Chapter 626: Uncorrupted Bone

'Daoist master Wan was right. Someone controlling the corpses has to be hiding in this hospital.' Standing sideways behind the door, I kept my Judging Eye fixed on the corridor outside. Since I butchered that monster, two more white figures had darted down to the third basement level.

'Good thing I didn't linger, or I really would have been cornered underground.' Water dripped incessantly in the background. These newly emerged monsters looked as if they had just crawled out of water tanks—drenched from head to toe, leaving long trails of water across the floor as they walked.

'This place is terrifying.' Not daring to step out of my hiding spot, I leaned back against the door, pulled out my phone, and brought up the photos I had taken earlier.

'These monsters are larger than normal people, almost as if their skeletons went through a second growth spurt. Could it be they weren't skinned at all, and their bones simply grew until they split the skin right open?' I shuddered, wondering why such a horrifying thought had even crossed my mind.

Looking toward the livestream, I voiced my doubts to Daoist master Wan.

"You're overthinking it." After hearing me, Daoist master Wan typed out that blunt reply, then started flooding the screen again.

"Looks like I need to teach you the basics of corpse refinement."

"The conditions required for a corpse to undergo Corpse Reanimation are harsh. To find a suitable body, a corpse refiner usually has to perform a 'corpse inspection' first."

"You bury the body under three chi of yellow earth to let it absorb earth energy and Yin energy for seven cycles of seven—forty-nine days in all—and then open the coffin on the night of a full moon. If the body shows no sign of decay, it is a 'good corpse,' and the refinement can continue."

Watching the Daoist master's bullet comments, I was both amazed by his typing speed and curious. "There's that much to refining corpses? But what does any of this have to do with skinning them?"

"Don't rush, I'm getting to the main point now," Daoist master Wan continued. "The corpse-refining methods passed down in the world fall into three tiers: upper, middle, and lower. The Upper Vehicle method observes the earth energy of all eight directions to seek out a dragon lair or phoenix nest. The corpse is buried within and nourished for a thousand years. Once it breaks out of the burial chamber, having absorbed the essence of heaven and earth, it is no different from a living person."

"The Middle Vehicle method hides the corpse inside a temple, nourishing it with the thoughts and prayers of all living beings to wash away its corpse energy until it becomes a Buddha of Sovereign Transformation. That is a Buddhist method of raising corpses, though I have only ever heard of it."

"The Lower Vehicle method is very similar to what you ran into today. First, the corpse is skinned, all its nails are pulled out, and its hair is shaved off. Then lime is sprinkled over the body to ward off insects, and it is left in a cool, shaded place to air-dry. Next, the corpse is buried ten chi deep in a corpse-raising ground, and before the grave is sealed with earth, the four walls of the burial pit must be smeared completely with the blood of ninety-nine dead evildoers. After that, the coffin must be sealed with soil during the day and uncovered every night so the corpse can absorb the Yin energy of the stars and moon."

"Every seven days, fresh livestock blood must also be poured over the coffin. After seven cycles of seven—forty-nine days—the body is wrapped securely in a Corpse Shroud to perform a ritual, after which the Corpse Shroud is lifted for a 'corpse inspection.' If the body has grown new skin, new nails, and new hair, a Talisman Incantation can be driven into its head so it can be controlled later on. Once that is done, the corpse is placed back into the corpse-raising ground. For the first ten days, it is fed with the refiner's own fresh blood, and after that, with living people. After another hundred days, the corpse will break out of the burial pit on its own and become a Fierce Corpse."

With Daoist master Wan's explanation, it finally dawned on me: skinning was an indispensable step in the Lower Vehicle corpse-refining method. The question that had plagued me for so long finally had an answer.

'If skinning is tied to corpse refinement, could the Xinhu skinning cases also have been for refining corpses? Was Two-Faced Buddha looking for suitable bodies? And what is his connection to Jianghu Cancer Research Hospital?' Figuring out the relationship between Two-Faced Buddha and Jianghu Cancer Research Hospital was crucial, because Chen Jiuge worked for Two-Faced Buddha, and he might very well be one of the participants in tonight's livestream.

'I haven't seen Chen Jiuge once since the livestream started. If this is Two-Faced Buddha's turf, could he be the one controlling the corpses behind the scenes? After all, among all the streamers, he's the only one closely tied to Two-Faced Buddha.' All of a sudden, I began to grasp the deeper meaning behind the Live Show's broadcast tonight: 'It wants to pool the strength of several streamers to eliminate Chen Jiuge—and destroy Jianghu Cancer Research Hospital while we're at it, ruining Two-Faced Buddha's plans!'

Thinking about it carefully, the Underworld Live Show and Two-Faced Buddha had always been at odds. Right from my very first livestream, the Live Show had been targeting Two-Faced Buddha, though I had no idea what kind of grudge lay between the two factions.

Still, by comparison, I leaned more toward the Live Show.

Two-Faced Buddha stopped at nothing to get his way; he had done plenty of cruel, bloody things that crossed every line of human morality, whereas the Live Show was far more restrained.

All the clues were slowly coming together, yet a few questions remained—such as the Writer's identity.

By my deduction, the one controlling the corpses behind the scenes was Chen Jiuge—so who was the Writer? Why had he impersonated Wang Shi, and why had he visited the Cancer Research Hospital late at night?

'The one controlling the corpses is likely Chen Jiuge, while the Writer must be the gatekeeper Two-Faced Buddha left at the hospital.' Without further evidence, that was the most reasonable guess.

After pondering for a moment, I looked back at the livestream. "Daoist master, the monsters I ran into in the hospital don't completely match the Lower Vehicle corpse-refining method you described. Their bodies weren't air-dried—instead, they were soaked inside water tanks, seemingly with the help of some kind of medicinal liquid."

I held the photos on my phone up to the camera. Getting a close-up view of the monsters set off a flurry of wisecracks from the livestream viewers, though I didn't have the time to care about that right now.

Daoist master Wan: "What I told you are only the three most basic categories. The Land of Huaxia hides countless individuals of extraordinary ability, so it is no surprise that someone created a new method of corpse refinement. Still, the core principles remain the same. Corpse refinement is ultimately a minor path that cannot make it onto the grand stage. Whether it is a white fiend or an Earth Corpse, they all rely on earth energy and corpse energy to move normally. Because of that, these monsters share a fatal weakness: the moment both of their feet leave the ground, their animating spirit drops sharply. There is one more thing I need to tell you. Didn't you ask me earlier how to break this deadlock? I will tell you now, though the method is extremely dangerous, so I hope you think it through carefully before acting."

"I'm all ears." I stared unblinkingly at the screen, afraid of missing a single one of the Daoist master's bullet comments.

Daoist master Wan: "The terrain of this abandoned hospital is called Broken Face Wenqu—an artificially formed Pit of Ten Thousand Corpses that gathers the resentment of the masses and buries their bodies, causing vast amounts of death energy and corpse energy to sink underground. So long as the death energy lingers, the terrain will not change; so long as the corpse energy lingers, the Fierce Corpses will not be destroyed. To break this deadlock at its root, the only way is to go underground and disperse the corpse energy and death energy at its very core."

'Go underground?' The Third Ward was completely sealed off, and I had no idea how many basement levels there were in total. Going by what Daoist master Wan said, I would probably have to reach the very bottom level to have any chance of breaking the deadlock.

Daoist master Wan: "Kid, the most unpredictable thing in this world is the human heart, so think thrice before you act. The terrain here was formed artificially, and the Fierce Corpses are being controlled to guard it tightly and keep all of you from going underground. From the looks of it, whoever is behind this has massive ambitions. Mere white fiends are definitely not their ultimate goal. Right now, I suspect they intend to use the Pit of Ten Thousand Corpses to refine a corpse king—an Uncorrupted Bone!"

'Uncorrupted Bone?' I spotted yet another new term in Daoist master Wan's bullet comments.

"A body that neither rots nor decays for a hundred years, does not enter reincarnation, defies fate itself, gathers the resentment of heaven and earth, draws in the foul energies of the world, and stays ageless, undying, and indestructible—that is an Uncorrupted Bone!"

Staring at the bullet comment Daoist master Wan had sent, I frowned deeply. Not entering reincarnation and defying fate—that was remarkably similar to a Fate Usurper.

'Could Two-Faced Buddha be refining an Uncorrupted Bone for himself?' A bizarre thought flashed through my mind, but since I had too few clues in hand, I could only set the thought aside for now and keep watching my phone screen.

Daoist master Wan: "If they really are trying to refine an Uncorrupted Bone, the corpse king will definitely be hidden where the corpse energy and earth energy are thickest—at the very bottom level of this building. When you get there, all you have to do is destroy its body, and the deadlock will naturally be broken."

I nodded. "Daoist master, how am I supposed to destroy an Uncorrupted Bone? From what you described, a thing like that should be extremely hard to kill for good."

Daoist master Wan: "The procedure is intricate, so listen closely. First, take a mouthful of strong liquor and spray it over the corpse to drive away the foul stench. Then, beneath an Oiled Paper Sun Umbrella, use Dao Talismans to wipe away the rotting flesh clinging to its hands and feet piece by piece. Finally, place the cleaned bones into a Thousand-Year Peach Wood Box. Put the hip bones and tailbone in first, then arrange the sacrum, lumbar vertebrae, and thoracic vertebrae upright in order from bottom to top, and thread an oil-lamp wick through all the vertebrae so they do not scatter. After that, place the toe bones, shinbones, thighbones, finger bones, radius, and ulna inside in order, and finally press the skull down on top. Done this way, the entire skeleton will be stacked in sections and packed neatly inside the small Peachwood Box."