Jar Seating Corpse

The dilapidated stone walls looked exceptionally grand and magnificent under the sunlight, but the air was filled with an indescribable scent.

"What's that smell?"

Xiong Tao sniffed the air, finding the scent neither foul nor fragrant, but strangely intoxicating.

"It's the smell of corpse oil!"

Captain Wang, following behind, suddenly spoke up. "Corpse oil forms when a body highly decomposes, and the fat seeps out in an oily form. It usually appears on bodies that weren't dealt with in time during the summer."

"Corpse oil??"

Xiong Tao's face darkened, feeling a bit disgusted. But he still asked, unwilling to give up, "Aren't corpses supposed to smell bad? How can it smell good??"

Captain Wang glanced at him, seeing his struggle to suppress his nausea, and couldn't help but sneer. He leisurely began to recount a case from years ago.

"Two years ago, there was a case involving a prostitute. This woman was in her forties, but she exuded a peculiar fragrance that made her business very good.

But after being arrested during a raid, we found three corpses in her home's refrigerator. Their chins were cut off and then burned with candles, and the dripping oil was corpse oil.

The fragrance on the woman was a perfume she made from this corpse oil. Although that scent was slightly different from this one, I wouldn't misjudge it. This is definitely the smell of corpse oil."

"Blech!!!"

Upon hearing this, Xiong Tao's mind conjured images of men crawling all over a woman, frantically licking her body covered in corpse oil, and he immediately threw up.

Xu Tong and Yang Zixuan beside him were fine. Yang Zixuan even mused, "So, that woman was a murderer then?"

Captain Wang nodded. "The deceased were all her regular customers. It was easy to find out their family backgrounds; they were all single men with no close family. That's why no one claimed the bodies until the case was solved."

Xu Tong interjected, "A woman killed three men just to get their corpse oil? If that's the case, killing one would have been enough. Besides the chin, there are many other places to get it. Why kill three men consecutively?"

Captain Wang was taken aback and stammered, "This... maybe the corpse oil from the chin is better?"

Hearing this, Yang Guanjin couldn't help but interrupt their continued discussion about the case, "Stop talking. This has nothing to do with our current situation."

She then reminded them, "The gu worms you've ingested are most likely Heart-Piercing Gu. If you don't get the antidote in time, the worms will start gnawing through your intestines and eventually burrow into your hearts, creating a hole."

"Damn it, this reminds me of that movie 'Alien' I watched," Xiong Tao's mouth twitched as he recalled the scene of a chest bursting open, making him feel terrible.

"Can this thing be surgically removed?"

Mentioning the gu worms, Yang Zixuan finally became serious, though his words hinted at considering the use of special items to leave.

"Surgery? What kind of precise surgery would that require? And the worms keep moving, how can you confirm their location?"

Yang Guanjin shook her head. This question was beyond her understanding. Although she knew some medicine, in this dire era, having never even seen an X-ray machine, how could she comprehend the advancements of modern medicine?

However, even with advanced medicine in reality, precisely locating the worms would undoubtedly not be an easy task.

"So, we can only find what he's looking for to get our lives back? Is that why he doesn't ask for the Golden Dagger anymore, even though he knows you have it?"

Xu Tong said, glancing at Yang Zixuan. Thinking of his cute cartoon underwear, he figured he must be a childlike boy.

Sensing Xu Tong's teasing gaze, Yang Zixuan's mouth twitched, and he coughed lightly, "Then what exactly is he looking for??"

This time, Yang Guanjin was also at a loss. "I don't know. I've only heard of the Ascension Bureau, but I don't know the specifics."

Xu Tong raised an eyebrow and mused, "Why don't we go in and take a look first?"

"Right, seeing is believing. What Zhou Huasheng said is too hypocritical and vague."

Captain Wang waved his hand, signaling everyone to move forward.

He also didn't forget to ask Yang Zixuan if his gun was with him.

When this was brought up, Yang Zixuan touched his chin and shook his head. "No!"

Seeing they wouldn't admit it, Captain Wang was helpless and could only trudge ahead with Xiong Tao.

The group passed through the dilapidated ruins, and before them appeared stone pagodas and pine forests.

"This place..."

Everyone felt something was off, but couldn't pinpoint what it was.

"Wait, look over there!"

Suddenly, Yang Zixuan noticed something and pointed ahead. The others walked over and saw a stone wall, on which a beautiful relief was carved.

The mural depicted densely packed monks kneeling on the ground. Directly in front of these monks was not a Buddha, but a demon king with a green face and fangs.

Even more bizarrely, the demon king's arms were severed, and blood splattered on the ground, causing lotuses to sprout from the earth.

"What does this mean???"

Everyone was confused, unable to grasp the meaning of the mural.

"You can't even understand this? 'Lay down your butcher knife and become a Buddha instantly'," Xiong Tao said casually, seeing everyone staring intently at the relief.

Surprisingly, after he said that, everyone felt it might indeed mean that.

"Pah, it's all feudalism, fooling the masses," Captain Wang spat disdainfully. He couldn't stand such feudalistic thinking and sneered, "If it were that simple, wouldn't murderers become Buddhas the moment they regretted their actions? Wouldn't society be in chaos then?"

He had his reasons for saying this. Although murder cases weren't frequent, as a police officer, he had seen all sorts of criminals. Which of these criminals didn't claim to regret their actions after being caught? If they truly regretted it, why did they commit such heinous crimes?

However, no one paid attention to his words.

Only Xiong Tao revealed a rare look of agreement, while Xu Tong and Yang Zixuan stared at the murals with exceptionally heavy expressions.

"I think... this is more like some kind of sacrifice!" Yang Zixuan spoke up after a moment.

After saying this, he turned to look at Xu Tong, wanting to see if he had a different perspective, but Xu Tong merely shrugged his shoulders and pointed at Xiong Tao, saying, "I think this guy is right. Lay down the butcher's knife and become a Buddha on the spot, right?" As he spoke, he didn't forget to wink at Yang Guanjin behind him.

This caught Yang Guanjin off guard, making her feel a bit uncomfortable.

This useless suggestion made Yang Zixuan roll his eyes; he had actually expected him to say something different.

Unable to make sense of the stone carvings, the group had no choice but to continue moving forward.

"Hiss, this isn't right!"

At this moment, Yang Zixuan suddenly stopped in his tracks, looked around, and said, "How come I feel like we've entered a temple, not some Ascension Bureau?"

"You think your temple would be built in a place like this? It would be strange if there weren't ghosts here."

Xu Tong stood to the side with his arms crossed: "Temples are mostly built on mountain peaks. They want the mountain to be as high as possible so that the people climbing it are exhausted; only then does it show sincerity in worshipping Buddha. Even people who don't believe in Buddha feel that after climbing so high, it would be a waste not to bow and donate some money."

"This..." Yang Zixuan scratched his head. Thinking about it carefully, it seemed to make sense, and he couldn't help but laugh: "The ancients were also experts in psychology."

"Come quickly, I've found the source of that smell!"

Just then, Captain Wang's shout came from afar. The group hurried over to take a look, only to find a massive bronze cauldron before them.

This bronze cauldron was suspended in mid-air by several iron chains as thick as an adult's arm. One end was embedded into the surrounding stone pillars, and after the passage of time, they were covered in rust.

Seeing the group arrive, Captain Wang pointed at the bronze cauldron with excitement and sneered at Xiong Tao: "I can tell you with one hundred percent certainty now that the smell we caught is Corpse Fragrance."

He pointed to the black residue in the pot: "This is Corpse Oil."

"Ugh!!!"

Xiong Tao couldn't take it anymore and began to retch again.

"Such a huge pot, could it be used to boil Corpse Oil??"

Yang Guanjin walked to the pot in horror. The cauldron was at least five meters wide and three meters deep, with a thick layer of black, murky substance accumulated inside.

It was hard to imagine what it would look like if Corpse Oil were being cooked in such a massive pot.

After she said this, everyone couldn't help but recall how a chef would render lard, and then superimposed that image onto this giant cauldron.

The moment they imagined the massive bronze pot filled with chunks of pale, white meat sizzling and frying, they couldn't help but shudder.

"Why would they boil such a huge pot of Corpse Oil??" Captain Wang walked to the pot, perhaps due to his professional instincts, and began to ponder.

"What else could it be for besides sacrifice? It's not like they were making hot pot."

As Yang Zixuan spoke, his gaze shifted. Seeing Xu Tong standing motionless, he couldn't help but step forward: "What are you thinking about??"

"Do you have the feeling that something is watching us??"

Xu Tong's brows were tightly locked. Ever since he walked in, he had felt a sense of unease, as if something was observing him, and this feeling was growing stronger.

Just then, he suddenly walked to the edge of the thicket and reached out to pull at the vines.

"Clatter..."

Dense vines were torn away by his hand. As the vines broke, a giant Buddha statue appeared before everyone.

It was unclear when the stone Buddha had been carved, or perhaps due to long exposure to the elements, the face of the statue had been largely eroded by rain, making it look less solemn than those in temples and instead... a bit goofy.

What made the group feel even more eerie was that there were dense rows of jars placed beneath the Buddha statue.

"Look, not only hot pot, but they even pickled some pickles." Yang Zixuan walked up half-jokingly and tore off the seal of a mud jar, leaning in to take a look.

He saw a corpse sitting cross-legged inside.

Xu Tong leaned in for a closer look, reached his hand into the jar to touch it, and shook his head: "It's not a corpse; it looks like stone or clay."

Yang Guanjin and Captain Wang also gathered around. After careful examination, they confirmed it was indeed a clay sculpture.

Moreover, there was a black, solid-like liquid at the bottom of the jar.

"I've heard that after high-ranking Buddhist monks pass away, their bodies are sealed in clay and placed in jars for three years. This is called Jar Seating. Could these jars be the bodies of those monks?"

Yang Guanjin pondered aloud.

"It's possible. Maybe these monks removed their own flesh and refined it into Corpse Oil to pour into the jars, perhaps to achieve some kind of preservative effect."

Yang Zixuan pointed at the black, oily substance in the jar: "Perhaps this is the secret to the success of those high monks' Jar Seating. Good grief, they were mass-producing them. Were they planning to become Buddhas as a group??"

After saying this, he mused: "If that's the case, this place might really be a geomantic treasure spot; otherwise, why would these monks be here, engaging in mass Jar Seating?"

Captain Wang remained disdainful of this vulgarity: "Dead is dead. Deliberately making the corpse so mysterious—I think it's just self-deception."

In his view, a dead person was just a pile of rotting meat. The country had started promoting cremation in '55, and it was said that some big cities were already implementing it as a standard.

But here, in such a desolate little place, the tradition of burial still persisted. Looking at it now, it seemed they should have pushed for reform much earlier.

"No!" At this moment, Xu Tong frowned and sniffed carefully around the jar: "The smell isn't right. This doesn't smell like Corpse Oil."

"Not Corpse Oil?"

The group gathered around to sniff carefully and indeed discovered that the scent in the jar lacked the smell of Corpse Oil; instead, it carried a pungent, exotic fragrance.

"It must have been infused with some kind of spice."

Yang Zixuan guessed that, after all, according to Buddhist rules, these Jar Seating flesh-body Buddhas still had to be removed; if they started to stink, how could they fool the common folk into coughing up money?

Just as everyone was watching, mesmerized, Xiong Tao grabbed Yang Zixuan's arm and shrieked, "He's alive!!"

The group froze and turned back to look, only to see Xiong Tao's face deathly pale, his eyes locked onto the Buddha statue before them: "Just now, I was looking at him, and he... his eyeballs suddenly moved!!"

Xiong Tao stammered, pointing at the statue.

"Heh, you must have seen wrong. This is just a piece of broken stone."

Captain Wang watched Xiong Tao's spectacle with cold eyes, walked up to the statue, and patted its large foot, his face full of disdain: "It's just a piece of junk rock; let me see you make it move again!!"

As he spoke, Captain Wang slowly raised his head, the smile on his face instantly freezing in place. His eyes widened as he stared at the Buddha statue before him, only to see that the statue's pair of eyeballs were actually turning to look in his direction. The expression that should have been a guileless smile now appeared exceptionally eerie.

We had some guests over today, and I was late getting around to hosting them, so I can only post one four-thousand-word chapter for now. My apologies.