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墨書 Inktalez
Living Funeral
“What happened?” I asked immediately.
Zhao Fan said, “The second time I went to his house, I found a lot of wild cats there, and they were gnawing on his body. But the scariest part wasn’t that; it was that my brother was still alive, watching a group of wild cats eat him without even making a sound.”
Damn, just hearing that sent chills down my spine. It was really terrifying!
Gao Ling chimed in, “Is your brother still alive now?” Zhao Fan replied, “He’s still alive, but he’s in the hospital now, completely out of it. Do you know what our reaction was when we walked in and saw a room full of wild cats?”
I asked, “What was your reaction?”
Zhao Fan said, “It was like my scalp was tingling, and my heart felt like it was going to jump out. I was scared to death.”
However, it seemed like we hadn’t gotten to the main point yet. I directly asked, “So what do you need help with?”
Zhao Fan hesitated for a moment and said, “They just want to invite Brother Fei to help us retrieve the body.”
I looked at Zhao Fan and thought to myself that this guy would do anything for money! Since the river was already so eerie, he still wanted to fish out a body for cash. His brother had already gone mad. Thinking about this made me reevaluate Zhao Fan.
Zhao Fan gave a bitter smile and said, “Life forces me into this; I have no choice. Besides, I’ve already promised the deceased’s parents. They are devastated right now. If we can’t even find the body, it would truly be a tragedy.”
Listening to Zhao Fan’s words made sense to me. Indeed, the pain of losing a child is enough to make anyone heartbroken; if they couldn’t even find the body, wouldn’t that be a real-life tragedy?
Zhao Fan was still waiting for my response. Seeing me silent, he said, “Brother Fei, as long as you’re willing to help, I’ll give you all the reward for retrieving the body.”
I wasn’t the kind of cold-hearted person who could ignore such a plea. Since things had come to this point, I agreed.
Gao Ling said, “It does sound tragic! Count me in for this one.”
I nodded and then asked Zhao Fan, “Do you know what your brother saw in the river? Have you encountered anything eerie since then?”
Zhao Fan thought for a moment and shook his head, then said, "The eeriest thing is probably that swimming corpse-eating Black Cat." At this point, Zhao Fan suddenly fell silent, then continued, "A cat, yes, a cat. Isn't there a Cat Demon in your river?"
"Cat Demon?" Gao Ling asked, puzzled.
Zhao Fan replied, "Exactly! Think about it. We encountered a cat in the river, and my brother has a whole house full of cats. Don't you think that's suspicious? Could there really be a Cat Demon?"
At that moment, Zhao Fan's expression changed. "If Brother Fei hadn't brought this up just now, I wouldn't have connected the dots."
Gao Ling said, "That's just you being foolish!"
Zhao Fan didn't argue with Gao Ling this time; instead, he exclaimed as if he had discovered something monumental, "It must be related to the cat!"
Meanwhile, I was also pondering the situation. I thought about how Zhao Fan's brother had fed his own eyeball to the cat, and then I had consumed what seemed to be the cat's vomit containing an eyeball. The thought struck me—Damn it! Did I just eat Zhao Fan's brother's eyeball?
Images flooded my mind, and I couldn't help but gag.
But I reassured myself that it couldn't be that coincidental! I tried to dispel those thoughts from my mind.
However, the Yin Cat was already dead. The Taoist had warned me before that I must not kill the Yin Cat and that I needed to release it. I had failed to do both.
Now with Zhao Fan mentioning so many eerie occurrences, my sense of unease grew stronger.
At that moment, the villager who killed the Yin Cat was still joking around with others, casually smoking a cigarette and looking perfectly normal!
By around eight in the morning, the villagers went to work.
Zhao Fan turned to me and said, "Let's go check out the river."
I agreed. At this point, I felt much better; the pain in my neck had diminished significantly. The Taoist was right—Yin Cats could indeed break Yin Curses.
But now with this new complication arising, it seemed I'd have to wait until nightfall to ask the Taoist what to do next.
We quickly boarded the boat and set off. Zhao Fan said to me, "Every year, many people die in this river. I've pulled quite a few bodies out over the years, but this is the first time I've encountered something so strange."
I couldn't help but ask Zhao Fan, "Do you take on any business related to dead people? From coffins to cremation, funerals, and so on—are you involved in all of it?"
Zhao Fan seemed a bit embarrassed after hearing my question. "Yeah! It's not easy to make money these days. Who would pass up a profitable business opportunity?"
Suddenly, I recalled the time when Zhao Fan had dug up a coffin containing a corpse. It seemed that he was willing to go to great lengths to make money, but at least he still had some humanity left.
At that moment, Gao Ling turned to Zhao Fan and said, "Even if you're making money, there are some things you shouldn't profit from!"
Zhao Fan retorted, "What about you? Don't pretend you don't remember what happened that year!" Gao Ling shot him a glare, and Zhao Fan's words hung in the air without further elaboration.
I observed the unspoken understanding between the two of them but thought nothing of it.
In fact, after we entered the water, we found nothing—no bodies at all. Eventually, we returned to shore, and Zhao Fan suggested we go back down later that night.
I agreed. Once we were back in the grass hut, we prepared to have lunch while the villagers continued their work in the river.
By evening, the villagers still hadn't made any catches.
One villager remarked, "This is really eerie. In the past, we would pull up two or three bodies; now it's been seven or eight hours without finding anything. Do you think the fish have eaten them?"
Another villager replied, "What kind of fish could eat two bodies? There aren't any big fish in this river!"
Listening to them made me wonder if perhaps their bodies had already been devoured by cats.
Who could have been the last victim of Zhao Fan and Yin Cat?
Just as I was lost in thought, a villager approached me and asked, "Do you have a cigarette? Give me one." His Mandarin was still quite rough around the edges.
The person asking for a cigarette was the middle-aged man who had killed Yin Cat. He was trembling uncontrollably, his lips turning a shade of dark blue. Yet it was broad daylight and summer; the temperature must have been around thirty degrees Celsius. I was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and already felt hot.
I handed a cigarette to the middle-aged man and asked, "Are you okay?"
He took the cigarette, lit it, and replied, "I'm fine. I was just in the river for too long earlier. A bit of sun will do me good."
Hearing this from the middle-aged villager, I didn't think much of it. He turned to leave after taking a puff, but his steps seemed a bit unsteady.
Gao Ling called me for dinner, so I put it out of my mind. We had fish for lunch.
In the afternoon, the villagers went back to work in the river. As the hours passed, there was still no catch. We were positioned downstream, where normally any bodies would wash up.
However, this time it was eerily quiet; according to Zhao Fan, they had searched both upstream and downstream but found no trace at all!
That night, with the moon hanging in the sky, we finished dinner and prepared to head down to the river. Gao Ling suggested we bring some protective items along; otherwise, we might encounter something strange in the water without any means of defense.
I agreed with Gao Ling; it was better to be safe than sorry. Zhao Fan had no objections either.
Once we gathered our things, we stepped out of the grass hut. Everyone else was inside; we had planned to leave together. Just then, a sharp cat's cry echoed from within the hut. I immediately felt tense and scanned the interior for any sign of a cat, but there was none! Where could that sound have come from?
One thing was certain: that sound originated from inside the hut. The light inside was dim, and everyone looked somewhat fatigued as we faced each other. However, there was one person who had their back turned to us.
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