Chapter 152: Blossoming Human Bones

"Old Seventh Zhuang was supposed to guide the way for us anyway, Old Zhang, just follow his directions," Zhao Fusheng instructed calmly.

"Ah, this—"

Zhang Chuan-shi made a bitter face, full of fear and trepidation. He hesitated, dragging his feet and shrinking his neck as he ingratiatingly called out, "My Lord, I'm scared. Can you sit right behind me? Only then will I, old Zhang, dare to move forward."

When he said this, he was mentally prepared for Zhao Fusheng's refusal. Resignedly, he picked up the reins and was just about to urge the horses forward when he heard Zhao Fusheng readily reply, "Alright."

"Huh?"

While Zhang Chuan-shi was momentarily stunned, he felt a slight jolt in the carriage as Zhao Fusheng stood up from inside, took a few steps, and then sat down directly behind him.

For some reason, the moment she sat down, the fear in Zhang Chuan-shi's heart was instantly suppressed by an invisible sense of security.

"Hold on tight, everyone. Old Seventh Zhuang, which way do we go?"

He swept away his previous guilt from speaking with Old Seventh Zhuang, and his voice was suddenly much louder when asking for directions.

Old Seventh Zhuang raised his arms with difficulty and stiffness. With every movement, the sound of flowing water on his body grew louder.

He pointed forward:

"That—"

The direction Old Seventh Zhuang pointed was precisely where the Ghost Road had opened.

Zhang Chuan-shi no longer held back and shouted, "Let's go!"

With that, he took a deep breath and cracked his whip.

The horse felt the pain and stepped forward with a long whinny.

This step pulled the carriage forward. The silhouette of the carriage was enveloped in a red glow. The seemingly boundless and ultimate abyss suddenly opened up the moment the carriage stepped onto the Ghost Road.

The thick fog that blocked out the sky vanished instantly without a trace, and the black-and-red Ghost Road also disappeared.

The sound of flowing water echoed.

Zhang Chuan-shi's posture of driving the horses at a gallop froze, and a bewildered look appeared on his face:

"My Lord—"

"My Lord, what happened?"

Inside the carriage, Fan Wujiu, Gou Old-Seventh, and the others also realized something was wrong, and everyone spoke up simultaneously.

Zhao Fusheng raised her head and looked around.

The carriage was now traveling along a loess road about a丈 (zhang) wide. To the left was a very steep slope, estimated to be at least ten丈 high.

The slope was covered with weeds and trees, hung with unknown berries.

Beneath the slope was a rushing, roaring river.

The river was wide, and the current carried river silt, presenting a turbid, yellowish color.

On the other side of the path were intersecting fields.

It was the autumn harvest season in September; the rice in the fields was abundant, and fruits and vegetables hung heavy on the branches.

In the distance was a village composed of countless dilapidated houses. Looking from afar, wisps of smoke rose from the chimneys above every household.

Zhao Fusheng froze.

At that moment, Old Seventh Zhuang sighed:

"Zhuang Family Village has arrived."

As soon as he finished speaking, Gou Old-Fourth inside the carriage felt a wave of panic.

Before knowing the truth, Zhuang Family Village was very familiar to him. But after learning that this place was haunted and that he himself was entangled in this disaster, he felt a strong sense of resistance toward Zhuang Family Village.

"Since we've arrived, we'll get off and walk, and go into the village to take a look first."

After her initial stupefaction, Zhao Fusheng quickly regained control of her emotions. She was the first to jump off the carriage, stretched her limbs, and shouted into the vehicle:

"Get down."

Fan Wujiu, Wu Shaochun, and the others knew the purpose of this trip was to handle a ghost case. Although they felt great fear toward the unknown fierce ghost, with Zhao Fusheng's deterrence before them, they did not hesitate and successively got down from the carriage.

Gou Old-Fourth, however, was terrified.

Upon arriving at this place, he always felt an omnipresent gaze in the dark scrutinizing his back. Even though his back pressed tightly against the carriage, it could not block that gaze filled with a touch of malice.

At this moment, he finally understood the uneasy feeling Old Seventh Zhuang had experienced these past few days.

If someone were to poke his back with a bamboo pole right now, knowing the cause and effect, he would definitely turn hostile.

"I don't want to get off—I don't want to get off—"

He muttered continuously, terrified to the point of incoherence, sitting motionless in the carriage.

He had originally made up his mind not to leave, but as Wu Shaochun and Fan Wujiu got off, followed by Zhang Chuan-shi, Gou Old-Fourth's mentality completely collapsed.

He scrambled down from the carriage and closely followed behind Zhao Fusheng.

Once he stood firm, he looked around and saw the golden rice paddies and the fields laden with fruits and vegetables. He was instantly stunned:

"This, this—"

It was as if something bizarre had happened, making his fear vanish completely.

He widened his eyes and kept looking around.

To the left of the carriage was the Shangjia River, and Zhuang Family Village was indeed located at one end of the river. Every May and June, the river water would rise and even flood both banks.

However, outside of that period, this tributary of the Shangjia River was very calm, and the water was clear, not nearly as turbulent and dangerous-looking as this.

Gou Old-Fourth was frightened by the roaring sound of the river.

Although he was still far from the riverbank, he subconsciously took two steps to the right, and then saw the farmhouses.

"My Lord—"

He called out softly to Zhao Fusheng, wanting to tug at her sleeve. As he spoke, his gaze fell upon the silent Old Seventh Zhuang beside them, and he trembled inwardly: My cousin looks even worse and more terrifying—

However, perhaps from spending the journey with Old Seventh Zhuang, he didn't show any strange behavior. Gou Old-Fourth's fear of him lessened slightly, but the sheer bizarreness of Zhuang Family Village at this moment terrified him to the core.

"When I came last time, it wasn't like this—"

He stammered vaguely, "It was, it was when I came to see my cousin—" As he spoke, he anxiously cast a sidelong glance at Old Seventh Zhuang, terrified that saying too much would give the game away and cause this living-corpse-like cousin to suddenly turn hostile.

"It's fine, I know what I'm doing."

Zhao Fusheng replied indifferently.

Her words made the heavy stone in Gou Old-Fourth's heart drop.

As long as Zhao Fusheng knew what she was doing, that was fine.

Zhuang Family Village was too terrifying!

This village was extremely barren, the land was not fertile, and the annual harvest was meager. At the time of harvest, the fields certainly did not look this bountiful.

Furthermore, it was already September, long past the season for harvesting rice.

When abnormal things happen, there must be demons at work; something major must have happened to Zhuang Family Village.

Gou Old-Fourth originally wanted to remind Zhao Fusheng, but he didn't dare to say it explicitly. After receiving Zhao Fusheng's reply and knowing that this official was full of confidence, he immediately stopped making a sound.

"Old Seventh Zhuang, where is your home?"

Zhao Fusheng always felt that the bizarre situation before her was related to Old Seventh Zhuang.

This person was a fierce ghost carrier, and the carriage had mysteriously arrived at Zhuang Family Village after leaving the city; perhaps it was connected to him.

She was on guard in her heart, but her expression remained exceptionally calm:

"Let's go to your place to rest for a while, find out what's going on in the village, and then figure out a way to go to Kuailiang Village."

When everyone got off the carriage, Old Seventh Zhuang was still sitting at the front, maintaining the posture he had of sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with Zhang Chuan-shi earlier.

Ever since entering the domain of Zhuang Family Village, he had been sitting in the carriage like a stiff corpse that had been dead for a long time, completely unmoving: his feet hooked together, his palms pressed tightly between his thighs, shoulders hunched, neck shrunken, chin tilted up as he stared in the direction of Zhuang Family Village.

Hearing Zhao Fusheng's call, he moved his eyeballs with difficulty.

A thin, grayish-white film over his eyeballs was pushed aside by his movement, forming a discharge-like accumulation at the corners of his eyes.

His pupils had long since dilated, presenting a gray color.

"My Lord, I'm home—"

He said calmly.

After speaking, he moved his eyeballs again, sweeping his gaze across Zhao Fusheng, Fan Wujiu, and Zhang Chuan-shi one by one, and finally resting on Gou Old-Fourth, turning into regret and guilt:

"Cousin—"

This cry of his made goosebumps rise layer upon layer over Gou Old-Fourth. His gaze shifted left and right, and just as he was about to look toward Zhao Fusheng for help, he saw that Old Seventh Zhuang had already looked away, and no expression could be discerned on his stiff, greenish-blue face.

"My Lord, follow the path ahead of the village, there is a small trail that leads straight to the riverbank."

Old Seventh Zhuang said to himself:

"There are boats coming and going morning and evening every day, which can take you across the river—"

Hearing his instructions, Zhao Fusheng's heart stirred:

"You—"

Did Old Seventh Zhuang realize something? Just as she was about to ask, Old Seventh Zhuang suddenly grinned:

"My Lord, am I already dead?"

His words were astonishing, shaking the souls of everyone present.

Gou Old-Fourth was the most cowardly and was practically on the verge of crying from fright.

Zhao Fusheng's brow twitched, Fan Wujiu wore a vigilant expression, and standing side-by-side with Wu Shaochun, he flanked her left and right.

"I really don't want to die, My Lord."

Tears of black liquid suddenly welled up and streamed from Old Seventh Zhuang's eyes. "My cousin and I agreed to work together and save money, and the new clothes the My Lord gave me haven't even been worn yet—"

"I don't want to die—"

Amidst his cries and shouts, a cracking sound suddenly came from his back.

Like an eggshell shattering in response, a torrent of water burst forth with a splash.

"Cousin—gurgle—"

Old Seventh Zhuang only had time to shout in a hurry before his cervical vertebrae suddenly snapped with a crack, and his head rolled heavily onto the ground.

His body toppled headfirst from the carriage, and a large amount of filthy wastewater spewed out from his back.

The black water was extremely corrosive, instantly rotting away the clothes he had not worn for long.

Those clothes were like water-soaked thin paper, sticking limply to his corpse, and finally fusing with the corpse-water, revealing the body underneath.

The flesh of the corpse turned into rotting water, peeling away bit by bit from the chalk-white skeleton, until finally, only a clean, headless human skeleton remained crouching on the side of the road.

Strange to say.

After Old Seventh Zhuang died, his internal organs turned into black water and his flesh vanished, but this skeleton alone seemed to have been wiped clean and polished.

The bones were crystal clear, resembling fine jade, without the slightest flaw.

And the intense corpse stench that had lingered in the noses of everyone from the Demon Suppression Division since leaving disappeared completely as Old Seventh Zhuang's corpse rotted away.

From the moment Old Seventh Zhuang realized he was dead to the moment his corpse turned to bone, it took less than a short quarter of an hour.

"..."

"..."

Everyone remained silent, deeply shocked by the scene before them.

The pitch-black skull rolled to the side, the dehydrated facial skin softly wrapping around the bones. The eye sockets, devoid of eyeballs, stared in the direction of their own bones, presenting a bizarre twist.

After a long while, Gou Old-Fourth, who had been shaking with fright, broke the silence first:

"Cousin—"

He was suddenly filled with indescribable regret and panic.

Old Seventh Zhuang hadn't harmed him as he expected; he had actually been dead all along, but Gou Old-Fourth felt a sense of being caught off guard.

A belated sorrow suddenly washed over him, and he burst into loud soars:

"Cousin!"

He shouldn't have avoided Old Seventh; when Old Seventh Zhuang looked at him and called out before dying, was he also reluctant to part with him, having many things to say?

Remorse turned into impulse, and Gou Old-Fourth dashed out from behind Zhao Fusheng, squatting beside Old Seventh Zhuang's skeleton, tears streaming down his face.

*Plop! Plop!*

Two hot tears fell onto the white bones. Just as Gou Old-Fourth was about to pick up the bones, Zhao Fusheng, who had been closely watching his every move, reached out and grabbed him:

"Wait!"

As soon as she shouted, the bizarre thing happened again.

The tears that Gou Old-Fourth had dropped onto Old Seventh Zhuang's remains did not slide off the bones like the corrosive water from Old Seventh Zhuang's body earlier. The moment the tears fell onto the bones, they seemed to slowly soak into the snow-white, jade-like bones, being slowly absorbed by the human skeleton.

Large, slightly darker-colored circular marks bloomed on the bones, and a sharp point suddenly protruded from within these circular marks.

In the blink of an eye, these points grew larger and larger, swelling like fermenting bubbles into lumps the size of peanuts.

"This—"

Such a change startled everyone who had been staring at the white bones, causing them to step back successively. Even Gou Old-Fourth, who had been extremely grief-stricken earlier, was terrified; his body leaned backward, he sat down hard on the ground, pushed himself up with both palms, and kicked his legs backward.

*Squeak, creak.*

Faint movements came from within the bones. If one hadn't been holding their breath with utmost concentration, they wouldn't have been able to hear them clearly.

"Is it a ghost?"

Fan Wujiu swallowed his saliva and asked with difficulty.

"Doesn't look like it."

Zhao Fusheng shook her head, her gaze fixed intently on the white skeleton.

The instant her voice fell, the bone lumps that had swollen from the dripping tears on the skeleton suddenly shattered.

A weak, brownish twig emerged from the cracked bone seams, growing rapidly and forming a delicate little bud.

The little bud grew rapidly until its outer skin split open, revealing the pitch-black sprout within.

Then the sprout blossomed swiftly, petal after petal unfurling. The petals were slightly pointed, their color transforming from black to red from the inside out, and in the blink of an eye, they bloomed into a flower as brightly red as blood!

The snow-white skeleton and the exquisitely beautiful, bizarre nameless flower blooming from within complement each other—unspeakably eerie, yet unspeakably harmonious.

It was as if the ultimate evil and the ultimate beauty had combined.

Everyone widened their eyes, momentarily too shocked to speak.

*Rumble.*

The river surged below, while the people from the Demon Suppression Division and Gou Old-Fourth were transfixed by the flower blooming on the human skeleton before them.

After a long while, Zhao Fusheng slowly straightened her waist.

Her movement seemed to break the silent spell, and Gou Old-Fourth finally regained his senses, his gaze unfocused as he asked:

"What, what is this?"

"A flower?"

Zhao Fusheng furrowed her brows:

"A flower blooming from bones—this is a bizarre phenomenon triggered when Gou Old-Fourth's tears dripped onto Old Seventh Zhuang's bones."

"In other words, the tears stimulated the bones to flower. Is it only tears that work, or would any water do?" Zhao Fusheng muttered to herself:

"If it's because of tears, is it related to the cousin relationship between Gou Old-Fourth and Old Seventh Zhuang?"

"And what does a flower blooming on bones metaphorically represent?"

Zhao Fusheng sighed:

"Is the strangeness after Old Seventh Zhuang's death related to Lady Zhuang of Kuailiang Village?"

It was still uncertain whether the ghost case in Kuailiang Village was caused by the resurgence of Lady Zhuang's fierce ghost after death. Now, the bizarreness following Old Seventh Zhuang's death had formed a new mystery, and it was unknown whether these flowers were poisonous.

Mystery after mystery.

One wave had not yet subsided, and another had already risen.