cullen felt that even if this copper coin remained on Ron for another ten days or half a month, it would never grant him the terrifying power of that old hag from last night.

"She was a diviner. When I examined her corpse in the morgue, I found certain tattoos on her body. She was likely an itinerant diviner, a Chasai."

In the memories of the previous Cullen, there was some understanding of the Chasai people. To Cullen, this group bore a striking resemblance to the Gypsies. They were a nomadic people whose primary livelihoods consisted of three occupations:

divination, theft, and prostitution.

There was also a small settlement of Chasai people in Loga City.

Within Cullen's memory, there remained a scene from two years prior: a Chasai husband, riding a motorcycle with his wife on the back, passed by the solitary Cullen on his way home from school, and the husband warmly inquired if Cullen wanted to experience his wife's skills.

Terrified, Cullen fled back home, a trauma that only deepened his autism.

"So, it isn't only the priests of the Church who possess special abilities, is it?" Cullen asked.

"Who told you that?" Diss asked.

This already touched upon the question of a system.

"Alfred told me."

"The priests of the Church are the mainstream," Diss explained. "Mainstream, sometimes, does not even refer to the majority, but rather because they can stand openly beneath the sunlight. In truth, there are quite a few groups, and even individuals, who do not belong to the Church yet possess their own unique heritage and methods, and they too can wield what you call... special abilities."

Having spoken, Diss cast his gaze upon Ron on the ground.

"Order... Purge!"

Lying in bed, Cullen saw a point of white light ignite upon Diss's index finger, which was then pressed against the center of Ron's brow.

Ron's body began to convulse violently, while curls of black mist began to rise from his mouth and nostrils.

Diss remarked, "An excessive psychological dependence is also a disruption of Order."

Witnessing this, Cullen felt a strong urge to ask Diss whether this spell could also be used to quit nicotine.

Ron stopped convulsing and began to snore,

but Diss slapped his face a couple of times.

Smack! Smack!

Poor Ron was startled awake by the pain.

"Master, what happened to me..." Ron had clearly forgotten a few things. Or perhaps, before this, his memory had long been drawn in by the copper coin, leaving him in a muddle-headed state akin to a dream, or like a blackout after drinking.

"Go home and sleep. Next time you come to work, you are not allowed to doze off."

"Yes, yes, I was wrong, Master. There won't be a next time, there won't be a next time." Ron scrambled up immediately and left the room.

The job at the Inmmeles house paid handsomely and was much lighter than working in a factory; he truly could not bear to lose it.

After Ron left, Diss dropped the copper coin into the glass of water Aunt Mary had poured for Cullen earlier. The coin entered the water with a crisp splash.

"When you spoke of Ron's matter just now, your pace was exceedingly fast, and very urgent." Diss pointed to his ear, then seemed to point to his own mind. "If it weren't for the fact that I am not yet senile, I might truly have failed to understand you."

Cullen smiled faintly and said,

"I simply feel that when there is an urgent and necessary matter, one must finish saying it at the absolute fastest speed without any delay, to prevent any accidents. Otherwise, if an accident really occurs, it would feel... quite foolish.

Oh no, Grandfather, I am not referring to you."

Diss nodded, pulled out the chair beside the desk, and sat down facing Cullen.

"Then I shall not delay either. I will tell you the matters concerning you right now.

Which method do you prefer?

I speak and you listen, or you ask and I answer."

"You speak first, Grandfather. Once you have finished, I will ask."

"Very well."

"Your parents were killed by my own hands..."