Volume 1 Chapter 002: Iced Coffin
Uncle San had a gloomy face and said, "Just take it off if I tell you to. Why waste your words?" I saw his expression and knew that things might not be simple. I didn't hesitate any longer and took off the skirt outside the corpse in a few seconds.
After taking off the skirt, there was no clothing inside, only a naked body was left.
This is really unreasonable.
Uncle San stared at the corpse, his expression becoming even uglier. I came to my senses and noticed that on the little girl's snow-white body, in addition to a circle of stitches around her neck, there was also a circle of stitches on her arms at shoulder level and at the base of her thighs.
From this it seems that the head and limbs of this corpse were actually sewn on with needle and thread?
This was the first time I had seen such a weird thing. My uncle told me to stop staring and put my clothes back on. After I had packed up skillfully, I was about to crawl out of the coffin when my scalp suddenly went numb. I don't know when the female corpse opened her eyes, and her white eyeballs stared straight at me!
I crawled out of the coffin, knelt down in front of it and kowtowed to it several times. This is the rule in our line of work. If you encounter something strange, it may be that you accidentally touched the corpse, and you must apologize immediately.
I just took off her clothes, which was disrespectful. Uncle San was so nervous that sweat broke out on his forehead. When he saw me climb into the coffin again and close the eyes of the female corpse, he cursed in a low voice, "Fuck it", and breathed a sigh of relief.
After this, we didn't dare to stay any longer and quickly closed the coffin lid. Uncle San was about to tie up the ink line again when we heard someone knocking on the door, which scared us.
I went to open the door, and it turned out to be Aunt Lin from our village. She looked anxious. As soon as she saw me, she grabbed my hand and asked if I had seen her daughter.
It hurt a little when she grabbed me, and I took a breath and said that I hadn't seen her since yesterday.
Aunt Lin's daughter is called Lin Wenjing, and she is my classmate. Speaking of her, I have some history with her. Teacher Tian arranged her to sit next to me, but Aunt Lin rushed into the school and scolded Teacher Tian for an entire afternoon.
Although I didn't end up becoming her deskmate, this girl had a gentle personality. She didn't avoid me like other kids did, and sometimes she would even talk to me.
Because the little girl is pretty, I still pay attention to her . But I haven't seen her in school since yesterday, and I thought she went to visit relatives with Aunt Lin. Aunt Lin said that her daughter went to her aunt to deliver eggs early yesterday morning, but when I asked her today, her aunt didn't see the girl at all.
Aunt Lin and her husband were very anxious and went to look for her. However, they searched everywhere in the village and found no trace of their daughter. Then all the relatives and neighbors of the Lin family got together and helped to search for more than ten miles, but there was no news at all.
She had no other choice but to come to our house and asked me if I had seen her daughter.
I was also very anxious when I heard this. In our village, the girl from the Lin family was the only one of my age who could talk to me. Uncle San closed the door and took me with him to join the search.
In the countryside, people are very kind and basically help each other. Without the village chief giving any orders, almost all the villagers were mobilized. We searched until late at night. We children and women went home to rest, while Uncle San and other men continued to search outside.
I went home, locked the door, went into the inner room, climbed onto the bed, lay down and fell asleep quickly. People in our line of work see a lot of corpses, so there was nothing special about having a coffin at home.
I followed the adults until midnight and was exhausted. Not long after I fell asleep, I vaguely heard a "clucking" sound. At first, I was half asleep and just turned over and continued to sleep. Later, the sound became louder and louder, as if it went straight into my bones.
I was suddenly awakened and sat up from the bed. It was dark all around. I called my uncle a few times, but no one answered, so I got out of bed and turned on the light. I looked at the time and it was already past three in the morning. My uncle and his group who had gone to look for the girl from the Lin family had not returned yet.
The creaking sound was still there, as if it was coming from the main room. I turned on the light and looked over. The coffin was resting on two benches. The creaking sound was coming from the benches, as if they were overwhelmed by the coffin and were about to collapse at any moment.
I found some things to reinforce the bench, bowed to the coffin, and then went back to the inner room to sleep. After that, I couldn't fall asleep and kept tossing and turning. I always felt uneasy. After a long time, I finally fell asleep in a daze. I even had a dream in the middle of the night. I dreamed of the girl from the Lin family.
Actually, I can't say it was that girl, but she was wearing similar clothes, had long hair, and was about the same height and figure. She ran towards me from a distance. When I got closer, I found that she had turned her head 180 degrees backwards and was crawling backwards using her hands and feet.
I was so frightened that I woke up and broke out in a cold sweat. I looked outside and it was already dawn. Soon I heard the door open. It was my uncle and his family coming back. I got out of bed and asked, but my uncle said he hadn't found it.
I felt sad and went back to bed. I couldn't fall asleep again after that. I kept thinking about the dream I had before and felt that something was wrong.
By noon the next day, there was new progress. Someone fished out a girl's body from the pond at the east end of the village. Her face had been gnawed by fish and shrimp, and her body was swollen. It was said that she was entangled by the water plants in the pond and sank to the bottom of the water without floating up.
Aunt Lin and her husband collapsed at that moment, rushed out of the crowd and cried, "My daughter, my daughter!", crying heartbreakingly. But later, Lin Wenjing's aunt came to see them and said on the spot that it was not their Jing'er who died.
First, the clothes worn by the drowned little girl were different from those of Jing'er in their family.
Second, their daughter Jing'er had a red birthmark the size of a fingernail on her butt when she was born, but this girl doesn't have that.
When Aunt Lin heard this, she rushed over and turned the unrecognizable corpse inside out.
In the end, they confirmed that it was not their daughter, but a mentally ill girl from the next village who somehow slipped and fell into the pond and drowned.
The village chief led his men to continue searching, especially focusing on the nearby ponds and rivers. Uncle San and his men searched until the early morning, and after sleeping for a while, they got up to help, and they were busy until the evening. I stayed at home and cooked dinner for him to eat when he came back.
I don't know if it was because of the incident with the girl from the Lin family that made me feel uneasy. Every time I saw the coffin in the main hall, I always felt uneasy. I took two white candles, lit them in front of the coffin, and put them in front of the coffin, and then put my palms together to bow to the coffin several times.
Just as I was about to go back to the inner room, a sudden cold wind blew in the room, blowing the candlelight flickering, and I shivered with cold. Then I heard a loud "clang", one of the two benches collapsed, the coffin fell down, and the coffin lid was thrown out.
The girl's body rolled to the ground, her pale face pressed against the ground, her hair messed up. Her eyes were open, her white eyeballs seemed to be staring at me.
My scalp went numb, I kept saying "I'm sorry" several times, ran over to pick up the body, and stuffed it back into the coffin. Strangely, the body was unexpectedly heavy, not at all like the weight of a little girl. I had to use all my strength to finally lift her in.
Then I displayed my professionalism and carefully combed her messy hair, smoothed out her wrinkled skirt, and tidied up her appearance.
But I just felt something was strange, and I was uneasy. Later, I sat in the inner room blankly for a while, and then I remembered that the female corpse lying on the ground with disheveled hair just now looked a bit like the girl from the Lin family who crawled towards me in my dream.
I waited for a long time, but Uncle San and his family didn't come back. I felt uneasy, so I went back to the main hall, knelt down and kowtowed to the coffin a few times, then chanted some prayers for Buddha's blessing and no taboos, etc. Then I burned three incense sticks in front of the coffin.
When the incense stick was half burned, I climbed into the coffin by climbing up the wall and carefully turned the female corpse over, so that her back was facing away.
Then he lifted her skirt.
I suddenly had a creepy guess. I wanted to know if she had a red birthmark ...
