The Life of a Corpse Dissector

As Zhuoma spoke, the body dismantler Gonpo also came down from the attic.

He had clearly heard what Ding Gui had said.

Looking at the brother and sister, Gonpo said sadly, "You can only stay in this house for another hour."

"What if I can't find a place to stay after I go out, and it gets dark?"

"It's dark now, Tsen Demon are everywhere."

"Only by staying in a house with a nearby 'temple' can we avoid being targeted by the Tsen Demon."

This was the second time Zhou Yang had heard the title "Tsen Demon".

These people had mentioned "ghosts" before, but Aji specifically mentioned "Ghost Rhyme."

It is evident that this region shares the same understanding of ghosts as Guan Village and Daliang Village.

The Tsen Demon is a different kind of being, distinct from ghosts.

"Tsen Demon Tsen Demon?"

Zhou Yang pondered this, then murmured a question to Gonpo. Gonpo looked at this fool and shook his head, actually explaining a few words to him, "Tsen Demon..."

"The spirits of those who die violent deaths leave behind in the world, causing harm and disturbing the living; this is the Tsen Demon."

"When someone is afflicted by the Tsen Demon, they will have nightmares, get sick, bang their head against walls, jump into rivers, jump off cliffs... In short, all sorts of strange things will happen."

Upon hearing his words, Zhou Yang realized that the "Tsen Demon" likely referred to a being like a "fierce spirit."

The Tsen Demon is more like the "ghost" from the world Zhou Yang traveled to before.

Zhou Yang nodded to Gonpo, his expression serious. "Tsen Demon is not as frightening as phantoms."

Gonpo looked surprised upon hearing this.

He looked at Aji, who had become a fool, more carefully and thought that although Aji seemed foolish, he was actually quite clever and not foolish at all.

Pointing to Zhuoma, who was frowning in thought beside him, Gonpo asked Zhou Yang, "Aji, who is this?"

"Ajia." Zhou Yang nodded repeatedly, looking rather silly, "This is Ajia, Zhuoma."

Zhou Yang knew in his heart that although he had taken Aji's place and pretended to be an amnesiac, even if he had amnesia, he could not act as if he had lost his mind.

Sometimes, it's actually necessary to show that you, as someone with amnesia, are different from others, so that those around you know that you are still a valuable person.

If something is valuable, it won't always be ignored, thus reducing the possibility of it becoming a "discarded pawn".

"Ajia is..." Gonpo said, gesturing as he tried to describe her with his limited vocabulary. "What is Ajia?"

Who is she to you?

How did you two meet?

His efforts to describe the topic only led him further astray.

But Zhou Yang understood his meaning, so he deliberately looked at him with the eyes of someone looking at a fool and said, "Father, Mother, Ajia has been born."

"Then came Aji —me."

"Ajia knew me from birth, and I knew Ajia from birth."

Gonpo pondered the answer, and the more he pondered it, the more he felt there was a rare spirituality in it.

He didn't care at all about the way Aji was looking at him like he was a fool. He chuckled, his eyes darting around, and reached into his clothes, pulling out a dark, crowned clay figure, which he then showed to Zhou Yang.

"Look, who is this?" "Do you recognize this clay figure?"

Zhuoma had already noticed the interaction between Gonpo and Aji.

She gradually understood Gonpo's intention. At this moment, she held her breath and looked at Aji with a cautious yet expectant gaze.

Ah-di seems to have lost his past memories, but he doesn't seem to be an idiot.

The clay figure made from this mold doesn't have very clear details or textures. You can vaguely see a hand-shaped device hanging from its waist. In comparison, its facial features and headdress are clearer.

Even if it is sculpted to be lifelike, Zhou Yang probably wouldn't recognize it.

But Aji knew.

Aji recognized it at a glance, speaking in Zhou Yang's mind.

Zhou Yang looked at the clay figure and said to Gonpo, "This is a 'tsa tsa' (a type of clay figurine)."

This tsa-tsa is an image of a "Gangba Aga Secret Mantra Master".

"Although Gangba Aga was not a lama in a temple, but just a resident Eba, he unearthed Terma) of an ancient master from the ' Black Wulong Tent Mountain ' and obtained the ritual text of the protector deity ' Sanzan Dorje '."

"Gangba Aga, with the help of Sanzan Dorje, drove away many Tsen Demon and ghosts for the people. "But Sanzan Dorje has a bad habit. At first, it needed to offer wine soaked in snake blood before it would subdue the ghosts and spirits for Gangba. Later, it needed to drink human blood directly. And later still, the young people who voluntarily sacrificed themselves could no longer satisfy it."

This story sounds like it tells the legendary life of a sorcerer who exorcised evil spirits for people.

But when Zhou Yang carefully examined the story, he sensed something strange about it.

Where does the blood used in Gangba's "human blood offering" come from?

If he only took it from himself, would he have that much blood to use?

And... what does "a young person who voluntarily sacrifices themselves" mean?

Too many details in the story don't hold up to scrutiny.

It is precisely these details that give the story its strange flavor, which deviates from its intended main theme.

Aji wasn't a historian either, so when asked to explore the specific details of the story, he only responded with a series of "yes, yes."

"You actually figured it out!"

"And you spoke so well!"

Gonpo stared at Zhou Yang in astonishment for a long time, then quickly turned back to Zhuoma, whose gaze was equally surprised. "Does your family know Gangba Aga esoteric practitioners?"

"Did you know what he did in the past?"

Zhuoma shook her head blankly. "If Father knew, he would pass it on to both of us."

"When doing silver carving and repairing old ritual implements for customers, you also need to know the various things associated with those implements."

"But Father never mentioned this Gangba Aga, and Axi probably doesn't know him either..."

"Yes!"

Gonpo nodded emphatically. "Not many people recognize this 'Catcha'!"

"I also learned about the story of this tsa-tsa from the esoteric sorcerer who taught me how to summon souls and quell disasters!"

"Aji actually recognizes it—but Aji didn't recognize it before..."

He paused here, then looked at Zhou Yang with a strange light in his eyes. "Aji has no memories of the past. His experiences are as clean as a baby's—but he clearly knows a lot about things related to 'secrets'."

"He has awakened! He has acquired the 'secret' nature!" Zhuoma, take Aji to the temple!

"Perhaps through spiritual practice, he can become a great lama!"

"That's someone far more distinguished than a sorcerer—no, no, at least more so than Steward Ding Gui! He's practically a skeleton now!"

"Ah..." Zhuoma listened to Gonpo's words, and her expression towards Aji clearly showed joy.

She looked at Aji with surprise, considering Gonpo's suggestion.

But after a moment, she calmed down and shook her head. "No!"

"Aji can't go to the temple!"

"Why?" Gonpo looked at her in confusion. "Even if I go to the temple, I will have to do odd jobs... possibly for many years."

"But he has potential; perhaps he'll be chosen and become a student monk?"

"If you become a student monk, you'll have the opportunity to become a lama in the future!"

"No!" Zhuoma shook her head even more resolutely. "Father said that even if we, with our dark bones, went to the temple, there would be no way we could become lamas!"

"He once said that on this pilgrimage route, there was a child named Yixi Wangjia who was born into the Black Bone Clan. However, he could read at the age of nine and could recite a Buddhist scripture. People said that Yixi was a person with innate qualities, and since he was a child, he was even closer to 'secret'. Later, the monks in the temple indeed came to take Yixi away."

He was raised until he was thirteen.

"Later... my father said that when he was grinding gold powder for the Thangka paintings in the temple, he saw Yixi's hide."

He also said that the hole in Longgeda Lama's waist was made from Yixi's shinbone.

"Yixi has indeed never appeared again since then."

"So my father taught us that when your mind is not clear, you should never go to the temple."

"Even if you spend your whole life as a laborer, at least you've lived a full life. But if they think you've developed some kind of spiritual potential, then your whole life is gone, even half a life is gone."

Upon hearing this, Gonpo froze in shock.

He was just a corpse dismantler from the mountains, unlike the knowledgeable family like Zhuoma's, who had a silversmith's storehouse on the prayer wheel route.

After a moment of stunned silence, Gonpo's face turned ashamed. "I almost did something wrong, Zhuoma."

"So, where are you going to stay next?"

He hesitated, as if he had something else to say. Zhuoma tugged at Zhou Yang's sleeve and looked at Gonpo, a glint in her eyes. "Uncle Duobudan..."

Can we stay at your place for a while?

"Once we find a new place to stay..."

Before she could finish speaking, Gonpo nodded repeatedly. "Okay!"

"Since you have nowhere to stay, you can come to my place. I was just about to shamelessly suggest this to you, but I was afraid you would think I was a corpse dismantler and that the places I lived in were unlucky."

"Since you're willing, I'll definitely agree."

"I have a few empty rooms; feel free to stay as long as you like."

"I live north of the Narong Charnel Ground. In the charnel ground, there are altars and temples built by lamas. That place is also rarely disturbed by Tsen Demon."

"For you right now, this is definitely a very good place to stay."

He paused, turned to look at the messy house, and said, "Then let's pack up and get going!"

"The sun hasn't even reached its zenith yet. If we set off now, by the time we arrive in Narong, the sun will be setting."

"Okay!" Zhuoma agreed.

Gonpo then helped the siblings tidy up the house, which was almost empty.

Zhuoma carried only a small half-bag of tsampa on her back, Zhou Yang had a whole sheep's belly full of ghee hanging from his waist, and carried several bundles containing wool blankets. Gonpo helped carry a felt blanket and wooden bowls and utensils for mixing tsampa. The group then hurriedly left.

Queji Silversmith's Storehouse had been operating on the prayer wheel route for a long time, but when disaster struck, he was still penniless.

The silversmith's storeroom still contained some bronzeware and furniture, and decorations made of whole cow and sheep hides hung on the walls—but none of these things belonged to the Queji family anymore.

All that belonged to Zhuoma and her brother was what they had in their hands.

The full name of this place, Linzang, is "Linzang Kora Route".

As its name suggests, the main road in this place is just a pebbled pilgrimage route.

People in tattered clothes prostrated and worshipped on the road day after day, polishing the cobblestone path until it was exceptionally smooth.

On both sides of the cobblestone road, whitewashed watchtowers stand like trees.

Each watchtower is a shop.

Monks in red robes chatted and laughed as they entered and exited the shops. Compared to the skeletal remains huddled together in groups, seemingly oblivious to life or death, these monks appeared to be the living people on this street; the rest were at best livestock.

Outside the prayer wheel path are houses, some made of wood and some of stone, built against the hillside and against the rocks.

Those low houses, far less tall than the watchtowers along the pilgrimage route, were also piled up crookedly, swaying in the wind as if they might collapse at any moment.

The living conditions here are even worse than in Guan Village.

According to Zhou Yang, Gonpo was already the only "major city" within a radius Linzang several hundred miles.

Gonpo led Zhou Yang and the other two through the stone wall of Linzang the height of a person, and headed west.

The sun was setting in the west, around two or three o'clock in the afternoon.

Zhou Yang then followed Gonpo to his residence in Narong.

Narong is a charnel ground.

Behind that grayish-yellow, steep, and continuous mountain range lies the charnel ground.

The mountain wind swept over the desolate Narong Mountain, pouring down from the summit, and a salty stench of corpses wafted straight into people's nostrils.

Just smelling the stench of corpses, Zhou Yang could already imagine what the charnel ground must look like. Gonpo led the two to the foot of Narong Mountain, where there were also scattered, crooked houses.

The people who dismantle corpses live together here, and they have little contact with the outside world.

As Gonpo led his men in, Zhou Yang could not see a single person other than the stench of corpses lingering in the settlement.

"They're mostly sleeping at home, aren't they?"

When there's no need to go up the mountain to dismantle corpses, everyone tries to stay home and rest.

"If you don't get enough rest, all sorts of hallucinations will start to appear here, and you'll go insane." Gonpo pointed to his head. "Three corpse dismantlers and eight or nine corpse carriers live here year-round."

"But recently, a body dismantler went mad. He took the dismantling knife, cut open his own body, and jumped into the charnel ground on the north side of the mountain."

As he spoke, Gonpo gestured to his chest.

He still had a smile on his face, but it was a wooden smile, devoid of any joy.

As they approached a wooden hut, his smile widened, "This is Jiekan's house. He's a corpse carrier. When outsiders come to us to dismantle corpses, I always ask him to help carry them."

As he spoke, he banged loudly on Jiebu's door, the sound echoing throughout the room, "Hey, Jiekan! Jiekan, get up and pee!"

"Damn zombie!" Jiekan muttered and cursed from inside the house.

Gonpo didn't care at all. He went around the back of the wooden house and arrived at the foot of a hillside.

The stone houses built on the hillside were Gonpo's residence.

He gave one of the rooms on the left to Zhou Yang and Zhuoma, and then lit a fire in his own room, inviting the two siblings over to talk.

After the two men were seated, and a bowl of butter tea was poured for each of them, Gonpo asked Gate of Opening, "The taxes we corpse dismantlers have to pay are much less than yours. Your taxes are as numerous as the stars in the sky."

"It won't be long before someone comes looking for you to do some work."

"How are you going to deal with them? Pay them, or have them do the work?"

Now that you have a place to live, how do you plan to make a living?