Ch. 15
Chapter 15: Lemon Curse
Zee—zee—zee~
The bat became even more restless, emitting strange cries one after another.
Li Zhen looked up at it, his gaze meeting the blood-red eyes embedded within the monkey skull.
In his vision, the bat’s image kept overlapping with his own reflection.
It was as if his perspective and the bat’s sight had merged into one.
Li Zhen could clearly feel that some strange connection had formed between him and this evil creature.
He could sense the bat’s hunger and its simple instincts.
At the same time, venomous and violent emotions arose in his consciousness, causing uncontrollable images of murder to flash across his mind—
as if killing was the best way to vent those emotions.
So this was the backlash from the evil creature described in the booklet?
No wonder those head-descending sorcerers were all so bloodthirsty...
Li Zhen slapped his own head, then reached out a hand toward the bat.
The bat let out an excited shriek and darted toward him, landing on his shoulder.
Li Zhen suddenly grabbed it and slammed it down onto the altar, pinning it there with a prepared iron nail.
He struck the nail a few times with the incense burner until it sank deeply into the altar.
The negative emotions in his heart immediately lessened.
The bat on the altar squeaked and struggled, trying to break free.
Even the nail embedded in the altar began to lift slightly upward.
It seemed the bat had become stronger.
Li Zhen ignored it.
He flipped over the slab of beef used as a sacrificial offering on the altar.
The surface still appeared intact, but the underside was full of holes—inside, maggots were wriggling in clusters.
So in such a short time, the meat had already bred worms.
He tore the beef apart.
Only about one-third of the meat had produced maggots.
According to the booklet, if the entire piece of meat turned maggot-ridden, that meant the sorcerer’s power was profound enough to cast every Head-Descending Curse recorded in the book.
And one-third…
Based on the progression from easy to difficult written in the booklet, it meant he could at least perform the first few simpler curses?
The booklet didn’t specify the exact range—only warned that a sorcerer must act within their limits.
If they forced themselves to perform higher-level curses, it would surely cause backlash and kill them first.
At least this counted as entry level…
Li Zhen wasn’t disappointed.
Head-Descending Sorcery was an evil art. Once one stepped through the door, there were many ways to advance rapidly afterward.
……
Feeling groggy, Li Zhen didn’t want to do anything.
He left the basement, took a quick shower, swallowed a few painkillers, and went to bed, falling into deep sleep.
When he awoke, it was already morning.
While washing up, he noticed that the bluish bruise on his forehead had faded a lot—if one didn’t look closely, it was almost invisible.
As he was eating breakfast, Aunt He suddenly handed him a document envelope, saying that Fatty Wong had brought it over yesterday. She didn’t know what was inside.
“When did he send it?” Li Zhen caught the thin envelope.
He already had a guess about what it might be.
While tidying up the dishes, Aunt He replied, “Yesterday afternoon. He didn’t say much—just left this and went away. Later, when I saw you, your face looked terrible. I talked to you, but you didn’t respond.”
As she spoke, Li Zhen had already opened the envelope. Inside was only a single photograph.
The photo showed a middle-aged man in beach shorts with his arm around a woman in a bikini.
The background was a seaside beach.
The man looked around forty, of medium build, and his face slightly resembled Fatty Wong’s—except his eyes were long and narrow, his cheekbones sharp and protruding, giving him a deceitful look.
This was the “rotten-to-the-core” Wong Ka-Wing that Fatty Wong had mentioned before.
By generation, he was Fatty Wong’s cousin—an infamous gambling addict.
A few years ago, he had lost a fortune outside. After returning home, he deceived everyone he could—parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts—one by one.
When he could no longer cheat anyone, he set his sights on Fatty Wong.
Together with outsiders, he set up a trap to swindle a large sum from Wong’s father, dragging the whole family into a major mess.
Fatty Wong suffered heavily and spent more than half a year cleaning up the trouble.
Their hatred ran deep.
Just from the way Fatty Wong gritted his teeth every time he mentioned that cousin, one could see how much he despised him.
This guy would do well enough for a test…
Like someone holding a hammer who saw everything as a nail—
right now, that cousin was exactly the “nail” in Li Zhen’s eyes.
He sent Fatty Wong a text message.
Soon, Fatty Wong replied, giving his cousin’s date and exact hour of birth.
Li Zhen smiled faintly and told Aunt He that he wanted some lemon water, asking her to buy a few lemons right away.
Less than ten minutes later, he had one lemon in hand.
Carrying his prepared materials, he went down to the basement and opened the door of the innermost room. A strong stench of blood immediately hit him.
Coughing a few times, he looked up to see the Red-Eyed Bat hanging upside down before the altar, its wings folded over its eyes as if resting.
Zee—zee…
Hearing the sound of the door, the bat slowly lowered its wings and squinted its blood-red eyes to glance at Li Zhen.
This bat was deeply bound to the altar—it would not stray far unless Li Zhen personally took it away.
Closing the door behind him, Li Zhen sat cross-legged before the altar, flipping the booklet open to the page describing the simplest curse—the Lemon Curse—and reread it carefully.
When he followed the steps and prepared to cut the lemon, his heart suddenly stirred, and he looked at his right arm.
On his forearm, that mysterious sigil faintly shimmered in and out of sight.
The moment he saw it, information surfaced in his mind—
In roughly five to six hours, he would be transported to another world.
When he had returned to this world, the sigil had already told him it would send him a reminder when the time came.
And now—it had come.
Though a little earlier than expected, it was the right time.
Performing curses in this world was always inconvenient.
Li Zhen withdrew his gaze and sliced off a small portion of the lemon.
He discarded the smaller part and hollowed out the larger half.
He then cut out the head from the man’s photo, wrote “Wong Ka-Wing” on the back, and stuffed it inside the hollow lemon.
“...Hear my summons—descend into this realm. With the sourness of lemon, devour the soul of Wong Ka-Wing…”
In an exaggerated tone and peculiar rhythm, Li Zhen recited the incantation while stabbing toothpicks one by one into the lemon—each piercing through into the photograph within.
After chanting three times, every toothpick was inserted, turning the half lemon into a spiky little hedgehog.
At that moment, Li Zhen suddenly shuddered.
A wave of tingling ran across his scalp, leaving him momentarily disoriented.
Every cell in his body seemed to itch—as though each one were throbbing.
In a daze, he seemed to hear faint gnawing sounds again, making his heart tighten.
The feeling came swiftly—and vanished just as quickly, as if it had never existed.
But Li Zhen knew it wasn’t an illusion.
Could there truly exist such an evil spirit?
He glanced at the lemon in his hand, then stood and left the basement.
Alone, he walked three li ahead of his house to a quiet sidewalk.
Finding a suitable spot, he pried up a small floor tile, dug out some soil, buried the spiked lemon beneath it, then covered it with earth and replaced the tile.
The place was a bit secluded, but at the end of the road there was a construction site, and quite a few people passed by daily to catch the bus.
Beside the spot he chose was a pit—meaning most people walking this way would likely step right on the buried lemon.
Being stepped on ten times a day should be more than enough.
Each step would send Wong Ka-Wing a wave of piercing, heart-wrenching pain.
Satisfied with his arrangement, Li Zhen turned and walked away.
It should work…