Joyful Motherhood in a Rural Family

Chapter 754: Chapter 754: Playing Dead
 

How could these soldiers be threatened like this?

Upon hearing this, they immediately slashed a sword towards the old Taoist, who screamed, “My god!” and hastily squatted down, slipping right under the coffin. This made everyone burst into laughter.

“Leave the old man be! Open the coffin!”

A few soldiers gathered around again.

There was a commotion in the queue. It was so easy to die these days, but people generally believed that the dead should be left in peace. No one would deliberately make things difficult for the dead.

The soldiers here clearly intended to cause trouble, making the people indignant.

These soldiers didn’t care about the opinions of the crowd. Looking intimidating, they deterred those who wanted to stand up for justice, making them retreat without saying a word.

Watching the coffin being lifted from the ground and prepared for opening, the suona player slowly came over, stuttering for quite a while.

“You… you… you… can’t… can’t open… open the coffin. This is very unlucky… if you keep causing trouble, more… more people will die. This coffin can’t… can’t… be touched!”

It turned out that the suona player had a stutter, which explained his difficulty in uttering even a single word.

“Get lost! Your words don’t decide anything! I’ll do whatever I want! Hurry and get the iron pickaxe!”

The soldier glanced at the funeral party, making the pallbearers shrink and huddle together, none daring to speak up.

The iron pickaxe was quickly brought over, and the coffin was obviously well sealed all around without any gaps.

Not caring about what others thought, they picked up the iron pickaxe and began to break open the coffin directly.

The sound of the coffin cracking under the iron pickaxe echoed, and soon the coffin was split open, exposing the interior to everyone’s eyes.

Indeed, there lay a dead woman inside the coffin, her mouth wide open, eyes bulging out of their sockets, having been dead for quite some time. Her eyes were already gray, and her face was oozing pus. She had clearly died a wrongful death!

“Damn it! This is so unlucky!”

The soldier cursed angrily, still not giving up as he reached out his hand, attempting to search the bottom of the corpse, in hopes of finding something of value.

However, just as he leaned in and reached out, the corpse moved!

Before everyone’s very eyes, she slowly sat up in her coffin and reached for the soldier’s throat…

“Ah! Ghost!”

“Ah! Trouble, trouble! It’s a reanimated corpse! Run, everyone! Run!”

In a moment, chaos and panicked howls filled the checkpoint, as everyone scattered like headless flies. Even the soldiers guarding the checkpoint were terrified, running faster than anyone else.

In a short while, the checkpoint was empty, not a single person in sight.

The soldier who had been held by the neck obviously heard the outside commotion too, but by the time he tried to escape, it was too late. His neck was firmly trapped and he couldn’t move at all. His eyes rolled back, his legs kicking wildly, full of regret.

“Hurry up! Hurry and save him, don’t just stand there.”

It was the voice of the old Taoist. A glimmer of hope rose in the soldier’s eyes. Just when he thought he was going to die, the hands grasping his throat loosened, and he coughed desperately, taking quite a while to catch his breath.

He looked down to see the dead woman still lying in the coffin, staring at him with lifeless eyes, unmoving, as if everything that happened just now was merely his imagination. But the pain on his neck was so evident, especially the strong smell of corpse, which was so real that he couldn’t deceive himself!

The old Taoist by the side kept apologizing.

“Sir, we can’t be blamed for this! A wrongful death can’t let the coffin touch the ground halfway. Look at this… it not only touched the ground but also… reanimated in broad daylight! What will happen if it’s nightfall?”

The old Taoist had an anxious look on his face.

The soldier looked up at the sky and suddenly shivered.

It was now sunset, with a thin mist rising in the distance, indicating that nightfall was near.

“Hurry up! You all get up and carry this corpse away immediately, or your lives will be in danger! Hurry up!”

Oh, how the soldier regretted his actions!

At this moment, he just wanted to slap himself twice. What was he thinking, wanting to open the coffin? Was he tired of living?

He cursed himself for thinking about the coffin again! Damn it!

Growing increasingly anxious, the soldier hurried the others numerous times. Without even covering the coffin with the lid, they passed the checkpoint and headed straight for the cemetery.

He touched the deep marks on his neck and felt more frightened the more he thought about it. He left for home before the appointed time.

Two days later, it was discovered that he had been dead by his bed for some time. His wide-open eyes were eerily similar to those of the wrongly dead woman, which led to more gossip and speculation among the people.

Some said he was killed by a vengeful ghost for offending it.

Others believed he was taken away by the ghost to become its replacement, as the ghost had died wrongfully and needed a substitute to be reborn.

And some even said he had contracted corpse poison and died from it…

People had various opinions, but none could convince anyone else. Of course, these discussions were beside the main point.

Meanwhile, the group who had successfully passed through the checkpoint quickly buried the woman and continued northward.

Eunuch Xiao constantly complained about his lips. Earlier, in order to disguise him, they had glued a goatee to his face, which was now making him very uncomfortable.

“This is inhumane! Look at my skin, it’s completely peeled off. It hurts so much…”

No one said a word, staying silent.

Eunuch Xiao suddenly remembered something: “Taoist, I never imagined your Taoist skills were so powerful! If it weren’t for your intervention, I would have been scared to death when the female ghost crawled out of the coffin! Oh well, speaking of which, you are quite resourceful. The way you made the female ghost grab the soldier was simply brilliant – amazing!”

Eunuch Xiao couldn’t help giving him a thumbs up.

Everyone nodded in agreement as the scene had been truly appalling!

But the old Taoist then turned around and glanced at them all: “You think the corpse suddenly sat up because of the poor Taoist’s tricks?”

Eunuch Xiao’s smile froze on his face. After a while, he swallowed his saliva: “It wasn’t?”

“The poor Taoist would never be disrespectful to the dead.”

The old Taoist exuded an air of an immortal, appearing divine and untouchable.