Chapter 24: Is This Your Reason For Scaring People At Night?
Even though more than two weeks had passed, the memories of going to Lu King’s Palace would still come to him whenever Wu Xie had some free time. He would often unconsciously think about those questions without answers, such as who Zhang Qiling really was? A person who hadn’t changed after twenty years, or a code name? Who was Lin Yan? Why did he appear almost inexplicably, and then get taken away by Zhang Qiling without any sign? Was there really any connection between Lu King’s Palace and the bronze fish from Xisha? Why did Wu Sansheng say the appearance of the bronze fish was a coincidence? And so on and so forth, too many doubts.
And he couldn’t get answers to most of these questions by himself. The only Third Uncle who might know some clues had already gone to Xisha to seek answers, and there was no news coming back for the time being. And now, an opportunity that might know the answers was right in front of him.
Lin Yan, this youth who mysteriously appeared and disappeared, and now reappeared in a strange way. When he appeared, it seemed like he knew everyone in the team, even the most mysterious Zhang Qiling, but everyone knew nothing about him. At certain key moments, he seemed to know the inside story, but he himself seemed to have no means to save his life, and his skills weren’t even as good as Wu Xie’s own.
Wu Xie had a hunch that if he could know the secrets on Lin Yan, it might unravel all the problems since Lu King’s Palace. But now Lin Yan hadn’t woken up yet.
He didn’t know what state Lin Yan was in now, and didn’t dare to move him casually. After just checking his breath and heartbeat, he stopped paying attention to him and turned to look inside the coffin.
Zhang Qiling must have gone to great lengths to stuff Lin Yan into the coffin and send it over for a reason. On one hand, Lin Yan himself definitely had some issue or need, and on the other hand, it was definitely on him. Zhang Qiling was probably using Lin Yan to pass some message to him; otherwise, he could have just sent the coffin to Wu Sansheng or someone else Zhang Qiling knew, instead of to him, a novice tomb raider who only had an antique shop that was losing money and nothing else.
He observed inch by inch along the inside of the coffin, carefully touching with his right hand, afraid that there might be some mechanism that his eyes couldn’t see. But after half an hour, except for the part under Lin Yan, he had touched every other part, even the coffin lid, and discovered nothing.
Not in the coffin, could it be on Lin Yan?
Wu Xie turned to search Lin Yan’s body. The clothes Lin Yan was wearing when sent over were no longer that dusty and bloodstained outfit, but a black garment similar to Han Dynasty attire. It was clear that the quality of the clothes was top-notch; the surface looked like plain black, but upon close observation, one could see the dark patterns embroidered on it.
He didn’t know much about clothing, but he knew that if it was custom-made, this outfit would cost four figures at least, and if it was made by a master, even add another zero. No… He leaned in to sniff it; this clothing might not be modern either. He had been misled by the coffin’s aura earlier; he didn’t expect this clothing to be an antique too. Though not extremely ancient and well-preserved, it was at least twenty years old.
Twenty years… That connected! He didn’t know if he was overthinking it, but the twenty-year mark was too special. Lin Yan might be related to Xisha too! Thinking of this, he apologetically said to the sleeping Lin Yan, “Sorry about this, I’ll just check if there’s anything else,” and reached into the sleeves and inner pockets of the clothes to search.
Sure enough, there was a note in the right sleeve pocket, written with “Take him down with you”; in the left sleeve pocket, he found a bag containing two beads and a note—The beads he estimated were some special quality jade, quail egg-sized, possibly from around the Han Dynasty, with faint blood patterns on the surface that looked really ominous. The note was written in the same font: “One per week, make him swallow it.”
After reading the note, he recalled the last time Zhang Qiling stuffed the bead from the key into Lin Yan’s mouth, and his doubts about Lin Yan grew more. Lin Yan’s blood might be quite special; this could be guessed from the blood corpse and Zhang Qiling both needing his blood. So where exactly was his blood special, and why? Looking at these beads, he felt they were related.
He finished searching the sleeve pockets; what about the inner pocket? He reached in to feel around and touched another piece of paper.
This time it wasn’t a note, but a check. The amount written on the check was actually—Wu Xie widened his eyes and tremblingly reached out to count again: “Tens, hundreds, thousands, ten thousands—fifty thousand!” Though he had handled money of this amount before, doing business and seeing this price on a check were completely different experiences! If this money could count as income for his shop, then at least for the next half year, even a year, the shop wouldn’t be considered a loss.
Forgive him for not having done business for too long, but after Wu Xie got excited for a moment, he calmed down. Zhang Qiling wouldn’t send him money for no reason; there must be some purpose for it, right? But there was no related word on the check; where else could he look?
He observed again and suddenly remembered something. The sleeve pockets were divided into left and right; how could the inner pocket have only one? He had been misled by those costume dramas; everyone reaches in with their right hand to take things out, so he hadn’t thought of the left side too!
He felt around again, and sure enough, there was another note in his hand.
“Pearl containment fee.”
What did this mean? Those two beads… were containment pearls? No wonder they had blood patterns! He wrapped the two beads in white cloth to examine closely; the blood patterns on them didn’t seem inherent, but rather seeped in! Containment pearls seeped with blood; once taken out of the corpse, it would immediately transform, and into a very fierce zombie! Normally, such corpses were at least a thousand years old; he didn’t expect to see two here!
Zhang Qiling wouldn’t have robbed a very ominous tomb and taken the containment pearls from someone’s zombie, right? Thinking of this, he shivered, and when he touched his forehead, it was all cold sweat. Thinking this way, Zhang Qiling was even fiercer than a zombie; he didn’t know which zombie was so unlucky to run into him.
However, these containment pearls seemed to be for Lin Yan to eat? Recalling how Zhang Qiling directly stuffed the bead into his mouth last time, saying something about preventing “malnutrition”… Wu Xie couldn’t help but look at the currently seemingly oblivious Lin Yan with sympathetic eyes. Swallowing something that a dead person had kept in their mouth—ugh! Just thinking about it… was stimulating!
But seeing Zhang Qiling’s demeanor, he didn’t seem malicious toward Lin Yan; maybe these containment pearls were really useful for him. Including putting him in the coffin and this outfit of his, they all should have special meanings; he just didn’t know them now. These could probably only be asked when Lin Yan woke up. Speaking of which, he was actually a bit looking forward to Lin Yan waking up and seeing himself lying in a coffin, then being told he had to swallow one containment pearl per week—his expression would surely be quite wonderful! Indeed, the essence of humans is schadenfreude!
However, leaving the coffin in the shop still wasn’t safe.
Wu Xie thought for a moment, first closed the coffin lid, called Wang Meng over, and had him directly carry the coffin to the adjacent room where he lived. Though putting a coffin in the guest room was indeed a bit strange, seeing Wang Meng’s expression of “Boss, you’re an antique shop owner but your hobby is too weird,” he couldn’t say anything; he couldn’t very well say: My friend was shipped over in a coffin, I think it’s not safe in the shop so let’s take it home to watch, that would be too eerie!
After sending Wang Meng away, Wu Xie opened the coffin lid again to check. Lin Yan was still the same, lying there quietly and peacefully; even the bumps and noise from moving hadn’t woken him. Wu Xie was starting to suspect if he would ever wake up, but he shook that thought out of his mind in a second. He still hoped Lin Yan could wake up soon, because there were too many questions in his mind, and perhaps Lin Yan could answer them.
But he didn’t expect Lin Yan to wake up so quickly and so eerily.
After Wu Xie went to bed, because there was now a coffin next door, he unusually left his door open, afraid he wouldn’t hear if Lin Yan got up. Unexpectedly, in the latter half of the night, in a daze, he seemed to hear some strange sound. He wanted to continue sleeping, but turned over and felt something was wrong. What if it was a thief who broke into his house and saw the coffin next door? Thinking of the coffin and Lin Yan, he instantly woke up, casually grabbed a piece of clothing to put on, and went out.
It was quiet outside, only the eerie sound he heard before was still continuing. Why did this sound like the sound of eating?
Wu Xie’s expression was strange as he followed the sound to the fridge. The fridge door was closed, but in the darkness, he could see a person squatting there with their back against the fridge; the sound was coming from there.
He quietly turned on the light.
The lights blazed on, and that person turned their head in shock. He saw Lin Yan holding a red thing in his hands, with a trail of red liquid flowing from the corner of his mouth.
“Ah! Dead person!!!”
“Holy shit, Wu Xie!”
