He should have grown up to be an honest, simple farmer, yet he had died a violent death.
Little Yi Village was eerily quiet. It was as if the birds had vanished without a trace. Yu Xiaoxue and I sat in the graveyard for a long while before finally discussing and deciding to bury Zhang Yidan.
Besides, if we reported something this bizarre to the police, no one would believe us. Following procedure, they would have the forensic doctors dissect him, and his corpse would be subjected to endless torment.
Dust to dust, earth to earth. Zhang Yidan had suffered enough. It was time to cover him in a shroud of yellow earth and send him to his grave.
I picked up a discarded hoe abandoned beside a grave and began digging Zhang Yidan's grave. According to the customs of ancient times, young men who died before the age of thirty did not get coffins. They were casually wrapped in a straw mat and hastily buried under cover of night. Before the earth was piled over them, a stone had to be placed on the corpse to prevent the victim's resentful soul from emerging to cause trouble and harm others.
But now, I had no intention of placing a stone there, either, because Zhang Yidan no longer had a soul. After Grandma had pierced his Soul-Sealing Talisman with scissors, his newly formed soul had long since been shattered.
Besides, Little Yi Village's feng shui had already been broken. Ghost messengers could not enter. Even if they knew Zhang Yidan had died, they had no way to come and bind his soul. Once he missed the appointed time to cross the Bridge of Helplessness, he would become a lone, wandering ghost.
"Who are you?! Who told you to bury someone? Put