Chapter 627: In the Water

Daoist master Wan: "As for the corpse's internal organs, you must smash the coffin wood and start a fire to burn the organs, clothing, hat, and soiled paper together. After placing the bones into a wooden box, seal it with a Coffin-Quaking Talisman. Send it to a temple or a Daoist shrine, suppress it with providence, and slowly wear away the death aura and the resentment clinging to its bones. Finally, scorch it with three fires to completely destroy it."

Looking at Daoist master Wan's chat message, I inwardly clicked my tongue. "It's that complicated? Strong liquor, an oil-paper umbrella, a lamp wick... just to seal away some bones, you need all these things?"

"What you want to destroy is an Uncorrupted Bone. You can never be too careful. It's fine if you can't gather these items right away, but you absolutely must use a Peachwood Box to hold the Uncorrupted Bone. Remember, do not touch it with your bare hands."

"Where am I supposed to find a Peachwood Box out in the middle of nowhere..." Halfway through my sentence, I suddenly paused. "Right! The box Gu Bei used to hold the pledge letter is a Peachwood Box! It should still be in Mortuary No. 2. It's a pity I left in such a hurry earlier and forgot to take it with me."

I had killed a monster in Mortuary No. 2, so the corpse controller was probably paying close attention to that area right now. It would be extremely difficult to sneak back in and retrieve the Peachwood Box.

Nine times out of ten, things in this world never went as planned. If I wanted to break out of this situation, it seemed I had to make another trip to the mortuary.

Daoist master Wan: "I can only help you this much. Whether you survive or not depends entirely on your own fortune."

"Thank you, Daoist master." My gratitude came straight from the heart. He had helped me survive life-and-death crises more than once. "Daoist master, if you ever have the chance to visit Jiangcheng, I'll treat you to a drink."

"Let's wait until you survive tonight to talk about that." A moment later, Daoist master Wan sent another message. "You're the most relentless troublemaker I've ever seen. You remind me of myself when I was younger. If there's an opportunity, I'll come find you."

"It's a deal!" A smile surfaced on my lips. If I could get Daoist master Wan on my side, it wouldn't be so easy for those sects to mess with me.

Jiangcheng Old Driver tipped Super Thriller Live Stream 99 Underworld Coins: "Are you guys planning an IRL meetup? Streamer, count me in when the time comes."

"Some shady under-the-table dealings..."

Teletubbies Died of Murder tipped Super Thriller Live Stream 99 Underworld Coins: "Get together! Get together!"

Daoist master Wan: "What do you mean, get together?"

Mature.Wife: "Daoist master Wan is utterly bewildered."

Kunlun Changyi: "That's quite the ID above me! So raunchy, yet somehow poetic!"

Shiliang-chan: "Bewilderment fruit on the bewilderment tree, you and me under the bewilderment tree!"

...

I didn't know which of my words had hit the livestream viewers' sweet spot, but the chat was scrolling incredibly fast. I glanced at the popularity metric; it had already broken past the ten-thousand mark and was hovering around thirteen thousand.

The number seemed like a lot, but looking at the entirety of Huaxia, ten thousand people was nothing. Any random major streamer on the internet had dozens or hundreds of times my follower count.

Holding the Live Show Phone in one hand, I readjusted the Brooch Camera, withdrew my gaze, and prepared to look for a chance to leave.

"There are three interconnected buildings in the hospital. I found a secret passage on the first basement level, and Gu Bei said he came in through a secret passage too. Thinking about it, there must be a route leading outside among those hidden passages." Gu Bei and Zhang Heng had both run deep underground. The further down the building went, the more dangerous it became. I feared they were already doomed.

I had never considered saving them from the very beginning. In such a complex environment, it would be hard enough just to get myself out alive. As for the Live Show's task, I would leave that to the other live show streamers.

I definitely wasn't the only live show streamer to enter the hospital tonight. The others simply had plenty of time to prepare and craft logical fake identities. Meanwhile, in order to avoid detection by the sect members, I hadn't escaped Century New Garden until past ten o'clock. Rushing here had delayed me further, leaving me with absolutely no time to prepare. Out of all the streamers, I was the one most easily exposed.

"There are many enemies. It's better to be careful." I let my hand drop, brushing against Gu Tongtong's death certificate in my pocket. "I have to get my hands on that Peachwood Box. Gu Tongtong died twenty years ago, but she had Gu Bei bring the pledge letter, so she'll probably come to collect it soon. I need to take the item before she gets there."

The runes on the Peachwood Box heavily suppressed yin and evil energy. It would be very difficult for evil entities to open it.

I was a very decisive person; once I had an idea, I immediately put it into action. "The new monsters just crawled out of the water tank and still have medicinal liquid clinging to them. As long as I'm careful, I should be able to spot them in advance by the sound of dripping water."

The corridor returned to a state of calm. I pressed my ear to the back of the door and listened closely, refusing to miss the slightest rustle of movement.

"It's safe..." Just as I was about to step out, I suddenly heard the sound of splashing water. It seemed to be coming from behind me.

"Someone's there?" I turned around to look. A deathly pale face was resting against the edge of the basin, staring coldly at my back through the darkness.

I gasped and froze in place, taking three or four seconds to recover my wits.

"Che Chili? Isn't Gu Bei's wife already dead?" I had personally examined her corpse. All the blood had been drained from her body; she was absolutely, thoroughly dead.

"Every grievance has its perpetrator and every debt its debtor. I came here to save your daughter. Even if you harbor resentment, don't vent it on me." When a corpse's soul returned, it usually retained a shred of sentience. Mentioning the person she cared about most right now might just help me avoid disaster.

After saying that, I slowly approached the basin.

The female corpse's face remained exactly the same, her chin pressed against the tiles. I had no idea how she managed to crawl up from the basin.

"She really came back to life?" I walked up to Che Chili's side and shifted my position. The female corpse's face turned to follow me. The sight made my scalp tingle with dread. I immediately pulled out my phone to ask Daoist master Wan for help.

"Daoist master! This female corpse doesn't quite match the situation you described!"

No one replied in the live stream. Bolstering my courage, I reached out, grabbed the female corpse by the hair, and twisted her head to the side so she faced another direction.

But the moment I let go, her face began to inch back around mechanically, looking as though she was preparing to bite me.

"Something's not right. Her state is different from those monsters. It seems only her head can move. She probably hasn't turned into a white fiend." The easiest way to check for a white fiend was to lift her clothes and see if she had grown white fur, but men and women were different, and even the dead had their "dignity."

"She's in an unconscious state. Her body only has wounds; she hasn't been flayed or refined into a corpse, nor is she being controlled. She was just soaking in the medicinal liquid in the basin. Could this liquid cause a corpse's soul to return?" I took out several Profound Truth Talismans from my pocket, slapped them onto the crown of the female corpse's head, and chanted an incantation.

It didn't take long for her head to begin twitching slightly. Immediately after, several extremely fine white bugs drilled out of her facial orifices.

"What the hell are these? When I kicked off that monster's head earlier, white bugs crawled out of its body too."

After leaving the corpse, the bugs, which resembled silver threads, shrank in size, becoming so thin they were almost invisible to the naked eye.

They scrambled back into the basin of water as if fleeing for their lives. In the blink of an eye, everything returned to normal. If not for the talisman-covered head still resting on the edge of the basin, I might have thought my eyes were playing tricks on me.

The bugs escaped into the basin and vanished without a trace. Looking at that murky water, a cold sweat broke out over me for no apparent reason.

I had climbed on top of the water tank earlier, and when the Writer suddenly appeared, I had nearly fallen inside.

"Who would have thought this water was actually full of bugs?"

Suppressing a shudder, I hurriedly backed away from the basin. "When I first met Gu Bei, the lower half of his body was wet, like he had jumped into a water trough. Could those bugs have already drilled into his body? I have to be careful if I run into Gu Bei again. He might have already fallen victim to them and is being manipulated by the corpse controller."

These bugs looked a bit like the Thread-Pulling Gu, but there were subtle differences. Thinking back to the live stream at Jiangcheng Medical College, I grew even more certain that this place was likely connected to the Two-Faced Buddha.

"A corpse-hiding ground, the Pit of Ten Thousand Corpses... what exactly is the Two-Faced Buddha planning?" I tossed Che Chili's corpse back into the basin, pushed open the storage room door, and headed down toward the basement.

I had already memorized the layout of these floors, so my path was completely unobstructed, and I didn't run into any monsters.

"There are still water stains on the ground. At least three monsters came through here earlier." I soon returned to Mortuary No. 2. Standing in the doorway, I didn't rush straight in this time. Instead, I activated my Judging Eye to carefully observe every corner of the room.

"The drawer beds are positioned differently from when I left. It looks like someone is inside."