Uncle Xijiao’s body rested on just a few wooden stools, with only a bedsheet draped over him.
But the sheet was tattered and narrow, leaving his ashen, lifeless hand dangling over the edge, completely exposed.
A sickening, indescribable stench seeped from the bulging form beneath the sheet. Even though Gan Tang had little experience with corpses, he found the odor disturbingly strange—it wasn’t the scent of someone who had only just died. Instead, it was the putrid, lingering rot of a long-decayed body, a stench as overwhelming as a biohazard.
In that instant, the foul air stung his eyes, forcing out tears.
Gan Tang wasn’t the only one reeling from the stench. The villagers helping to set up the mourning tent all wore white cloths over their faces, clearly suffering from the same unbearable smell. Seeing Gan Tang go pale as soon as he stepped inside, one of them even motioned for him to stand further away.
At this point, Grandma had no patience for anything else. Frowning deeply, she grabbed someone nearby and asked, “What’s going on? Didn’t I say to pool some money and borrow a coffin from Lao Zhang? That old ghost has had his burial casket ready for over a decade, and he’s still healthy as ever. So why is Xijiao just lying out in the yard like this? Does that seem right to you?”
At the mention of this, the villager’s expression darkened. “Aiya, Granny Zhang, don’t even bring that up—it’s enough to drive someone mad. That old man agreed at first, even took our money, but when the time came, he took one look at the body, returned the money, and refused. Said some nonsense about Xijiao dying an unnatural death, his resentment being too strong, and that if he lent us the coffin, it would definitely bring trouble. So he just backed out. And to make it worse, he came to our house spouting all kinds of nonsense…”
Grandma’s gaze sharpened. “What nonsense?”
“Well, uh…” The villager hesitated, his eyes flickering before he deliberately avoided Grandma’s gaze and lowered his voice. “He said that what happened to Xijiao was all because of that borrowed flesh ritual from before. Then he kept telling Xijiao’s wife that they had to send his body to Dragon King Pond, let the Dragon King take him—otherwise, the whole village would be doomed. Just a bunch of superstitious garbage. Granny Zhang, you know better than anyone that the dead should be laid to rest in the earth. He’s not some beggar who has nowhere to be buried, so why should he be thrown into the river? That old man’s words were way out of line.”
Despite his dismissal, it was obvious that the villager was agitated by the end of his rant—he might have scoffed at Lao Zhang’s words, but deep down, he wasn’t entirely unconvinced.
After all, Uncle Xijiao had only just died, yet he already reeked of advanced decay. It was undeniably strange.
Grandma lowered her eyelids slightly but subtly pulled Gan Tang behind her with one hand.
“…Sigh, arguing about this won’t change anything now. Never mind, I’ll have my dear Tang Tang light some incense for Uncle Xijiao first. We can talk about the rest later.”
Her tone was calm and composed.
The villager was briefly startled before letting out an awkward chuckle. “Right, kids have light souls. They shouldn’t be hearing all this. Granny Zhang, you’re considerate as always.”
With that, he hurried off to fetch the incense for Gan Tang.
But just as Grandma was holding Gan Tang outside the door, waiting, a sudden commotion erupted from deep within the mourning hall—an eerie mix of weeping, muttering, and indistinct voices.
A moment later, a disheveled woman burst out.
Her clothes were in disarray, her eyes red and swollen. As she stumbled forward, a few aunts and elderly women hurried after her, calling out, “Xisao, calm down!” “Xisao, you have to accept it…” Their hands reached for her, but she slipped through their grasp.
The woman staggered forward, half-falling, half-collapsing onto the corpse lying in the courtyard.
Then, pressing her face against it, she wailed,
“My husband isn’t dead! Who said he’s dead? Zhang Er, go get a doctor—go!”
She was none other than Uncle Xijiao’s wife.
Gan Tang vaguely remembered that the last time he had visited Uncle Xijiao’s house, the woman had been neat, efficient, and sharp-tongued.
But now, she looked like a complete madwoman.
She showed no regard for the corpse, which was so rotten it seemed ready to ooze, nor for its unbearable stench. Her tear-streaked face was lifted, her expression vacant as she shouted at everyone around her.
“I just heard him talking in the room earlier.”
A wailing sob burst from her throat.
“He said it hurts. He’s not dead! Look at him! You heartless lot—he was bullied by you all before, and now you’re still tormenting him! Don’t think our family is easy to push around. It makes no sense—he’s alive and well, yet you want to sink him in the pond—look, Xijiao is still moving! He can move!”
She was clearly delirious. In her hysteria, she suddenly grabbed the white cloth covering the corpse and yanked it away right in front of everyone.
Uncle Xijiao’s bloated, blackened face was instantly exposed.
…That was not the face of a living person.
The once thin and hunched man now looked grotesquely swollen, as if he had been pumped full of air. Perhaps because the weather was scorching and the body had been left in the courtyard, the corners of his eyes, nostrils, and mouth were already teeming with tiny, wriggling yellow maggots, jumping and squirming.
*
The moment Xijiao’s wife lifted the cloth, Grandma had already wrapped an arm around Gan Tang and was retreating toward the door.
But by now, the doorway was packed with villagers, all frozen in shock at the woman’s actions, too frightened to step forward.
“…Didn’t they say he only died this morning? How did he end up like this in just a few hours…?”
Someone beside Gan Tang muttered, their face full of confusion.
“Yeah, I saw him just yesterday. He was howling like a ghost in his house in the middle of the night—my wife almost went over to argue with him.”
“But wasn’t he supposed to have died on Xi Mountain? That place is eerie as hell. Who knows what happened there.”
“Oh, and it was Zhang Er who carried him back… This whole thing… tsk tsk, I don’t get it. I’m just here to help, but I don’t want to get involved in their family’s mess.”
“You know, at first, I thought Lao Zhang was being mean for not lending them a coffin. But now… maybe that old man has seen things. Maybe he knows something.”
“Exactly…”
…
Whispers filled the air, but Gan Tang could hardly focus. His brows knit tighter and tighter as the stench in the air thickened unbearably.
The nausea rose so fiercely that he nearly vomited. He was sure the others in the courtyard felt the same—when the white cloth was pulled away, everyone instinctively recoiled from the corpse.
Everyone except Xijiao’s wife.
Still consumed by grief, she seemed utterly oblivious to the stench and the grotesque decay. She continued to speak, completely deranged.
“…He really, really isn’t dead. At first, I thought he was. But when I was hiding in the room, crying, I heard him talking to me through the window. These maggots… these maggots, I can just wash them off with water later.”
Her eyes were brimming with tears as she rambled on.
But her face was turned—not toward the villagers, but toward their own house.
Following her gaze, they saw a shadow cast beneath the eaves.
It was Uncle Zhang Er.
She wasn’t talking to them.
She was talking to Zhang Er.
*
After everything he had seen before, Gan Tang now felt an uncontrollable shiver run through him the moment he laid eyes on Zhang Er.
Especially since Zhang Er looked even more terrifying than before.
His face—it was gray.
Zhang Er was one of the few strong young men in the village, yet now he looked utterly drained. His eye bags were dark and swollen, and his bloodshot eyes were filled with exhaustion.
Gan Tang didn’t know if it was just his imagination, but when he looked at the people standing behind Zhang Er—coincidentally, the same ones who had gone up the mountain with him—they all seemed just like Zhang Er.
In broad daylight, those men didn’t look like the living.
They looked like walking corpses.
Just looking at them was terrifying.
*
Uncle Zhang Er’s reaction was much duller than Gan Tang had expected.
Perhaps the sudden death of Uncle Xijiao had hit him too hard. Compared to just a few hours ago, Zhang Er seemed slow—so slow, in fact, that he could almost be described as dazed.
He stared at Xijiao’s wife, unblinking, for a long while before he finally spoke, his words sluggish.
“He’s dead.”
The man muttered flatly.
“Dead.”
“And before he died, he went mad, you see… Look at this. Look at what he did to us. He bit us—just look at these wounds. These wounds hurt, sister-in-law.”
His voice was airy and stammering, as if he were speaking from a dream. Then, before everyone’s eyes, he raised his hand.
At first, Gan Tang thought Zhang Er was holding something in his hand.
But after a moment, he realized—no, that swollen, glossy, deep purple thing wasn’t an object.
That was Zhang Er’s hand.
The lower half of it had lost all semblance of its original form. The skin was so bloated that not a single wrinkle remained, stretched so thin it was nearly translucent.
At the base of the thumb, faintly visible, was a mark that resembled a bite.
Thick, yellowish fluid was oozing endlessly from the wound.
“You’re full of shit—!”
Xijiao’s wife shrieked.
“It’s all you! Always calling for him every damn day! Always giving him the hardest, most thankless work! What kind of brother are you?! I told you, I told you so many times—Xijiao isn’t really dead! Look at him! He can still move! He can move! You’re just too lazy to get a doctor from town! You’re too stingy! The moment those two old bastards died, you hoarded all the money for yourself. Fine, whatever. But now—you’re trying to send your own brother to his death—”
“Hiss…”
As the woman screamed at Zhang Er, every single person standing in the doorway suddenly froze.
Their eyes widened in utter shock and horror.
Because that bloated, rotting corpse…
It was actually moving.
Just as Xijiao’s wife had said, it was slowly, slowly rising.
But it was too swollen.
As it sat up, the pressure on its insides grew too great. Its ashen head tilted back slightly, and as its mouth parted ever so slightly, even more maggots spilled out from deep within its abdominal cavity, tumbling onto its chest.
But it was moving.
Moving like a corpse.
And it could even… even make a sound.
“Hss… hss…”
A hollow moan seeped out from deep within its crushed lungs, distorted by the compression of decaying organs.
The maggots were spreading.
They wriggled across its entire upper body, even pouring from its empty eye sockets.
For a moment, time seemed to stop.
And then—
Screams.
Bloodcurdling, agonized screams erupted in the courtyard, rising and falling like waves.
At last, Xijiao’s wife sensed that something was horribly wrong.
Slowly, she turned her head.
And her eyes met the empty sockets of her husband, eaten clean by maggots.
Grief and rage froze on her face.
Her eyes widened in terror.
“Xi… Xijiao?”
She called his name.
Then, trembling, she lifted her hand, trying to confirm—just what had become of her husband?
But the moment her fingers made the lightest contact—
Uncle Xijiao’s corpse suddenly toppled forward from the bench, crashing down onto her.
As she shrieked, countless thread-like worms surged forth, raining into her mouth, her eyes.
