Corpse raising

Chapter 13

"What is your relationship with Xu Yao?"

The question from the newcomer made Bo Xiaoxue tremble slightly, and she turned to look at the person who had just pushed the door open.

He was a middle-aged man, someone I had met before; his name seemed to be Jin Zi.

As soon as the newcomer entered, the police officer who had been sitting opposite her respectfully offered his seat, so now the person sitting in front of her was Jin Zi.

"We... are alumni. He, Lu Xianglai, and Cheng Rui were in the same year." With her head down, Bo Xiaoxue secretly pondered the true intention of the police officer inquiring about her relationship with Xu Yao.

"Don't worry, if you're truly innocent, no matter how I question you, you'll still be innocent." As if sensing the woman's unease, Jin Zi smiled slightly.

"Why are you asking me this?" Instead of backing down, Bo Xiaoxue looked up and met Jin Zi's gaze.

"Of course, there's a need to ask. Frankly, don't you think these recent incidents are too coincidental?"

Yes...it's such a coincidence...Bo Xiaoxue lowered her head again and felt her stomach starting to feel uncomfortable again.

It's as if they can sense your discomfort; your own child always understands you best.

"Are you feeling unwell?" Jin Zi asked, noticing the woman's suddenly pale face. The man frowned as he looked at Bo Xiaoxue's stomach.

Although the woman tried to avoid it, her unintentional movements still revealed that her discomfort stemmed from her stomach. Jin Zi recalled what had just happened…

After moving Lu Xianglai's body, the already conspicuous umbilical cord was immediately placed in a special bag and presented to him.

Another umbilical cord… Jin Zi suddenly remembered that when Xu Yao died, Duan Lin discovered that someone had moved his coffin and found an extra umbilical cord inside. Could it be such a coincidence?

So Jin Zi connected the two things.

When Lu Xianglai's umbilical cord, hanging around his neck, was sent to the department for examination, and his new subordinate, Xiao Cao, informed him of the results, he looked excited. Xiao Cao said, "Just as expected, this umbilical cord is the one that came out of his wife's womb when she died! It was originally placed in his wife's coffin, ready to be cremated tomorrow..."

Xiao Cao's words suddenly reminded Jin Zi.

Frowning, Jin Zi countered, "Why did you say 'as expected'?"

These four words convey a strong sense of certainty. Why is Xiao Cao so certain? Because it's common sense. If a wife takes an umbilical cord out of her abdomen before she dies, then when the husband dies, the umbilical cord hanging around his neck will make people intuitively think that it is the same one his wife took out.

This is a very simple psychological misconception; sometimes, the more you think, the worse it is.

For example, Jin Zi kept wondering if the umbilical cord belonged to someone else... and so on. Thinking too much can easily lead to being misled by the thoughts in one's own mind.

"Very good, then go and find out whose umbilical cord it was when Xu Yao died, right?" Having figured this out, Jin Zi slowly gave the order.

"Huh? Why? How am I supposed to investigate? We have absolutely no leads. We have to check everything in the city!"

Xiao Cao looked at herself in disbelief, but Jin Zi had already made up her mind. "Have them directly verify the correlation between the umbilical cord and Xu Yao's information..."

Xiao Cao, dumbfounded, went to verify it, and then excitedly told him, "Just as you predicted, that umbilical cord is extremely closely related to Xu Yao's genes! Basically, we can conclude that the umbilical cord came from Xu Yao's child!"

However, Xu Yao was single and had no children, so Jin Zi's mind turned to the dead baby that had appeared in Xu Yao's drainpipe.

At the time, it didn't attract much attention from the police, but now that I think about it, my idea was very likely.

A woman became pregnant with Xu Yao's child, but their relationship was strained. She had an abortion, and then, as revenge on her boyfriend, she threw the baby into his drainpipe...

This idea might be a bit disgusting, but it makes perfect sense.

However, the identification encountered resistance because the police officer in charge of the case said that the dead baby had been thrown away somewhere.

Things may seem to have encountered obstacles and can't move forward, but that's not actually the case.

If one method doesn't work, you can choose another. If you can't find a solution by working on the child, then try working on the mother.

Jin Zi begins investigating Xu Yao's past relationships with women.

He's a very womanizing man. The investigators submitted a thick stack of reports, and one name caught Jin Zi's attention—Bo Xiaoxue, a colleague at the same hospital, and also her junior from university...

Jin Zi recalled what happened this afternoon when she pretended to be nonchalant and asked Xin Nuo about it. Xin Nuo's unintentional words made Jin Zi feel somewhat frustrated.

"My senior is pregnant..."

Although he quickly realized he had let something slip and begged himself not to tell anyone, the problem was that this had cut off his trail.

If Bo Xiaoxue was pregnant, then based on the development of the stillborn baby in the drainage pipe, it can be basically determined that it was not Bo Xiaoxue.

In fact, Bo Xiaoxue really had no relationship with the other two people.

There was no particular friendship or enmity between them. Bo Xiaoxue's relationship with the deceased Lu Xianglai and Mao Weiwei was that of a typical doctor and patient. If one had to describe it...

Cheng Rui had a closer relationship with the deceased.

Speaking of Cheng Rui, we really need to pay attention. Everyone seems to be attracted by the seemingly shocking fact that Bo Xiaoxue witnessed the couple committing suicide one after another, and forgot that he—Cheng Rui—was the first person to be involved in the case.

He witnessed his friend Xu Yao's suicide. He was the surgeon who delivered Mao Weiwei's baby. He called the police just before Lu Xianglai was about to jump, and then witnessed his friend fall from the lower floor...

Such an important person, and his own men didn't even send him a message.

Looking at Bo Xiaoxue across from him, who was sweating profusely and enduring the pain, Jin Zi said, "Dr. Bo, thank you for your cooperation. That's all for today. Goodbye."

As Bo Xiaoxue listened, her right hand subtly touched her stomach.

"This is a curse!" Cheng Rui's eyes widened.

Did no one else see that child besides yourself?

Why am I the only one who sees it? Why me...? A curse...

The floor was covered with books, books filled with all sorts of bizarre symbols and descriptions of strange methods. Cheng Rui never imagined he would have such a day: not going to work at the hospital, but instead staying at home looking at these things he usually considered worthless.

"A curse is a contract; once established, it must be carried out until it is fulfilled."

"A curse intended to kill is a blood curse, and the corpse-raising blood curse is the most insidious of them all!"

"Those afflicted by this curse will hear the cries of children and suffer greatly until the corpse kept by the caster takes them away."

The more I looked, the tighter my brows furrowed. These... were the same symptoms I had! My heart, which had initially felt a little relieved after receiving the answer, tightened even more after reading the following words.

"On some level, the Corpse-Raising Blood Curse is unbreakable."

With his hands trembling slightly, Cheng Rui continued reading, and then he saw these words—

"The Blood Curse of Nourishing Corpses is never used lightly unless there is a deep-seated hatred, lest it damage one's vital energy."

"This type of curse has many limitations. If it accidentally harms a target other than the intended one, the curse fails, and the caster will suffer the backlash of their own spell."

"Therefore, the only way to break the curse is to accept it."

"The life of the victim is the death of the caster; this is the only way to break the Blood Curse of Raising Corpses."

"There is only one way to accept the curse yet avoid it: use a substitute."

"Finding someone else to bear the blood curse in your place is a method that harms others for personal gain, and should never be used unless absolutely necessary..."

A stand-in... huh?

These two words took root in Cheng Rui's mind. Just then, Cheng Rui heard a knock on the door. He hurriedly gathered the books on the floor and went to open the door.

"It's me. I brought some materials for you, senior, and also to check on your health. I'm very worried..."

The young man who greeted him with a smile was Xin Nuo. Cheng Rui usually didn't like this talkative junior coming to visit him, but today, Cheng Rui found himself very happy that he came.

With a slight upturn of his lips, Cheng Rui revealed his first smile of the day...

"You've come...it's so good...I happen to have something I'd like to ask you..."

As he spoke, he stepped aside to let Xin Nuo pass, gently closed the door, and looked at the unsuspecting Xin Nuo with her back to him. Suddenly, Cheng Rui swung the dumbbell next to the shoe cabinet...

"Finding someone else to bear the blood curse in your place is a method that harms others for personal gain, and should never be used unless absolutely necessary..."

That's right, it's precisely because of "self-interest" that we do it, it's precisely because we "have no other choice" that we do it...

The words from the book came to mind, and Cheng Rui slowly dragged Han Xin Nuo into the house.

"Use your own blood to bathe the substitute, so that the original body odor is completely removed. Then use your own blood as a catalyst to fumigate the body with incense. The incense should be placed in the four corners of the east, south, west, and north. This is called 'substitute death'."

After injecting a powerful anesthetic into Han Xinnuo's body, Cheng Rui went to the bathroom to fill the tub with water. When the tub was almost full, Cheng Rui looked at his arm, gritted his teeth, and quickly made a cut on it. Bright red blood gushed out, and Cheng Rui endured the pain to pour his blood into the bathtub. The originally clear water immediately turned red.

Seeing the sky outside starting to darken, Cheng Rui, disregarding the need to stop the bleeding, quickly dragged Xin Nuo, who was still unconscious outside, into the bathtub.

After soaking for nearly half an hour, Cheng Rui, feeling that it was about time, dragged Xin Nuo back to the bed in the room.

I had him put on his own clothes, and after thinking for a moment, I went outside and bought four incense burners.

The book said that incense burners were hard to find, but since the purpose was to evaporate the blood anyway, so... this will do, right? When Cheng Rui returned with the incense burner, he noticed that it was getting dark.

We need to speed things up.

The strong smell in the room brought Xin Nuo back to her senses. The young man, still feeling a dull ache at the back of his head, couldn't understand what had happened to him, how he ended up in his senior's bed, or why…

Unable to move? Xin Nuo tried to speak, but it was as if even his throat was anesthetized... He could only make whimpering sounds.

Turning her only movable eyeball, Xin Nuo saw her senior setting up something like an incense burner on the ground. A red liquid was being heated by a candle, and as it evaporated, the metallic smell grew stronger...

Blood?!

Xin Nuo could hardly believe her eyes!

"It's my blood." Cheng Rui suddenly turned around, not caring that he was awake. "You're awake? I'm sorry, I gave you some anesthetic, it worked very well. I had no choice, I was afraid you would yell and struggle."

"You've come at the perfect time. I was just wondering how to find a suitable stand-in, and you've delivered yourself right to my door."

"Didn't you always want to save me? So, in a way, you're fulfilling his wish? You took my place and were killed by that thing, so I'm safe, and your wish is fulfilled, isn't it?"

Xin Nuo looked at the senior who gave her a strange smile... Was that really the senior she knew? And... what was he saying? Why couldn't she understand a word he said?

However, even though she couldn't understand it, Han Xinnuo vaguely sensed that what her senior was doing to her was definitely not a good thing.

Kill? A double? Xin Nuo had a whole host of questions she wanted answered, but at this moment...

The sound of a door opening.

Xin Nuo looked toward the door: the senior student was holding a package, looked around the room with a serious expression, and then locked the door.

The steaming smell of blood instantly filled Xin Nuo's entire body.

Wait a moment!

Desperately trying to stop her senior, trying to call out to him, Xin Nuo could only be astonished to find that, just as Cheng Rui had said, she couldn't move at all, not even speak! Her vocal cords felt completely paralyzed…

Xin Nuo could only listen in despair as Cheng Rui's footsteps gradually disappeared.

Cheng Rui was a little tired, but he still tried to cheer himself up because he hadn't finished what he needed to do.

After getting into his car, Cheng Rui quickly headed to the hospital. After parking the car, Cheng Rui didn't go directly into the main building as usual; this time, he went straight to the back of the main building.

Behind the main building, in an inconspicuous spot, stands an even more inconspicuous building, nestled among green trees. It looks quite welcoming, but everyone in the hospital knows that it is the morgue.

Swallowing hard, Cheng Rui slipped in unnoticed and pushed open the inner door.