Ch. 5 - The Strange and Weird Corpse

Hearing the man in the beach shirt's cry, the brothers hurriedly looked at him only to see the leader who stood by the pit with a ghostly look. Because he was too frightened, he threw away his mobile phone, and luckily he didn't throw himself away. The two walked to the pit with doubt in their minds. If the coffin contained the bones of a dead person, the leader would never be frightened like this, since he already knew that there was a dead body in the coffin before taking pictures. From this, it was evident that this guy saw something unexpected. However, judging from the details of the leader running away as if seeing a ghost, the contents of the coffin were no more frightening than being threatened to break his legs. When the man in the beach shirt saw the brothers walking his way, he waved eagerly, "Come, come and see." 

"What?" Wu Zhongyuan casually asked. 

"Your master, your master..." The man in the beach shirt hesitated. Wu Zhongyuan was already puzzled, but he became more and more puzzled when saw the expression of the leader. The reason why this guy was hesitant was no doubt that he was considering the possibility of mentioning it without offending the two's master with the wrong words. This also means that inside the coffin are still human bones.  Or is there a man's corpse that hasn't rotted?

Eager to know the truth, Wu Zhongyuan walked as fast as he could. He looked down when he got to the pit. At first glance, he frowned; it turned out that his guess was wrong. Inside the coffin was not an undecayed body, but a rotten corpse. The skeleton seemed like an adult male, it is 90% similar to a human being, but there was something wrong with its head. To be precise, it is the mouth. Instead of a mouth, it had a bird's beak, about ten centimeters long, grayish-yellow in color, sharp, and very similar to the beak of a falcon raptor. 

Lin Qingming was doing the same thing while Wu Zhongyuan looked down at the pit. When they got a gist of the situation, the two looked at each other suspiciously again. The corpse in the coffin was really weird, and it was no wonder that the gangster leader got frightened. At the same moment, the man in the beach shirt still thought that the corpse in the coffin was these young men's master. 

"How did your master become... Oh, I see, your master was a Taoist priest, the feathering immortal." 

If he denies that the corpse was not the Master's, it will bring out the real burial place of the Master. Wu Zhongyuan was still worried about what to say, but after the man in beach shirt's words, he immediately got off the silence and gave the man in beach shirt an " As you knew" look, 

"The secret must not be revealed."

"Understood, understood, understood, I understood." the man in the beach shirt nodded again and again.

There was a lot of noise from the engine, and the gangster driving the excavator couldn't hear what the two were saying, but watching their weird expressions, he curiously leaned out, hoping to see what was going on at the pit's bottom. Seeing this, the leader burst into anger and yelled at him,

"It's bad luck to see dead people, get in, get in!" Pushing the gangster back to the car pit, the man in the beach shirt looked at Wu Zhongyuan with inquiring eyes. The wound on Wu Zhongyuan's head was bleeding slowly and he felt a little dizzy, so he didn't want to delay any follow up procedure. 

"Fill it up again." He demanded,

"My phone." the leader pointed to the coffin inside the pit. Out of shock, he lost his grip on the phone, and it just fell into the coffin when he tried to take some pictures.  

Wu Zhongyuan didn't want to go down, so he came up with a question,

"Even if you pick it up, can you still use it?" As soon as Wu Zhongyuan finished speaking, Lin Qingming's voice came from the side, 

"Come here."

When he walked over Lin Qingming pointed to the half-coffin lid hanging on the excavator's claw, signaling his brother to look.

After carefully watching, Wu Zhongyuan looked at Lin Qingming suspiciously. 

Well, Coffins are rare now, and only a few people are familiar with them. However, they knew about the coffins very well because the master once built one by himself in front of them when he was alive. 

According to the theories of yin and yang and the five elements, iron is a killing weapon, so the coffin cannot be nailed, but must be fixed by mortise and tenon. The oak wood of the coffin was the same material that Master used when he made the coffin for himself, and the style of the mortise and tenon were also the same, which means that this coffin was probably buried by Master when he was alive. The two of them didn't know about the corpse's identity in the coffin and what was its relationship with their master. Unfortunately, their master never mentioned it before his death. After a glance at each other, Lin Qingming gave Wu Zhongyuan a wink, and the two worked together to remove the half of the coffin lid from the digging claw and carried it to the side of the pit. 

"Mobile phone." The man in the beach shirt was still thinking about his mobile phone. 

"Don't ask for it, just consider that you gave it to my master as compensation." Wu Zhongyuan was reluctant to help him get it back, mainly because he was afraid that he had already taken the picture before the phone fell from the man in a beach shirt. 

"I'm okay to give it as compensation. If someone calls me, the old man must not answer it." The leader grimaced.

Wu Zhongyuan was too lazy to answer him, so he leaned down to the bottom of the pit and picked up the phone. He wanted to put it temporarily in his pocket, but when he found a white jade-like object in the coffin, he threw the phone to the leader, who stood above. Taking advantage of the leader's distraction, he picked up the white thing and put it in his pocket. He did this purely out of curiosity. Even though Lin Qingming saw what his brother did, he didn't stop it and jumped down to cover the coffin. Wu Zhongyuan stumbled again after finishing the job and then jumped out of the pit. The wound he suffered from the blow on his head turned quite serious by now. Although a simple bandage was wrapped, the wound was still bleeding. Lin Qingming stretched out his hand to support his brother and looked at the leader,

"Turn on the phone." the man in the beach shirt vaguely guessed what Lin Qingming was looking for, and hurriedly entered the password and handed over the mobile phone, 

"I didn't take a picture, I didn't take any picture, there's no secret leaked." Lin Qingming didn't answer, but after confirming there wasn't any picture at all, he returned the phone to the man. After taking his phone back, the leader then turned and shouted to the driver, and the excavator began to fill in the soil. This big guy dug fast and quickly filled the pit. The man in the beach shirt felt guilty and timid, so after filling the pit, he prayed and bowed to the coffin.

"Dig and move these two trees away, and flatten the ground around 100 square meters." Lin Qingming instructed in a deep voice. The man in the beach shirt didn't even ask why, because he knew that Lin Qingming didn't want others to know the specific burial location of the master.  But little did he know that the one in the coffin was not their master. 

The excavator was busy, and the brothers went to the ruins of the house to search for available utensils. Wu Zhongyuan lost too much blood and had no strength to keep. After moving a few stones, he felt exhausted, so he sat at one corner of the ruins. After his prayer, the leader bowed at the ruins and moved close to Wu Zhongyuan in embarrassment. 

"Hehe, hehe, little brother, ah no, priest... junior Taoist priest. I was blind and I offended the Fairy God. I will pay, I will pay more to rectify my mistake. What do you think?" 

"Are you afraid of retribution?" Wu Zhongyuan didn't sound polite at all. No matter how good-natured people are, they will not be polite to those who demolish their own houses, not to mention that he wasn't originally someone with a good temper either.

"Afraid, scared." The man in the beach shirt awkwardly nodded. "Demolishing the houses of the living and digging the graves of the dead are the things that hurt Yin merit the most. If you believe in retribution, you shouldn't earn this kind of money to cut off the lives of your descendants." Wu Zhongyuan harshly reminded the leader so that the man was left frightened. He didn't believe in retribution before, but now he was forced to believe it after witnessing the corpse with a bird's beak. It seems to coincide with the legend of the Taoist priest who died and ascended to the immortal world. After growing feathers, he became a bird, at least he thought so. 

"I'll send someone to bring the money right away." The only way the man in the beach shirt could think of atonement was to give money. S~ᴇaʀᴄh the N0vᴇlFire(.)nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of nøvels early and in the highest quality.

Wu Zhongyuan was a little moved when he found that the man cared about what they needed. In all fairness, the two do need money. Wu Zhongyuan hesitated, but Lin Qingming did not,

"What should be given to us can't be less.  But if it's not yours, and we don't want any." Hearing Lin Qingming's words, the man in the beach shirt became more frightened. He looked at Wu Zhongyuan with pleading eyes because he found that Wu Zhongyuan was better to talk to than Lin Qingming. However, Wu Zhongyuan looked aside as if he was avoiding the leader's pleading eyes. Although they were only three years apart, Wu Zhongyuan listened to Lin Qingming. Once his brother said no, he definitely couldn't disagree.

"Little Daoist." The man in the beach shirt felt guilty and fearful as he bowed at Wu Zhongyuan again. Seeing that the fright was almost gone, Wu Zhongyuan spoke up, "Okay, don't be afraid. Exposed under the light once won't affect the master's feathering immortal ability. If the corpse is seen again, you can wait for the disaster for your children and grandchildren."

Hearing that the man in the beach shirt felt both happy and scared at the same time, "Don't worry, from now on, I will send someone to watch it every day."

"Aren't you afraid that others will be suspicious?" Wu Zhongyuan shook his head helplessly. 

"Then what should I do?" The man in the beach shirt was at a loss. 

"Okay, okay, you can do it." Wu Zhongyuan waved his hand impatiently. While the two were talking, Lin Qingming kept rummaging in the rubble. Almost everything that could be used at home was smashed, and nothing was left intact to pick out. The only gain was a bundle of books, a dozen different sizes of books. Lin Qingming walked out of the ruins and put the bundle of books beside Wu Zhongyuan, 

"I don't have time to read, and there is no place to put them in the mine, so you can take it." 

"Where did you get those?" Wu Zhongyuan asked as he patted the dust on the books. 

"It may have fallen from the ceiling." Lin Qingming said casually. After he patted off the dust on the top, then he saw the title on the thread-bound book, "Tao Te Ching". This bundle should have been the Taoist scriptures collected by the Master when he was alive.

"Brother, I'm a little tired, let's go." Wu Zhongyuan said. He was not tired but felt apathetic by excessive blood loss.

Lin Qingming nodded and walked towards the motorcycle while Wu Zhongyuan carried the bundle of scriptures and walked behind. "

Are you going now?" the leader asked as he also followed them. 

"Do you like to keep us for dinner?" Wu Zhongyuan was annoyed. 

"I'm afraid the two of you won't give me the chance." the man in the beach shirt sneered. 

"You're right." Wu Zhongyuan said while Lin Qingming started the motorcycle. As soon as he sat, the motorcycle went down the mountain and headed east. Watching the two go down the mountain, the leader turned back and shouted at the excavator, 

"Just scratch a piece of land, you don't need to dig deep, hurry up and leave soon, otherwise you'll have bad luck for eight lifetimes." 

Not long after the motorcycle left the village road and went to the town road, Wu Zhongyuan asked, 

"Brother, what do you think that thing is in the coffin? What does it have to do with our master?" 

"If our Master didn't tell us about it before his death, then he just doesn't want us to know. So don't ask more questions." Lin Qingming reminded his brother. But Wu Zhongyuan couldn't hold back his curiosity, so he kept asking his doubts, "Did you notice that the man was buried naked? If he was wearing clothes, there would be traces of clothes."

"What did you take from the coffin?" Lin Qingming asked without answering. Wu Zhongyuan took out the piece of the white object from his pocket and carefully examined it.

It was in the shape of a flat circle, though the shape was not definite, and the surface was very smooth. 

"A small pebble or maybe jade." Wu Zhongyuan said as he handed it to Lin Qingming. Lin Qingming didn't have any interest to probe, so he rode his motorcycle without squinting,

"Don't take dead people's things in the future." 

"Oh." Wu Zhongyuan replied. When they arrived in the town, Lin Qingming went to a health center and properly treated Wu Zhongyuan's wound. The wound was deep and long, and it needed stitches, but when he thought about shaving his head to stitch the wound, he refused, thinking that it would make him look ugly.

After a simple meal in the town, Lin Qingming rode the borrowed motorcycle back to the mine, and Wu Zhongyuan took the pile of old books and got on the bus back to the county town. Not long after getting on the bus, Wu Zhongyuan fell asleep in a daze. When he woke up, he was surprised to find that he was no longer on the bus, but was lying on a hospital bed. The ward is very big, and there is only one bed for him. There are a dozen or so doctors and nurses standing around the bed in a circle, all of them are quite old.

"Why am I here?" Wu Zhongyuan sat up suspiciously. "You are infusion, don't move," an old nurse with two bars on her hat stepped forward and said, "You fainted on the bus and the driver brought you to the hospital." "Oh." Wu Zhongyuan nodded. , After nodding, he found that everyone was looking at him with strange eyes, 

"Why are you looking at me like that?" No one answered. Wu Zhongyuan was a little nervous under the strange gazes of everyone. If it was just a simple wound, it would be impossible for so many doctors to come. "Did I have something bad?" 

"No," a tall and thin old doctor walked toward  Wu Zhongyuan's bedside, "Young man, let me ask you something."

"What?" Wu Zhongyuan became more and more nervous because he could see that the old doctor was very excited even though he spoke very kindly.