As soon as they left the house, Uncle Zhang and the group of men headed toward the back mountain.
Each of their faces looked grim, the atmosphere tense like they were going to a tomb… or even if they were going to a tomb, the mood would still be a little lighter than this.
Behind them, Gan Tang and Yu Huai hesitated for a moment, exchanged a look, and then silently followed them.
The path up the mountain was especially muddy after the rain, and even though Uncle Zhang and his group were seasoned villagers, they moved slowly. Gan Tang didn’t dare to get too close, only trailing at a distance. Fortunately, due to the difficult terrain, Uncle Zhang and the others were focused on navigating the path and didn’t pay much attention to the movement behind them.
But as they walked, Gan Tang began to sense something was off.
The first time he had secretly observed his grandmother and the others during Uncle Zhang’s “borrowed flesh” ritual counted as one.
Then, dragging Cen Zibai’s body up the mountain counted as another.
After walking twice, even though he wasn’t familiar with the mountain path, Gan Tang realized that Uncle Zhang and his group had taken a detour.
It didn’t look like they were headed toward the borrowed flesh well; it seemed more like they were really entering the mountain… Looking at their behavior, Gan Tang hesitated and glanced at Yu Huai.
The latter was staring at Uncle Zhang and his group’s backs, his expression serious.
The two of them gradually slowed their steps.
Though they couldn’t quite put their finger on it, neither of the young men was a fool. They could both sense that the aura of Uncle Zhang and his group felt very wrong—aggressive and strange.
If they kept following, they might get discovered, and even though they were from the same village, Gan Tang and Yu Huai probably wouldn’t be able to get away unscathed.
“Should we still follow?”
Yu Huai silently mouthed the question to Gan Tang.
Gan Tang furrowed his brows, hesitating for a moment.
Just then, a low, hoarse voice carried in the wind.
It was Uncle Zhang.
“Xijiao, are you sure you saw right? You’re not trying to mess with me, are you? I’ve been watching, and there are no footprints on this path. It’s not like the dead guy flew back to the village, right?”
Hearing this, Gan Tang’s chest tightened.
He had never heard Uncle Zhang speak like this—ominous, as though he was suppressing his fury, but the anger and dangerous aura were barely contained.
Gan Tang instinctively lifted his head. Through the lush, rain-soaked branches, he carefully studied Uncle Zhang from a distance.
Earlier, he hadn’t had the chance to observe closely, but now, upon closer inspection, he realized that Uncle Zhang’s demeanor and complexion were much worse than the last time they had met. The man’s eyes were bloodshot, and his dark circles were heavy beneath his eyes.
The man speaking to him wasn’t in any better shape either. He was frail and hunched, his shoulders sagging, giving him a perpetually fearful appearance.
When Gan Tang had first arrived in Fengjing Village, his grandmother had introduced him to people, and he recalled this man being called Uncle Xijiao—Uncle Zhang’s older brother.
But compared to the tall and strong Uncle Zhang, Uncle Xijiao was much smaller, and his eyes were always unfocused, a result of years of heavy drinking. His gaze had a far-off quality, but now, it seemed that he too had sensed the dangerous aura coming from Uncle Zhang. His voice trembled slightly, but he spoke firmly.
“I wasn’t just trying to mess with you… I really saw something!”
Uncle Xijiao raised his voice, somewhat excited.
“This morning, it was still raining outside. I heard some noise, and since it was such heavy rain, I thought maybe a thief had snuck into my yard using the rain as cover, so I quickly got up and looked. And then, I… I looked up and saw something on top of the chicken coop…”
At this point, Uncle Xijiao’s voice trembled even more.
“There was a face.”
Even from this distance, Gan Tang felt like he could hear Uncle Xijiao swallowing, trying to suppress his fear.
“That face… it was eating my chickens, its chin all covered in blood. I just stood there frozen, couldn’t move, only watching. The more I looked, the more familiar the face seemed… It was your cousin’s brother…”
As Uncle Xijiao spoke, his expression grew even more terrified.
“At first, I thought I was hallucinating, but then I got so scared I pissed myself. That woke me right up. The thing was right there, its tongue was so long, it wrapped around the head of that rooster you know, the one that fought with Zhang Laoqi’s big goose. The rooster’s head was twisted off, blood splattering everywhere…”
“And then the thing just pressed its face against the chicken’s neck and started eating. Its neck was so long, like a water snake, just hanging from the chicken coop, swinging back and forth, back and forth…” Uncle Xijiao shuddered as he spoke, his already haggard face looking even more skeletal, as if every muscle in his body was pulling toward his neck.
“Actually, when Granny Zhang told me about the borrowed flesh well, she said it was cursed. She even said that once a body was placed in it, it might come back to life and crawl out…”
His voice grew softer.
After the heavy rain, no one would expect to enter the mountain at this time. Even the wild animals and birds, exhausted by the rain, had gone quiet. The vast forest was still, except for the occasional wind rustling through the tree branches.
Only the low muttering of the man, unable to suppress his panic, lingered in the air like ominous mist.
The atmosphere became so heavy and terrifying that Uncle Xijiao’s words were immediately interrupted by another voice: “We didn’t really throw the body in; we just shoved it in and left it there, then pulled it out again, didn’t we?”
Uncle Xijiao instinctively retorted, “Who knows? Maybe once it’s in there, the body really could come back to life—”
“Where did all this talk of resurrection come from?! Stop with that nonsense! Those old women only know how to talk about superstitions, and you guys actually believe that? If bodies could come back to life, we’d be digging up that well to get rich!”
Uncle Zhang’s face grew even darker. He interrupted Uncle Xijiao harshly and then sneered.
He then shot Uncle Xijiao a cold glare, raising his shovel and pointing it at his brother’s chin, his voice harsh and hoarse as he spoke: “You’re saying the dead guy came back… Well, I’ll believe you this time. Let’s see what happens. I don’t believe that someone could be beaten to that extent and still come back to life!”
After saying that, Uncle Zhang suddenly turned and quickened his pace toward the deeper part of the mountain path.
*
At this point, Gan Tang knew he should stop here and head back home.
He watched as Uncle Zhang and his group gradually disappeared into the misty green shadows of the forest. A voice in his mind was telling him to leave.
He knew he should walk away… Although their conversation had been fragmented, the key points were enough to frighten Gan Tang. Uncle Zhang, and the men around him, were technically his relatives through distant blood ties…
But if he and Yu Huai were discovered, things would likely end very badly for them.
Gan Tang was very clear about this.
However, it felt as though his body was being controlled by some forest spirit.
After a few seconds of hesitation, Gan Tang exchanged a look with Yu Huai, who also had a fearful expression, and then, pale-faced and unable to control himself, slowly followed in Uncle Zhang’s footsteps.
By now, Gan Tang’s back was drenched with mist and cold sweat.
He didn’t dare to think too much about the conversation he had just heard, but anyone with normal reasoning ability would have some inkling by now—
The body that Gan Tang had seen that night, swollen and broken, the body that his grandmother and the others had stuffed into the well, perhaps… wasn’t really Uncle Zhang at all.
This suspicion was immediately confirmed after Gan Tang and Yu Huai, drenched in cold sweat, followed Uncle Zhang all the way to their final destination.
At a mountain hollow halfway up the hill, Uncle Zhang and his group stopped.
Gan Tang’s body went cold as he watched them.
The branches and leaves were dense here, with lush vegetation. Only people who frequently came up the mountain to gather mushrooms or hunt would pass through this area.
Now, in this small hollow in the mountain, a patch of bushes had been artificially cleared away.
On the soft, damp earth, there was a clear and unmistakable hole.
A hole just large enough to bury a body.
Uncle Zhang and his group were gathered around the hole, staring fixedly into it.
From Gan Tang’s position, he couldn’t make out what was in the hole, but he could see the expressions of Uncle Zhang and his men.
If he guessed correctly, there was nothing in the hole now—whatever they had secretly buried there was gone.
Seeing that, the men’s expressions varied.
Uncle Zhang’s face was as dark as if he had smeared soot on it. His thick, black brows were furrowed tightly.
In his slightly bulging, bloodshot eyes, a sharp and murderous gleam began to emerge.
Uncle Xijiao, looking at the hole, raised his eyebrows and instantly raised his voice. “See, see! Just like I said! The dead man is alive! He’s come back to crawl after us!”
“Shut up—”
Uncle Zhang immediately shouted at him fiercely.
Aside from Uncle Xijiao, the others were all filled with doubt.
They were staring at the wet hole, and the expressions on their faces were grim.
“Well… maybe…”
Someone nervously spoke up by the edge of the hole.
“You see, it looks like some leaves have fallen over here, maybe an animal came out of the mountain and dug up the body—”
Before he could finish, another voice immediately contradicted him.
“An animal? I go up the mountain every year. You think this is some sort of nature reserve where there are leopards and tigers? The biggest animals around here are deer and wild boars. The guy we buried was at least 1.8 meters tall. We had so many people together just to take him down. He was so heavy, it took several people to carry him. How could an animal have dug him up?!”
“…Even if it was an animal… then what about what Uncle Xijiao saw last night?”
Someone’s voice was low, almost a murmur.
From the tone of his voice, it was clear that he was terrified.
At that moment, the entire group fell silent.
The villagers, who were tanned from the sun, their seemingly simple faces now showing uncontrollable signs of fear.
And then, through the damp, rain-soaked air, came Uncle Zhang’s voice, gnashing his teeth as he roared.
“Stop with the supernatural talk! Damn it, you guys think I don’t know what’s going on—”
Uncle Zhang glared at the other men.
His face twitched, making him look unusually vicious.
—Though it was hard to say whether this unusual fierceness was from anger or… fear.
After his outburst, someone in the group immediately furrowed their brows and shot a fierce glare back at him.
“Second brother, watch your words, who’s trying to mess with you? We’ve all taken risks to help you bury the body. If the police find out, we’ll all go to jail! If it weren’t for the fact that your wife’s still at home, and your mother’s in that state, do you think we’d be getting involved in this mess?”
“You killed someone!”
“Exactly, your cousin’s brother came to us. At worst, let him make a scene, I don’t believe that a wife you paid for would actually run off with someone. If she does, just go and drag her back… But no, you got all impulsive and ended up killing her.”
“Just choking her to death would’ve been fine, but now the body was seen… tsk, and now we’ve ended up like this. We’ve tried everything to cover this up for you, and now you’re accusing us, saying we’re trying to mess with you. That’s really ungrateful.”
…
In an instant, the area around the old body burial site turned into chaos.
Almost everyone was blaming and insulting each other.
One person tried to offer advice, but when it reached Uncle Zhang’s ears, that person was immediately met with a sharp retort.
“Calm down? How can you expect me to calm down?! Oh, now it’s my fault? Damn it, I spent tens of thousands to get a wife, and that guy dares to show up, accusing me of human trafficking. He wants to take my cousin’s wife away? I should be saying he’s the one doing fraud, getting involved with that dead woman to scam me out of money. Who does he think he is? I didn’t mean to kill him, and even if he’s dead, he deserved it—deserved it!”
As he cursed, it seemed like Uncle Zhang suddenly remembered something. His tone shifted, dark and resentful.
“…I’m starting to think there’s something wrong with Grandma Zhang’s grandson.”
The man gritted his teeth, speaking with a venomous tone.
“When I came back that night, I kept feeling like someone was following me. And it’s too much of a coincidence, this place that never sees anyone, and suddenly that kid invited a friend to the village… No, this thing, I need to have a word with Grandma Zhang.”
The moment these words were spoken, everyone froze, their expressions turning pale.
“Second brother, you’ve lost your mind!”
“Uncle, don’t do this. Grandma Zhang helped you back then, and Tang Yazi’s just a kid, what does he understand…”
“Yeah, you can mess with others, but Tang Yazi is Grandma Zhang’s grandson, she treats him like her own eye.”
“Don’t make things worse. The police come around every month. You don’t want to get us all thrown in jail with you.”
…
Hearing his name from Uncle Zhang’s mouth, Gan Tang’s hair stood on end with fear.
Even with his usual courage, at this moment, he didn’t dare to stay. However, just as he was about to quietly retreat, Yu Huai beside him stepped on a branch that had fallen in the storm last night.
“Crack—”
The small sound, in normal circumstances, wouldn’t be a big deal.
But at this moment, the forest was unnervingly quiet, and Uncle Zhang and his group were on edge, their nerves tightly wound.
The instant the sound echoed, Gan Tang saw Uncle Zhang, like a wolf sensing blood, suddenly look up.
His bloodshot eyes immediately locked onto their position.
Gan Tang’s mind went blank.
He didn’t dare to move.
After all, when it came to mountain paths, he couldn’t outrun Uncle Zhang’s group.
If they chased him down, what would happen to him? Gan Tang’s mind flashed back to the burial pit he had seen earlier… Great, even the body disposal place was already prepared.
At this moment, the only thing he could do was freeze in place, silently praying that Uncle Zhang and his men would mistake the noise for some other animal.
In the brief moment, countless frantic thoughts raced through Gan Tang’s mind. He instinctively held his breath, gripping Yu Huai’s arm tightly.
Yu Huai, it seemed, was also stunned by the sudden change, his arm cold and wet with sweat.
But Uncle Zhang didn’t ignore the sound as Gan Tang had hoped.
The man, now fully stirred, wielded his shovel and began striding toward them, a fierce energy radiating from him.
Just as Gan Tang was hesitating whether to flee…
“Rustle…”
On the other side of the burial pit, the grass suddenly rustled.
Then, everyone saw a large, muscular, obviously male hand flash through the thick bushes.
The person seemed to have been lying in the grass, their fingers dug into the ground. After being discovered, they scrambled away without standing up. The wet grass and bushes rustled as the person crawled away into the distance.
“Who’s there?!”
“Damn it, someone’s been watching us!”
“Chase—chase him down and kill him!”
…
Uncle Zhang and the others completely forgot about the small noise Yu Huai had made earlier. Wielding their tools, they immediately rushed toward the figure in the grass.
In an instant, the area around the burial pit was completely deserted.
The crisis was averted, but Gan Tang remained frozen on the ground, his body tense from the intense fear, unable to move.
It wasn’t until Yu Huai raised his arm to cover Gan Tang’s mouth and dragged him down the mountain that Gan Tang snapped back to reality. Instinctively, he reached up to grip Yu Huai’s arm.
Yu Huai’s arm was firm and hot, but just as Gan Tang touched it, a chill ran down his spine.
Wait, Yu Huai had his arm around his shoulder, and the other hand was covering his mouth…
So now, whose hand was he holding?
Gan Tang’s pupils dilated as he suddenly looked at his palm.
…
He was gripping a severed leg, probably soaked by the rain. The cut was pale, as if the skin had turned to stone.
“What… what is this?”
Gan Tang almost passed out.
__
Author’s note:
Other people’s severed-leg protagonist gong: Severed-leg protagonist gong.
My severed-leg protagonist gong: Severed leg.
