Chapter 103
Chapter 103
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The strange traveling merchant named Zhou Mu began pounding hard on his chest. His expression gradually twisted into a snarl, and his face looked terrifyingly pale beneath the moonlight.
The sight sent a chill racing from the soles of Xu Xinyi’s, Master Wang’s, and Helper Zhao’s feet to the backs of their skulls. Wave after wave of gooseflesh rose across their bodies.
The boatman was the first to recover. He had spent years sailing the river, so he was well traveled, experienced, and braver than the other two.
Suppressing his fear, he shouted, “That’s enough! Nobody asked why you didn’t seek help. You don’t need to answer us. Just calm down.”
To their surprise, Zhou Mu truly fell silent. He stopped screaming in that cold, eerie voice and ceased pounding his chest.
Xu Xinyi could clearly see, however, that the places where Zhou Mu’s fists had caved in his chest did not rise again.
He had already guessed the horrifying answer. The skin and muscles of a corpse lost their elasticity after death, and this body had also been soaked in water.
Pressing lightly on a dead person’s skin would leave a small indentation that could no longer spring back.
And Zhou Mu had struck himself with tremendous force.
The muscles of his chest remained sunken, making him look profoundly unnatural.
By then, Xu Xinyi could no longer deny that the traveling merchant named Zhou Mu was actually a corpse!
He was overwhelmed by regret.
He regretted ignoring the old boatman’s advice. His accursed soft heart had delayed them and driven him to insist on bringing a suspicious stranger aboard…
He had invited a corpse onto the boat and endangered them all.
Once Zhou Mu stopped raving, he seemed to regain his courteous, mild-mannered demeanor.
He even cupped his hands to the three men. “My apologies. I lost my composure just now.”
Xu Xinyi forced an agonized smile onto his face and returned the salute.
“Think nothing of it, Brother Zhou.”
After that, he had no idea what else to say. The atmosphere on the boat sank once more into oppressive silence.
When Xu Xinyi first believed Zhou Mu was a merchant like himself, he had been quite cordial and wanted to discuss the current state of the country.
But after learning that the man was a corpse–or rather, a corpse-fiend–his courage failed him.
How could he dare say anything more?
Everyone on the boat remained silent.
The boatman and Helper Zhao trembled, neither knowing what to do.
Even though they knew Zhou Mu was a corpse-fiend, it had not attacked them first. They would never find the courage to strike it before it made a move!
If it had been a human bandit, they might have dared to fight.
But a walking corpse was simply too terrifying!
Zhou Mu found it rather strange that the three men had suddenly stopped talking.
He considered himself their guest. Since his hosts had lost their warmth, there was no need for him to say anything more. He quietly found a place at the bow, sat down, and stared at the river without speaking.
For the three living men aboard, the night was excruciating.
Every minute and every second seemed to last a hundred years.
At long last, the boat drew near Dangkou Town.
It was now the predawn hour, and roosters began to crow in the distant villages along both banks.
Cock-a-doodle-doo!
Cock-a-doodle-doo!
Their piercing cries echoed back and forth across the small plains flanking the flowing Chuan River.
They sounded like sharp blades piercing the fog of night, dividing yin from yang and warning–perhaps even driving away–the dark things that did not belong in daylight.
For reasons they could not explain, the sound allowed Xu Xinyi and the others, whose nerves had been stretched to their limits, to relax slightly.
The weight in their hearts did not disappear, but it grew a little lighter.
The instant the roosters crowed, Zhou Mu suddenly rose from his quiet seat at the bow and gave them another terrible fright.
He clutched his heart, his face once more contorted with pain.
“What’s happening? Why does my heart suddenly hurt so badly? Boss Xu, can you find somewhere to pull ashore and get me a doctor?”
Xu Xinyi and the boatman exchanged a secret glance. They had both guessed what was happening.
Xu Xinyi hurriedly said, “I’m sorry, Boss Zhou. The current is too swift in this stretch to land safely. Try to endure it a little longer. We’ll reach the wharf in Dangkou Town very soon.”
“All… all right…”
Clutching his heart, Zhou Mu collapsed onto the deck.
Xu Xinyi saw that the backs of the hands protruding from Zhou Mu’s sleeves were covered in dense patches of livor mortis. There seemed to be even more than when he first boarded.
Xu Xinyi shuddered and did not dare think any further.
The grain boat reached the wharf in the old town of Dangkou just as the roosters crowed a second time.
For a moment, Xu Xinyi imagined that the darkness and mist around the riverbank had visibly thinned. The fear the night inspired in the living was fading too…
Zhou Mu suddenly released a terrible scream and fell stiff as a log onto the deck with a thud.
He stopped moving.
Mustering his courage, Master Wang stood at a distance and prodded him with a bamboo pole. Zhou Mu remained completely motionless and showed no response.
Xu Xinyi ventured cautiously, “Perhaps the roosters crowed because dawn is about to break, so the demons and ghosts retreated and could no longer remain in the mortal world. Maybe he turned back into an ordinary corpse.”
The boatman and Helper Zhao found his reasoning sound and nodded vigorously.
As the boat entered the wharf, they saw several dockworkers who had risen early and already started work. Xu Xinyi left the boatman on guard while he and Helper Zhao rushed ashore to report the matter to the police.
It was the beginning of the Republican era, and many institutions still followed Qing dynasty practices. The police station in Dangkou, for example, occupied the old infantry yamen.
After hearing about the strange incident, a patrol officer brought a coroner to Xu Xinyi’s boat.
A coroner was what people today might call a forensic examiner or medical examiner.
Once he examined the body, he confirmed that Zhou Mu had been dead for an entire day!
His preliminary estimate placed the time of death on the previous morning.
Xu Xinyi immediately understood.
Everyone aboard Zhou Mu’s boat, including Zhou Mu himself, had clearly drowned.
The timing matched perfectly!
At first, the head patrolman suspected Xu Xinyi, the boatman, and Helper Zhao of conspiring to murder Zhou Mu and steal his money.
But an inspection revealed that all the gold, silver, and money in Zhou Mu’s bundle remained untouched, along with his identity papers. Nothing showed any sign of having been searched.
Besides, the patrolman reconsidered. The whole country was in chaos. Murder, robbery, and death were as ordinary as daily meals.
If Xu Xinyi had killed the man for money, he could simply have thrown the body into the river.
Why go to the trouble of carrying it all the way to Dangkou Town and deliberately reporting it to the police?
Most important of all, after carefully examining the marks on the deck and Zhou Mu’s corpse, the coroner gravely informed the head patrolman that Zhou Mu’s body had undoubtedly undergone a corpse transformation!
It could not be preserved. They had to cremate it and reduce it to ashes immediately. Otherwise, tremendous trouble might erupt after nightfall.
The coroner did not understand, however, why the grain merchant Xu Xinyi insisted that Zhou Mu had spoken and interacted with them like a living person.
Coroners dealt with corpses every day and earned their living from the dead. Their profession could be considered a folk arcane lineage within the esoteric world.
Yet because the trade had operated within government yamens since ancient times and its practitioners received official salaries, it was also somewhat different.
Strictly speaking, coroners and Red-Boat Oarsmen performed similar work. In their cultivation, both belonged to folk arcane lineages, but both earned their living from the imperial government.
The coroner already possessed considerable prestige at the police station. When he issued that warning, the police chief broke into a cold sweat and immediately ordered him to arrange the corpse’s destruction as soon as possible.
Xu Xinyi had managed to become a small grain merchant in Fubei County during those chaotic times, so he was not a timid man.
It was broad daylight now, and the coroner was beside him, so he asked if he could watch how they disposed of the corpse-fiend.
The coroner said he was also curious whether the corpse-fiend truly possessed a living person’s ability to think and speak, as Xu Xinyi claimed.
He therefore intended to suppress and bind it with a secret art, then place it in the wilderness outside town. After nightfall, he would see whether it truly was a rare living corpse before destroying it.
Xu Xinyi first sold his grain and stored the proceeds safely. Then he took Helper Zhao to the police station to meet the coroner and wait for nightfall, when they would witness the disposal of the corpse-fiend.
The coroner tightly bound Zhou Mu’s body with hemp rope soaked in black dog’s blood. Then he plucked three feathers from a rooster’s breast, dipped them in its blood, and arranged them side by side across the corpse’s forehead.
Finally, he tied the corpse to a wooden stake erected over a pile of firewood.
By the time he completed every preparation in the wilderness outside town, the sun was setting.
Xu Xinyi had learned that the coroner’s surname was Huang. He asked cautiously, “Coroner Huang, why don’t we skip the wait and burn it now? If it revives and proves extremely powerful, then…”
Coroner Huang replied, “Don’t worry. Even if it really is the rare living corpse you described, capable of thinking and speaking like a living person, it remains a corpse-fiend at its core. As long as it is a corpse-fiend, black dog’s blood and rooster blood will suppress it.”
Only then did Xu Xinyi feel slightly reassured…
Darkness gradually descended.
At the instant the sun vanished completely below the horizon and night swallowed the world, Zhou Mu opened his eyes while bound to the wooden stake with the rope soaked in black dog’s blood.
He looked around in confusion and asked Xu Xinyi, “Boss Xu, what’s happening? How did I fall asleep? Where am I? Why… why am I tied up?”
Panic entered his voice.
Xu Xinyi was about to respond, but Coroner Huang placed a hand on his shoulder and shook his head.
The coroner stepped forward himself and shouted, “Brazen monster! You died long ago and are no longer a living man. Your corpse has merely transformed into an evil thing. Submit to destruction at once!”
Zhou Mu froze when he heard those words, and his eyes went vacant. Having someone expose the fact that he was dead seemed more than he could accept.
Then his face twisted into a vicious snarl…