cw; corpses
“Is this okay?”
Xiao Xunrui looked at Situ Hong. “What’s not okay about it?”
“No, just…” Situ Hong glanced at Wuma Qiongling, who was patiently teaching Xiao Guo how to fold a prying mantis. He cleared his throat. “Lord Wuma, don’t you…have other business to attend to?”
Wuma Qiongling glanced at Situ Hong. His gaze drifted to Xiao Xunrui for a moment. It was obvious that he was wondering whether or not he should spare a breath in answering Situ Hong. When Xiao Xunrui’s brows furrowed just slightly, Wuma Qiongling turned back to Situ Hong.
“What business would I have?”
“…I…don’t know? What does a demon lord normally do?”
“It’s being taken care of.”
Situ Hong thought of how Bai Qiu was still at Screeching Sparrow Sect, before he looked at Wuma Qiongling quizzically. “By…by who?”
“My people.”
“Your…I see,” Situ Hong slowly averted his gaze. He glanced at Xiao Xunrui. “I see. Your…people…”
“Is something the matter?” Wuma Qiongling set his hands in his lap. “Do you, perhaps, not welcome me?”
“Huh? No! No, that’s not it. I was just worried that you were, ah…rescheduling something important just to spend…I mean…accompany us,” Situ Hong said.
“Nothing goes on in Fengya, unlike your Xianping and Jianshi,” Wuma Qiongling turned back to his task at hand. “Over there, I write poetry all day and play music all night. It’s boring and uneventful.”
“…Is that so?” Situ Hong asked with an empty smile on his face.
Xiao Xunrui pursed his lips, as if he were biting back a laugh. “Qiongling, don’t tease him.”
“Qiongling,” Wuma Qiongling murmured, a small pout on his face.
Xiao Xunrui glanced at Situ Hong.
Situ Hong met his friend’s gaze and his empty smile grew wider. “What? Why are you looking at me? Do you normally call him something else? Like what? Baobei? Honey? Husband? Go ahead. I’ve been around Wu Lingtian a lot. I’m used to being around couples.”
Xiao Xunrui awkwardly cleared his throat and turned away. “It’s nothing that silly…Does Lingtian do that?”
“…I’m so single,” Situ Hong pinched the bridge of his nose.
Xiao Xunrui let out a weak laugh. He patted Situ Hong’s arm. “You…it’s okay. You have time.”
Situ Hong groaned into his hands.
Xiao Guo looked up at Situ Hong and smiled. “It’s okay, Situ-shushu. I also don’t have a partner.”
“You…you better not,” Situ Hong choked out.
“Situ-shushu is right,” Wuma Qiongling patted Xiao Guo’s head. “You’re still too young. Wait a few more years.”
Xiao Guo giggled. She glanced at Situ Hong and felt a bit of pity for him. His two friends with the worst temper had their lifelong partners, but he was still alone. Who wouldn’t feel upset?
The group arrived at Zhao Village in just under a week. When they arrived, Wuma Qiongling took up the task of taking care of Xiao Guo while Situ Hong and Xiao Xunrui headed into the village to question the villagers.
After the last incident, the village head and the villagers were more accepting of answering their questions. Situ Hong and Xiao Xunrui first started at the village head’s manor.
The village head and his wife sat silently as the servants poured Situ Hong and Xiao Xunrui tea.
“Please tell your colleagues that we apologize for our rudeness last time,” the village head finally said.
Situ Hong gently smiled. “I will pass on the message, however Village Head Zhao and Madam mustn’t feel too guilty. We understand your aversion to cultivators.”
The village head showed a bitter smile. “It’s just…”
“Please, tell us slowly. We need to know every detail,” Situ Hong said. “And…if possible, we would like to exhume your son’s body as well.”
The village head nodded. “It’s the least we can do. Especially since we…we don’t know what those monsters did to him.”
The village head took in a shaky breath and began his story.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
As the innkeeper had told Wu Lingtian and Fan Yi, the events indeed took place five years ago and there was, indeed, a handsome cultivator. However, what was left out and what most people didn’t know, was the fact that he came with a woman.
The woman was quiet. She covered the lower half of her face with a thin, silk veil, like the mysterious beauties of jianghu normally would. She didn’t speak and the handsome young man did all the speaking for her. They were both here on the excuse that they were searching for something.
“Vfjgmtlcu obg rbwfatlcu? Glv atfs fnfg afii sbe lc vfajli?” Wljb Wecgel jrxfv.
Ktf nliijuf tfjv qjerfv. “P vbc’a delaf gfwfwyfg.”
“I do,” the madam spoke up. Her voice shook as she spoke, “According to Ren’er, they were searching for…for some type of formula?”
“C obgweij? Mbg ktja?” Vlae Lbcu jrxfv.
“P gfwfwyfg tlw rjslcu atja atf meialnjabgr mijlwfv atja la kjr j obgweij atja mbeiv…mbeiv gfreggfma atf vfjv,” atf wjvjw rjlv, tfg nblmf ibkfglcu ab j cfjg ktlrqfg ktfc rtf rjlv atbrf kbgvr.
Situ Hong and Xiao Xunrui’s blood ran cold. They glanced at each other.
It should be noted that resurrecting the dead and raising the dead were two different things. Ghost cultivators, which were a sub branch of demonic cultivators, often rose the dead. They controlled and harnessed them to become an undead army. Fierce corpses and living corpses are also a form of raising the dead. The key point between the two is raising the dead meant they were still dead, while resurrecting meant that you wanted to bring them back to life. And resurrecting the dead was a deed condemned by even Heaven itself.
There was only one such sect that supposedly held a manual to resurrect the dead, just several hundred years ago and that was the well renowned Qingyao Manor. Back then, rumors were rampant and people, claiming to want to eradicate the sect for the greater good, had mercilessly massacred the Fu Clan and the disciples studying under them.
Years later, it came out that Qingyao Manor never had such a manual. It had all been a hoax. And, yet, no one came out to apologize or admit their wrongs.
After all, who would they apologize to? The dead were ignorant of the living.
Despite this, there were still people who didn’t believe the conclusion the Hall of Impartiality came to. After all, who didn’t know that Sect Master Zhong was the adopted brother of Qingyao Manor’s madam? There were theories that Sect Master Zhong spread this to keep any remaining face his sister and her husband had. Some believed that the resurrection manual was real and that it was still out there, in the hands of a new owner.
Of course, this was just a small population. But it seemed that this small population had been on the move again.
The remainder of the story the village head and his wife told were just what Wu Lingtian and Fan Yi had heard.
It was clear that the purpose of these two cultivators had been met and they had to leave. They had, most likely, also planted seeds of experiments within the villagers, waiting for them to bloom.
“That’s…horrible,” Xiao Xunrui said, his stomach giving way.
He sat down at the tea table, in the inn they were staying in, and hurriedly poured himself a cup of tea.
Situ Hong shook his head. He let out a sarcastic scoff. “After everything that’s happened, there are still people who want the resurrection manual? Wasn’t one clan enough?”
Wuma Qiongling looked towards the two men who had just returned. He lowered his gaze to the sleeping child and stood. He set a small sound barrier around her before sitting down beside Xiao Xunrui.
After listening to them recount what they had learned, Wuma Qiongling shook his head.
“That’s not it.”
“What’s not it?” Situ Hong glanced at Wuma Qiongling.
“The matter of the puppets has to be related to the matter of the resurrection manual,” Wuma Qiongling said.
Xiao Xunrui frowned. “How so?”
Wuma Qiongling’s fingers lightly drummed on the table top. “Give me a moment.”
Two cultivators came to a quiet, out of reach village in order to find a resurrection manual? Where had they gotten this information? Perhaps, instead, they had been on their way to find the manual and had passed by this area, which was a perfect place to conduct experiments.
“Think about it,” Wuma Qiongling said, “you righteous sects have far too many blind spots. Small villages that are too far away are more often than not ignored. If odd things began to happen in a village this far away, do you think anyone would notice?”
Although Situ Hong didn’t want to admit it, he still agreed.
“On top of that, what if this village developed a distrust against cultivators? Would they contact anyone for help? Especially if it was just a villager dying here and there. It could be chalked up to wild animals or a simple curse, perhaps by a god who wanted to punish them. And cultivators are still human—how can they face a god?” Wuma Qiongling reasoned.
“That’s just going around in circles.”
“If humans truly don’t want to believe something, they will do anything they can to lie to themselves,” Wuma Qiongling said. “Why do you think, in history, so many tyrants believed that they were doing the right thing?”
Xiao Xunrui and Situ Hong fell silent.
“Let’s say you’re right,” Situ Hong said, “then, how do you explain how the resurrection manual has anything to do with the puppets?”
“Simple,” Wuma Qiongling smirked. “They don’t want to make an undead army; they want to make an unalive army.”
“…What?” Xiao Xunrui frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Something that is neither living nor dead; something that looked just like you or I; something that can beg for its life; something that cannot reason on its own, but has the intelligence to counter your attack without a command,” Wuma Qiongling said. “That’s the type of army I’m speaking of.”
Situ Hong felt a shiver go down his spine. Xiao Xunrui felt sick all over again.
“Isn’t that what’s in the report?” Wuma Qiongling tilted his chin towards the scroll sitting on the table. “That’s what Wu Lingtian wrote, didn’t he? That the puppets he’s encountered seem to be sentient—at least the best of them are. The grandmother he fought could hold a conversation with him until her master commanded her to attack. She may have seemed sickly, but she definitely was human.”
“That…that’s disgusting,” Situ Hong said, a hand resting over his mouth.
“It’s ingenious,” Wuma Qiongling said. “In front of an army of undead, you wouldn’t hesitate because they no longer look like you. But what about in front of group of people who are still just barely sentient? What would you do?”
Xiao Xunrui shook his head. “Stop. I can’t listen to this anymore.”
Wuma Qiongling immediately stopped, but his words lingered in the air.
Xiao Xunrui closed his eyes and held his head in his hand. “This level of human experimentation…”
“Unprecedented, really,” Wuma Qiongling said.
“Five years…they already created that elderly woman five years ago,” Situ Hong said. “If that were true, what about now? How…how many of those would live among us?”
Xiao Xunrui rubbed at his arm. He looked at Wuma Qiongling. “A-Huan, what should we do?”
Wuma Qionling reached out naturally and pulled Xiao Xunrui towards himself. “We could just leave this mess behind.”
Xiao Xunrui frowned and lightly smacked the other man’s chest. “I’m being serious right now.”
“I am too. You have the option. Fengya is much more peaceful than this. Under my protection, Xiao Guo won’t have to worry about any of this,” Wuma Qiongling said.
Xiao Xunrui wriggled free from Wuma Qiongling’s arms. “I shouldn’t have asked you.”
The demon lord glanced at his empty hand. His fingers closed to his palm and he let out a long sigh. “Well, there is a way.”
“What way?” Situ Hong asked.
“I don’t want to give you false hope, so let’s exhume some bodies first. And those puppets you have locked up—bring those out too,” Wuma Qiongling said. He looked between the two men. “You both realize that they’re dead, correct?”
Situ Hong and Xiao Xunrui nodded.
“They’re dead. So, whatever I do to them is not murder. Do I make myself clear?”
The two men nodded again.
“Good,” Wuma Qiongling smiled. “I’m glad we’ve reached an understanding.”
The exhumation of the bodies took place at night. The servants that helped dig up the graves had sweat pouring down their foreheads by the time they were done. Wuma Qiongling thanked them for their hard work and stepped closer to the bodies.
There was no one else around them at this time. Because of the gravity of the situation, the family members of the deceased said that they only hoped, at the end, they could rebury their loved ones. As for what happened in between those processes, they didn’t want to know and would turn a blind eye.
“A-Huan—”
“If you have a weak stomach, you should look away,” Wuma Qiongling said over his shoulder.
Situ Hong grabbed Xiao Xunrui by the arm and smiled. “He’s right. Let’s step back and let him do his job.”
Xiao Xunrui hesitated, his feet dragging slightly until Situ Hong had walked far away enough.
The sounds of liquids squelching could be heard from where the two men stood. The vile stench of decaying flesh reached them rather quickly. Xiao Xunrui’s expression waned.
“Do you want to plug your ears too?” Situ Hong asked.
“No, it’s not…The oldest corpse is five years old,” Xiao Xunrui said. “So…how come they aren’t bones yet?”
Wuma Qiongling’s expression remained wooden as he tore apart the chest cavity of several corpses. He closed his eyes and used his spiritual sense to careful examine each and every one of them. Demonic energy mixed with the resentment in the air, making it suffocating for Situ Hong and Xiao Xunrui. The energy seemed to coalesce together in one specific spot.
“…A-Huan?”
“What is it, my dear?”
“Nothing,” Xiao Xunrui breathed out a sigh of relief.
Wuma Qiongling smiled to himself, his heart fluttering slightly. He would be able to enjoy his beloved’s worry a bit more if there wasn’t a pile of decaying flesh in front of him.
After several hours, Wuma Qiongling let out a long sigh.
“What—”
“Don’t turn around,” Wuma Qiongling warned. “I’m going to rebury the corpses.”
Situ Hong’s stomach churned. Although he hadn’t been in direct contact, he already knew what was wrong with them.
Wuma Qiongling spent another two hours burying the corpses. He returned by their side only after he cleaned himself.
A look of distaste covered his face. “I got blood in my hair.”
Xiao Xunrui picked at his white locks. “I’ll help you wash your hair when we get back.”
Wuma Qiongling smile. He pressed a kiss to Xiao Xunrui’s cheek. “No need. I’ve already cleaned it.”
Situ Hong cleared his throat. “The findings…”
“As if you don’t know?”
Situ Hong ran a hand down his face. He knew.
To put it simply, the souls of the corpses—or, should they say, the prototype puppets—had been heavily altered.
A human has three hun and seven po. Together, this made one soul. For a regular person, the seven hun would naturally disappear one by one, seven days after their death. However, in more unnatural cases, the po remained after the hun dispersed.
The remaining po, the corporeal soul, was what allowed a corpse to move after its death. Living corpses came to being because they came into contact with spiritual or resentful energy. Fierce corpses come into being because of the remaining resentment within the corpse, accumulating over many years. Fierce corpses were what demonic cultivators used to fight, while living corpses essentially caused more annoyance than harm.
But these puppets didn’t just have their po, they also retained their hun. The issue was, for a being to be considered living, they had to have three hun and seven po. These corpses had only one of their hun and all seven of their po.
“Even living and fierce corpses don’t have all seven,” Xiao Xunrui said.
It was unnatural. Normally, what kept a human’s soul latched on was resentment, but that resentment could only go so far. And a hun remaining within the body after death was unprecedented. There were cases where a hun would linger around its coffin or grave but, with time, it would also disperse. To put it simply, this last hun was more like an afterimage than anything corporeal.
“It’s impossible to keep all seven. The most has been six, the fewest have been two,” Situ Hong said. He turned to Wuma Qiongling. “This is clear evidence that the souls of these people have been messed with.”
“What…happened to the other two hun then?” Xiao Xunrui asked.
For a person to reincarnate, all three hun had to be freed from the body, especially the hun that rested on one’s head. But, according to Wuma Qiongling, it was the hun that rested on one’s head that remained. Which means the deceased would never experience reincarnation, nor would they experience a peaceful rest.
“Taken. Perhaps…to use for others,” Wuma Qiongling said.
Xiao Xunrui shuddered. “That…”
Wuma Qiongling glanced at the graves. A rare flash of pity met his gaze. “These people are no longer living or dead. Purification and eradication would not even help them. I’m sure the manipulation of souls is what those two cultivators were after. If the resurrection were real, that would be the key to it.”
“What…what do we do?” Situ Hong asked blankly.
Seeing the two men look at him, Wuma Qiongling could only offer a helpless smile.
“What are you asking me for?” Wuma Qiongling asked. He glanced at the graves again. “I found a useful bit of information when I was digging through the corpses, but I don’t know if it would be useful.”
“What is it?” Xiao Xunrui asked.
“Something that would lead us to the culprit,” Wuma Qiongling said. He pulled out a jade bottle and handed it to Situ Hong.
Situ Hong frowned.
“You can open it. I’ve already sealed it to make sure the thing inside doesn’t come out.”
Situ Hong uncorked the jade bottle. His eyes widened. “Spiritual essence?”
When spiritual energy is used, it will always leave behind faint traces. Most of the times, the traces would disperse quickly. However, when it was an operation that required one to control an object, such as their sword, a corpse, or, in this case, a puppet, traces would linger.
“I don’t know if you’ll be able to find the owner of that,” Wuma Qiongling shrugged. “It’s a slim chance, but—”
“Wait,” Xiao Xunrui stepped forward. “This is…”
Because of his face-blindness, Xiao Xunrui had long learned to recognize people through their spiritual essence. His face paled immediately and he looked at Situ Hong anxiously.
“What’s wrong?” Situ Hong raised a brow.
“This…this is Wu Lingtian.”
This story just keeps getting better! Thank you so much for chapter ❤️😊
thanks for reading!!
Oh no! We all know there’s no way he would have intentionally set out to do this! Those lost memories are no joke! I say that because my lost memories are kind of an ongoing joke. Wu Lingtian has a really good bunch of resourceful people with different skill sets so I hope they can come up with something.
i wonder about Fan Yi’s Fu Clan resurrection material… like, if it was real i understand why they would want folks to know cause they could possibly help, which may be l
of altruistic worth despite the target that they become. but if it was a hoax, why even make it up? thats danger with no gain, right?
then again all but one is dead….. from what we know, which now i’m suspicious if Fan Yi was the only survivor….