A piece of Japanese incense

In order to verify the scene in my dream, I wrapped myself in a loose coat and got out of bed, only to see Yutuan and Yuyi busy moving jasmine flowers into the room.

The fragrance of jasmine fills the room like delicate ribbons, lightly wrapped around every inch of the air.

"Oh! Why did the girl come out? It's so cold outside!" Yuyi hurriedly pushed the incense burner towards me again and again.

"Yuyi, have you heard of the rumor about the baby-eating monster?" I put my hand close to the incense burner to keep warm.

"Baby-eating monster? Why do I seem to have heard of it somewhere..." Yu Yi lowered his head in thought, frowning slightly.

"Miss, do you know about the baby-eating monster? Who did you hear it from?" Yutuan walked in lightly from the door with a basin of water in her hand.

"you know?"

"Of course! The baby-eating monster specializes in hunting pregnant women. For several years in our village, pregnant women dare not easily step out of the house!" Yu Tuan said with certainty.

"What's the matter? Tell me quickly!" I asked with great interest.

Yu Tuan described the story vividly: "It is said that there was a woman named 'Ghost Mother' who was abandoned by her husband because she could not bear children. Her family was also ashamed of her being divorced and refused to let her marry. The woman was homeless and had to hide in the mountains to wait for death..."

I couldn't help but interrupt Yu Tuan, "Wait! Aren't you talking about a baby-eating monster? How...what ghost mother is involved?! Who is a good person called this!"

"Hey~ girl, please listen to me patiently~" Yutuan put her hands in her sleeves, tilted her head, and glanced towards me.

I gracefully extended my right hand, raised my palm upwards, with a gentle smile on my face: "OK! OK! Please continue!"

"In the deep forest, there are many demons with profound cultivation and over a hundred years of history. They heard about the woman's experience and felt deeply for her misfortune, so they taught her the art of cultivation, hoping that she would succeed one day and return to the human world to avenge her husband!"

"Quite inspiring!" I smiled at Yuyi and commented.

Yuyi took out a wool blanket and covered our legs. We snuggled up on the couch. She picked up a corner of the blanket and asked expectantly, "Did she get her revenge?"

Yu Tuan sighed, "Alas, but she didn't know that one day in the mountains is one year in the real world. When she succeeded in her cultivation and came down the mountain, she found that more than forty years had passed in the real world! Her unfaithful husband had already passed away~"

I responded, "Guy! Doesn't that mean her revenge is in vain?"

"No, no, she went to her husband's house, only to see his grandson getting married, the bride pregnant, the family harmonious, and the couple in harmony. How could this ghost mother tolerate such a sight! She suffered so much in the mountains, but the man who abandoned her had a happy family that lasted for five generations. So! In a rage, she stretched out her eight-foot-long tongue and swallowed the child in her belly!"

Yuyi and I looked at each other and couldn't help swallowing.

"The bride was killed on the spot! The ghost mother saw this scene and thought that her husband would no longer have a family with her. She was immediately delighted and left happily with a loud shout.

But in less than a year, the ghost mother heard that her husband's grandson had taken a concubine who was pregnant.

The ghost mother's power had greatly increased since she sucked the baby's flesh last time, so she broke into the concubine's residence again and sucked the baby out of her belly.

"From then on, all pregnant children of her husband would suffer the same fate. The ghost mother would suck the baby away until the last person of her husband's lineage passed away..."

I shouted in silence, and spoke up for those innocent pregnant women: "No! This ghost mother must be poisonous! Why would she hurt pregnant women? Wouldn't it be better to just kill her ex-husband's descendants? Going back and forth to eat other people's children, what a brain circuit!"

"That's right! Before her husband's last descendant died, he spent all his family wealth to ask a highly skilled Taoist priest to capture her. Although the Taoist priest's magic power failed to completely subdue her, it did seriously damage her foundation.

The ghost mother had already fallen into the devil's way because of sucking so many fetuses. After being injured, she could only devour more children's flesh, plunder more children's souls, and suck the essence of pregnant women's amniotic fluid to relieve her own pain and prolong her immortal body.

As time went on, her evil deeds continued, and she could even smell the scent of unborn babies and easily suck them out of their mothers' wombs to consolidate her own cultivation.

A believer once witnessed her crimes in an ancient temple. Her body was like rough bark, covered with strange runes and cracks, emitting a sickening green light. Her limbs were unusually long and curved, with sharp claws on the ends of her fingers. Every time she dragged on the ground, she would leave deep marks and eerie echoes. She was also filled with the smell of death and corruption.

Therefore, people gave her a name - Baby Eater."

"Oh, so that's how it is. Every pitiful person must have something hateful about him!" Yu Yi commented.

I asked curiously, “And then?”

Yu Tuan spread his hands and blinked his eyes: "That's all! This is the whole story of the baby-eating monster. When I was a child, I often ran around in the fields, and the elders in my family always used the baby-eating monster to scare me. I have heard this story countless times~"

"Isn't this just a folk legend? What does it have to do with the Crown Princess..." I muttered to myself.

"What did the girl say?" Yu Tuan came close to my face and stared at me with big eyes.

"I say - the story of this baby-eating monster is so old! Yuyi and I have never heard of it!"

Yu Tuan explained with a smile: "That's because when the girl was born, the baby-eating monster hadn't appeared to hurt anyone for a long time, so naturally no one mentioned it anymore~"

"Huh? What do you mean? Are you saying that someone was really killed by a baby-eating monster?"

Yu Tuan looked a little unhappy. She squinted at me and said, "Girl, are you questioning the truth of what I said? Everything I said really happened! Just a dozen years ago, the baby-eating monster was still a terrifying existence! At that time, people were very careful when holding weddings, for fear of bringing misfortune. If a woman in a family was pregnant, they would keep it a secret, for fear that the baby-eating monster would come to their door and cause trouble!"

"Ah? There is such a thing?" Yu Yi was also shocked.

Yu Tuan slammed the table and said, "It's true! In our neighboring village, there was an old man who didn't take it seriously. When he was in his forties, his wife was pregnant and he showed off everywhere. As a result, when his wife was about to give birth, a baby-eating monster cut open her belly and took out the baby. When they found her, her intestines were all spilling out... The old man went crazy when he saw it!"