In a room in Happiness Residential Complex, a white-haired child ran into the spare bedroom and pushed hard at the man on the bed with both hands.
"Xiao Bai, what's wrong?"
Zhong Cai was a light sleeper to begin with, and Xiao Bai's pushing woke him immediately.
"Did you have a nightmare?"
Zhong Cai was about to lift Xiao Bai onto the bed, but Xiao Bai wriggled free of his hands, rushed to the window, and pressed himself against the glass.
Knowing there was something special about Xiao Bai, Zhong Cai immediately picked up his glasses and walked over to the window.
His gaze swept across the residential complex in the darkness, but he found nothing.
But when his gaze shifted to the entrance, he saw a dark figure leap more than two meters and vanish into the night.
Zhong Cai's pupils contracted sharply.
"That's... impossible. How could something like that be here?"
Zhong Cai refused to believe it, but both what he had just seen and Xiao Bai's strange behavior told him there was a strong chance it was exactly that.
Even if it wasn't, it certainly wasn't anything normal.
At that thought, Zhong Cai stopped hesitating.
He hurried over to where his bag hung, took out seven or eight talismans, and checked them.
Turning around, he opened his case and took out a gleaming, polished Peach Wood Sword two feet long.
Compared with Chen Miao's unfinished sword, this Peach Wood Sword was far more refined.
Seven interconnected red dots were carved into the wooden blade. Both sides of the guard bore an eight-trigram design, and a copper coin with a square hole seemed to be wrapped inside the red sword tassel hanging from the pommel.
After setting the wooden sword aside, Zhong Cai took off his pajamas and changed into casual clothes.
"Xiao Bai, I need to go out for a bit."
Zhong Cai pulled a talisman from his bag and placed it in Xiao Bai's hand.
"If anything happens, bite your finger and smear some blood on this. Hold it in your hand, and you'll be all right. Understand?"
Only after Xiao Bai nodded did Zhong Cai take up the wooden sword and quietly leave Xiao Bai's home.
Clutching the talisman, Xiao Bai turned and ran to the window.
He saw Zhong Cai appear below, then quickly vanish into the darkness.
Three thirty in the morning.
The guardhouse at the east gate of the Tianmen Funeral Home.
Old Wu, the guard, was listening to the radio with his eyes closed.
"Dear listeners, welcome to 'Nighttime Chat'!"
"Most of you who are still awake right now are probably workers like me, still holding down your posts."
"As night-shift workers, what are we most afraid of encountering?"
"Heh heh..."
"Today, we're going to talk about a real case. It happened at a funeral home not far from us—the funeral home in Tianmen County!"
Old Wu's eyes snapped open, astonishment written all over his face.
He was listening to a local program, but he had never imagined he would hear the Tianmen Funeral Home mentioned.
The host continued.
"Something happened at the Tianmen Funeral Home a little while ago. The cold-storage attendant died!"
"You all know what a funeral home's cold-storage room is, right? It's where they keep the bodies!"
"The Tianmen Funeral Home has been in Tianmen County for about ten years, and that cold-storage room has been there since it opened. Just imagine how many dead people have been kept inside!"
"It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say it's steeped in yin energy, would it?"
"So anyone working as a cold-storage attendant needs a strong birth chart and abundant yang energy. Ideally, they should have been born during a yang hour!"
"But the attendant who died? He was just an ordinary middle-aged man over forty."
"Without a strong birth chart or a young man's abundant yang energy, it seemed only a matter of time before something happened to him guarding that cold-storage room!"
"So how do you think he died?"
"All right, let's read some messages from our listeners."
"A listener whose number ends in 8899 says, 'An evil spirit must have claimed his life!'"
"A listener whose number ends in 8265 says, 'Funeral homes are full of yin energy. Spending a long time in one gradually weakens your health, and when your health declines, so does your yang energy. That already makes it easy to attract ghosts, never mind in a funeral home!'"
"A listener whose number ends in 3642 says, 'I don't know how he died, but I do know people in the funeral business all smell of the dead and carry bad luck. Best to avoid contact with them whenever possible!'"
As Old Wu listened to message after message, he grew increasingly uncomfortable.
He was part of the funeral industry too, even if he only guarded the gate.
Hearing the listeners disparage the funeral industry angered Old Wu, but there was nothing he could do.
He couldn't change how people saw them.
Feeling upset, he decided to do something.
He picked up his phone and sent the program a message.
Two minutes later, his message was read aloud.
"A listener whose number ends in 3456 says, 'He died suddenly of natural causes. It had nothing to do with ghosts.'"
"Haha, finally, a listener has hit the nail on the head. Everyone, that attendant really did die suddenly of natural causes."
"Fooled you, didn't I? You thought I was telling a horror story?"
♪ Melancholy music began to play ♪
"Actually, I just wanted to tell everyone working nights not to overwork yourselves. You only get one life. Once it's gone, it's truly gone."
"Rather than hoping you'll go to heaven after death, make the most of the life you have now."
A smile appeared on Old Wu's face.
"People just scare themselves. I've guarded this funeral home for years. If ghosts were real, wouldn't I have seen one?"
Closing his eyes, Old Wu continued listening to the radio.
But just then, hurried footsteps sounded outside.
When Old Wu opened his eyes, he saw someone who appeared to be holding a candle vault over the automatic retractable gate, which stood just over a meter high.
Normally, that gate only stopped vehicles, not people.
No one casually barged into a funeral home—even thieves gave it a wide berth—so Old Wu's night-shift job was actually quite easy.
Yet today, some petty thief really had shown up without any fear of bad luck.
"Who's there! What are you doing? Stop!"
Old Wu grabbed his flashlight and riot baton and rushed outside.
The powerful flashlight beam shone on the person's back, but they didn't stop.
"I told you to stop! Didn't you hear me?"
Old Wu was about to give chase when he suddenly heard movement behind him.
An accomplice?
Turning around, Old Wu glared at the figure that leaped more than two meters high and landed not far in front of him.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
The figure moved away. Old Wu's legs gave out, and he landed on his backside, gasping for breath.
He had forgotten to breathe just now and had nearly suffocated himself.
Even recalling those dark red eyes made Old Wu's legs tremble uncontrollably.
For a fleeting instant, Old Wu wondered whether, if he died tonight, he would become the subject of a story told by the host of "Nighttime Chat."
"I'm only fifty-five. I only make five thousand yuan a month. My grandson was just born..."
Old Wu scrambled up and muttered to himself as he headed toward the bike shelter, moving faster and faster.
"What am I risking my life for?"
No sooner had Old Wu left than another figure vaulted over the automatic retractable gate.
The man held a wooden sword in one hand and pulled a geomantic compass from his pocket with the other.
Who else could it be but Zhong Cai?
Checking the direction of the compass needle, Zhong Cai hurried after them.
The Tianmen Funeral Home was large. He chased them for a good hundred meters and only turned the corner when he was nearly at the funeral home's rear wall.
From a distance, he saw the person in the lead smash the lamp in his hand onto the ground behind him.
Flames spread, illuminating the surroundings and revealing the man's face to Zhong Cai.
"Zhong Fa!!"
Zhong Cai's eyes widened. How could it be him?
Did he create this hopping corpse?
Impossible. Master destroyed his corpse-refining method. He couldn't have created a hopping corpse!
While Zhong Cai stood stunned, Zhong Fa ran out of sight, scaled the wall, and left the funeral home.
Once the flames died down, the hopping corpse, now without a guide, abruptly turned his head and looked in another direction.
Toward the Tianmen Funeral Home's cold-storage room.
Someone stood there, having come outside because of the firelight.
Tang Rui!
Thump!
The sound of Uncle Dong hopping snapped Zhong Cai out of his daze and startled Tang Rui.
With a scream, Tang Rui shut the cold-storage door.
Zhong Cai sprang into action.
He didn't know why Zhong Fa had done this, but the immediate priority was to deal with that hopping corpse!
Putting away the compass, Zhong Cai sprinted over.
By then, the hopping corpse had already landed in front of the cold-storage room and thrust both arms into the iron door.
With a wrench of his arms, he tore the iron door apart.
A startled cry rang out from inside, and Zhong Cai knew things had gone wrong.
I can't let him get inside!
Zhong Cai picked up a small stone and hurled it at the hopping corpse.
Smack!
The stone struck Uncle Dong squarely, but he merely turned his head for a glance before crashing through the iron door and entering the cold-storage room.
Zhong Cai, however, stopped in his tracks.
In that fleeting glance, he had clearly seen the teeth protruding past the hopping corpse's lips and his nails, over an inch long.
Recalling the hopping corpse's behavior throughout the chase, Zhong Cai went pale.
This wasn't an ordinary hopping corpse. This was a Leaping Hopping Corpse!
How could Zhong Fa have created a Leaping Hopping Corpse?
This was not something Zhong Fa could control, nor was it something Zhong Cai could handle.
Just as Zhong Cai wavered, he suddenly turned his head.
A young man swept past him.
The breeze stirred by his passing carried a faint scent of burning incense.
Zhong Cai watched the figure ahead charge forward without hesitation, incense in one hand and a sword in the other.
Gritting his teeth, Zhong Cai drew a talisman from the yellow cloth bag he carried.
He bit his fingertip, activated the talisman, and wrapped it around the hilt of his Peach Wood Sword.
The seven red dots on the blade flashed briefly.
To deal with a Leaping Hopping Corpse, he would have to give it everything he had!
Zhong Cai charged forward!
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