Shane watched Zhou Zhanxie climb over the cemetery wall, then scramble up the desolate little hill.
She began offering incense at one grave after another, burning small objects fashioned from yellow paper as she knelt, pressed her palms together, and chanted with earnest devotion.
Her sincerity was plain to see. The jeans covering her long legs were caked with mud, and the fabric had been snagged and torn in several places.
And Zhou Zhanxie did not limit herself to graves that looked as though they had gone untended for years.
Sometimes, when she passed a small mound, she performed the same ritual there, burning even more incense and paper offerings.
There was no need to ask. Beneath those mounds were probably the old sites where dozens or hundreds of nameless bodies had been dumped, buried, or burned for convenient disposal and disease prevention.
It was an arduous task. Only when the moon hung directly overhead did Zhou Zhanxie finally pause to catch her breath.
"Just one last place."
Zhou brushed the dirt off her knees and led Shane to a deep depression that did not look naturally formed.
A ring of charred trees surrounded it, seemingly struck by lightning, and most were reduced to half their original height.
"This was where the corpse outbreak started back then. It's also where the resentment is strongest. It breached the boundary between yin and yang."
At Zhou Zhanxie's words, Shane could not resist sweeping the ground below with his mental power. His gaze immediately sharpened.
The more than ten thousand decayed skeletons buried deep in the soil were not enough to shock him.
He had discovered something else.
He had only just grabbed Zhou Zhanxie's arm to stop her from kneeling when a man in a beige trench coat strolled out from behind