Chapter 39: A Bolt from the Blue

Sometimes, when I look back on my life, I can’t help but admit that everyone walks a different fate.

Each life is destined to encounter and endure its own set of events.

What is meant to come will come, no matter how you try to escape.

Before the village chief spoke, I still clung to hope—hope that the trouble he spoke of had nothing to do with death; even if someone had died, I prayed it wasn’t one of the five men who carried the coffin.

But reality is indifferent to hope—what must happen, happens, regardless of my wishes.

Uncle Qian was dead. He was the man my father had once considered a sworn brother, and he had carried my grandmother’s coffin to her burial. Like Brother Li, Uncle Qian also took his own life in a bizarre way that left the villagers terrified.

Upon hearing this, Xu Buhuo cast me a glance before returning to his digging. I stood frozen in place, feeling as if all warmth had left my body.

I noticed, too, the village chief stealing glances at me, and I realized that as the second coffin-bearer died, the villagers had all but concluded that these strange suicides were somehow connected to my family.

In that moment, I desperately wished I didn’t know about my father’s prophecy; ignorance would have spared me this helpless panic. Not knowing might have hurt less than knowing and being powerless to act.

What is done is done. Struggle is useless.

Even as the village chief urged us to hurry, Xu Buhuo continued with his work. Only after he had tended to Brother Li’s body did we go down the mountain together.

On the way, the village chief came over and said, “Ziwu, these things happening one after another have left the villagers anxious—they think it’s connected to your family. If anyone says anything unpleasant later, I hope you can keep your composure. Things are chaotic enough as it is.”

I nodded, understanding.

The string of bizarre deaths was indeed related to my family. Even if I wanted to protest, what grounds did I have?

In just ten days, six people had died. Nothing like this had ever happened before. Uncle Qian’s death sent shockwaves through every household in the village.

With the children kept at home, the villagers gathered outside Uncle Qian’s house. As soon as we arrived, a commotion broke out; all eyes were on me.

In the crowd, I spotted the other four men who had carried the coffin. They stood together, and from the looks on their faces, I could tell they were beginning to suspect the truth.

With so many people around, there were things better left unsaid. I approached the four, greeted them respectfully, and told them we should first deal with the matter at hand and speak in detail afterwards.

“You bringer of misfortune—how dare you show your face here…”

The moment I stepped through the gate, Aunt Lu, Uncle Qian’s wife, who was slumped on the ground, lurched towards me in tears. Her son, Qian Yong, glared at me furiously, convinced my family was responsible for Uncle Qian’s death.

Ever since the birthmark identical to Jiang Yan’s had appeared on my face, strange things had begun happening in the village. Anyone could connect the dots—they wouldn’t think that Brother Li and Uncle Qian’s deaths were simply due to carrying my grandmother’s coffin, but would see it as linked to my family, and thus to me.

“That’s enough! Watch your mouth. Go and rest,” Xu Buhuo snapped as he stepped in front of me. “Do you know why you weren’t allowed to pay your respects to the man who died last night? Because his corpse changed after midnight—he ran off, strong as an ox, killed without remorse. If Ziwu hadn’t found him at the cost of a year of his life, imagine what would have happened tonight.”

In the countryside, the word of a master carries immense weight.

At that moment, the village chief, still pale with fear, also spoke up, confirming Xu Buhuo’s words. “We just came from the graveyard on the back mountain. Brother Li really did change after death—we had no choice but to burn his body.”

The news of corpse transformation left the villagers both frightened and skeptical. But with both the village chief and Xu the master confirming it, their doubts faded quickly—especially as we still reeked of a strange odor, our hands blackened, not yet cleaned.

Qian Yong’s anger subsided, and he addressed Xu Buhuo politely: “Master Xu, I’ll trouble you to handle my father’s affairs. If you need anything, just ask.”

His courtesy toward Xu Buhuo did not extend to me. Though he no longer glared at me with open rage, his face turned cold the moment our eyes met.

“So now everyone calls Ziwu a jinx, but have you all forgotten how his grandmother helped you when she was alive?” Xu Buhuo said irritably.

At the mention of my grandmother’s kindness, the villagers looked uneasy and said no more.

With their tempers subdued, I breathed a sigh of relief and entered the main room to see Uncle Qian.

Uncle Qian’s body was kneeling, facing northwest—toward the graveyard behind the mountain. His posture was almost identical to Brother Li’s: back ramrod straight, head tilted up, a smile on his face, the knife plunged into his heart.

His state, too, was the same—marked by a drastic change in personality before death, and a chilling laugh as he died.

After searching for clues and finding nothing, Cao Guangshan and the others arrived. Their expressions made it clear that they suspected what was happening in the village.

“Ziwu, what on earth is going on with your family?” Cao Guangshan demanded as soon as he saw me. They’d been coming every few days, always because someone had died.

Deaths were one thing, but the official verdict was always illness or suicide. Yet everyone knew deep down that suicide was not the real cause.

Some things cannot be explained by facts.

Seeing Uncle Qian’s manner of death, Cao Guangshan and his colleagues grew grim. Still, they followed procedure, though they knew nothing would come of it.

This time, the medical examiner didn’t touch Uncle Qian’s body immediately, but looked to Xu Buhuo. He knew it was pointless to try—only Xu could soften the corpse’s stiffness.

After the examination, the medical examiner approached me and said, “The blood tests from the earlier victims are back. There’s an unknown substance present, so we can’t say yet if it influenced their behavior.”

I didn’t know whether to be relieved or not.

If it’s uncertain, it might or might not be the cause. I almost hoped it was some unknown substance in their blood that caused all of this.

Everything that’s happened has been so bizarre, so impossible to comprehend.

Still, science offers a sliver of hope.

The medical examiner said he would take Uncle Qian’s blood for further testing. If both victims’ blood contains the same unknown substance, it would suggest the suicides share a common influence—a sign that their deaths were not entirely their own.

So many incidents had already drawn the attention of Cao Guangshan’s superiors. This time, he intended to stay in the village to investigate. But I sensed that, deep down, he wanted to witness these uncanny events for himself.

After the police left, the villagers did not immediately disperse. The village chief urged everyone to return home and not loiter, but only a few left.

Too many people made it hard to talk, hard to do anything.

Xu Buhuo went out and shouted, “Are you all planning to wait here for another corpse to change? If you want, I’ll wait with you.”

He dragged a wooden bench over and sat down.

Qian Yong, aware of the strangeness around his father’s death, didn’t want to risk a repeat of what happened to Brother Li. So, as the host, he ordered the crowd to leave. The villagers had no choice but to file away, except for the four coffin-bearers, who stayed behind to wait for me.

As the village chief and others set up the mourning hall, I approached the four, unsure how to begin.

“Ziwu, be honest with us,” Uncle Zhong Fu spoke first, while the other three stared at me anxiously. “Are we next? Are we all doomed to die like Old Li and the others, in such a strange way?”

I was silent for more than ten seconds before shaking my head. “I don’t know. Ever since my grandmother died, strange things keep happening.”

Just before I spoke, I nearly revealed my father’s prophecy, but in the end, I chose to keep it to myself.

Prophecies cannot be proven before they come to pass. And I knew that if the four uncles learned there had been a warning, yet my family still asked them to carry the coffin, they would not be speaking to me so calmly.

“But to prevent anything else from happening, I’ve already discussed with Master Xu. For now, you should all come stay at my house. We’ll keep an eye on each other, and if anything seems wrong, we can act quickly.”

We’d planned this long ago; we just hadn’t expected so many changes with Brother Li, which delayed us and meant we didn’t notice Uncle Qian’s problem in time.

The four uncles agreed without objection. They left to inform their families and then gather at my house.

As the mourning hall was being prepared at Uncle Qian’s, Xu Buhuo discussed with Qian Yong whether to cremate the body early, fearing another corpse transformation. Just as they were speaking, the front gate was suddenly thrown open.

My mother burst in, face bloodless and filled with terror.

“Ziwu, the old well at the ancestral house has cracked open on its own, and there’s something moving inside.”

For a moment, my mind went completely blank.

I’d always known something was at the bottom of that well—but what shocked me was that the well had cracked.

That well was a sealed tomb, meant to imprison two children that even my grandmother could not subdue.

Now, with the well cracked, the tomb was broken.

I knew what this meant: the corpses at the bottom of the well—creatures of evil—were about to emerge.