Chapter 268
Chapter 268
While Old Cao and I spoke, Ni Yang crouched down and carefully examined the corpse-fiend’s limbs on the floor.
Holding a short knife, he cautiously turned over the torso, head, and limbs.
His expression grew increasingly puzzled.
“This corpse-fiend… really isn’t normal. It doesn’t seem to be the same as the corpse transformations we usually know. Its body cavity is filled with strange, fuzzy filaments. They look like roots from something, or mold.”
Ni Yang used the knife to pick out a small amount from the corpse-fiend’s severed neck, then shone his powerful flashlight on the blade.
We leaned closer to look.
The substance was gray and extremely strange.
Roundy cursed irritably.
“Damn it! That’s disgusting. It looks like there’s no corpse core in its belly either, only this moldlike stuff. This magnificent bird has no desire to eat such a damned thing.”
I frowned.
“Perhaps these gray, moldlike filaments are why this corpse-fiend behaved so abnormally. They made it harder to kill!”
Old Cao also warned us not to touch the material recklessly with our hands before we understood what it was.
Ni Yang nodded and tossed the dagger contaminated with the fungal threads directly onto the floor.
Then we took the other corpse-fiend, still bound and suppressed by Old Cao’s phoenix rope, and left the house together.
Yuan Fei, Big Bull, and the others waiting outside hurried over.
Yuan Fei said,
“Brother Cao, Xiao Wu, you’re finally out! I could sense fluctuations of qi inside just now and figured you must have started fighting some evil entity. I was getting anxious.”
Perched on my shoulder, Roundy planted one wing on its hip and pointed the other at Yuan Fei like a hand.
“What’s that supposed to mean, Little Yuan? Don’t you trust our strength? With this magnificent bird present, capturing a trifling evil entity is effortless. One wind blade, and the corpse-fiend falls to pieces.”
Yuan Fei knew its temperament, of course. They had become familiar over the past year or two, and he could not be bothered responding.
When Roundy started boasting, ignoring it was enough to make it lose interest.
Old Cao gave the phoenix rope in his hand a gentle flick, and the tightly bound corpse-fiend slowly settled onto the ground before everyone.
“We found this strange corpse-fiend inside the house. It was probably transformed from one of Daling Village’s residents. Brother Yuan, all of you should take a careful look too.”
Yuan Fei, Big Bull, and the bodyguards in black moved closer to examine it.
This was the bodyguards’ first time seeing a real “ghost.” Their faces showed varying degrees of faint fear, but even more curiosity.
Before Yuan Fei could offer an opinion, Zhao Xu exclaimed,
“I think I recognize this ghost!”
“Hey, hey! This isn’t a ghost. It’s a corpse-fiend. Don’t you know anything?”
Roundy corrected him with affected importance.
I quickly reached up and clamped that fat wretch’s beak shut, then looked at Zhao Xu.
“Go ahead, Brother Zhao. Don’t mind it.”
In an ordinary person’s eyes, these things could all be called “ghosts” anyway. It was not really wrong!
Zhao Xu pointed at the corpse-fiend on the ground.
“I think this man was called Wang Xinren… Although he’s dead and has turned into a ghost, I remember him clearly because he received me whenever I visited Daling Village. We were fairly familiar. There weren’t many young or middle-aged adults in the village; most residents were elderly.”
Wang Xinren?
The name gave me pause.
I remembered that the unfortunate student at Lianghe District Middle School whose soul had been devoured by the flying-head creature seemed to have the same name.
In theory, the two should have had no connection.
“Maybe the name itself is cursed… Perhaps people named Wang Xinren are simply more likely to die?”
I gave it no further thought.
Ni Yang, however, immediately became excited and patted Zhao Xu’s shoulder.
“Brother Zhao, since you knew this villager Wang Xinren, do you remember when you last saw him? Did he display any unusual behavior then?”
I understood what Ni Yang meant.
If a powerful rogue cultivator had used a feng shui formation to sink Daling Village underground, there must have been warning signs beforehand.
No one had known what would happen, so they had paid those signs no attention. Thinking back now might reveal clues!
“Unusual behavior?”
Zhao Xu continued…
“The last time I came to Daling Village on the boss’s orders to deliver supplies to the villagers was early in 1996, a little over half a year before we discovered the village was gone. Wang Xinren received me that time too.”
“There really were some odd things, which we’ve discussed before. I noticed more young people in the village than on my previous visits. Quite a few who had been working in towns and the county had come home. Judging by their clothes, they also seemed a little wealthier.”
Wang Wenguang’s investigations over the past several years had indirectly confirmed these clues.
We all knew about them.
“As for Wang Xinren himself…”
Zhao Xu searched his memory, then suddenly slapped his forehead.
“That’s right! I remember now. He seemed much stronger, and he’d also become somewhat afraid of fire! Does that count as unusual?”
Stronger and afraid of fire?
My heart jolted when I heard that.
Old Cao, Yuan Fei, and I exchanged glances, each seeing a flash of recognition in the others’ eyes.
Perhaps this clue would lift another layer of fog surrounding Daling Village!
Ni Yang pressed him,
“Brother Zhao, tell us more.”
“All right.”
The last time Zhao Xu had brought people to Daling Village with gifts, he had stopped in Lianghe Town on the way. After eating there, he brought along a large quantity of the local specialty, canned yellow peaches in syrup, because he had heard that the village elders liked sweets.
There were several large cases of canned peaches, weighing fifty to a hundred kilograms altogether. Along with the other supplies, hired hands carried them into the village on horses and donkeys.
Wang Xinren and several young and middle-aged adults met Zhao Xu at the village entrance. As they chatted, Wang Xinren casually lifted a case of canned peaches from a horse’s back with one hand.
The movement was smooth and effortless.
Zhao Xu froze.
An entire case of canned peaches weighed more than twenty-five kilograms. Lifting it with one hand was not an impossibly difficult feat.
But it was not easy either!
Even Zhao Xu himself was a muscular brute and one of the leaders among Wang Wenguang’s enforcers. Yet he could not have lifted a case of canned peaches one-handed with such ease, without the slightest change in expression.
Noticing Zhao Xu’s surprise, Wang Xinren hurriedly explained that he had recently been working at a construction site. Constantly carrying bricks and doing hard physical labor had built his muscles and given him considerable strength.
Zhao Xu found it somewhat implausible, but did not dwell on it. What did another man’s greater strength matter to him?
On the contrary, it made moving supplies for the village elders easier. Zhao Xu and his people would have less work to do.
After distributing the supplies and cash-filled red envelopes Boss Wang had sent the villagers, they ate a meal together. Wang Xinren then accompanied Zhao Xu and his people out of the village, chatting as they walked…
As they neared the village entrance, Zhao Xu could no longer resist the craving for a cigarette he had suppressed for so long. He took out a pack.
Out of courtesy, he intended to let Wang Xinren smoke first.
“Here, Brother Wang. Have a cigarette and relax.”
As Zhao Xu spoke, he offered a cigarette to Wang Xinren, who was standing close beside him. At the same time, he flicked open an expensive lighter with a click, preparing to light it…
The flame sprang up.
To his utter surprise, Zhao Xu’s “courtesy” frightened Wang Xinren. He suddenly cried out and stepped backward, looking terrified.
Huh?
Zhao Xu frowned, slightly annoyed by the other man’s overreaction.
What was that supposed to mean? He was offering the man a cigarette and even lighting it for him, and that somehow frightened him?
He could not say so aloud, however. The man was one of the boss’s fellow villagers.
Once Wang Xinren realized he had lost his composure, he hurriedly explained.
He said that as a mischievous child, he had once helped his parents cook in the kitchen and gotten his hair and eyebrows singed by the flames. Since then, he had been especially afraid of fire. Flames at close range in particular caused a deep psychological fear, and he dared not get too close.
Hearing this, Zhao Xu’s displeasure vanished, replaced by embarrassment. He apologized as well, saying he had been thoughtless…
Then the two parted at the village entrance.
On the way back, however, one of Zhao Xu’s underlings told him Wang Xinren had lied.
On an earlier visit to Daling Village that Zhao Xu had not joined, the underling had personally seen another villager light a cigarette for Wang Xinren. He had not been afraid then.
“Forget it. Whether it was true or not, at least he gave us a reason and a way to end the awkwardness. Saving face for both sides was enough.”
Zhao Xu waved a hand and told his underling to say no more.
He was not the sort to hold a grudge.
Yet when Wang Wenguang next sent people to Daling Village more than half a year later, the whole village had vanished…
When Zhao Xu saw Wang Xinren again, he was the strange corpse-fiend lying before them, bound by Old Cao.
Zhao Xu finished his account.
After some thought, he said,
“I thought it was strange at the time but didn’t take it seriously. Looking back now, especially with all the bizarre things before us, I’m afraid something was already wrong with Wang Xinren then. What do you masters think?”