Chapter 33
Chapter 33
A cat-startled corpse!
This was extremely serious and troublesome.
Cats carried heavy yin energy.
A folk saying held: Dogs perceive spirits; cats practice crossing into the underworld!
Dogs’ eyes could see things hidden from humans, while cats themselves walked between yin and yang.
After death, a person’s vital energy dispersed into the world.
But one residual breath remained between chest and throat, known as death energy or corpse energy.
Ordinarily, it dissipated after accumulating in the chest for seven days.
If suddenly disturbed before then, however, it could cause the corpse to transform!
Even people outside the esoteric arts–anyone who was not an esoteric practitioner–knew something about this if they had grown up in the countryside and lived long enough.
Unfortunately, Old Cao and Mr. Yuan’s warning came too late…
No one had been near the coffin when the black cat leaped, so no one could stop it.
“Mraow!”
The sinister animal jumped into the coffin and landed on Miss Duan’s body.
Almost instantly, strange creaking and grinding sounds came from within, like wood twisting against wood…
Old Cao and Mr. Yuan both went pale.
“Bad news! The corpse is rising. Everyone get back.”
They charged the coffin.
Big Bull pulled me back beside a stone column at the villa entrance.
A female corpse in white burial clothes slowly sat up inside the coffin. The black cat perched on her shoulder, its eyes glowing green.
Old Cao and Mr. Yuan took positions at opposite ends, alert and ready.
Old Cao had unwrapped the hemp rope from his waist and tied a running noose at one end. This was his phoenix rope. It had bound countless coffins, absorbing yin energy until it acquired special power.
Mr. Yuan held a short wooden rod resembling a rolling pin.
I knew it as a Ghost-Beating Staff, also called a ghost-striking or ghost-driving staff.
Master had described it as a basic but practical ritual implement.
Folk Taoist masters from a modest arcane lineage often lacked the money and magic to craft a powerful peachwood sword. Instead, they made these staffs.
Talismans carved across the wood repelled evil, struck ghosts, and suppressed corpses!
“Together!”
Old Cao cast the hemp rope like a lasso.
Swish!
It looped accurately around the corpse’s neck. He hauled backward.
Bang!
The newly risen corpse crashed back into the coffin.
At the same instant, Mr. Yuan lunged and smashed his Ghost-Beating Staff at the black cat!
Thud!
The blow landed.
“Mraow…”
The sinister animal screamed and flew several meters. It struck the ground, twitched, and lay still as a large pool of blood spread beneath it.
My eyelid twitched.
The Book of Burial said: Blood in the mourning hall; disaster comes to all!
A mourning hall already gathered yin energy, especially when a wake was held at home, temporarily making it the center of local yin.
Bloodshed at such a time greatly affected the site’s feng shui.
Accidental bloodshed could be remedied afterward.
But today’s situation felt strange.
Mr. Yuan’s feng shui training was evidently less comprehensive than The Book of Burial. Otherwise he would have held back, mindful of the consequences.
It had already happened, and I was only a new seventh-grader. I could hardly criticize an adult.
Boss Duan saw Old Cao lasso his daughter’s corpse and pull it down. “Master Cao, don’t hurt my daughter!”
He truly loved Miss Duan. Even in death, he could not bear to see her body damaged.
Big Bull worried aloud, “A black cat startles the dead; the changed corpse hugs the living. Even Coffin-Bearer Cao’s skill may not settle this easily.”
Once the corpse energy in a dead person’s chest was activated, only a living person’s yang energy could counteract and disperse it.
The corpse did that by chasing the living, catching some unlucky victim, and hugging them until they were crushed to death!
It was a miserable end, with every bone shattered.
Fortunately, a transformation caused by a yin animal generally killed one person at worst and then ended…
And with a coffin bearer who was also a funerary-paper artisan and a folk Taoist master present, this corpse certainly would not get to “hug” anyone!
I worried more about what consequences might follow from the black cat’s blood spilling everywhere.
After killing it, Mr. Yuan immediately approached the coffin to suppress the corpse with his Ghost-Beating Staff.
Instead, he exclaimed in surprise and turned to Old Cao. “Master Cao, can your phoenix rope suppress corpses by itself?”
Old Cao shook his head.
“It only limits a corpse’s movements temporarily. It can’t settle one completely like your staff. Why? Is something wrong?”
He kept both hands locked around the rope’s other end.
Mr. Yuan lowered his staff and waved. “The corpse has already settled.”
What?
Old Cao was astonished too.
A cat-startled corpse should never quiet so easily.
But Mr. Yuan stood beside the coffin. Surely he could not have seen wrong!
Old Cao released the rope and walked over to look.
Big Bull and I stood far away, as did the Duan family around the courtyard’s edges. None of us could see inside.
Old Cao looked once and also exclaimed.
His brows knotted. “It really has settled. That makes no sense.”
The evidence was before him. He reached into the coffin and removed the rope from the corpse’s neck. He and Mr. Yuan spoke quietly, too far away for us to hear.
As midnight approached, Old Cao beckoned. “Big Bull, come prepare the lid. We must raise the coffin and leave at midnight.”
That meant there was no immediate problem.
The Duan family relaxed.
Boss Duan approached first, followed by his three sons and their families.
“Master Cao, Mr. Yuan, is my daughter all right? Can we bury her?”
He peered into the coffin, grief covering his face.
Yuan Fei nodded. “Master Cao and I discussed it. There should be no problem. Perhaps your daughter died without much resentment, so even when the cat stirred her corpse energy, she did not harm anyone.”
I followed Big Bull to the coffin.
Though only in seventh grade, I had matured early and grown to 162 centimeters, not short for the southwest in those days.
I was nearly as tall as Old Cao!
So I could look into the coffin too.
Her name was reportedly Duan Meng. Only twenty-two, she had just graduated from a city university. She was wealthy and beautiful, with her best years ahead–then suddenly died…
Could someone like that truly have no attachments or resentment?
Even if she blamed no particular person, did she feel no general bitterness or unwillingness to die?
It was too strange!
Big Bull and the other strong bearers lifted the nearby lid and lowered it onto the coffin.
Perhaps my eyes deceived me, but in the final instant before the lid closed, the dim candlelight illuminated the narrowing crack.
The corpse’s eyes seemed to snap open, shining with an icy, sinister light…
My scalp prickled. I stumbled backward into Old Cao.