Chapter 6: The Bizarre Human-Faced Cat (6)

  "As people in our line of work, although we respect the spirits, we don't believe in evil. So even though that ominous premonition was very strong at the time, we couldn't turn back without completing the task given to us by the client. Moreover, it's not easy to secretly transport the coffin down the mountain at this late hour. After resting for a while, we continued to climb up, and then we became even more vigilant, because we didn't know where that monster was hiding, and it might suddenly appear and attack us off guard."

  It took us about half an hour to finally reach the entrance of the cave, a gust of cold air blew in, and the smell of rotting flesh was mixed with it. My father first discovered something was wrong, then quickly extinguished the torch in my hand, and everything in front of me suddenly turned pitch black. I held my breath with my father, and all I could hear was the sound of our hearts beating "thump thump".

  "After waiting for about a few minutes, our ears were suddenly filled with a 'cracking' sound, which seemed to be the sound of bones shattering. My heart jumped up to my throat, and I couldn't help but think of the fact that there were at least a dozen coffins scattered around us. The first thing that came to mind was corpse transformation, although I had never seen it before, I had heard from older generations about how terrifying it was."

  "Old Dad had already quietly pulled out the knife hanging from his waist, and I was also reaching into my pocket to feel around. At this moment, I suddenly felt a strong gust of air rushing towards me from in front, and I knew something was wrong, but it was too late to dodge now. As they say, an old ginger is still spicy, at that time Old Dad had already made his move, kicking me away with one foot, my body flying towards the edge of the cliff along with Old Dad's force, fortunately my reaction wasn't slow either, using my hand to hook onto the protruding rock on the edge of the cliff, my lower body hanging off the cliff wall, and then a black shadow flashed by in front of our eyes."

  "I knew in my heart that it was the strange creature we had just seen, Father picked up the torch and lit it, after which the true appearance of the creature finally appeared before our eyes. A waxen yellow shriveled human face, with a giant cat's body below, its mouth was holding a leg bone that had already turned yellow, and on the bone there were still black red rotten flesh stuck."

  It seemed to be enraged by the torch in Old Man's hand, and suddenly pounced on him. At that moment, Old Man must have been frightened by this monster, and didn't dodge at all. The monster spat out the bone from its mouth, then bit into Old Man's neck. It wasn't until then that Old Man reacted, his hand reflexively stabbing the dagger into the monster's body. The monster was in pain, opening its mouth wide, and a stream of fresh blood immediately sprayed out from Old Man's throat.

  The monster twisted its body, picked up the bone and disappeared between the cliff walls. When I climbed up the cliff, my old father was still breathing, his body shaking violently, his eyes staring at me as if he wanted to say something. I put my ear close to my father's mouth and vaguely heard him say a few words "Double... Double Pigeon... White Stone... Tomb" after which the hand that grasped mine finally fell down.

  The next morning, I buried my old father. The master of the house came to my home to help with the aftermath as a gesture of apology. At the end of the funeral, the master found me and asked what kind of monster had hurt my father. I told him everything that had happened, and he listened intently, his eyebrows sometimes relaxed, sometimes furrowed. When he heard my father's last words, his face suddenly froze.

  "After a while, he suddenly grabbed me and asked loudly: 'You said the White Tomb of Double Pigeons?'"

  I nodded blankly and then asked: "Do you know?"

  The man hesitated for a moment, then shook his head mysteriously.

  Ou Yang sighed, though those past events had been sealed for many years, they still couldn't hide the pain in his heart. After a moment, the smile returned to his face, and he coughed lightly twice before saying: "I know this family must be aware of what the White Tomb of Double Pigeons is, but it's inconvenient to say, there must be some hidden reason inside."

  That night, I quietly came to the cave where my father had an accident. The cave was not big, with a diameter of less than two meters. It was pitch black in front, and such a place was not suitable for setting up a suspended coffin at all. However, after crawling a few steps inside, I felt that my hand touched something hard. That thing was all too familiar to me - it was a piece of human bone. Needless to say, the bone must have been brought by the monster. I continued to move forward and suddenly touched something with my hand again. When I took a closer look at what I had in my hand, it turned out to be several pieces of coffin board fragments. The more I walked forward, the more fragments there were.