Chapter 75
Chapter 75
Silence.
Utter silence.
The dripping female corpse stood motionless a short distance before me, neither moving nor speaking.
What was happening?
Could the woman have been mute while alive?
A corpse-fiend could no longer speak normally because its body had decayed and its vocal cords had changed.
But we were inside a dream.
This was a mental exchange. By all reason, even a corpse-fiend should be able to converse in a dream.
Since she did not speak, I dared not ask anything more.
Nor did I dare move. I could only stand obediently where I was.
After a long while, the corpse slowly raised her head.
Her waist-length black hair whipped wildly in the wind, revealing a deathly pale face and white eyes without pupils.
Her stare made my skin crawl, and I instinctively stepped backward.
Then I immediately felt that I should not act like a coward.
She had given me a precious corpse core, but this was a nether covenant. I had to perform a task for her in return. Like any purchase, it was a fair transaction.
I straightened my back and asked again, “What exactly do you want me to do?”
The female corpse moved.
She stepped from the shallows onto the pebble-covered riverbank and walked in a particular direction.
After going some distance, she looked back and saw that I had not moved.
Understanding dawned.
She wanted me to follow her.
“Oh! Sorry, sorry.”
I hurried several steps and fell in behind the female corpse.
She moved extremely fast. Although she appeared to walk at an ordinary pace, I had to maintain a steady jog to keep up.
The farther we went, the stranger our route seemed.
“Huh? Isn’t this the road back to town? Does she want to return to Lianghe Town?”
My scalp tingled.
This might be a dream, but did it also mean she could roam Lianghe Town freely in the waking world?
The thought of a powerful corpse-fiend at the level of a vicious corpse wandering through town in the dead of night made my hands and feet turn cold.
Then again, perhaps that was not the case.
I remembered encountering the female floating corpse in the pool with Yao Nan on Friday afternoon. Some mysterious force had seemed to drag her away and pull her back into the Chuan River.
It appeared that an even stranger power restricted her and prevented her from moving freely.
While my imagination ran wild, the female corpse stopped.
Distracted by my thoughts and the effort of jogging, I ran straight into her back with a thump.
It felt like hitting a cold, solid wall.
“Oh! I’m sorry.”
I quickly apologized.
The corpse paid me no attention and remained motionless.
I looked more closely.
Only then did I realize that we stood before the home of a family that did not appear wealthy.
This was where the outskirts met the town proper. Across a narrow river lay the town’s River Street, while fields stretched behind us. Scattered homes stood at short distances from one another.
Put simply, it was the boundary between town and countryside.
I examined the rather dilapidated wooden door. Mist seemed to billow inside.
Then I looked at the female corpse standing outside and asked cautiously, “Sis, do you want me to go in and look?”
She did not speak, but nodded.
Her meaning was unmistakable.
“All right. Wait outside, Sis. I’ll take a look.”
I had no idea what the female corpse intended, but I obediently followed her wishes.
The instant I crossed the threshold, sorrowful weeping sounded from the main room.
I took a few steps forward.
The mist dispersed, revealing an elderly man and woman, the source of the crying.
The old woman sat collapsed on the floor, feeding spirit money into a brazier before her.
She sobbed as she burned the offerings. Her eyes were already swollen from crying.
The old man stood beside her, sighing repeatedly, his eyes bloodshot.
The sight filled me with sympathy. Their grief was heartbreaking.
I raised my head.
A black-and-white memorial portrait hung in the center of the main room.
The instant I saw it, shock struck me.
The woman in the picture appeared about thirty. She was not exceptionally beautiful, but neither was she unattractive.
Her features were regular. At the very least, she was prettier than average and would have stood out somewhat among ordinary people.
What shocked me was that the woman in the portrait looked exactly like the female corpse outside.
I was not stupid. The scene instantly made me understand.
The female corpse had brought me to the home where she lived before her death.
In that case…
Could this pitiful elderly couple be her parents?
Surely she didn’t expect me to support her parents for the rest of their lives. I couldn’t possibly do that. I was a middle-school student who could not even support himself. How could I care for them?
Panic stirred in me.
If that truly was her request, I had every reason to worry.
Still, I decided to observe a little longer. Surely the female corpse would not be so unreasonable.
I moved closer and stood not far from the brazier, watching the elderly couple inside the dream.
I wanted to hear what they were murmuring.
The old woman wailed as she burned the spirit money.
“My poor daughter! Why did you have to leave us so young? What a bitter life you had!”
“Daughter, you left all alone. How are your father and I supposed to go on living?”
“My daughter, my poor, precious daughter. How did you really die? I don’t believe you would throw yourself into the river when everything was going well.”
The old man beside her sighed and looked at his wife.
“The police investigated. They found only Minmin’s footprints and traces around the place where it happened. There was no sign of anyone else.”
“But… oh, my daughter…”
The old woman covered her face and continued weeping.
I frowned slightly.
The elderly couple appeared to question the cause of their daughter’s death. In other words, they suspected the female corpse had not died naturally.
Could someone have murdered her?
I looked back toward the entrance.
But hazy fog now coiled everywhere, completely obscuring the scene outside.
Still, something did not make sense.
If someone had murdered the woman, her unresolved resentment could have made her corpse transform in the water and advance to the highest level of vicious corpse. Surely she would seek revenge.
Why would she need me?
My mind raced.
If someone truly had killed her, there seemed to be two possibilities.
First, her murderer was no ordinary person but an esoteric practitioner of great power. Even after becoming a vicious corpse, she could not avenge herself.
Second, she did not know who had killed her or how the murder was committed, and therefore needed my help.
Uh…
Either possibility made the task sound extremely difficult.
Never mind. I would stop complaining and do the work properly. Her corpse core had truly brought me tremendous benefits.
I walked around the mist-filled main room, searching for a way into the other rooms.
Ideally, I wanted to inspect the bedroom she had used while alive. That would help me understand her circumstances and search for clues.
Unfortunately, an invisible barrier prevented me from entering.
Meanwhile, the elderly couple in the main room behaved like a loop of film, repeating the same few sentences over and over.
Realization struck me.
“This dream must be assembled from fragments of the female corpse’s memories. Master said that after becoming a corpse-fiend, one’s memories may shatter into disconnected pieces instead of remaining whole.”
The thought made me sympathize with her.
She had become a vicious corpse and no longer possessed complete memories of her life, yet she still worried about her parents.
People always spoke of the boundless love parents held for their children, but children’s love and attachment to their parents could be just as strong.
With that thought, I turned and left the main room.
Passing through the fog, I returned to the entrance of the old bungalow.
The female corpse remained exactly where I had left her.
“Sis, I saw everything inside. You’re worried about your parents, aren’t you?”
The corpse remained silent.
But I somehow sensed sorrow spreading through the air around us.
“Do you want me to visit your parents for you?”
The instant I finished speaking, something fell from the female corpse’s hair with a soft thump.
Instinctively, I bent down and picked it up.
It was…