Chapter 58

Chapter 58

Hua Jiunan was mature beyond his years. He smiled and shook hands with Professor Ma.

“You flatter me,” he said.

“I’m still just a student. I don’t deserve the title of master.”

“Please, just call me Jiunan.”

Hearing this, Chen Daji grew anxious. “Big Brother, why aren’t you a master?”

“We just captured an evil ghost a few days ago!”

As soon as Chen Daji finished speaking, his father, Chen Fu, gave him a sharp rap on the head.

“Don’t interrupt when adults are talking, you brat!”

Hua Jiunan looked up at Chen Fu and was secretly alarmed.

Chen Fu’s forehead had already turned dark, and his face was tinged with an eerie gray.

This was bad!

It was the look of someone overshadowed by misfortune, a sign of impending doom!

Sighing inwardly, Hua Jiunan knew he had to intervene, if only to ensure Chen Daji didn’t go from being a rich second-generation kid to an orphan.

Professor Ma gestured for everyone to sit down and said to Hua Jiunan with a chuckle, “Alright, then I’ll pull rank as an elder and call you Jiunan.”

“The reason I asked Chief Zhou to invite you here was to help us figure out what’s going on.”

“If… if the things buried down there are truly dangerous, I’d rather halt the archaeology than keep digging.”

The old professor sighed at this point. “Sigh, in the face of supernatural forces, we mortals are truly powerless.”

Unable to stay quiet, Chen Daji grinned and said, “Old Master Ma, I didn’t expect someone as learned as you to believe in ghosts.”

Professor Ma took it as a matter of course.

“I’ve spent my life in archaeology and seen many strange things, so naturally, I believe.”

“It’s like a cup of water evaporating into the air.”

“Just because we can’t see it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”

At this point, Professor Ma sighed again. “To be honest, I’m speaking the truth here.”

“If I hadn’t met a master who gave me some guidance ten years ago during the excavation of the Puyang Tomb, I wouldn’t be alive today.”

As they talked, the sky began to grow dark.

The hooting of an owl drifted in from outside.

There was a proverb in the north: ‘When the night owl enters the house, it never comes for nothing.’

The appearance of this bird was never a good omen!

Hua Jiunan suggested, “Old Ma, while it’s still light out, could you take me to the tomb to have a look?”

Hearing Hua Jiunan’s request, the open-minded provincial expert gave a bitter smile.

“I’m not afraid of looking foolish, but we’ve been digging for three days and haven’t even found the entrance to the burial chamber.”

“This tomb is truly bizarre…”

“Let’s go see the three comrades who had the accident yesterday first.”

Hearing that they were going to see dead bodies, the cowardly Chen Fu immediately began to back out.

“I… I won’t be of any help if I go, so I won’t get in the way.”

“How about this… I’ll go arrange dinner for everyone.”

“Chen Daji, you come with me. Don’t go making trouble for Jiunan and the others.”

Chen Daji shot his father a look of silent contempt and muttered, “I’ve got guts, unlike you. You’re too scared to even go out and pee by yourself at night…”

Because the incident had been so sudden and the appearance of the deceased so strange, the three bodies were being kept in a temporary work shed.

Since the ground was covered in ice and snow and the temperature was extremely low, there was no fear of the bodies decomposing.

Hua Jiunan wasn’t sure if it was an illusion, but when he stepped into the shed, it felt even colder than it did outside.

It was a specific kind of yin chill.

A strange scent lingered in the air.

When the white sheets were pulled back, the bodies looked exactly as Chief Zhou had described.

Each person was kneeling on the ground with their hands raised high, as if they were worshiping something.

Their faces were masks of terror, their mouths hanging wide open.

Chen Daji was startled and stammered, “Uncle… Uncle Zhou, they’re already dead. Why didn’t you put them in a more comfortable position?”

Chief Zhou explained, “The comrades from the branch office tried to lay them flat, but they couldn’t.”

“These bodies are as stiff as if they’d been filled with cement.”

Hua Jiunan said nothing, observing the three corpses closely.

Chief Zhou followed behind him, recounting the results of the police examination.

“Their clothes are intact, there are no injuries on their bodies, and there were no signs of a struggle at the scene.”

“It’s as if they just… died inexplicably.”

Before Chief Zhou could finish, Hua Jiunan suddenly recalled an entry in the Baopuzi Inner Chapters, Subtle Meanings Chapter Six. He spoke up,

“Uncle Zhou, could you please check the mouths of the deceased? See if there’s a hole in the roof of their mouths!”

Chief Zhou was taken aback, but he immediately put on white gloves and reached into a corpse’s mouth to feel around.

“Jiunan, you’re right! There really is a hole!”

“It’s thicker than a finger!”

Chen Daji asked anxiously, “Big Brother, do you know what kind of thing killed them?”

Hua Jiunan shook his head slightly.

“It’s hard to say yet. I need to see the inside of the ancient tomb to be sure!”