"Ha-ha, protect them? Can you afford to?" Old Wang's eyes bulged wide as he pointed at me with a huge finger, his cheeks trembling with fury. Rainwater streamed down him, seemingly steaming into wisps of smoke. He looked terrifying.
Around us came the sound of the punks striking the ground with iron rods. Smack, smack-smack—the rhythm was like war drums, making people tremble.
Han Shanshan, Huo Dadong, and the other police officers all changed expression at the sight. Before they knew it, they had surrounded me in the middle.
These days, people in the underworld commonly kept guns illegally. The detectives were all afraid someone might suddenly fire a hidden shot.
"Brother Wang, why get angry with a junior? He didn't come here specifically to pick a fight with you. He just wants to see Ah Heng's condition. If you block him here, there'll be no way forward. You wouldn't want that either, would you, old brother?" Lin Feiyu stepped forward to smooth things over, indirectly positioning himself in front of Old Wang.
"Good, interesting. Some kid who suddenly appeared out of nowhere actually dares to challenge me, Wang Cheng. I'd like to see whether, after entering this door, he'll still be able to leave!" Old Wang sneered, glaring fixedly at me.
The moment Old Wang finished speaking, the surroundings fell terrifyingly silent. The punks stopped banging their rods, and we could already hear the patter of rain all around us.
I glanced at the morgue door, unsure what the old man meant. Could it be that things inside were already extremely dangerous?
"You're my little apple, no matter how much I love you, it's never enough..." Just as the scene had grown utterly quiet, my phone rang.
That ringtone nearly made everyone around us fall over dead.
Embarrassed, I picked up the knockoff phone I had forgotten to set to silent mode, cursing Yu Xiaoxue inwardly for messing with my ringtone. Next time, I wouldn't let her play with my phone again.
I hurriedly glanced at the screen and was about to hang up, but saw that the caller ID displayed only the character "Zhou."
It was my mother. I looked at everyone nearby who was watching me, then answered with a face as expressionless as dead water. "Mom, it's me. I'm busy right now. What's up?"
"The police called and said Little Yi Village had suffered a disaster and was extremely dangerous. I asked them about your grandmother, but they said they still haven't found her and are conducting a search and rescue. Just do your work properly for now. Don't think about going to see your grandmother, and whatever you do, don't go back to the village. Be good..." My mother spoke from the other end, sounding somewhat distraught.
"Mom, I know Little Yi Village is finished. You don't have to make up excuses to deceive me. I saw many things with my own eyes. I only came out of there the day before yesterday, and I'm in the county now." I had no intention of hiding it. If I did, given my mother's stubborn personality, she would probably run to Little Yi Village herself.
"What? You're in the county?"
My mother's voice froze, as if she were digesting the meaning of my words. But I didn't plan to explain too much. Telling her about such things would only give her another layer of worry, so I said, "Mom, don't worry too much. I still have something to deal with. Let's leave it at that for now. I'll call you later."
After saying that, I hung up. When I raised my head, Old Wang and Lin Feiyu, who were standing close to me, both wore solemn expressions.
"You came out of Little Yi Village? Who is Zhou Xian to you?" The redness in Old Wang's face seemed to have been doused with ice water and cooled instantly.
"My grandmother." I had no intention of hiding that either. Anyone with an interest could find out with a little investigation.
Lin Feiyu drew in a sharp breath. The way he looked at me immediately changed, his expression saying that everything suddenly made sense. "Tsk, tsk. Brother Wang, did you hear that? He's Senior Zhou's grandson."
Old Wang pressed his lips together. After a long while, he merely snorted. "Hmph. So what if they're related? Who doesn't have relatives? If this matter can't be handled, even her own son coming wouldn't help! Go in!"
Seeing that Wang Cheng had let us enter, I didn't pick up the thread of conversation. I simply followed Lin Feiyu to the morgue door.
Han Shanshan didn't understand what was going on, but Huo Dadong knew a little about Little Yi Village.
Old Wang and his son Wang Dong followed behind as well. The two of them wanted to witness the autopsy with their own eyes.
I had never seen an autopsy, but merely thinking about corpses made my back turn cold. Let alone performing an autopsy—without a decent amount of courage, no one would even dare look.
Looking at the tightly shut morgue, Huo Dadong was the captain, but he didn't dare open the door. His hands trembled with tension as he turned his gaze toward Old Lin.
Rainy days were days when ghosts appeared, when it was easy to see filthy things. That was common knowledge. As the drizzle gradually grew heavy, everyone's mood became deeply oppressed.
Lin Feiyu knew this was asking a lot of Huo Dadong, so he took the initiative and stood at the door.
It was an ordinary aluminum alloy door, but it was covered in dog teeth. Splashed with dog blood, it looked rather ferocious.
Lin Feiyu opened the safe, took out a bundle of black incense from the red cloth, lit it, muttered a few words, and stuck it outside. Then, without turning his head, he said, "Those unrelated to this, turn around."
"Turn around, all of you. Did you hear me?" Wang Dong saw his father nod and turned around to relay the order.
No one dared look anymore. The female relatives all had deathly pale faces. They had seen people burn red incense and yellow incense, but they had never seen black incense burned before.
What sort of matters required black incense? It was specially used to invite fierce ghosts to eat. Ordinary incense had no effect on them—they wouldn't give the living any face.
Once lit, the black incense gave off a deep, heavy fragrance. It was high-quality incense.
I thought more highly of Old Lin. It seemed the old man worked with dissecting corpses. To carry such a heavy aura of yin and still live until now, he clearly had some real skill. I had to learn a little from him. In the future, if I followed behind the old man, I might be able to get some black incense too. A little more expensive wouldn't matter.
Burning the black incense wasn't the end. Lin Feiyu took out another packet of white powder and scattered it evenly at the doorway.
Was this ash? If it was ash, then I understood—driving away evil and preventing corpse transformation. After all, everyone who entered would be in great danger and might pick up something filthy, so they scattered this stuff for protection.
But this ash was a little too white, with a gloomy, eerie quality that made my skin crawl. I wondered whether it really was ash, but Old Lin had no intention of showing off his skills, and I didn't feel it was appropriate to ask at a time like this.
After doing all that, Lin Feiyu opened the door. In an instant, a sinister wind seemed to break free, blowing away the ash Lin Feiyu had scattered with a whoosh!
Lin Feiyu's face turned deathly white, while the few sticks of black incense seemed to be made of paper and burned freakishly fast. If we hadn't seen the black incense burning slowly before opening the door, we might have thought Lin Feiyu had cut corners!
When I turned around, the two detectives behind us had already turned away at some point. They were close to the door and seemed to feel the yin energy blowing against the backs of their necks. Both began trembling.
Huo Dadong hadn't acted cowardly, but his face was so pale that it looked frightening.
"The air conditioner inside is really cold." As for Han Shanshan, she had once had a hole opened in her forehead. To her, this was like strolling around a shopping district, so there was no need to mention her.
Wang Dong stood rooted to the spot. He might have mixed with society, but there were some things he could never be bold about. Crossing the doorway in front of him was one of them. His feet felt as heavy as a thousand pounds.
"You opened the door but don't dare go in? Xiaolin, don't tell me you're thinking of backing out. I'm not afraid to tell you the truth: those fellows who helped Ah Dong carry Ah Heng yesterday are still lying in a psychiatric hospital." Wang Cheng spoke coldly.
"Is it really that frightening?" Han Shanshan said sarcastically, then strode through the doorway in one step. I couldn't stop her!
"Don't!"
Beyond the door was a corridor several meters long. Lin Feiyu had just wanted to stop her, but Han Shanshan had already gone in. I instinctively reached out to pull her back, but at that moment, my wife elder sister suddenly tugged at my clothes as well!
"Xijun!" Without saying another word, I called out in a low voice and immediately opened the lid of the Soul Urn!
Xijun moved incredibly fast, almost two or three times faster than we did. In an instant, she rushed in front of Han Shanshan!
"Ah!" A shriek came from inside. When Lin Feiyu and I rushed in, we saw Han Shanshan kneeling on the floor, her eyes fixed without moving on the iron bed in the middle of the morgue!
A middle-aged man whose head had been smashed open sat stiffly upright on the iron bed. His posture was straight and level, his hands hanging down, as if he were an elementary school student seriously listening to a lesson.
But his eyes were terrifyingly white, his blackened lips half open, as though he were welcoming us in from the doorway.
"Ah Heng!" Seeing his son's horrifying state, Wang Cheng's tears flowed freely. He looked as though he couldn't bear to look any longer.
"Brother..." Wang Dong was both shocked and frightened, his voice trembling. His brother had still been stiff and straight last night, but now he had undergone corpse transformation!
Xijun stood in front of Han Shanshan, baring her teeth, her black eyes filled with ferocity.
Han Shanshan cried in terror, tears streaming down her face as she could no longer speak. I pulled her up and immediately wanted to slap her. "People who court death will die! Do you understand now?"
"Wah..." She not only cried but was nearly scared witless. What reassured me was that she probably hadn't gone insane. If Xijun hadn't stopped the surging evil yin energy in time, we would have had to send her to a psychiatric hospital.
Xijun didn't go over and drag out the fierce ghost. She merely faced it in a standoff, which made me feel a trace of worry. It seemed the fierce ghost inside was so difficult to deal with that even Xijun found it troublesome.
At some point, Huo Dadong had drawn his pistol and was aiming at Wang Heng's head. But his hand was shaking so badly that he didn't look capable of hitting the target.
"Old Lin, what do you think we should do? Stay or leave?" I asked Lin Feiyu beside me.
Both Lin Feiyu and Old Wang had seen me release the fierce ghost, and they had also seen Xijun standing in front of me. However, Wang Heng's corpse transformation had drawn away most of their attention, leaving them no time to care about the fierce ghost I kept.
"There's no way around it. This ghost is powerful. Its resentment can be felt even in the surrounding area. When they carried him in last night, he was still sealed. Now he's completely broken through the sealing talisman. Xiaolin, I'm not exaggerating when I say that even if Brother Wang and I joined forces, we might not be able to drive it away! Even if one or two people died and we got it into the black coffin, we might not be able to carry it out." As Wang Cheng and Lin Feiyu spoke, their gazes began turning toward me.
I said nothing. Xijun couldn't swallow it, and I truly wasn't very skilled with these ghost-exorcising things. All I could do was frown.
The two old men, Wang Cheng and Lin Feiyu, had no solution. When they saw me frowning, they assumed I was thinking of a way to deal with it, so they simply waited for me to make the decision.
I was utterly speechless. Why are the two of you looking at me, a young man, at the critical moment? You can't solve it yourselves and still expect me to? Do you really think I'm my grandmother?
I had never seen a fierce ghost capable of confronting Xijun either. After a while, I saw that Wang Heng remained seated without making a move. With no idea what else to do, I suggested, "Old Lin... how about you burn a few more sticks of black incense? Invite it out so we can discuss things?"
But just as I finished speaking, the sound of chattering teeth came from beside me. I wondered who was still trembling at a time like this. When I turned my head, Wang Heng's closed mouth suddenly moved...