The sudden, unexpected events caused Xiao Bei’s eyebrows to jump up.
When Xiao Bei and Uncle Qia hurried over, they found that the situation had become worse than they had thought. The corpse in the morning had come back to life! But, why did this scene seem somewhat familiar?
They saw that a person was being pressed down by the “corpse”. Both of that person’s hands were pushing against the corpse’s shoulder as he struggled to push the corpse away. Those people that surrounded him dared not act rashly and blindly. They found a strong young man from who knew where to help them. The young man used a bamboo pole to beat the corpse’s back.
Who knew where the courage came from, but Xiao Bei mustered all of it and strode forward. He firmly grasped onto the corpse’s back. With a fierce pull, he separated the corpse from the person.
Xiao Bei thought that an animal slipped into the room and had come in contact with the dead. Out of anger, he believed that it created the ‘dead reviving’ phenomenon, but he found that it was not the case.
In this village, they had a custom to place the deceased in the house he once used to live in when he was alive. On the second day, the deceased relatives would pray for the deceased’s spirit to quickly obtain relief and leave before the corpse was buried. The deceased clothes were certainly also changed to a new one. After Xiao Bei pulled, he ripped out a foot long big hole from the clothes. The deceased’s entire chest was exposed.
But what caused Xiao Bei to be shocked was that he finally remembered why this scene seemed like a deja-vu.
This was due to him having touched the nape of the deceased.
Xiao Bei recalled the diary he had read when he was below the altar in Li Jiang’s tomb. A dead body ought to be ice-cold and should not have any warmth. However, just now when he came in contact with the deceased, what he felt was a tepid temperature that was transmitted to his skin!
“For the dead to once again awaken was something nobody could have imagined. I once saw a Zong Zi but when the corpse’s body changed, it wasn’t like this. The leader’s body was normal, except for his face showing him undergoing livor mortis which confirmed his death. However, his body had warmth!”
This was a short passage Xiao Bei had seen in the diary. However, he was now personally experiencing this bizarre thing! He had now completely confirmed that the thing that was written in the diary was true!
This, sure enough, was related to that old tomb which he was unable to escape from!
The crowd cried out in alarm.
Xiao Bei turned his head to look. He noticed the reason for the crowd to cry out in alarm was due to the bare chest of the deceased which he had ripped apart. On the chest area, there was a face with a distorted expression and it was as big as half a wash basin!
The deceased was baring his fangs and brandishing his claws as he randomly kicked on the ground, causing clouds of dust to fly in the air. The face on the chest was visible and distinct. It seemed to be issuing out waves of moaning from the deceased’s chest.
This was really a strange scene!
This corpse was surprisingly strong. Its kicks against the bamboo wall created loud banging sounds. Overcome by panic, Xiao Bei evaded the young man’s bamboo pole which ruthlessly pierced through the center of the distorted face. The astounding farce had finally quelled.
After dissolving the crowd, Xiao Bei patted his chest. He cautiously looked at the corpse that no longer issued a single sound. He feared for an unforeseeable event to occur once again. But fortunately, his worries were for nothing as nothing happened or changed.
Uncle Qia went up to the corpse. Under careful inspection, he noticed that the face on the chest of the deceased was only similar to a human face and was not a genuine human face. Regarding how this thing appeared on the deceased body, nobody knew; but in the morning, nobody discovered it.
Uncle Qia picked up a home-use small knife from a table and “Zī la”, he cut open the dead’s chest to only find the inside of the body to be hollow and all his internal organs had long disappeared. Inside, it was filled with rhizome of a plant. The appearance of the lush green plant was very sudden and unexpected.
An ordinary person would have already started to scream in panic. However, as Xiao Bei had experienced a series of bizarre things, his mental state wasn’t weak anymore. He had already seen many sorts of weird things so he wasn’t that frightened. Xiao Bei had never met this kind of scenario before, especially the shock he previously received from the corpse, so he had yet to recover from it.
Uncle Qia carefully put on a pair of gloves and cut apart the plant’s rhizome that was tangled up. He found out that it looked similar to the poisonous plant they had found in the deceased’s mouth in the morning!
Also, at that so-called face on the chest, a flower like thing was growing there and it seemed to be bearing fruit.
Uncle Qia had practiced medicine for many years. Although he could keep his calm when encountering strange phenomenon, his curiosity was still inevitably piqued.
Uncle Qia had Xiao Bei use a silver needle to prick the plant to test and verify whether it was the same as the plant they had found in the deceased’s mouth in the morning. After accepting the task, Xiao Bei noticed that the plant was very tough and tenacious; it took him a lot of effort to pull out a part of the plant. The instant the silver needle pricked the plant, the final conclusion was determined.
The plant in the dead’s body was the same as the one in his mouth.
“What’s your opinion of this?” Uncle Qia knocked the pipe bowl onto the surface of the table.
“Very strange. I’m sorry but I think that this may be related to me. I still believe that it would be better if I quickly leave as soon as possible.” After saying, Xiao Bei had a gloomy expression on his face as he got up and pushed open the door of the room.
Just when Xiao Bei was about to leave, loud shouts were heard from outside.
“Help, Help! Another person had died!”
Xiao Bei immediately rushed out. What he saw beside the well was a woman lying against a wooden bucket and a child, around six to seven years old, was whimpering while shaking her.
“Sister, sister, what’s wrong. Quickly get up ah.”
A villager could not bear to continue watching, went up to carry the child and brought the now struggling child away from the scene. However, no one dared to go near the body for fear the corpse would suddenly move like what had happened before.
Soon after, Uncle Qia hurried over and without saying anything, he went forward and cut open the dead’s chest. From within the dead’s body, he found a green grass seed that was as big as a soybean.
Although dissecting corpse was considered to be disrespectful to the dead, now was a special case. Also, Uncle Qia was the only doctor in the village. He had virtue and prestige so nobody made things difficult for him.
The seed had already sprouted and it was the same as the plant they found in the previously deceased body.
Xiao Bei looked at the wooden bucket and went into deep thought. He suddenly thought of something.
Xiao Bei approached the well and threw the wooden bucket that was tied to a hemp twisted rope into the well. Following that, he pulled out the bucket and using a flashlight, he shone within the bucket. Xiao Bei could vaguely see a few black spots in the bucket.
After touching to feel what it was, Xiao Bei frowned.
However, no one could recognize what was the use of these things and where they came from, even more so their names.
The dissected body gradually lost temperature and there was now completely no possibility for it to awaken. The next day, the two corpses were hastily buried. Though that night’s phenomenon was suppressed by the village head, it could not stop the panic from spreading among the villagers due to the event’s aftermath.
“I think I must really go back there. If I continue to stay here, I will only implicate the innocent and cause everyone here to be in danger.” Xiao Bei was looking at the distant scenery while murmuring as he squatted on heels in Uncle Qia’s courtyard.
Uncle Qia, just as before, was sitting on the doorstep. “Bāda bāda”. Smoking the pipe had become an indispensable habit in his life.
“Also good.” This time round, Uncle Qia did not stop Xiao Bei. It’s just that his reply sounded faint and melancholy.
Xiao Bei sighed. From behind him came the dá dá sound from Uncle Qia knocking with the pipe bowl.
“Have you ever wondered about some of the problems?” Uncle Qia suddenly opened his mouth and spoke to Xiao Bei.
“What problems?” Xiao Bei puzzledly asked.
“Do you believe that all these incidents were related to the curse? Assuming everything to be due to fate?” After listening to these words, Xiao Bei became gloomy and helplessly nodded his head. This was indeed what he was thinking of.
“You are wrong. I had thought about this for a very long time to help you smoothen your way of thinking. For instance, yesterday’s incident. Guess what I have discovered?”
