Nine Dragons Pulling The Coffin

Chapter Four: Using a Borrowed Knife to Kill

This attack was powerful and heavy, and I had anticipated it. The black cat had no chance to maneuver in the air and was struck hard in the lower back.

A piercing scream rang out, and the black cat was sent flying.

Hearing the black cat's scream, Xie Guangcai's eyes instantly turned red. He leaped forward, his arms reaching out.

The dead man's strength doubled after his feigned death, and I dared not confront him directly. I ducked and rolled to his side to dodge. I heard two soft thuds as he smashed the heavy wooden door open with his arms.

Before the fight started, I was hesitant and terrified. But now that it was happening, a surge of heat rushed to my head.

Humans are ghosts of the future, ghosts are people of the past. If you think about it that way, there's really nothing to be afraid of. A zombie is only slightly stronger than a human, but its actions are far more rigid.

I'd been dealing with a lot of clients lately, and relying on my good fortune, I played a game of hide-and-seek with Xie Guangcai in the mourning hall, one chasing the other.

Unfortunately, after Xie Guangcai became stiff, he seemed tireless. I'm not made of iron, and my strength is limited; I quickly became as exhausted as a dead dog. At this rate, I'd be worn out by him sooner or later, but the doors and windows were tightly shut, leaving no chance to escape.

As my movements became slower, Xie Guangcai began trying to corner me. At the last moment before he got close, I tried the same trick again, attempting to roll away from him, but suddenly my foot tripped over something, and I fell to the ground with a thud.

Looking back, I saw that it was the blurry black cat I had just played with.

I was already exhausted, and tripping over the black cat made it impossible to escape Xie Guangcai's pursuit. He immediately grabbed me by the neck.

His arms were like giant iron clamps; I immediately felt short of breath and my head spun.

I'm not a professional fighter; I only managed to hold out with Xie Guangcai for so long thanks to sheer willpower and a thirst for survival.

And now, I realize my perseverance hasn't changed anything; I'm still going to die.

Actually, from the first day Liu Hechou told me about the taboos of fishing, I was prepared for death. My parents only knew fishing was a taboo profession, but they didn't know that fishermen constantly walk the line between life and death.

If I hadn't fished Huixiang, Xie Guangcai wouldn't have been killed by her spirit, and I wouldn't have encountered this strange and deceitful event while keeping vigil.

What I can't understand is that I had no grudge against Xie Guangcai. From the black cat incident to Xie Guangcai's deception, their target was clearly always me. Why?

"Heh heh..."

A red glint flashed in Xie Guangcai's eyes. He bared his newly grown sharp teeth, tilted his head, and bit down hard on my neck!

The inhuman pain was unbearable, yet he didn't even give me a chance to suffer.

The sharp teeth pierced my skin, and as the copious amount of blood flowed out, the throbbing in my head subsided, giving me a sense of relief.

Damn it, if I had known I'd be bitten to death by a zombie, I would have preferred to wander Guangzhou for the rest of my life, a lonely singer.

Xie Guangcai greedily sucked on my blood; I could even clearly hear him swallowing. My consciousness began to blur, and past memories replayed in my mind like a movie…

Just before I was about to lose consciousness, the locked wooden door was suddenly slammed open from the outside.

Xie Guangcai heard me and looked up. Taking advantage of this opportunity, I turned my head with all my might to look at the doorway and saw that the person who had barged in was Liu Hechou.

He was holding a water monkey skin and was reaching out towards Xie Guangcai from a distance.

As the saying goes, one thing subdues another; water monkeys feed underwater, and their favorite food—fingernails and eyes—is the zombie's nemesis.

Xie Guangcai clearly knew the water monkey skin was dangerous and tried to dodge.

I don't know where I got the strength, but I clung to Xie Guangcai tightly, preventing him from breaking free, until the water monkey skin covered us both at the same time.

Sure enough, the moment the water monkey skin touched him, Xie Guangcai screamed in agony, desperately trying to escape from me, rolling around on the ground, struggling to break free.

But the water monkey skin was like molten iron poured on him; he couldn't shake it off. With the burning smoke, the whole room reeked of burnt protein.

In just a few moments, the water monkey skin and Xie Guangcai were both reduced to ashes.

Liu Hechou tried to help me up, but I only managed to call out "Uncle" before I fainted.

When I woke up again, I was lying on Liu Hechou's bed.

I tried to move, but I felt completely powerless, and the wound on my neck was throbbing with excruciating pain. Even though I was covered with a thick quilt, it felt like I was in an icebox, so cold that my teeth chattered.

"No, the poison in your body hasn't worn off yet; you won't survive for the next few days," Liu Hechou said. "Uncle Liu, why did Xie Guangcai want to kill me?" I asked weakly, voicing the question that had been nagging at me.

"It wasn't him who wanted to kill you; it was Huixiang. It's just that I miscalculated. I only anticipated that Huixiang wouldn't dare seek revenge directly, but I didn't expect her to use a proxy."

Liu Hechou said that Huixiang used Xie Guangcai's funeral altar to manipulate the black cat's evil spirit, using her resentment to trick Xie Guangcai, all to harm me.

Although I hadn't done anything to wrong Huixiang, the spirits of the dead don't reason like the living; they only seek cause and effect, and that cause and effect started with my act of digging.

I caused her to be restless after death, obstructing her path back. In the end, I shouldn't have dug her up in the first place; keeping her as fish food would have been better than this.

And those hateful grave robbers—if they hadn't dug her up for a marriage, things wouldn't have come to this.

Liu Hechou said that Huixiang had become a vengeful ghost after causing Xie Guangcai's death, and now she had no other thoughts than killing for revenge. Xie Guangcai was the first, and soon another would appear, until everyone with whom she had a grudge was killed.

A vengeful ghost seeking death is beyond the reach of Heaven; even a Taoist priest would have difficulty handling this.

"Uncle Liu, what do we do now? I know you have some skills; my life depends entirely on you."

"You're overthinking it. I can't save you. There's only one person who can save you now. As long as that person is willing to help, even if Huixiang has become a vengeful ghost, or even a red spirit, she can't harm you."

Liu Hechou said that he previously said Huixiang wouldn't dare to harm me because she was wary of that person's existence. His purpose in using someone else to kill me was twofold: first, to harm me, and second, to test that person's willingness to intervene.

Unfortunately, that person didn't appear until I was almost killed by Xie Guangcai. If Liu Hechou hadn't arrived in time, I would be dead, my wife would be dead, and my husband would be dead. "Uncle Liu, who exactly is this person you're talking about?" I asked.

"Actually, you've already seen him. He's the young man you saw when you first came to see me."

"Huh?"

I was stunned.

If Liu Hechou hadn't brought it up, I would have almost forgotten about the person I saw that day.

Then I complained to Liu Hechou that since he knew the young man's background, he was still playing coy with me.

"Did you just mention anyone's name back then? I, Liu Hechou, don't have much time left to live. If I offended someone, I'd lose my life." Liu Hechou sighed.

"Who is it?"

"I'll let him tell you later. I don't know his name either. What you need to do now is heal your injuries quickly, and then I'll take you on a big mission."

Liu Hechou was deliberately tormenting me, not revealing a single word.

He neither mentioned the person's identity nor what big mission he was taking me on.

For the next few days, I stayed peacefully in Liu Hechou's courtyard to recover, with him personally looking after me. Huixiang was now a nascent vengeful ghost, and with Liu Hechou's abilities, he wouldn't dare commit murder in front of her.

As for what happened at Xie Guangcai's mourning hall, Liu Hechou completely covered it up with a large fire. After rescuing me that day, he went back in and moved all the people keeping vigil out, then set it on fire.

So, until now, no one knows that Huixiang's affairs are related to me; even my parents don't know that their second son has been targeted by a vengeful ghost and is in constant danger.

During my recovery, strange events began to occur in the surrounding area. For example, someone broke their arm while getting up in the middle of the night, someone chopped off their hand while chopping wood, and someone burned their eyes by falling headfirst into a pot of boiling water while cooking.

These people all had one thing in common: they were of questionable character.

I knew this was Huixiang fulfilling her dying wish; they had wronged people and seen places they shouldn't have seen.

Despite the repeated occurrence of bizarre deaths and injuries, no one initially connected these incidents with Huixiang until the last night of the Seventh Night, which led to a shocking and horrific m******e of an entire family!