Broken pieces of wood flew everywhere. Wu pulled Jiang Cheng back as a burst of black fog erupted from the coffin. When the dust finally settled, a figure dressed in a Taoist robe stood before them.
Though the robe was tattered, it was clearly extraordinarily luxurious, with silver cloud patterns embroidered along the cuffs.
But the truly eerie thing was that a talisman was stuck to the Taoist's forehead, and he stood rigidly in place.
The yellow talisman was quite large, covering the Taoist's eyes and half his face.
"What's going on?" the Fatty couldn't help asking. "Wasn't the Night Watchman in there? Is that a Taoist?"
A gust of wind blew, making the talisman on the Taoist's forehead flap noisily. As it lifted, everyone's expression changed.
Yu Chengmu narrowed his eyes.
So he had been right!
The corpse in the coffin was indeed the Night Watchman.
Judging by the cloud-patterned Taoist robe, this Night Watchman was no ordinary person.
The joint-burial coffin was meant to bury the River Goddess's bones together with his own corpse. It was the most important part of the ritual. The other people from the occult trade wanted a brand-new body so they could escape the Door's erosion, but the Night Watchman had far greater ambitions. The body he wanted was the River Goddess's!
If his guess was right, then tonight, when the coffin reached the banks of the Dushui River, all these Paper Figures would seize their bodies. Then, through some kind of strange ritual, the Night Watchman's soul and the River Goddess's vengeful spirit would switch places, allowing the Night Watchman, whose time was nearly up, to be reborn in the River Goddess's body.
Yu Chengmu also understood why they had chosen Miss Wu Family. He had only fully figured it out recently.