Corpse Retriever

Old Lady Niu began to laugh. Fine hairs slowly sprouted from the gaps in her face—wounds gnawed open by snakes, insects, rats.

And just like that, her cat-like face didn’t seem so terrifying anymore.

Because it had covered up something even uglier.

Li Zhuiyuan suddenly asked, “You ate her flesh?”

The cat-faced old woman nodded. “I did.”

Creeeeak…

The door creaked open by itself, the grating sound loud in the silence.

And with that opening, the sounds that had seemed sealed behind it now drifted forth.

The three Niu siblings knelt at the bedside, heads wrapped in white cord, waists bound in black gauze, dressed in mourning linen. They were wailing in grief.

It looked exactly like it had during the daytime funeral rites.Li Zhuiyuan was puzzled. If the three Niu siblings were here, then what had Great-Grandpa and Runsheng captured earlier?

But recalling the corpse demon’s powers, Li Zhuiyuan suddenly understood. What he’d thought was wakefulness… had never been true wakefulness. It was like waking in a dream only to enter another.

The clearest sign of this was… he hadn’t seen Uncle Qin since he vanished.

That Uncle Qin earlier was the corpse demon’s projection, pulled from his own mind.

It had even read from his own copy of Strange Tales of the Rivers and Lakes. Read it aloud, in fact.

Old Lady Niu pointed at Niu Fu. “When he was young, he was always sick. She was the one who carried him to the doctor in all weather. When they had no money for medicine, she knelt and kowtowed to the doctor, did his laundry, chopped his firewood.”

Then she pointed at Niu Rui. “When he was young, he got into a fight and killed someone. She was the one who pleaded with the dead boy’s parents, promised to care for them in their old age. In the end, she truly did see them off with dignity.”

Lastly, she pointed at Niu Lian. “When the family split, she wept and insisted she was her daughter too, said she couldn’t be biased. Even if her brothers didn’t care for her, she’d take her into her own home. She divided the little they had equally between them.”

She turned to Li Zhuiyuan and smiled. “Do you know what this Niu Lian did in the end? She thought it was too much trouble to keep up the act every day.

“That night, when it was her turn to ‘bring food,’ she dragged the old woman from her bed and dumped her in the ditch. The next day, she claimed her mother had stumbled in and drowned.

“She was already half-dead from hunger by then, couldn’t even speak.

“But in the end, she was still thrown in the water… and drowned.

“She floated there… and I, just like you earlier, walked the bank, following her.

“Then I jumped on her. I started eating her flesh. There wasn’t much left. Just bone.

“But I wanted to bite her. I wanted to eat her. I was furious. How could someone be so stupid?

“Then… you died together?”

“Yes. I never expected it to end like that. We died, but… we didn’t stay dead. We became this… this thing. Neither human nor ghost nor demon.

“Maybe it’s because even Heaven couldn’t stand how foolish she was.”

Li Zhuiyuan finally asked what he’d been wondering all along. “What exactly do you want to do?”

The cat-faced woman’s expression hardened. “I want revenge. I want to avenge her. Those three ungrateful wretches—how dare they live on in peace!”

“But… you clearly already have the power. Why haven’t you acted?”

She looked at him, puzzled. “That night at the birthday banquet, what you said… I thought you were just flattering me to survive. Was that what you truly believed?”

“Shouldn’t I?”

“People like you… you’re not supposed to let evil harm the living, no matter how guilty they are.

“That’s your path. Break it, and you’ll suffer backlash.

“Didn’t your Great-Grandpa teach you that?”

Did he?

Li Zhuiyuan pondered. But Great-Grandpa had led him to lure the Yellow Oriole to the bearded man’s house that very night.

And afterwards, he’d stood there, one hand on his hip, cigarette in the other, grinning, saying they’d be eating banquet food in a few days.

Maybe Great-Grandpa’s path was different from others.

“No. This is about you. You’ve stirred up all this trouble—why haven’t you taken your revenge?”

The cat-faced woman’s face began to twist. Cracking noises echoed from within her as dead worms and rats slithered from her body, piling on the floor.

Then, in a voice laced with grievance and fury, she nearly roared:

“I want revenge. I dream of revenge. But do you know what makes me maddest?

“She and I—we’re one. We are one being.

“I’m in control, yes. She’s gone. But her instincts remain inside me.

“I can feel it. If I kill even one of them, her instincts will awaken and shackle me. I’ll never get another chance at the other two!”

“So, you want to kill all three?”

“Of course! I won’t spare a single one. I won’t settle for picking. They all deserve to pay!”

Li Zhuiyuan said, “Then don’t kill them. Don’t kill any of them.”

“What?”

Old Lady Niu lunged, gripping Li Zhuiyuan’s shoulders, nearly sinking her teeth into his throat as she snarled:

“Brat, do you even know what you’re saying?”

“There’s no need to kill. She won’t be able to restrain you.”

“What do you mean?”

Li Zhuiyuan looked calmly at the cat-faced old woman and smiled.

“Cripple one. Drive another mad. Leave the third gravely ill.

“And then watch how the fine children they raised with such example care for them with all their heart.

“That will be the most fitting…

“Retribution.”

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