Chapter 21.2 The Banquet of Death
Because of the bad weather, it got dark very quickly. It was only three or four o’clock, and the sky was already completely dark. Lin Banxia dozed for a while in the bedroom. When he woke up, he could not see Song Qingluo. He asked He Huaian, who said that Song Qingluo had just gone out and had not come back yet.
“He went out alone? Isn’t that unsafe?” Lin Banxia was a little uneasy, feeling that this village was very evil, not only the place, but also the people in the village.
“It’s okay.” He Huaian was relieved and said, “Mr. Song is not an ordinary person, so nothing will happen to him.”
Lin Banxia had no choice but to nod and change the subject: “What are you doing?” When he came out, he saw He Huaian walking around the room with a sad look on his face.
He Huaian said anxiously: “There is no signal on the phone. I want to send a message to the outside world…”
Lin Banxia said: “There was still signal when we first came here, why is it gone now?”
“I don’t know.” He Huaian said, “The signal is intermittent. I just saw that the signal was a little better, and I was still happy. Who knew it would suddenly stop working again.”
“Oh…” Lin Banxia looked at his mobile phone, but there was no signal. He said, “Where is Mou Xinsi, why didn’t I see her?”
“Her? She’s in the yard.” He Huaian said.
Lin Banxia went to the yard and saw Mou Xinsi standing in the corner of the yard. Her face was pale, and her eyes looked at Lin Banxia full of complicated emotions.
Lin Banxia saw this and asked her curiously what was wrong.
“Did you…hear any strange sounds?” Mou Xinsi whispered.
“What sound?” Lin Banxia looked confused.
“Shh, shh…” Mou Xin thought, “please keep your voice down and listen carefully…”
Lin Banxia paused and listened carefully but heard nothing. Mou Xinsi still looked confused when she saw that he heard nothing and became anxious: “Why can’t you hear it?! It’s coming from there.” She pointed with her hand to the several coffins placed in the corner.
Lin Banxia was stunned and said: “You mean the coffins are making a sound?”
Mou Xinsi nodded heavily, her expression a little nervous: “Listen carefully, the people inside are knocking with their hands.”
Lin Banxia glanced at Mou Xinsi, then at the coffins, turned around and walked to a coffin, saying, “This one?”
Mou Xinsi shook her head: “The innermost one.”
Lin Banxia walked a few more steps inside. The wood of the coffin was quite good, and it was coated with thick black paint. However, due to the rain, there were some wet stains on it. He didn’t know whether the water had soaked into the coffin.
Lin Banxia slowly lowered his head and put his ear against the wet coffin. Amidst the silence, he could just smell the pungent scent of paint.
There was no sound. Lin Banxia raised his head and said, “No sound…”
Before he finished speaking, he heard a slight thump. The sound was so harsh in the quiet courtyard that Lin Banxia couldn’t ignore it even if he wanted to. The source of the sound was the coffin beside him.
“Did you hear it? Did you hear it?!” Mou Xinsi saw the change in Lin Banxia’s face and knew that he must have heard it too. She almost jumped from the ground with joy, “I didn’t hallucinate, I really heard it!”
“Dong, dong, dong…” Three more soft sounds came continuously from the coffin. Lin Banxia’s expression gradually became serious, and he turned and walked towards the house.
Mou Xinsi asked him where he was going.
“I’ll call He Huaian.” Lin Banxia said. “We’ll open the coffin and take a look.”
“It can’t be opened.” Mou Xinsi said in horror, “Aren’t you afraid that after you open it, you will see something you shouldn’t see?”
Lin Banxia asked strangely: “Is there something that I shouldn’t look at?”
Mou Xinsi was anxious and wanted to stop Lin Banxia: “Why do you have no common sense at all? Even the supervisor’s inspiration value is limited. If you see something you shouldn’t see or hear something you shouldn’t hear, you will go crazy.!!”
Lin Banxia indeed had no common sense. He was just brought to work by Song Qingluo, so when he heard Mou Xinsi’s accusation, he just asked strangely: “If you don’t open it, how do you know what’s inside? What if it’s related to the secrets of the village, so wouldn’t’t it be in vain?”
Mou Xinsi was speechless.
“Are you okay?” Lin Banxia frowned.
Mou Xinsi stood there and stopped talking. After a while, she said in a low voice: “Go ahead, I’m not a qualified recorder.”
Lin Banxia entered the house, told He Huaian about the matter, and asked him to come out with him to open the coffin and see what was going on inside.
After hearing Lin Banxia’s description, He Huaian was slightly stunned and said, “Did you hear that right? Was it really a noise from inside the coffin?”
Lin Banxia said: “Yes, I’m sure I heard it.”
He Huaian was much calmer than Mou Xinsi. He stood up and said, “Let’s go and have a look together.” The two returned to the yard.
He Huaian put his face against the coffin like Lin Banxia did just now, listened carefully for a moment, and the expression on his face changed: “It’s really… yes.”
Lin Banxia saw that his expression looked wrong and joked: “Why are you so scared? Is it possible that the dead can come back to life?” He said it casually as a joke, but He Huaian and Mou Xinsi changed their expressions after hearing his words. Their expressions became ugly at the same time.
He Huaian reluctantly raised the corner of his mouth and said: “Mr. Lin, this is your first time on a mission, so you might not know very well. We have indeed encountered this kind of thing.” He stretched out his hand to wipe the cold sweat on the tip of his nose and tried his best. Calmly explaining the situation to Lin Banxia, ”The resurrection of the dead is not uncommon in our industry, but…every time I see it, I don’t feel comfortable.”
Lin Banxia then remembered what happened to Cheng Yuliu. It seemed that this was indeed the case. It was normal for ordinary people to feel uncomfortable in that kind of scene.
“Are you still opening it? Or do you want to wait until Song Qingluo comes back?” Lin Banxia asked considerately when he saw that He Huaian’s expression was not looking good.
“No, no, no, let’s open it now.” He Huaian said, “I don’t know when Mr. Song will come back.”
As he spoke, he grabbed a corner of the coffin lid with his hand and gave Lin Banxia a look. Lin Banxia understood and grabbed the other side. Then he and He Huaian used force at the same time to lift the heavy coffin lid. The moment the lid was opened, an unpleasant smell of decay was released. Lin Banxia looked over and saw a silent corpse without any surprise. Perhaps because of the rain, there was actually water accumulated in the coffin. There was a lot of water, and the body was already swollen from being soaked in it.
He Huaian took one look, then turned his head with difficulty, his throat constantly gulping, trying to suppress the desire to vomit.
Lin Banxia looked calm, and searched the coffin carefully, and soon found the reason for the abnormal noise in the coffin. In the corner of the coffin, there was a small green frog, staring at them with dark eyes. Its little cheeks expanded with each ribbit, and it would jump upward from time to time.
“It’s not a human, it’s a frog.” Lin Banxia said.
He Huaian said: “Frog? Why is there a frog in the coffin…”
Lin Banxia said: “Maybe it was a rainy day and it accidentally fell in.” As he said this, he took the frog out of the coffin, bent down, and put it on the soil, watching it jump and disappear from in front of him. Lin Banxia was about to straighten up when he saw some strange marks on the lid of the coffin lying next to him. He was slightly startled and thought he had seen it wrong. However, when he squatted down and inspected it carefully, he realized that he saw right.
The top of the coffin lid was covered with dense scratch marks, accompanied by dark red blood stains, which looked particularly obvious.
The wood was very hard, and it required extreme force to leave traces on it with human nails. Lin Banxia stood up silently and looked at the decayed corpse in the coffin again. Although the corpse’s fingers were white and swollen from the rain, obvious scars could still be seen. Almost all of the corpse’s nails were chipped. Just by looking at it, one could imagine his despair.
“How is this possible…?” Lin Banxia murmured, “The coffin has not been nailed yet, so why couldn’t he push it open?”
He Huaian understood something when he heard Lin Banxia’s words. He took a step back and whispered: “Is there something wrong with the villagers here?”
Lin Banxia was silent for a moment, before he shook his head, indicating that he didn’t know.
The atmosphere froze for a moment. Just as Lin Banxia was thinking, the village chief’s voice came from behind. He roared angrily in dialect. Obviously, he was extremely dissatisfied with Lin Banxia and his friends’ behavior of opening the coffin. He waved his hand. His fists were about to come up and hit people.
He Huaian quickly explained: “Village Chief, don’t be angry yet. We opened the coffin because we heard some movement in it.”
“Is there movement in the coffin?! How can there be movement in the coffin?!” the village chief roared, “Why do you strangers desecrate the dead like this?! He is already dead, why don’t you let them lie in peace?”
Lin Banxia hurriedly said: “Village chief, we found something in the coffin.”
The village chief said coldly: “What?”
Lin Banxia said: “When he was put into the coffin, he was not dead yet.”
The village chief was stunned.
“Look.” Lin Banxia pointed to the extremely obvious scratches on the coffin lid, “Look, these scratches were left by him.”
The village chief looked at where Lin Banxia was pointing, and his eyes immediately changed. His chest heaved violently, and he said hoarsely: “How could this happen? How could this happen?!”
Lin Banxia and He Huaian looked at each other, and he said: “Would you like to open the other coffins and check them too?”
The village chief’s face was ashen and he didn’t speak for a long time.
However, He Huaian took the initiative and said, “Open it and take a look, just for peace of mind.”
Seeing that the village chief did not stop them, the two took action.
Lin Banxia and He Huaian slowly opened several other coffins. Every time they opened one, the village chief’s face turned whiter. In the end, he turned as pale as a corpse. The coffins placed in his courtyard each had lids covered with dense scratches. Obviously, these three people were alive when they were put into the coffin. They lay in the coffin, scratching helplessly at the lid above their heads, but they couldn’t push it away no matter what. They couldn’t open it… just like that, they died in fear and despair.
The village chief’s legs went weak, and he fell in the yard, splashing dirty muddy water all over himself. Lin Banxia saw this and hurriedly helped him up. He also glanced at He Huaian and motioned for him to close the coffin lids.
“Village chief, what’s going on?” Looking at the village chief’s reaction, he seemed to be unaware of the incident, Lin Banxia asked.
“I don’t know, I don’t know. These people were indeed dead.” The village chief said in a trembling voice, “Without breathing and heartbeat, isn’t that just a dead person?”
Lin Banxia carefully helped him into the house and said, “Can you tell me carefully?”
The village chief’s face was covered with sweat. He said: “This family were my relatives. People die often in the village, and everyone is used to it. A few days ago, a man died violently in the field, and the funeral had just been held. However, something happened to a few other people.” His voice trembled violently, “They died very strangely. They were fine on the first day, but the whole family was dead on the second day. When others found out, their bodies were all cold. There are not enough coffins in this village, so I took it upon myself to take a few of them out of the coffins, hoping to find a better day to carry them and bury them.”
Lin Banxia said: “So that’s it…what’s abnormal about the coffins?”
“No.” The village chief said, “Originally, the coffins were placed at Mr. He’s house, but there were too many people, and we couldn’t put it there, so we decided to make do with it in my yard for a few days.” In a daze he said, “How could this happen? How could this happen…?”
Lin Banxia said: “Have you ever checked why they died?”
The village chief shook his head and said with a wry smile: “The causes of death in the village are so strange that it is difficult to find the reasons for them all, but there were no external injuries on their bodies…”
Lin Banxia fell into deep thought.
On the other end, He Huaian put the lid of the coffin back on and came back covered in sweat. Mou Xinsi followed him, a little distracted. He Huaian saw that her expression was not good and asked her if she felt uncomfortable.
“It’s a bit cold, I think I have a cold.” Mou Xinsi sneezed and rubbed her nose, “It rained a little on the first day here…”
He Huaian still cared about her very much and said, “Then I’ll make some medicine for you.”
“Okay, please excuse me.” She sat beside him listlessly.
The village chief was still stuck in grief. Lin Banxia comforted him in a low voice, saying that these things were just coincidences and that he could not be blamed.
“Coincidences, there are not so many coincidences.” The village chief said numbly, “It’s just because our village is cursed.”
“But there must be a reason for being cursed, right?” Lin Banxia said, “Don’t you have any guesses?”
The village chief shook his head and said nothing.
He Huaian prepared medicine for Mou Xinsi and asked her to drink it and go to bed. Mou Xinsi drank the medicine and said she was a little cold and wanted to take a hot bath.
“Go ahead and call me if you need anything.” He Huaian was a little worried about his new partner.
Mou Xinsi nodded.
Although the toilets in the village were a bit crude, they still had water heaters, but they needed to be heated for a while. Mou Xinsi waited for the water to boil, took a change of clothes, and entered the shower room. She turned on the water heater and let the hot water pour on her face.
The hot temperature drove away the chill in her body, causing her to sigh comfortably. She lowered her head and let the hot water wash over her head. Suddenly she felt itching on the top of her head. She was slightly startled and reached out to scratch the top of her head. Then she felt that she had caught something. Mou Xinsi took a closer look and found that strands of black hair appeared between her fingers, slowly falling to the slippery ground along the flowing water.
The moment she saw the hair, Mou Xinsi felt a chill in her heart. If an ordinary person saw the hair, their first reaction might be to worry about whether they were sick, but Mou Xinsi couldn’t deceive herself like this, because before she came she dyed her black hair a bright yellow…
So, where did all this black hair come from? Mou Xinsi’s neck stiffened. She slowly raised her head and saw the dilapidated ceiling above her head. From the ceiling, strands of black hair hung like spider webs, falling on her face and body…
The author has something to say:
Lin Banxia: In the one hour that Song Qingluo was away, we successfully removed the coffin lid in someone’s home.
Song Qingluo: …just take it easy.
Translator’s comments:
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