"The corpse is rising!"
Hu Bayi's expression changed drastically.
He stood directly in front of the coffin, right in its path, and had a clear view of the undead corpse.
It was tall and skeletal, with nothing but dry skin stretched over its bones. Its features were still vaguely recognizable, those of a man around fifty. It wore a crown that pointed skyward and a blue robe embroidered with gold thread, clearly no cheap garment.
As it rose, white hair sprouted on its neck, face, and hands at an astonishing speed.
"A White-Haired Jiangshi?!"
Seeing its appearance, Hu Bayi immediately recalled a type of undead corpse recorded in the Sixteen-Character Yin-Yang Feng Shui Secret Art.
White-Haired Jiangshi were exceptionally vicious, possessed boundless strength, were impervious to blades and bullets, and were poisonous from head to toe. They were known as one of the six great fiends.
According to the book,
whenever such a monster appeared, it often left a thousand miles of barren land, devoid of all life.
"We're done for!"
Despair gripped Hu Bayi.
To think they had run into a monster like this.
Just then,
a figure suddenly leaped up behind the White-Haired Jiangshi.
Dagger in hand, he drove it viciously into the back of the White-Haired Jiangshi's head.
Then he twisted it frantically.
He actually carved away half the White-Haired Jiangshi's head.
Thud.
The White-Haired Jiangshi fell stiffly back into the coffin.
The wildly growing white hair abruptly stopped, then slowly retracted.
Soon, the corpse returned to its previous skeletal appearance, except that half its head was missing...
Hu Bayi stared, dumbfounded, at the figure who had slain the White-Haired Jiangshi with a single stab.
It was Gu Cheng!
"You bastard! You dared show off in front of me!"
"You really thought I was a pushover?!"
Standing atop the bronze coffin, Gu Cheng looked down at the undead corpse lying inside again and cursed at it.
"Y-Young Master Gu, you... you just killed it like that?!"
Hu Bayi looked at Gu Cheng in disbelief.
Gu Cheng blinked. "What's wrong? Was I not supposed to kill it?"
"N-no, that's not it. Good work!"
Seeing Gu Cheng's bewildered expression, as though he had no idea what sort of monster he had killed,
Hu Bayi lost interest in explaining.
Maybe the book exaggerated?
Perhaps White-Haired Jiangshi weren't that powerful.
Or maybe it was weaker because it hadn't finished transforming.
All sorts of guesses ran through Hu Bayi's mind.
With the White-Haired Jiangshi dead,
the vines that had been wreaking havoc all dropped to the floor, motionless, as though they too had died.
Hu Bayi approached the coffin, wanting to take a look at the slain White-Haired Jiangshi.
But the moment he glanced inside,
"Holy mother!"
Hu Bayi cried out, a bone-chilling sensation exploding across his scalp.
He recoiled in fright, lost his footing, and landed hard on his backside.
As it turned out, inside the coffin,
the White-Haired Jiangshi wasn't alone.
Two small children were also crouched by its feet.
One was a boy in green, his hair tied into a tuft pointing straight up.
The other was a girl in red, her hair gathered into two little buns.
They crouched in the corners and looked only five or six years old. Their eyes were closed, their bodies bluish-purple, and their features so lifelike that they seemed merely asleep.
Standing atop the coffin and looking down at them, Gu Cheng suddenly felt a surge of pity.
Hu Bayi climbed up from the floor as well.
Seeing how completely unafraid Gu Cheng was, he couldn't help feeling embarrassed by his own reaction.
To prove that he wasn't afraid,
he returned to the coffin.
As he looked at the two children, boundless sympathy and sorrow suddenly welled up in his heart as well.
"These two children... how pitiful."
"This was an ancient burial custom."
"These boys and girls had mercury poured into them through the tops of their heads while they were still alive. Once they died, their bodies were coated with mercury powder, preserving them like specimens. Even after ten thousand years, their bodies wouldn't decay."
"The cruelest part of this secret method was that, to preserve the corpse's appearance, the mercury had to be poured in while the child was alive. Blood doesn't circulate in the dead, so the mercury wouldn't flow through."
Hu Bayi paused after speaking, then looked up at Gu Cheng.
"Young Master Gu, why don't we take these two children out and give them a proper burial?"
"They've spent over a thousand years keeping this tomb's owner company. It's time they rested properly."
Gu Cheng raised his head and surveyed their surroundings.
Then he gave a cold laugh.
"Hu, don't you think something's strange?"
Hu Bayi froze.
"What do you mean?"
Gu Cheng looked at him. "Haven't you noticed? It's still pitch-black here. We still can't see outside the doorway, and we can't even hear Fatty. Most importantly, where's Yingzi?"
At those words,
Hu Bayi abruptly snapped out of it.
He hurriedly looked around.
Sure enough, the chamber was still pitch-black.
The direction of the entrance was shrouded in darkness too. He couldn't even see the door, let alone Fatty.
"What's going on?!"
"Didn't we already kill the White-Haired Jiangshi?"
Gu Cheng sneered. "That's because this White-Haired Jiangshi wasn't the one behind all this."
Hu Bayi's expression changed sharply. "The White-Haired Jiangshi wasn't behind it?!"
He was quick-witted himself, and in an instant, he understood what Gu Cheng meant.
Then he looked at the two children in horror.
The two children, who had been sleeping so peacefully just moments ago, had now stood up and were glaring viciously at Gu Cheng and him.
Their eyes were filled with utter savagery.
Even Hu Bayi, a soldier who had fought on the battlefield, witnessed life and death, and shed blood with his own hands, couldn't help shuddering.
"Ha ha ha ha..."
Two children's giggles, one boy's and one girl's, suddenly rang out through the chamber.
Yet there was something especially terrifying about that laughter.
"Damn, it really is them!"
Hu Bayi stumbled back several steps in fright, his face filled with horror.