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墨書 Inktalez
"Hey, you noticed too late!" The old man swung his iron rod and charged at me again. I had no choice but to step back to avoid the blow. My hands were both incapacitated; how could I fight? I was empty-handed. I had always thought that disarming someone with bare hands was nonsense, and now I saw it was true. It was hard enough to snatch a quickly moving iron rod, let alone a sharp blade.
After retreating a few steps, my back pressed against the railing of the slope. The old man grinned maliciously and stepped forward, raising his rod to strike. Just then, I heard a voice behind me, "Catch!" Something was thrown from behind me and landed in front of me. Ignoring the pain, I hurriedly reached out and caught it. It was a flashlight, but unlike any ordinary one; this was a long cylindrical flashlight with a metal casing that could be used as a short staff—a security type. I didn't have time to think; enduring the pain, I raised the flashlight to block the old man's frontal attack.
Before he could react, I kicked hard at him. His expression changed slightly, "You're still not dead?" He shifted his body to the left and dodged my kick. However, that worked in my favor; my right hand swung the flashlight down with force! It struck him squarely on the head with a loud thud. He staggered, and just as I was about to pursue him, he suddenly dropped his rod and turned to run away.
I had only chased after him for two steps when a weak voice came from behind me, "Don't chase."
I dropped the flashlight and turned around to see that the person who had been lying on the slope was now leaning against the railing, blood all over his face. I walked up the slope and helped him up.
He had a big beard and looked to be around forty years old, but his voice sounded younger. "Who are you?" I asked first.
"I... I'm the guard here."
"Do you have any identification?" I didn't dare to trust him completely.
He trembled as he fished out a work permit from his pocket. I examined it closely; it indeed belonged to him—the big beard was too distinctive.
"I noticed something was off here, so I came to check it out. I didn't expect this to happen. Should we call the police?" I asked while gritting my teeth; there was no denying that I'd taken a hit myself—it hurt.
"Let's see first." The big beard fumbled as he tried to get up.
"Why were you lying here?" After what had just happened, I became more cautious.
"I noticed something unusual, so I came to check it out and ended up being ambushed."
"That's impossible; isn't this place locked?"
Big Beard furrowed his brow. "Most likely, something came in, made a noise, and then someone followed me in."
As Big Beard moved down the corridor, I took a couple of steps to follow him, suddenly realizing that we were heading toward the Morgue. I immediately stopped in my tracks.
"I think I'll wait outside for you."
"That works." Big Beard's voice came from inside.
Just a few seconds later, I heard Big Beard exclaim, "Oh no!" Without thinking much, I rushed inside to check on him.
To my surprise, there weren't bodies strewn everywhere. Instead, there were iron cabinets lined against the wall, stacked with many compartments. The bodies must be stored inside those compartments. Big Beard stood in front of the last cabinet, his back to me. The room was filled with a heavy smell of Formalin. I raised my arm to cover my mouth and nose and hurried over to him. Before I reached him, I was taken aback; my gaze passed over Big Beard and landed on an open compartment. A male corpse leaned awkwardly against the cabinet. Perhaps it had been dead for a long time; its body had stiffened and remained upright. Big Beard was staring at it in a daze.
"What’s wrong?" I patted his shoulder.
He jumped slightly and turned to look at me. "Look here!"
I leaned closer, following Big Beard's finger to the left side of the corpse's head.
There was a hole! I gasped!
Big Beard frowned deeply while I felt utterly confused.
I took a closer look and realized that this wound resembled the one from the triangular bayonet that had stabbed me last time. Especially since the corpse had no blood left, the wound was particularly conspicuous. My mind was a whirl; what did this have to do with anything?
Before I could ask anything, Big Beard shouted, "Not good!" He turned and ran toward a corner where a pile of tools lay scattered. He rummaged through them frantically, unsure of what he was looking for, before finally sitting down heavily on the ground. "We're in trouble!"
Just as I was about to approach him, Big Beard suddenly sprang up again, hurriedly pulling me out of the room and locking the door behind us.
"Well, it's not really a big deal, is it? Just a body with a hole poked in it!" I exclaimed, looking at Big Beard as if he were facing a great threat.
"No!" He shook his head and gestured for me to follow him outside.
Locking the door, Big Beard and I made our way to his duty room. He opened the door and turned back to ask, "Are you brave enough to come in?"
"What’s there to be afraid of? I have no taboos," I replied with a smile. Big Beard gave me a deep look.
Once inside, the lights came on, and I could see that Big Beard had a bump on his head, likely from being hit. I pointed at his head and asked, "Do you want me to get you some medicine to put on that?"
There was a hint of gratitude in Big Beard's eyes as he shook his head. After rubbing his head for a while, he finally said, "Do you believe in demons?"
This wasn't the first time I had encountered this question. After hesitating for a moment, I vaguely replied, "Not really."
Big Beard looked up at me. "Then you might as well believe there are." He paused before continuing, "Something was stolen from the morgue."
"What was it? You seem so down," I couldn't help but ask.
"The Corpse-Restraining Pill!"
"What was that?!" I couldn't help but doubt my ears.
"The Corpse-Restraining Pill!" Seeing my confused expression, he continued to explain. "Strictly speaking, it's a bead that was offered to Han Gaozu by a southern Witch Kingdom during the Western Han Dynasty. It is said to have the divine effect of preventing corpses from decaying. Lü Zhi loved beauty so much that she took it with her into her tomb after she died. At the end of the Western Han Dynasty, when the Red Eyebrow Army looted the imperial tombs of the Western Han emperors, even the tomb of Liu Bang and his empress Lü Zhi at Changling was not spared. After Lü Zhi died, her body suffered great humiliation; it was violated by the Red Eyebrow Army. According to historical records, all the corpses in that tomb were lifelike and did not decay, just like when they were alive! You have to understand that this happened over two thousand years ago. Poor Lü Zhi, once the most revered woman of her time, along with other empresses and favored concubines whose tombs were opened by the Red Eyebrow Army—none of their bodies were spared from such despicable acts."
"And what does the Corpse-Restraining Pill do?" This was truly unbelievable.
"Yes! The Corpse-Restraining Pill not only keeps corpses from decaying but primarily restrains them from undergoing decomposition. Later on, it was passed down through generations as a family heirloom by Xie Lu, a leader of the Red Eyebrow Army. The last generation of the Xie Family is my master, who was also the previous guard here. The feng shui here is poor and prone to accidents, so he hid it in the morgue to keep the corpses in check."
It had to be dealt with, considering that all Military Hospitals were originally established in remote areas of the city, often on old burial grounds. Many Morgues were even built directly on grave sites. Coupled with the heavy atmosphere, it was easy to imagine that accidents could happen.
Seeing me lost in thought, Big Beard looked at me and said, "Now that the Corpse-Restraining Pill is gone, this place might not be peaceful anymore."
I forced a smile. "There's nothing I can do about it; you'll just have to be more careful."
Noticing Big Beard's worried expression, I felt a spark of inspiration. "Big Beard, it's not like there are no clues. I've seen the person who inflicted that wound. If I find any leads, I'll let you know."
Big Beard's face lit up with hope. "That's good! That's good!"
"But don't get too excited just yet. You should consider who knows that this thing is here."
Upon hearing this, Big Beard lowered his head and sighed. "My master passed away last year from a sudden illness. He never shared much about his own affairs with me. He had no children or family. Even when he was unwell last year, he only told me the secret of the Corpse-Restraining Pill and nothing else."
Curious, I asked, "How did you end up working with your master on this?"
"Well, I'm an orphan; my master adopted me. I don't like dealing with people much, so working alongside him was comfortable for me. You see, it's not as terrifying here as you might think; death only takes away a person's spirit. In a world devoid of spirits, it feels particularly tranquil, allowing my heart to find peace as well. Generally speaking, my work is quite easy; I do some simple cleaning for the deceased bodies and tidy up their appearances. Besides that, I also keep watch over them and clean the Morgue a bit. But honestly, there's not much to clean; it's quite tidy there. However, without the Corpse-Restraining Pill, things might not remain peaceful. My master hid the Corpse-Restraining Pill here long ago and never taught me anything else. If something goes wrong, I wouldn't even know what to do."
"What do you mean by 'something goes wrong'?"
"Resurrection!"
"Huh?!"
"Resurrection, also known as 'raising the dead.' My master had a few rare corpses that could move or even sit up due to various reasons—like residual souls or feng shui influences."
"…Is that really true? I always thought it was just folklore."
"There's really something," Big Beard muttered.
"Wait!" I suddenly thought of something. "Could it be that the corpse inside was encountered by the person who stole the Corpse-Restraining Pill after being resurrected and was severely injured?"
"Hmm?" Big Beard pondered for a moment and then said, "That's possible."
I was surprised. "Aren't you supposed to know about the Corpse-Restraining Pill? Like, what happens if you use it in the Morgue?"
"Well, actually, I've never seen a Corpse-Restraining Pill!" Big Beard admitted straightforwardly.
"What the hell!" I exclaimed, feeling speechless.
Noticing that it was getting late, I realized I needed to head back and greet the two people in my room. When I said goodbye to Big Beard, I learned that his name was Xie Yang and he was only eight years old. I felt old; I had thought he was forty-eight!
(To be continued, more exciting content tomorrow!)
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