Chapter Eighteen: Opening the Coffin

I don’t know why, but after seeing that text message, a sudden surge of anger welled up inside me. It felt just like when I was a child, obsessed with arcade games, only to have teachers and parents repeatedly try to stop me. The more they tried to stop me, the more determined I became to do it anyway.

I tossed my phone aside, grabbed the shovel, and drove it hard into the ground. Scooping up a shovelful of earth, I dumped it right over the phone, which was still incessantly chiming with message alerts.

At the same time, Wang Feiyang said nothing. From the moment he struck the first blow with his pickaxe, it was as if he were possessed—he just kept swinging, digging dozens of times without pause!

Soon, Wang Feiyang and I had dug a massive pit in the earth, yet still found no sign of that large red coffin.

Unknowingly, nearly an hour had passed. For some reason, the once clear sky had suddenly clouded over, and faint raindrops began to fall from above.

It felt as if neither Wang Feiyang nor I could feel fatigue; we just kept digging relentlessly.

Finally, around five in the afternoon, Wang Feiyang’s pickaxe struck something hard with a metallic clang. We exchanged glances, a strange excitement flickering across both our faces.

Wang Feiyang stopped first, while I carefully used my shovel to clear away the dirt below. Before long, I had swept the soil clean, and the lid of a large red coffin appeared before our eyes.

The moment I saw that coffin, a chill rose from deep within me. At the same time, an eerie wind seemed to sweep in from all directions, sending a piercing cold straight into my bones.

Strangely, after twenty years exposed to the elements, the coffin ought to have shown signs of rot—even with red lacquer, there should have been some decay. But the lid now before us looked as if it had just been crafted yesterday, without the slightest trace of decomposition.

Wang Feiyang and I didn’t dwell on it. We kept digging around the coffin, and after another hour of hard labor, we finally unearthed the entire red coffin intact.

At last, both of us let out a breath. But when we saw the whole coffin, our hearts involuntarily skipped a beat.

The entire casket was in pristine condition, just like the lid—no sign of rot at all. Its surface was densely engraved with characters I couldn’t understand, and all around it were pasted yellow talisman papers.

I counted roughly—there were sixteen yellow talismans in total. Incredibly, they seemed to have been soaked in some special oil: even after twenty years, there wasn’t a hint of decay; they looked brand new.

At that moment, Wang Feiyang began to softly read the inscriptions on the coffin’s side. Only then did I realize those engravings must be funerary texts, and Wang Feiyang could understand them.

I hurriedly asked Wang Feiyang what they meant. He replied that they recorded the events of that year—how my grandfather and the practitioners of the Left-hand Path used forbidden arts of the Underworld and the Ziwei fate star to alter my destiny. It was largely the same as the funerary text Luo Xiu had told us about.

That reassured us that our actions were correct. The person nailed inside this coffin had to be Yang Li, the one with the Ziwei fate. Our next step was to remove her body from the coffin and find a master to perform rites for her. Whether or not this could appease the resentment in her heart would be up to fate.

So, Wang Feiyang and I first inspected the coffin carefully. We found that the lid was tightly fastened with seven large rivets. To open it, we would have to remove all seven.

But those rivets were as thick as a thumb and as long as a finger. Without any proper tools, there was no way we could hope to pull them out by hand.

“What do we do?” I asked Wang Feiyang. “Should we just smash the coffin open?”

He shook his head. “No. If we force it and damage the coffin, we might harm the body inside. That would only make things worse.”

Then Wang Feiyang began to examine the funerary inscriptions again, circling the coffin, scrutinizing every line. After a moment, he fixed me with a grave look. “Tear off all the yellow talismans. Maybe then the seven rivets will come out on their own.”

“That’s a bit much, isn’t it?” I said, half in doubt.

“We’ll only know if we try.”

As he spoke, Wang Feiyang reached for one of the talismans. The instant he touched it, a bolt of lightning slashed across the sky, followed by a crash of thunder.

He hesitated briefly, but then pulled the talisman off.

Nothing unusual happened—the rivets didn’t budge. Quickly, Wang Feiyang went for the second one.

Unable to resist, I joined in, and together we tore off talisman after talisman. Soon, we had removed twelve of the sixteen. Perhaps we were too absorbed to notice how much the world around us had changed.

The sky, thick with storm clouds, suddenly unleashed a torrential downpour. Fierce winds howled from every direction, and thunder and lightning crashed without end, as if a thousand demons were roaring in the void.

I tore the last talisman myself. The moment my hand closed around it, a frantic shout rang out behind us: “Stop! Don’t do it!”

I turned instinctively. Charging toward us, disheveled and shouting, was a middle-aged man with a full beard. He looked oddly familiar, as if I’d seen him somewhere before.

Suddenly, I remembered—wasn’t this the bus driver who’d dragged me back to White Street the other day? What was he doing here?

“Stop! Don’t tear off that last talisman! Put them all back, now!”

I froze for a couple of seconds, trying to fathom what he meant. Just then, I heard a ripping sound. I turned to see Wang Feiyang’s hand pressing down on mine as he tore away the final talisman.

At the same moment, Wang Feiyang’s face took on a strange, eerie expression that made my skin crawl. Looking closer, I saw that standing right behind him was a woman in a red turtleneck sweater—Yang Li herself. She was pressed up against his back, and it was her control over Wang Feiyang that had forced him to tear off the last talisman.

“It’s over! You’ve made a terrible mistake!” the bus driver roared. He dropped to his knees, staring at us in utter despair.

“What’s going on? Who is he?” Wang Feiyang seemed to come to his senses. When I glanced at him, the woman behind him was gone. I shook my head and only then noticed how violently the weather had turned. I looked toward the red coffin.

The seven rivets that had fastened the lid were squeezing themselves out, one by one, as if drawn by an invisible magnet.

At the same time, the coffin began to shake up and down, and there was a flurry of banging from within, as if someone were hammering at the lid from inside.

Our faces turned pale. Could it be that the corpse sealed for twenty years was about to rise?

“Run!” the bus driver shouted again, and dashed toward us. Realizing the danger, Wang Feiyang and I sprinted in his direction.

We’d barely run two meters when there was a tremendous crash behind us. The coffin lid shot skyward, soaring seven or eight meters high, and a piercing cackle echoed out.

I instinctively turned my head, expecting to see a ghastly corpse rising from the coffin. But to my surprise, it was empty—there was nothing inside at all.

“What’s going on? Yang Li’s body isn’t here?”

I was still puzzled when the bus driver suddenly shoved me aside. Chanting under his breath, he used the middle finger of his right hand to draw sigils on his left palm.

“Heaven is round, earth is square, nine decrees of order, thunder and fire in my palm, a myriad ghosts shall be suppressed!” As he finished the chant and the drawing, he thrust his palm fiercely toward the empty air behind me!