Chapter 128
Chapter 128
A large hole gaped in the side of the little earthen grave!
The opening looked just large enough for a child-sized body to crawl out.
I murmured to myself.
“As the saying goes: fear not a sunken grave, fear not a collapsed grave–fear the earth of a grave being dug away. With a hole this large, whatever was inside may already have…”
Xia Sanjin and Xia Degui were both shocked and frightened by the sight.
There was anger in Xia Degui’s expression too.
True, he had already decided that, under my guidance, he would exhume his daughter’s body and burn it to prevent further trouble.
But that was because he believed it was the right thing to do.
He also had the guidance of an “expert” like me.
If someone else had inexplicably dug open his daughter’s grave, he would still feel furious.
“Uncle Degui, don’t be angry. No one else dug up Xia Mi’s grave. You work as a building contractor, so you should understand this sort of thing. Look carefully at that hole…”
My voice was grave.
Xia Degui froze.
Then he looked back at the large hole in the side of the grave mound. After studying it for several moments, his face changed drastically.
His voice trembled, and his body began shaking too.
“Th-this… How is that possible?”
Xia Sanjin didn’t understand. He asked in confusion, “Brother Degui, what’s wrong?”
Xia Degui swallowed and answered in a frightened voice, “Judging from the shape of the opening and the distribution of the dirt around it, this hole was… dug from the inside!”
As expected of someone who worked in construction, he had spotted the clue immediately.
I nodded and said gravely, “That’s right! This hole was dug outward from inside the grave. It looks like the vicious entity escaped from the grave last night. All that’s left now is an empty tomb.”
As I spoke, I walked around to the side of the mound. I moved closer and looked inside the hole, then gently ran a hand across its wall.
Fingernail scratches marked the dirt!
At that moment, a scene appeared in my mind…
Deep in an uninhabited mountain forest at night, not a soul was in sight.
There was only a deathly silence, broken by the occasional chirp of an insect.
Beneath the moonlight, however, the rasping scrape of fingernails digging through dirt came again and again from a lonely grave in the wasteland.
Sharp nails opened a large hole from within the grave, and a terrifying vicious entity crawled out…
A fierce ghost leaves its grave–let no living person approach!
I believed my cultivation was already fairly good, and I had experienced many things by then. Even so, imagining that scene made my skin crawl faintly.
As for Xia Sanjin and Xia Degui, they were already badly frightened. Had their legs gone weak?
The fear produced by one’s imagination might be even worse than confronting the vicious entity directly!
“Ahem, ahem…”
Watching the two men glance around suspiciously in fear, looking almost comical, I cleared my throat twice.
Then I looked at them and said, “There’s no need to be afraid. No matter how sinister a ghost may be, it is nothing but a weakling beneath the daylight sun. Let’s dig open this earthen grave and make one final confirmation.”
“All right, Young Mr. Wu. We’ll do whatever you say,” Xia Sanjin hurriedly replied.
Perhaps now that we had left the village and entered these eerie, desolate mountains, the two men trusted me even more.
Before setting out, I had instructed Xia Degui to bring a small, simple iron shovel.
Using it along with several wooden sticks we picked up nearby, we began digging open the grave…
With three men and a shovel, we worked at a decent speed.
A little over half an hour later, we had completely opened the earthen grave mound.
Honestly, it couldn’t have been easy for Xia Dong, a woman on her own, to dig a grave this large at night!
I couldn’t tell whether it had been maternal love or some abnormal transformation brought about by her obsession.
The thought filled me with mixed emotions.
Just as we had said, the grave was empty. There was nothing inside.
The vicious entity formed from Xia Degui’s daughter’s body had undoubtedly crawled out the previous night…
It had gone into hiding somewhere even more secluded. Once darkness fell, it would emerge again and return to wander through Xia Family Hamlet!
“Young Mr. Wu, what should we do?”
Xia Sanjin swallowed and looked at me as he asked.
I realized that his most common question seemed to be, “What should we do?” Even people with power and status became ordinary human beings once removed from civilized society and placed in the wilderness.
I said, “It’s broad daylight, but you two should still keep an eye on our surroundings. I’ll examine this burial pit and see whether it can tell us anything.”
As I spoke, I crouched and carefully sifted through the now-exposed burial pit.
There were offerings such as apples and pork inside, along with colorful girls’ clothes and several cloth dolls…
Xia Dong had probably placed these burial goods inside when she laid her daughter’s body in the pit.
But the objects seemed normal. Apart from being steeped in dense corpse aura, there was nothing wrong with them.
The burial pit didn’t appear to contain any useful information.
I was just about to stand.
Suddenly!
Near the wall at the very front of the pit, I noticed several strange marks. They looked like impressions left by fingers pressing against the ground for a long time.
Hmm?
I leaned closer and studied them carefully, brushing away some of the surrounding dirt with my hand.
Sure enough, five clear finger marks appeared before me.
There were two sets, one on the left and one on the right–two hands.
“Huh? Why are there finger marks in the burial pit?”
I stroked my chin in puzzlement.
Think about it. Under normal circumstances, a person should lie on their back inside a grave. Their hands couldn’t press backward into the dirt and leave prints like these.
“Wait! Could it be…?”
Something suddenly occurred to me. I lowered my gaze and carefully searched the rest of the burial pit, brushing aside the dirt to inspect its deepest layer.
Sure enough, it was exactly as I expected!
At the rear of the burial pit, I found two long depressions. Near the center of each was a smaller, deeper, round indentation.
Between them, I saw a faint, orderly arrangement of tiny hollows.
My pupils abruptly contracted, and my scalp tingled.
I sprang to my feet and muttered to myself.
“I understand! I know what happened. I know why Xia Mi’s body turned into such a vicious entity. So that’s what it was…”
My abrupt movement and muttering startled Xia Sanjin and Xia Degui, who had been standing guard nearby like two bodyguards.
Xia Sanjin asked me, “Young Mr. Wu, what did you discover? What do you understand?”
Xia Degui also looked at me sorrowfully. “Young Mr. Wu, do you know why my daughter’s body became such a terrifying entity?”
I nodded and beckoned them closer.
Then I pointed into the burial pit.
“Look. At the very front of the pit are two sets of five finger marks, one on the left and one on the right. At the rear are two long depressions. They were obviously made by a pair of legs. But why is there another, deeper indentation in the middle of each one? Those came from the kneecaps!”
“Human knees protrude and rise higher than the legs. If the body were turned over, the kneecaps would naturally press deeper hollows into the dirt.”
“As for the orderly little depressions between them, they were pressed into the soil by the nose, brow ridge, mouth, and other facial features. Do you understand now?”
Xia Sanjin reacted a little faster. Realization immediately dawned on him, and he blurted out, “That means when Sister-in-law Xia Dong buried Xia Mi’s body, she didn’t lay it on its back the way a body is normally buried. She turned it over and buried it face down, with its back upward. Is that right, Young Mr. Wu?”
Exactly!
I nodded, my expression serious and my voice growing increasingly grave.
“This bizarre and unnatural burial method–face down, back up–has a specific name in our profession. It is called… a Face-Down Burial! It is also known simply as a Deviant Burial.”