Chapter 86

Chapter 86

Li Miao had a point.

Old Cao was experienced and powerful, but he was a coffin bearer. What he understood best were things that happened on land.

When it came to dealing with sinister things in the water, they mainly had to rely on a corpse retriever.

Old Cao and I were only there to assist him.

Now that we had decided to investigate the river, we prepared to leave the cellar.

“Big Brother, are you leaving? When are my mommy and daddy coming to see me?”

The pitiful child corpse, Xiao Sheng, stared up at me as it asked.

Its corpse-spotted face was frightening now, yet I still felt sorry for it.

After all, it had not actually done anything wrong. It had merely slipped out during its afternoon nap to play by the river, only to accidentally drown.

Of course, pity was one thing and caution another.

No matter how pitiful the child corpse was, it had become a corpse-fiend. We certainly could not let it out, nor could we allow Xiao Mao and his wife to visit it for the time being.

Probably because I had fed it earlier, it seemed closest to me now.

So I answered its question as calmly and gently as I could.

“Don’t worry, little buddy. Once your mommy and daddy have rested, they’ll come see you. We have something we need to take care of too. Be good and wait here for us, all right? Think about it–you slipped out during your nap before, and that made your parents very angry. You don’t want to upset them again, do you?”

Mm-hmm!

The child corpse nodded vigorously, looking as obedient as could be.

Old Cao and I exchanged a glance and stepped forward together.

Since Li Miao was going underwater to investigate, he needed his black-dog-hair rope back. It was one of the tools of his trade.

Once we untied it from Xiao Sheng’s waist, though, we naturally needed another way to restrain the corpse. What if it turned vicious and escaped to hurt someone while we were at the river?

Again, pity was one thing; we still had to take every necessary precaution.

In the language of the later internet era, there was no way I was going to be a self-righteous fool.

“Xiao Wu, you apply the Corpse-Suppressing Talismans. I’ll lay down the Ground-Binding Coins. Then we’ll take off the black-dog-hair rope and return it to Little Li.”

“All right!”

Old Cao and I had already developed a certain rapport.

Of all the arts I had learned from Master, my two strongest were feng shui and talisman arts.

As a funerary-paper artisan, Old Cao was also skilled in casting spells with paper money.

The so-called Ground-Binding Coins were a paper-money art that trapped ghosts and corpse-fiends in place so they could not leave.

Combined with my Corpse-Suppressing Talismans, they should work no worse than the black-dog-hair rope.

“Big Brother, what are you and Grandpa going to do?”

The child corpse hugged its knees and shrank back, looking timid.

I smiled gently. “Don’t be afraid, little buddy. Just trust that I won’t hurt you…”

Before I even finished speaking, I struck.

This time, I held three Corpse-Suppressing Talismans between the fingers of my right hand and slapped them straight onto its back.

Old Cao flicked his wrist. Several Ground-Binding Coins burned to ash, which drifted down of its own accord and formed a circle that enclosed the child corpse perfectly.

Then he reached out, untied the black-dog-hair rope from the child corpse’s waist, and tossed it behind him.

Li Miao, standing nearby, caught it.

“Thanks, Coffin-Bearer Cao.”

With our preparations complete, the three of us left the cellar and returned aboveground.

The Xiao family, who had been waiting anxiously in the courtyard, immediately crowded around us.

Xiao Mao stood at the front and asked in alarm, “Mr. Li, Coffin-Bearer Cao, Young Mr. Wu… How is my son? Is he alive, or…?”

Old Cao sighed. “Why ask me something like that? Little Brother Li may be a corpse retriever by trade, but he certainly knows whether someone is alive or dead. Besides, think about it with an ordinary person’s common sense. Could anyone still be alive after soaking underwater for more than ten days?”

Xiao Mao and his wife looked crestfallen, at a loss for words.

Old Cao had probably witnessed so much life and death that he had grown detached, and his words were not especially tactful. I tried to console the couple.

“Mr. Xiao, your son really is dead. In our terminology, what he is now is a living corpse–a corpse that is still alive!”

Uh… That did not sound very comforting, did it?

Xiao Mao and his wife looked even more distraught, while the rest of the family appeared more terrified than before.

I hurriedly continued, “Fortunately, Xiao Sheng’s souls are relatively intact. If we can send him onward, he should have no trouble being reborn into a better family in his next life.”

I did not know whether reincarnation truly existed, but Master and Old Cao both said it did, so for now I was willing to accept that it did.
And if a person was to be reincarnated, then naturally, the more complete their souls were, the better.

Xiao Sheng had died an accidental, untimely death, yet his three hun souls and seven po souls were remarkably intact and strong. That was exceedingly rare.

Xiao Mao took my hand and thanked me repeatedly. “Thank you, Young Mr. Wu. Then… can you help my son pass on in peace and be reincarnated? The state he’s in now…”

Old Cao shook his head beside us. “Not yet. For reasons we don’t understand, your son’s three hun souls and seven po souls are bound fast to his dead, transformed body. If we force them out, we’re afraid it could cause an unpredictable change.”

Xiao Mao groaned in despair. “Then what can we do?”

Li Miao took over. “That’s why Coffin-Bearer Cao, Young Mr. Wu, and I intend to return to the river bend outside the village. We’ll inspect everything from where your son fell in to where I retrieved him and see if something strange in the river caused his abnormal condition.”

I doubted Xiao Mao understood much of what we were telling him.

He was like a drowning man who had finally caught hold of a bamboo pole. Of course he would cling to it with all his might.

He nodded vigorously and thanked us over and over. “Then I’ll have to trouble the three of you. If you can settle my son’s situation, we’ll reward you handsomely. Please…”

Seeing him like this reminded me that a parent’s love truly knew no bounds.

Even after their child had died, the parents still worried themselves sick over him.

We repeatedly warned the Xiao family that no matter what sounds came from the cellar–even if the child corpse cried to be let out or begged to see its parents–they absolutely must not give in.

The black dog and rooster must not be taken away, and neither could the cleaver on the cellar door.

Only then did we leave the Xiao home and walk toward the river bend outside the village.

It was already ten at night, the Hour of the Boar.

Also called the hour when people settled in, this was the time of deepest night, when all activity ceased and people lay down to sleep.

The bustling parts of Lianghe Town might still have barbecue stalls or open-air eateries serving late-night food, but the nearby villages had long since fallen silent and empty.

As we walked along a path between the fields, the night wind blew in our faces, carrying the increasingly strong smell of river water. In the distance, the surface of the Chuan River flowed slowly beneath the moonlight, glittering with reflected light.

To be honest, I had rarely seen the Chuan River so calm and slow.

The twisted bend made this a gathering place for floating corpses carried down from upstream. At night, the yin energy was exceptionally dense.

Had Xiao Sheng not come here at noon, when the sun was at its fiercest and no evil thing would dare show itself, I might have suspected that a corpse in the water had dragged the poor child under.

Li Miao pointed to a narrow path that extended seven or eight meters into the river and said Xiao Sheng had probably fallen in there by accident.

His little corpse-retrieval boat was moored beside it now.

Old Cao said, “Let’s take a look. Little Brother Li, can your boat carry all three of us?”

Li Miao froze, as if the problem had only just occurred to him.

He answered helplessly, “I didn’t even consider it earlier. I’m a corpse retriever and you’re a coffin bearer. Both of us have extremely hard, heavy bazi that already weigh down a boat. Add a prodigy like Xiao Wu, and I’m afraid it won’t move at all.”

Uh…

I quietly asked, “Brother Li, are you worried that my bazi is heavy too?”

Missing my meaning, Li Miao asked in return, “Isn’t it?”

I shrugged. “Actually, my bazi weighs only two liang and one qian–the lightest theoretically possible. I have a Featherborn fate.”

It was not much of a secret. At least, anyone who knew me reasonably well was aware of it.

“What?!”

Li Miao gaped at me in astonishment.

“Young Brother Wu, you’re… Featherborn? Then how did you…?”

I could guess what he meant.

He probably wanted to ask how I had managed to grow up alive and well–and why I had dared to enter the esoteric world of my own accord.

I did not much care.

Life tribulations had sought me out one after another ever since I was born.

I was not afraid. I would meet difficulties head-on and deal with each threat as it came.

Besides, I had taken such a formidable master and had already acquired esoteric arts of no small power myself. I could handle many things now.

I was even less worried about the future.

Smiling, I said, “So you don’t need to worry that the three of our bazi combined will be so hard and heavy that your little wooden boat can’t move, Brother Li.”

Li Miao gave me a helpless look. “I suppose not.”

At the boat, Old Cao and I carefully inspected the area around the path that extended into the river, but found nothing abnormal.

That meant the strange thing responsible for Xiao Sheng’s transformation was probably in the river itself.

I thought aloud, “If there was nothing strange where Xiao Sheng fell in, then it’s also unlikely that he encountered something while drifting downstream. That makes the place where his corpse finally settled the greatest suspect.”
In other words… underwater along the east bank, beyond the final turn in the river bend!

“Then let’s go take a look at the east bank.”

Li Miao picked up his bamboo pole and pushed the little wooden boat away from shore, steering toward the middle of the river.

Traveling by boat late at night, we naturally saw all kinds of sinister things.

Under the moonlight, numerous floating objects were visible on the river.

They looked like lengths of deathly pale timber drifting across the surface. “River-logs” was certainly an apt name.

In the distance, I saw one with its mouth stretched wide open. Moonlight shone directly into its mouth, making it look as though it were drinking in the moonlight.

Li Miao glanced at it. His expression immediately grew tense, and he spoke to us in a low voice.

“That floating corpse has probably been there for at least a dozen years. It must be an old preserved corpse. We absolutely can’t startle or provoke it. The three of us together wouldn’t be afraid of it, but there’s no need to invite trouble and lose time for our real business.”

Old Cao watched the aged corpse warily and nodded. “That river-log can absorb the essence of moonlight on its own. It’s at least a fairly powerful vicious corpse–probably close to the level of Miss Duan, whose coffin we carried before.”

Li Miao carefully adjusted the bow’s direction.

He would rather make a longer detour and spend more time on the water than startle or disturb the old floating corpse as it absorbed the moonlight.

Perhaps it was just my imagination.

As the bow turned and we steered around it, I thought I saw the corpse twist its neck and glance our way, a mocking look in its eyes.

But when I looked closely, there seemed to be nothing unusual.

It still floated faceup, mouth gaping wide as it bathed in the moonlight.

Before long, we reached the east bank beyond the river’s final bend.

Li Miao pointed to a patch of water ahead. “That’s where I retrieved the child corpse last night. The entire process went so smoothly that I lured it straight up with clothes and toys it used in life and soil from its home’s threshold. I never went into the water.”

Old Cao took a puff of his dry pipe and blew out a smoke ring.

“I’m afraid we’ll have to trouble you to go underwater and take a look tonight, Little Brother Li.”

That was right.

Li Miao nodded. “We came here to find whatever influenced Xiao Sheng underwater, strengthening his three hun souls and seven po souls to an abnormal degree and binding them tightly to his corpse, turning him into that uncanny living corpse. I’ll have to ask the two of you to protect me, though.”

“No problem!”

Old Cao and I naturally followed his instructions.

Li Miao loosened one end of the black-dog-hair rope already wound around his waist, leaving only its end tied to him. He uncoiled the rest and piled it inside the boat.

The rope had not seemed very long while wrapped around his waist, but once unfurled, it appeared to measure well over ten meters. That was truly strange.

It defied common sense.

How could more than ten meters of such thick hemp rope be wound around his waist without restricting his movement or even being noticeable?

But as esoteric practitioners, we cultivated arts that ordinary people would already consider impossible.

Besides, Old Cao’s phoenix rope for securing coffins was probably much the same.

Both had been used for many years and were made of unusual materials. They already counted as ritual implements, so it was not too outrageous for them to possess properties beyond common sense.

Li Miao strapped a waterproof battery lamp to his head like a miner’s headlamp. Then he drew a dagger from his pocket, clenched it between his teeth, and told us he would dive to the riverbed to investigate.

Old Cao and I were to hold the black-dog-hair rope tied around his waist.

If the rope moved rhythmically three times in a row, that was his signal that everything was normal. We were simply to pull hard and haul him up.

If the rope thrashed chaotically, or if it did not move for more than ten minutes, that meant he was in trouble.

Then Old Cao and I would have to find a way to rescue him.

“All right, I’m going in. I’m trusting the two of you to keep me safe.”

With that, Li Miao leaped from the boat and plunged headfirst into the cold nighttime river.

Splash!

Water sprayed into the air, and rings of ripples spread outward.

Old Cao and I gripped our end of the black-dog-hair rope with all our strength and stared unblinkingly at the surface.

We waited in silence.