Chapter 61.3: The Village That Robs Together

"Okay, Runsheng-ge, but don't swim too far. We'll keep calling out to you—if you can barely hear us, you have to come back. Otherwise, we might lose each other out here."

Runsheng had matches and a fire striker on him, but after getting soaked in icy water, they were surely useless now.

Xue Liangliang sighed. "Next time we head out, I'm definitely bringing a waterproof flashlight."

"Liangliang-ge, even if you did, all our gear is still on the truck."

"Oh, right."

Just as Runsheng was about to swim out, Tan Wenbin, who had swallowed quite a bit of water earlier, suddenly shouted, "Something's down there! It's touching my feet!"

Everyone was startled.

Runsheng didn’t swim forward. Instead, he dove under.

Tan Wenbin kept yelling, "It's a hand! I kicked a hand—more than one!"

Xue Liangliang added, "Yeah, something touched my foot too. I think I stepped on someone’s head."

Li Zhuiyuan, being shorter, wasn’t as submerged, but now he felt it too—not just felt it; when he reached forward in the pitch black, his hand grazed something bloated and greasy.

It had a nose and eyes.

Li Zhuiyuan immediately recoiled. A human face—just inches away.

"Binbin, is this your arm?" asked Xue Liangliang.

"I'm hugging you right now," said Tan Wenbin.

"No you're not," Liangliang replied.

"…"

Runsheng surfaced and flicked water from his head. "Xiaoyuan, the bottom is full of corpses floating up."

"Glug… glug…"

"Glug… glug…"

Bubbles rose continuously nearby.

Runsheng said, "That's corpse aura leaking out as the bodies bloat and rise. They're venting gas."

Li Zhuiyuan looked up into total darkness. "We’re probably under the mountain fissure below the ancestral hall. These corpses—they’re the ones we saw earlier, the victims in the shrine."

Things glimpsed in interstitial spaces differ slightly from reality, but they’re linked.

No matter how reckless the villagers were, they wouldn’t stack their victims' bodies neatly in the shrine. So if we saw them laid out in the shrine’s center, their actual positions must align vertically beneath that spot.

It really was a perfect place to dispose of bodies. Kill someone, toss the corpse down here—utterly undetectable.

Tan Wenbin whispered, "Do you think they’ll turn into Dead Sinkers?"

If all the corpses became Dead Sinkers right now, the four of them were doomed.

Even if just two or three changed, Runsheng could only handle one. The rest could tear the others apart.

"They won't."

"Xiaoyuan-ge, it's okay. You don’t need to comfort me. I can handle the truth."

"The shrine above was designed with a very potent fortune-within-fortune feng shui layout. It brings peace and naturally suppresses malevolent spirits. These corpses shouldn’t be able to turn into Dead Sinkers.

"Unless someone up there goes insane and smashes the entire shrine—including its pillars. That might weaken the suppression, but even then, only one or two corpses might change.

"To make them all turn, someone would have to alter the feng shui. Neutral-to-good feng shui is hard to change, but this extreme fortune-within-fortune setup is relatively easy to flip from one extreme to the other."

"Xiaoyuan-ge, just the first sentence was enough. The rest you didn’t need to say."

"Sorry, I'm used to thinking that way."

He really was. Every time he saw a formation, his first thought was how to make it worse, more vicious.

All Wei Zhengdao's fault!

Of course, his thoughts weren’t entirely odd. Almost every corpse here had died violently. The thick sense of grievance they carried—the icy chill they’d felt earlier in the interstitial space—was that very resentment, materialized.

And though the shrine’s formation could prevent them from becoming Dead Sinkers, it wasn’t meant to suppress malevolence. So their resentment only accumulated, their bodies steeping in the pool below.

This place was basically a grotesque "methane pit." All it needed was a specialist with a match to set it all off.

Suddenly, Li Zhuiyuan heard the sound of water moving—many slight swishes, not from fish or animals.

He mentally mapped the positions based on the sounds. The corpses, now buoyant, were beginning to drift.

"Hey," Tan Wenbin said, "Where’d all the bodies near me go? There were a bunch just now. Now they’re gone."

"I’ve only got one near me now," said Xue Liangliang.

Li Zhuiyuan quickly said, "Liangliang-ge, feel along the body near you—front and back—see if you can find others."

"Okay, give me a second." Water stirred nearby. Then Liangliang responded, "Xiaoyuan, there are more—one in front, one behind. They’re lining up."

"Lining up for what?" asked Tan Wenbin.

Li Zhuiyuan exhaled. "They’re making a bridge. Guiding us to shore."

Liangliang flinched at first, then realized what it meant. "Shit… thanks!"

"Xiaoyuan, so we follow the direction the heads are pointing?"

"Yeah, start with that."

"Okay, everyone follow me. Hold on to the corpses like handrails. Don’t fall behind. I’ll go first, Binbin second, Runsheng and Xiaoyuan last."

And so, the four of them moved through the water, gripping corpses like railings.

Most of the bodies were bloated. Some were thinner—those were the recent victims, not yet swollen.

As they passed the most intact corpse, Li Zhuiyuan’s left hand somehow slipped into its hand—it wouldn’t let go.

"Xiaoyuan?" Runsheng called from behind, sensing him stop.

"I’m fine." Li Zhuiyuan touched the corpse’s face with his other hand.

He didn’t know how to read bones, but between his gift and past experiences, this was enough.

By feel, an image formed in his mind. Not perfectly clear, but enough to recognize him—Zhu Yang.

Li Zhuiyuan pulled back and patted Zhu Yang’s chest in farewell, hoping to console him.

It felt strange, offering condolences to the dead.

But this was all he could do—acknowledge that Zhu Yang had died in pain.

Then, his hand sunk into the chest.

The body had been opened.

Li Zhuiyuan couldn’t comprehend why the villagers not only killed and looted—but desecrated the corpses too.

No, it wasn’t post-mortem abuse—it was torture before death.

He recalled the broken door, the bodies leaking fluids in the cabinets and beds, the cured meat Tan Wenbin had brought.

It was unthinkable—in this day and age, such evil still existed.

Inside Zhu Yang’s chest, his hand brushed something thick and hard. He rubbed it—paper, crumbling under his fingers.

Books.

The pirated novels Zhu Yang used to read in the truck.

They’d stuffed all of them into his body.

"I get it now."

The grip on his hand released.

Li Zhuiyuan withdrew and pressed forward to catch up.

The pool was massive. Even with the bodies to rest on, their strength waned.

Without those “road markers,” finding the shore in pitch dark would’ve been impossible. Even Runsheng would’ve drifted off course swimming straight.

Finally, the sound of someone surfacing ahead.

They had reached land.

Runsheng, bringing up the rear, gave Li Zhuiyuan a boost onto the rocks.

Next Chapter >>>