Chapter 40
Chapter 40
Bang!
Rain exploded outward.
The female corpse’s stiff, pale hand blocked Old Cao’s shoulder pole.
He twisted his wrist, withdrew it, and struck at her waist from the other side!
Why was he so determined to hit there?
After transforming, corpses resembled tigers and other beasts: copper heads, iron backs, and tofu waists!
Unlike ordinary ghosts, corpse-born entities possessed tremendous strength and speed. In later video-game terms, they had high physical attack…
The best way to subdue them was therefore to break their waists with a ritual implement!
The corpse blocked his second strike with both hands as well, producing another explosive crack.
Standing behind Old Cao, I watched him swing the pole ferociously. I had never imagined a sixty-year-old could be so fit!
She blocked three consecutive strikes.
All this took only a second or two. The corpse did not appear unscathed. As the distance closed, waterproof battery lamps on the ground illuminated her face…
Her features were beautiful, but her deathly white complexion looked only sinister and horrifying. The venom in her eyes could give anyone nightmares.
The moment Old Cao enraged her and made her turn, Yuan Fei charged from behind!
“Vicious corpse, taste my staff!”
He raised his Ghost-Beating Staff, its head wrapped in several implements of the talisman arts.
It should suppress and harm evil entities more effectively than Old Cao’s phoenix rope.
The blow struck her head. Hissing filled the air, green smoke rose, and the stench of something scorched spread through the rain.
A half-human, half-animal noise emerged from the corpse’s throat. She turned and lunged at him.
Terrified, Yuan Fei tried to retreat.
But the deluge had made the ground slippery. He lost his footing and fell.
“Woo!”
The corpse threw herself down after him.
Old Cao and I thought Yuan Fei was finished.
Yet as he fell, he braced the Ghost-Beating Staff against her throat! The corpse remained suspended at a forty-five-degree angle, her claws unable to reach him.
“Master Cao… hurry!”
Yuan Fei forced the words through clenched teeth.
Held by the throat and frozen in midair, the corpse was perfectly exposed.
Old Cao stepped forward, gripped the pole with both hands, and smashed it into her right waist.
Bang!
The powerful blow sent the vicious corpse flying sideways onto the ground.
Before she could rise, Big Bull, Ergou, and the other two–finally prepared–surrounded her while roaring a chant.
“Heave-ho! Hemp rope joins yin and yang!”
“Heave-ho! Dragon and phoenix bear the blessed coffin!”
“Heave-ho! We suppress the corpse-born scourge!”
The stirring chant rang clearly through wind and rain, setting my blood afire.
It reminded me of the Red-Boat Oarsman’s Chuan River boatmen’s chant, which Master had sung when she and I ferried the drowned revenant out onto the river. It had carried the same grandeur and power.
Master was a woman, however, so her chant had sounded quite different from the hoarse chorus of Big Bull and the others.
Apparently, every folk arcane lineage throughout the southwest used work chants for greater power, much like Taoist incantations.
But these were earthier and filled with primitive wildness!
The corpse had instantly climbed to her feet, yet Big Bull’s resounding chant stunned her for two or three seconds.
The four men closed in barefoot, hemp rope wound tightly around their waists and spiraling down both arms, with the remaining lengths trailing on the ground.
They took four positions around the corpse.
Whoosh!
Each snapped his right hand forward. Four ropes flew like flood dragons, and each man caught the rope thrown by the one opposite him.
The cords formed a crosshatched cage around her.
“Woo…”
The corpse tried to escape, but contact with the rope produced violent hissing, like water striking boiling oil.
Big Bull shouted, “Again!”
Whoosh!
They cast the ropes from their left hands to the opposite points, reinforcing the cage.
“Tighten!” Big Bull ordered.
The men pulled taut. Bound in the center, the corpse struggled wildly but could not break free. Green smoke poured from her body, dreadful noises emerged from her throat, and bloody tears slowly ran from her eyes.
She looked both pitiful and terrifying!
Even in darkness and rain, I saw clearly and felt uncomfortable.
Old Cao patted my shoulder. “Xiao Wu, Miss Duan suffered terribly in life and was harmed by villains. But now that she’s a vicious corpse, we cannot show mercy.”
I nodded. “I know. I only feel sorry for her.”
Old Cao and I pulled Yuan Fei from the ground. Mud-covered and disheveled, he cursed.
“Damn! That corpse is fierce. She nearly finished me.”
In Sichuan-Chongqing dialect, the phrase he used meant to be done for, not the modern internet sense of rehabilitating a reputation.
I laughed. “Mr. Yuan, you’re only in your forties and still in your prime. How are you less fit than Old Cao?”
Embarrassed, he said, “I don’t exercise enough. I’ll have to start. Besides, Master Cao is a coffin bearer. He needs a strong body. I’m only a folk Taoist master.”
Yuan Fei flexed his wrist, tightened his grip on the Ghost-Beating Staff, and watched the vicious corpse trapped within Big Bull’s Great Corpse-Locking Formation.
“One hard strike to her belly should disperse the baleful resentment and turn her back into an ordinary corpse.”
He walked toward Big Bull.
Old Cao and I also thought the ordeal was nearly over.
My first coffin procession had been so difficult and thrilling that I almost wanted to give myself a thumbs-up!
But when Yuan Fei smashed the staff against the corpse’s belly, it rebounded!
An enormous force burst from within her, sending him staggering backward. Old Cao and I caught him.
“What happened?”
Faint cracks had appeared in his Ghost-Beating Staff. His whole hand trembled, and the web between thumb and forefinger was bright red.
“There’s… something inside her belly!”
What?
Old Cao stared in horror.
I grabbed a battery lamp and shone it at the corpse.
Through the rain, her abdomen repeatedly bulged and receded, as though something inside were writhing and thrusting against it.
I nearly dropped the lamp.
Yuan Fei drew a sharp breath. Terror covered his face as he stammered, “C-could this be…?”