Chapter 44: The Vengeful Corpse Emerges from the Well

What must come will eventually arrive, after all, the Soul-Devouring Puppet now lay before me.

Once I accepted this, my nerves eased—I looked calmly at Xu Buhuo and said, “Speak your mind. I can bear it.”

“Next, you’ll begin to see illusions. What you witness depends on your own thoughts, but the only certainty is that what you see won’t be pleasant.” Xu Buhuo’s tone was grave.

Standing nearby, Cao Guangshan couldn’t help but ask, “Is this person deranged? What purpose does all this serve?”

Xu Buhuo let out a cold laugh. “Whether a soul is strong depends primarily on mental stability. If the mind falls into chaos, the three souls and seven spirits become unsettled. Without any summoning, they’ll leave the body on their own.”

So it was all about my three souls.

Things had progressed to this point; I understood that my grandmother would never have acted like this. If she truly sought my souls and spirits, it wouldn’t be so complicated—she could have taken them easily before her death.

Since it wasn’t my grandmother, it confirmed someone else was lurking in the shadows intent on harming me, overturning my prior suspicion that she was the hidden third party.

I wondered: Was it Jiang Yan who wanted to steal my soul, or was someone else involved? There were traces of Jiang Yan throughout this affair. According to my grandmother’s analysis, the first spirit I lost had been taken by her.

Last night, I found a spirit within Jiang Yan’s tomb. Could it be the one she spirited away? If she truly wanted my souls, why did she allow us to find one so easily?

Where had the remaining six spirits gone?

Or perhaps there was more than one person hiding in the shadows.

Among those hidden, one wanted to see the villagers perish; another sought my soul—this analysis suddenly made a strange kind of sense. Whether it was truly so, I couldn’t be sure; my thoughts were pure speculation.

“Mr. Xu, you’re so capable—can’t you resolve this?” Cao Guangshan looked at me with concern, then added, “The possibility of seeing illusions is worrying. I’d rather not have him chasing me with a knife.”

Hearing this, my nerves returned. I recalled scenes from television—people lost to hallucinations, unable to distinguish good from evil, wielding knives in madness. I worried I might become like them.

“The method for creating the Soul-Devouring Puppet was destroyed long ago. I don’t know its principles and haven’t yet found a solution. The only feasible approach is to recover the remaining six spirits as quickly as possible. When your soul is whole, your mind will strengthen, suppressing the unseen influence of hallucinations.”

Xu Buhuo added that the effects of the puppet would likely manifest after a day or two, so I was safe for the next ten hours or so. He promised to use this time to devise a way to dispel the evil.

The puppet itself couldn’t be destroyed—Xu Buhuo said it concealed further dangers. Anyone using brute force risked bringing disaster upon themselves.

To avoid mishaps, we locked the Soul-Devouring Puppet away in the woodshed.

During breakfast, Xu Buhuo suggested opening my grandmother’s coffin. My mother hesitated, sighing deeply and saying nothing in the end.

The pallbearers seemed doomed one by one each day. To observe them closely, after breakfast I called everyone up the mountain. They could help with digging and opening the grave, and I could watch for any changes in their moods.

Though I didn’t know if my grandmother lay within the coffin, the rituals before opening the grave were meticulously followed. Then the digging began.

When the coffin was unearthed, my heart tightened.

I wondered once more if my grandmother was truly inside.

“Open it.”

At this point, there was no avoiding it. Four uncles began prying at the nails, quickly extracting them before lifting the lid.

Instinctively, I closed my eyes.

The site fell suddenly silent. I slowly opened my eyes to see my grandmother lying peacefully inside.

“How strange,” Xu Buhuo muttered.

My feelings were tangled. A moment before opening the coffin, I wanted desperately for there to be no body inside—proof she hadn’t died. But she was gone, and why her soul hadn’t been summoned remained a mystery.

“Mr. Xu, should we close it now?” Uncle Zhongfu asked. They knew we’d opened the coffin only to confirm grandmother’s passing.

“No rush. Let me take a look first.”

Xu Buhuo approached the grave, crouching for a closer inspection. I followed, noting that though grandmother had been dead for over ten days, her body showed no signs of decay. I couldn’t help but ask, “Old man, why hasn’t my grandmother’s body decomposed? After so many days, shouldn’t it...”

It was summer. A body left three or four days would already reek. Counting the days, she’d been dead more than ten, yet her corpse showed not the slightest rot.

“This is normal. Your grandmother frequently prayed and summoned spirits, accumulating heavy yin energy. Yin is inherently cold, and over countless years it’s eroded her body—so decomposition is much slower than usual.”

So that was the reason. I nodded, remembering how cold her body always felt. As a child, I’d often touched her hands—they were always stiff and icy. Especially in summer, when others wore nothing, she still wrapped herself in a padded coat.

After another round of inspection with no discoveries, Xu Buhuo signaled the uncles to close the lid.

“How strange—since she’s gone, why can’t we summon her soul?” Xu Buhuo gazed into the distance and murmured, “We’ll try again tonight.”

Whether the events unfolding were connected to my grandmother, it seemed necessary to seek answers. Returning to the new house as dusk approached, I reminded Cao Guangshan to keep an eye on the uncles. If anyone showed signs of instability, he was to notify me immediately.

After giving instructions, Xu Buhuo asked me to open the woodshed so he could study the Soul-Devouring Puppet, hoping to unravel the trap set for me. We had just entered when my mother stumbled in, breathless.

“Mr. Xu, the child in the old house’s well came out on his own.”

“What?”

Xu Buhuo and I were stunned. We exchanged a glance and rushed toward the old house, hearts tight with anxiety and confusion.

By the well, water stains covered the ground. The water inside still rippled, shallow enough to nearly reveal the bottom. There were blurry footprints across the courtyard floor—the two children had vanished.

From the evidence, it was clear the two children had just escaped the well’s depths.

I couldn’t comprehend it. If the corpse demon visited last night, why were the children still in the well?

“Damn it, we’ve been tricked again.”

Xu Buhuo slammed his hand against the nearby coffin. I realized instantly—we’d been outmaneuvered again.

The hidden third party seemed to be watching us constantly, somehow learning we planned to use filthy blood for suppression, buying time. He used the Ghost-Faced Ghoul to bite Uncle Qian’s corpse and divert our attention, then sent the corpse demon to smash the courtyard gate, flooding the ground and making us believe the children had been taken. We abandoned our preparations.

In truth, the children had remained in the well—sometimes reaching out, sometimes perfectly still. The events happened so quickly, we never thought to check the well to see if they remained.

Regret now was pointless.

What chaos the two children might unleash, I couldn’t imagine. But I knew, as night fell, they would soon emerge.

The situation left Xu Buhuo and me sitting in dejection beside the coffin, pondering how to prevent the children from taking more lives.

Just then, Cao Guangshan rushed in, anxious.

“Ziwu, bad news! Uncle Zhongfu suddenly went mad and ran off.”

My heart skipped a beat. I couldn’t help but shout, “Didn’t I tell you to keep an eye on each other? How did he get away?”

It was clear—he was the next victim.

Cao Guangshan shook his head helplessly. “There was no warning—he was perfectly fine, joking with us one moment. The next, he stood up and bolted. By the time we chased after him, he was gone.”

“Find him—he must be found before dark.”

With this disaster unfolding, I could no longer worry about the corpse demons. If we didn’t find Uncle Zhongfu before nightfall, he would become the next Uncle Li or Uncle Qian.