Yin Shou Shu

Chapter 243 Ran's Grandson
Ran Qing stood before the grave, dazed and in a daze for a long time.

Mo Li and Long Zongshu sat down to rest nearby without making a sound to disturb him.

Ran Qing, who had been lost in thought for a long time, suddenly sighed deeply, and her hunched figure straightened up again.

"Let's begin. I'll go first, you guys take a break."

Ran Qing, who is usually serious and somewhat aloof, was smiling at this moment.

Although the smile was somewhat bitter, at least it was a smile.

He picked up a hoe, walked to his mother's grave, and began to dig at it.

The act of directly opening and digging up graves is so impolite and reckless that it would be considered outrageous by ordinary people.

But as a wanderer of spirits who is closest to evil spirits and has entered and exited the underworld more times than the dead, Ran Qing knows too much about the world after death.

His reverence for graves was almost identical to that of an atheist.

He knew perfectly well that in the Zangke region, there was no such thing as reincarnation after death, nor was there any concept of respecting the dead.

After death, if one can find peace, then there is nothing left.

Digging up the grave will not disturb my mother.

Ran Qing swung the heavy hoe repeatedly into the grave mound, stirring up handfuls of soil.

The soil that was first dug out contained the roots and stems of many weeds and branches.

But as the grave mound was repeatedly dug up, the soil underneath gradually became dry, hard, and barren.

Every time you raise and swing the hoe, you take away some of your strength.

Soon, Ran Qing was out of breath, and sweat began to drip from her forehead.

After a good rest, Long Zongshu got up and took over, letting Ran Qing rest instead. The person digging the grave was replaced.

Ran Qing sat on the weeds in front of the grave, feeling the mountain breeze and watching the little cotton flowers chasing butterflies by the grave, and sighed.

"I wonder if Little Cotton can be cured of her silly and dazed look..."

Mo Li glanced at her and shook his head: "It's actually better for Sister Mianhua to be like this. If she's a little silly, it won't be so painful."

"She was sewn into a dog skin, neither human nor dog, and could never get rid of that skin for the rest of her life... If she hadn't been mentally impaired, she might have committed suicide long ago, living such a torturous and painful life."

Mo Li's expression also showed some sadness.

She spent far more time with Xiao Mianhua than Ran Qing did.

The two could even be described as childhood playmates.

When Xiao Mianhua was taken in by her sixth aunt, Mo Li was still a little girl who was not yet ten years old.

On the grave mound, the tall, thin, bamboo-like Long Zongshu soon began to pant heavily.

His body was so thin that he looked like a skeleton, and his physical strength was even worse than Ran Qing's.

However, by then the grave was almost completely dug up. Ran Qing took over the hoe and quickly dug open the grave, revealing the coffin in the pit.

Ten years have passed since my mother was buried.

But the coffin had not completely decayed; it still maintained its shape, lying squarely in the soil.

Ran Qing carefully swept away the dirt from the coffin lid, then picked up the human head staff, put the Nuo opera mask on the back of her head, and carefully sprinkled the incense ash from the spirit medium around it.

Although her mother's grave was empty, Ran Qing still dared not let her guard down.

He still doesn't know how his mother's body ended up in his body.

What were the motives of the person who secretly tortured the mother's corpse?

After carefully completing the preparations, Ran Qing took a deep breath and used a crowbar to pry open her mother's coffin lid.

Although the coffin, buried underground for ten years, has maintained its original appearance, the wood has long since rotted beyond recognition.

The originally heavy and sturdy coffin lid was now pried open lightly.

Where the crowbar was used, the wood was pried apart as if it were made of paper, and wood chips and fragments were scattered all over the ground.

A strong, musty smell wafted from under the coffin lid, which had been pried open with a large crack.

The sunlight was intense, and by the bright light, the three people gathered around the grave could all see the scene inside the coffin. In the shadow of the coffin lid, the coffin was empty, except for a batik Miao skirt with intricate patterns.

The body that should have been lying in the coffin was indeed nowhere to be found.

Ran Qing squatted beside the coffin, staring at the empty coffin for a long time, but found nothing unusual.

This coffin appears to have been empty from the very beginning.

The three people by the grave exchanged a silent glance, and Ran Qing quietly put the coffin lid back down.

"My mother's body is definitely not in here..."

This was a fact that had been known for a long time, but it has now been confirmed.

Ran Qing plans to cover the grave with yellow soil again and restore the original grave mound.

Mo Li suddenly spoke up, stopping him.

"Pry open the coffin lid again and take a look..."

The girl seemed to have made a discovery.

Without hesitation, Ran Qing listened to Mo Li's words and pried the coffin open again.

This time, he pried the coffin lid up higher so that Mo Li could see it more clearly.

Long Zongshu was not afraid of getting dirty at all. He reached out and lifted the edge of the coffin, using his body to hold the coffin lid in place.

Mo Li then bent down and stuck his head directly into the coffin, looking around inside.

Finally, she turned back in surprise and pointed to the coffin lid: "There are talismans on this!"

Ran Qing was startled and quickly joined forces with Long Zongshu to lift the coffin lid completely.

As the decaying coffin lid flipped over and fell into the soil, the lid, which had originally faced inwards, now turned over to face the sun.

The scorching sunlight shone on the coffin lid, and just as Mo Li had said, a black talisman was engraved on it.

It wasn't a talisman that was pasted on; it was carved directly onto the coffin lid with a knife.

This kind of talisman is not the skill of the local Zangke people practicing unorthodox and superstitious methods.

They are typical outsiders.

Although Ran Qing didn't understand the talismans used by cultivators outside of Zangke, the talismans used by cultivators were all written in traditional Chinese characters, although there were some incomprehensible pictures and lines among them. However, by combining the characters on the talismans, she could roughly deduce their general function.

Whether it's protecting the territory and ensuring the safety of the people, warding off evil spirits and protecting the home, or capturing ghosts and subduing demons... the uses of talismans are actually quite easy to identify.

Ran Qing looked down at the talisman engraved on the coffin lid, her face gradually turning ashen.

Mo Li then quietly read out the characters she recognized on the talisman.

"By imperial decree...slay a hundred evil spirits on the left, feast a thousand ghosts on the right, control corpses to suppress evil, and protect Ran Qing, the grandson of the Ran family..."

After Mo Li finished reading, he opened his mouth and looked at Ran Qing in disbelief.

The characters on the talisman were written in a very messy manner, and some of the special lines on it looked rather irregular.

However, because the talisman was not very standardized, the important three lines of text on the left, middle and right were actually understandable. The person who carved the talisman was obviously very careful and cautious. He knew that his carving was not standardized enough, so he tried his best to make the text accurate, for fear that the talisman would not be effective.

Long Zongshu murmured, "This is the Ran family's corpse-refining talisman..."

He recognized the origin of the talisman by its unique lines and the characters on it.

The Ran family's Corpse-Controlling Talisman.

When the owner of this talisman carved it, he wrote that it was for the protection of his grandson...

Ran Qing looked bewildered.

This was an unexpected truth that he had never imagined or prepared for.

The person who turned his deceased mother into a corpse and placed it on his body was...

"...Is that Grandma?"

(End of this chapter)