Chapter 173
Chapter 173
I had seen this face while picnicking beside the river with Yao Nan–the sight of it had frightened Yao Nan unconscious.
I had also seen this face in a dream–she had taken me to visit the home where her parents still lived.
That’s right!
This truly was Zhou Min.
After her face emerged, her upright body tilted and began floating horizontally across the water. I could see a black-dog-hair rope tied around her waist.
Splash.
Another spray of water erupted.
Li Miao’s head surfaced beside Zhou Min’s corpse. He gasped heavily for breath.
“Whew, whew… That rogue occultist hid this girl pretty deep.”
“Come aboard first, Brother Li. We can talk afterward.”
Old Cao hauled the female corpse onto the boat with the rope, while I reached down and pulled the drenched Li Miao aboard.
Zhou Min lay flat in the cabin, looking as though she were merely asleep. She didn’t resemble a corpse that had been dead for more than half a year and submerged in the river the entire time at all!
Old Cao handed Li Miao a thermos and told him to drink some hot water to drive away the cold.
“Her body was wedged between several enormous rocks on the riverbed. It was clearly some kind of sinister formation for nurturing a corpse in water. Several upright drowned corpses were drifting nearby too. The rogue occultist probably controlled them as a defensive measure.”
“But since we nearly killed the rogue occultist just now, the formation here had lost at least ninety percent of its effectiveness. I dealt with the sunken corpses guarding it without much effort and pulled her out from between the rocks.”
Li Miao drank his water while recounting what had happened beneath the river.
Everything had gone smoothly.
I lowered my gaze to Zhou Min and spoke softly.
“Auntie Zhou…”
The boat suddenly sank sharply and rocked violently amid the rushing current, as though an enormous weight had appeared aboard from nowhere.
“Oh, sorry! Sister Zhou. Sister Zhou!”
I hurriedly corrected myself, and the boat immediately returned to normal.
“Sister Zhou, our nether covenant hasn’t been fully completed yet, but I already know the entire chain of events leading to your death…”
I told her everything about the evil dealings between the rogue occultist and Zeng Qingfeng, as well as the battle of magical arts Li Miao and I had fought against him.
As I spoke, bloody tears slowly flowed from the corners of the female corpse’s eyes.
She probably found it bitterly ironic. She had died simply because the rogue occultist wanted to use a yin-born woman to create a powerful corpse-fiend servant.
It had been a completely unprovoked calamity–nothing but appalling bad luck.
It was even more senseless than being struck and killed by a car while walking down the street…
Blood covered her face, making her look rather ferocious. I pulled out a towel, crouched beside her, and wiped it away.
At the same time, I continued speaking.
“Don’t worry. I’ll always remember my promise to avenge you. Now that we’ve successfully retrieved you from the riverbed, you should finally be buried and rest in peace.”
I remembered her telling me in the dream that she wanted to be buried on a mountaintop overlooking her parents’ home.
I planned to choose the site with the best feng shui among the several suitable mountains and bury her there.
But we truly had no strength left tonight.
Li Miao and I had fought the rogue occultist in a life-or-death battle, rested for only an hour at the coffin shop while eating a bowl of noodles, and then hurried straight to the Chuan River for corpse retrieval.
By now, we were both exhausted beyond measure and remained upright through willpower alone.
Li Miao had it especially hard. He still needed to row this little wooden boat back through the rushing current!
After finishing the hot water in the thermos, Li Miao picked up the bamboo pole leaning against the gunwale.
“Let’s head back. I plan to sleep the entire day tomorrow! No matter who comes looking for me, I won’t wake up. Ha ha.”
Though his face was exhausted, he still cracked a joke.
Old Cao and I both wanted to help–especially Old Cao, who had spent the evening resting peacefully at the coffin shop and was currently in peak condition.
But our hearts were willing while our abilities fell short.
Only Li Miao could handle work on the water!
Just then, however…
“Woof! Woof! Woof!”
Heizi suddenly began barking.
Then came a loud splash!
We turned in surprise and discovered that the female corpse had vanished from the cabin. Ripples spread across the river beside us, and Heizi was barking at that spot.
Its barking was merely an ordinary warning, without any panic or anger.
I froze for a moment.
“What happened?”
Could Zhou Min have changed her mind about leaving the Chuan River?
Did she want to remain submerged instead of being buried and resting in peace?
While I remained confused and tried to understand, the small wooden boat beneath my feet began moving. It accelerated rapidly toward the riverbank.
But Li Miao beside me didn’t appear to have done anything yet.
The next moment, all three of us understood.
Zhou Min was returning our kindness by diving underwater and pushing the boat herself!
Li Miao let out a long breath of turbid qi.
His entire body relaxed. He tossed the bamboo pole into the cabin, sat down, and said with a smile,
“This girl isn’t bad at all. At least she knows how to show gratitude.”
The corner of my mouth twitched. I supposed that was true.
But when we first met, she had forced herself on me… She never asked whether I agreed and simply spat the corpse core into my hand.
It had been a completely forced transaction!
Zhou Min pushed the three of us and one dog swiftly toward the riverbank from beneath the water.
I had to admit, having a vicious corpse of the water pushing our boat along a river at night was remarkably convenient.
She had long ago given me the corpse core containing most of her strength, so she might now possess less than half her normal power…
But she was still one of the highest-ranked vicious corpses.
Only one step separated her from transforming into a corpse fiend!
She had even dared to emerge and seek someone in broad daylight–though admittedly, the sky had been overcast, and her strength was greatly diminished.
Now, the dense corpse aura emanating from her alone deterred every supernatural creature and evil entity in the nighttime river from approaching us.
By the moonlight, I saw several floating corpses emerge in the distance, apparently intending to drift toward us. But they quickly sank beneath the water again. Judging by the ripples, they had fled at top speed.
Other creatures resembling water goblins or giant water pythons merely raised their heads, glanced in our direction, and gave up.
Clearly, Zhou Min’s aura remained extremely intimidating!
She pushed our small wooden boat toward the riverbank, and we soon reached shore.
Li Miao tied his corpse-retrieval boat to the private dock with a hemp rope.
Splash!
Amid the sound of water, Zhou Min emerged from the river as well and walked stiffly onto the bank, one step at a time.
Her long black hair resembled riverweed and trailed all the way to her knees, giving her an extremely eerie appearance.
Apparently, even after she died and became a corpse-fiend, her hair had continued growing.
I suspected that hair length might be one way of judging a corpse-fiend’s power…
After all, this eerie hair could very well be used to attack enemies!
Ahem.
I cleared my throat twice and said to her,
“Sister Zhou, we’re all far too exhausted tonight. We can’t bury you and let you rest in peace so soon. I’m afraid you’ll have to find somewhere to stay for now. We’ll bury you tomorrow night. How does that sound?”
The female corpse before me nodded and produced a croaking sound like a frog from her throat.
The three of us stared at one another. We couldn’t understand her at all!
But since she had nodded, she had certainly agreed.
Li Miao said it would be inconvenient to have her follow us to the coffin shop, especially since it was so far away. And while the coffin shop stood in a relatively secluded location, it was still inside town. Running into someone would cause trouble.
“We might as well put… Ahem, let her stay in my courtyard for now. Tomorrow during the day, Old Cao can have someone dig the grave, and we’ll bury her directly tomorrow night.”
Li Miao’s suggestion was sensible, so we all nodded in agreement.
Even so, I remained cautious. Although the female corpse Zhou Min probably posed no problem, I still worried about leaving her alone at Li Miao’s home.
What if, by some vanishingly small chance, she suddenly became evil or the rogue occultist seized control of her from afar?
Both possibilities were extremely unlikely, but I had always been cautious. I disliked gambling with my friends’ lives.
So I joked that I was tired too and wouldn’t return to the coffin shop tonight. I would stay at Brother Li’s place, then go back to the coffin shop in the morning, pick up my schoolbag, and head to school.
Old Cao glanced at me, smiled, and nodded in agreement.
And so the matter was settled.
Fortunately, the facts proved that I had been overly cautious…
Zhou Min behaved perfectly that night and caused no trouble whatsoever.