What do you mean by saying that the corpses I sew are all ominous creatures?

"What's wrong?" Li Qing immediately asked in a low voice, alert.

I turned my head slightly, opening all five senses.

In that deep alley, I smelled an extremely faint fishy odor.

It smelled exactly the same as the corpse in the museum that afternoon.

In that dark shadow, it seemed as if a pair of malevolent eyes were staring intently at us.

I did not choose to launch an attack immediately because we were in a busy downtown area.

If a fight were to break out here, it would be difficult to control the possibility of accidental injuries.

I turned to Li Qing and said, "It's nothing. I think I saw someone I knew just now, but I must have mistaken them for someone else. Let's go home."

Li Qing glanced at me, then smiled knowingly: "Alright, let's go home. I still need to go back and grind some more."

We walked casually to the parking lot.

The stench lingered for a moment in the shadows before slowly fading away.

Back in the rented room, Li Qing skillfully rummaged through the closet for spare bedding and spread it out on the sofa.

I sat by the window, holding the black bone needle in my hand.

Outside the window, it was dark and windy.

That night, Li Qing unusually didn't play games, but instead lay down on the sofa early, holding his compass in his arms.

I didn't sleep either. Instead, I sat on the edge of the bed, circulating my internal energy to bring myself to peak condition.

The next morning, Li Qing and I got up on time.

He yawned as he went to wash up, while I stood on the balcony, watching the sun gradually rise in the distance.

"Let's go to the museum," I said to Li Qing, who had just washed her face.

"Fine, I'll see what kind of treasure is hidden inside that corpse."

Li Qing chuckled, a hint of fighting spirit flashing in his eyes.

We drove back to Jiangcheng Funeral Home.

At nine o'clock in the morning, although the sun had already risen, the corridor of the funeral home's cold storage area was still eerily gloomy.

Li Qing, wearing his wrinkled hoodie and carrying a compass, walked behind me with his neck hunched.

After swiping my card, I pushed open the heavy steel door of the cold storage room.

"Buzz—"

The sound of the refrigeration unit operating echoed in the empty room.

I walked up to the freezer that Lao Zhang had put away yesterday and opened the drawer.

"Damn, this taste... it's definitely not right."

Li Qing frowned and leaned closer, twitching his nose. He then pulled out a few copper coins and a stack of yellow talismans from his pocket.

I didn't rush to make a move, but looked at him and said, "Let's set up a plan first. Lu Yan said that things are not peaceful in Southeast Asia. I'm afraid there might be some noise coming from this corpse."

Li Qing nodded, abandoning his usual nonchalant demeanor.

He moved quickly, placing the four copper coins in the four corners of the cold storage room, and then pasting a talisman to suppress the corpse behind the door.

Finally, he bit his fingertip and drew a simple spirit-sealing array on the edge of the freezer.

After doing all that, he gestured to me: "Alright, I've sealed off a five-meter radius."

Even if some insects did crawl out of there, they wouldn't be able to escape this room.

"Chen Yang, go ahead and use your fists, but leave your back to me."

I nodded and gave him an OK sign.

After putting on double-layered latex gloves, I added a waterproof mask.

Then, I took out the willow-leaf knife and gently twirled it around my fingertip, the murderous aura wrapping around the blade like silk.

I did not choose to open the abdomen directly, but instead observed the body surface first.

The male corpse was about forty years old, with thick calluses on his fingers, as if he had been doing manual labor for many years.

I gently sliced ​​open the skin on the corpse's chest with the tip of my knife.

"Pfft—"

There was no splatter of blood as expected; only some grayish-black liquid slowly flowed out.

This indicates that the blood in the body has long been assimilated or drained by something.

I deftly cut open the chest and abdominal cavities along the midline.

The moment the abdominal cavity was fully opened, even Li Qing, who was used to seeing big scenes, couldn't help but gasp.

The corpse's internal organs had all shrunk, and the stomach, which should have been there, was stretched to its limit, like an inflated balloon.

I could feel the malevolent energy surging wildly within my body.

That's a dangerous sign.

I held my breath and gently pried open the thin layer of stomach wall with a scalpel.

"Splash—"

A strong, fishy stench suddenly erupted.

Li Qing suddenly made a hand seal and shouted in a low voice, "Suppress!"

The array around the freezer flickered slightly, forcibly suppressing the stench that was trying to spread within a small area.

I looked down and saw that there were no worms or poison in my stomach as I had imagined.

Within that pool of viscous black liquid, a human head lay quietly.

It was a woman's head.

Her hair was shaved off, and her face was covered with dark red cinnabar.

His eyes were firmly nailed shut with two rusty iron nails, and his mouth was sewn shut with black thread.

The human head, inside the male corpse's abdominal cavity, had not decomposed; instead, it appeared eerily lifelike, with even tiny blood vessels pulsating beneath the skin.

"This..." My hand holding the knife stiffened slightly.

This technique is somewhat similar to a kind of evil magic recorded in my grandfather's notes.

The most insidious type of Southeast Asian black magic is the Hidden Head Black Magic.

"Chen Yang, don't touch that head!" Li Qing shouted from behind.

"That's the head of a living dead, filled with the resentment of two people. It will explode as soon as it's exposed to light."

I calmly withdrew my hand, and the murderous aura condensed into a barrier at my fingertips.

Looking at this scene, I was rapidly calculating in my mind.

Kill one person, stuff another person's head into their stomach, and then throw them into the river so we can find them.

What was their motive? Was it merely to intimidate me?

It's not that simple.

I took a step back, removed the gloves that were covered in black liquid, and threw them into the yellow trash can.

"Li Qing, hold the formation. I'm calling Lu Yan."

I walked out of the cold storage room, stood at the end of the corridor, and dialed Lu Yan's private number.

The phone was answered after two rings, and Lu Yan's voice came through: "Chen Yang? Something happened?"

"Lu Yan, bring the forensic doctor and investigation team to the funeral home now."

My calm tone carried a serious undertone: "Yesterday, a drowned body came to the museum, and a human head was hidden inside its body."

The severed head belonged to a woman and had been subjected to severe magic; the initial assessment was that it was a form of Southeast Asian black magic.

This is not an ordinary criminal case; it's a folk-related murder.

There was a silence of about three seconds on the other end of the phone, followed by the sounds of Lu Yan getting dressed and taking out her keys.

"I'll be there in ten minutes. You stay there and keep watch, and make sure no other people from the museum get close."

After hanging up the phone, I returned to the cold storage room.

Li Qing was squatting on the ground, staring at the human head, his face extremely pale.

"Chen Yang, this is a big deal. Look at this woman's forehead, there's a reversed swastika."

This was the work of evil monks from Southeast Asia. They killed this man to use his yang energy to nourish his yin head.

If I'm not mistaken, this man must be a close relative of this woman; only the flesh and blood of a close relative could nurture a killer of this caliber.

I walked to the freezer and looked at the head with its eyes nailed shut, and a nameless anger welled up in my heart.