The Night Watcher of Great Jing - Chapter 78

Zhao Li sat cross-legged on the coffin lid, leisurely peeling chestnuts.

Intimidated by the life-taking blade, the occupant behaved himself and caused no more trouble.

When nothing unusual happened, Old Man Liu’s sons grew bolder and began following the procession with funeral cries.

After all, someone sitting on their father’s coffin was already outrageous enough.

If the filial sons failed to wail for appearances, their neighbors would surely condemn them behind their backs.

It was not that they felt no grief at all. Their sorrow had simply been smothered by fear.

The three followed behind, howling loudly without tears.

Zheng Lian, Head Constable Xing, and several others brought up the rear.

The bizarre procession attracted crowds of curious onlookers.

Zheng Lian was about to drive them away when the crowd suddenly scattered.

Another party followed the procession.

Zheng Lian instinctively looked toward Zhao Li, but she remained absorbed in peeling her chestnuts.

He had no choice but to clasp his hands respectfully toward the sedan.

Burdened with a coffin, the procession could not move quickly.

Presumably to save trouble, Old Man Liu’s three filial sons had chosen a burial plot only a few *li* outside the city.

It lay almost beside the mass grave on the northern slope.

The mass grave had a name: White Bone Slope.

Originally, it had been nothing but barren land.

During a great epidemic in the capital, however, city residents died in enormous numbers. Entire households perished together.

At the time, the capital had no dedicated crematorium.

All the plague victims’ bodies were dragged here.

The stray dogs and yellow wolves in the area grew fatter than young calves.

A year later, once the bodies rotted away, white bones covered the entire slope as far as the eye could see.

Ironically, it was Shen Zhixing—the great eunuch reviled by the people—who ordered that the abandoned remains be collected at his expense.

He also built a Daoist temple on the northern slope and funded its incense offerings.

Without that, the area could never have remained this peaceful in recent years.

The horrors of the past were no longer visible, but the name White Bone Slope remained.

Seated atop the coffin, Zhao Li brushed off her hands and took the opportunity to check the area for anything unusual.

She found nothing supernatural, but she did spot a sedan following the procession.

When she looked back, Shen Yan’s attendant hurriedly raised a hand and waved.

Zhao Li was about to wave in return when the coffin beneath her jolted.

They had arrived.

This was no auspicious burial ground.

A coffin pit had been dug amid the thorns.

Zhao Li pressed one hand against the lid, flipped to the ground, and pulled out her saber.

The moment her feet touched earth, cold yin energy rolled from the black coffin she had been suppressing.

“Where’s the firewood?” Zhao Li shouted.

Peach branches were quickly stacked in the cleared space.

The coffin was placed on top.

Someone blew a fire striker alight and tossed it into the dry kindling.

Roaring flames rose swiftly.

Zhao Li directed everyone upwind.

Fire licked across the coffin’s painted surface.

Then everyone present clearly heard movement from inside.

Something thrashed within like a fish.

Fingernails scraped at the wood. Even in broad daylight, the sound raised cold sweat across every body.

A muffled cough came from the coffin at the same time.

Old Man Liu had suffered a wasting cough. For a long period before his death, he had coughed in that same heavy, bellows-like way.

His three sons might not have spent much time caring for him at his bedside, but they knew the sound all too well.

Ignoring the sharp rocks beneath them, all three dropped to their knees on the slope.

“Father, please go in peace!”

This time, their kowtows were entirely sincere.

Only when their foreheads were slick with blood and the yin energy inside the coffin had dispersed did the sounds gradually cease.

Zhao Li opened her Mind’s Eye.

The black-red corpse miasma surrounding the coffin had completely dissolved.

She dusted off her hands.

Done.

[Quest Complete! Old Man Liu’s delusion was never fulfilled. Reward: 300 EXP.]

The instant the system notification sounded, Zhao Li cursed inwardly.

She had needed only 380 experience points to advance.

After completing this quest, she was still eighty short.

Such a tiny yet undeniably real gap was infuriating.

In a foul mood, Zhao Li tossed the chestnut shells she had collected along the way into the flames from a distance.

She turned to Old Man Liu’s sons.

“Enough. Who are you putting on this filial performance for now?”

“Instead of worrying about this, you should worry about your youngest sister.”

“If she accidentally dies, her resentment will be immense. None of you will ever know peace.”

Terror instantly appeared on the brothers’ faces.

Zhao Li had no idea whether they would visit the pitiful girl still lying in the clinic.

But she felt she had done enough. Everyone had their own fate.

The coffin and its contents would take a long time to burn completely.

After warning the three sons about several precautions and taboos, Zhao Li prepared to leave.

Only then did she remember that her horse was still in the shed at Old Man Liu’s home.

She was considering walking back when the curtain of the sedan behind her lifted.

A dark voice came from within.

“Come here.”

Zhao Li obediently walked over.

Shen Yan sat inside, watching her with a grim face.

“Weren’t you going to the Imperial Astronomical Bureau?”

He had a terrible headache over the girl’s talent for stumbling into disaster.

The last time she went out for a bowl of mutton soup, she had become entangled in an enormous case.

Today, she had supposedly gone to the Imperial Astronomical Bureau. Yet in the blink of an eye, he found her sitting atop a coffin.

Zhao Li could not explain how she had ended up here either.

She pressed her palms together before her chest, tilted her head, and gave him a sheepish grin.

Shen Yan paused and tightened his lips.

“Get in.”

He shifted aside, clearing more than half the sedan for her.

Zhao Li wanted to refuse, but he gave a low, unquestionable hum.

A chorus of coughs immediately sounded around them.

Left with no choice, Zhao Li stepped forward.

She was ducking into the sedan when someone called, “Thousand-Household Commander Zhao! Thousand-Household Commander Zhao!”

She looked up and saw Head Constable Xing from the Five Cities Military Patrol Office.

One of Shen Yan’s guards had stopped him at a distance. He smiled ingratiatingly at Zhao Li.

“Could you come over for a moment?”

Head Constable Xing rubbed his hands and bowed repeatedly when she approached.

“I didn’t want to trouble you with this, but after seeing your ability with my own eyes, I can only be shameless once.”

When Zhao Li showed no displeasure, he arranged his thoughts.

“I wonder whether Thousand-Household Commander Zhao has heard the rumor from Jiahui Ward.”

Zhao Li currently needed quests. The moment she saw his manner, her interest sharpened.

“What rumor?”

“There is a family surnamed Yang in Jiahui Ward. Several days ago, the husband came to the Five Cities Military Patrol Office to report that…”

Head Constable Xing stumbled over the words.

“He said the wife in his house wasn’t his wife.”

“She was a monster.”

A monster?

Zhao Li froze and frowned. “What does that mean?”

Head Constable Xing licked his lips.

“The man is a traveling peddler. His family isn’t especially wealthy, but he married a wife and they lived quite happily. The only problem was that they never had children.”

“They both saw physicians and took medicine, but the woman’s belly never stirred. After two anxious years, the man suddenly heard a foreign merchant speak of a secret prescription for conceiving a child.”