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

Her intuition was quite sharp; just a moment later, her gaze locked onto me.

"You...can you see?"

Then, before I could reply, she whispered, "Thanks."

After saying that, he grabbed the jar and hurriedly left his seat.

I didn't see her come back for the next two hours; perhaps she went to another carriage.

I didn't pay much attention to it; after all, in our line of work, we can't be too curious.

After another stop, I carried my suitcase to the sleeper car and successfully got a sleeper ticket from the conductor. After putting my luggage away, I fell fast asleep.

When I woke up, the train was still 20 minutes away from arriving at the station.

The train arrived at the station, I got off, took a bus to the county town, and everything went smoothly without any further incidents.

The girl suddenly appeared at the bus station outside the county town.

She was still holding that black pottery jar, and when she saw me, she looked somewhat surprised.

He then gave me a deep look, left me with the words "Things haven't been peaceful in the mountains these days, be careful," and then, clutching the black pottery jar, climbed into a black motorcycle taxi heading deeper into the mountains.

Listening to her rambling words, I frowned deeply, but now was not the time to delve into it.

He turned around and got on another black motorcycle taxi, heading towards Huilongzhai.

The mountain roads are difficult to travel, especially the dirt road leading to Huilongzhai. It had just rained and was so muddy it was like a rotten intestine.

When I trudged through the mud to the entrance of Huilongzhai Village, it was already completely dark.

Night falls especially quickly in the mountains, and the whole village is deathly still; the usual sounds of roosters crowing and dogs barking are all gone at this time of day.

Every household kept their doors and windows tightly shut, except for two pale white lanterns hanging at the far end of the village.

That's my family's old house.

Before I even entered the courtyard, I smelled the acrid smell of burning paper money and heard suppressed sobs and noisy discussions.

"Second Uncle."

I pushed open the half-closed courtyard gate and called out.

The dozen or so relatives gathered in the courtyard seemed to have been put on pause, and they all turned around at once.

My second uncle, who was squatting on the doorstep smoking a pipe, instantly relaxed his worried face when he saw me.

"Yoko! You're finally back!"

My second uncle threw down his cigarette butt and rushed over, grabbing my arm tightly with both hands. "Quick...quick, come in and see! Your grandfather...he's bleeding again!"

Is it bleeding again?

When a person dies, their blood congeals; that's common sense. Unless... something else is flowing inside their body.

I patted my second uncle's hand to signal him not to panic, and carried the black leather suitcase straight to the main room.

As I stepped across the threshold, a chilling, bone-deep cold blasted at me.

The funeral hall was simply decorated. In the center was a black cypress coffin, which was not yet covered. On both sides were piles of paper replicas of gold and silver mountains and children.

Grandpa was sitting in the armchair in front of the coffin.

Although my second uncle had told me about it on the phone, my heart still skipped a beat when I saw it with my own eyes.

Grandpa was dressed in casual clothes, sitting stiffly in the chair with his feet not touching the ground, but dangling about two inches in the air—a sign of malevolent energy, a very bad omen.

His face turned an eerie, ashen blue, and his eyes were wide open, staring intently at the doorway.

There was no emptiness in his eyes, but rather a ferocious rage.

And a trace of black blood hung from the corner of his mouth, dripping down his chin onto his clothes.

What was most striking was his right hand, which was tightly gripping an old, yellowed rattle drum. His knuckles were white from the force, and his fingernails were deeply embedded in his palm, from which black blood was seeping out.

thump... thump...

The funeral hall was very quiet, but I heard an extremely faint and slow sound.

It's not a heartbeat.

It was coming from deep in Grandpa's throat, like the sound of bubbles bursting.

"Get out, everyone."

I put down my suitcase, turned around, and spoke to the relatives who were crowding around the doorway, peering in.

Although my tone was gentle and I had an apologetic smile on my face, there was a hint of coldness that no one else could detect.

"Second Uncle, stay here. Everyone else, retreat outside the courtyard. No matter what noise you hear, don't come in unless I call out."

My second uncle chimed in, and the relatives and friends tactfully withdrew, closing the door to the main room behind them.

Only my second uncle, my grandfather's body, and I remained in the house.

"Yoko, what... what do we do?"

My second uncle stood trembling in the corner, not daring to even look at my grandfather. "The Taoist priest said this is a 'Luohan sitting in evil spirits,' and that we have to tie him up with iron chains and burn him. But he's my own father, your own grandfather. How can we do such an unfilial thing..."

"No need to burn it."

As I spoke, I opened the black leather suitcase.

The dim candlelight illuminated the rows of gleaming scalpels inside the box.

I took out a pair of rubber gloves and put them on, then opened a bottle of baijiu from the table, took a sip, and "pfft" sprayed it onto the scalpel.

"Grandpa isn't blaming us, it's just that he didn't finish what he was saying, or there was something he didn't explain."

I walked up to my grandfather, squatted down, and met his gaze at the level of his wide-open, angry eyes.

As you get closer, the stench of the corpse becomes even stronger, mixed with a faint earthy smell.

"Grandpa, your grandson is back."

I said softly, then knelt down and respectfully kowtowed three times to my grandfather.

After I got up, I reached out, but instead of touching my grandfather's body directly, I gently placed two fingers on the pulse point of his wrist where he was holding the rattle drum.

It feels cold to the touch and is as hard as a stone.

But beneath that deathly stillness, I felt a very subtle vibration.

The vibration traveled down his arm and all the way to... his throat.

I squinted and looked up, my gaze landing on Grandpa's tightly closed lips.

His cheeks were slightly puffed out, as if he were holding a breath, or something else.

"Second Uncle," I asked without turning my head, "did Grandpa take his last breath before he passed away?"

"No...no!" Uncle said, his voice trembling with tears. "He pointed to his throat and made some guttural noises, his face turning purple, and then he kicked his legs and...sat up."

After hearing my second uncle's answer, I stopped talking and instead grabbed my grandfather's jaw joint with my left hand and pressed my right thumb against his philtrum, using a skillful force.

Click.

With a sharp crack, I forcefully pried open Grandpa's tightly clenched teeth.

The moment its mouth opened, a blast of black smoke accompanied by a foul stench hit it!

I was prepared, so I held my breath and turned my head to avoid it.

Looking back again, I saw a dark, wet thing in Grandpa's mouth.

I frowned, took out tweezers from my suitcase, and carefully used them to pick out the clump of stuff.

It turned out to be a tangled mass of hair, still slightly wriggling...

Wrapped in the middle of that clump of hair was a yellow talisman paper, folded into a triangle and soaked in blood.

My second uncle glanced at it from behind, his eyes rolled back, and he almost fainted: "What...what is this thing?!"

I didn't answer. Instead, I threw the clump of hair into the copper basin next to me and then used a scalpel to pry open the talisman.

A distorted symbol was drawn on the talisman paper with cinnabar. I didn't recognize the symbol, but it looked extremely familiar—

Just a few hours earlier, on that green train, the strange girl was holding a black pottery jar with a seal that had a similar pattern drawn on it.

My heart sank.

This is definitely not a simple "Arhat sitting in a shady position".

Someone has cast a "curse" on Grandpa, so that he will not have peace after death. His throat is sealed, and his last breath of misfortune is locked in his stomach, so that he can be turned into a... living corpse!