Chapter 59: Hezi Xinniang/The Box Bride (10)
“Dead?”
“How could he be dead?”
The earth-shattering words struck like a thunderclap, leaving everyone present in a daze. Jiang Si was the first to react, grabbing the man and asking, “How did he die? When did he die?”
“Why are you asking? Who are you to him?” The new clerk looked suspicious, his hand surreptitiously reaching for the landline behind the counter, ready to call the police the moment things felt off.
“Hello, I’m from the Bureau of Industry and Commerce. Your shop is operating in violation of regulations and needs to suspend operations to cooperate with an investigation.” Seeing that it was his turn to step up, Old Xu from the Municipal Supervision Bureau slapped his ID on the table, warning him sternly, “Please cooperate with our investigation.”
The clerk was startled and honestly answered Jiang Si’s question. “He was killed in a hit-and-run on his way home from work yesterday. I heard that because it was too dark, no one could see clearly at the time. Afterward, two or three cars ran over him in succession, and his limbs were crushed to pieces.”
“Hissā” Someone let out a sharp intake of breath.
Jiang Si recalled the rhetorical question the DM had asked yesterday in front of the box and the spirit tabletā”Being hit by a car while walking on the road could also be part of the game.” A chill spread from his fingertips upward, and his heart sank further and further.
The clerk was still sighing. “Who would have thought an accident would happen so suddenly? I just started a couple of days ago and only spoke two sentences to him. In the blink of an eye, heās gone.”
Jiang Si pursed his lips and said, “We need to go inside and take a look. You…”
“This… maybe I should call the boss and let him know?” The clerk hesitated, taking out his phone to dial, but Hai Di stopped him. “Don’t notify him yet.”
As he spoke, he gave Old Xu a look. “Iāll have to trouble you to stay here and chat with him. We need to go inside to check. No one is to be notified until we come out.”
“Alright.” Old Xu vaguely understood the situation. Hearing that he didn’t have to go inside, he agreed readily and pulled the clerk aside to ask about the script murder game’s circumstances.
The clerk couldn’t stop them and could only watch helplessly as they went in. He tremblingly said to Old Xu, “Hello, I just started working here and don’t know anything. What exactly is going on with this shop?”
“Don’t worry, let’s chat for a bit first,” Old Xu said.
“Brother Jiang, was that dead person an employee here? Could he have been the DM for the script murder game as well?” Lin Nan asked, though he already had a guess in his heart. He felt increasingly cold, as if he had fallen into an ice cellar in the dead of winter, shivering uncontrollably.
“Yes.” Jiang Siās fingers curled instinctively. “He led us through this script murder game just yesterday.”
“…”
Sensing his low mood, Hai Di wrapped Jiang Si’s cold palm in his hand and said in a low voice, “This has nothing to do with you. He worked here; even if it wasn’t us, there would have been other players.”
Before Jiang Si could respond, Xiang Guxun, after asking Hai Moyun for the direction of the ancestral hall, had already strode forward and pushed the door open, leaving the others behind.
“Let’s go in and see.” Saying this, Jiang Si also walked in. This time the door wasn’t closed, and the sunlight shining in dispersed some of the gloom, though a damp, musty smell still permeated the entire ancestral hall.
“Crap.” Lin Nan cursed under his breath the moment he saw the interior. After drawing the others’ attention, he explained, “The layout here is exactly the same as in Rongcheng. It’s a one-to-one replica.”
“This place is very clean,” Xiang Guxun noted. “If you hadn’t said there was something strange beforehand, even I wouldn’t have noticed it upon arriving.”
The “cleanliness” he referred to wasn’t about the environment, but the absence of ghosts. On the surface, it just looked like an old house with some history.
As he spoke, he walked to the front of the ancestral hall to look at the two rows of neatly arranged spirit tablets. He lifted one, leaned down to sniff it, and then flipped it to the back to see the side with the red-lettered Dongying name. He remained silent for a moment.
“Spirit tablets made of tung wood, names written in cinnabar.” He turned to look at Jiang Si. “What did you say this was?”
“The Underworldās Register of Life and Death,” Jiang Si said. “The Register of Life and Death isn’t just for recording the life of a soul; it can also be used to detain souls.”
“Using this method for deceased relatives… it seems the owner of this shop isn’t exactly a filial descendant. He probably wanted to use their souls to block disasters for himself.”
“Exactly.” Xiang Guxun put down the spirit tablet and whipped a peach wood sword from his backpack. He pinched two yellow talismans, chanted an incantation to make them spontaneously combust, and tossed them into the air. The long sword caught the paper, and before the flames died out, he swept the sword toward the spirit tablets, clearing them all away.
With a series of clatters, the solid wood spirit tablets fell all over the floor, leaving the tabletop clean.
“…Will doing that provoke them?” Hai Moyun still remembered getting into a car accident after throwing a spirit tablet.
“Itās the same sooner or later; thereās no need to be polite.” Xiang Guxun gave him a cold glance. “If you’re gentler to it, will it let you go?”
Hai Moyun shut his mouth.
Just as Jiang Si was about to step forward to talk about the box, he saw Xiang Guxun tap the ground with his toes, perform a mid-air somersault, and strike the wooden box directly with his long sword.
There was a loud metallic crash, but the lock showed no sign of breaking.
Xiang Guxun stepped on the offering table and struck again with force.
The force was so great that the entire solid wood table trembled, not to mention Xiang Guxun himself. His palm was completely numbed by the counterforce, and the peach wood sword showed signs of cracking.
“…” Lin Nan muttered softly, “Using a wooden sword to hit a metal lock, what was he thinking?”
Jiang Si patted him and explained in a low voice, “That’s no ordinary wooden sword. It’s forged from lightning-struck wood, and its hardness is much greater than metal. They say it can even split the Demon-Locking Tower of the Pagoda-Bearing Heavenly King.”
Lin Nan was shocked. “Really?”
“Fake, it’s just a legend,” Jiang Si said.
By then, Xiang Guxun had already flipped back to the ground. He said in a heavy voice, “Thereās a problem with this lock. I felt a force on it resisting me just now.”
Is that really not just the reaction force of physics? Lin Nan silently complained in his heart.
Jiang Si coughed. “Itās normal, otherwise this ancestral hall wouldn’t be so ‘clean’.” Facing Xiang Guxunās questioning gaze, he poured out everything he had learned about its origin the previous night.
“Then how do we break it open?” Xiang Guxun stared at the box, lost in thought. “Just set it on fire?”
“Don’t burn it yet,” Jiang Si said. “Wait for me to ask for some help.” As he finished, he took out the prepared joss paper and was about to light it when he suddenly remembered something. He turned to Hai Moyun and Lin Nan and urged, “The living shouldn’t watch. You two close the door and go outside first.”
Lin Nan, who was already experienced, didn’t offer a single word of protest this time and stepped directly over the threshold into the courtyard. Hai Moyun looked around in confusion but obediently closed the door and went out.
The moment the door closed, all light was cut off.
The ancestral hall was dim and quiet. In the hazy, ghostly blue atmosphere, fire suddenly pierced through the space. Jiang Si softly recited the God-Invoking Incantation.
Paper ash swirled up in a vortex without any wind. As the room temperature dropped, a crimson robe gradually materialized.
“Ahemā” Jiang Laotou looked just as he did in the dream, yet subtly different. Holding a white tablet, he projected an air of majesty. He wore a square black cloth cap over his grey hair, and his sharp eyes surveyed everyone with a clarity that saw through all things.
“This is?” Hai Di had just started to look puzzled when his eyes fell on the tablet in Jiang Laotouās hand. Four words were written in official script: Are You Here?
What a strange inscription, he thought, silently making a note to find an opportunity to ask Xiang Guxun about it later.
Jiang Si kept the phrase “address by title at work” in mind. He stood up and explained to the two, “This is the City God, Lord Chenghuang.”
Actually, Jiang Si didn’t need to explain. Xiang Guxun had already recognized him. He put away his sword and bowed formally to Jiang Laotou. “This humble Daoist, Xiang Guxun, greets the City God.”
The City God belongs to the Daoist lineage, evolved from “Shui Yong,” one of the eight gods of the winter sacrifice in the Rites of Zhou. He is the orthodox Daoist deity in charge of a specific region. Every dynasty has a history of building temples to worship the City God, and his prestige among the common people is immense.
Xiang Guxun was unsettled and amazed that Jiang Si could actually summon the true body of the City God. He looked at Jiang Si repeatedly, wondering what his background was. He decided he must ask Shen Dashi for more information when he got back.
Didn’t they say this guy was just a joss paper shop owner?
“Mhm.” Jiang Laotou nodded slightly, looked at the offering table in front of him, and asked, “Is this that ‘Box Bride’?”
“Yes,” Jiang Si said. “Just now, Daozhang Xiang tried to cut the lock with a peach wood sword, but it didn’t budge. We suspect this isn’t an ordinary lock, but one made with dark arts.”
“Corrupt and evil things, daring to run wild in Ning City.” Jiang Laotou flicked the tablet in his hand. The unremarkable long board struck the lock, and with a metallic clack, the lock fell.
The lock was smashed into pieces.
As the gold lock hit the floor, the wooden boards began to creak incessantly. As if some restriction had been lifted, the half-man-high wooden box went from rustling tremors to loud banging. It seemed that in the next moment, something was about to burst out of the box.
“Pretending to be a ghost.” Xiang Guxun threw his peach wood sword, the tip piercing straight into the box. A shrill scream, sounding like someone scratching frosted glass, rang out. It was so sharp and piercing that it caused physical discomfort just listening to it.
The moment the peach wood sword pierced the outer shell of the wooden box, a stench that had been tightly sealed inside surged out, sweeping toward the humans and the ghost present.
It was a foul smell that could make one’s head dizzy and stomach churn, to the point of nearly kneeling and vomiting.
That smell again.
Xiang Guxun and Hai Di simultaneously showed looks of distress, barely able to stand while holding their breath.
Being in the middle of it, Jiang Si actually felt fine.
Perhaps it was because he had frequently smelled this kind of corpse stench from childhood to adolescence that he had developed an antibody. Ignoring Hai Di’s attempt to pull him back, he went forward alone, stepped onto the offering table, and fully opened the wooden box.
Since the ancestral hall already had very little light, the inside of the box was pitch black. Jiang Si lit a candle and brought it to the front of the box, looking inside.
He came eye-to-eye with a greyish-white, greenish-black head.
Jiang Si subconsciously held his breath and stared straight at it. This skeletal head, or Dukou, rolled along the box until it brushed against Jiang Si’s foot and tumbled to the floor.
Wind blew through the hollow mouth, and it miraculously let out a tinkling laugh. It was slightly better than the scream from before, but only slightly.
Xiang Guxun and Hai Di, who were so choked by the smell they didn’t even want to open their mouths, could only watch it go crazy. Jiang Si didn’t indulge it. He jumped off the table and kicked the Dukou. To his surprise, the thing rolled away and then circled back to its original spot.
This time its tone changed, warning eerily, “Do you want to die!”
Unfortunately, it spoke in the Dongying language, and no one present could understand it.
It cursed for a while, only to find that no one cared. Jiang Si even threatened it with the candle, “Shut up. If you keep acting crazy, I’ll burn you.”
Sadly, the Dukou also didn’t understand what he was saying and continued to ramble. From its tone, it seemed to be swearing.
Jiang Si could only furrow his brows and say to Hai Di, “Bring your phone over.”
“?”
“Open a translation app. Iām going to have a chat with it.” As he spoke, he took out his own phone. He placed the two devices together, one translating Chinese and the other translating Dongying Japanese.
Jiang Si recorded its voice for a while and then looked down at the text on the screen.
Over and over, it was actually saying: “None of you men are any good! I’m going to kill you! I’m going to tear you into ten thousand pieces, none of you will die a good deathā” and other such words.
“…”
Jiang Si didn’t want to listen anymore. He simply typed and let the device translate his earlier threat.
This time, the Dukou actually went quiet. It rolled around Jiang Si once and said in a very normal tone, “If you burn me, you will die too.”
Jiang Si narrowed his eyes slightly and looked at Jiang Laotou. Unbeknownst to him, Jiang Laotou had actually been observing him. Seeing Jiang Si handle things so methodically, the original disapproval he felt for his grandson “eating the bread of the underworld” was beginning to waver.
The little kid who loved to cry had grown up after all.
Jiang Laotou said, “A Dukou has a spirit; it can perceive the world. There are often legends of ‘Skull Gods.’ What it says might not be a lie.”
“I don’t believe that once you’re burned to ashes, the curse can still remain,” Jiang Si said harshly.
“Hahahahaāyou think no one has thought of that? The bones of those who tried to do that have already piled up into a small mountain.” The Dukouās hollow eyes faced Jiang Laotou, saying venomously, “Even if you take me away, this curse will be passed down for generations until it is truly dissolved by time.”
After all, it was quite wary of these people; in a hundred years, they were the only ones who could break the wooden box open. “Unless you help me find someone. As long as he is dead, I will let you go.”
“Find who?”
The Dukouās voice paused, then it gathered its strength as if a person were squeezing their throat into a very thin slit, speaking with poisonous shrillness: “My descendant, my only grandson.”
“The last bloodline of the Hirakawa clan, Hirakawa Haruhara.”
Translator’s Note: We finally meet the legendary “City God” (Chenghuang). In Chinese folklore, he’s like the local magistrate for the dead. Also, “Dukou” is a specific term for a sentient skeletal headādefinitely not something you want rolling around your feet! Hope you’re enjoying the spookiness as much as I am. See you in the next chapter!
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