Chapter 202
Chapter 202
Black vapor seeping from the coffin!
As the name suggested, wisps of black vapor like strands of smoke were leaking from the gaps around the coffin lid!
The moon was out tonight.
Big Bull and the others also carried battery-powered lamps.
They could clearly see the black vapor issuing from the gaps in the coffin.
The wisps were very fine, and there were not many of them…
Yet each one held together without dispersing, swaying gently from the coffin’s seams in the night breeze.
They looked like the tendrils of some strange, evil vine!
The third ominous sign was a frost-cold coffin…
The sinister coffin was giving off such an icy chill that the ground around it appeared frosted, covered in a thin layer of tiny white ice crystals.
The coffin before them displayed every one of the three signs of a malevolent coffin!
Big Bull and his companions had carried coffins for more than thirty years, but this was the first time they had encountered one so dangerous.
To make matters worse, the coffin’s origins were unknown. It had fallen out of the mountain during the landslide… and no one knew what secrets or history lay behind it.
If coffin carriers and coffin bearers wanted to deal with a coffin and dispel its yin and malevolent qi, they had to prescribe the right remedy. That meant knowing the malevolent coffin’s origins and the particulars of its background.
But the one before them was a nameless malevolent coffin.
Judging only by how badly the buried wood had decayed underground, Big Bull estimated that it had to be at least a hundred years old!
He, Ergou, and their two companions circled it several times from a safe distance in the backyard. After getting a general look, they retreated with badly shaken nerves.
They found Bai Fugui and his family in the brightly lit front courtyard and warned them over and over that they absolutely must not enter the backyard again!
Otherwise, something terrible would happen.
Bai Fugui hurriedly shook his head and waved his hands.
“My whole body turns cold just standing at the entrance to the backyard. How would I dare go inside? Brother Niu, that coffin…”
Big Bull did not want to frighten them. He merely replied, “We’re going to bring Coffin-Bearer Cao here first. We’ll have to follow his judgment on how to deal with the coffin.”
“Good, good. Thank you all for going to such trouble. Once this is resolved, I, Bai, will reward you handsomely.”
Bai Fugui had already sensed how dangerous the situation was and hastily made his promise.
Big Bull and the others then came to the coffin shop.
That was the scene I had witnessed upon returning from school earlier.
…
By the time Big Bull finished recounting everything that had happened at Bai Fugui’s home, we had already crossed Lianghe Bridge and reached the exit on the northwestern edge of town.
Lianghe Bridge could effectively be considered Lianghe Town’s northwestern boundary.
Once across the bridge, a turn to the left led along a concrete road toward Lianghe District Middle School.
Behind us, a narrow path led directly into the mountains–the burial hill where Wang Dachun had been possessed by the Dry Immortal and where we had found the Golden-Thread Netherbloom lay in that direction.
Continuing straight ahead took you onto the provincial highway leading into Sichuan.
Small multistory houses still stood scattered along both sides of the highway, one every few dozen meters.
Every Friday afternoon, when I took the long-distance coach home to Wujia Village, it followed this provincial highway for more than twenty li. I would get off at a certain spot, then turn from the roadside into the mountains…
Perhaps the torrential rain that had fallen for three days and three nights had washed away some of the increasingly severe pollution that had accumulated in the air over the years. The air quality in Lianghe Town seemed to have improved.
At that moment, the air was slightly cool, the moon shone bright, and only a few stars dotted the sky.
Everything around us was clearly illuminated. Even without the battery-powered lamps, we could easily see the road beneath our feet.
Distant ridges rose and fell beneath the moonlight, reduced to an unbroken chain of black silhouettes.
Big Bull raised a hand and pointed to an area ahead and to the left, where lights clustered more densely.
“Coffin-Bearer Cao, Young Mr. Wu, that’s Baijia Flats over there.”
I followed his finger.
The place appeared to contain a little over a hundred households and did indeed resemble a small village. But it was less than two kilometers from Lianghe Bridge, close enough to reach on foot in no time…
So it truly did count as part of the town’s outskirts.
We covered the two kilometers in a little over ten minutes.
As soon as we entered Baijia Flats, I began examining the feng shui configuration of the area.
Mountains embraced it on every side, the ground was level, and a stream wound past one flank… It was a classic, naturally formed feng shui formation that gathered wealth.
No wonder a tiny place of barely a hundred households had already produced two business owners, Bai Fugui and Bai Ling, who had made money by opening factories.
Rubbing my chin, I said in puzzlement, “The feng shui here in Baijia Flats is quite good. Why would anyone bury a malevolent coffin nearby? Whatever is inside it, the coffin should have been buried in some blighted, baleful place. Burying a malevolent coffin on auspicious ground wouldn’t accomplish anything, would it?”
Big Bull and the others knew nothing about feng shui, so they did not know how to respond.
As a coffin bearer, Old Cao naturally understood some of it.
He nodded as well.
“Now that you mention it, I find that strange too. But what if we look at it another way? Could that coffin originally have been even more vicious? Perhaps after a century buried in this auspicious ground, what we’re seeing now is its weakened state.”
Big Bull, Ergou, and the others sucked in sharp breaths and shook their heads in amazement.
If this was the malevolent coffin in its weakened state, they said, then how terrifying must its occupant have originally been? It was simply unimaginable!
For now, however, these were only guesses Old Cao and I had made.
We would have to see the coffin for ourselves before we could say anything definite!
We passed house after house in Baijia Flats.
At last, we reached a large residence at the very back of the settlement. This was Bai Fugui’s home.
From a long way off, I saw a fat man in a suit standing at the gate with a woman and two children. The moment he saw us arrive, he trotted over to meet us.
He was exceedingly courteous and did not put on the airs of a wealthy boss at all.
“Brother Niu, you’re here? This must be the renowned Coffin-Bearer Cao, yes?”
Bai Fugui looked at Old Cao and shook his hand, then turned his gaze to me.
“And this young man is…?”
“My name is Wu Zhong. I’m an eighth-grade student at the district middle school, and I’m staying at Old Cao’s coffin shop.”
A student?
Bai Fugui looked surprised.
Old Cao smiled.
“Don’t underestimate this youngster, Boss Bai. His abilities are every bit as good as mine–in fact, he can do an even wider range of things.”
Bai Fugui’s eyes immediately lit up.
He quickly gave me a thumbs-up.
“They say heroes have emerged from the young since ancient times. So it’s true!”
Old Cao waved a hand.
“All right, Boss Bai. Enough pleasantries. Let’s hurry to the backyard and take a look at that sinister coffin. It’s already late at night. The longer we delay, the harder it may become to handle.”
“Yes, yes, of course!”
Bai Fugui nodded like a chicken pecking at grain. Without another word, he ushered us inside.
His wife and two children greeted us respectfully from the side. They looked somewhat timid.
Er… The truth was, although Bai Fugui could be said to have had children late in life, both of his children were already in high school and older than I was!
The coffin had probably scared them half to death.
And who could blame them? A flash flood had washed a coffin into their home. More than a dozen workers had refused to carry it away in broad daylight, leaving it there until nightfall. How could any normal person not be afraid?
Once we entered the Bai family residence, I had to admit that it was truly imposing!
Only someone whose family elders had left them a residential plot and who possessed money of their own could build an estate like this… Under the current regulations, approval for such a large parcel of residential land would otherwise have been impossible.
The instant I stepped into the open-air front courtyard, I stopped.
I raised my head.
My gaze followed the courtyard eaves toward the rear. Beyond them, I could see two hills facing each other, black beneath the moonlight.
Seeing my reaction, Old Cao stopped as well and asked, “What is it, Xiao Wu? Is something wrong?”
I pointed toward the mountains visible through the open sky above the courtyard. Before I could speak, Bai Fugui anxiously began to explain.
“What’s wrong, Young Mr. Wu? I specially hired a designer from the county seat to design this residence. The courtyard was arranged so you could see the mountains behind it and enjoy an open, expansive view. I consulted a feng shui master at the time, and he said there was no problem.”
I nodded.
“Mm. There is nothing wrong with the feng shui formation itself. In fact, all of Baijia Flats has quite good feng shui. The problem lies with the two mountains behind your home.”
“What problem?”
“What’s wrong with them?”
Bai Fugui and Old Cao asked almost in unison–the former anxious and afraid, the latter curious.
As a coffin bearer, Old Cao naturally possessed some knowledge and understanding of feng shui and the search for burial sites.
But his knowledge did not need to be especially profound.
That meant he might fail to recognize certain concealed feng shui formations.
When it came to reading feng shui, Yuan Fei was still the more accomplished one!
I explained, “The Azure Dragon belongs to the east and the White Tiger to the west. If mountains face one another in those two positions and form a stable configuration, with the dragon coiled and the tiger crouched, the arrangement benefits the feng shui nearby.”
“The danger arises when the dragon’s power and the tiger’s power do not match! A small difference is not too serious, but if the disparity is excessive–whether the dragon is strong and the tiger weak, or the tiger strong and the dragon weak–it is never a good thing.”
“The two peaks behind your home face each other from the respective positions of the dragon and tiger. The mountain in the dragon position is obviously much taller and larger than the one in the tiger position. Even that alone might have been tolerable…”
“But the mountain in the dragon position also has short spurs extending to either side. Together, they form a pincer around the mountain in the tiger position opposite it. It resembles an open dragon’s maw about to bite down on the white tiger across from it!”
“This feng shui formation is discussed in both The Classic of Dwellings and The Book of Burial. It is known as Dragon Gripping the Tiger! It is a formation of immense evil and baleful force. Any grave within such a formation will inevitably spawn something wicked. Any home built within it will inevitably bring great calamity and misfortune upon its owner…”
Before I had even finished speaking, Bai Fugui’s knees buckled beside me, and he nearly collapsed to the ground with a thud.
Fortunately, Big Bull was considerate and quick. He caught Bai Fugui at once.