Gou Zai, a corpse sewn into a spirit in a mortuary during the Republic of China era, became a spirit

The night was as dark as ink, and there was a mass grave on the back hill.

The moonlight was completely obscured by thick clouds, with only the lanterns in the hands of Zhou Xuli and his companions casting dim yellow beams in the darkness.

The air was filled with a strange smell, a mixture of rotting earth and decaying wood, and a kind of fishy-sweet odor. It was the putrid smell of corpses slowly decomposing deep in the soil over the years, mixed with the stench of newly transformed corpses.

Now that autumn has arrived, the nights are already cold, and the presence of many trees and heavy yin energy in this mass grave adds to the biting chill.

Zhou Xuli and Xie Bingxiang led the way, carrying lanterns and broadswords, while Zhou Fu, dressed in slovenly clothes, walked casually in the middle. Xie An followed behind, occasionally giving directions based on information sent by Luo Bosi.

As they approached the location of Master Wang, Xie An, though knowing the exact location, remained silent and pretended to look around.

"There!" Zhou Xuli lowered his voice, and the lantern shone on the east end of the hill.

Xie An looked up and felt a sudden tightness in his chest.

There, Master Wang was kneeling before a half-excavated, desolate grave. His silk burial clothes were tattered and covered with black mud and some kind of dark red stain.

Moonlight occasionally peeked through the clouds, illuminating the completely black fingernails of its ten fingers, curved like hooks, each about three inches long. As it dug in the grave, it made a "rustling" sound, which made one's teeth ache.

"Click!"

With a sharp crack, Master Wang plunged his hands into the grave and forcefully pulled out half of the rotten coffin lid, along with an unidentified skeleton inside. It bent down, its dark mouth opening—

"Crunch... crunch..."

A chilling chewing sound echoed through the deathly silent mass grave. It was gnawing at the remaining fascia on the skeleton.

"It...it's eating..." Zhou Xuli's voice trembled slightly.

Before he could finish speaking, Master Wang seemed to realize something and suddenly turned his head.

Under the light of the lantern, the face was no longer the peaceful one it had been when it was placed in the coffin—the skin was bluish-black and purplish, the eye sockets were sunken, the eyes were cloudy like those of a dead fish, and there were still pale bone fragments and dark red mucus hanging from the corners of the mouth.

It emitted a low growl from its throat, like a broken bellows pumping.

"Step back!" Xie Bingxiang hissed, pulling Xie An behind him.

But Master Wang had already made his move.

Instead of rushing towards the crowd, it suddenly turned around and hugged a locust tree as thick as a bowl beside the grave.

"Crunch! Crunch crunch—!!!"

A series of loud cracking sounds erupted as if the tree trunk fibers were being forcibly torn apart!

To everyone's astonishment, the locust tree was actually pulled out of the ground!

The tree roots brought up large chunks of soil, and several pieces of bone, buried for who knows how many years, were still wrapped around the roots.

Old Master Wang lifted the tree trunk with one hand and swung it around like a stick, creating a piercing whistling sound.

"Is this...is this even human...?" Zhou Xuli's legs were trembling.

Xie An also gasped. He knew that corpses possessed great strength, but this kind of brute force—even three or five strong men might not be able to subdue it!

Only Zhou Fu remained as lazy as ever.

He even untied a shiny gourd from his waist, uncorked it, and gulped down a large mouthful of strong liquor, then wiped his mouth with his sleeve.

"He's quite strong." Zhou Fu clicked his tongue and hung the gourd back up. "Unfortunately, no matter how strong a dead person is, it's still dead strength."

After saying that, he swayed and walked towards Master Wang.

"Master Zhou! Be careful!" Xie Bingxiang shouted urgently.

Master Wang seemed to be enraged by Zhou Fu's approach. The low growl in its throat turned into a sharp shriek, and it swung the withered locust tree down at Zhou Fu's head!

The tree trunk pierced the air, bringing with it a heavy, oppressive wind.

Zhou Fu neither dodged nor avoided the attack.

Just as the withered locust tree was about to hit him on the head—

Zhou Fu moved.

Instead of dodging, he stepped forward to face the tree trunk.

His right fist twisted out from his waist, and before the fist arrived, the wind of the fist arrived first—it was not the sound of an ordinary punch breaking the wind, but a deep "hum" like muffled thunder rolling!

The fist collided with the tree trunk.

There was no earth-shattering noise.

There was only one crisp "snap" sound, like glass shattering.

The withered locust tree, as thick as a bowl, shattered inch by inch from the point of contact with Zhou Fu's fist the instant it made contact!

—The sawdust exploded like snowflakes, and the tree trunk turned into countless fragments, scattering all over the ground with a clatter.

Master Wang seemed to be stunned for a moment, his cloudy eyes turning as he looked at his empty hands.

Zhou Fu's punches continued even after shattering the tree trunk.

He took another step forward, and his right fist, as light as a feather, landed lightly on Master Wang's chest.

The punch looked extremely light, and it didn't even make a sound.

But Mr. Wang's body suddenly stiffened, and the ground beneath his feet exploded, sending up a cloud of flying sand and stones.

"Heh...heh..."

The strange noise in Master Wang's throat stopped abruptly.

Immediately afterwards, something seemed to writhe wildly beneath its bluish-black, purplish skin, spreading from its heart to its limbs and bones. Worm-like bumps appeared on its skin surface, then quickly subsided.

Zhou Fu withdrew his fist, took a step back, and then took out a gourd from his waist, tilting his head back to take a gulp.

"Thump."

Old Master Wang fell straight backward, crashing onto the grave mound and kicking up a cloud of dust.

Its cloudy eyes were still open, but the fierce light within them had vanished, leaving only an empty, lifeless silence. Its ten jet-black fingernails faded and withered at a visible speed, turning back to the grayish-white of an ordinary corpse.

The mass grave was deathly silent.

The only sounds were the rustling of the night wind through the wild grass and the gurgling of Zhou Fu drinking.

Zhou Xuli's mouth was agape, and the lantern in his hand was trembling.

Xie Bingxiang stood there dumbfounded. Although he knew Zhou Fu was capable, he never imagined it was such a miraculous method.

Xie An was deeply shaken.

He saw it clearly—Zhou Fu's punch wasn't delivered with full force at all. The force used to shatter the withered locust tree was skillful, and the punch that landed on Master Wang's chest was even more effortless. The moment the fist touched the corpse, Xie An vaguely saw a dark red streak of blood flash beneath Zhou Fu's skin.

This is... hidden strength?

Terrifying!

"What are you all standing there for?" Zhou Fu turned around, his tone as calm as if he had just swatted a mosquito. "Peach wood nails, cinnabar thread, black dog blood—use all the methods you need to. While I've already dispersed ninety percent of the Yin energy within it, quickly seal it off."

Zhou Xuli then seemed to wake from a dream and hurriedly took out his tools from his cloth bag—three peach wood nails dyed scarlet with cinnabar, a bundle of hemp rope soaked in black dog blood, and a small jar of grave soil mixed with incense ash.

With Xie Bingxiang's help, the two first used hemp rope to tightly bind Master Wang's hands and feet, then drove peach wood nails into three places: between his eyebrows, in his heart, and in his lower abdomen. Each time a nail was driven in, the corpse would twitch violently, and a thick, blackish-red liquid would seep from the nail holes, emitting a pungent, fishy stench.

Finally, Zhou Xuli poured the jar of soil from the grave onto the body, muttering incantations:

"Dust to dust, ashes to ashes, let the dead not linger on the path of the living... Seal!"

With everything settled, Zhou Xuli and Xie Bingxiang lifted up Master Wang, who was bound like a rice dumpling, and the group hurriedly descended the mountain.

Xie An walked at the back, and couldn't help but look back at the mass grave.

The moonlight finally broke through the clouds and shone on the desolate graveyard. The hole in the grave, dug open by Master Wang, was dark and gaping, like the earth's open mouth.

Zhou Fu, walking ahead, was carrying a gourd and humming a local Tianjin dockside folk song: "Many stars in the sky, but the moon is dim; many people on earth, but their hearts are unjust..."

The melody was desolate, drifting far away on the night wind.

Xie An took a deep breath, suppressing the shock in his heart, and quickly followed.

He knew that from this night onward, the world he saw would be completely different.

And the path he had to take became incredibly clear after Zhou Fu's punch.

Upon returning to the manor, the group hurriedly carried Wang Yongming's body back to the clean room. Just as they were about to place Wang Yongming into the coffin, the panel in front of Xie An flickered.

[Ghoul Essence Detected: 1]

[Absorbable]