A Wandering Youth

Глава 66

Wang Laomo was puzzled. The pungent, fishy smell seemed so familiar; he was sure he'd smelled it somewhere before. But what was this smell? And where was it coming from? Just as he was wondering, the nearest bushes suddenly parted, and a grotesque, thick black shadow leaped out. A hairy hand gripped Wang Laomo's head and neck… No one noticed Wang Laomo… Everyone's attention was focused on the tomb. They were only wondering why the clapper had suddenly stopped. A sharp pain shot through him. Wang Laomo tried to scream, but the pain came too quickly; before he could even utter a sound, everything went black. The last thing he saw was a pair of eyes, a pair of desperate eyes. To be precise, he saw only one eye—his left eye seeing his right eye, and his right eye simultaneously seeing his left eye. His head had been split in two by that hairy hand; immense force had ripped his face in two! In the instant he died, he suddenly remembered a sentence his mentor, the clan chief Wang Weili, had once told him: "When your ashes are exposed to the sky, there will be no one to see you!" In just a short while, the dark shadow stopped moving and darted back into the grass. The grass swayed slightly before returning to its usual stillness...

Section 8

20

"Ah—" A long and mournful scream echoed through the night sky.

The first person to discover this tragedy was Weng Beibei. When she smelled a sudden stench of blood, she turned her head. Wang Laomo's body lay on its side on the ground, covered in blood, but his neck was empty, with only a pool of blood remaining.

His head was in another place, lying flat between two burning red candles outside the tomb, directly south. His head had been split in two from the middle of his skull, but now it was casually put together, as if it were a sacrificial offering.

Weng Beibei no longer cared about the rule against making a sound during the night burial. The horrific scene was unbearable for her, and she could only open her mouth and let her throat emit a pitiful cry.

"Ah—" The crowd erupted like boiling oil in a pan. Everyone forgot the old saying that making noise during a night burial would attract the most terrifying ghosts. At this moment, everyone screamed, ignoring the prohibition. When the screams subsided, a deathly silence followed. No one spoke, for they all remembered the mysterious prohibition. Now that they had broken the taboo, what retribution would they incur? Would it really attract the most terrifying ghosts? Then, one of the coffin bearers let out a soft sob. After all, the burly man carrying the coffin was just a young man who had never seen the world. This sob immediately spread like an unknown contagious disease, and a low groaning echoed across the ground. Even Weng Beibei's cheeks were streaked with tears. "Don't be afraid, everyone! Listen to me!" It was Yu Guang who stepped forward; only he had the authority to do so. Wang Laomo was dead, and he was the oldest here. He had the responsibility and the right to step forward and calm everyone down. His face was filled with composure and calmness. "Don't be afraid, everyone. There are no ghosts in this world, so what's there to be afraid of?" Yu Guang's opening remarks were very simple and old-fashioned.

“But…but…but Wang Mingsheng’s brother spoke during the night burial and died the next day,” one of the coffin bearers murmured in reply.

“Everything has a reasonable explanation. If we can't explain it now, it doesn't mean there really are ghosts; it just means we haven't found a reasonable explanation yet. But we will find it someday, it's not something we'll never find!” Yu Guang's words were a bit convoluted, but he still expressed his meaning. “Wang Mingsheng's brother died, and there may be many things we don't understand. But if we consider this as him having some kind of hidden health problem, such as a sudden heart attack, the outward appearance of death would be without any visible injuries. He died so suddenly, without even an autopsy, to say he was taken away by a vengeful ghost is too hasty!”

"But...but...but Village Chief Wang died right under our noses, how do you explain that? What if his soul wasn't taken away by a vengeful ghost?" the coffin bearer continued to ask.

Yu Guang swallowed hard, his gaze drifting to the corpse of Wang Laomo on the ground, his heart pounding faster. Wang Laomo's death was too bizarre; in an instant, his head was gone, his head torn in two and placed beside the candle.

How could all this be explained? Cold sweat trickled down his cheeks. But he immediately replied, "There's a reason for all of this, we just haven't found it yet. Our attention was focused on you putting the coffin into the tomb, so something incredibly fast must have accomplished it in an instant."

"Then what is this thing? If it's not a ghost, then what is it?" Yes, if it's not a ghost, then what is it? Yu Guang didn't know how to answer. Just then, the grass behind him suddenly rustled. Turning around, the waist-high weeds were swaying like flags in the wind, looking particularly eerie and inexplicable in the torchlight and moonlight.

Yu Guang's heart clenched involuntarily, as if pricked by a needle, a deep, stinging pain accompanied by a vague unease. For some reason, he caught that faint, fishy odor again. Something's behind the bushes! That was the first thought that flashed through Yu Guang's mind.

What might be behind the bushes? He slowly approached the bushes. One step… two steps… three steps…

The grass drew closer, and out of the corner of my eye, I could even see the closest blades of grass swaying slightly. A few transparent dewdrops clung to the dark green leaves. It was eerily calm, unnaturally calm, but the fishy smell grew stronger.

It was very quiet, so quiet that Yu Guang could hear his own heartbeat, "thump-thump—thump-thump—" Yet Yu Guang could sense that something unknown, even extremely dangerous, was lurking somewhere, somewhere closest to him.

But he didn't know where this unseen thing was, and the most terrifying thing was the danger that came from nowhere. A cold sweat broke out on Yu Guang's back, and a slight breeze swept by, causing him to shiver involuntarily. Just as Yu Guang shivered, the grass in front of him suddenly parted, and a strange face appeared before him! Good heavens, what kind of face was that…?

Emaciated, with sunken eyes, high cheekbones, and sparse hair, a scar ran diagonally from his forehead to the corner of his mouth. The flesh beside the scar was wildly torn and twisted, and dark blood congealed into thin lines around it. Bloodshot eyes gleamed with a terrifying red. He, or perhaps it, was staring intently out of the corner of its eye.

It may have been only half a second, but time seemed to stand still, and in my peripheral vision, it felt like an eternity.

Before he could react, he felt a chilling wind sweep over him. He looked up and saw a massive, dark figure lunging at him. The figure leaped high, overwhelming him, obscuring the moonlight and all hope.

Yu Guang closed his eyes in despair...

twenty one

Just as Yu Guang was in despair, he suddenly felt a tremendous force behind him. This force propelled him to the side, allowing him to dodge the oncoming black shadow.

When he fell to the ground and looked back, he saw Wu Yong and Shen Tian rushing to his side and pushing him away.

Wu Yong, standing on the side of the tomb closer to Yu Guang, moved faster. After pushing Yu Guang aside, he dodged the shadowy figure in a flash. But Shen Tian wasn't so lucky; the shadowy figure had already pinned him down. "Roar—" The shadowy figure let out a huge roar, sat on Shen Tian, and raised its large, fan-like hand, about to slap Shen Tian's head... Yu Guang cried out, "No!" Tears almost spilled from his eyes.

"Shen Tian!" Weng Beibei exclaimed in shock, already sobbing, "No, don't hurt Shen Tian..." Her voice grew softer and softer, and she closed her eyes, unable to bear watching this horrific scene.

Even Shen Tian was filled with despair. His hand rested on the shadowy figure's chest, right on its heart, but he couldn't feel a single heartbeat. This monster had no heartbeat! It wasn't a living being at all; it was a zombie, a mindless walking corpse! The zombie suddenly stopped moving. Its hand was raised high in the air, and its head slowly turned, staring at Weng Beibei. It heard Weng Beibei's cries, and its movements inexplicably froze. It looked at Weng Beibei, a hint of tenderness appearing in its eyes. It blinked and stood up.

Shen Tian's throat, which had been tightly gripped, suddenly loosened, and a breath of fresh air entered through his nostrils, bringing him a sense of comfort. Shen Tian opened his eyes and saw the zombie standing there, motionless, as if it were staring blankly at Weng Beibei, who was crying her eyes out.

The zombie swayed its massive body, then staggered towards Weng Beibei, its eyes filled with tears. Its throat bobbed, uttering muffled, indistinct syllables that were impossible to understand, yet filled with an overwhelming sense of desolation. Shen Tian didn't know what the zombie intended; he only had a gut feeling that this hideous monster would do something terrible to Weng Beibei.

Shen Tian looked around and saw only the shovel he had used to dig the grave beside it. He picked up the shovel and gripped it tightly in his hand.

He raised his shovel, rushed behind the zombie, and swung it down heavily. Shen Tian was an athlete, spending his free time training with weights, making his arm muscles exceptionally well-developed. Plus, this was the most terrifying moment; it's said that fear unleashes a person's greatest potential. Now, as he swung the shovel, listening to the whistling wind, he knew that this swing would be a sure hit! The zombie seemed frozen, hearing the wind behind it, but remaining motionless.

The shovel struck its neck heavily, and a spurt of dark blood shot out like an arrow. As the shovel swept across, the zombie's head was severed, tracing a beautiful parabola through the air before falling to the ground, spinning endlessly. When the zombie's head stopped spinning, its eyes widened, staring intently at Weng Beibei's face. "Ah—" Weng Beibei screamed, covering her eyes. Only when she was sure the zombie wasn't attacking again did she remove her fingers.

The zombie's body remained standing, motionless. After a long while, it collapsed to the ground with a thud, a spray of black blood gushing from its severed neck, staining the ground with a stench of blood. Those around were stunned, speechless. The sudden event was too swift; they hadn't even had time to gasp before the zombie lay before them. Yu Guang and the others breathed heavily, fearing the headless zombie would rise again and attack them. For a long time, the zombie remained motionless, showing no reaction. One of the bolder coffin bearers cautiously approached the severed head, examining its features closely. Suddenly, he shouted:

"My God! This is Lü Tugen!" "Lü Tugen? Lü Guihua's younger brother? The man who went missing this afternoon?" Yu Guang's head seemed to explode.

"You killed him! You killed Lü Tugen!" The coffin bearer pointed at Yu Guang and the others with red eyes and a burning rage.

Shen Tian yelled, "Didn't you see? He was trying to kill Professor Yu, me, and Weng Beibei! If I don't kill him, we're all doomed! Let me tell you, I touched his chest just now, and he didn't have a heartbeat! He's not alive! He's just a zombie!"

"What? He has no heartbeat?" Yu Guang's heart skipped a beat and he suddenly gripped it tightly.

The coffin bearer who had been burning with rage standing in front of him turned red-faced, stared blankly, and couldn't utter a single word.

Section 9

twenty two

Yu Guang felt his mind go blank. Could this really be a zombie? Could there really be monsters without a heartbeat? Was his nearly forty years of atheistic faith about to collapse in this instant?

No! There are no ghosts in this world. Suspicion breeds ghosts; all talk of ghosts and spirits resides in people's own minds.

.

But how do you explain the lack of a heartbeat? Yu Guang strolled over to Lü Tugen's headless corpse and began to examine it closely. He suppressed the urge to vomit and fiddled with the body with his hands.

The corpse was ice-cold, and its body was covered with bluish bruises, scattered like stars, radiating outwards from the back.

"Is it livor mortis?" Wu Yong asked, standing behind Yu Guang.

“It doesn’t seem like it,” Yu Guang replied without turning his head. “It seems more like it was caused by some kind of poison.”

"poison?"

"Probably, but without more testing equipment, I can't be sure," Yu Guang continued. "True livor mortis doesn't radiate outwards. If someone has been dead for three to four hours, the livor mortis should be in patches. If it's been longer, the patches will merge together, and the entire body will turn bluish-purple. If the time since death exceeds five hours, pressing on the livor mortis will cause it to fade."

As Yu Guang spoke, he pressed his finger against the bluish bruise, but the bruise did not fade.

"This isn't lividity; it's more like poisoning caused by an animal toxin I once studied." Yu Guang picked up Lü Tugen's head, which had been cleaved off by Chen Tian, and carefully wiped away the blood and grime.

Lu Tugen's appearance was fairly handsome, but when he rushed out of the bushes, he looked ferocious and distorted in the moonlight.

He glanced closely at the head's lips. The lips had turned a slightly purplish-black, and the eyes remained wide open.

“These are obvious signs of poisoning.” Yu Guang pointed to the lips of the head and said, “I’m sure this isn’t the work of a demon, it’s just a man-made case!” “But… how do you explain the lack of a heartbeat?” Shen Tian was still puzzled. He still vividly remembered how he had forcefully supported Lü Tugen’s left chest earlier. “I’m absolutely certain I’m not mistaken. I can say for sure that he didn’t have a heartbeat at all at that time!”

Yu Guang felt a wave of dizziness. Indeed, why was there no heartbeat? Suddenly, he remembered an amusing story his teacher had told him before. If Lü Tugen was exactly like that story, then all the problems could be solved.

"Do you have a knife?" Yu Guang asked.

Wu Yong pulled a Swiss Army knife from his pocket and handed it to Yu Guang. Yu Guang swung the knife and plunged it into Lü Tugeng's corpse. The body was like a rotting lump of flesh; the knife pierced through the chest with a "shh" sound, all the way to the hilt. "What are you doing?" one of the coffin bearers shouted. "Brother Tugeng is already dead! You're still desecrating his body! What exactly do you want?"

"Don't let him come over!" Yu Guang said coldly, his head bowed.

Shen Tian spread his arms, blocking the coffin bearers who were trying to rush forward. The coffin bearers still vividly remembered how he had valiantly cleaved Lü Tugen's head, and seeing him like this, none of them dared to take another step forward.

Yu Guang sliced through the nearly rotting flesh, removed the ribs, and peeled away the pleura. Dark blood swirled within the chest cavity, soaking the once gleaming blade, making it appear and disappear indistinctly. After a moment, Yu Guang exclaimed, "I understand! So that's how it is! Just like the amusing stories I'd heard before!"

Wu Yong asked, puzzled, "What's going on?"

Yu Guang laughed and said, "Just now, when Shen Tian touched Lü Tugen's left chest, he didn't feel a heartbeat. It's not because he doesn't have a heartbeat, but because his left chest doesn't have a heartbeat!" His words were a little awkward because he was excited.

"What do you mean?" Shen Tian didn't understand.

"Lu Tugen is incredibly wealthy, and his heart is different from others—it's located in his right chest!" Yu Guang shouted. "This all makes sense! There was no stopping of his heartbeat, and no ghosts or spirits at work; it was just an illusion! He was alive just now, but he must have been poisoned by some strange toxin, which caused him to lose his judgment. That's why he killed Village Chief Wang and tried to kill us all! Lu Tugen is innocent; the guilty ones are the ones who poisoned him!"

"But why is Lü Tugen so strong? He was able to remove the head of Village Chief Wang in the blink of an eye, before we could even see it clearly, and even split the hardest part of the human skull in two, and then place it between the candles. How is that possible?" Shen Tian was still puzzled.

“Perhaps this poison has a strong psychological effect, like hypnosis. I read a report that said when people are hypnotized, they often generate enormous energy, far exceeding their normal energy by several times. Perhaps, Lü Tugen fell for that!” Yu Guang’s words betrayed a growing lack of confidence. “But who poisoned Brother Tugen?” the coffin bearer asked doubtfully.

“This…” Yu Guang hesitated for a moment: “We’re not detectives. The three of us will bring the town’s police back tomorrow and leave this problem to them…” However, having done his part as an amateur detective and forensic doctor, Yu Guang couldn’t suppress his excitement. With a wave of his hand, his palm fell heavily, landing right on the trouser leg of Lü Tugen’s corpse.

With a crisp "snap," it sounded as if something hard had been hit.

Yu Guang, somewhat curious, pulled something from Lü Tugen's pocket—an empty Longfeng cigarette box. On the back of the box were a few words written in ballpoint pen, the characters crooked and hastily drawn, clearly written in a rush. Under the torchlight, the words were difficult to decipher. "Nobody in the village smokes those thirteen-yuan-a-pack Longfeng cigarettes. We only brought a few packs with us when we came in," Yu Guang said, turning to Wu Yong. "I've never seen Lü Tugen, and I certainly wouldn't give them the box. What about you?"

Wu Yong scratched his head and replied, "When we went out, we sat at Wang Mingsheng's house for a while, and after we finished smoking, we threw the empty cigarette pack at his house."

"Hmm, so this cigarette box was left by Wang Mingsheng. He wrote something on it and gave it to Lü Tugen! These words must be very important!" Yu Guang told the coffin bearers to move the torches closer.

Under the bright flames of the torch, he finally recognized the few hastily written characters from the corner of his eye.

What was written above was...

twenty three

The writing on the cigarette pack was messy and blurry, but five characters could still be vaguely discerned:

"The village chief is a pervert!" The village chief is a pervert?

Was the village chief the lecher who killed Lü Guihua? Yu Guang frowned, staring at the writing on the cigarette box. He thought to himself, "These words were left by Wang Mingsheng. At the time, he was secretly searching for the murderer of Lü Guihua. Could it be that he really discovered that Wang Laomo was the lecher? And he gave this cigarette box to Lü Tugen, who then resolved to kill the village chief. And for some unknown reason, Lü Tugen was poisoned by some unknown toxin, making him incredibly strong. What exactly happened?"

A series of interconnected mysteries left Yu Guang's mind reeling.

He turned to one of the coffin bearers and asked, "What kind of person is Village Chief Wang usually?"

The coffin bearer replied timidly, "Well, Village Chief Wang did a good job, but in such a remote village as Evil Curse Village, there's not much work to do. Anyone could have done it."

Yu Guang smiled wryly and said, "I wasn't asking about the village chief's work ability; I wanted to ask about... his lifestyle..."

"Oh..." The coffin bearers' eyes lit up. Here, anyone who was involved in a matter of lifestyle would have their eyes light up.

"Professor Yu, as you know, in rural areas, especially in remote villages like Ezu Village, the mountains are high and the emperor is far away, and even the local officials are not as powerful as the county magistrates. The village chief is like a local tyrant. However, I really don't know what problems the village chief has with his lifestyle. But then again, the village chief is over forty years old and has never married, so he must have physical needs. We villagers all secretly suspect that he must have a mistress, but we don't know who it is. But to be honest, the village chief still has a lot of prestige in the village. If he takes a fancy to any young woman, he only needs to give her a look, and I bet there are plenty of women throwing themselves at him..."

The coffin bearer's incoherent words prompted Yu Guang to secretly deduce several issues. He began to explain his reasoning to Wu Yong and Chen Tian. Perhaps, just as he suspected, Lü Guihua was likely Wang Laomo's secret lover, possibly one of them, either Wang Laomo or Lü Guihua, who wanted to end the relationship, but the other disagreed, leading to an irreconcilable conflict. Village Chief Wang had murdered Lü Guihua, staging it as a drowning suicide, and altered a letter sent by Lü Guihua's husband, claiming that Lü Guihua had taken her own life in a moment of despair. However, Wang Mingsheng noticed something amiss and found clues. After reaching his conclusion, Wang Mingsheng wrote these five words on the cigarette box left by Wu Yong: "The village chief is a lecher!" and gave it to Lü Tugeng. But while Wang Mingsheng was secretly investigating the village chief, the village chief also sensed something was wrong and thus poisoned Wang Mingsheng. But retribution always comes. After harboring thoughts of revenge, Lü Guihua, by chance, was poisoned and her physical abilities increased dramatically. In this desolate wilderness, she killed Wang Laomo with a single blow, and even pieced together Wang Laomo's severed head, placing it before his sister's grave as an offering. When Lü Tugen was about to deliver the final blow to Yu Guangchen, he suddenly heard Weng Beibei crying. Subconsciously, a sliver of conscience within him was stirred; perhaps he thought of his sister, and thus slowed his attack, only to be killed by Shen Tian's counterattack. "Perhaps, that's how it is. Some details I can't deduce completely yet. The rest of the work will have to wait until the three of them return with the police." Yu Guangchen sat down heavily on the ground and lit a cigarette.

Wu Yong still had many questions: "When did Wang the model worker poison Wang Mingsheng? He's always been with us."

"Maybe it was while we were taking a nap at his house; he may have already planned it all along."

"Then who cut his phone line? Did he do it himself? And when did he cut it?" Wu Yong continued to ask.

"Maybe it was cut while we were taking our afternoon nap..."

“No! He told us that his family’s phone line and the Zhao family mansion’s phone line were connected. If one part was broken, the entire phone line would be down. When we were having dinner at Mr. Zhao’s house that night, he was still talking to people from the publishing house, which means that the phone was working at that time. It was only after we went to Wang Mingsheng’s house and found out he was missing that we went to the village chief’s house to call the police and discovered that the phone line had been cut. The person who cut the phone line did it at that time!” Wu Yong’s thinking was very clear.

Yu Guang felt a terrible headache coming on. He waved his hand at Wu Yong and said, "Don't ask me anymore, I'm not a policeman! Let's go back to the village and wait for the police to come before we investigate!" "Go back to the village?" one of the coffin bearers exclaimed, "We're in Dead Man's Gully now! Only the village chief, who's a geomancer, knows the way we came. How are we going to get back? You know, the whole way is a cliff with high mountains on one side!"

Yes, how do we get back? In an instant, Yu Guang's face was covered in cold sweat.

Wu Yong remained calm and slowly replied, "Let's wait. When it gets light, we can always get back by following the same route!" Turning his head, he saw the sky gradually turning a pale white...

Section 10

twenty four

The sky gradually brightened, and the morning sun had just pierced through the thin mist. The air was still damp and filled with the fresh scent of dew. But Yu Guang's mind was in turmoil. He looked up at the sky, and the pale milky horizon was dimly lit, making him feel a sudden, inexplicable dizziness.

"Shall we set off?" Wu Yong asked cautiously.

Yu Guang stood up and nodded. On the way back, everyone was empty-handed, without the burden of a coffin, so it was relatively easy. The journey back wasn't as arduous as expected. Although there were many forks in the road, seeing the deep footprints left the night before and the fallen grass by the roadside made it easy to find the right path.

The path was indeed treacherous, with a cliff on one side. As they walked, small pebbles constantly pattered down, yet no sound was heard as they hit the ground. Yu Guang gripped Weng Beibei's hand tightly, walking slowly along the undulating mountain path. He could hardly believe he had safely traversed this path in the pitch-black night the previous day. Three hours later, the group finally saw the large banyan tree at the village entrance, and Yu Guang couldn't help but let out a long sigh of relief. He hadn't felt tired after walking all night yesterday, but now his calves were aching.