Chapter Five: Corpse of Luxury
The child was stunned, clearly he hadn't thought of this problem. After a long time, he said solemnly: "Liu Lao Tou has always lived in the village, so his house must be very quiet. Think about it, houses that have been empty for over 20 years are definitely...
"Hmm! This method is reliable, but have you noticed that these houses, except for the withered branches and leaves on the roof, are all very clean? It seems like someone has been sweeping here regularly." After saying this, Hei Zi looked around at the village houses and indeed, every house was very clean, except for the different designs. It seemed to be true what people outside had said - that the ghosts of the villagers from before had come back.
It's strange, how did I have such a ridiculous idea? I shook my head hard and said to Hei Zi: "Let's go, we'll search the houses one by one. I don't believe we can't find Liu Lao Tou's house with so many valuable goods on him." We walked to the nearest house to us, and Hei Zi guessed the classic move of Old Zhou kicking in the door when he raided underground casinos. With a loud crash, the door opened.
In the 80s and 90s, Guangxi was still a very poor place. Although people had experienced cannibalism during the Great Leap Forward, the locals still considered being able to eat their fill and wear warm clothes as the greatest ideal in life. If you were lucky enough to see a typical earth-sheltered house like Pingpo Village, you might exclaim that modern residential areas are much better. Inside the house, there was a table, stools, furniture made of wood, chopsticks, and bowls. There was no bed, only a thick layer of straw underneath a quilt that could accommodate five or six people. Since there was only one room, I could see everything at a glance. My eyes caught sight of the corner of the house, where freshly washed clothes were hanging, still dripping with water. Wait! Those are newly washed clothes! My mind went blank, and my expression froze. Blackie noticed that something was wrong with me and followed my gaze to the clothes. They were women's clothes, including underwear and bras, scattered all over the place. All of this suggested that someone lived in Pingpo Village, a woman. Blackie and I discussed what to do next and decided to go outside and shout to see if anyone would respond. We couldn't just kick down the door like gangsters and then tell the owner that we were from the underworld and had come to find someone! I assigned this task to Blackie, who was excited, probably thinking that he could make me out to be a missing person in front of Ah Li.
Cough
Take a few deep breaths and shout loudly: "Something's wrong, the village is on fire!" I didn't stop him, but instead looked calmly at the doors of the houses in the village to see if anyone appeared. Heikou used all his strength to continue shouting for five minutes, his face almost turning green, but the village was still as quiet as before, with no one appearing. Finally, he stopped and panted heavily, saying hoarsely: "Jizong, do you feel like something is watching us?" To be honest, I also felt it, a hunter's intuition for hidden danger. But to avoid discouraging Heikou, I said: "You're just being paranoid, it's only five o'clock, what could be..."
Let's dispel the fear of the black son, we kicked open the doors one by one as before, but there was no one inside, however almost every house had some traces that proved they existed, such as still steaming food, still warm quilts, and boiling water. It's strange where all these people went? Did they leave unexpectedly after we arrived? But this doesn't make sense either, we're not Godzilla, it's impossible for them to be afraid of us. We still haven't found Liu Lao's house, I counted the number again and there was only one last room left, it seemed like Liu Lao should be living here. With these doubts, we kicked open the door, but what made us disappointed was that it was the same scene as before. I'm completely confused. Could it be that Liu Lao wasn't living here after all? What's his purpose for bringing us here? And what did he want to do with those guns? Conquer Vietnam, charge into...
My mind is a mess, things have been getting more and more out of hand lately, I really don't know what to do when the others get back. I took a look at the time, it's already 6:40 in the afternoon, winter nights always come quickly, in just over ten minutes the last symbol of daytime will be swallowed up by nightfall, marking the arrival of
I gestured for Hei Zi to go back, and he was already scared by the eerie atmosphere here. He couldn't hear birds chirping or see people around; everything was so quiet. Hei Zi ran back excitedly and quickly got into the car, starting the engine. I lifted my foot and got in as well. As soon as my butt touched the seat, I felt uncomfortable. Our usual stable vehicle, even on mountain roads with its special shock absorbers for racing, shouldn't be shaking like this. I thought something was wrong with the car and grabbed Hei Zi's right shoulder to get out and check. Just as my hand touched his, I felt him trembling slightly. Something didn't feel right, so I asked, "Why is the car shaking so hard?" Hei Zi's voice trembled as he replied, "It's not the car... it's... it's like something under the ground is trying to come out."
What's going on underground? I was puzzled and wondered if it was an earthquake or a volcanic eruption. But this wasn't the time to investigate the answer. I told Hei Zi to start the car, but no matter how hard he revved the engine, the car wouldn't budge. I looked down and was shocked, almost swallowing my breath, because a person's hand had somehow reached out from the ground and grabbed our wheel. The hand was unlike any normal person's hand - it was deathly pale with white hair growing all over it, clearly not a living person's hand. Hei Zi also turned around to look, and was so scared he almost passed out. As the hand grasped our wheel, the tremors on the ground grew more intense, with bursts of mud and sand erupting everywhere. My friend and I immediately jumped off the car and lay flat on the ground, covering ourselves with our clothes.
After the commotion around us subsided, Hei Zi and I patted off the dirt on our clothes, wiped our faces, and spat out a few mouthfuls of saliva onto the ground. Feeling somewhat better, I lifted my head and was momentarily stunned by the scene before me. A large group of people with beastly bodies, fat heads, and big ears had appeared. Two green snakes were strung through their ears, and they had infant-like faces. If you ignored their bodies, they could almost be considered cute. The word "Xi Bi Shi" flashed through my mind! Hei Zi loved playing online games, and for 7 years he had been persistently playing the game "Dungeon and Warriors". My computer, which I used for work, was filled with all sorts of things related to the game - pictures, software, etc. Seeing the scene before us, he too was stunned, and after a while, he exclaimed...
How did those things end up here at Grandfather's place?
I said in a daze, "This isn't a goblin, it can't be killed with just one skill. This thing is called a Xi Bei Shi, I saw it in the Shan Hai Jing when I was young." "Xi Bei Shi, Xi Bei Shi"... Hei Zi muttered to himself and suddenly exclaimed, "You're saying this thing is an undead?" I nodded my head and said, "This thing won't die or perish, after living for a thousand years it can recall its memories from before death. It's said that they were created by the heavenly gods of the upper realm and symbolize the gods." Hei Zi nodded his head in understanding and asked, "So this means it won't attack us on its own?" The Xi Bei Shi here didn't look like the cute version from the Shan Hai Jing illustrations, with a big mouth and blood-red eyes staring at us. I said solemnly, "These things were probably raised by someone on purpose." Hei Zi's eyes widened as he looked at me, and I continued, "Maybe 20 years ago, someone killed all the villagers of Ping Po Village, then spread cursed rumors to scare everyone away from this village. That person might be Liu Lao Tou, it was him who set up this trap for us."
Hei Zi wanted to ask something, but I interrupted: "This is not the time to talk, we need to think about how to get out of here, these Corpse Beasts are not as gentle as they were depicted in books!" Soon, the Corpse Beasts surrounded us, and I roughly counted at least 50 or 60 of them. They didn't feel pain, no matter how hard we hit them, it had no effect, and no matter how we tried to kill them, we couldn't. If this was a pack of wolves, I would still have confidence in escaping, but these Corpse Beasts seemed to have some residual memories from when they were human, although they hadn't regained their intelligence yet. The strange things that happened earlier were all the work of the Corpse Beasts. Hei Zi and I stood back-to-back, each holding a military short knife for self-defense!
