Chapter 39
Chapter 39
Creak… creak…
The coffin groaned while fingernails scraped piercingly against its walls.
Old Cao reacted instantly, casting thick hemp rope over the lid.
He, Ergou, Flat-Top, and I wound it around the coffin several times.
Yuan Fei drew his Ghost-Beating Staff and used it as a hammer, pounding the nails–already pushed halfway out–back into place.
At last, we temporarily suppressed the vicious corpse!
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The coffin still shuddered and made strange noises.
But Old Cao’s hemp rope glimmered faint red. Clearly extraordinary, it should hold.
Thank goodness he had reacted quickly! Had the lid flown open, fighting the corpse outside its coffin would have been far more troublesome.
“That was close!”
Yuan Fei wiped sweat from his forehead, checked his watch, and smiled bitterly.
“It’s only quarter to two. This will be a long night. The one inside won’t stay quiet.”
The traditional Ox Hour ran from one to three in the morning; its third quarter was 1:45.
A foul smell made me turn.
Duan Ren and his brothers, watched by Big Bull and Mangdun, had wet their pants in terror!
I covered my nose and looked at them in disgust.
“Damn scum!”
Boom! Rumble!
Thunder rolled across the sky.
A vast black cloud appeared from nowhere and instantly covered everything.
The moon vanished. A howling wind rose, sweeping dust and sand from the ground.
It extinguished all seven fire bowls of the Seven-Star Fiend-Suppression Formation!
Tall corn in the fields beside the road bent and thrashed, rustling ominously.
“Bad! A storm is coming. Hurry to Duan Family Manor and bring something to cover the coffin!” Old Cao roared.
Ergou and Flat-Top turned to run.
Too late.
An unnatural deluge crashed down!
I jumped in fright.
The rain came faster than even common summer thunderstorms in Sichuan and Chongqing. Black clouds arrived overhead, and almost immediately water poured from the sky.
Each drop seemed as large as the tip of my little finger!
It roared against the world.
Creak! Creak!
The coffin bound by Old Cao’s phoenix rope began shuddering violently again. Its lid bowed, nails rose one by one, and the rope stretched nearly to breaking.
“It won’t hold! Xiao Wu, stay beside me. Don’t run anywhere!”
Old Cao pulled the rope.
Swish, swish!
Like a living snake, the thick cord slipped from the coffin and flew into his hands, part automatically winding around his waist.
I marveled!
Why remove it just when the corpse was breaking free?
The old phoenix rope was mystical but still made of hemp. A contest of brute strength with the powerful corpse would inevitably snap it.
Better to retrieve it and employ other methods of a coffin bearer than waste it in crude restraint.
“Mr. Yuan, Big Bull, we can’t avoid this. We’ll have to fight the vicious corpse!”
Everyone braced themselves in the downpour.
Rain hammered down as though the sky had split open.
Dense vapor rose from the ground, swirling below our knees like white fog.
Fortunately, Flat-Top had earlier fetched several battery lamps from the courtyard. Otherwise, with the rain extinguishing every torch, fighting the vicious corpse in utter darkness would have been impossible.
Creak… pop-pop-pop…
As the lid opened and closed, every coffin nail was forcibly pulled free and flung away.
Standing behind Old Cao, I peered through rain and dim light. A hand emerged through the gap!
Clearly a woman’s hand, its fingers were slender and rounded, its skin smooth. Apart from three-inch black talons and deathly pallor, it resembled a living hand!
Smack!
It gripped the lid’s edge and pushed, widening the opening…
“A ghost! Run!”
Duan Ren and his brothers had long since lost their wits. Seeing our attention fixed on the corpse, they fled.
At that instant–bang!
The lid was completely overturned.
No–it was hurled into the air.
Weighing three or four hundred jin, it flew five or six meters high. The sight was horrifying!
Even more astonishing, it came down directly on Duan Ren, who was running fastest!
Imagine that weight falling from that height onto a man.
He could not even scream before becoming mangled flesh, every bone shattering.
Fortunately, darkness and rain concealed the carnage. Otherwise, even I might have vomited!
Courage was one matter; seeing a living person die so horribly provoked an instinctive physical response.
“Boo-hoo… boo-hoo…”
With a strange, half-weeping moan, the female corpse in white mourning clothes sat up. It lightly leaped out and landed with both feet.
Splash!
Water erupted around it.
Rain and mist hid its features. It stood rigidly before the coffin, surely hideous and terrifying.
After all that turmoil, the true threat had finally emerged.
And immediately killed someone!
Duan Ren deserved his fate, but Old Cao and Yuan Fei could not let her continue.
First, as they had said, their trade concerned the dead. Crimes of the living belonged to the police; they had no authority to judge them.
Second, the vicious corpse already held enormous resentment. Every killing condensed it further and made her stronger.
Once dense enough, it would truly become a corpse fiend.
Then not only would we die, but blood might flow throughout the town. As members of the esoteric arts, each an esoteric practitioner responsible for this place, they could not stand aside.
“Big Bull, form the Great Corpse-Locking Formation with the other three. Mr. Yuan, you and I will engage it first and hold it back.”
Old Cao moved as he spoke.
Wielding his phoenix pole, he swung directly at the corpse’s waist…