Chapter 137: Dying Unrepentant

As the Sixth Uncle's voice trailed off and the crowd hesitated, an elderly woman with graying hair, supported by her family members, suddenly spoke up as well:

"Let Pengju take a look. It's pitch black, and everyone's been out here for a long time now. My Liucai is sleepy too, time to go back and rest."

"Grandma, I'm not sleepy, I still want to watch—"

The young child holding her hand quickly retorted upon hearing this, but before he could finish, Sixth Uncle's wife covered his mouth.

Her prestige in the village wasn't as high as the Sixth Uncle's, but this elderly woman was kind-hearted to everyone in daily life, and whenever villagers faced hardships, she was generally willing to help. Consequently, deep goodwill toward her was felt by everyone in the village.

As soon as she spoke, the others chimed in, urging him repeatedly.

The villagers were all staring at the three men in the water. Unable to withstand the pressure, Kuai Pengju hesitated for a moment, then answered unwillingly:

"Alright."

Under the watchful eyes of the crowd, he bent down and reached his hand into the water.

Strangely enough, Kuai Pengju's feet had been standing in the water all along, and earlier his right hand had also reached into the water to grasp the cage.

Yet after soaking for a long time, he hadn't felt anything unusual. But the moment his left hand, which had remained dry until now, entered the water, he felt a bone-chilling coldness pierce through his fingertips and penetrate deep into his heart, making him shiver violently.

"Hiss—"

He drew in a sharp breath, muttering to himself:

"Why is this water so biting? It feels like the depths of midwinter."

"I suppose you're just soft-hearted and reluctant to part with her, aren't you?"

On the riverbank, upon hearing someone tease him about having once coveted Lady Zhuang, his wife grew furious with embarrassment and stung him with a sarcastic remark.

"You old shrew—"

Kuai Pengju gave her a sheepish yet fierce glare, then hardened his heart, reached his left hand into the cage, and touched Lady Zhuang's head.

A massive clump of hair drifted along with the current, wrapping around his fingers.

Beneath the hair seemed to hide some sort of bone-chilling malice, making him shudder with dread, as if someone were tugging at his hand, trying to drag his body downward.

Terrified and trembling, Kuai Pengju was about to scream, but out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Kuai Pengcheng, Third Uncle Kuai, and the others standing close by. The previous eerie sensation must have been just his imagination.

Steeling his resolve, he gritted his teeth and mustered the courage to blindly push aside Lady Zhuang's hair.

The man didn't dare look at the face of the woman inside the cage, but his palm brushed against Lady Zhuang's facial features.

This was an action he had longed to perform while Lady Zhuang was still alive, but when his hand touched her now, it was nothing like the soft warmth he had imagined in his midnight dreams.

What met his touch was the ice-cold face of a corpse.

In less than the span of two quarter-hours, Lady Zhuang's face had lost the elasticity of the living, retaining only the stiff and frigid texture unique to the dead.

Her delicate nose felt like a blade that might cut his fingers.

What if the teeth behind her lips bit into his? What if her eyes suddenly opened—countless bizarre and terrifying thoughts flooded Kuai Pengju's mind.

Fortunately, none of these fearful imaginings came to pass.

He successfully parted Lady Zhuang's hair and touched her face.

She remained completely motionless, like a pig that had already had its throat slit, quietly curled up and sleeping in the water.

There was no longer any breath coming from the young woman's nostrils.

Kuai Pengju slid his hand down from her chin to her neck. Her skin was chillingly cold and delicate, but he had no mind to dwell on such things at the moment.

His heartbeat was rapid and loud, and blood surged through his body so fiercely that it nearly drowned out the tactile sense in his fingertips.

After a long while, he confirmed that Lady Zhuang no longer had a pulse, and only then did he look up at the Sixth Uncle and the others on the bank, saying in a trembling voice:

"Sixth Uncle, she's dead."

How utterly bizarre.

Why would a woman drowned in a pig cage suddenly float back up from the river with a heavy stone attached? A chill ran through the Sixth Uncle's heart, and he commanded:

"Push her back into the river."

The three men tried with all their might to push the pig cage, along with the woman's corpse, back into the river, but strangely enough, no matter how hard they pushed, the pig cage remained floating just beneath the surface of the water, faintly revealing Lady Zhuang's dead body.

"..."

At this point, the villagers of Kuailiang Village began to feel truly frightened.

Many of them were getting cold feet and were no longer as excited as they had been before the execution; they just wanted to hurry up and finish these miscellaneous tasks so they could return home and bolt their doors tight.

"Drag her further out,"

the Sixth Uncle instructed again.

Kuai Pengju and Kuai Pengcheng no longer dared to touch the pig cage. Standing in the water, if not for the Sixth Uncle's authority, the two of them would have scrambled ashore immediately to get as far away from the female corpse as possible.

In the darkness, bonfires flickered on the bank.

Tonight, everyone in Kuailiang Village had gathered here to watch the execution. Standing in a long, massive row along the bank, the lit bonfires formed a fiery dragon that illuminated half of the riverbank.

Beneath the reflection of the riverside tree shadows at night, the water assumed an eerie and sinister shade of black.

Yet beneath this dark water, the dead woman's skin was so white it seemed almost luminous, casting an ominous and desolate aura against the backdrop of the black water.

Her long hair, like a nimble water snake, sinuously wrapped around the woman's corpse.

*Splash—splash—*

The water rippled, and the long hair swayed back and forth beneath the surface.

The woman's naked corpse was clearly visible.

Kuai Pengju could finally no longer bear the internal pressure:

"I'm going back to the shore—"

As he turned to leave, Third Uncle Kuai suddenly spoke up: "Let go, I can swim. I'll take her to deeper waters. I don't believe she dares to cause trouble!"

"Good!"

Upon hearing this, the Sixth Uncle shouted a loud "Good!" "Third Brother is right. Lady Zhuang did wrong, how could she have the face to turn into a ghost? Even if she has turned into a ghost, we'll ask her how she dared to bring shame upon Kuailiang Village."

As soon as he said this, the villagers, who had been overwhelmed with terror a moment ago, regained their confidence:

"That's right, Lady Zhuang committed adultery, she deserved to die, how could she have the cheek to become a ghost?"

Filled with newfound courage, Third Uncle Kuai shouted to Kuai Pengcheng and Kuai Pengju:

"Let go!"

Once the two of them let go, he grabbed the pig cage with both hands and gave it a hard push forward. Using the momentum of the push, his body darted out like a fish, kicking his legs hard and instantly gliding the cage and the corpse more than a zhang away.

Once he reached the center of the river, he released his grip—the cage containing the corpse and the large stone did not sink to the riverbed as everyone had imagined, but instead floated strangely on the surface of the water.

*Plop, plop!*

The bamboo cage bobbed up and down on the water like a float attached to a fishing line cast into the water. Lady Zhuang's corpse was alternately swallowed by the dark water and then bobbed back to the surface, a sight that made everyone's heart pound with fear.

"Sixth Uncle—"

The villagers, who had only just managed to muster up their courage, began to feel fearful once more at this sight.

Someone called out to the Sixth Uncle and said in a low voice:

"This is no way to go on."

After all, Lady Zhuang had been executed by the village for committing adultery.

Although the villagers believed they were fully justified in the matter, a woman committing adultery was hardly a glorious affair. Once word spread, the entire Kuailiang Village would become a laughingstock among the surrounding villages and towns.

"This river is a branch of the Shangjia River. If we let Lady Zhuang's corpse float like this and it drifts downstream to be discovered by others, we'll lose all our face. How will the young men in the village ever find wives then?"

Most of the people in the village were close relatives and always had to intermarry with the outside world.

As the saying goes, good news stays at home while bad news travels a thousand miles. If outsiders learned about the village's situation, many of the young men would be forced to remain bachelors.

The Sixth Uncle also knew the gravity of the problem.

"It seems even this river water cannot deal with this cheap woman!"

The old man gritted his teeth and said:

"This hussy didn't behave herself in life, and now she's tormenting people in death. Drag her back."

After uttering a couple of complaints, he suddenly shouted:

"Third Brother, drag her back! Since we can't sink her to the bottom, pull her back and we'll figure out another way to deal with her."

The day was growing late.

Under normal circumstances, the villagers would have already entered dreamland by now, but tonight they had been delayed by this mess and remained wide awake.

The riverside was damp and cold, and Lady Zhuang's corpse stubbornly refused to sink to the pond's bed. The villagers gradually grew restless and anxious, all eager to leave this place as soon as possible.

Hearing the Sixth Uncle's words, some knew the matter couldn't be easily settled tonight and asked with anxiety:

"Sixth Uncle, how should we handle this then?"

"Could it be that we have to find a graveyard and bury her?" someone asked.

"Such an unclean wretch has no qualification to be buried—"

"Then how do we deal with her?"

Everyone spoke at once, talking over each other.

Sixth Uncle's wife, who hadn't spoken again since her previous remark, suddenly sighed.

She cast a pitying glance at the corpse in the river and said once more:

"Death is the greatest of matters. Now that she's dead, what's the use of bringing up past grievances—"

"No matter how many faults she had, she still gave birth to Manzhou for Fifth Brother."

At this point, the elderly woman's heart skipped a beat, and she turned her head to look around:

"Eh, where is Manzhou?"

Her cry brought the previously anxious crowd to an abrupt halt.

Many people stepped back and looked at one another:

"I don't see Manzhou—"

Sixth Uncle's wife felt a sinking sensation in her chest and shouted at the top of her lungs: "Fifth Brother! Fifth Brother! Where is your Manzhou?"

"Where is Fifth Brother?"

After she asked, everyone searched with torches for a long time until someone shouted, "Fifth Brother is right here."

Kuai Fifth Brother, wearing a dark and sullen expression with a cowering demeanor, was pushed out. Sixth Uncle's wife felt a bit displeased seeing his hands crossed inside his sleeves, acting as if he were merely watching a play despite his wife's death.

However, this was hardly the time to scold him.

"Fifth Brother, where is your Manzhou?"

"Who knows?"

Kuai Fifth Brother answered indifferently.

His hair was unkempt and matted, his face was smeared with dirt from who knows where, and his clothes were tattered, making him look utterly wretched.

Sixth Uncle's wife was nearly choked by his response, and then he added:

"That little girl has always been looked after by her mother; she probably went off to hide somewhere."

"You..."

Sixth Uncle's wife was too enraged by him to speak. At that moment, the Sixth Uncle said impatiently:

"Stop the chatter, is this the time to be discussing such things?"

Looking rather annoyed, he said:

"Manzhou is a big girl, she won't get lost. Let's solve the immediate problem first, and then the villagers can search for Manzhou together later!"

With his word acting as the final verdict, no one else dared to say any more.

Although Sixth Uncle's wife felt worried, she had lived with the old man for the better part of her lifetime and knew his temperament well. If she persisted in asking, it would only provoke his anger.

"Sigh,"

she sighed, "It's just a pity for Manzhou, left as a child without a mother."

...

As the minor interlude came to an end, on the other side, Third Uncle Kuai had pushed the woman in the pig cage back to the middle of the river, only to hear the Sixth Uncle's command to drag Lady Zhuang's corpse ashore.

By now he was exhausted, freezing, and somewhat frightened. He had a lingering feeling that beneath that thick, tangled mass of hair, a pair of sinister eyes was staring straight at him.

Yet the Sixth Uncle was right; he couldn't just leave Lady Zhuang's corpse naked in the water like that. What would it look like if someone saw it?

At that point, not only Kuailiang Village, but his entire family would lose all their face!

Thinking of this, he gritted his teeth once more, swam over to the pig cage, and grabbed hold of it.

Whether it was due to prolonged soaking in the water or a drop in body temperature, as Third Uncle Kuai gripped it, he felt the cage was even colder and heavier than before. Unable to push it alone, he called Kuai Pengju and Kuai Pengcheng over to lend a hand.

The two of them hadn't wanted to agree initially, but the Sixth Uncle's gaze was fixed upon them from the shore, and besides, the longer this matter dragged on, the more ominous it felt. None of them wanted to linger here any longer.

The Sixth Uncle had already said that once the corpse was dragged ashore, he would figure out a way to handle it, which was far better than leaving it soaking in the water, stuck halfway like this.

The three of them joined forces and dragged the corpse onto the bank.

Water streamed in torrents from the cage down the bank, and Lady Zhuang's curled-up corpse lay quietly inside like a dried shrimp.

"S-Sixth Uncle, what do we do now?"

Third Uncle Kuai climbed ashore, his body heavy and dragging.

Usually strong, energetic, and rarely falling ill, he now felt a sense of powerlessness after soaking in the water for a while.

A large volume of water rushed down from his body into his trouser legs, causing him to stumble backward and nearly fall back into the water.

Steadying himself, Third Uncle Kuai barely managed to plant his bare feet in the riverside mud, lowered his head, bent down, and gripped his trouser leg with his hands to wring it out hard—water squeezed out in a rush, and he instantly felt much lighter.

The other two villagers who had entered the water were in a similar state; the two of them supported each other just to stand steady and avoid falling back into the stream.

The people on the bank gathered around the corpse contained within the pig cage, discussing what to do next.

"If you ask me, chop it up and feed it to the dogs."

"Let's burn her at the stake—"

Everyone offered their own ideas.

An expression of unbearable pity appeared on Sixth Uncle's wife's face, her gaze falling upon the woman inside the pig cage.

*Gurgle—gurgle—*

Two strange sounds echoed out.

Whether Sixth Uncle's wife's eyes were playing tricks on her due to her advanced age, she always felt as though the woman's water-soaked black hair had twitched.

"Ah, is Manzhou's mother still alive?"

she cried out in alarm.

As soon as these words left her mouth, they scared the surrounding villagers out of their wits.

"What? She's not dead?"

Those who had just been discussing how to dispose of the corpse quickly stepped back, and the area around Lady Zhuang's corpse was swiftly cleared into a large open space, leaving only chaotic footprints on the ground.

In his panic, the Sixth Uncle stepped back as well, but the ground by the river was damp and slippery, and given his advanced age, he nearly fell over.

Had it not been for the villagers supporting him at the crucial moment, he surely would have been knocked to the ground and trampled upon.

Still shaken, he hurriedly shouted: "Everyone don't panic, a person soaked in water for this long can't possibly still be alive. You must have misread!"

The Sixth Uncle held high prestige, and as soon as he spoke, the chaotic scene was immediately quieted.

Those who had been about to flee in panic slowly came to a halt.

"Sixth Uncle is right, Lady Zhuang doesn't have three heads and six arms, how could she not die after being drowned for so long—"

The crowd stopped and slowly turned their heads.

Once again, they crowded closer, staring at the corpse inside the cage.

...

Amidst the profound silence, the only sound was the water from Lady Zhuang's hair trickling down her corpse, making a faint, rustling noise.