The cries were hoarse and fanatical, bloody spittle flying from the villagers' cracked lips as they spoke. However, there was no pious faith in their eyes, only a near-manic longing.
Chen Zhou's will was attached to the skeleton. From the moment it stepped through the light curtain, he sensed an anomaly. Unlike the seamless control he had over his other ghost servants, his connection with this skeleton felt as if it were filtered through a thick veil—blurred and sluggish.
He could see and hear, but attempting to precisely maneuver the skeleton made him feel like a high-ping warrior stuck in a swamp; every step was a stutter, and the delayed feedback was agonizing. He could clearly sense that a vast distance now separated the skeleton from his true body in the Dead Man’s Forest. The Bone Summoning skill maintaining their link was being rapidly eroded.
Soon, Chen Zhou's ghost servant couldn't move at all. The skill failed, and the sensory connection began to flicker in and out. He had lost control of the skeleton.
Under the gaze of countless fanatical eyes, the skeleton took two stumbling steps before collapsing with a clatter, turning into a pile of scattered, withered bones.
Silence. The dead quiet lasted only a moment before a wave of even greater madness erupted!
"Divine remains! It’s the divine remains!" someone roared in excitement.
In an instant, the crowd went completely feral. Over a dozen people pounced like hungry wolves, fighting desperately for even a small phalange or a fragment of a rib. They tore at each other and cursed, using every ounce of strength to snatch and claw, as if the skeletal remains were the ultimate treasure.
"It's mine! I saw it first!"
"Get lost! Don't even think about stealing my blessing!"
"Give it to me! My child is dying! Give it to me!"
Chen Zhou’s perception was forced into the skull rolling on the ground. From an extremely frustrating first-person perspective, he experienced this frantic farce. Finally, the strongest man, after kicking away several competitors, clutched the skull tightly to his chest like a beast guarding its young. Ignoring the bloody scratches on the back of his hands from the others' fingernails, he gripped the skull hard. Under the cover of several equally sturdy brothers and family members, he desperately broke through the chaotic crowd and dove into his own house.
Some tried to chase him in out of spite, but they were intimidated by the man’s demonic stance—looking ready to kill anyone who dared approach. They could only curse bitterly outside his door.
Inside the house, the light was dim. The man carefully placed the skull on the floor. His brothers, wife, mother, and two half-grown children gathered around, their eyes equally burning with hope.
"Quick! Bury it! Just like the finger bone the messenger left last time!" the old mother urged excitedly.
The man nodded heavily. He found the only relatively intact clay basin in the house, then ran to the back of the house to the dry, hard, and barren yard. Using a stone shard, he laboriously scraped out a small pit. As if performing a sacred ritual, he solemnly placed the skull inside and carefully covered it with soil.
Once finished, the man did not stand up immediately. Instead, he crouched before the small mound where the skull was buried and let out a long sigh of relief. His tense shoulders relaxed for the first time. Turning back to his nervously watching family, he gave a smile of profound relief.
"It's done... it’s buried."
His voice was still hoarse, but the previous madness was gone, replaced by an indescribable sense of peace.
"Our family finally has a guardian spirit. Tonight... tonight we can finally get a good night's sleep."
Those words seemed to possess a magical power. His wife, whose eyes had been filled with constant terror, swayed slightly and covered her mouth, her eyes instantly reddening. She grabbed his arm, desperately seeking confirmation. "My man, are... are you for real? Is it just like the news from Heishuiyu? If we bury it... we get protection?"
"It’s absolutely true!" The man nodded firmly, his eyes shining.
"A few days ago, didn't Old Wang from Heishuiyu encounter a walking skeleton in his own yard?" the lean younger brother chimed in excitedly.
"Right, right! Brother, I heard about that too! When Old Wang saw that skeleton, it nearly scared the soul right out of him!"
The man continued, "His wife thought they’d run into some vengeful wandering ghost looking for a scapegoat!"
The wife asked nervously, "Then... then what did he do?"
The man took over, his tone carrying a hint of admiration for Old Wang. "That old fellow, usually he’s a coward, but his heart was in the right place at the critical moment. He felt that the skeleton was a masterless soul, wandering without peace, and he felt sorry for it. So, he braced himself and used a shovel to dig a shallow pit..."
The man gestured as he spoke. "He led it to the edge of the pit and let it lie down on its own. Then he covered it with soil. While burying it, he kept chanting for it to rest in peace and reach the afterlife quickly, saying he was performing a funeral rite for it."
The old mother sat cross-legged nearby and lowered her voice. "Yes, I heard that from that day on, not a single person has died in Heishuiyu for several days. It's incredibly strange! This news has spread like wildfire throughout our Kushi County!"
The half-grown son blinked, asking curiously, "Father, Mother, people outside are secretly saying that these are the guardian spirits accidentally lost by the Corpse Soul Sect to the north. They say if anyone is fated to encounter one and kindly lets it rest in peace, it will protect their home! Is that true?"
"Who knows!" The man spat, but his face was glowing. "A celestial sect like the Corpse Soul Sect is too far from us. Since we hadn't seen it with our own eyes before, no one could be sure if the rumors were true; we just thought it was the talk of crazy people. Honestly, I didn't believe it either. I even cursed at Crippled Zhang next door, thinking he’d lost his mind. How could there be gods or buddhas in this world? If there were, would so many people in our Kushi County have died?"
Speaking of this, the man’s face showed a flicker of fear. He looked at the small mound of earth again, his tone full of immense gratitude and lingering dread, as if he had seized a heavenly opportunity. "Who would have thought that a guardian spirit would actually descend upon our Shikan Village today! And our family even managed to grab the most important part—the skull! If this isn't divine protection, what is?!"
"Heaven has opened its eyes!" The old mother pressed her palms together and bowed to the mound once more.
The wife hugged the two children tightly, her voice sobbing yet filled with joy. "That’s wonderful... wonderful... with a guardian spirit watching over us, we... we can finally sleep peacefully tonight."
Meanwhile, Chen Zhou, who had been forced to witness everything through the skull's perspective, saw the world go black as he was buried. His connection with the skeleton was completely severed. However, in that final moment, he clearly sensed that the residual death qi belonging to his origin within the bones seemed to clash with a very subtle, abnormal energy permeating the soil.
His consciousness returned to the Bone Altar.
【Current Ghost Servants: 98/100】
Chen Zhou was extremely frustrated. After all that effort, not only had he lost a ghost servant, but he had also been forced to experience being 'laid to rest' and treated like the honored dead.
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