Chapter 153 The Three-Century Old Servant

Looking at the Chinese herbal tonic gift set that Nangong Sanba had produced, Nangong Wuyue felt her entire spine itching. She slapped her elder brother on the shoulder: "Bro, do you believe that if this were a different setting, I'd whip you away with my tail?"

Nangong Sanba hadn't even reacted yet: "What did I do now... don't you know how much someone with an anal fissure needs this stuff..."

Hao Ren silently held down Nangong Sanba's shoulder. He was just about to say something when the corner of his eye caught sight of an old-fashioned car driving up the small road. Perfect timing, August was coming home.

"Put your Chinese medicine gift set away. Seeing this thing might make the old man fly into a rage and try to die with you," Hao Ren said, pursing his lips. "We'll play it by ear later. First, let's test if August knows about the witch legends. If the Legih family's witch legends have been lost, we'll find a way to start by solving his evil spirit curse."

The old car bumped along the small road and into the yard surrounded by thorns and bushes. The owner of the car had clearly noticed a group of strangers in front of his house. He honked the horn twice. Hao Ren guessed that behind the tinted windows, a pair of wary and nervous eyes were examining them. Then the car stopped, and an old man in a thick woolen coat, with graying, thinning hair, around fifty years old, pushed open the door. He looked at the strangers at his door with a face full of vigilance and undisguised rejection: "Who are you people?"

"Mr. August," Nangong Sanba greeted him enthusiastically, "It's me—these are my colleagues, experts in the fields of mystics and witchcraft. We've come to discuss some matters related to curses and occult knowledge with you."

"I have nothing to say," August indeed said with a stern face, making no attempt to hide the disgust in his eyes. He raised his voice, "God, can't an old man living alone have a few days of peace and quiet?"

Vivian had been studying the dried wild vegetables and animal hides hanging on the outside wall of the wooden house with great interest. Hearing that the negotiation behind her seemed to be going poorly, she turned around: "Aren't you constantly troubled by evil spirits? Perhaps we can... hmm?"

Vivian was stunned for a moment when she saw August, as if she remembered something. August's reaction upon seeing Vivian was even more intense. His eyes widened instantly, and he made a strange "gurgling" sound as if someone was choking him. Then his whole body couldn't help but tremble!

The old man staggered back several steps, looking as if he was about to turn and run away. Vivian finally managed to connect the dots in her mind with difficulty: "Paul? You're still alive?"

"Paul..." August staggered two steps and finally collapsed to the ground. He looked at the sky with vacant eyes, "Paul... it's been three centuries since anyone called me that... Mistress, have you finally come to take back your things?"

"How is this possible..." Vivian was dumbfounded, "Could it be that you've been the one maintaining contact with the Andrei family all along?"

Hao Ren quickly guessed the truth from this inexplicable conversation. He looked at the trembling old man with disbelief. Lily reacted even faster, hurrying forward to pull the old man up, and together with Nangong Sanba, they helped the old man, who looked like he was about to pass out, to the door of the house: "Let's not talk here. Let's go inside and find a warm place to talk in detail."

The wooden house was very clean, but it exuded an anachronistic sense of antiquity. Although modern appliances and daily necessities could be seen here, they were piled together with the simple, rustic wooden tables and chairs, creating a strange sense of temporal dislocation.

A bust of Alexander I was hung below a portrait of Lenin. A bronze sculpture of a Soviet rocket was placed next to a silver candlestick from the Tsarist era. In the old-fashioned mud-brick fireplace, firewood crackled, and on the fireplace, the leftover vegetable soup from the morning was being heated in a metal lunchbox from the Red Army era—this was an old house with time turned upside down. Many of the things in the house were older than the house itself.

This was the abode of a loner who had lived for three centuries.

Three hundred years ago, the witch left two stones for her two human followers, changing the fates of two originally ordinary exiles, leading them on incredible and completely different paths. The careless witch had no idea what consequences her casual actions would bring to those two people.

One servant received incredible wealth, and the other received incredible immortality.

And the price they paid for it was the same: a nightmare that haunted them for the rest of their lives.

"Every time I reach sixty years old, I will 'die' in an acute internal hemorrhage. After that, I will sleep for three to ten days, and when I wake up again, I will return to the state I was in when I first touched that stone: a healthy twenty-two-year-old body," August Ftorjak Legih, or rather Paul, wrapped in a heavy blanket, sat in a wicker chair, hunched over, as if his body and mind had been defeated by the winter of life, "I don't know what exactly happened to my body, but I know it must be some kind of curse: it allows me to live for a long time, entangled with that crazy voice in my head."

August lowered his head and grabbed his sparse hair with his hands: "I've tried several times to end it all. Once I even pointed a gun at my own head, but in the end, I couldn't bring myself to do it. Death and resurrection, death and resurrection... it's been going on until today."

Vivian looked at her former servant. Her memory finally worked this time. She could still vaguely remember what the other party looked like when he was young from that fifty-year-old face: "Have you been the one contacting Andrei's descendants all along? So they've only ever received letters from one person in the Legih 'family'—you never started a family? No descendants either?"

"In the first two resurrection cycles, I was married twice," August shook his head, "But I soon realized that it only brought trouble. I had to find a way to hide my immortality because even my family couldn't understand this phenomenon—my second wife accidentally discovered the secret of my resurrection, and she reported it to the church in terror. I was almost burned to death as a warlock. From then on, I tried to stay away from people, constantly moving, and trying to hide my secret. I even tried to disguise myself as my own son. This worked well in the period when the household registration system was not so perfect... The first hundred years were difficult, but after that, I became familiar with this way of life. Population surveys and identity systems are a rather troublesome thing. I lived in the mountains throughout the Stalin era, almost becoming a wild man. During that period, I lost contact with the Andrei family, but thank God, things started to improve after that. That's how life is, ups and downs. I used to think the unchanging world was boring, but after living long enough, I found that its rate of change is simply incredible."

"So you just kept playing the role of your own descendants or changing your identity, maintaining contact with Andrei's descendants, but not getting too close," Vivian sighed, "You don't trust them either? Worried that they would become interested in your immortality and even put you in danger?"

"There are some concerns in this regard," August said in a low voice, "After realizing that Andrei had died of old age, and that his descendants were all unpredictable strangers to me, I cautiously chose to keep my secret. But this is not the main reason why I kept my distance from the Andrei family. The main reason is that voice."

As August spoke, he pointed to his head: "It's right here. It rings every night. It urges me to go to Siberia and reunite the two cursed stones. That dark power was divided into two by the Mistress. It urgently hopes to reunite. I'm not sure if it's attached to that stone or to me. I can't imagine what would happen if I really went to Andrei's house and the two dark forces merged... It might be completely revived, breaking through the Mistress's seal. Mortal power can't fight that monster at all."

Hao Ren looked at Vivian in surprise: "Divided into two? You cut the Angry Spirit open?"

"Don't be ridiculous. An Angry Spirit isn't tofu," Vivian glared at Hao Ren, "Perhaps the other stone contains a remnant of the Angry Spirit's obsession. In any case, Paul was right to choose to isolate himself from the Andrei family. Once that obsession returns to Siberia, it may indeed cause the seal to be damaged ahead of time—Paul, bring that stone here."

August stood up tremblingly, serving his mistress as obediently as he did back then, but he still muttered: "Please call me August... I've been called this name for years, and I'm not used to 'Paul' anymore."

After August went into the inner room, Lily couldn't help but sigh as she looked at Vivian: "Look at the mess you left behind back then."

Vivian: "..."