Chapter 105

Chapter 105

Wang Dachun truly had been badly frightened.

After all, he was only a middle school student, and this was the first time he had ever seen a real ghost!

The evil being known as the Dry Immortal had possessed him before, but Wang Dachun never actually saw what it looked like. His body had merely entered a strange state.

Of course, the Dry Immortal had no fixed physical form anyway, so it did not inspire much fear through appearance alone.

Seeing a ghost directly was entirely different!

If Wang Dachun had not been braver than most and known that I could perform arcane arts, he might have fled in abject terror or burst into tears.

As he listened to my conversation with the old-man ghost, he seemed to understand what was happening. His fear gradually faded.

He looked from me to Wang Hu, curiosity and unease mingling in his eyes, then asked timidly, “Mr. Ghost, do you work at Brother Wu’s shop?”

Wang Hu smiled and nodded.

Wang Dachun stared at me in shock and blurted, “Holy shit, Brother Wu! You actually keep a ghost!”

I stared at him. “Why does that sound so strange? And could you stop putting my title right after your profanity?”

“Oh, right. Sorry, sorry.”

Wang Dachun scratched his head and bobbed apologetic bows at me.

In modern internet slang, this fellow was a walking joke!

I sighed helplessly. “All right, Dachun. I’m almost home. You should head back now. You followed me all this way, and your own home is still pretty far. Be careful on the road.”

Wang Dachun swept one hand through the air, striking a heroic pose.

“Don’t worry, Brother Wu. I’m your loyal underling. If you ordered me to climb a mountain of blades or plunge into a sea of fire, I wouldn’t even blink.”

I kicked him and laughed irritably. “Quit babbling and go home.”

“You got it!”

Wang Dachun had just turned to leave when I called him back.

“Hey, wait!”

“What is it, Brother Wu?”

He looked at me in confusion.

I turned to Wang Hu. “Uncle Hu, escort Dachun home, would you? Come back after he gets there safely. It’s already late. This fellow attracted an evil thing like the Dry Immortal before, and now he can see you. His constitution must be unusual. I calculated that he has a strong bazi, but I’m still concerned.”

Wang Hu naturally did not refuse my order. He nodded.

“Don’t worry, Young Mr. Wu! I promise to complete the task and escort Student Wang home safely.”

He was only a weak ghost, but becoming a member of the coffin shop had clearly given him much more confidence.

Besides, Lianghe Town generally did not harbor any particularly vicious malicious ghosts. At most, it had weak spirits like Wang Hu.

He would have no trouble escorting Wang Dachun home.

My arrangement moved Wang Dachun deeply. He wrapped both arms around me and shouted, “You’re so good to me, Brother Wu! I’m so touched! Boo-hoo-hoo!”

“Let go of me, you bastard! You’re a grown man. If you’re moved, be moved–why are you hugging me?”

My face turned green with anger.

After shoving him away, I kicked him hard in the backside and sent him stumbling forward. I left him with Wang Hu, waved, and continued leisurely toward the coffin shop around the next corner.

As I walked, I could still hear Wang Dachun behind me.

“Mr. Ghost, what did you say your name was?”

“Student Wang, my name is Wang Hu.”

“Whoa! Then we share a surname. I’m Wang Dachun. We must have some connection, Mr. Ghost.”

“Perhaps we do. I’ve instinctively hidden my form as a ghost, so ordinary people generally can’t see me. I don’t know why you can.”

“Looks like I have extraordinary talent! Does that mean I can learn arcane arts too?”

“You’ll have to ask Young Mr. Wu. I’m only a weak ghost working at the coffin shop. I certainly wouldn’t know.”

“Mr. Ghost… Mr. Wang, you shouldn’t sell yourself short. You may be weak compared to Brother Wu, but you’re very powerful to ordinary people like us.”

Wang Dachun appeared to have found his stride. He was no longer afraid of Wang Hu and had once again become his naturally talkative, overly familiar self.

He chattered without pause as he followed Wang Hu toward the far end of the street.

I smiled, shook my head, and entered the coffin shop.

Old Cao stopped what he was doing when he saw me.

“You’re back? Where’s Wang Hu?”

“A classmate walked with me to the intersection and somehow saw Wang Hu on his own. Since the secret was already out, I asked Wang Hu to escort him home.”

“Oh?”

Old Cao looked surprised.

“Wang Hu may be weak, but it isn’t easy for an ordinary person to see through his disguise and concealment. Your classmate might have some talent for learning the arts.”

“His family is already rich and powerful. There’s no reason for him to wade into these muddy waters.”

Old Cao nodded.

“That’s true.”

“By the way, Old Cao, that same classmate visited the county seat last weekend and saw a story about a living corpse in a copy of the Fubei County Gazetteer at the archives…”

I turned to the important matter and recounted the gazetteer’s story.

Old Cao was utterly astonished.

He had never imagined that living corpses had already caused trouble around Xiaowan Village in the final years of the Qing dynasty and the beginning of the Republican era.

And after someone told that living corpse to its face that it was already dead, it had transformed into an extremely powerful vicious corpse!

Old Cao’s first reaction after hearing the entire story was also one of lingering fear.
“It’s fortunate that Li Miao and the rest of us didn’t act rashly or try to provoke the child corpse Xiao Sheng by pointing out that he was already dead. Judging from this record in the Fubei County Gazetteer, we would have faced tremendous trouble.”

Old Cao sighed deeply.

Indeed, Coroner Huang in the story was clearly a highly accomplished practitioner.

His profession as a coroner gave him an even greater ability to overawe corpse-fiends than coffin bearers or corpse retrievers. After all, coroners cut open bodies with knives every day and naturally carried an exceptionally fierce, potent yang aura!

Probably only an executioner who specialized in beheadings could compare.

Even a fearsome man like Coroner Huang had considered the transformed living corpse Zhou Mu extremely powerful.

If Xiao Sheng possessed comparable strength, a fight against him in the cellar would place Old Cao, Li Miao, and me in terrible danger.

“No! We need to warn the Xiao family immediately. They must never discuss whether Xiao Sheng is dead or alive in front of him. If someone accidentally lets it slip, the consequences will be disastrous.”

Old Cao rose, believing that we should find Li Miao at once and then visit the Xiao family in Xiaowan Village to warn them.

I agreed and prepared to go with him.

But it was already so late that the motorcycle taxis had stopped operating.

Old Cao and I would first have to visit Li Miao’s wooden cottage by the river, then hurry to Xiaowan Village. The journey would probably take several hours…

It was quite a nuisance.

Old Cao seemed to see through my hesitation and smiled.

“Xiao Wu, are you worried it’s too far?”

“Exactly!” I replied helplessly. “Without a motorcycle taxi, walking there and back would take too much time and energy. Even if I used a speed talisman art or borrowed strength from one of your paper figures, it still wouldn’t be convenient.”

A basic speed talisman did not make someone run faster by creating power from nothing. In reality, it acted as a catalyst.

Once attached to a person’s legs, it forced all their physical strength to erupt over a short period. It could not exceed the body’s inherent limits, and the user still felt exhausted afterward.

Borrowing strength from a paper figure, meanwhile, generally increased physical power rather than speed.

Only after my cultivation reached a higher level would I be able to draw a more advanced speed talisman that generated power from nothing, allowing someone to run faster and jump higher…

But I could not do that yet.

Old Cao waved a hand. “Let me show you what a funerary-paper artisan can do.”

He raised his right hand, pressed his thumb and index finger together into a ring, brought them to his mouth, and released a piercing whistle.

It sounded like the calls horse keepers used to summon their mounts in television shows.

But Old Cao did not own any horses!

There was no room to stable one at a coffin shop in town either.

Yet a moment later, I really did hear the clop of galloping hooves.

And it seemed to be coming from the second floor.

I could even hear hooves descending the stairs…

Wait!

The second floor…

Realization suddenly dawned.

“The paper horses!”

Clop, clop, clop.

Two paper horses with bamboo frames and white-paper hides raced down the stairs and stopped before Old Cao and me.

My room was on the second floor, and the empty section of corridor next door was where the paper figures and paper horses were kept.

Any paper figure or horse personally crafted with Old Cao’s skill was a genuine treasure. They were extraordinarily expensive, and only the wealthiest families could afford them.

Big Bull once told me during a conversation that Old Cao charged an astonishing one hundred thousand yuan for each paper figure or horse.

In 1999, a price of one hundred thousand yuan for a paper funeral offering was simply outrageous.

But now that I saw the truth, it did not seem expensive at all.

These were no ordinary paper figures and horses!

Before I moved into the coffin shop, for example, my room had been filthy and covered in cobwebs. Then it became spotless in a single day.

I suspected the paper figures had cleaned it.

I greeted them whenever I passed through the corridor outside my room.

Now the two paper horses stood before me, shifting their hooves like real animals and occasionally snorting. I was genuinely amazed.

Old Cao seemed delighted by my astonishment.

He laughed heartily. “What do you think of my paper horses, Xiao Wu?”

I reached out and touched one. It was astonishingly firm and solid, making it impossible to believe that bamboo strips and white paper formed its body.

Old Cao continued, “Other than the divine-paper art I used to destroy Miss Duan, the finest skill of a funerary-paper artisan is crafting these paper figures and horses. Unfortunately, they’re too large to carry, so I can only keep them at the coffin shop. But when we need assistance, they can be extremely useful. Tonight, we’ll ride them to find Li Miao, then visit Xiaowan Village.”

“All right! I’ve never ridden a horse before. Tonight, I’ll start with one of your paper horses.”

I smiled as I answered.

Old Cao and I mounted, each taking one horse.

Old Cao formed a complex hand seal with both hands, pointed through the air at the two horses, and commanded, “Spirits of the paper horses, awaken! Hyah!”

The paper horses whinnied beneath us, truly broke into a gallop, and leaped out of the coffin shop. They sped through the silent streets at night toward the river…