Chapter 68

Chapter 68

At my question, Old Cao and Yuan Fei both paused, then looked thoughtful.

Yuan Fei rubbed his chin. “Now that you mention it, that does seem possible. But we have no direct evidence.”

Old Cao said, “Even if it really was him, what good would knowing that do? Apart from confirming that he’s very powerful and may be preparing to face an arcane tribulation, it tells us nothing else.”

He had a point.

We did not know the mysterious rogue occultist’s true identity. We had not even seen his face.

Nor did we know what was so unnatural about this three-hundred-year-old Killer Demon Tree, how he intended to use it, or what evil deed he hoped to accomplish.

Everything remained hidden behind a veil of fog.

The one certainty was that the mysterious rogue occultist knew the Killer Demon Tree’s secret. The fact that three pitiful victims had transformed into walking corpses after hanging themselves and automatically returned here at night was undoubtedly connected to him.

Perhaps he had come back specifically to collect the transformed corpses.

I suddenly laughed.

“If he really did alter the feng shui formation on that burial hill to cultivate the Golden-Thread Netherbloom, then counting tonight, we’ve ruined his plans twice, haven’t we?”

The hateful rogue occultist had clearly come to this enormous huangjue fig tonight for the three walking corpses hidden in its crown.

But perhaps bad luck had delayed him and allowed us to arrive first. By the time he reached the tree, we had already brought down all three corpses and Old Cao had bound them securely.

Humiliated and furious, and confident in his powerful arts, he had tried to kill us and seize the bodies.

Instead, he discovered that we were formidable opponents too. Fighting together, the three of us suppressed him until his only choice was to flee.

Yuan Fei sighed. “Whatever else happens, we’ve certainly made an enemy of him now. What rotten luck. I was doing quite well as a folk Taoist master, checking people’s feng shui and dealing with a minor evil here and there. How did I get dragged into this mess with you two?”

Old Cao chuckled and pointed his pipe at him.

“Curiosity killed the cat. Who told you to be so nosy?”

True enough.

When we crossed Lianghe Bridge to search the burial hill for clues about the Dry Immortal, Yuan Fei had invited himself along.

This time, he had come to Old Cao because he was curious about the missing morgue corpses and wanted information on the tricolored Golden-Thread Netherbloom.

Somehow or other, Yuan Fei had become entangled in the entire affair.

Now, whether we wanted to investigate or not no longer mattered. We had fought the rogue occultist and made a mortal enemy of him. We would have to stay vigilant in the future.

The thought made my head hurt.

Good grief! I was only a middle-school student–and one whose master was forcing him to rank first in his year and become a top student. Studying was already exhausting. Why did I have to get mixed up in something so troublesome too?

On further reflection, the entire affair had begun when I saved Wang Dachun and drove the possessing Dry Immortal out of him.

In that case, Wang Dachun was the real culprit.

I decided I would beat him up at school tomorrow. It would make me feel better.

For now, another problem stood before us.

What should we do with the three corpses?

All of them had transformed into walking corpses, so naturally we could not give them an ordinary burial. But if we handed them to the police, how could we possibly explain what had happened?

While I wrestled with the problem, Old Cao calmly took a drag from his pipe.

“Explain my ass. We’ve uncovered what happened. What the police think of it, and whether they believe us, has nothing to do with us.”
Yuan Fei nodded in agreement.

Both men had spent many years in this profession and encountered countless strange events, ghosts, and monsters. They had inevitably dealt with the police as well. Perhaps the sealed case files at the station already contained records of things ordinary people could never be allowed to learn.

Yuan Fei took out three talismans and cast a spell to drive every trace of corpse qi from the three walking corpses. With that, they became ordinary bodies once more.

Then, under cover of the quiet night, we carried the bodies to the entrance of the police station together.

After leaving them there, we turned and departed.

Those days were nothing like the present, with networked surveillance cameras everywhere.

In 1999, there were none at all.

In small towns, surveillance methods differed little from those of ancient times. There was hardly any advanced technology, so no one would discover us.

By the time we returned to the coffin shop, it was already one in the morning.

If sleep cultivation had not protected me, nights like this would have left me nodding off in class the next day. Forget being a top student–I would have been lucky not to come last in the entire class.

Old Cao and I both invited Yuan Fei to sleep with us.

He looked disgusted and declared that he never shared a bed with grown men.

Honestly, if he had not been dragged into this mess somewhat innocently, neither of us would have bothered with him.

And he had the nerve to act disgusted?

Old Cao quietly dropped a single remark. “Then pay for a room at an inn yourself. A folk Taoist master like you earns plenty of money.”

With that, he went back to sleep.

I chuckled. “Uncle Yuan, if you truly won’t share with me, then I’m leaving you to fend for yourself. I’m going upstairs, all right?”

He waved a hand. “Go on. Don’t worry about me.”

…

The next morning, I rose promptly at six.

When I went downstairs and saw no sign of Yuan Fei, I assumed he really had gone to an inn.

Then, as I passed a cluster of coffins, snores issued from the largest one.

At night, the sound might have made me jump out of my skin.

But beneath the rising sun, every demon and monster had to keep itself in check. Naturally, I had nothing to fear.

I leaned over the coffin and looked inside.

I could only stare, torn between amusement and disbelief.

Well, would you look at that!

Uncle Yuan Fei was sleeping soundly inside the coffin. He lay flat on his back, drool running from his mouth and soaking the collar of his hemp robe.

I stared in speechless amusement.

So he had slept in a coffin all along.

“Uncle Yuan is unbelievably stingy. He earns plenty of money and isn’t married. No wife, no children, yet he can’t bear to pay for an inn? He would rather sleep in a coffin. What an eccentric.”

Then again, he was a folk Taoist master and an esoteric practitioner who dealt with ghosts and supernatural things for a living. Naturally, he was not afraid of coffins. To him, this probably felt no different from sleeping in a bed.

I went to a nearby breakfast shop and bought several extra meat buns for Old Cao and Yuan Fei. Eating my own as I walked, I headed to school.

At the three-way intersection before Lianghe Bridge, Wang Dachun, Zeng Jin, and several of his lackeys were already waiting for me.

By now, I had grown accustomed to walking to school every morning surrounded by this group.

“Brother Wu, did you hear? Tomorrow we’re having a picnic on the bank of the Chuan River north of town! It’s going to be great. I heard it’s a tradition at Lianghe District Middle School. I’ve been looking forward to it ever since elementary school.”

Wang Dachun spoke with tremendous excitement.