Chapter 14: Digging a Grave at Midnight

Xu Buhuo’s gaze was icy cold.

Being stared at by him made me feel just as terrified as when I was a child and my father caught me misbehaving. Logically, I was already eighteen, taller than Xu Buhuo by two heads, so I shouldn’t have been afraid. Yet my knees trembled uncontrollably, and I felt so weak I almost collapsed to the ground.

“Who has touched this jade?”

Xu Buhuo snapped the cord off the jade pendant and held it up for inspection. I couldn’t fathom how he did it—just one glance, and he knew the pendant had been tampered with.

“No, nobody has touched it.” I forced myself to lie, despite my anxiety, telling myself I absolutely couldn’t let Xu Buhuo know about Old Master Qin. Otherwise, both my mother and I might be in danger.

“Really?” Xu Buhuo continued to fix his terrifying gaze on me. I shook my head vigorously. “No, it’s just a piece of jade. What could anyone possibly do to it?”

He stared at me for a few seconds, then lifted the pendant to the sun. Just as I thought he was about to uncover something else, he patted my shoulder apologetically and said, “Ziwu, I’m sorry. I was mistaken.”

Was he really mistaken? Or had he realized the jade had been tampered with but chose not to expose it?

I didn’t dare meet Xu Buhuo’s eyes as he took the jade and went into the ancestral house. Alone outside, even after the most nerve-wracking moment had passed, I still trembled instinctively.

Xu Buhuo seemed increasingly formidable to me.

I took several deep breaths to calm myself. Just as I was about to go inside, he came toward me carrying a compass.

“I’ve replaced the cord. Wear it properly,” he said, handing me the pendant now strung on a new red thread. As my fingers touched the jade, I instinctively clenched it.

My intuition told me that, during the time it took to replace the cord, Xu Buhuo had already undone whatever arrangement Old Master Qin had placed on the pendant. After Qin’s ritual, the jade had always been icy no matter how tightly I held it, but now it was no longer cold.

Clearly, Xu Buhuo had discovered something, but chose not to reveal it—perhaps to avoid alerting others. Realizing this, I couldn’t help but admire his cunning.

“Come, take me to your village’s graveyard.”

As soon as we entered the burial ground behind the hill, Xu Buhuo asked me to take him to Jiang Yan’s grave.

At the tomb, he stepped right onto the mound, turning repeatedly as he studied the compass needle, moving around as he watched it. Finally, stopping about three meters from the grave, he tapped the ground with his toe. “Get something to pry this open and take a look.”

After prying away some earth without finding anything, I looked up at Xu Buhuo. His expression was grave as he urged me to keep going, as if he was certain something was buried below.

Before long, the stick struck something hard. We brushed aside the dirt to reveal a small earthen jar. It took some effort to dig it out completely.

The jar wasn’t large; at first glance, it resembled a cremation urn. Its surface was densely covered in incantations, similar to those on yellow talismans.

I was about to ask if it might be an urn for someone’s ashes when Xu Buhuo took the stick from my hand and pried open the mud seal. The lid had barely come off before a foul stench nearly made me retch.

A thick, blackish-red ooze spilled from the tilted jar, its stench so potent it was as if a rat had crawled right up to my nose, making me gag.

Xu Buhuo seemed impervious to the stench, continuing to prod inside the jar with the stick.

He extracted a black, shapeless mass from within. Forcing myself not to recoil, I peered closer. It looked like the remains of some animal, yet also didn’t.

“What is this?” I asked.

Xu Buhuo didn’t hesitate. “A baby corpse.”

“What?” I thought I’d misheard.

“An infant’s corpse. Strictly speaking, not quite an infant—more like a fetal corpse, a fetus that never left the womb,” he said calmly.

I couldn’t suppress my fear and retreated several meters away.

The graveyard fell strangely silent.

Xu Buhuo said nothing, squatting by the jar and staring at the fetal corpse. I didn’t know how he had the nerve to fix his gaze on it, even prodding it with a stick.

Watching him poke at the already decayed corpse, making it even more grotesque, I couldn’t help blurting out, “Have some decency, will you? Do you find this amusing?”

He glanced at me, rolling his eyes. “What do you know?”

I was about to snap back when Xu Buhuo fished something out from within the fetal remains—a tattered yellow talisman, filthy but still showing numerous strange incantations.

Upon first seeing the fetus, I’d only thought someone was truly wicked to put it in a jar instead of giving it a proper burial. But seeing the talisman sewn into the corpse, I suddenly recalled the records of dark sorcery in ancient books: some malevolent rituals required the use of infant corpses.

It wasn’t over yet.

Xu Buhuo, holding the compass, continued pacing around the grave as a center point. Soon, he tapped the ground again, directing me to pry it open.

I knew without a doubt there’d be another jar below, containing another fetal corpse.

In the end, we unearthed four jars around Jiang Yan’s grave, each containing a fetal corpse with a yellow talisman. The talismans seemed to have been sewn into the fetuses’ bellies before they had fully decayed.

Staring at the four spell-covered jars and the rotting but still recognizable shapes of the fetuses before them, I felt a chill spread through my body.

Clearly, someone had deliberately buried these around Jiang Yan’s grave. I didn’t know their purpose, only that it was evil and bode no good.

Judging by the state of decay, I deduced that this must have been done after Jiang Yan was buried.

“Ziwu, could it have been your grandmother?” Xu Buhuo suddenly turned to me.

“Did you eat garlic today?”

“No.”

“Then why is your mouth so foul?” I snapped, anger flaring. Say anything else, but don’t malign my grandmother—I believed she could never do such evil.

Xu Buhuo understood my meaning and chuckled. “I heard your grandmother once suppressed this woman when she was causing a commotion. Isn’t it possible she did this?”

His words left me speechless.

Could it really have been my grandmother?

I couldn’t imagine the kind, gentle old woman performing such a ritual—cutting open tiny fetuses, inserting talismans, then sealing them in jars.

“Come, take me to see your family’s ancestral tomb.”

As we walked, I remembered Xu Buhuo approached my family for something. Now he wanted to see the ancestral grave—was he checking if what he wanted was hidden there?

Doubt gnawed at me, making me worry that once Xu Buhuo knew the tomb’s location, he might do something in secret.

“Mr. Xu, my stomach hurts. Could we go another day? It’s almost dinnertime,” I feigned discomfort.

He nodded, and I hurried down the mountain, leaving him behind.

During dinner, thoughts of the four jars around Jiang Yan’s grave nagged at me. I asked my mother if she knew what my grandmother had done when Jiang Yan was causing trouble. She shook her head, saying she didn’t know—Grandma did things on her own, never letting others watch. All she knew was that Grandma had been busy around Jiang Yan’s grave the entire day.

Could it really have been Grandma?

I couldn’t imagine her cutting open the bellies of tiny fetuses, inserting talismans, then sealing them in jars.

After dinner, I felt exhausted. My mother, knowing I’d lost two souls and had to stay up late, told me to sleep first and she’d wake me before midnight.

Half asleep, I had a dream: I went to Jiang Yan’s grave, digging with both hands, desperate to unearth her tomb.

Suddenly, I heard my mother’s tearful cries. I jolted awake, blinded by the harsh glare of a flashlight.

My mother rushed over and hugged me tightly. A chilly wind made me realize I wasn’t in my room but kneeling beside Jiang Yan’s grave, my fingernails packed with mud.

Xu Buhuo stood nearby, his expression dark as he watched me.

Looking around to make sure I wasn’t dreaming, I asked my mother what had happened. Wasn’t I sleeping? How did I end up at the graveyard?

She said she’d been busy in the old house when Aunt Li from next door came over, asking if I was unwell since I didn’t respond to greetings and walked on tiptoe, acting strangely.

When she learned I’d gone up to the graveyard, she rushed after me and saw me digging at Jiang Yan’s grave. She called out several times, but I didn’t react. Too frightened to act rashly, she fetched Xu Buhuo.

Xu Buhuo took one look and declared I’d been possessed. He circled me twice, chanting incantations, and only then did I wake up.

On the way down the mountain, I felt weak all over, my legs barely supporting me.

“Mr. Xu, why did this happen to me?” I asked. I was certain Xu Buhuo knew why I’d suddenly been possessed. The terror of being puppeted, unaware of my own actions, was overwhelming.

“Your fourth and fifth souls have already been taken. With five of your seven souls gone, your spirit is unstable and easily possessed,” Xu Buhuo replied, fixing me with a penetrating gaze that made me lower my eyes, feeling he was probing for information.

It took me a while to recover.

I couldn’t understand it—how had I lost two more souls without even encountering the old witch? I wanted to ask Xu Buhuo whether the jade wasn’t supposed to protect me, but I held my tongue.

Xu Buhuo’s actions during the day made it clear he had noticed Old Master Qin’s meddling with the jade. If I questioned him now, he would certainly ask who had tampered with it.

This secret couldn’t be revealed.

Back at the old house, Xu Buhuo circled my grandmother’s coffin twice, as if inspecting for interference, then resumed his half-dead posture in the wooden chair.

Guilty, I didn’t dare sit by him, choosing instead to doze off in the back.

Around one in the morning, a sudden, frenzied bark from the black dog tied by the well startled me awake.

From the Soul-Calming Lantern across from me, a faint green glow began to emerge.

It was here.