Descending the makeshift stairs into the pit, the temperature felt a good two or three degrees cooler than outside, giving off a chill, and there was a distinct sensation of being watched.
Zhang Dabiao glanced at me disdainfully and asked, "You never went down to a cellar when you were a kid?"
I shook my head.
"Are you even a child of the north? This was a way to store grain and vegetables in the past. After the autumn harvest, every household would put cabbage, radishes, potatoes, and other storable vegetables into cellars they had dug. This way, they wouldn't freeze or rot; it was cool in summer and warm in winter, like a refrigerator."
Oh—
A total of three coffins had been unearthed, while the remaining four only had their heads exposed.
The three coffins were haphazardly placed on the ground. One had its lid pried open, with dark, sticky substances scattered around. The other two were relatively intact, but one had a hole about the size of a human head on its side, with many footprints scattered around. It seemed this coffin was the source of the initial haunting.
Zhang Dabiao drew his Mountain-Splitting Saber, and I took out my Yin Ironwood Ruler. We slowly moved closer, knowing that a black sha wouldn't appear in broad daylight, but there was no guarantee other things wouldn't emerge. It was always better to be cautious.
Approaching the coffin with the hole nearest to us, I sniffed and said with some confusion, "Why is there no sha scent?"
After all, whether it was black sha or blood sha, they all had a peculiar fishy odor, like salted fish left to bake in the sun. The fiercer the sha, the stronger the smell.
Even if the coffins had been exposed to the sun for days, the scent wouldn't dissipate. They had slept in these coffins for who knew how many years, the coffins themselves permeated with their essence. It was impossible to remove.
Zhang Dabiao frowned and tapped the coffin lid with the back of his saber, producing a dull thud. A piece of the dark, oily mud chipped off, revealing slightly black wood grain underneath.
Seeing this, Zhang Dabiao switched from using the saber's back to its edge and swung down.
*Bang—*
Logically, after being buried for so many years, even with the nourishment of sha energy, it shouldn't have withstood Zhang Dabiao's strike. Yet, this blow didn't create a large opening. It only penetrated about a finger's width before stopping completely.
Lifting the saber, a wisp of black smoke visibly drifted from the opening and vanished. Seeing the freshly exposed wood grain at the point of impact, my face turned grim. These weren't old coffins buried for many years, but new ones.
"How could they be new coffins?"
Zhang Dabiao remained silent. He walked to the other two coffins and made a similar cut with his saber. As expected, the white wood grain inside was clearly visible. Without exception, all three coffins were newly made, but some method had been used to artificially age them to look as if they had just been dug out of the ground.
I darkened, unsure what to say. I had confidently declared that the main culprit was in the pit below, a black sha, and now I had been proven wrong so spectacularly. Even though Zhang Dabiao, whom I knew well, saw through this, I felt like crawling into a hole.
It was humiliating. Utterly humiliating. A renowned minor Yin diviner being outsmarted by two ordinary people.
Thinking that they were still on their way up, I turned and headed for the stairs, intending to go up and demand an explanation. Why had they lied to me when there were no corpses in the coffins?
Wasn't this like calling a pockmarked person "pockmarked" when they weren't, just to trick them?
"Where are you going?"
Without looking back, I said I was going to find those two turtle eggs, Old Xue and Sun Chuang, to settle the score and ask why they had lied to me...
It was fortunate that Zhang Dabiao discovered this early. If I had set up my formations and prepared to capture the evil, only to find nothing, turning it into a complete farce, I wouldn't have known how to salvage the situation. Perhaps jumping off a building would have been the only way out.
"What are you rushing for? Didn't I tell you earlier that they were suspicious? You didn't believe me. Since they've set up such a big scheme, it would be a disservice to them if we didn't play along. Let's just watch for now." Zhang Dabiao caught me before I could go up to confront them and comforted me.
"But..."
"There's no 'but.' Don't you think about why they would bury coffins so deep? From below, it looks at least five stories high. Moreover, this isn't a place of sha; it's the city center. After being buried for so many years, the bones should have long since rotted away, leaving only bone dust. How could there be intact coffins? You were just misled by Manager Xue's initial mention of the Seven-Orifice Spiritual Burial."
With Zhang Dabiao's reminder, I also felt I had been too hasty. I kicked the stairs hard and asked Zhang Dabiao what we should do now. Should we just go back and tell them we wouldn't take the job?
"Don't worry! They definitely won't agree. They've probably already spread rumors that they've invited a powerful feng shui master to deal with the construction site haunting..."
"Then what now? Are we just going to jump into this fire pit and watch them trick me?"
Zhang Dabiao chuckled, "You usually have the most clever ideas, kid. How can you fall into such a simple trap and not be able to get out? We want the money, and we want to eliminate the evil. Here's what we'll do..."
I blinked, looking at him with disbelief. Was this the same honest and simple Zhang Dabiao? He seemed like an old fox who had lived for a very long time.
"Don't look at me like that, or I'll get shy."
Me: "..."
Just as Zhang Dabiao finished speaking, we heard someone outside the pit loudly calling our names. Looking up, we saw Sun Chuang standing outside with a group of people, looking down.
"Oh my, I say, why have you two been inside for so long? I thought something had happened to you. You scared me to death..."
Climbing out of the pit, I saw seven or eight people behind Sun Chuang, men and women, ranging from thirty to fifty years old. Judging by their attire, they seemed to be from the spiritual profession, possibly all spirit mediums.
My face darkened, and I asked him with a hint of mockery, "Why are you here? Weren't you afraid to come in? Why are you bringing people now?"
"You've been inside for almost four hours. We couldn't see you from upstairs, so we were worried something happened. We quickly invited people to help. Fortunately, I still have some face, and Old Xue smoothed things over, so we could invite these experts to assist. Otherwise, I really wouldn't dare to come in."
Just as I was about to curse Sun Chuang, you son of a bitch, just say you want to trick me, why the roundabout way, Zhang Dabiao spoke up and took over.
"Thank you to all fellow practitioners for coming to assist. Zhang Dabiao thanks you all here." He then cupped his fists in a respectful bow.
"You're Zhang Dabiao? The demon catcher from Xiaoliu Village?" one of the women asked, somewhat surprised to hear Zhang Dabiao announce his name.
"What? You know me?" Zhang Dabiao frowned, looking at the woman in her thirties. He couldn't recall ever meeting her.
"No, but your reputation precedes you. Your Mountain-Splitting Saber cuts down demons and slays evil spirits. Anyone in the spiritual profession in the surrounding provinces and cities knows your name. Since you've taken on this job, it must be foolproof. When do you plan to handle it? Can we watch you fight the evil entity when you do? So we can gain some experience?"
The woman's words were flattering, but I finally realized her true intention. Just as Zhang Dabiao had said in the pit, these two turtle eggs had indeed invited their peers to observe us dealing with the evil.
Just as I was thinking about how to refuse, Zhang Dabiao spoke up, "Observing by fellow practitioners is naturally fine. However, dealing with the construction site's evil entity will take some time. We need to prepare."
"That's no problem. Just tell us what you need, and I'll have Old Xue prepare it. Can we deal with it tonight?" Sun Chuang asked with a smile.
"That won't work. We need to go home to get some things. It will have to be tomorrow night at the earliest."
"Alright... I'll find some fellow practitioners to assist Daoist Zhang then." The woman didn't give us a chance to say anything else and directly decided on the time for dealing with the evil.
Watching Zhang Dabiao chatting and laughing with them, my heart sank. Why did his plan feel even less reliable than mine?