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墨書 Inktalez
Human Sacrifice
Killing a wicked person to save a group is a good deed.
But what about killing a good person?
Huang the Lame looked at the silent Guo the Blind and said, "If my guess is correct, this coffin should be the one mentioned in the rumors, containing a woman from afar. Brother Guo, since Yinwen was inscribed by Old Scholar, should we open this coffin or not?"
The Big Red Coffin bore the strange inscription "Underworld Entrance, Do Not Open" in Yinwen. If it were words left by someone else, Guo the Blind would naturally not believe them, but since they were written by Old Scholar, he was unsure whether to trust such ominous words.
"Grandpa, if we don't open the coffin, we won't be able to eliminate the evil spirit. Someone might die tonight!" Huang San'er said.
Huang the Lame shot a glare at Huang San'er, signaling him to be quiet. Then he softened his tone and asked Guo the Blind, "Brother Guo, didn't Uncle Guo say anything to you before he passed?"
Guo the Blind's expression changed upon hearing Huang the Lame's words. He recalled some strange things his father had said before his death; it all felt like fate.
He suddenly remembered asking his father during their escape to Futu Ridge why it was just the two of them.
Guo the Blind spoke in a low voice, "Prepare to open the coffin."
A subtle smile appeared on Huang the Lame's face as he handed the ink thread in his hand to me, Huang San'er, and Wang Hai, instructing us to hold it around the Big Red Coffin.
This ink thread was commonly used by Feng Shui Masters. It was an ordinary thread soaked in the urine of nine boys born under the fire element for seven days and then soaked in the blood of a rooster with a golden comb for another seven days. The boy's urine warded off evil spirits while the rooster frightened ghosts; Corpse Demons feared such powerful items.
Huang the Lame first affixed four red paper talismans onto the Big Red Coffin and then cut through the hemp rope on its surface. He carefully examined the nails at each corner of the coffin. Suddenly, he slammed his palm against one corner of the coffin, producing a loud thud that caused one of the nails to pop out!
Guo the Blind followed suit, striking each corner of the coffin in turn. I watched in astonishment; could it be that Huang the Lame intended to open the coffin with just his bare hands?
I had once heard an old man from our village recount stories from Water Margin about Lu Zhishen uprooting willows with ease. Some people are born with immense strength and can accomplish incredible feats with little effort. Earlier, when Li Fugui had lifted me effortlessly with one hand at the village entrance, I thought he was one of those people. Now it seemed that Huang the Lame truly was.
The Big Red Coffin had fallen from a height of sixty or seventy meters without breaking apart; yet here was Huang the Lame shaking its lid loose with just a few strikes. He grasped a protruding nail on the lid and yanked it out with force. Once all the nails were removed, Huang the Lame signaled for us to step back a few paces before striking down on the coffin again. The lid flew off, and the entire coffin shattered into pieces.
A foul stench wafted through the air, startling us all, for lying on the scattered Coffin Board was a person. She was dressed in a tattered Qipao, her hair long enough to obscure her face completely. I had never seen anyone with hair that long.
What was even more horrifying was that she showed no signs of decay; instead, her body was covered in a layer of dry, wrinkled old skin.
Archaeological programs on television often feature teams unearthing ancient tombs of princesses from bygone dynasties, their bodies remarkably preserved and lifelike, resembling great beauties. In reality, however, those princesses looked nothing like humans anymore, aside from the fact that their flesh hadn’t completely rotted away.
But this woman was different; her flesh had not decayed but appeared to have aged normally. One of her hands was pinned beneath the Coffin Board, and she had only three fingers on that hand. Beside her lay a section of the Coffin Board with deep indentations soaked in blood, transformed into bloodwood, suggesting that she had lost two fingers in an attempt to break free from the coffin.
Surprisingly, four thick black nails were driven into her limbs, identical to the nails Guo the Blind had shown me.
“Grandpa, it looks like she’s nailed down. We should burn her,” Huang San'er suggested.
No sooner had Huang San'er spoken than a strange sound reached our ears.
Everyone turned pale as they looked at the woman lying on the Coffin Board; the sound was emanating from her.
“She... she’s not dead?” Wang Hai stumbled backward in fear.
Huang the Lame’s gaze sharpened as he gripped his compass tightly. It seemed he recalled something and said, “During the Snake Goddess incident, all the Migrant Workers were pressed down by ghosts overnight and saw a woman in a Qipao watching them. Could it be her?”
Guo the Blind, however, showed no fear. He stepped forward silently and brushed aside the hair covering the woman's face.
What he revealed was an aged visage beyond recognition; her eyes had rotted away, seemingly blinded and desiccated after decades spent in darkness.
Even more terrifying was that her mouth continued to open and close, emitting faint grunting sounds from deep within her throat.
Guo the Blind crouched down to touch one of the nails in her arm. Huang the Lame thought Guo the Blind intended to pull it out and shouted, “Brother Guo!”
Guo the Blind hesitated for a moment; calculating by years, he realized that the nail had been embedded in her flesh for seventy years and had long since fused with her blood and bones.
According to legend, this woman had been drowned by several villagers for over ten minutes before being pulled from the water once she was thoroughly dead. Yet after being nailed into the coffin, it seemed she had come back to life.
Years passed, and everyone thought it was a case of misinformation. However, looking back now, the rumors from those days were not wrong, and perhaps even more alarming.
Huang Que furrowed his brow, sensing something unusual. "This person is not a corpse at all; he might actually be alive!"
Huang the Lame's words were shocking. How could someone who had been locked in a coffin for seventy years still be considered human?
The Old Scholar, rumored to have achieved mastery over creation, was said to be a celestial being. Yet, in order to confine this woman in a coffin, he first drowned her and then nailed her to the Coffin Board. Even so, seventy years had not claimed her life.
Guo the Blind was visibly moved. He knelt before the elderly woman with white hair and asked, "Who are you?"
The woman seemed to hear Guo the Blind's question. She opened her mouth but could not utter a single word; her tongue had withered away, and her throat had lost its ability to speak.
Every living being requires metabolism; this woman’s flesh and blood had lost most of their moisture, and her bodily functions had deteriorated.
Guo the Blind watched as the woman's mouth opened and closed, as if she were trying desperately to express something. Her fingers weakly tapped against the Coffin Board, seemingly trying to lift her hand.
Guo the Blind grasped the woman's aged, withered hand and with a creak, pulled out the nails from both the Coffin Board and her flesh.
The woman's fingers trembled as she suddenly gasped for air. She clutched Guo the Blind's clothing as if it were a lifeline, faintly emitting sounds that resembled cries.
"Who are you? Why did my master, the Old Scholar, nail you into this coffin?" Guo the Blind asked again.
Upon hearing his question, the woman suddenly fell silent. She held Guo the Blind's hand and began to gesture in his palm as if writing. After she finished, Guo the Blind stood there in shock, as if he had lost his soul.
That withered hand gently traced along Guo the Blind's collar towards his face with an incredibly tender motion.
Guo the Blind's eyes turned red; he did not even flinch. He pulled out a long black nail from his pocket and suddenly thrust it toward the woman's heart.
"Brother Guo! How could you kill her without clarifying what was going on?" Huang the Lame reproached him discontentedly.
Guo the Blind seemed not to hear at all, completely ignoring Huang the Lame.
The woman lying on the Coffin Board was pierced by long black nails into her Heart, yet she seemed completely unaware. Suddenly, a flame erupted from her Heart, and her body crackled with a hissing sound, releasing thick white smoke.
Earlier, when Zhou Manman was tied to the Wind Stabilizer by the villagers of Bright Moon Village, they poured Black Dog Blood over her. If a possessed person was splashed with Black Dog Blood, their body would emit a hissing sound and produce white smoke.
The white smoke was dense, swirling like clouds in the warm and cold world, as fragrant as wine.
I saw the woman in the blazing fire reveal a smile of relief, and I caught a glimpse of Guo the Blind shedding a tear with his back turned to everyone.
This woman had no one who knew her name; not even Guo the Blind knew it.
Yet from Guo the Blind's gaze, I sensed something that sent chills down my spine.
Guo the Blind spoke coldly, "This evil spirit has been eliminated; there shouldn't be any issues tonight. Let's go back."
"Brother Guo, although this woman has Yin Qi surrounding her, she couldn't break free from the Soul Fixation Nail. Clearly, she is not a ghost; there must be some unspeakable secret about her. Even Old Scholar is cautious about such matters. Are you really going to kill her just like that?" Huang the Lame questioned with evident dissatisfaction.
Guo the Blind snorted and replied, "If she has survived being nailed to a coffin for seventy years, she must be a demon. Do you really think, Brother Huang, at your age, you still want to study immortality?"
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