Chapter 335: Yinshan Village

The coffin hissed in a Buming sense, as if it were the roar of some kind of country beast, and the boards were thumped by the contents.

White, dried hands reached out from the crevices of the shaking coffin, their dark black nails scraping deep scrapes of wood on the coffin, so you can imagine how sharp these nails were, and how they would have peeled the skin right off a human being.

Mu Sicheng was so frightened that he grabbed Bai Liu's hand and subconsciously tried to run away, but Bai Liu caught him.

Not only did Bai Liu not run away, but he went up and flipped the talisman he had just torn off and put it back on the red line.

Something strange happened, the coffin, which had just been vibrating, suddenly fell silent.

The moment the talisman fell, a golden light appeared on the red thread, and the hands of the corpses that were trying to break free from the coffin rose as if they had been burned when they touched the red thread, and a vague wail came from inside the coffin, which shook twice as if reluctantly before finally returning to peace.

Kong Xuyang narrowed his eyes at the sight of this scene and gave a mental tsk in impatience.

I was ready to see this coward Bai Liu run out of the temple in a scared shit, but I didn't expect to find a solution for him so quickly.

But Kong Xuyang soon adjusted his expression and hugged Yang Zhi with a frightened look on his face, just like a normal person, except for the sinister look in his eyes that lingered as he stared at Bai Liu.

It is true that the charm, flipped on its side, is the Anzai spell, and it does hold up.

But he could avoid the first day of the month, but not the first seven days. The talisman would not last until the first seven days, and he had the orthodox Maoshan talisman study and the yellow paper in his hands.

Mu Sicheng stands rigidly as a wooden stick in front of Bai Liu, his chest heaving violently, his face blue and white as he faces the eight coffins, and he looks terrified.

He wanted to run away, but for some reason Mu Sicheng felt that if he left Bai Liu here alone, it would be more terrifying for him to face Bai Liu than the eight coffins.

Bai Liu's face showed no sign of fear as he patted Mu Sicheng on the shoulder and instructed in an unusual manner, "Go and light incense, three sticks, three worships, don't make it four, avoid the niche."

Mu Sicheng's mind was still dizzy, and as soon as Bai Liu told him to, he let out a cry and walked forward with weak hands and feet.

Halfway down the hall, Mu Sicheng was picking up incense to offer, when he swept his eyes over the eight niches lined up on the table in front of the statue and suddenly stopped as if stuck.

Eight ...... niches?

Mu Sicheng turned back slowly, his expression deflated as he pointed to the coffin beside him, his fingers trembling seemingly, "Bai, Bai Liu, one more, one more coffin."

Bai Liu was kneeling on one knee beside the extra coffin, running his fingers over the crevices of its corners, and without raising his head, he said, "I see."

This extra coffin seems to be of similar size, shape, colour and material when viewed in the dim light, with a black lacquered head, red thread wrapped around the waist and bells hanging from the corners.

Bai Liu looks at his fingers where he has just touched the coffin, which are covered with a thin layer of yellow earth.

This is a coffin that has been buried.

The bells hanging from the corners are brass bells of an archaic style, dating from the end of the last dynasty a century ago.

The red thread is new, like that used for other coffins, and the coffin appears to have been repainted; no rot in the wood can be seen, but a damp, rotten wood smell can be detected.

However, although the exterior has been repainted, it should not have been opened and a layer of untouched yellow earth can be felt along the mouth of the coffin.

The coffin did not have any yellow talisman attached to it and at first glance it was not very safe.

Mu Sicheng shook his hand in tears: "Bai Liu, how can there be a coffin all of a sudden?

"What interests me more now is why this coffin is extra." Bai Liu got up and he walked past Mu Sicheng to the same extra niche on the offering table, looked at it for a moment and said thoughtfully, "So that's why."

Mu Sicheng peers over Bai Liu's shoulder and, using Bai Liu's cover, raises the video camera as if to start filming the niche.

He had just counted out an extra niche and didn't dare to look at it because he was afraid, but now he dared to do so under the double guard of Bai Liu and the camera.

Mu Sicheng filmed for a while as he watched the niche on the small screen of the video camera, looking more and more out of place, his expression going from puzzled at first, to incredulous, to most now confused.

"This Dien niche ......" Mu Sicheng said in confusion, "how is it from 1884?!"

The age of death is written on the niche as [1884-1900], and the gender name is extremely simple, with only the phrase Li family woman.

Mu Sicheng began to question himself, pulling out his phone and looking at it, "We're in modern times, why is this coffin over a hundred years old?"

"When a woman is buried after her marriage she is given her husband's surname, called Thi." Bai Liu's eyes rested on the coffin, "This coffin contains a sixteen year old unmarried woman who presumably died in the midst of her marriage."

Mu Sicheng was confused again: "Why did he die in the marriage?"

Bai Liu gives Mu Sicheng a light glance, and Mu Sicheng inexplicably detects a hint of dislike in this glance.

Bai Liu turns his head to the coffin and explains, "A woman took her husband's name after she married, so if a Li family woman married a Zhang man and was buried, she would have been buried as [Zhang Li] and buried in the ancestral grave of the Zhang family."

"And the young girl in this coffin was buried as [Li family woman]."

Bai Liu said lightly, "That's interesting, as unmarried women were not allowed to be buried in ancestral graves in those days, but the size of this coffin suggests that the woman was most likely buried in an ancestral grave."

"The two most likely scenarios I can think of for an unmarried woman buried in an ancestral tomb are that the first is that the woman either contributed greatly to the family, or the second is that the young girl died on her way to marriage."

"But the maiden has a surname and no name, and I prefer the second scenario."

Mu Sicheng let out an oh-so-improvised "So why would it be a hundred year old coffin?"

Bai Liu said calmly, "Digging up ancient tombs, I guess, which are quite common in small, isolated villages."

Kong Xuyang was listening with gritted teeth.

He had cleared out all the basic information that He Daniu had told Bai Liu, and Bai Liu had managed to reintroduce it on his own.

What kind of monster is Bai Liu?

"...... means there's a 100 year old female corpse inside this coffin?!" Mu Sicheng hindsight of what was inside this coffin, he winced and took two steps back with a jittery face, "So scary."

Kong Xuyang fakes a smile and pats Mu Sicheng on the shoulder: "Hey! What Bai Liu says is right is right? He's just guessing, maybe he's just saying it to scare you!"

Mu Sicheng retorted without thinking: "Bai Liu was right even if he guessed off the top of his head."

Bai Liu looked past Mu Sicheng to Kong Xuyang and nodded approvingly, "You're right, it's all just speculation on my part, not necessarily accurate."

Kong Xuyang was stunned by Bai Liu's comment.

"Practice is the only criterion to test the truth." Bai Liu stepped forward and he placed his hand on the top of the coffin and pushed his hands down, "Won't we know who's inside if we open it?"

Kong Xuyang didn't have time to stop it and watched as Bai Liu pushed the lid off the coffin.

He and Yang Zhi, both of whom had played the game once, were dumbfounded and watched in awe as Bai Liu unleashed one of the strongest monsters in the game, Yinshan Village.

Mu Sicheng is now completely down, standing with a blank expression in front of the suddenly opened coffin, camera still in his left hand.

The coffin lid landed heavily on the floor, shaking the floor and sending a cloud of dust and yellow earth.

In the dusty sky, Bai Liu patted the dust from his hands, covered his mouth and nose with his sleeve, stepped forward with the torch of his mobile phone and approached the edge of the coffin.

The hazy fog of dust dissipated and Bai Liu waved his hand to disperse the dust in front of him, looking inside the coffin by the dim light and the torch.

The coffin, as Bai Liu had suspected, had been painted on the outside but had not been opened on the inside, and when it was opened it smelled like mouldy rotten wood.

The interior of the green, black, wet and soft coffin dripped and seeped downwards, the wooden blocks rotted and bloomed, and a corpse dressed in a lotus embroidered cheongsam-like theatre gown-like wedding dress lay peacefully at the bottom.

The bride, not long in stature, with a crown of hair and a thick layer of ash falling on her dress, has her hands folded below her heart, her thumbs cocked and wrapped around a pole of scales with pockets of red thread, about an inch long, within the interlocked hands.

A foggy bronze mirror set inside the head of the coffin illuminates the feet of the bride in black boots, her face still covered with a satin cover of mandarin ducks and double happiness, the tassels on the cover hanging down dirty on her shoulders, her face invisible.

Bai Liu's eyes moved to the bride's hands folded over her heart and gave a slight pause.

The hands, with their full complexion and rounded nails, were like jade carvings of wax, and not only did they show no signs of drying out or decay, they even looked fresher than the corpse next to them, which had been dead for just two days.

Not only that, but the whole body was straight and square, with its knees slightly bent and its clothes not crumbling down at all as it decomposed.

-- looks almost like a living person.

Bai Liu's eyes scanned the entire corpse and returned to the scales that the corpse was holding in its hands, and without any fear he reached out and pulled the scales out of the bride's body with a little force.

The wooden scales, although dusty, are beautifully crafted, with intertwined dragons and phoenixes carved into them, clearly a wedding pole used to hold the bride's head open.

When Kong Xuyang saw Bai Liu pulling out the joystick without saying a word, his eyes became uncontrollably frightened and he couldn't help but voice out a warning, "Don't move!"

The bronze mirror inside the coffin, which was originally foggy and only vaguely reflected the feet, was jerked to one side the moment the wedding rod was pulled out, and became clear and discernible, showing a face painted with white powder and rouge, obviously the face of the bride.

The bride in the coffin, her face still covered by the lid, was not visible at all, but the bride in the mirror laughed and turned her head 360 degrees, with her bleary eyes looking straight at Bai Liu holding the wedding pole, and sang poignantly and euphemistically.

"My dear husband - come back and talk -"

"I pity you, my bones by the river Wu Ding, and I am still the man in your dreams!"