Chapter 6: The Eerie Buddha And The Strange Corpse
Jiang Ce re-entered his Shamatha meditative state.
Soon, he saw that lump of stuff again.
As for why he used “lump” to describe it, it was because that thing was fundamentally very hard to define as exactly what it was.
Originally, Jiang Ce thought he would really visualize Buddha or Bodhisattva, but unexpectedly, it was something indescribable that he didn’t even know if it could be considered a living being.
It was soaking in a greenish lake, its entire body emanating a mysterious aura.
The part exposed above the water was about the size of a mountain, covered in slime that kept dripping into the lake.
It was like a giant meatball formed from countless tumors gathered together, with irregular and bizarre protrusions covered in tentacles of varying lengths wriggling about.
Just one glance at it made one feel subjected to enormous mental pollution.
The tentacles occasionally extended to other places, faintly revealing the large mouths hidden within the protrusions.
As they opened and closed, the air was corroded, distorting and rippling.
Jiang Ce’s consciousness watched it from afar, with only one thought in his mind: “You’re telling me this thing is Buddha?”
And just as this thought stirred slightly, it was as if the monster noticed it and turned toward Jiang Ce.
Although it had no eyes, Jiang Ce felt that this guy was clearly looking at him.
And the next moment, an inexplicable palpitation arose in Jiang Ce’s heart.
It was as if… that was his family member, or a friend with some special bond.
He wanted to get closer, very much wanted to get closer to it.
The monster’s image kept enlarging in Jiang Ce’s eyes, the monster wriggling toward him, just as he approached the monster.
The monster extended its thinnest tentacle, reaching toward Jiang Ce.
Jiang Ce also reached out his hand, wanting to touch it…
“Ding-ling-ling—”
Jiang Ce suddenly jolted awake, panting heavily, unable to free himself from that strange state for a long time.
The phone rang, but Jiang Ce had no time to answer; he nervously flipped through the Buddhist scripture in front of him back and forth, but couldn’t find any description of this situation at all.
The Buddhist scripture’s description of visualization was just this short sentence: All Buddhas and Bodhisattvas remain majestically still, while the observer views them from afar, comprehending their form, comprehending their intent, and thus gaining insight naturally.
Never mind that thing having nothing to do with all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, this was practically in his face and still “majestically still”?
The phone kept ringing nonstop, and for some reason, Jiang Ce’s perception had become much sharper; the phone’s ringtone amplified endlessly in his mind, irritating him to no end, making him want to smash the mobile phone, and he couldn’t help but roar: “Stop making noise!”
The next instant, the phone actually exploded in place with a loud bang.
Jiang Ce was stunned; he wasn’t sure if the mobile phone had exploded on its own or because of him.
He slowly turned his head to look at the alarm clock placed nearby.
“Don’t… don’t make noise.”
The alarm clock remained intact.
Jiang Ce breathed a sigh of relief, feeling a faint disappointment amid the relief: “I told you so…”
But for some reason, after hesitating for a moment, he inexplicably imagined the alarm clock as his most hated colleague, gritted his teeth with malice, and shouted: “Die!”
Then, the alarm clock disintegrated right before Jiang Ce’s wide-eyed stare, its gears and parts scattering all over the floor.
He jerked his head to look at the open Buddhist scripture in front of him and swallowed hard.
“Oh no… bro’s become an evil cultivator.”
After being dazed for a long time, he suddenly remembered something and hurriedly checked the exploded mobile phone.
Fortunately, the SIM card was just blown out of its slot and wasn’t damaged.
He dug out an old mobile phone and tentatively inserted the SIM card into it.
Luckily, it still worked.
He breathed a sigh of relief and called back the person who had just phoned him.
That was Jiang Ce’s direct leader, the funeral home’s funeral director, Chen Mian.
“Uncle Chen, what’s up?”
“What’s up? Why didn’t you pick up for so long, and it was just off?”
“This… hard to explain, actually my mobile phone just exploded.”
“Can you come up with an even more ridiculous excuse? Whatever, I didn’t call you about that. I watched the video you sent me, and I’ve told the leader; he said he got a call from the family too, saying it’s a misunderstanding. You can come back to work.”
Jiang Ce was slightly surprised; he hadn’t expected the other party to call first to clear his name.
But he didn’t think it was because the other had a sudden change of heart; he just thought they were afraid he’d bring his mom again—calling parents is scary, and even scarier if the deceased parent is called, which is worse.
But since the other side had relented, Jiang Ce didn’t bother dwelling on it; he hadn’t really wanted to harm them anyway, as that didn’t align with his core values.
Jiang Ce thought Chen Mian had called just for that, but unexpectedly, Chen Mian had other more important things to say.
“Then I’ll go first thing tomorrow morning, Uncle Chen. You rest early.”
“Who said tomorrow? Come now, it’s topped the melon.”
“Topped the melon?” Jiang Ce’s expression turned serious.
“Topped the melon” was Jianghu slang, meaning something frightening; the funeral home, being a place for the dead, inevitably had some incomprehensible events for ordinary people, which were called “topped the melon” in the funeral home.
And for Chen Mian to be this serious, even calling in Jiang Ce this temporary worker for help, it must be extremely serious.
Otherwise, with Jiang Ce’s status, he’d probably only learn about it the next day or after the matter was resolved.
After hanging up, he packed away his Great Shamatha, tidied the floor haphazardly, grabbed a shoulder bag with the wooden fish inside, and headed out to the funeral home.
Jiang Ce lived not far from the funeral home, and with the suburbs making it hard to get a cab at night, he simply chose to walk.
Along the way, Jiang Ce wasn’t idle; unable to afford a house in the city, he lived in the suburbs where the environment wasn’t great, with rats foraging in the sewers everywhere, so he used these rats for experiments.
But from the experiments, Jiang Ce found that the previous trick of “glaring makes pregnant” didn’t work on living things; besides startling the rats into fleeing, it seemed to have no strong lethality.
But it could easily destroy any small inanimate objects.
This matched the book’s description: a Jianghu sorcerer’s sorcery could cause certain damage, but its lethality wasn’t high.
Of course, this was also because Jiang Ce hadn’t learned specialized sorcery; right now, he was like a child with immense power but no idea how to use it, coming off as clumsy.
“This counts as a Jianghu sorcerer, huh? Though it feels kinda different from what I imagined…”
Jiang Ce realized he had probably reached this stage, but he wasn’t sure of his exact level, with no suitable benchmark for comparison; the book described it very abstractly and roughly, so he could only grope his way forward by feel.
Like a brat who just learned to strike matches and wants to light everything up, Jiang Ce fiddled all the way to the funeral home—no exaggeration, every dog passing by on the road got glared at by him.
Entering the funeral home, he went straight to the morgue and saw Chen Mian and another person.
Chen Mian was in his fifties, wearing glasses, with a scholarly air, kind-eyed and benevolent, his clothes and pants wrinkle-free, clearly a refined and meticulous person.
The other person was Fang Yihang, about the same age as Jiang Ce, but unlike his own outgoing optimism, Fang Yihang seemed very gloomy overall, taciturn and unsociable; seeing Jiang Ce arrive, he showed no intention of greeting him, as if Jiang Ce’s arrival was something he hated.
Seeing his sour face, Jiang Ce had no desire to greet him either; as fellow temporary workers, he didn’t know where he’d offended him, but they’d been at odds since day one.
Especially after someone told Jiang Ce about Fang Yihang badmouthing him behind his back, Jiang Ce grew even more disgusted— if you can’t say it to his face, you’re just spineless; that day, Jiang Ce publicly tore into Fang Yihang from personality to family in front of everyone.
That incident blew up big time, spreading throughout the entire funeral home.
Anyway, after that, Jiang Ce and Fang Yihang never appeared at the funeral home together again—one on day shift, one on night shift—and hadn’t seen each other since; by the calendar, it’d been over a month like this.
Chen Mian knew about their grudge, but with manpower short, he had no choice but to call both.
To ease the atmosphere, Chen Mian unusually cracked a joke: “Little Jiang, in that video you sent me, that little boy was crying and calling for grandma—don’t tell me, to prove yourself, you actually summoned his grandma?”
Jiang Ce felt a bit awkward, wanting to laugh but not daring, and shook his head: “No way, do I have that capability? Maybe the kid realized his mistake and repented. Didn’t you see that Wang guy shamefacedly hide in the toilet?”
“That’s for the best.”
After practicing Great Shamatha, Jiang Ce’s perception had sharpened a lot—not just his senses, but he could even catch traces of people’s emotions—and he clearly felt Fang Yihang grow even gloomier upon hearing this.
But before he could think further, Chen Mian began explaining this incident, dropping a bombshell right away.
“This evening, we received a very strange corpse. I’m afraid… we’ll need to perform Buddhist rituals.”
