The two walked over to the makeshift bed where the corpse lay. Yang Hexuan carefully counted out seven sheets of Yellow Talisman Paper and placed them beneath the wooden door-plank bed.
The corpse was tightly covered, wrapped from head to toe without a single gap. Only a small, thin outline could be seen, matching the old lady's figure.
Normally, a withered old lady would weigh seventy or eighty pounds at most, so lifting her shouldn't have taken much effort.
“I'll lift the head side, you lift the feet,” Lin Jianguo instructed in a low voice. “On my mark, we lift together on three. Keep it steady, and absolutely do not let it shake.”
“Okay.”
Yang Hexuan rubbed his hands together and reached out to grip the edge of the wooden bed.
The wood was incredibly damp, feeling as though it had been soaked in water. It was so cold that his fingertips went numb.
“One, two, three! Lift!”
The two exerted their strength at the same time.
But the expected lightness did not happen.
The wooden bed was so heavy it felt as if it had been welded to the ground. Lin Jianguo held his breath, his face flushing red, yet he only managed to lift it less than an inch.
The muscles in Yang Hexuan's arms were strained to their limit, but he could barely budge his side.
“Why is it so heavy?” he whispered, his voice filled with disbelief. “How can an old lady be this heavy?!”
To put it bluntly, even the slaughter pigs in his hometown during the New Year weren't this difficult to lift.
Let alone seventy or eighty pounds—this felt like at least two or three hundred pounds.
It was as if a thousand-pound weight were hanging beneath the bed, or as if the corpse had been filled with molten lead.
Lin Jianguo's heart skipped a beat.
There was a saying in his hometown that if someone died of a grievance or an injustice and was unwilling to be buried, their soul would sit on the corpse and press down on purpose, preventing people from lifting it.
Another saying went that when someone died with deep resentment, a breath of grievance would gather in their body before death, making the corpse exceptionally heavy.
It seemed there was highly likely something wrong with the old lady's death.
At this thought, Lin Jianguo could almost see a lifeless old lady sitting cross-legged on the white cloth, staring daggers at him.
“Don't talk. Give it more strength.” Lin Jianguo gritted his teeth, putting more force into his hands. “Lift slowly. Don't shake.”
The two summoned all their strength once more, veins bulging on their arms, before they finally managed to lift the wooden bed off the ground inch by inch.
Heavy.
It was like carrying a solid lump of iron; every single inch they moved took immense effort.
Sweat poured down Yang Hexuan's forehead like rain, but he kept the clues in mind, gritting his teeth as he shuffled outward step by step.
Lin Jianguo walked ahead, moving backward. His attention was entirely focused on his feet, terrified of taking a wrong step and dropping the corpse.
The threshold of the inner room was a bit high. As he stepped back, his foot tripped on a pile of paper ash on the floor, causing him to stumble.
The wooden plank on his end tilted sharply, and the head of the bed dipped about an inch.
The white funeral quilt covering the corpse's head slid down with a sharp shhh.
Lin Jianguo subconsciously looked up:
The quilt had slipped to her chin, exposing the old lady's face.
It was a wrinkled, gray-blue face, nothing but skin and bones. Her cheekbones protruded sharply, and her shriveled lips sunken inward.
And the eyes, which should have been tightly closed, were wide open.
They were a pair of cloudy, bloodshot yellow eyes. The eyeballs were murky and yellowed, with two dark red streaks of blood trailing from the corners of her eyes like tears of blood.
Those eyes were staring dead on, straight at him.
Even more bizarrely, the corners of the old lady's mouth were slightly curved upward.
As if she were smiling.
The corpse was smiling.
Lin Jianguo's breath caught instantly. His heart squeezed so violently that the pain almost made him pass out.
A wave of icy chill rushed from the soles of his feet straight to the crown of his head, boring into his brain along his spine.
Old folks always said: "Better to hear a ghost cry than to see a ghost smile."
It meant that a smiling ghost was far more dangerous than one that cried; they were always fierce ghosts.
Surely Old Lady Huang hadn't turned into a fierce ghost, had she?
...
...
“Uncle Lin? What's wrong?!”
Seeing Lin Jianguo suddenly freeze with a deathly pale face, Yang Hexuan also panicked and quickly called out to him in a low voice.
Lin Jianguo snapped back to his senses, the cold sweat on his back instantly soaking through his clothes.
Gritting his teeth, he used his other hand to quickly pull the funeral quilt back up, covering the corpse's face once more.
“It's nothing.” Lin Jianguo didn't mention what he had seen. Forcing himself to stay calm, he said, “I just tripped. Keep moving.”
In the end, the two gritted their teeth and exerted every ounce of strength they had to finally carry the corpse to the makeshift bed made of old door planks in the mourning hall.
The bed was put together from two old door planks. It was extremely rough, with wooden splinters sticking out along the edges.
Setting down his end of the bed, Yang Hexuan's legs went soft with exhaustion. He leaned against the bed, panting heavily.
“My god... this old lady is way too heavy... It's incredibly bizarre...”
“Don't talk nonsense,” Lin Jianguo scolded him sharply, terrified that the scene from earlier would repeat itself. He turned and asked the two children, who were still crying on the ground, for a stick of incense to offer to the old lady.
One can never be too polite when dealing with the supernatural.
It was never wrong to maintain a sense of reverence and fear.
In the next second, a line of ink-brushed text floated before both of their eyes:
【Sub-quest 1: "Carrying the Corpse" completed. Completion rating: Good】
【Obtained Clue Fragment: "Old Lady Huang's weight increased rapidly at death, her body was exceptionally heavy, suspected to be resentment condensing within her, died with deep regrets."】
【Truth-Solving Progress +10%】
The quest was complete.
Yang Hexuan let out a sigh of relief. Supporting each other, he and Lin Jianguo strode out of the room almost as if they were running away.
The two children didn't even look up, continuing to wail and cry.
...
...
When Lin Jianguo and Yang Hexuan came out of the room, both of their faces looked rather grim.
The remaining players crowded around, asking about the situation all at once.
Hearing about the "human-headed rat" and the "thousand-pound weight," several people gasped, their hearts, which had briefly settled, leaping right back into their throats.
The first quest was already this bizarre. Who knew what lay ahead?
“I'll go with Asha,” Su Ya picked up the neatly folded shroud package nearby and volunteered.
The shroud sent by the Huang family looked highly exquisite, with gold-threaded longevity patterns embroidered onto dark blue fabric.
The material was stiff, yet it felt like waterlogged cardboard to the touch.
There was no fear on Yang Asha's face. Instead, she wore a faint look of melancholy, which contrasted sharply with the panic of everyone else.
“Are you scared? If you are, just stay close to me in a bit,” Su Ya held the young girl's hand as the two of them entered the inner room one after the other, where they also saw the pair of children still kowtowing.
“Not really,” Yang Asha shook her head, her voice very soft. “When my mother passed away, I was the one who wiped her body down and dressed her in her shroud. My grandmother also used to say that once a person dies, they're just a bag of bones and won't hurt anyone.”
She paused, her fingers unconsciously twisting the corner of her shirt.
“Actually, I kind of hope ghosts really exist in this world. If they do, I can ask my mother why she fell for my father back then.”
—Her father was lazy, greedy, and loved to drink. He couldn't even be bothered to feed the pigs. The two-month-old piglets distributed by the poverty alleviation officials had been boiled and eaten by him.
Her mother had died of an illness.
Even on her deathbed, she had been worrying that the cotton trousers she was sewing for her daughter weren't finished yet, leaving her with nothing to wear for the winter.
Yang Asha spoke very lightly and in a flat tone, but Su Ya could still hear the underlying heartbreak.
“Do you have a phone number? Or maybe WeChat or QQ?” Su Ya squeezed her hand and said earnestly, “Once we get out, the authorities will definitely contact you. When that happens, come find me, and I'll help look into schooling for you.”
“Really?” A bright light naturally shone on Yang Asha's face, and she nodded excitedly. “Sister Su Ya, you're such a good person.”
“We will definitely make it out.” Su Ya took a deep breath and reminded her, “Be careful.”
“Mm.”
The two of them stood beside the corpse, holding the shroud.
The white funeral quilt was draped loosely over the corpse, outlining a thin, small human shape.
Su Ya didn't dare think too deeply, fearing that the more she thought, the more panicked she would become.
She quickly walked over to the bedside, placed the shroud package on a nearby stool, and suppressed her fear as she began to dress the corpse according to the quest prompts.
According to the custom of a happy funeral, the shroud had to consist of seven layers, representing the cycle of the "seven-seven reincarnation."
The innermost layer was a white coarse cloth shirt, followed by green, blue, and red jackets layered one over another.
The outermost layer was the dark blue longevity robe embroidered with patterns of fortune and longevity, along with the matching trousers, socks, and shoes.
Putting on the entire set was an incredibly tedious process.
Su Ya reached out and gently pulled back the white cloth covering the old lady's face, still feeling terrified.
The corpse's eyes were tightly shut, her eyelids collapsed into two deep folds.
Her gray-blue skin clung tightly to her bones, her cheekbones high and prominent, her cheeks hollowed out. She was so emaciated she was nothing but a skeleton.
Her lips were a dark purple, pressed into a thin line that betrayed no emotion.
Her eyes were closed.
The two of them felt their racing hearts settle slightly.
—Perhaps Lin Jianguo's eyes had played tricks on him earlier, or maybe the dim lighting and high tension had caused him to misinterpret what he saw.
“I'll dress her sleeves. Sister, help hold her up for me.” Sensing Su Ya's fear, Yang Asha took the innermost white coarse shirt first, gently lifting the old lady's arm to slide it into the sleeve.
The corpse's arm was as stiff as a frozen branch, its joints locked tight and impossible to bend.
Yang Asha pressed her fingertips against the cold skin, showing no fear at all as she slowly massaged along the joints.
“Sister, let me tell you, my grandmother taught me that when people die, they get stiff as a board. You have to massage them to soften them up so they're easier to dress.”
Su Ya wanted to cry but had no tears.
She didn't want to know this kind of trivia at all, okay?
It turned out that among the entire group, the bravest was the youngest, Yang Asha.
Still, Su Ya knew when to back down, silently acting as her assistant.
The corpse was far too cold.
Even though it was winter in the Instance, the temperature of this body didn't feel like someone who had been dead for only three days.
Instead, it felt as though it had been frozen in an ice cellar for half a month—somewhat like the texture of the freezer-burned meat in her mother's refrigerator.
...
“Pah, pah, pah! Please don't take offense, child's words carry no harm.” Su Ya quickly pressed her palms together to apologize, while Yang Asha buttoned up the corpse, whispering as she did:
“When my mother passed away, she had been sick for over half a year and still weighed over eighty pounds. This lady looks like she doesn't even weigh seventy.”
The old lady was far too thin.
Her arms were as thin as dry firewood, and her bones stood out in sharp angles. Even with several layers of shrouds on, they hung loosely, unable to be filled out.
The magnificent, exquisite shroud hung loosely on her body, looking as if it had been draped over a wooden stick.
“She probably was sick for a very long time,” Su Ya replied in a low voice, keeping her attention focused on her hands, trying her best not to look at the old lady's face. “Four sons, and every single one of them lives such a good life, staying in modern houses and driving cars, yet they let their mother starve to this state.”
She was beginning to sense that something was off.
The back room was likely where Old Lady Huang used to live.
The decorations and arrangements were all things an elderly person would use.
—The Huang family courtyard looked grand, and the four sons wore gold and silver, even spending a fortune to host a continuous banquet. Yet, their own mother had starved into a bag of bones. Who would believe that if it got out?
Yang Asha didn't reply.
There were plenty of such occurrences in the mountains.
Once the sons became successful, the elderly were left to live in poverty in the village. Only after they died would the sons throw a massive funeral, calling it a happy funeral. Whether it was genuine filial piety or just putting on a show, only they knew in their hearts.
Funerals had never been for the dead.
Once a person died, their eyes closed, and they were buried in the yellow earth.
No matter how grand the funeral was, or how miserably the children wailed, the deceased could neither see nor hear it.
Of course, if you could turn into a ghost, that would be a different story.
...
...
At first, the two of them were a bit clumsy, but they gradually developed a tacit understanding.
From the inner garments to the outer robe, and from the trousers to the socks.
Their movements were extremely gentle. The room was so quiet that only the rustling of fabric and the wailing of the two children could be heard.
Su Ya occasionally looked up and caught a glimpse of the old lady's wrinkled face.
Her eyes were tightly shut, and her lips were flat, showing no expression.
—Yet, she couldn't tell if it was just her imagination, but she felt the corners of the mouth were slowly drooping, as if becoming increasingly aggrieved and resentful.
Su Ya quickly averted her gaze, not daring to look any longer, and simply focused on completing the quest.
Rate on N.U.
