Holding a lantern, guiding souls across, Lady Hou comes from the underworld.

The man's voice sounded incredibly hoarse, and judging from his breathing, he was clearly no longer young.

Ren Fengjue couldn't see his face clearly, but he could basically determine the other person's identity in his mind.

He replied, "Exactly."

The man suddenly smiled, but said in a sorrowful tone, "I've been waiting for you for so long..."

Upon hearing this, everyone was taken aback.

Ren Fengjue felt that things were not quite as he had expected, so he asked, "Why are you waiting for us? And who exactly are you?"

The man stretched out his withered hand and slowly lifted his straw hat, revealing a very strange face.

His head was noticeably larger than that of an average person, but his body, hidden under the raincoat, was only the same height as Zhao Wan.

"I am the 'coffin keeper' of the mortuary. My adoptive father calls me Afu."

As Afu spoke, he took off his raincoat, and everyone then understood why he looked only about the same height as Zhao Wan.

Because he no longer has legs.

"As you can see, I am actually a Di person..."

A strange look flashed across Ren Fengjue's face. After a moment's thought, he guessed why he was in this predicament...

Everyone was shocked and speechless, but Afu continued to recount his experiences.

"I was abandoned by the Di people at birth. My adoptive father took me in and raised me in the mortuary..."

Although the old coffin keeper was born in Zhujia Village, he had no relatives or friends in the village. He had always been ostracized and was taciturn. After guarding the mortuary for most of his life, his temperament became increasingly eccentric.

That night, the child's cries softened his heart, so he took the child home.

But he lived a lonely life for most of his life, never marrying or raising children.

They considered sending the child to a nearby village and asked from house to house, but no one was willing to take him in.

Left with no other choice, he reluctantly became a "father" and gave his child a "lucky" name.

Afu is actually very easy to raise; he'll eat whatever you feed him, but he just grows too slowly…

Other people's babies, around one year old, are already starting to learn to walk.

He could barely crawl, and could only mumble incoherently, unable to utter a single word.

He was only able to stand up when he was about two years old, but he still couldn't speak.

Children start calling their fathers "Dad" around three years old and begin speaking simple human language around four years old.

The turning point came when Afu was about five years old. He started sleeping restlessly at night, and perhaps due to his bones, he would twitch inexplicably and cry out in pain.

That same year, he suddenly grew very fast, reaching the height of a ten-year-old child in just six months.

The old coffin keeper then realized that Afu might not be a child born of an ordinary person, but possibly the child of the mute giant...

As he watched Afu grow up day by day, he felt a mix of emotions.

At that time, the nearby villages were afraid of the Di people, regarding them as ferocious beasts. Moreover, Marquis Jiang Ting of Zhenbei had already ordered a large-scale expedition into the Yashan Mountains to capture these "abnormal beings".

Therefore, whoever discovers Afu's identity may be arrested.

Fortunately, the mortuary was considered an "inauspicious place," and very few people approached it on weekdays. Ah Fu was already seven or eight years old, but almost no one knew of his existence.

Although Afu looks no different from an ordinary person, his giant size cannot be hidden.

In order to save Afu's life, he secretly made a cruel decision: he picked some "hemp grass" from the mountain, applied it to Afu's legs while he was sleeping, and then cruelly cut off his legs.

Even if someone saw Afu, who only had half a body, no one would doubt his identity.

Ah Fu lost both legs without understanding anything...

At that time, he was seven years old, which, according to the Di people's age, was just an ignorant child.

In order to keep him alive, the coffin keeper spent another three years and had a sudden inspiration. He dug a passage in the dry well in the backyard that led to a stone cave in the Silent Mountain and told him that if he had nowhere else to go, he should come to this cave.

He taught him how to hunt in the mountains like a human, how to eat cooked food, how to make fire by friction, and how to sew clothes...

When Afu was thirteen years old, the coffin keeper passed away.

Before his death, he told Afu his true identity and instructed him not to let anyone know that he was a Di person, and not to go near the "Di slave camp".

He gave him a choice: either stay in the mortuary as a human, or return to the mountains as a Di person.

He also left him a small piece of gold, enough for him to live on his own in the days to come.

That was the first time Afu had ever seen death.

He placed the old coffin keeper's body in the mortuary and visited him every day until the body began to rot and stink.

Only then did he remember what the other person had said—after a person dies, the soul is gone, the spirit goes to the underworld to be reborn, and the body should also be laid to rest.

Afu burst into tears, not even understanding what this emotion was...

He placed the old coffin keeper's body in a coffin, dragged it with all his might to the Silent Mountain, and personally dug a grave with his hands to bury him.

Even afterward, people would still bring the deceased to the mortuary for temporary storage, and no one cared that the guards of the mortuary had been replaced.

It's like an inn for the dead; the living never bother with it.

Afu's heart suddenly felt empty. He sat in front of the mortuary all day, wearing a straw hat to cover his head and face, and a large raincoat to cover his whole body. He had become accustomed to and skilled at walking by supporting himself on his arms, and he did everything, but he looked a little clumsy...

Those who occasionally pay attention to him will secretly laugh at him.

"This old coffin keeper is strange, and his son is even stranger."

"He looks more like an idiot."

About a year later, Afu left the mortuary. He always felt that he should do something.

When he saw the children in town carrying their schoolbags and heading to the academy, he couldn't help but recall the patterns the old coffin keeper had taught him to draw.

He couldn't write, but he would use a kind of messy characters instead, which only Afu could understand and what they represented.

So Afu went to listen to stories by the corner of the wall outside the academy. After going there many times, the academy teacher recognized him and allowed him to enter the academy and listen closely by the window.

They might even give him some books after class so he can take them home to read, and if there's anything he doesn't understand, he can bring them back to ask questions.

Afu was grateful and studied diligently day and night. Gradually, he was able to understand the words in the books and finally learned to write.

Once you can read and write, you can think. Things you didn't understand before, you understand now.

He finally looked like a human being, but deep down he knew he was not a normal human being.

That day, Afu saw a prison van with two children imprisoned inside.

He recognized one of his own kind at a glance, so he devised a plan to create chaos in the street, rescue one, and take the opportunity to board a caravan's carriage.

And so, in a daze, Afu took the child and left the northern border, settling down in an unfamiliar town with the caravan…