With a muffled thud, the black coffin slammed onto the ground.
The sudden impact scattered rings of clustered mist. White dust rose and mingled with the white fog, inseparable from it.
Shang Qingbei saw a crowd of heads before him. Men, women, old, and young dressed in black mourning clothes formed a shadowy circle around him. Their illusory figures vaguely mimed wiping away tears, while wails like ghostly crying came one after another.
"Wuwuwu... such an unfortunate child..."
"Dead... how pitiful, didn't get to enjoy much happiness..."
"Hehehe, bad fate... couldn't bear such blessings..."
If the first few lines still sounded tearful, the later ones carried obvious delight, as though they were happy about the deceased's passing.
Happy was not quite the right word. Their tone sounded more like the furtive relief of survivors after a calamity, as if the Sword of Damocles hanging above their heads had finally fallen, narrowly missing them and crushing someone else instead.
Goosebumps rose over Shang Qingbei's body in waves, and he shuddered violently.
The all-encompassing chill surged again. It felt as though he were standing naked in the winter wind, his bones scoured by blade-like gusts from the north, every inch of his veins and sinews frozen through.
A gust of wind blew over, scattering the phantoms before him into dust that drifted into the air before slowly settling.
Every strange phenomenon vanished. There were no Ghost Shadows, no celebratory songs. For a moment, the world was astonishingly quiet and peaceful.
Only the coffin resting silently amid the pile of joss paper proved that something bizarre had indeed occurred just now, that ghosts had passed through the streets and alleys.
By the moonlight, Shang Qingbei stared at the bone-white fragments scattered around the coffin. He shuddered again, then heard a soft puffing sound