Chapter 38: Born of Corpse Oil, Never to Be Reborn

Brother Li’s eyes snapped open without the slightest warning.

At first glance, I thought I was seeing things.

But before I could look a second time, Brother Li suddenly sat bolt upright. The corpse-nailing spike was embedded halfway into his brow.

The sight shattered everything I thought I knew.

The old tomes recorded clearly that a corpse that had turned would not move during the day, remaining as still as any dead body. Yet here, in broad daylight, Brother Li’s corpse not only moved, but did so even with the spike already driven into his brow.

“Hurry!”

Xu Buhuo’s shout jolted me back to myself. Brother Li reached up, trying to pull the spike from his brow, but Xu Buhuo grabbed his arms from behind, holding him fast.

“Quick—drive the spike all the way in!”

Brother Li struggled with terrifying force. Xu Buhuo’s face flushed red, his eyes bulging with effort. As I reached out to help, Brother Li suddenly glared at me, his eyes wild and menacing.

That look nearly knocked me to the ground in terror.

When I couldn’t force the spike any further in, I raised my foot and kicked.

With a sharp thud, the spike drove fully into Brother Li’s skull, and thick, foul black blood oozed from the wound.

With the spike sunk deep into his brow, Brother Li’s struggles lessened, though he didn’t simply become a lifeless corpse.

“Hold him down!”

At this point, I could no longer worry about whether what we were doing was disrespectful. I pressed my foot against his throat, pinning him to the ground while Xu Buhuo grabbed another corpse-nailing spike and drove it into Brother Li’s left shoulder.

But then, something dreadful and inexplicable happened: the spike in Brother Li’s brow, already hammered deep, began to slide out, as if some force inside was pushing it back. Bit by bit, the spike edged outward.

“Hold it down! Don’t let it come out!”

Xu Buhuo restrained Brother Li, while I quickly stepped on the spike at his brow, forcing the third that had emerged back in. Even with my weight pressing down, the spike continued to push outward, as if a finger from within was stabbing at my sole.

When Xu Buhuo drove a spike into Brother Li’s left shoulder, I grew desperate: the spike at his brow was resisting so strongly that even my full weight couldn’t keep it down.

A spike pushed into a corpse, yet now it seemed to possess some unfathomable power, steadily lifting my foot.

“Hold it! The last one!”

Xu Buhuo was anxious too. He gripped the final spike and slammed it into Brother Li’s right shoulder, then used his palm as a hammer to drive it in deep.

With the two spikes sealing his shoulders—blocking the Earth Gate and Life Gate—the pressure behind the spike at the brow, the Heaven Gate, gradually eased. I pressed it in with all my might.

Once all three spikes were locked in place, Brother Li finally stopped moving. I didn’t dare move away immediately and continued to stand atop him.

Xu Buhuo’s right hand was bleeding from pounding the spikes, but he ignored it, taking out copper spikes to nail through Brother Li’s hands and feet.

Once the Three Gates and Four Paths were sealed, Xu Buhuo gestured for me to step away.

I collapsed onto the ground, staring at Brother Li’s body, unable to fathom how he could move in the daylight as if it were night, or how the spike at his brow could push itself out even after being driven in.

“The baleful energy in this corpse-sealing kiln is even worse than I thought,” Xu Buhuo muttered, staring grimly at the kiln. “If the two little ghosts in there get out, they’ll be as dangerous as that corpse fiend we encountered before.”

Seeing my confusion, he explained, “Brother Li was just a typical corpse mutation, like the books say, unable to move during the day. The reason the corpse-nailing spikes barely held him is because he’d absorbed the thick baleful energy from the kiln, causing a deeper mutation.”

“And we caught it early—he’d only been inside for a day. If he’d spent seven days in there, he’d be nearly impossible to kill.”

“The two little ghosts in the kiln must have been sealed by your grandmother with secret arts because the baleful energy was too strong for the spikes alone to restrain them.”

What had just happened to Brother Li left me deeply uneasy.

For more than a decade, all had been calm; the two children were sealed inside the well. But with the recent strange events, I had a gut feeling that these two would soon break free.

“Ziwu.”

I looked up at Xu Buhuo. He was staring at Brother Li’s body. “We can’t keep this body. Even with the Three Gates and Four Paths sealed, I’m still worried. You saw what just happened. If we don’t take care of it and something else happens, the villagers will be in danger.”

The government had begun enforcing cremation, but remote mountain villages like ours hadn’t yet adopted the policy. To die without a body was considered as tragic as being left in pieces—no one would choose cremation unless absolutely necessary.

But what had just happened was like a needle in my heart.

Things were chaotic enough already. Now that we’d found Brother Li’s body, I didn’t want any more mishaps. After a moment’s thought, I nodded, making the decision for him: we would cremate Brother Li.

We carried Brother Li’s body next door. Sister Liu burst into tears when she saw the corpse-nailing spikes. I told her that Brother Li’s corpse had changed and couldn’t be kept, or disaster would strike, painting the situation in the gravest terms.

Though she was heartbroken, Sister Liu finally agreed.

By now, it was dusk. As I was about to contact the county crematorium, Xu Buhuo’s face darkened. “There’s no time to wait.”

He pulled me to Brother Li’s body, rolled up his sleeve, and showed me the skin: it was covered in a greasy film.

“When corpse oil forms, the soul can’t move on. We have to cremate him on the mountain, now.”

Corpse oil forms, the soul cannot transcend.

I didn’t know what that meant, but Xu Buhuo’s tone told me things had changed.

I went to find the village head, explained the corpse mutation in a few brief words, and asked him to find two men, some gasoline, and a black dog to take up the mountain.

The village head hurried off to arrange it. I found a cart, and together with Xu Buhuo, moved Brother Li’s body to a clearing by the graveyard on the mountain’s edge.

When the body was laid out, Xu Buhuo used his hoe to carve a ritual array into the ground. As he finished, the village head arrived with the supplies, alone. “I found two men, but when they heard what happened, they were too scared to come.”

Time was tight; everyone had the right to choose. I couldn’t dwell on it. I held the black dog while Xu Buhuo, with ruthless efficiency, severed its head and slung it over his shoulder—so swift and cold it made my heart pound.

Blood gushed as Xu Buhuo carried the dog’s body over the ritual array, letting the blood spill into the grooves.

The village head stood paralyzed with shock.

“Xu—Mr. Xu, he’s moving…”

I had just picked up the gasoline canister when the village head’s trembling voice rang out. I turned to see Brother Li’s corpse quivering on the ground.

At the same time, the spikes driven into his Three Gates and Four Paths began to vibrate.

The change was so sudden that I quickly doused Brother Li’s body with gasoline. As soon as I finished, the spike in his left shoulder popped out with a sharp sound.

Then the spike in his right shoulder jumped out as well. The spike in his brow didn’t fly out immediately, but was slowly working its way free.

In a flash, Brother Li’s eyes flew open, blood-red and terrifying.

The village head screamed and fled down the mountain.

As the spike at Brother Li’s brow edged out, his body began to rise, stiff and straight—not sitting up, but standing, as if his heels had taken root in the earth and his torso was being hoisted upright.

“Stay down!”

Xu Buhuo tossed aside the dog’s body and leapt onto Brother Li, pinning him down as he drove the brow spike back into his skull with a stomp.

Even pinned, the corpse kept trembling, as if it might throw Xu Buhuo off. The sheer force in that body chilled me to the bone.

Xu Buhuo fished yellow paper from his pouch, lit it, flung it onto the body, and leaped aside. The fire roared up instantly—if he’d hesitated a second longer, he would have been caught in the blaze.

Engulfed in flames and no longer held down, Brother Li’s corpse stood upright.

The fire seemed to have no effect; he made to lunge out of the array, but Xu Buhuo barked a low command and stamped out a pattern on the ground.

As Xu Buhuo performed the ritual steps, Brother Li’s body seemed trapped by an invisible force within the array.

The flames grew fiercer.

Brother Li howled like a wild beast, while Xu Buhuo circled the array, never stopping his ritual.

The struggle lasted about five minutes. At last, Brother Li’s thrashing slowed, then ceased as he toppled to the ground.

Night had fallen completely.

I collapsed, staring dumbly at Brother Li’s burning corpse, filled with speechless respect for Xu Buhuo as he rested nearby.

Everything that happened—if we’d been a moment slower, the consequences would have been unimaginable.

“Mr. Xu, something’s happened—something’s happened…”

Just as Brother Li’s body was nearly consumed and we prepared to bury the remains, the village head came running up the mountain, shouting.

My heart sank at the news.

A powerful sense of dread told me: another coffin bearer had died.