Chapter 104
Chapter 104
Zhou Mu fixed Coroner Huang with a murderous glare and roared madly in a hoarse voice.
“Impossible! I’m not! You’re lying!”
“I’m not dead! I’m still alive! I’m a living man, not a dead one!”
“Aaaagh!”
The more he shouted, the more crazed he became. His features twisted further and further until his face became hideously vicious. At last, he released a furious roar no living human could have made.
Rip! Tear!
A series of strange ripping sounds rang out. Zhou Mu’s fingernails instantly lengthened, springing forth with a metallic clang like sharp daggers.
They gleamed black and made the heart quail.
At the same time, the black pupils in his eyes rapidly spread until they vanished into a terrifying expanse of white.
Sizzle! Sizzle!
The rope soaked in black dog’s blood began to hiss like water dropped into boiling oil. Wisps of blue smoke rose from it, carrying a foul odor.
Xu Xinyi and Helper Zhao stumbled backward in terror, trembling from head to toe.
If Coroner Huang had not still been standing calmly before them, the two would certainly have turned and fled.
Even Coroner Huang was astonished. He exclaimed in disbelief, “So living corpses truly exist in this world! I never would have believed it if I hadn’t seen one with my own eyes.”
As a yamen coroner, he had seen no fewer bodies than coffin bearers or corpse retrievers–especially in those chaotic times. He was unquestionably a man of vast experience.
Likewise, he had encountered plenty of corpses that had transformed…
But this was his first time seeing one like Zhou Mu, capable of speaking human language and even thinking like a living person.
“I’m not dead! I’m alive! I’m still alive! You damned bastard, how dare you lie to me? I’ll tear you to pieces! I’ll eat you!”
Zhou Mu’s corpse transformation was now complete. He looked horrifying, and his speech grew increasingly garbled, no longer sounding human.
Creak! Creak!
The hemp rope coated in black dog’s blood and wrapped around his body actually showed signs of snapping. At the same time, the three rooster feathers pasted to his forehead with blood began to shake loose and threatened to fall.
Who could have imagined that a living corpse would become so powerful after going berserk?
Coroner Huang knew he could not delay any longer.
With a low shout, he turned his wrist.
A sharp, short-handled knife appeared in his hand.
Strangely, the entire knife was pitch-black, yet its edge gleamed with bloodred light, making it profoundly sinister.
This was the knife the coroner normally used to examine and dissect corpses.
It had cut open so many bodies that an immensely dense baleforce had accumulated within it. It was designed to counter evil things and was especially powerful against corpse-fiends!
Even a corpse-fiend as hard as stone could be cut open with ease.
Coroner Huang charged up to Zhou Mu and drove the coroner’s knife straight into his heart. Black smoke immediately bubbled out of the wound while Zhou Mu released an agonized roar.
“Don’t just stand there. Light the fire.”
Coroner Huang pulled out the knife and retreated several steps as he ordered Xu Xinyi and Helper Zhao to act.
The two men had insisted on coming to watch the excitement, so naturally they had to do some work as well.
Coroner Huang had made exhaustive preparations beforehand. In addition to binding Zhou Mu tightly to the wooden stake with hemp rope soaked in black dog’s blood, he had pasted bloodied rooster feathers to the corpse’s forehead.
He had also piled a large amount of dry firewood around the stake and drenched it with kerosene. A single spark would set it ablaze.
Xu Xinyi already held the prepared fire starter.
At Coroner Huang’s command, he lit it immediately and tossed it toward the kerosene-soaked wood.
Whoosh!
The flame traced an arc through the air and landed squarely on the pyre.
It erupted into a roaring blaze.
Flames shot toward the sky, illuminating a vast stretch of the surrounding wilderness as waves of heat rolled outward.
Coroner Huang, Xu Xinyi, and Helper Zhao stood together and watched solemnly as the corpse-fiend in the flames gradually burned to charcoal.
Xu Xinyi sighed. “I’ve traveled throughout Fubei County on business over the years. I never imagined I would encounter such a terrifying, unnatural evil.”
Coroner Huang found the remark strange. He glanced at Xu Xinyi and said quietly, “In these chaotic times, death is as commonplace as eating or drinking. So many people have died, and natural disasters and human calamities strike together. Evil beings and ghosts run rampant everywhere. You’ve traded grain throughout Fubei County for so long, yet this is your first encounter with anything supernatural. That is the truly strange part.”
Xu Xinyi gave an awkward smile, unsure how to respond.
The three men remained in the wilderness until the flames died and they were certain the corpse-fiend had been destroyed. Only then did Coroner Huang lead them back into town.
It was said that Xu Xinyi developed an intense interest in demons and ghosts after that incident. He began actively investigating such matters and eventually abandoned the grain trade altogether, spending his entire fortune in pursuit of that knowledge…
No one knew what happened after that.
Nor was there any need to record the rest in the Fubei County Gazetteer.
And so, the strange account of a living corpse in the early Republican era ended there.
…
I had to admit that although Wang Dachun was an average student, he truly knew how to tell a story. His vivid narration made me feel as though I had witnessed everything myself.
He had included almost every detail.
“That’s the whole story, Brother Wu. My mouth is completely dry from talking. Let me drink some water.”
He pulled a thermos from his backpack and gulped down its contents.
I rubbed my chin and sank into thought.
An ordinary reader might dismiss the story in the Fubei County Gazetteer as superstitious nonsense. But with everything I now knew, I could be certain it was true!
The story offered several useful pieces of information.
First, there truly was something strange about the hook-shaped bend in the river outside Xiaowan Village. And the strangeness had not begun recently. It had existed since the final years of the Qing dynasty and the beginning of the Republican era!
I even suspected that many bizarre events had occurred much earlier, although we had not yet found any relevant records or legends.
Second, living corpses really were extremely dangerous!
Li Miao, Old Cao, and I had not previously known the precise nature of that danger. Based only on experience and common sense, we had concluded that a corpse-fiend that had clearly undergone a corpse transformation could not possibly be as harmless as it appeared.
Now I knew at least one taboo concerning living corpses: you must never expose the truth that they are already dead!
In the story recorded in the Fubei County Gazetteer, Coroner Huang’s revelation that Zhou Mu was dead drove him into a frenzy. He ultimately reached the level of a top-tier vicious corpse.
Hemp rope soaked in black dog’s blood and a rooster’s breast feathers smeared with its own blood were both exceptionally powerful ghost-suppressing implements!
They could suppress corpse-fiends and ghosts alike.
Yet according to the story, Zhou Mu nearly snapped the hemp rope and shook the feathers loose. That proved he had become extraordinarily powerful.
If Coroner Huang had not been highly capable himself, the story might have ended very differently. The grain merchant Xu Xinyi and Helper Zhao would probably have been killed by the corpse-fiend on the spot.
Third, since the event appeared in the Fubei County Gazetteer, its main figures must have truly existed. Their descendants might still be alive today!
Judging by the dates, the sons or daughters of those three men might still be living. Even if their children had passed away, their grandchildren were probably alive, weren’t they?
After experiencing something so momentous, surely they would have bragged about it to their families.
If I could find their descendants, I might learn more useful information–at the very least, their accounts might be clearer than the one in the Fubei County Gazetteer.
I silently sorted through the three unexpected clues the living corpse story had given me about Xiaowan Village.
I also felt secretly relieved.
“Thank goodness Li Miao didn’t tell the child corpse Xiao Sheng that he was already dead. Otherwise, Xiao Sheng might have undergone a violent corpse transformation on the spot, and Li Miao and every member of the Xiao family watching nearby would have died!”
I was extrapolating from what had happened to Zhou Mu.
After all, Zhou Mu and Xiao Sheng had probably both become living corpses under the influence of some strange object beneath the river near Xiaowan Village. Once they fully revealed their corpse-fiend forms, their strength should also have been comparable!
That thought made me worry again.
The consequences of angering a living corpse were genuinely horrifying. Should we move the child corpse Xiao Sheng from the Xiao family cellar, or reinforce the formation suppressing him?
My head remained full of these tangled thoughts as we walked, and I paid little attention to my surroundings…
Wang Dachun probably took my failure to send him away as permission to follow. Surprisingly, he said nothing and simply walked beside me the entire way.
We reached the fork near the street leading to the coffin shop. Suddenly, he screamed, grabbed the hem of my shirt, and tried desperately to hide behind me.
His whole body began to tremble.
Uh… in truth, he stood half a head taller than me and had a much sturdier build. If he genuinely needed to hide from something, I could not conceal him at all.
His sudden outburst startled me.
I dragged him out from behind my back and asked irritably, “Wang Dachun, what are you screaming about? I was thinking. You scared me half to death!”
Trembling, Wang Dachun raised a hand and pointed toward the street corner ahead.
“Brother Wu, over there… Just now, I saw an old man floating back and forth! His feet were off the ground, and only the tips of his toes touched down once in a while. He’s definitely not human! He’s… he’s one of those…”
He did not even dare say the word ghost.
I was slightly startled. “You can actually see him?”
Wang Dachun was nearly in tears. “Yes, and I can see him perfectly clearly.”
Both exasperated and amused, I slapped his shoulder.
“Didn’t you say you were incredibly brave? Don’t you watch Hong Kong zombie movies on VHS and VCD at home all the time? A moment ago, you even told me the living corpse story from the Fubei County Gazetteer in vivid detail. Why are you a coward now?”
Wang Dachun pulled a miserable face. “Brother Wu, that’s completely different. How can hearing a story compare to encountering the real thing?”
He looked ahead, then screamed again. “Brother Wu! It’s coming! That old-man ghost is floating this way. Hurry up and take it down!”
I smacked him on the head again.
“Take down my ass! He’s an employee at the shop where I live. He helps out with the work.”
I looked at Wang Hu, who was floating toward us, and spread my hands. “Uncle Hu, didn’t I tell you not to float back and forth at the street corner all the time? You’ll frighten people. Look–you nearly made someone wet himself today.”
I was deliberately teasing Wang Dachun.
Wang Hu also looked embarrassed. He apologized, “I’m truly sorry, Young Mr. Wu. I thought I would wait for you and walk home together, but I ended up frightening your friend. I honestly didn’t expect an ordinary person to be able to see me either. How strange.”
Then he greeted Wang Dachun. “Sorry about that, little brother. You don’t need to be afraid. I’m an employee at Young Mr. Wu’s shop. Besides, with a practitioner like Young Mr. Wu beside you, why would you fear a ghost?”