Calamity Suppression

"Ah!!!!"

Inside the Morgue Room, Xiao Ran looked up at the door in confusion. Maybe it was his imagination, but he thought he'd just heard Uncle Li's voice.

But when he listened closely, there was nothing. He shook his head and went back to work.

"Bzzzz..."

The grating noise was so sharp it sounded like someone sawing wood.

On a plate nearby lay a bloodstained axe and several pieces of flesh.

Only when he tossed a broken rib onto a tray did Xiao Ran finally let out a sigh of relief.

"Phew!! This is even more troublesome than I thought."

He dropped the hand saw and exhaled slowly. At least he'd finished cleaning up the broken ribs.

He checked the time.

There was still plenty of time. Xiao Ran had already dealt with the bone fragments and the intestines that had spilled out.

All that remained was the final suturing.

After finishing those menial tasks, Xiao Ran began carefully examining the corpse in front of him. The man wasn't very old, and his muscles were sharply defined. He clearly worked out regularly, so Uncle Li's claim that he was a fitness instructor did seem plausible.

But only just.

Xiao Ran waved his hand and took the Calamity Suppressing Token out of his storage space.

"Activate!"

A bone-chilling cold swept through him as wisps of black smoke seeped from his palm. This time, Xiao Ran could clearly feel something special slowly peeling away from his body and flowing into the Calamity Suppressing Token in his hand.

Feeling a connection between himself and the Calamity Suppressing Token, Xiao Ran didn't hesitate. He picked up his needle and thread and began stitching the corpse.

There were more than a dozen cuts of varying sizes on Guo Lingfei's body. Some were caused by broken bones piercing through the flesh from beneath the skin. Xiao Ran couldn't tell what had caused others. The corpse's skin had already stiffened, and the flesh on either side of many cuts had become misshapen, making them extremely difficult to stitch.

Most Mourning Artists would probably have no choice but to stitch up a corpse like this as best they could, then cover the wounds with clothes and call it a day.

But Xiao Ran had the Master-level Suturing Technique granted by the Corpse Stitcher curse mark.

He glanced over the wounds, and several suturing methods came to mind.

"Leave No Trace!"

"Cleverly Conceal Wrinkles!"

"Interrupted Stitch!"

The needle and thread danced up and down along the tears in the flesh. With each unusual suturing technique, Xiao Ran's movements grew smoother.

Before long, Xiao Ran began to feel as though he were getting into the groove.

Then, as he stitched, a cool breeze brushed against his ear. Xiao Ran froze for a moment.

This empty Morgue Room didn't even have a window open. Where could the breeze have come from?

He stopped stitching and glanced to the side, looking behind him.

"Whoosh..."

Guo Lingfei's mouth had somehow opened. Wisps of cool air seemed to be blowing out of it.

"It hurts!" Guo Lingfei's Adam's apple bobbed. His eyes slowly opened, and his bloodshot eyeballs began to move from side to side.

"Bear with it. I'll be done soon."

Xiao Ran furrowed his brow but didn't stop stitching.

He was simply puzzled. The file said Guo Lingfei had been dead for three days. How could his soul still be inside his body?

Guo Lingfei's body trembled slightly. "Easy... My whole body hurts. It feels like all my bones are broken."

Xiao Ran tightened the suture, then moved to Guo Lingfei's other side. Most of the wounds on this side were under his arm, where a suture hook would be more convenient. As he switched tools, Xiao Ran asked, "How about we talk to take your mind off it?"

"Do you remember how you suddenly fell into the mixer?"

At Xiao Ran's casual question, Guo Lingfei's corpse suddenly jerked, as if he'd stepped into empty space in a dream. His legs kicked out and his eyes widened. But a moment later, he shook his head. "I can't remember."

"Then let's talk about something else. I heard you were a fitness instructor?"

Hearing Xiao Ran change the subject, Guo Lingfei began to relax. "Part-time. I only teach personal training sessions, you know."

"No, I don't. I've never been to a gym."

Xiao Ran shook his head. He held the suture hook in one hand and stitched downward along the corpse's left side.

"Do you have any other hobbies besides working out?"

"Yeah, I'm pretty good at fishing. I often post short fishing videos. You should check them out. Just last month, I won the fishing tournament in Luo City..."

As Guo Lingfei talked about fishing, his eyes began to sparkle.

He started chatting away to Xiao Ran about all the things that had happened to him while fishing.

Xiao Ran didn't know how to fish either, but still asked a question now and then. "I often see people fishing at night. Is it easier to catch fish then?"

"More or less. You've never tried standing alone by a river at night. I go fishing at night all the time..."

He stopped halfway through his sentence. The light in his eyes gradually turned vacant.

Xiao Ran was still stitching the wound. When he noticed Guo Lingfei had suddenly gone quiet, he raised his head in alarm.

"Guo Lingfei?" Xiao Ran called softly.

But Guo Lingfei's eyes had gone dull and empty, as if he were a soulless puppet.

Suddenly, his fingers twitched. Then, with speed that defied reason, he raised his hand and clenched his fist. His joints made a spine-chilling crackling sound, like an ancient machine that had sat idle for years starting up again. He punched toward Xiao Ran's chest.

The punch came without warning. Xiao Ran darted to the right and raised his arm to block with Tiger Fist, striking Guo Lingfei's left wrist. In that instant, Xiao Ran's fist turned into a grasping hand. He caught Guo Lingfei's left palm and twisted it hard.

"Crack!"

The curse mark had already enhanced Xiao Ran's strength, making him far stronger than an ordinary person. With this tiger-claw hold, he heard another crack as Guo Lingfei's already-broken bones snapped apart.

Though Guo Lingfei's eyes were empty, his body reacted with astonishing speed. The moment Xiao Ran broke his left hand, Guo Lingfei's right fist shot toward Xiao Ran's head like an arrow.

Xiao Ran ducked just in time. He felt the wind of the punch brush over his head, and a chill ran through him. If he'd been even a little slower, that punch would have been enough to put him in a world of hurt.

His eyes gradually turned cold. He took out the Calamity Suppressing Token, and with a thought, the old iron plaque began to emanate a frigid aura.

Privilege 1: Calamity Suppression — forcibly suppresses evil spirits and malignant entities, greatly weakening their power.

"Suppress!"

As the privilege activated, Xiao Ran clearly felt a force being drawn out of his body.

A twisted black curse rune appeared in front of the Calamity Suppressing Token, as if some power had been awakened. Then it slammed into Guo Lingfei's forehead.

"Ah!!" In a daze, Xiao Ran thought he heard a woman scream.

Guo Lingfei, who had been about to sit up on the stretcher, shuddered a few times, like a final, resentful twitch.

"Thud!" He fell back heavily.

At the same time, Xiao Ran felt a strange resonance through the Calamity Suppressing Token. It seemed that what he'd done wasn't merely physical contact, but a collision deep within the soul.

In a daze, Xiao Ran's vision seemed to pierce through Guo Lingfei's body. Beneath the flesh on his shoulder, he saw a shadow rapidly fading under the power of the Calamity Suppressing Token.

Guo Lingfei's expression shifted from savage to peaceful, as if all his pain had swiftly faded away.

"A curse mark?"

After lowering the Calamity Suppressing Token, Xiao Ran's expression gradually grew grave. He was certain he'd glimpsed the lines of a curse mark within the shadow, but it had happened too quickly for him to make them out clearly.

All he'd seen was the curse mark wrapped in black mist, as though it were attached to Guo Lingfei.

"Could it be..." Xiao Ran looked at Guo Lingfei's corpse in front of him. "A Cursed Object?"

That would explain all the things that had puzzled him before.

With the power of a Cursed Object and a curse mark, controlling an ordinary person didn't seem difficult.

For example, the gold bars belonging to the Old Woman in the Maze City last time had been the most direct means.

"Bang, bang, bang..."

A rapid knocking interrupted Xiao Ran's thoughts. Before he could ask who it was, someone opened the door to the Morgue Room.

Old Zhou stuck his head in anxiously. Seeing Xiao Ran standing beside the stretcher, he couldn't help freezing. "You're all right?"

"All right?"

Xiao Ran looked at Old Zhou, utterly confused.

Uncle Li then walked in, holding his head. When he saw that Xiao Ran was fine, he immediately complained impatiently, "See? I told you nothing was wrong. Why are you making such a big fuss? You hear a little noise and come rushing in like the sky's falling."

As he spoke, Uncle Li glared at the person behind him. "And you! You couldn't sleep anywhere else? You had to sleep in the morgue, humming tunes? What's wrong with you?"

Only then did Xiao Ran notice the young woman following Uncle Li.

She had short purple hair and fair skin that stood out against it. Her large eyes and high nose gave her a strikingly distinctive look.

In response to Uncle Li's scolding, she merely stuck out her tongue playfully. "I was wearing headphones. How was I supposed to know you were outside?"

After speaking, the young woman turned to Xiao Ran, looking as if she'd discovered something new. "Whoa!"

"So this is the guy who fell into the mixer? He's pretty handsome. What a gruesome way to die."

The young woman stared at the corpse in front of her without the slightest inhibition.

Xiao Ran's face darkened. He turned to look at Uncle Li.

Uncle Li looked helpless, while Old Zhou hurried forward and pulled the young woman aside. At the same time, he apologized to Xiao Ran. "Sorry about that. This is my niece. She's been careless and outspoken since she was little. She's been interning here lately, and I haven't had the chance to go over all the rules with her."

After he finished, Old Zhou glared at his niece. But she didn't seem to care, her eyes roaming over Xiao Ran.

"Well... If you don't mind, could you step outside for now? We can talk after I'm finished."

Although this was Old Zhou's place, Xiao Ran didn't hesitate to show them the door. Every line of work had its own rules, and outsiders were strictly forbidden from watching a Mourning Artist restore a body.

"Sure, sure. We'll head out. We'll head out."

Old Zhou knew he was in the wrong, so he smiled apologetically and led his niece out. She looked reluctant to leave, and before going, she gave Xiao Ran and the corpse one last glance.

Only after Old Zhou closed the door and locked it with a key did Xiao Ran let out a sigh of relief.

Looking at Guo Lingfei lying on the stretcher, Xiao Ran quickly stitched up the last wound.

You have met the conditions to activate a privilege. Would you like to activate the privilege Spirit Seizing?

Xiao Ran's eyes flickered. "There's only one way to find out if it's really a Cursed Object." He placed a hand on Guo Lingfei's chest and murmured, "Spirit Seizing..."