Why?

Speculation makes it difficult for me to believe.
Xu Buhuo is also skeptical, because he keeps muttering under his breath, “It can’t be. The Chen Sister I know would never be so cruel.”
After a while, Xu Buhuo finally snapped out of it, looked at me seriously and said, “Ziwu, it’s not that I don’t trust you. I just can’t believe your grandmother could do such a thing. There might be something we don’t know here. For now, this suspicion should stay between the two of us.”
I nodded. Even though speculation made the whole situation seem logical, the image of my grandmother in my mind kept reminding me that maybe something was wrong, or perhaps it was all just a coincidence.
At that moment, a method to prove everything suddenly occurred to me.
“Old man, do you know how to ask the rice with upright chopsticks?”
Grandma was gone, so there was no way to ask her directly, but I had seen her perform this ritual before—communicating with the dead by standing a chopstick in a bowl of rice.
Science can hardly explain it, but it truly exists.
I remember once, a couple came to ask Grandma for help: they wanted to know where their son, who had died suddenly in an accident, had left an important document in the house.
Grandma placed a bowl of rice before her, asked for the deceased’s birth date and buried it in the rice, stood a chopstick upright in the center, and let the wife press her finger against it. She began chanting, and as her chanting continued, the air in the hall stirred naturally, and the rice in the bowl started to jump.
When she finished, Grandma gave them an address. The next day, the couple returned to thank her—they had found the document at the exact spot she mentioned.
“I practice metaphysics. Your grandmother’s skills are related, but slightly different. I can’t ask the rice with upright chopsticks, but I can summon spirits to possess. The principle is similar: I can summon your grandmother’s spirit so we can communicate directly.”
I decided immediately—that was what I wanted. If everything that’s happening now was orchestrated by Grandma, bringing her spirit forth might allow us to persuade her and learn how to break this trap.
But before summoning her spirit, we needed to handle the urgent matter before us.
The coffin kiln was collapsing. The two children at the bottom of the well were saturated with baleful energy—iron chains couldn’t hold them. Before they broke free and harmed anyone, we had to deal with them.
Uncle Qian’s corpse might mutate, but this situation was even more dire.
A sudden splash came from the well. Xu Buhuo and I leaned closer and saw four pale hands, just like in the daytime, struggling at the water’s surface.
“The water seems shallower,” Xu Buhuo remarked unexpectedly. I glanced at the stone wall’s edge and saw the water had indeed dropped about ten centimeters—a clear mark.
I was wondering what would happen if the water level fell, when Xu Buhuo explained, “Once the water drops, the chains won’t restrain them. The well water absorbs their baleful energy—when it stops absorbing, they can escape easily.”
The situation grew urgent.
After calculating, I figured by tomorrow morning, only a third of the well water would remain. At that point, the two children could break free at any time.

“Should we get some gasoline and, once the water drops, pour it in and burn them?”
That was the only idea I could come up with—desperate, wanting to rid ourselves of these dangerous things.
Xu Buhuo shook his head. “It won’t burn. Eighteen years of accumulated baleful energy in the well—even if you pour gasoline in, you won’t get so much as a spark, unless they come up to the surface. If they emerge, I can handle one, but two…”
He didn’t need to finish; I understood. If both came up, he couldn’t manage it—after all, they were animated corpses.
I had only just begun to learn this trade, and even facing ordinary corpses made me tremble, let alone helping out. At that moment, I couldn’t help but wish Old Qin were here. If he joined forces with Xu Buhuo, those two children would be no match.
Thinking of Old Qin’s sudden departure, I felt a strange unreality, as if he hadn’t really gone.
Gasoline wouldn’t ignite in the well; we couldn’t restrain the two children if they broke free. The situation was at an impasse.
After a period of silence, Xu Buhuo suddenly stood up. “Come.”
I didn’t know what he was about to do, but I hurried after him. Outside, he headed straight to Brother Li’s house, going to the coffin we’d found earlier for Brother Li’s burial.
Because things were urgent and manpower was short during the day, we hadn’t taken the coffin up the mountain—it was still in the yard.
“I’ve thought of a way. It might buy us two days.”
“You’re thinking about using the coffin?”
Xu Buhuo nodded, his expression heavy, as if he had doubts. I couldn’t help but ask, “What’s wrong?”
“This method is called filth suppressing balefulness. It’s troublesome. We’ll need a woman’s blood from her special time.”
Hearing what was required, I felt a headache coming. If it were chicken blood, dog blood, or even human blood, it could be found quickly. But blood from a woman’s special period wasn’t something you could get at any time.
“Ziwu, what’s wrong?” My mother came out, hearing the commotion.
Seeing her, I realized it’d be inappropriate for a man to ask for this kind of blood, but my mother could, since she’s a woman.
At this point, I knew there was no hiding the truth about the two children’s corpses sealed at the bottom of the well, so I solemnly told Mother to prepare herself mentally, then explained everything about the situation next door.
She responded better than I’d expected. After a few seconds of silence, she said, “On the third day after the two children disappeared, your father told me he saw your grandmother take them into the old house before dark. He followed her in, but couldn’t find them inside. At the time, I thought he’d made a mistake, but it turns out it was true.”
“Afterward, did Grandma forbid drinking water from the well?”
Mother nodded. She said Grandma found two craftsmen from somewhere to repair the well. They wouldn’t work during the day, only late at night. Father checked, but found nothing. When the well was done, Grandma said something bad had been discovered at the bottom, so the well was abandoned and no one was allowed to drink from it.
After hearing this, I was certain my suspicion was correct: the coffin kiln was indeed set up by Grandma. The two dangerous baleful corpses in the well—Grandma had the chance to destroy them, but she chose not to.
Perhaps because of this, Father grew suspicious and investigated, discovering Grandma’s secret. Before he died, he told us what he’d found, and we took it as a deathbed prophecy.

Was it really Grandma’s arrangement?
Again and again, I told myself all this had nothing to do with her, yet the evidence kept pointing back to Grandma.
Time was running out—the coffin kiln would hold until tomorrow morning at most. Even though there were corpse demons in the village, and Jiang Yan hadn’t appeared for days, I had to ask Mother to go out now and find which village women happened to be at that time.
As for the quantity, Xu Buhuo said the more the better—the more blood, the longer the suppression, giving us more time to find a solution.
We moved the coffin next door and were about to start preparations when Cao Guangshan arrived, his face grim, saying Uncle Qian’s corpse was acting strangely—it was leaking blood.
A person’s blood stops flowing an hour after death. Uncle Qian had been dead for nearly two hours, and there had been no bleeding before. Now, suddenly, blood was dripping—something was clearly wrong.
We dropped everything and rushed to Uncle Qian’s house. His corpse was bound to a door board with iron chains; blood was dripping steadily below.
Xu Buhuo pressed his finger into the corpse.
By rights, the body should have been stiff, but Xu Buhuo’s finger pressed right in and didn’t bounce back—it was like dough, wherever he pressed, a hollow remained.
Cao Guangshan was panicked by what he saw, asking me what was happening. I shook my head—I’d never seen anything like it.
Xu Buhuo pressed a few more places, then seemed to realize something, walked aside, opened a cloth bag, searched inside, and finally stood up with a grim expression. “The Demon Face is missing.”
Hearing that, I immediately thought of Liu Lai, who had been reduced to nothing but a human skin, and knew it wouldn’t be long before Uncle Qian was the same.
After being caught, the Demon Face had been with Xu Buhuo, but at some point it was lost and now had come to bite Uncle Qian’s corpse, turning flesh and blood into liquid.
Could it be him?
I thought of the hidden third party, considered the possibilities, and asked, “Does that thing hunt corpses on its own?”
“No, it needs someone to control it.”
That made sense. The Demon Face was so small—if it hunted corpses on its own, every death in the village would result in a skin.
Clearly, the controller was the third party. I couldn’t understand why, since this was all connected to Grandma’s arrangement, he needed to interfere.
Logically, his purpose should be disruption—Uncle Qian’s corpse would mutate like Brother Li’s, adding trouble.
But now, he turned Uncle Qian’s corpse into a skin.
Why?