Chu Xiaotian planned to use the Corpse-Guiding Technique to lead the ten uncles back to the small mountain village where they had lived. And so, a terrifying sight unfolded: a young man, wearing a Taoist crown and holding a copper bell and wooden sword, slowly emerged from the place where they had stayed before. Behind him, ten dead men followed in his footsteps, their eyes tightly shut, their bodies stiff, their faces pale. They had been dead for a long time.
The sight stunned everyone. In this atheistic society, such an utterly unbelievable scene had appeared, and it immediately sent shockwaves through the crowd. Everyone on the construction crew came out. Some were drawn by the bizarre spectacle; others had come to see off the ten men who had once been their friends.
The few people Chu Xiaotian had driven away earlier had called the police as soon as they left. But when they saw the scene before them again, they were so astonished that they could barely think straight. The sight had terrified them. Everyone forgot what they were supposed to do and could only stare in amazement as Chu Xiaotian led ten men who had been dead for several days onward. Not a single person dared to stop him.
It was a sight that modern science could never explain. As soon as it appeared, it drew a huge crowd, at one point even causing a major crush. The media rushed to take photos and record footage, thrilled to capture such a sensational story. Many people began calling out questions to Chu Xiaotian, wanting to know how he had managed to do this. But he ignored them all. He kept his gaze straight ahead and said nothing, simply leading the ten dead men slowly onward.
A young man walking through the city with ten people who had died unjustly was enough to fill anyone with fear. Yet no one tried to stop this strange procession. No one knew whether a young man who could make the dead walk might have other terrifying powers, ones that could turn them from living people into corpses. No one could help fearing the unknown.
The sensational story spread like wildfire as the media reported it far and wide. After digging through the details, people learned what had previously been kept under wraps: ten men who should not have died had perished underground because a rescue expert had said the wrong thing. The rumors grew even more exaggerated with every interview, claiming that the ten unjustly dead men could not rest in peace and were protesting their unfair treatment in this way.
The departments that had ignored Chu Xiaotian before panicked. They had never cared much about public opinion, but once the uproar over an issue reached a fever pitch, they still wanted it to stop. They sent people to find Chu Xiaotian and told him they had resolved the matter involving his ten uncles. They would give them double the burial expenses and compensation, and would also send a special vehicle to transport the ten bodies back to Chu Xiaotian's mountain village.
They hoped to put an end to the matter this way. After all, letting it drag on would do them no good. But Chu Xiaotian's only response was silence—endless silence. He might as well have been mute. No matter what they said or did, he never uttered a word or looked their way. He kept striding forward, leading the ten bodies onward. When bribery failed, they began making threats behind the scenes, but Chu Xiaotian still showed no reaction, as if he had not heard them. He knew perfectly well that now the story had caused such an uproar, those people would never dare lay a hand on him.
He did not try to get a ride in another vehicle, because Chu Xiaotian knew no one would dare take them. Besides, he did not want to ride. He was determined to lead the ten dead men step by step from this city all the way back to the mountain village where they had once lived. He wanted to vent his frustration this way, and to show everyone else just how dark the world could be. It was a journey with no distinction between day and night. When he was hungry, Chu Xiaotian filled his stomach with bread bought along the way. When he was tired, he simply lay down in some street corner or a corner of a park to rest. Once he had rested enough, he continued on.
For a while, Chu Xiaotian was constantly surrounded by crowds and members of the media. As time passed, the crowds did not thin, but most of the media stopped showing up. The people who had tried to bully or bribe him earlier never appeared again, either. From a report he happened to catch on a television station, he learned that those people had all been dismissed. Still, Chu Xiaotian felt no joy. He knew they would soon turn up in other departments. But he no longer cared about any of that. At last, he had made up his mind: once he returned this time, he would never leave the mountain village again.
After an entire month of trudging across long distances, Chu Xiaotian finally led the ten uncles into the mountains, not far from their small village.
He only had to cross the stretch of forest he was in and climb over two mountains, each more than a thousand meters high, to reach their village. During the month-long trek, Chu Xiaotian had not taken a single bath, enjoyed a proper night's sleep, or eaten a decent meal. It had left him utterly exhausted. He longed to reach the village at once, settle the ten uncles, and then sleep soundly for three days and nights. But he had managed to bring them back "safely," and no matter how tired he was, he felt it had been worth it.
Just as he was nearly home, he ran into a scene of wild lightning and rolling black clouds. Chu Xiaotian could not help lamenting his rotten luck. He knew perfectly well this weather did not mean Heaven had opened its eyes for his sake—it meant rain was coming. He had walked all this way without encountering rain, only for it to strike at the very end. He was at a loss for words. On a long corpse-guiding journey, wind and rain were the worst enemies. The technique relied on a single talisman. If the wind blew it away or the rain soaked it, the corpse could no longer be guided.
But Chu Xiaotian had prepared in advance. He stopped and took out ten more talismans, sticking one to the forehead of each corpse. These were waterproof talismans, one of the essentials for anyone who guided corpses. Their purpose was to keep rain from falling on the corpses guided by the corpse-guiding talismans for a limited time. According to the records Chu Xiaotian had read, they could withstand rain for at least an hour. But in this world, spiritual energy was far too scarce, so these talismans could protect the corpses for no more than fifteen minutes. If the rain was heavy, they might not even last that long.
To other people, such things would seem utterly unbelievable. But Chu Xiaotian knew perfectly well that countless things in this world could not be explained by so-called science. The Corpse-Guiding Technique was already anything but ordinary. Adding a few waterproof talismans was nothing unusual.
As soon as Chu Xiaotian finished setting everything up, lightning flashed wildly across the sky, and the rain began to fall. The waterproof talismans pasted to the ten corpses started working. A hazy white glow appeared, forming a thin protective barrier around them. When raindrops landed on the barrier, they silently slid away.
The rain grew heavier, and the barriers slowly thinned, trembling on the verge of collapse, as if they might vanish at any moment.
Chu Xiaotian sighed softly. The rain was too heavy. These water-repelling talismans, drawn without much spiritual energy, fell far short of the power described in the records he had read. The rain clearly would not stop anytime soon, so Chu Xiaotian could only take out another ten talismans and stick them onto the corpses.
"Boom..." The moment the talismans were attached, an explosion rang out. A blinding bolt of lightning streaked across the sky and struck a giant tree on the mountain peak behind Chu Xiaotian, a tree that had already been hit by lightning once before. Then several more thunderclaps followed, blasting the giant tree on the summit to pieces. Even then, the thunder showed no sign of stopping. It kept striking the same place, until the mountain peak's soil flew and boulders tumbled.
"Oh no. That place is no good. We can't stay here long," Chu Xiaotian muttered, his brow furrowed as he looked back at the mountain peak. He had sensed something strange. The lightning struck nowhere else—it only kept hammering one ancient tree. There had to be something odd about it. Lightning was the most yang force in the world, and it countered all things yin and evil. Any place it struck again and again could not be good. According to folk legend, lightning struck trees because demons lived inside them. There was no evidence for the saying, but it was not far from the truth. A place that drew lightning's "attention" might have no demon, but it certainly would not contain anything good. And as someone who guided corpses, Chu Xiaotian had ways of sensing certain things. He had not paid attention earlier, but now that he checked, he could indeed feel a powerful aura of yin energy there.
Yin energy could be found everywhere, but for it to grow strong enough to draw lightning's attention was extraordinary. This place was definitely not somewhere they could stay. Chu Xiaotian decided to leave at once. He covered the ten corpses with a large plastic sheet he had prepared earlier, then led them onward.
"Boom..." Another thunderclap sounded. A silver serpent streaked across the sky and struck the same mountain peak again, blasting a boulder into a rain of fragments.
"Graaah..." At the same moment the boulder shattered, a piercing shriek rang out from the mountaintop. The sound was terrifying. Hearing it felt like a giant hammer pounding against Chu Xiaotian's chest. His blood churned, the world spun around him, and he felt utterly wretched.
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