Ch7 - Funeral (7)

T/N: Umm… I was overing thinking in the pervious chapters, to clarify, the MC had been in a system before (this is not a spoiler since it’s in the synopsis, it just felt like he hasn’t because he took on a very casual tone when mentioning it). I was translating some other chapters which lead me to realise that….(how embarrassing (⌒_⌒;) )

Hehe, enjoy this chapter!

Ren Yifei pursed his lips, he already had some suspicions but he needed to verify them.

Just as he was about to get up, he spotted a pair of black cloth slippers through the gap under the door. The upper parts of the slippers were a bunch of rags patched together while the soles of the slippers were uneven, with one being thicker than the other.

Are these Granny Chun Zhi’s slippers?

Ren Yifei, the athletics scum, returned while supporting his waist.

He sat on the stool, waiting readily to see daybreak. He would always be able to go out once dawn arrives, right? Maybe he could even probe out some useful clues, right?

Ren Yifei was looking forward to it. After experiencing two nights in a row, he wanted to see some daylight.

“Oh oh ohh-“

Along with the piercing squawk of the rooster, Ren Yifei’s eyes opened: Is it dawn…?

The pair of doe eyes froze midway.

The entire mourning hall distorted for a moment, like a TV screen on pause. When it returned back to normal, A Liang in front of him became full of vitality and asked with a smile, “A Fei came for the vigil again?”

Ren Yifei:…

Again?

Again what?

How about you look at my dark circles and repeat what you said.

Ren Yifei’s entire face is also distorted like the mourning hall.

A Liang didn’t notice Ren Yifei’s abnormality and said to himself, “After taking a nap, I feel a lot better now.”

Keke,goddamnsleep.

He previously got too excited while awaiting daybreak, now, he was disappointed. The strain from staying up all night returned to his body.

He didn’t endure one night, he actually endured three!

Ren Yifei had just felt a nail hammered into his head but he still tugged the corners of his mouth into a laugh, “I didn’t know what to do tonight and I also didn’t rest well during the day.”

“Didn’t rest well during the day?” A Liang sat down beside Ren Yifei, “Let me ask you, why are your eyes still so red?”

Ren Yifei rubbed his face, looking miserable as if he had suffered a great deal.

A Liang thought for a while, “Later, you can bring two, no, three benches to make a small bed. It’s noisy but better than having no sleep.”

Xiao Mei passed by with the water and couldn’t help but turn her head to look at the two NPCs with eyes as red as a rabbit’s.

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stJ eOD mtefyq mO tDIC N qCOIm?!

Can youfu*kingbe human?

XwgC ngt YwwO CwWrgkwt Yj Pnw gxMOj Mp OMP YwfOx gYrw PM TrwwW. KP MOw WMfOP, GfgM lwf ngt bgOPwt PM YdCO Pnw JMdCOfOx ngrr tMbO bfPn g PMCkn. RMJw MO, rwP’T tfw PMxwPnwC!

“xfNO VJf—” mCJ ofzzLJ-NqJz EOoNy hNLLJz CJt.

xfNO VJf’I ANhJ zNtXJyJz JFJy oOtJ NI ICJ qtfmmJz CJt mJJmC Nyz tJRLfJz, “kOofyq.”

Today was still the night of the funeral vigil, everyone drank their bowl of watered-down porridge as usual.

The players finally couldn’t endure any longer and joined in to pour themselves half a bowl of bean porridge under the scrutiny of the NPCs. Even this half a bowl of porridge couldn’t be drunk peaceful as the NPCs always have something to find fault in.

Ren Yifei ate the bean cake with the bean porridge while sympathising: they might not be able to survive the ‘ghost’ if they continued to go on without eating or sleeping like this.

The players are so pitiful, it’s a good thing he’s an NPC.

“I’m going to the bathroom first,” While playing cards, a young man couldn’t hold it in and got up in a hurry.

Ren Yifei saw that it was A Jie. Out of all the people present, he was the one who talked the most and was also the most brazen. With a twinkle in his eyes, he immediately stood up as he yawned, wanting to join the other, “It would’ve been fine if you hadn’t said anything, but now that you’ve mentioned it, I suddenly want to go to the toilet too.”

“Aiyo brother Fei, you’re not afraid of the dark, are you?” A Jie winked at him.

“Screw you, who’s scared?”

A Liang, who was playing cards, looked up, “If you want to go, go, why the nonsense?”

The two quarrelled all the way to the backyard.

Pulling open the bamboo door of the hut, there was a toilet inside, only when you got close did you smell the stench of urine.

The young man named A Jie was inside urinating, the sound of splashing could be heard. Ren Yifei was outside, seeming to be unable to find the right words, he said, “I really didn’t expect it.”

“What?”

“A Jie, the expressions of those uncles didn’t look right when they talked about Granny Chun Zhi yesterday. Hey, do you know what’s going on? My mother won’t let me ask around.”

Ren Yifei said in an indignant tone, “How old do you think I am? What is it that I can’t know about? I don’t see anyone else who doesn’t know.”

“Ahem,” A Jie’s breathing became quieter, “Since Auntie won’t let you know, you shouldn’t pry.”

“Heh,” Ren Yifei’s voice took on a hint of mockery, “So you don’t know either.”

“Bang!” A Jie pushed the door open in one swift motion, he fastened the waistband of his trousers while shouting anxiously, “Who says I don’t know?”

“Then tell me,” Ren Yifei provoked him.

“I also know a bit about it- don’t tell anyone that I told you,” A Jie looked around, “Come here.”

The two dragged each other to the side of a bush, the shadow of the trees encasing them, blending with their dark clothes.

When he got there, A Jie hesitated again. Craning his neck a little towards Ren Yifei, his eyes surveyed the surroundings, even the slightest breeze would probably startle him.

“Speak, what kind of person is your brother Fei, what are you still worried about?”

Hearing this, A Jie couldn’t help but roll his eyes despite his fears: I’m still very worried.

“I’ve heard,” A Jie lowered his voice, “That Granny Chun Zhi was hanged.”

Hanged?

Sure enough, just as he had suspected before. But what about the details?

“Fine, how is it ……” Ren Yifei paused mid-sentence, his eyes glancing at A Jie, drawing him out into giving more information, “I also heard that, I’ve heard that already.”

A Jie coughed and continued in a lowered voice, “That night, a burglar entered the house. Someone saw a dark figure climbing over the wall, while inside, Granny Chun Zhi was cursing loudly. No one expected that she would be gone two days later in the middle of the night.”

Ren Yifei raised an eyebrow and asked in a low voice, “Had anyone seen Granny Chun Zhi in the time between her encounter with the thief and her death?”

A Jie thought for a moment, “I don’t know about that, Granny Chun Zhi didn’t like to go out in the past. Do you still want to hear more?”

“You can continue,” Ren Yifei assured that he was all ears.

“When Granny Chun Zhi died, her mouth was opened and her tongue was sticking out and her head was kept titled back. They said that it was because her heart held grudges. I’m only afraid that if something valuable was stolen, the family might complain, saying that they’ll hang themselves out of anger,” A Jie said while rubbing his shoulders, “Anyways, that’s what happened, I don’t know anything else.”

Her head was tilted up?

How could have she raised her head?

Neither hanging nor strangulation would result in a head-tilting pose. Unless the deceased maintained the head-tilting pose after death, it would’ve been difficult to change the posture after rigour mortis had set in.

Ren Yifei looked at the backyard illuminated by the moon*, his eyes passed through the material world to someplace no one else could see.

His ‘world’ spun up rapidly.

The surrounding old residences, trees, and courtyard walls were removed one by one, like props on a stage, and he ‘reappeared’ in Granny Chun Zhi’s room with a white cloth hanging down from an elevated beam.

An old woman was hanging overhead with her mouth opened and her tongue stuck out. Her head was slightly titled upwards, her eyes were bloodshot, glassy and hollow.

He stood right next to the corpse, observing her.

This was a mindscape he had built in his brain, a world that belonged to him.

Ren Yifei likes to figure out his roles in his own world and conduct simulation exercises.

In this world, he is the creator and controller of everything.

It takes at least two days for the corpse to produce odour, however, the corpse had already begun to stink on the first day of the vigil.

Ren Yifei reached out and dialled the time of death to be moved back by a day, which was the day after the thief came.

There was a difference of at least twelve hours between the real-time of death and the faked time of death, which the family of the deceased could not have been unaware of, but they concealed the matter and disguised it as a hanging.

Granny Chun Zhi must not have been hanged; she had died, formed a head-tilted pose due to rigour mortis, and was then disguised as a hanging.

It takes four hours for the corpse to begin stiffening, seven to eight hours for it to completely stiffen and twenty-three hours for the corpse to begin to loosen. Because it was summer and an old person would have less muscle mass, the time would’ve been earlier.

Therefore, the time of the fake hanging was more than eight hours and less than twenty-three hours from the actual time of death. In addition, during this process, the deceased maintained the position of their head tilting up until their corpse stiffened.

Under what circumstances would the deceased remain in a head-tilted position until rigour mortis sets in?

“Recliner.”

A reclining chair for old people appeared in the corner, the one that was in Granny Chun Zhi’s room.

Ren Yifei walked over, slowly sat down, leaned back and lay on it.

There was something bulging like a pillow on the back of the recliner that pushed against his back.

A Fei was a1.7 metreyouth, but Granny Chun Zhi was not that tall, this bulge might just support her neck, and with the backward curved recliner, her head would be able to tilt up slightly.

After she died, she stayed in his position for more than four hours after death to develop rigour mortis in this pose.

What was her family doing during that time?

There were only a few members in the family, it was impossible that no one noticed her death, so why did they not immediately prepare for burial but choose to ignore it and eventually even conceal and disguise her death?

Granny Chun Zhi, how did she die again?

There was no blood in Granny Chun Zhi’s room and there should have been nothing evidently abnormal about Granny Chun Chi’s body when it was found.

Analysing from the same line of thought, the most probable to disguise as a hanging would be death by strangulation.

He lay motionlessly on the recliner.

A piece of twine suddenly reached out from the darkness and wrapped around his neck, tightening around it.

Ren Yifei struggled desperately as another black shadow came out and tried to hold down his flailing hands and feet. Death terrified him, and he would struggle instinctively.

The old woman’s strength was limited and all she could use were her hands and feet, so he kicked his legs and scratched with his hands. His nails left a scratch on the armrests and even scratched the dark figure a few times.

That dark figure…

The back of the middle-aged woman’s hand appeared before him, and on it were obvious scratches. It had just scabbed over and looked like it had been scratched in the past two days.

The dark figure lifted its head and a face immediately appeared. It was the face of the middle-aged woman in the mourning hall. Her face was facing away from the light, less simple and honest, more hideous and gruesome.

In that case, the one who was strangling him from behind…

Ren Yifei looked up and his eyes caught sight of an equally honest but hideous face.

The owner of this face was currently kneeling in front of the coffin, crying over and over again about the pain of ‘a son who supported his family but not his parents’. How much of his tears were due to guilt and how much was due to remorse?

With a wave of Ren Yifei’s hand, the ropes, black shadows, and recliner all dispersed.