Chapter 1

Leaving the village, he headed west.

Using the faint moonlight, Yu Chengmu found a small path hidden in the weeds. The path twisted and turned, winding around a large earthen slope, revealing a wooden building not far away.

The building had a peculiar shape and was quite large, taller than a normal house. Two white lanterns hung under the eaves, swaying from side to side in the night breeze, emitting a ghastly light.

On each lantern, a large character "Dian" (奠 – funerary) was written in black ink.

A black plaque hung above the building's main entrance. After years of wind and sun, some of the characters on the plaque had peeled off and were unreadable, but the last two characters were still faintly visible.

Yizhuang (Mortuary).

Approaching, Yu Chengmu narrowed his eyes and looked at the gate. The double wooden doors were also dilapidated, as if no one had been there for a long time.

But alarmingly, light seeped out along the cracks in the door.

He gently pushed the door open with both hands. It was unlocked, only ajar. The old hinges made a jarring grinding sound as Yu Chengmu stepped over the high threshold and entered the yizhuang.

Before him were dozens, even hundreds, of coffins.

At the same time, an indescribable stench rushed towards him.

But Yu Chengmu wasn't repulsed by this smell. On the contrary, it reassured him slightly. He would have been surprised if there wasn't the smell of decaying corpses in a place like this.

Out of habit, he carefully observed the order in which the coffins were arranged, but after a moment, he gave up because the coffins were simply thrown here and there. Some didn't even have their lids properly closed.

The quality of the coffins was poor. Most were made of thin wooden boards pieced together, and many already had cracks.

Yu Chengmu stopped by one of the coffins.

Through the gap, Yu Chengmu could see the corpse's feet. After a moment, his pupils constricted. On the corpse's bluish-purple ankle, a bell was tied with a red thread.

Only corpses with extremely deep resentment would have this done to them.

At the same time, he suddenly thought of a rumor: some yizhuang with bad feng shui, or those that had experienced strange events, had the habit of building very high thresholds.

This was because once a corpse reanimated, its muscles would be stiff and it could only walk close to the ground, unable to perform actions like jumping. A high threshold could prevent them from leaving.

Yu Chengmu calmed himself and left the coffin, walking towards the middle of the main hall. There, a space was covered by a white cloth, with light shining through.

Upon closer inspection, he found that the space was divided into several independent areas by white cloth. The corresponding numbers were marked on the cloth, but only the first three were marked. The fourth one... was blank.

Clearly, the first three were prepared for them, and inside were the corpses that needed to be sewn up tonight.

Lifting the first piece of white cloth, as expected, he saw a wooden frame. A corpse lay on the wooden frame, and the tools needed were placed on a shorter frame next to it.

A red candle burned dimly, barely providing enough light.

There was a small incense table in front of the corpse, with three incense sticks in front of it.

Yu Chengmu respectfully lit the incense sticks on the candle flame, bowed to the corpse three times, and then inserted them into the incense burner.

Only after seeing the incense burning smoothly and the smoke rising straight up did Yu Chengmu breathe a sigh of relief and begin to examine the corpse.

The corpse was a man, soaked all over, apparently just pulled out of the water not long ago. Water was still dripping down along the edge of the wooden frame.

The man's abdomen was torn open, and his bluish-purple intestines and internal organs were clearly visible. There were wounds on his face and shoulder.

The flesh was turned outwards, and the wound on his face had torn the nostril and half of his cheek, exposing his ugly gums, which looked quite terrifying.

Yu Chengmu wanted to get closer for a better look, but the candlestick holding the candle was very heavy, extremely heavy. It would be difficult to pick it up with one hand to observe the corpse. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw another candle on the frame holding the tools.

After checking it carefully and finding no problems, Yu Chengmu lit the new candle.

The night watchman had said that the entire sewing process could be summarized in five words: Respect, Clean, Arrange, Mend, Knead.

He had already shown respect with the incense. Yu Chengmu found a cloth and began to wipe the corpse.

While wiping, Yu Chengmu noticed that the corpse's left hand was pressed under its body. But after pulling the arm out, he realized that the corpse didn't have a left hand at all. A pale bone was exposed at the wrist.

Immediately, Yu Chengmu had a rough idea of what was going on.

There were three places that needed to be sewn up: the face, the shoulder, and the abdomen. The wound on the abdomen was the largest, but Yu Chengmu knew that the most troublesome one was the wound on the face.

And the missing left hand would naturally need to be kneaded together with dough.

Without hesitation, Yu Chengmu took the needle and thread. The needle was quite thick, and he was using the corpse-binding thread he had seen before. He chose the shoulder wound first, to get familiar with the process.

The needle pierced the skin and flesh, and a disturbing frictional sensation traveled through his hand. Yu Chengmu focused his attention and kept his hand steady.

Once this wound was sewn up, he turned his attention to the corpse's abdomen.

The intestines and internal organs were tangled together, making the scene hair-raising.

Although Yu Chengmu was a tomb raider, the corpses he had seen were mostly rotten to the point where only bone fragments remained. He had rarely experienced situations like this.

He held his breath and leaned closer, not choosing to sew immediately, but observing first.

Until, after a few seconds, as if he had made up his mind, he actually reached his hand into the corpse's abdomen, plunged it into the tangled mass of intestines and internal organs, and groped around, as if searching for something.

That's right, he was searching for something.

Searching for the missing left hand.

Yu Chengmu suspected that one of the traps in this mission was related to this missing left hand.

If the left hand was hidden in the corpse's stomach, and he didn't notice it, and still kneaded a left hand out of dough and attached it, the consequences would be unimaginable.

But after a moment, Yu Chengmu withdrew his hand, his expression slightly relieved.

He didn't find the left hand. He could safely sew up the wound now.

The abdominal wound was ridiculously large. It took him a full half hour to sew it up. By this time, the incense had burned almost halfway. Yu Chengmu steadied his mind. He knew he had to hurry.

Not for himself, but for Jia Jinliang.

Jia Jinliang was last in line. According to the time, each of them had one shichen (two hours) to deal with the corpse.

But the night watchman had also clearly stated that no matter what happened, the corpse had to be sewn up before dawn, or something terrible would happen.

And the task started at the third watch, which meant that Jia Jinliang, who was last in line, definitely wouldn't have enough time.

And if he wanted to save Jia Jinliang, there were only two ways: either be fast enough to buy as much time as possible for Jia Jinliang, or... let the next person die to end the task early.

Yu Chengmu planned to try both.