Chapter 13 Old Liu's Request

Seeing the villagers nod, I slowly poured the diesel, watching as it spread across the water towards the corpse's head. I pointed at the water, and a foot-high flame immediately leapt up.

The dancing flames ignited the corpse's hands in mere seconds, but the body floating on the surface remained motionless. Instead, the coffin rope stretched taut by the tractor made a strange creaking sound, as if it were about to snap.

I frowned slightly and pushed my palm towards the water. The force of my palm drove the fire forward by half a foot, almost touching the corpse's head.

The smell of burning hair instantly filled the air, and the corpse's hands slowly clenched in the flames.

'Pull the rope around his neck!' As I shouted, Old Liu abruptly tightened the coffin rope, and the corpse's head jerked out of the water.

'Coffin!' I roared, stepping on the fiercely burning water and rushing towards the corpse, kicking at its chin.

My shoe tip connected with the corpse's jaw, producing a bone-cracking sound, and the corpse was sent flying into the air by the force of my blow.

My feet carried me out of the water with the flames, and I exerted force in mid-air, continuously kicking the corpse's chest.

The corpse, battered by my relentless blows, fell into the coffin filled with lime.

As the sizzling sound of lime meeting water echoed from the coffin, I landed on the ground: 'Quick, fill the coffin with lime!'

The villagers guarding the coffin rushed forward with sacks of lime and poured them into the coffin.

As I cut the ropes tied to the coffin, Old Liu held a sharpened wooden stake in both hands and plunged it forcefully into the swirling lime.

The stake landed right on the corpse's chest.

As Old Liu retreated, he shouted: 'Quick, fill the coffin with quicklime! You over there, fill in the water pit too!'

'Close the coffin! Get the coffin nails!' Old Liu quickly nailed the coffin shut: 'Drag the coffin to my yard.'

Some villagers dragged the coffin away, while Old Liu watched the remaining villagers fill the water pit with earth, then covered it with a flagstone.

Old Liu stepped on the stone a few times: 'Go back! Those who can stay awake tonight, do so. When it dawns, each family send a representative to my house.'

Old Liu invited me back to his house and poured me a cup of wine: 'Thank you, Mr. Li, for this time.'

I gently swirled the wine in my glass and said, 'The affairs of Yulu Village are not over. Are you planning to continue driving me away, or do you want me to stay?'

What I meant was: if you want me to stay, tell me the truth.

I was becoming increasingly curious about Yulu Village. It wasn't just the village that was strange; the people were too.

In other places, an animated corpse would scare a whole village witless, but the villagers of Yulu Village were not only calm but also coordinated with a professional-like discipline.

This was completely unreasonable.

Old Liu drank a cup of wine and said, 'Mr. Li, are you content with being a shushi (one who practices divination and occultism)?'

'What do you mean?' I didn't understand Old Liu's meaning. He was clearly avoiding the question!

Old Liu said to himself, 'I don't want to be a shushi, not at all. A shushi has to give up too much, lose too much. If I could just have a mouthful of food, a way to survive, I wouldn't want to be a shushi.'

'But some things are destined. From birth, a person's fate is arranged by the heavens. You can't escape it!'

'For decades, no men from our village have gone out to work. It's not that we'd rather be poor than work; it's that the heavens won't let us leave!'

My eyebrows couldn't help but rise slightly: 'Are you saying that your whole village are shushi?'

'Bullshit!' Old Liu shook his head and smiled bitterly: 'I'm the only shushi, and a half-assed one at that. Without you today, I would have been finished.'

Old Liu stared intently at me and said, 'Mr. Li, can you tell me, where did you learn your skills?'

Seeing that I didn't answer, Old Liu quickly explained: 'I don't mean anything by it. I just don't want to implicate you!'

I said calmly, 'Coffin Gate, Yin-Yang Vein!'

Old Liu's eyes lit up immediately: 'No wonder, no wonder… no wonder you have both the strongest yang (positive) internal energy and the flow of yin (negative) energy. So you're a person of the Yin-Yang Vein.'

As he spoke, Old Liu seemed to remember something. He quickly stood up and knelt on the ground with both knees: 'Mr. Li, I beg you to save our village.'

I turned to help Old Liu up: 'First, tell me what's going on?'

Old Liu said, 'This matter must be told from the ancestors of Yulu Village. Do you know who shoushui (river keepers) are?'

The composition of shoushui is relatively complex.

Shoushui is divided into two types: minshou (civilian keepers) and guanshou (official keepers):

Minshou are families of shushi who make their living by the water, usually inheriting the profession from their fathers.

Guanshou are soldiers guarding the water. Just because shushi don't enter officialdom doesn't mean there aren't shushi in officialdom. There are soldiers in the water troops specifically dealing with strange water-related incidents. These people form a separate camp. Their skills are also inherited from the previous generation of old soldiers.