Chapter 8: Opening the Coffin! Investigating the Situation
Chapter 8: Chapter 8: Opening the Coffin! Investigating the Situation
Zhu Ge’s threat worked.
Ma Laizi’s face turned ghastly pale. "What... what are you trying to say?"
Zhu Ge glanced around, then tugged at Ma Laizi’s clothes. "Come with me. We need to talk somewhere quiet."
Ma Laizi swallowed hard and gritted his teeth. "Don’t you try to harm us. The Scholar will be back soon."
"Harm you?" Zhu Ge didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. "You’re a famous scoundrel who never pays his debts, and now you’re afraid someone’s going to harm *you*?"
That was how Ma Laizi got his nickname, "the Scoundrel"—he never paid his debts and was often trying to force himself on women.
If it weren’t for the Scholar’s presence, he probably would have become completely irredeemable long ago.
And now this Ma Laizi, who strutted around the village fearing nothing and no one, was afraid of being harmed?
"I... I was just..." Ma Laizi started to argue, but Zhu Ge had already dragged him to the open space behind the house.
"What... what do you want?" Ma Laizi looked terrified, like a young woman about to be accosted.
"Just talk!" Zhu Ge was exasperated. "This is a critical moment. We have to find a breakthrough, or we’re all going to die!"
"You... you really haven’t had your soul stolen?" Seeing Zhu Ge’s animated expression, Ma Laizi’s look of terror slowly shifted to one of suspicion.
"People whose souls are stolen become walking corpses!" Zhu Ge retorted irritably. "Look at my mother. That’s what it’s like. Do I look like that to you?!"
"True..." Ma Laizi nodded slightly, then added, "Should we go tell Yu the Scholar?"
"I already told you, there’s something wrong with Yu the Scholar! He only came looking for you to check if there was a problem with you!"
Zhu Ge sighed. "Otherwise, with the writings left behind by the Master and Yu the Scholar’s own spiritual cultivation, our village wouldn’t have been invaded by some ordinary god."
"There’s something wrong with Yu the Scholar..." Ma Laizi frowned at his words and tried to think of a solution with Zhu Ge. "But today he asked you how the bridal chamber for you and Hua Xiaomei was coming along."
Hua Xiaomei?
A bridal chamber?
Zhu Ge couldn’t help but ask, "Speaking of which, when was the last time you saw Hua Xiaomei?"
Hearing Zhu Ge ask about Hua Xiaomei, Ma Laizi raised an eyebrow. "She’s your fiancée. Why are you asking me? I’m not interested in that skinny-waisted girl. Can’t bear children, can’t raise a family."
The people here preferred women with thick waists and wide hips—good for childbearing.
But that wasn’t what was bothering Zhu Ge. It was Hua Xiaomei’s very existence.
’In my memory, Hua Xiaomei and her mother are both dead!’
And his parents, following some instinct, had also blurted out their own memories of Hua Xiaomei and her mother having died long ago.
This meant that before their souls were stolen, the fact that "Hua Xiaomei and her mother were already dead" existed in his parents’ memories.
But now, the living people all seemed to share a memory of "Hua Xiaomei and Zhu Ge getting married."
’Whose memories are wrong?’
’And...’
’Could there be another entity besides the Tiger God...?’ Zhu Ge’s mind felt like a complete mess.
"Don’t tell me you can’t find Hua Xiaomei?" Ma Laizi said in surprise. "She’s your fiancée! No wonder her mom’s been looking for her everywhere."
"Her mom is looking for her?" This detail caught Zhu Ge’s attention again, and he asked, "Where?"
He needed to see Hua Xiaomei’s mother for himself, to find out what exactly had gone wrong!
"At the village entrance," Ma Laizi said, pointing north.
"Alright... In any case, remember this for the next couple of days: don’t stray far from the moonlight," Zhu Ge said.
"My parents had their souls stolen, but I happened to be standing in the moonlight at the time, and that’s why I survived... Don’t trust Yu the Scholar!"
With that, Zhu Ge turned to leave, but then he seemed to remember something and looked back over his shoulder.
"Oh, right. In my memory, Hua Xiaomei died during the plague not long ago. There’s something wrong with this bridal chamber. You’d best stay away from it!"
Without waiting to see the look of horror that washed over Ma Laizi’s face, Zhu Ge turned and walked away.
Ma Laizi stood rooted to the spot, his expression a mask of conflict, but he didn’t drop his tools. He just went back to work.
Meanwhile, Zhu Ge followed Ma Laizi’s directions and headed for the other end of the village, searching for Hua Xiaomei’s so-called mother.
But he came up empty. He couldn’t find anyone.
Unwilling to give up, Zhu Ge searched through more than half the village, but he couldn’t find Hua Xiaomei, let alone a trace of her mother.
But right now, the key to breaking through the Tiger God’s influence lay with Hua Xiaomei.
So, in the end, Zhu Ge decided to risk it. He would go down the mountain and check the burial site of Hua Xiaomei and her mother.
...
The weather was scorching. Taking advantage of a moment when no one was looking, Zhu Ge dug up the coffin of Hua Xiaomei and her mother.
When he opened the lid, he wasn’t hit by the foul stench he had expected.
There was only an empty coffin, with some fungi and moss growing inside.
"Just as I thought!"
Zhu Ge put down his hoe and wiped the sweat from his face, his bloodshot eyes filled with contemplation.
No bodies. Not even a single belonging.
’No bodies. This means either Hua Xiaomei didn’t die and she got out...’
’...or she did die, and then some kind of reanimation occurred, and she got out that way.’
’Either way, it’s impossible for her to have just vanished into thin air.’
’No, wait. Maybe she *did* vanish into thin air!’
’What if Hua Xiaomei became a god and used her own body as a shrine, then hid that shrine somewhere else?’
’For instance, what if she hid it in the bridal chamber?’
’The door to that bridal chamber is sealed shut. There’s no telling what’s inside. The corpse-shrine could very well be in there.’
’And when Hua Xiaomei appeared while I was plowing the fields, she even deliberately made up a nursery rhyme to confuse and mislead me.’
’She wanted to make me mistakenly believe that an outside Tiger God had taken control of the village.’
’So, either there really is a Tiger God, or the Tiger God was a fabrication created by the Wedding God to sow confusion?’
Zhu Ge thought of that eerie bridal chamber.
Thinking of the "囍" character, Zhu Ge felt that "Wedding God" was a fitting name.
’So, there are only two possibilities for Hua Xiaomei’s appearance back then.’
’One is that Hua Xiaomei became a god after she died—the Wedding God—and she’s deceiving me for some specific purpose.’
’The other is that Hua Xiaomei isn’t a god, but some other mysterious entity who appeared in the field to warn me, to help me.’
’If Hua Xiaomei *is* the Wedding God, why would she try to mislead me?’
’Could it be that she realized I wasn’t under control and wanted to try again, but failed for some reason because my soul is from the Otherworld?’
’Or perhaps the condition for control is making me believe something? Is that why she’s trying to make me believe I’m engaged to her now?’
Zhu Ge frowned.
According to his initial theory, the god was a Tiger God, which was why people didn’t become vegetative after their souls were stolen.
This was an association, and the nursery rhyme had played no small part in pushing him toward that conclusion.
But what if his initial assumption was wrong from the start?
What if it was actually the Wedding God misleading him?
And since there’s something wrong with Yu the Scholar too, could it be that there are no gods at all?
The people around him, who seemed so rigid and mechanical—were they actually being controlled by another power entirely?
Or could it be that their Jianshan Village has more than one god?
Both the Tiger God and the Wedding God?
"What is it...?"
Zhu Ge felt his head was about to split open.
Chaos!
It was all too chaotic!
He didn’t even know what he was thinking anymore!
It seemed like there were many suspicious points, many clues discovered, but in reality, it was still a tangled mess!
He still lacked a breakthrough!
He lacked a single, trustworthy truth that could unravel the mystery!
’Looks like I’ll have to rely on my Kunpeng trait after all...’
Zhu Ge sighed.
He once again exhausted his strength to rebury the coffin.
Fortunately, no one usually came to the grave site. And since he had seen so many people on his way who had already had their souls stolen, it was even less likely anyone would show up.
After burying the coffin, Zhu Ge, drenched in sweat and exhausted, headed back up the mountain to Jianshan Village.
His father was already home, and his mother was mechanically reheating dishes.
Things like stir-fried *Jianshouqing* and *Qingtoujun* mushrooms.
People in Yunjiang loved to eat mushrooms. Zhu Ge knew they were delicious, but he was afraid of being poisoned and having hallucinations, so he just ate some rice and went to rest.
He said he was resting, but as soon as he lay down on his bed, he opened his system.
"Kunpeng, equip!"