Yun Xiu worked at a crematorium and dealt with corpses often, so she knew a thing or two about this sort of thing.
After death, the body’s functions cease and blood stops circulating, and livor mortis gradually appears, divided into different stages. Because of differences in death posture and individual constitution, the shape and depth of the lividity vary.
In the hypostasis phase, two to four hours after death, the livor mortis isn’t very pronounced, and moving the body at this point may make it disappear. But twelve to twenty-four hours after death it enters the diffusion phase, when the surface lividity becomes very obvious and won’t fade even under pressure.
The three hundred people of Baihua City had died last night, well over twelve hours ago by now.
“It seems… they’re not completely dead yet.”
The moment Yun Xiu finished murmuring, the white cloths across the entire corpse-holding ground suddenly began to stir. One by one the bodies opened their eyes, their limbs contorting as they writhed and clambered to their feet.
The very corpse whose dead-fish eyes she’d just closed opened them again too, the cloudy eyeballs rolling stiffly to lock onto her face, its body twisting like machinery as it slowly stood.
As if they’d found their target, every corpse in the corpse-holding ground turned its gaze toward her.
In that moment, she felt as though she were a monkey up on a stage, performing while a crowd gawked.
Yun Xiu: “…”
She silently reached up, tugged her veiled hat lower, stared at the floor, clutched her sleeve, and tried to find a crack in the earth to crawl into.
Sorry, social anxiety acting up.
There were just too many of them. Yun Xiu started to feel dizzy and nauseous, and let out a soft, panting breath. “F-f-fellow daoist, I’ve finished saying what I had to say, n-now what do we do? Can you beat, beat these things?”
Xie Wuwang glanced at her, tone offhand. “Originally I could, except in the current situation…”
As he spoke, he sighed softly, lifted his right hand and moved it just slightly, and the spirit-locking chain on Yun Xiu’s left wrist tightened along with it.
“I’m not left-handed. I ordinarily wield the sword with my right, my left hasn’t the strength, I can’t hold a sword with it.”
Xie Wuwang drew Zhezhu. “But these people were only ordinary folk in life, with no spiritual energy. Ordinary people can be held off with a weapon, so the only course for now is for you, my friend, to—”
The spirit stone Zhezhu’s spirit had been gnawing clattered to the ground. Its pupils quaked. The sky was falling.
What, boss!
You never used to let anyone else so much as touch your sword, and now you’re just handing it to this cringing, cowering, seedy little mortal?! Could she be some sword-dao prodigy? No, she doesn’t look one bit like someone who could wield a sword!
Could it be, could it be because it ate too much and he’s sick of it?!
Boohoohoo… it’ll eat less from now on, won’t that do?!
As Xie Wuwang spoke, his gaze drifted to the girl. She was crouched on the pitch-black ground, having picked up a beaded flower hairpin, fiddling with something, head down.
Just as he was wondering what she was doing, the girl suddenly, bashfully, lifted her head. Even though the veiled hat hid her eyes, he could feel her gaze seemed hesitant as it landed on his right wrist.
“F-fellow daoist, you said if it weren’t for this chain, you could handle it alone, right?”
Xie Wuwang answered, “Yes. But the key is with the Immortal Prison guard, so right now it can’t be un—”
Before he’d finished, the girl abruptly raised her hand, slid a thin little wire into the lock of his cuff, and gave it a couple of gentle twists.
“Click.”
The spirit-locking chain came open.
Xie Wuwang: ?
“Th-there, done, it’s open. But don’t worry, fellow daoist, this is a special circumstance, go ahead and fight without a care, I won’t take the chance to break out.”
With another “click” Yun Xiu cuffed the chain’s other end to the well beside them, then stuffed the little wire into his palm, crouched at the well’s edge, pressed down her veiled hat, and softly cheered him on. “F-fellow daoist, you can do it!”
The whole sequence, a flowing, seamless display of considerable self-management skills, without a single flaw to find fault with.
Xie Wuwang: “…”
The heartbroken Zhezhu’s spirit: 0.0?
Yun Xiu crouched at the well’s edge, picking at her fingers.
That’s right, besides “AAA Crematorium Technician, Master Yun,” she had another WeChat account: “AAA Professional Locksmith, Old Yun.”
Maybe because the corpse-holding ground was so cold, Yun Xiu shivered out a sneeze, rubbed her nose, and seemed to catch a peculiar smell.
Like floral fragrance? And also with a hint of… hm, pine oil?
Leaning against the well, she lowered her head and suddenly spotted a little slip of paper.
Yun Xiu picked it up.
【Battle Plan 2.0, Supplementary Edition】
【If someone notices something’s off, activate the control device, and while they’re distracted fighting, knock them out with the sleeping mist, then destroy the evidence.】
【If the drug fails, remedial measures are in Battle Plan 3.0, Remastered Edition.】
Yun Xiu: hm?
“S-sorry, that’s mine.”
A black shadow suddenly wriggled up out of the well, snatched the slip of paper back from her hand, and wriggled back down.
Yun Xiu: ???
Yun Xiu sank into thought. She figured she’d go see how the good-guy bro’s fight was coming along, that husky kept insisting he was really strong, so he should have it handled…
But when she looked up, the white-clad young man had leisurely just drawn his sword, then sheathed it again and was walking unhurriedly back toward her.
Yun Xiu: ?
Xie Wuwang came to a stop, returned the little wire to her, and said calmly, “I can’t win.”
Yun Xiu, puzzled: “But didn’t you say earlier that…”
The honorable Sword Venerable, serene: “I’ve been dosed with the sleeping drug. I can’t summon any strength.”
Yun Xiu: OvO!
The slip of paper she’d seen was real!
Yun Xiu hurriedly took the little wire, gave it a couple of twists, opened the spirit-locking chain, and pointed at the well. “F-fellow daoist, I just saw the culprit, and the culprit’s battle plan.”
She recounted what she’d read on the slip.
The “corpses” around them were closing in. Xie Wuwang looked as though it had all just dawned on him. “I see. So these bodies are being controlled by someone. Tangling with them is only a waste of time, we need to find the mastermind first.”
Yun Xiu nodded, her little face solemn. “Then there’s no time to lose, fellow daoist, let’s go find the culprit right now!”
Somebody save her, a little longer being gawked at here and she really was going to faint on the spot!
Xie Wuwang gave a soft “mm” and was about to say that he’d traced the scent and found another route, when the girl cuffed the spirit-locking chain back onto his wrist and abruptly yanked the chain with such force that, caught utterly off guard, he was dragged along with her right into the well.
Two “splash”es, water leaped up inside the well.
Xie Wuwang: “…”
Now he understood exactly how she’d clawed through the Immortal Prison wall.
Sure enough, there was a hidden passage in the well. Passing through the water layer, they dropped into a dark, cramped tunnel. Yun Xiu shook off the water like a little dog and looked around, several wet footprints on the ground led to a tightly locked door.
The corpse-holding ground was cold, and now that she’d jumped into the icy well water, her clothes clung to her, soaking wet, and Yun Xiu couldn’t help sneezing again.
“Hand.”
Yun Xiu blinked, then held out her hand to the white-clad young man, a little wire lying in her palm. “Here.”
The young man was silent for two seconds, then raised his hand, passed over the thing in her palm, and let his fingers rest on her slender wrist through her sleeve.
He formed a hand-seal, and the damp, wet vapor instantly dissipated.
The cold, sodden clothes turned dry, even her hair dried, and Yun Xiu murmured, “Thank you.”
The good-guy bro really was a good person.
And his hands were still just as nice, the finger-bones so well-defined.
She fidgeted with her fingers, hemming and hawing. “Um, fellow daoist, didn’t you say you were drugged and can’t summon any strength? How about I carry you over on my back? Don’t worry, I’m pretty strong, I used to haul corpses all the time, I won’t drop you.”
After transmigrating she’d discovered that, apart from the fox tail, this body was no different from her modern one, identical face, and even the being-strong part hadn’t changed.
Of course, the getting-dizzy-in-a-crowd part hadn’t changed either.
Xie Wuwang: “…”
The being-strong part, he had just now gotten a firsthand taste of.
If he truly couldn’t detect the faintest ripple of spiritual energy on her, he’d have found it genuinely hard to believe she was a mortal.
Xie Wuwang gave his sleeve a flick. “No need. I’ve still got the strength to walk.”
Yun Xiu rubbed her chin and studied the tightly locked door. The keyhole wasn’t as dainty as the spirit-locking chain’s, the little beaded-flower wire wouldn’t open it.
She thought for a bit, reached up to her head, and pulled out the hairpin holding up her hair.
Thirty seconds later, Yun Xiu pushed the door open.
Behind the door was another long, dark tunnel, no light at all. The two walked in. The air was utterly still, without even the sound of wind.
In the darkness, Xie Wuwang’s gaze rested on the girl ahead of him. From the moment he’d seen her last night until now, she’d worn a veiled hat the whole time, spoke timidly, and never once looked up to meet the other person’s eyes when she talked.
Last night her veiled hat had happened to fall off once, and she’d hurriedly ducked her head in a fluster. He’d never seen her face, only judged from her voice and figure that she was a young girl.
“You’re a corpse-handler of the Liuhe Wildlands, my friend?”
“…Mm.” More or less. She was a senior technician at the Third Brigade crematorium.
“The Liuhe Wildlands drift outside the three realms, demons and ghosts run rampant there, it’s terribly dangerous. Why choose to work there?”
“Um… well, this—” Yun Xiu had landed in the Liuhe Wildlands the moment she transmigrated, there wasn’t much choice about it. She hemmed a moment. “Fortune favors the bold?”
She started making things up wholesale. “It’s like this, there are lots of remains there, and the more dangerous the place, the more it pays. One job’s worth several ordinary ones.”
The young man paused. “You’re very short on money, my friend?”
Reaching the end of the tunnel, there was another tightly locked door. Yun Xiu studied the lock for a few minutes, gave the hairpin a twist, slid it in, and opened it.
She said offhandedly, “Mm, to put food on the table.”
“When I was little I had nowhere to live and nothing to eat, so I went around working odd jobs. As long as it earned money I’d learn anything, like… lockpicking?” She retrieved the hairpin and pushed the door open.
That part wasn’t a lie. She’d been ghostwriting summer homework for people since she was a kid.
Damn it, if she could do it over, she absolutely would not have slacked off reading the “legit novel” Tyrannosaurus Warrior recommended while writing summer homework.
Now she knew: dabbling in smut really does get you thrown in the slammer.
Who even designed this secret passage, there were forking paths up ahead, each with a door. Good thing Yun Xiu’s lockpicking skills were superb. Her glory-days record was once opening an entire residential complex with a single wire.
Don’t get the wrong idea, though, she was a model student and an upstanding citizen, licensed and certified. She picked locks to help a real-estate developer test the burglar-resistance of the new locks installed in a high-end complex.
“That sleeping mist is specifically formulated to target cultivators. According to that great one, it can even lay out a Nascent Soul cultivator, how could it possibly not work? Could Shuiling Palace have sent an expert this time? Damn it, this scum…”
The man looked at the youth. “Xiao Wu, how did you get exposed?”
The youth: “I, I saw that person had spotted the plan, and in a moment of panic I was afraid the whole scheme would fall through, so I couldn’t stop myself from snatching it back.”
“Uncle Wang, they know now that there’s a hidden passage in the well, what do we do? They’ll probably track us here soon.”
The man pondered a moment. “Don’t fret, Xiao Wu. This tunnel is riddled with traps, its paths a tangled maze, and it’s set with layer upon layer of locked-door checkpoints. One misstep and you plunge into a snare, nine deaths and one life and even if you survive you’ll be skinned alive. Even if that lot comes down, they won’t be able to find their way over for a good while—”
“Creaaak—”
The word “over” was still stuck in his throat when the door was suddenly pushed open, and a girl in a veiled hat and black clothes appeared before the two of them.
Seeing them, she seemed to freeze too, growing awkward, and stammered softly.
“Um, s-sorry, good evening, gentlemen?”
The two: ?