Yin Shou Shu

Chapter 21 Awakening
"Little brat, are you sure you've thought it through? After tonight, you won't have a chance to regret it!"

Aunt Six's sinister and strange laughter was a little creepy in the dark night.

Ran Qing was stunned for a moment: "Qiling?"

In the dim light of the bulb at the door, Aunt Liu glanced at him and said, "That's right, let's start the spirit."

"If you want to save Ran Lao San, you must go meet your old classmate and buy time so that I can burn her body."

"But if you don't have some skills, how can you delay the evil spirit? So I have to help you exorcise the spirit."

"I want you to learn some skills so that you can delay time."

Aunt Six said coldly, "But once you enter this line of work, you'll be stuck with it for the rest of your life. You'll be entangled with it forever. You might end up dead on the street one day, your death unclear... Are you sure you don't regret it?"

"It's not too late to regret now!"

Sixth Aunt's words made Ran Qing frown and remain silent.

Being involved with those sneaky things for a lifetime... Aunt Liu seemed to hate the power she possessed and also hated those sneaky things.

But Ran Qing hated himself even more for being powerless when encountering problems.

"Let's go to the funeral, Aunt Six," Ran Qing's answer was simple.

Aunt Liu looked at him deeply, and suddenly gave a sinister and strange laugh.

Then she patted the black clay pot on her back, turned around and said, "It's good that you're not afraid of death. People who are afraid of death can't do our job."

Aunt Liu tied the black clay jar to her back, turned off the light at the door, and walked out carrying the small wooden box.

"Take the dog and the hoe, we have to go out tonight."

"Meng Laoqi is right. Things are not peaceful these days. Bringing a dog might be useful."

A black jar that looked like a pickle jar was tied with several straw ropes and wrapped back and forth on Aunt Liu's back.

Aunt Liu, who was already a little hunched over, now bent even further and had great difficulty walking.

Ran Qing picked up the hoe by the door, untied the dog leash, and quickly followed: "Sixth Aunt, I'll help you carry it."

However, as soon as his hand touched the clay jar, a cold and sinister malice spread through his hand and spread throughout his body.

In an instant, Ran Qing seemed to hear countless sinister and strange laughs, and seemed to hear countless shrill howls and cries... A chilling and biting feeling spread throughout his body. Ran Qing seemed to have fallen into an ice cave, and was drowned by the strange and sinister laughs from all directions.

It was not until the sound of Sixth Aunt's footsteps was heard that Ran Qing suddenly woke up and found that Sixth Aunt had already walked away with the jar on her back.

And he was standing there holding the dog leash.

Aunt Liu's cold voice floated through the thick fog.

"You are quite diligent."

"But you can't carry this jar yet. I'll let you carry it on your way back after you've left the body."

Aunt Liu's voice gradually faded away. Ran Qing did not dare to delay and hurriedly ran into the fog with the dog leash and caught up with Aunt Liu, who was hunched over.

Following Aunt Liu, Ran Qing no longer felt that there was anything following him.

Tonight, Sixth Aunt exuded a strange aura that made Ran Qing uneasy. This maliciousness seemed to frighten the things in the fog as well.

Nothing dared follow them tonight.

He and Aunt Liu walked down the stairs smoothly, crossed the park road at the foot of Zhongshan Mountain, walked along the vegetable fields behind the park road, and soon arrived at the valley next to Caojiawan Railway Station.

This is no longer an urban area. Standing at the foot of the rocky mountain and looking back, a row of street lights on Park Road behind me are faintly visible in the fog.

The fog had obviously dissipated a lot at night and was not as obstructing as it was during the day.

But the eerie chill in the air seemed even colder.

Ran Qing couldn't help but ask, "Sixth Aunt, where are we going to hold the funeral?"

He didn't understand what raising a spirit meant, but the two of them and the dog walked farther and farther away from the city, and walked into the valley next to Yuezhao city.

There were no roads here. Beyond the front lay jagged rocks, low brush, and a small dirt path trampled through the bushes. The air stank of cow dung, and a few lonely graves dotted the roadside.

This eerie scene under the night sky gave Ran Qing goose bumps on his arms, and he couldn't help but think of the horrific scene he saw in the Wujiang ghost world last night.

Those graves...

In the dark and foggy night, the only lighting tool Ran Qing had was the flashlight in his hand - it was handed to him by his Sixth Aunt when they were crossing Park Road.

Holding a flashlight and walking hunched over on the rugged mountain path, Aunt Liu looked very tired, but she didn't even breathe.

It was still that cold voice.

"Go to the mountains ahead and find you a good place with good feng shui."

The flashlight in Ran Qing's hand pointed forward, just sweeping across Aunt Liu who was hunched over.

There were exactly two shadows cast in the forest, one on the left and one on the right.

On the left is a woman with a hunched back and nothing on her back.

The shadow on the right was a much stronger, more manly one, with a jar on its back.

Ran Qing's heart skipped a beat when he saw this scene. He quickly lowered the light of the flashlight, not daring to shine it on Aunt Liu.

Aunt Liu seemed to have noticed nothing and continued to carry the jar forward.

The two walked for another ten minutes and entered the mountains. The lights of the moonlit city completely disappeared behind them.

Ran Qing and his friends came to the halfway point of a hill.

The surrounding darkness was thick with white fog. A chilly mountain wind blew, and the shrill, fluctuating chirping of insects echoed continuously. In the distant forest, the ghostly howling of birds rose and fell through the fog.

This place is completely far away from the city and there are no lights in sight.

Only then did Aunt Liu take off the jar on her back and sit on the ground holding the small wooden box.

"That's it, go ahead and dig."

Aunt Six used the light of her flashlight to indicate something not far below her feet: "Dig a hole just big enough to bury you, and then we can start the exhumation."

Ran Qing was stunned by what Sixth Aunt said.

"Bury my pit?"

Aunt Liu opened the small wooden box, counted the things inside one by one, and said without raising her head.

"Yes, bury your pit."

"If you want to start a funeral, you have to die once... Haven't you seen elderly people go up the mountain in your hometown? Carrying the coffin out of the mourning hall and carrying it up the mountain is called starting a funeral."

"But don't worry, you don't have to actually die. Just dig a hole, lie in it, and pretend to be dead."

"It's very simple, not dangerous at all."

After counting the contents of the small wooden box, Aunt Six took out her pipe, lit it, and sat halfway up the mountain, taking a deep breath. She said, "What you should be afraid of is what you'll see after the funeral."

Aunt Liu was immersed in the pleasure of puffing out smoke, a real smoker.

The old dog that Ran Qing brought ran over happily and lay down obediently at Aunt Liu's feet, looking at Ran Qing in a sickly manner.

Ran Qingze's heart sank: "What did you see after the spirit was raised?"

"Yes, that's what I saw after the funeral," Aunt Liu said, smoking a cigarette, her cold, dead eyes fixed on the white mist drifting in the mountains. "I'm going to perform a funeral for you, lure those wandering ghosts here, and let them drag you down."

"When you're dragged away by those wandering ghosts, you'll see a lot of weird things, and those things are very dangerous. But if you're lucky, you'll learn some powerful skills."

"This is the quickest way to learn a skill, but the risk is a bit high."

As she spoke, Aunt Six took out her ghost-eye sheepskin drum and said, "But don't worry, you won't die as long as I'm here."

(End of this chapter)