C8 Burning the Corpse

I was petrified with fear, unable to utter a sound as if some malevolent spell had rendered me immobile. Helplessly, I watched the ghastly woman creep through the window into the room!

As the seconds ticked by, the woman moved as if she were boneless, slithering in with the eerie grace of a snake.

But just as her pale, skeletal hand was about to seize me, a familiar white figure materialized.

A person clad in white, holding a lantern, appeared outside the window, standing right behind the woman.

In that instant, I snapped back to reality. I let out a cry and sat up, only to realize that dawn had broken outside. The window remained closed, and there were no signs of the ghost or the lantern inside the house.

It had all been a dream.

Breathing a sigh of relief, I wiped the cold sweat from my brow, but the bizarre events of the previous night lingered in my mind—the sudden appearance of the sedan and the person with the white lantern.

Unable to sleep, I got out of bed and put on my shoes to use the restroom. As I passed the storage room, I heard a noise from the darkness within.

Driven by curiosity, I approached and peered through the door's crack. I could just make out a figure crouched inside. Even from behind, I recognized him instantly—it was Old Master Jiaang, missing an arm.

I was about to knock gently when a foul stench wafted from the room, setting off alarm bells in my head.

I knew this odor all too well. Despite my grogginess, there was no mistaking it—the unmistakable scent of death.

A chill ran down my spine as a cold draft seeped through the door crack, making me feel as though I were still trapped in a nightmare.

Could it be that Old Master Jiaang...

I held my breath and peered inside, only to see Old Master Jiaang wielding a cleaver, chopping down with a gruesome crunch of bone and sinew!

As the morning sun began to rise, a gentle beam of sunlight pierced the darkness of the room. To my horror, I saw a body lying beneath Old Master Jiaang, and the limb that had been severed was unmistakably human.

I snapped to attention, my mind racing with the thought that, after all the calamities I'd witnessed, it could be my foster father involved. The idea left me paralyzed with shock, sitting on the ground. I stared toward the room where my foster father lived, the urge to scream rising in my throat out of sheer panic.

The sound of several sharp, spine-chilling cracks pierced the air. I inhaled deeply, steeling myself to continue spying, desperate to identify the body. But as I peered through the door's crevice, a bloodshot eye met mine! I lost all composure and let out a loud scream.

The old wooden door groaned open, revealing Old Master Jiaang, his solitary eye fixed on me indifferently, the machete in his hand smeared with dark blood.

"Changsheng, what brings you here?" Old Master Jiaang inquired gently, his demeanor untroubled.

"Grandpa Jiaang, you... you..." My words faltered, my mind a whirlwind of fear and confusion. Yet, a wave of relief washed over me as I realized the body wasn't my foster father but a stranger.

Old Master Jiaang, seemingly on instinct, shut the door, his voice tinged with unease. "I'm slaughtering pigs. I'll cook a nice meal for you all tonight."

I numbly nodded, at a loss for words amidst the bizarre scene unfolding before me. Then, from the southern chamber, my foster father's voice beckoned, "Changsheng, come inside. I need to speak with you."

I glanced back at Old Master Jiaang as he retreated into the storeroom, resuming his work with the machete. Stumbling into my foster father's room, I asked hesitantly, "Father... Father, what is Grandpa Jiaang doing? What's the story with that body? Did he... did he commit murder?"

My foster father bowed his head, massaging his disabled legs, and after a brief pause, he explained, "Your Grandpa Jiaang is a Corpse Dragging Man. That body was unclaimed for too long, so he planned to burn it. He was chopping it to prevent it from bursting during the cremation."

"Why not just bury it?" I asked, somewhat skeptically.

"Some bodies, when buried, can undergo a transformation," my foster father replied calmly. At that moment, the scent of something burning wafted in from the yard.

After a bout of coughing, I grew concerned for his health and refrained from pressing the matter further. I hurried to prepare his medicine.

Soon, the medicine was ready, and Old Master Jiaang brought in breakfast. Two bowls of porridge sat before my foster father and me, each with preserved eggs and lean meat stirred in.

For some inexplicable reason, I detected a foul odor emanating from the porridge, particularly from the bits of lean meat, which resembled...

My foster father heartily slurped his porridge, while Old Master Jiaang contentedly munched on his steamed bun, savoring the pickled vegetables before him, seemingly avoiding even a glance at the porridge.

Something felt off, and the village accountant's words echoed in my mind...

Cannibalism.