Chapter 38
Chapter 38
The deep, sobbing cries rang clearly through the night.
Even surrounded by torchlight, my scalp prickled and goose bumps covered my body!
Big Bull cried in terror, “Bad news! The corpse has truly risen. Its resentment is unresolved, and it’s coming out for revenge.”
I tensed immediately.
Thump…
I turned at the sound behind me.
Duan Ren, Duan Yi, and Duan Tianbao had fallen onto the ground and were trembling uncontrollably.
“Boo-hoo… boo-hoo…”
The woman’s weeping continued as though beside our ears.
Like a cat with its fur standing on end, every muscle in my body tightened. I instinctively wanted to retreat as methods of the esoteric arts flashed through my mind…
But Old Cao tugged me gently and signaled with his eyes.
What?
I was confused.
The corpse was crying and clearly about to throw off its lid. Why was Old Cao signaling mysteriously instead of preparing countermeasures?
Then understanding dawned.
“Is there more to this?”
Yuan Fei barked sternly, “Miss Duan has become a vicious corpse and is raging inside her coffin. Clearly, someone here inspired her resentment. A transformed corpse has awareness. If the culprit kneels and admits his wrong, there may still be a chance.”
Duan Ren grabbed his sleeve. “Really? Is that true, Mr. Yuan? If we kneel and apologize, then…”
Even a fool could tell from his reaction that the three men were involved in Miss Duan’s death!
Yuan Fei looked solemn. “Naturally.”
The brothers scrambled to the coffin, knelt, and knocked their heads repeatedly against the ground.
Sure enough!
The coffin stopped moving, and the sinister weeping vanished.
That worked?
I scratched my head, unable to understand.
Nothing Master taught me said a vicious corpse would forgive an apology. That was absurd!
Yet the disturbance had stopped.
Feeling reprieved, Duan Ren and the others collapsed and panted.
They thanked Yuan Fei. “Th-thank you, Mr. Yuan. She has forgiven us, right?”
But Yuan Fei and Old Cao both wore strange smiles.
Old Cao signaled Big Bull. “All right, do it. Now that we’re certain, this won’t count as misusing mystic arts.”
Do what?
Big Bull, built like an iron tower, led Ergou, Flat-Top, and Mangdun around the three brothers.
The four towering bearers surrounded them like chicks.
Duan Ren panicked. “What are you doing?”
Old Cao grinned. “Damn! No wonder the coffin wouldn’t move. The killers were in the funeral line. Without Xiao Wu’s sharp eyes, we’d still be baffled.”
Yuan Fei looked furious. “Today you’ll see what I can do.”
Big Bull seized Duan Ren’s collar and dragged him down. Yuan Fei took out a talisman and began chanting…
I hurriedly asked Old Cao what was happening.
He chuckled. “We discussed it earlier. Who told you to stare everywhere instead of listening?”
He explained.
The coffin noises and woman’s cries had come from Ergou!
They were ventriloquism and vocal mimicry, not real.
Ventriloquism?
I looked at Ergou. He smiled honestly, kept his mouth closed, yet spoke.
“A little unorthodox skill. I can make sounds from my abdomen without opening my mouth.”
“Impressive, Brother Ergou!”
I gave him a thumbs-up.
Old Cao’s group had deliberately frightened the brothers into exposing themselves and admitting guilt.
But confession alone would not make them reveal details. That required Yuan Fei.
He burned the talisman into a bowl of water and held the talisman water before Duan Ren, whom Big Bull restrained.
“Will you speak yourself, or should I help you?”
Realizing the deception, Duan Ren glared viciously. “You bastard! You dared trick me? Wait until this is over. I’ll make you pay.”
“Make me pay? You’re too green, brat.”
Yuan Fei sneered and forcibly poured the talisman water down his throat.
“Cough, cough!”
“What did you give me? This is a society under law! You can’t abuse people like in the old days!”
Old Cao smiled. “No abuse. We only want to ask questions.”
Yuan Fei clasped his hands, pressing his left thumb into his right palm while wrapping four fingers over its back. His right thumb and forefinger pointed upward, the other three bent.
It seemed a hand seal from some folk arcane lineage.
After chanting, he shouted, “Duan Ren, did you kill Duan Meng?”
“In a way.”
Duan Ren answered instantly. Terror flooded his eyes as he tried to choke himself with both hands, unable to believe he had spoken.
It truly was them!
Old Cao patted my shoulder in praise.
Yuan Fei’s skill impressed me too. He could force someone to speak the truth. I had underestimated him slightly when he panicked earlier; now I admired him.
“How did you kill Miss Duan? Describe everything in detail!” Yuan Fei demanded.
“All right. I’ll tell you…”
Duan Yi and Duan Tianbao, restrained behind him, were horrified.
“Boss, are you insane? Don’t talk nonsense!”
Duan Tianbao tried to leap up and cover his mouth, but Ergou struck a point behind his neck with a hand chop.
He collapsed again.
Duan Ren then told a chilling story…
It began more than three months earlier.
Duan Meng had finished an elective course at university and received a ten-day break. Boss Duan sent his driver to bring her home to Lianghe Town.
After years in a concrete city, Miss Duan found the small town comfortable and went exploring daily.
Sometimes she traveled north to picnic and play beside the Chuan River. Sometimes she visited her family’s orchards.
An artistic young woman, she carried a camera–still uncommon then–and took photographs.
One evening, she became lost in the enormous orchards spanning dozens of hills.
Panicked as darkness fell, she encountered the three brothers fertilizing an apple orchard.
Whether night released their animal nature or Miss Duan’s beauty tempted them, they saw the wilderness and fading light and committed an atrocity.
All three sexually assaulted their employer’s daughter, repeatedly…
Fearing exposure, Duan Ren, who knew something of cameras, photographed the entire crime.
They threatened to develop and plaster the photographs throughout Lianghe Town if she reported them, disgracing her and the Duan family.
Devastated, Duan Meng remained silent for her father and brothers’ honor.
She immediately had the driver return her to university.
Boss Duan wondered why she left without farewell, but his business kept him too busy to think deeply.
Two or three days ago, Duan Meng graduated and had to return home while deciding her future.
Walking by the river, she encountered the brothers again!
They were bachelors who normally could never approach a woman as far above them as Miss Duan. Having violated her once, they craved it again.
They blocked her and tried to drag her into riverside grass.
Unable to endure them, Miss Duan fled while they pursued her, laughing.
Rain had left the bank slippery.
She slipped into the rushing river!
She could not swim.
All three men could. Had they entered the water, they might have saved her.
But they did not!
It was the perfect opportunity to eliminate a threat.
Miss Duan had slipped into the river herself. They bore no responsibility!
In a small town of that era, forensic methods could not reconstruct events from footprints. Once a death appeared accidental, the investigation generally ended.
After she drowned, they felt relieved and destroyed the photographs of their crime.
They believed the secret buried forever.
But when Miss Duan’s coffin refused to move and one strange incident followed another, they panicked. I noticed them, and a small scheme by Old Cao and Yuan Fei exposed everything.
Duan Ren’s confession left me utterly stunned!
I had never imagined human hearts could be so malicious.
The three had been idle rural bachelors. Boss Duan gave them honest jobs and enough income to live.
Instead of gratitude, they brutalized his daughter, photographed the act, and threatened her.
Finally, they chased her into the river and deliberately watched her drown.
They were beasts wearing human faces!
People called ghosts and evil spirits frightening. Only now did I understand that some human hearts were far crueler and more terrible.
Even Old Cao and Yuan Fei fell silent.
Big Bull erupted first.
“You damned animal!”
Bang!
His kick sent Duan Ren flying several meters. The man hit the ground and coughed blood.
Big Bull moved to kick the other two, but Yuan Fei stopped him.
“Brother Big Bull, they’re worse than animals, but they’re living people. Let the police handle them. We deal with the dead, not this. In modern society, crippling someone brings prosecution.”
Old Cao patted his shoulder. “At dawn, Boss Duan can report them and have the case reopened. They’ll be punished.”
Big Bull glared but did not strike again. He kept the three surrounded.
Their crime was exposed, but they still had to keep watch as agreed.
I exhaled and watched them weep and beg like pathetic cowards.
Yet while violating an innocent woman, they had behaved like beasts.
My chest felt tight.
Old Cao noticed and patted my shoulder. “Don’t dwell on it, Xiao Wu. The police will punish them.”
“Will they die?”
He paused and shook his head.
“Probably not.”
“Life in prison?”
“I don’t know, but probably not… They didn’t kill her directly.”
“Heh.”
I sneered and waved away further comfort. Though young, I had a strong, mature mind.
Then I heard creaking, like wood compressed beneath great force.
A woman’s faint weeping seemed both distant and near.
I looked at Ergou. “Brother Ergou, why are you still frightening them with ventriloquism?”
He looked blank and shook his head.
“I’m not. I’m not making any sound.”
What?!
Everyone spun toward the black coffin.
Creak… creak…
In the firelight, its nailed lid slowly bowed upward, while the nails emerged.
An enormous force inside seemed determined to force them out and overturn the lid.
Fingernails scratched the coffin’s interior!
Old Cao cried, “Bad news! We pretended before to make the villains talk. Now the vicious corpse truly is coming out!”