chapter 28

Jiang Xunyi was as laconic as ever: “Speak.”

Huang Wei choked for a moment before reacting, He shuffled closer and was just about to speak, when Yun Xie stopped him unhappily: “If you’re going to talk, just talk. What are you getting so close for?”

“…” Jiang Xunyi rolled his eyes at Yun Xie. Huang Wei felt it was very necessary to give an explanation first, so he took a few steps back before speaking: “What just happened… was indeed us rudely mistreating the two of you young noblemen. But this is truly because too many Jianghu wizards1 had come by before. They not only scammed away lots of money, but are even so detestable as to trick people into losing their lives. I abhor those types of situations, so that’s why I temporarily misunderstood the two of you.”

Jiang Xunyi immediately heard something not right about these words, and asked: “Too many previously came by? Didn’t this abnormality appear in the river only recently? This alone required inviting so many people?”

Huang Wei looked at him in surprise and froze for a moment before replying, “No, no, it’s just because this village was originally a ghost village2, so strange things often happen here.”

Yun Xie and Jiang Xunyi met each other’s eyes, and both thought of the dense aura of death in the village. Huang Wei continued: “It seems both of you young noblemen know about it too. Us local officials have always avoided these affairs of gods and ghosts as taboo. Numerous very strange things have happened in this village before, but every time we sent people over, they were completely baffled and could not find what was going on. We could only leave the matter unsettled, and suppress all those files. It’s funny, really, how ignorant I was at that time. I thought it was because those other people were too incompetent and therefore pushed the matters they could not solve onto the ghosts and gods. It was only when I came to this place five years ago to handle a case, that I realized it wasn’t like that.”

“That case wasn’t originally too strange. It was just a family surnamed Sun reporting to the authorities that the elderly grandfather in their family suddenly couldn’t breathe for some unknown reason. None of the methods the family members used did anything. They could only watch wide-eyed as the old man suffocated until his face turned purple and swollen, and then stopped breathing…”

Yun Xie raised an eyebrow: “Isn’t that the same way the village chief said Wang Yi died?”

Jiang Xunyi followed up: “But when one is elderly, passing away from some hidden illness is quite normal and reasonable. What could reporting this to the authorities accomplish?”

Huang Wei said: “My tale is a long one so if the two of you may listen to my slow talking for the time being… In fact, this method of dying was already not uncommon in this village. Many people had died in this sort of inexplicable way. Before when we looked at the file, we also guessed as such. We believed that because of the village’s remote location, most of the villagers had intermarried between each other, so it was inevitable for there to be some inherited diseases passed along. As a result, we didn’t take it seriously. But this report was not because of Grandfather Sun’s death alone, but because after his death, someone had chopped the corpse apart.”

“The people of this Sun family were extremely filial. After Grandfather Sun passed away, they had originally taken turns to guard the spirit, so the body had never been left alone. On the third day when they opened the coffin, they unexpectedly discovered this matter. They couldn’t think of any enemies who would have done this, and were not willing to leave this unsettled. They came to the government office to report this case because of their anger. The government office was handling a lot of cases around that time and I was the only one free, so I followed them over.”

Hearing the word “coffin”, Jiang Xunyi suddenly thought of the miniature coffin holding his corpse hanging around Yun Xie’s neck. It had previously been knocked down by him, and was later taken back by Yun Xie to keep wearing. Jiang Xunyi still didn’t know what Yun Xie was keeping his corpse for. At this time he subconsciously glanced over at Yun Xie’s neckline.

Yun Xie noticed his gaze looking over and his lips could not help but turn up a little into a smile, but his body did not dare to move. Pretending like he hadn’t seen anything, he continued to listen to Huang Wei speak:

“Upon arriving, I followed the Sun family members to see Grandfather Sun’s corpse, only to see that the corpse had indeed been shattered into pieces. The cut surface was very neat and fine, definitely the result of someone’s deliberate intention and extensive effort. Fortunately it was winter, so the body had not yet begun to rot. Except for having been sliced apart, there was no other damage. The way I saw it… it didn’t seem like someone was venting their anger. Despite much pondering, I was still puzzled and perplexed. I repeatedly questioned the separate Sun family members on their own, but all of them insisted that no one had ever left, and that body had always been lying inside the coffin.”

“In the end, I had no other way except to declare it an unsolved case. The Sun family members found a corpse stitcher to sew the body back together…”

Jiang Xunyi: “Corpse stitcher?”

Deng Zhi interjected to explain: “Craftsmen who specialize in sewing and mending corpses. Some people who met a violent death die in quite a miserable state, so their families will find a corpse stitcher to make the corpse intact again. The higher the level of the stitcher, the more durable and more invisible the traces of sewing.”

Jiang Xunyi nodded in acknowledgment.

Huang Wei continued: “However, it was getting late that day. When the sun was about to set, there was still half a head that hadn’t been stitched on yet. The corpse stitcher announced they would come back the next day, and then left for the night. I thought the roads would be slippery on such a snowy day and I probably wouldn’t be able to make it back to the government office, so I stayed in this village for a night. But I didn’t expect that in the middle of the night, something went wrong again.”

When Huang Wei said the phrase “something went wrong”, Jiang Xunyi suddenly felt his mind seemed to be “ripped away” by some extremely sharp object, and his vision immediately darkened from the sheer pain. The world spun before his eyes, and he almost toppled over. Given his consistently tenacious and proud personality, he clamped his teeth into his lips to avoid shouting out loud. But in that moment, sweat had already covered his face, and even the veins on his forehead seemed about to burst.

Although Yun Xie seemed to be seriously listening to Huang Wei on the surface, he was actually paying great attention to Jiang Xunyi’s every move. At this time he immediately noticed Jiang Xunyi’s abnormality and was so scared his heart skipped a beat. He pounced forward to support Jiang Xunyi, but because he used too much force, he himself swayed and almost lost his balance before the two of them managed to stand firm by leaning on a big tree: “Ah-Xun? What’s wrong? Where are you uncomfortable?”

A sharp pain lanced through Jiang Xunyi’s head and his ears buzzed incessantly. Beads of cold sweat slid down those white jade-like cheeks, soaking a portion of his collar in a mere moment. He subconsciously grasped Yun Xie’s wrist tightly to the point where the veins bulged on the back of his hand. In this foggy haze, he couldn’t clearly hear what Yun Xie was saying. He almost felt like he was about to die yet again.

Yun Xie knew Jiang Xunyi’s usual temper, so when he saw Jiang Xunyi actually driven into this state by the sheer pain, his hands and feet felt cold. He didn’t know what to do. He could only wipe the cold sweat from Jiang Xunyi’s forehead with shaking hands, and whisper: “Ah-Xun, don’t… don’t scare me anymore…”

Only when the words left his mouth did he notice his voice break.

Fortunately, Jiang Xunyi’s pain had come quickly and left just as quickly. Within just a moment of effort, that sensation of agony coming from the depths of his brain had actually disappeared without a trace. When he regained clarity, his entire body felt ice-cold and seemed to be soaked in cold sweat, reminding him that everything that had happened just now was in fact real.

Jiang Xunyi recuperated for a moment before finally reacting that he was currently leaning on Yun Xie, and one of his hands was even grasping Yun Xie’s wrist. He didn’t feel that two grown men leaning on each other like this was any big deal, but he did feel a little bit embarrassed, so he immediately let go and stood up straight. He glanced over at Yun Xie’s hand to see five bruised and swollen fingerprints on his wrist. Jiang Xunyi lowered his gaze and his lips moved slightly, before looking away again.

Yun Xie watched him cautiously. Although he had been pushed away, his hands still protected Jiang Xunyi’s side as if afraid he would fall. He asked in quick succession: “Are you okay now? Still uncomfortable? What happened just now?”

Jiang Xunyi wiped cold sweat away with his sleeves. He couldn’t help but tremble a little upon recalling that feeling worse than death3, but he had still sensed someone closely supporting him the whole time. He had originally wanted to ignore Yun Xie’s questions, but after a pause, he spoke: “I don’t know, but I’m fine now.”

This attitude of casual understatement just made one feel even more vexed and upset. Yun Xie frowned, both worried and helpless. He really wanted to open up Jiang Xunyi’s skull to take a good look at what was inside, but there were currently too many misunderstandings between the two of them. Even though his hands and teeth both itched, he could only pent up his grievances and hold his clenched fists behind his back.

Jiang Xunyi thought for a moment and felt the crux of the issue might lie in this strange case. In addition, the system had never sent out the notice of a task completion, so he looked over at the blankly staring Huang Wei: “Keep talking, what exactly happened that night.”

Huang Wei snapped out of his absent-mindedness, and hurriedly responded: “That night I had slept until the middle of the night, when suddenly the Sun family members came over to knock on my door. When I got up to ask, they said ‘The corpse of our grandfather suddenly disappeared’!”

Due to Yun Xie’s pent-up resentment, his words turned cynical and peculiar: “That’s strange. It’s just a single dead person, how come he keeps being cut up and now stolen? What, was he made of gold?”

Huang Wei smiled bitterly and shook his head: “This time, it can’t be said he was ‘stolen’.”

Jiang Xunyi carelessly said: “You mean that the dead man grew legs and ran away himself? Oh, and an incompletely sewn together dead man at that.”

Unexpectedly, Huang Wei nodded heavily: “That’s exactly right.” He continued: “That night it was originally supposed to be Sun Erlang and Sun Sanlang4 rotating shifts to keep watch. The first half of the night was calm and peaceful. But in the later half, when Sun Sanlang went to take over, the two brothers spoke a few words to each other and didn’t pay much attention for that brief period. When they turned around, they discovered that the coffin cover was open, and that body—that body with half a head still not sewn on—was actually gone!”

“I was very puzzled upon hearing this, so I went to check out the footprints on the ground. I discovered there was only one shallow trail, and didn’t find a second person. I didn’t think too much of it at the time, because if someone had stolen the body and carried it on their shoulders, it would be normal for them to leave only one trail of footprints. I just had trouble imagining how this person had done so. Therefore, the three of us followed the footprints all the way to the door of a house. The footprints disappeared there, but Sun Sanlang suddenly stopped in place.”

“I was surprised: ‘Why did you stop walking? The way I see it, that thief probably entered this house.’ But Sun Erlang stuttered out: ‘Sir Huang, this… this… this is the house our grandfather lived in before his death!’ I immediately felt a chill in my heart, but with these two boys watching from the side, I couldn’t just give up and turn tail5. So I mustered up my courage, pulled out my personal sword, and then kicked the door open and went inside!”

Footnotes:

1.术士 can mean a variety of things including “wizard”, “magician”, “warlock.”

2. 鬼村 lit. “ghost village”. I’m not super sure what a good non-literal translation would be… perhaps “haunted village” or “cursed village”? Whatever the case, living people definitely don’t want to live there.

3. 生不如死 lit. “living worse than death”

4. Remember how commoners in ancient times didn’t really have proper names, but more like “titles” indicating their order of birth among their siblings? In the same vein as Xu Da, the names of these two youths were 孙二郎 and 孙三郎, which roughly translate to “second son of the Sun family” and “third son of the Sun family.”

5. 打退堂鼓 lit. “beat the drums of retreat”