Chapter 204
Chapter 204
The sinister coffin seemed to be continuously emitting a strange aura.
One glance was enough to make fear well up uncontrollably from the depths of one’s heart.
Even practitioners with mystical arts were no exception.
It was as if the coffin were fear itself!
Huff…
I drew a deep breath, stilled my thoughts, and dispelled the inexplicable palpitations.
“Old Cao, this coffin really is sinister!”
He nodded.
“It certainly is strange. Come on, let’s move closer and examine it carefully.”
Old Cao and I stepped forward.
Big Bull and his three companions raised their high-powered battery lamps behind us, brightly illuminating the area around the coffin.
I studied the countless fine cords wound around it and cautiously touched one.
Then I looked more closely and leaned in to smell it.
“It seems to be an ink-line cord made with glutinous rice, cinnabar, black dog’s blood, rooster blood, and burned talisman ash! Whatever is sealed inside this coffin must be something exceptionally malevolent.”
The ink-line cord was first recorded in The Zhoubi Mathematical Classic.
It had originally been used for measurement and alignment in construction and woodworking, ensuring that buildings and wooden implements were made with exact precision.
For ages, knowledge of it had remained in the hands of Lu Ban’s disciples!
No one knew in which dynasty or age, but during exchanges between Lu Ban’s disciples and certain Daoist disciples, they expanded the cord’s uses and began employing it to suppress corpse-fiends!
After continual improvement, the ink-line cord became one of the common tools and methods used against fierce, powerful corpse-fiends beginning in the Tang and Song dynasties.
The specific method was to mix glutinous-rice paper, cinnabar, and rooster blood into the ink inside an ink pot. A cotton cord was drawn through the pot, stained with the ink, then wound around and bound over the coffin’s surface.
If the corpse-fiend inside was especially vicious, black dog’s blood, burned talisman ash, and other ingredients had to be added to strengthen the mixture.
This was known as the Five-Ingredient Ink-Line Cord.
The ink-line cord wound around the coffin before us was a classic Five-Ingredient Ink-Line Cord. Clearly, whatever lay inside was no ordinary corpse-fiend…
What if it was an actual jiangshi?
Then we would be in real trouble.
No ordinary corpse-fiend could compare to a jiangshi.
Even the most common of these supremely yin and wicked creatures was at least the equal of a corpse fiend!
A corpse fiend possessed more demonic and evil arts, while a jiangshi had a stronger body.
A corpse fiend retained the same intelligence it had possessed in life, but none of its human emotions. Wang Fei, for instance, would not have cared in the slightest even if he killed his own parents.
A jiangshi, on the other hand… possessed far less intelligence. It was more like a tiger or lion–a bloodthirsty, savage beast!
Thus, jiangshi and corpse fiends each had their own advantages and weaknesses!
Either way, dealing with one would be deadly for us.
As I stared at the Five-Ingredient Ink-Line Cord and worried inwardly, Old Cao asked beside me, “Xiao Wu, do you recognize these dark-red talismanic inscriptions? You should understand this area better than I do.”
He pointed at the coffin’s surface.
I returned to my senses and looked carefully.
The surface was indeed covered in dense masses of strange, dark-red symbols.
They appeared to be Daoist talismanic inscriptions.
Yet a sinister air permeated them, utterly unlike anything I normally studied!
Whether offensive, defensive, gentle, or violent, all the talismans and incantations Master had taught me ultimately possessed an upright and dignified air!
I shook my head and answered gravely.
“I can only be sure that these are some kind of evil talisman arts. I don’t know what they do. I’ve never seen them before.”
As I answered, my attention settled on the strange bones embedded in the coffin lid.
Those bones were the eeriest and most sinister things of all!
A quick count revealed nine pieces in total.
Every one was stark white.
Since they were embedded in the coffin lid, I could not immediately tell whether they were human bones or belonged to something else…
The nine bones followed some pattern from front to back across the lid. Their arrangement looked somewhat like the positions of constellations in the sky, though I did not dare be certain.
In any case, this was truly the first time I had ever seen bones embedded in a coffin lid!
Judging by their expressions, it was also a first for Big Bull, Ergou, and their two companions.
Who knew what the vastly experienced Old Cao would make of it…
I looked up at him. His brows were tightly furrowed, and his expression grew graver by the moment, yet profound astonishment also filled his face.
Before I could ask, Old Cao explained directly.
“These are called Nine-Bone Corpse-Suppressing Nails! I never imagined I would see the craft outside our own lineage! Even in our lineage, it might have died out if Immortal Lady Qin hadn’t passed it on to my grandmaster in western Hunan all those years ago.”
Nine-Bone Corpse-Suppressing Nails!
The name alone sounded extremely formidable.
But the other meaning implicit in Old Cao’s words shocked me even more.
Clearly, the coffin bearers of his lineage also knew how to use the Nine-Bone Corpse-Suppressing Nails!
But what did he mean when he said Immortal Lady Qin had passed the art on to his grandmaster in western Hunan?
My God!
Old Cao was nearly sixty already. His grandmaster?
That man must have lived around the end of the Qing dynasty and the beginning of the Republic!
My Master… had taught the Nine-Bone Corpse-Suppressing Nails to Old Cao’s grandmaster?
Just how old was my Master?!
Yet she clearly looked only eighteen or nineteen, in her early twenties at the very most!
I found it unbelievable and utterly inconceivable.
Big Bull’s question interrupted my thoughts.
“Coffin-Bearer Cao, since you recognize these things, that should make matters easier. What are the Nine-Bone Corpse-Suppressing Nails? Explain them carefully so we’ll know how to carry this coffin away later.”
I hurriedly collected myself and tucked away my curiosity about Master’s past for the moment. This was no time to question Old Cao about such things.
Dealing with the malevolent coffin before us came first!
Old Cao began to explain…
The Nine-Bone Corpse-Suppressing Nails were a powerful art of the coffin bearers!
They were made from the bones of nine different kinds of living creatures, including humans. Beneath the light of a full moon, the bones were ground into three-inch nails.
They were then wrapped in silt from a riverbed and buried beneath the roots of a locust tree for three years before they were complete!
Riverbeds naturally contained abundant yin qi, and the silt at the bottom was colder and more yin still.
Locust trees readily attracted ghosts and were likewise one of the “yin trees.”
Bone nails refined through all these methods became an exceptionally powerful ritual implement for suppressing mighty corpse-fiends!
Driven through the coffin lid in positions corresponding to the great yin stars in the sky, they could seal the corpse-fiend within.
As long as the coffin remained intact, it could not escape to harm anyone!
Using this method, however, greatly depleted the caster’s vital energy. Barely recovering required at least two or three years of rest.
A coffin bearer who was not physically robust might even be left with a lasting illness…
Thus, the art was never used lightly unless the corpse-fiend was exceptionally malevolent and difficult to destroy!
After hearing Old Cao’s explanation, I rubbed my chin thoughtfully.
“So no matter how sinister the Nine-Bone Corpse-Suppressing Nails seem in their materials and aura, they’re ultimately a righteous method of the coffin-bearer lineage, correct? Their purpose is to suppress malevolent corpse-fiends, after all.”
Old Cao nodded.
“Exactly! You can put it that way. I once saw my master use the Nine-Bone Corpse-Suppressing Nails. He nailed a jiangshi dead on the spot.”
He looked at the nine bone nails on the coffin and smiled bitterly.
“There is one piece of news that can just barely be called good…”
What?
Big Bull, the others, and I brightened.
Old Cao pointed to the Nine-Bone Corpse-Suppressing Nails.
“Judging by these nine nails, both the quality of the nails themselves and the technique used to drive them in fall short of my master’s. At most, their caster was only slightly better than I would be at full strength.”
“That means the creature inside the coffin… at least isn’t absurdly powerful. It will be vicious, but if something goes wrong, the combined abilities of our group should still be enough. It may be troublesome, though, and injuries will probably be unavoidable.”
I understood.
We still did not know the origins of the sinister coffin, but at least this meant the person who had sealed it was only slightly stronger than Old Cao!
And since the Nine-Bone Corpse-Suppressing Nails had safely sealed the coffin’s occupant for more than a century, its strength should lie within the same general range.
To use a somewhat inappropriate comparison…
Even if an accident occurred while we carried the coffin and the ghastly thing inside reanimated and burst free, it would only be equivalent to an evil, enhanced Old Cao who cared nothing for his life!
The six of us together should still be able to handle it. If we accepted some injuries, we ought to be able to defeat it, right?
Of course, the best outcome would be to avoid any accident that allowed the corpse-fiend inside to break out.
With the Nine-Bone Corpse-Suppressing Nails and the abilities of Old Cao, Big Bull, and the others, we could safely carry the coffin straight out of the Bai family residence.
Then we could find a place with a suitable feng shui formation and bury it directly!
But another strange question suddenly occurred to me!
Frowning, I said, “Old Cao, something doesn’t seem right… The logic doesn’t make sense!”
“Hm?”
Old Cao froze and asked, “What do you mean, Xiao Wu? What’s wrong?”