I, the screenwriter, have experienced a resurgence of inspiration.

The two walked to the mortuary bed, and Yang Hexuan carefully counted seven yellow talismans and placed them under the door panel of the bed.

The body was covered very tightly, wrapped from head to toe, so that only a thin outline could be seen, which was the shape of an old woman.

Logically speaking, a thin old lady would weigh at most 70 or 80 pounds, so lifting her shouldn't be too difficult.

"I'll look up this way, you lift your foot that way."

Lin Jianguo whispered, "Listen to my command, one, two, three, and push together. Be steady and don't sway."

"it is good."

Yang Hexuan rubbed his hands together and reached out to grab the edge of the wooden bed.

The wooden planks were extremely damp; they felt like they were soaked in water when you held them, and the coldness made your fingertips go numb.

"One, two, three! Go!"

The two exerted force at the same time.

But the expected lightness and lightness did not occur.

The wooden bed was so heavy it felt like it had been welded to the ground. Lin Jianguo held his breath, his face turning red, but he could only lift it less than an inch.

Yang Hexuan's arm muscles were taut, and he couldn't move them much.

"How can it be so heavy?" he whispered, his voice filled with disbelief. "How can an old lady be so heavy?!"

To put it bluntly, even in his hometown, it wasn't this difficult to carry the pigs slaughtered for the Lunar New Year.

Let alone seventy or eighty pounds, it feels like it weighs at least two or three hundred pounds.

It was like a heavy weight hanging under the bed, or like a corpse filled with molten lead.

Lin Jianguo's heart skipped a beat.

There's a saying in his hometown that if someone dies unjustly and doesn't want to be buried, their soul will sit on the corpse and deliberately press down, preventing people from lifting it.

There is also a saying that a person who dies unwillingly will have a lingering resentment in their body before death, making their corpse unusually heavy.

It seems there's something fishy about this old lady's death.

Thinking of this, Lin Jianguo could almost see a lifeless old woman sitting cross-legged on a white cloth, glaring at him.

"Don't talk, just put in more effort." Lin Jianguo gritted his teeth and increased the pressure in his hands. "Lift it slowly, don't sway."

The two men mustered all their strength again, their arm veins bulging, and slowly lifted the wooden bed off the ground.

Shen.

It's like carrying a solid lump of iron; every inch you move is a struggle.

Sweat poured down Yang Hexuan's forehead, but he was still preoccupied with the clues, gritting his teeth as he slowly moved out step by step.

Lin Jianguo walked in front, backing away, his attention focused on his feet, afraid of stepping on the wrong thing and dropping the body.

The threshold of the inner room was a bit high. When he stepped back, he tripped over a pile of ashes on the ground and swayed.

The bed on his side suddenly tilted, and the headboard sank down an inch.

The white blanket covering the corpse's head slid off with a "whoosh"—a large section of it fell off.

Lin Jianguo subconsciously looked up:

The blanket slipped down to her chin, revealing the old lady's face.

A wrinkled, grayish-blue face, skin and bones, with high cheekbones and sunken, dry lips.

But the eyes, which should have been closed, were open at this moment.

A pair of cloudy, bloodshot yellow eyes, with cloudy, yellowish eyeballs and two dark red streaks trailing at the corners of the eyes, like tears of blood.

Those eyes were staring intently and directly at him.

Even more strangely, the old lady's lips were slightly upturned.

It looks like he's laughing.

The corpse is laughing.

Lin Jianguo's breathing stopped instantly, his heart clenched, and the pain almost made him faint.

A chill ran from the soles of my feet straight up to the top of my head, then down my spine and into my brain.

There's an old saying: "It's better to hear ghosts cry than to see them laugh."

It means that a smiling ghost is much more powerful than a constantly crying ghost; both are fierce ghosts.

Could the old lady of the Huang family have become a vengeful ghost?

……

……

"Uncle Lin? What's wrong?!"

When Yang Hexuan saw Lin Jianguo suddenly freeze and turn pale, he panicked and quickly called out to him in a low voice.

Lin Jianguo suddenly came to his senses, and cold sweat instantly soaked through his clothes on his back.

He gritted his teeth and quickly pulled the shroud up with his other hand, covering the corpse's face again.

"fine."

Lin Jianguo didn't say what he saw, but mustered his courage and said, "I tripped, but kept walking."

Finally, the two gritted their teeth and exerted tremendous effort to carry the body to the old door panel bed in the mourning hall.

The deathbed was made of two old door panels pieced together; it was very rough and had splinters along the edges.

Yang Hexuan put down the foot of the bed, his legs were so tired they were weak, and he leaned on the funeral bed, panting heavily:

"My goodness...this old lady is so heavy...it's really weird..."

"Don't talk nonsense."

Lin Jianguo sternly rebuked her, fearing that the scene would repeat itself. He then turned to the two children who were still crying on the ground and asked for a stick of incense to offer to the old lady.

It's never wrong to be overly polite.

It's never wrong to have fear in your heart.

The next second, a piece of ink-wash calligraphy appeared before their eyes simultaneously:

Side Quest 1: "Carrying the Corpse" Completed. Completion Rating: Good

[Found a clue fragment: "When Old Lady Huang died, her weight suddenly increased, and her body was unusually heavy, suggesting that she harbored resentment and died with unwillingness."]

[Progress in solving the mystery +10%]

mission completed.

Yang Hexuan breathed a sigh of relief. Lin Jianguo and he supported each other as they strode out, almost as if they were running away.

The two children didn't even lift their heads, continuing to cry.

……

……

Lin Jianguo and Yang Hexuan came out of the morgue looking rather unwell.

The remaining players gathered around, asking all sorts of questions.

Upon hearing the information about the "human-headed rat" and the "thousand-pound weight," the group gasped, their hearts leaping into their throats once again.

The first task is already so bizarre, who knows what else is coming?

"I'll go with Asha."

Su Ya picked up the neatly folded funeral clothes bundle next to her and took the initiative to speak.

The funeral clothes sent by the Huang family looked very exquisite, with gold thread patterns of good fortune and longevity embroidered on the dark blue fabric.

The material was stiff, but it felt like waterlogged cardboard.

Yang Asha's face showed no fear, but rather a faint sense of melancholy, which was out of place with the panic of those around her.

"Are you scared? If you are, you'll stay next to me for a while."

Su Ya took the little girl's hand, and the two of them went into the inner room one after the other, where they saw a boy and a girl still kowtowing.

"I'm not that scared."

Yang Asha shook her head, her voice soft, "When my mother passed away, I was the one who cleaned her body and dressed her in her burial clothes."

My grandma often said that when a person dies, all that's left are bones; they won't harm anyone.

She paused, her fingertips unconsciously twisting the hem of her dress:

"Actually, I hope there are ghosts in this world. If there are, I can ask my mother why she fell in love with my father in the first place."

—Her father was lazy, greedy, and loved to drink. He was even too lazy to feed the pigs. The two-month-old piglets that the poverty alleviation cadres had given him were all cooked and eaten by him.

Her mother died of illness.

Even on his deathbed, he was still worried about the fact that her cotton-padded trousers weren't sewn properly, and that she wouldn't have any clothes to wear in the winter.

Yang Asha spoke softly and in a flat tone, but Su Ya could still detect a hint of bitterness in her voice.

Do you have a phone number? A WeChat or QQ number will also work.

Su Ya squeezed her hand and said seriously, "Once we get out, the authorities will definitely contact you. Come find me then, and I'll ask you about going to school."

"Really?"

A light rose to Yang Asha's face, and she nodded excitedly: "Sister Suya, you are such a good person."

"We'll definitely get out of here," Suya said, taking a deep breath. "Be careful."

"Um."

The two people held the burial clothes and stood beside the body.

Bai Shou was loosely draped over the corpse, outlining a thin, human figure.

Su Ya dared not think too deeply about it, fearing that the more she thought about it, the more panicked she would become.

She walked quickly to the bedside, placed the burial clothes bundle on the stool next to her, and, suppressing her fear, began to dress herself according to the instructions.

According to the custom of traditional funerals, the burial clothes should be worn in seven layers, symbolizing the "seven times seven reincarnations".

Inside, there was a white coarse cloth shirt, and on the outside, there were layers of jackets in blue, green, and red.

The outermost garment is a dark blue longevity robe embroidered with auspicious and longevity patterns, along with longevity trousers, socks, and shoes.

Wearing the whole set is quite cumbersome.

Suya reached out and gently lifted the white cloth covering the old woman's face, still feeling afraid.

The corpse's eyes were closed, and its eyelids were folded into two lines.

His grayish-blue skin clung tightly to his bones, his cheekbones were high and prominent, his cheeks were sunken, and he was so thin that he was just skin and bones.

His lips were dark purple, pressed into a thin line, revealing no emotion.

Its eyes were closed.

The two of them felt a little relieved.

—Perhaps Lin Jianguo misread it, or perhaps the light was dim and he misread it due to his nervousness.

"Let me put on the sleeves, sister, please help me."

Yang Asha noticed Su Ya's fear, so she first picked up the innermost white coarse cloth shirt and gently lifted the old lady's arm to put it into the sleeve.

The corpse's arms were as stiff as frozen tree branches, the joints were rigid and could not be bent.

Yang Asha placed her fingertips on the cold skin without any hesitation, slowly massaging along the direction of the joints:

"Sister, let me tell you, my grandma taught me that when a person dies, they're rock hard. You have to rub them until they're soft so they can be dressed."

Su Ya wanted to cry but had no tears.

She doesn't want to know this kind of obscure knowledge at all, okay?

It turns out that the bravest person in the group was the youngest, Yang Asha.

But she knew when to back down and quietly helped out.

The body was too cold.

Although it's winter in the instance, the body's temperature doesn't seem like it's only been three days since it died.

Instead, it felt like it had been frozen in an ice cellar for half a month—somewhat like the feel of that piece of zombie meat frozen in her mother's refrigerator.

……

"Pah, pah, pah, don't be offended, children say the darndest things."

Suya quickly clasped her hands together in apology, while leaning back to Asha and fastening the buttons on the corpse, whispering:

"When my mother passed away, she had been ill for more than half a year and weighed only about 80 pounds. She looked at her and she didn't even weigh 70 pounds."

The old lady has lost weight.

His arms were as thin as withered branches, with sharp, angular bones. Several layers of burial clothes were put on him, but they were too loose to support him.

The gorgeous and exquisite funeral clothes hung loosely on his body, like they were tied to a wooden stick.

"I guess he's been sick for a long time."

Suya answered in a low voice, her attention focused on her hands, trying her best not to look at the old lady's face:

"Four sons, all living such good lives, living in mansions and driving cars, how could they leave their old man so hungry?"

She could vaguely detect a scent.

The back room should be where Old Mrs. Huang lived.

Some of the decorations and displays are things that elderly people would use.

The Huang family compound looked impressive, with the four sons dressed in gold and silver, and even spending a lot of money to hold a banquet, but their mother was so thin that she was just skin and bones. Who would believe it if they told others?

Yang Asha didn't respond.

Such things happen a lot in the mountains.

The sons have become successful, while the old man remains in the village to suffer poverty. When he dies, they hold a grand funeral, calling it a happy funeral. Whether it's genuine filial piety or just for show, only he knows the truth.

Funerals are never held for the dead.

When a person dies, their eyes close and they are buried in the earth.

No matter how grand the funeral is, or how heartbroken the children are, the deceased can neither see nor hear it.

Oh, if you can become a ghost, that's a different story.

……

……

The two were a little clumsy at first, but gradually developed a better understanding of each other.

From inner garments to outer robes, from funeral trousers to funeral socks.

They moved very quietly, and the only sounds in the room were the soft rustling of fabric and the sobbing of two children.

Su Ya occasionally glanced up and could see the old lady's wrinkled face.

His eyes were closed, his lips were flat, and he had no expression.

—But she wondered if it was just her imagination, because she felt that the corners of his mouth were slowly turning down, as if he was becoming more and more aggrieved and resentful.

Suya quickly looked away, not daring to look anymore, and continued to complete the task in silence.