Chapter Seventeen: A Corpse Floats Down the River

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In the moonlight.

The man from the cowshed staggered out, leaving me utterly bewildered.

A weasel!

Its eyes glittered with cunning, and it wore a piece of clothing stolen from who knows where, tied into a neat bow at the neck, making it look absurdly like some foreign gentleman. Yet its little hands held up a hard lump of cow dung, raising it high as if to let it bask in the moonlight.

Suddenly, I remembered what my grandfather once told me when I was a child: a weasel that has gained supernatural powers will disguise itself as a human and waylay travelers at night, asking if it looks like a person. If you say yes, it can ascend and become human. If you say no, its efforts are wasted. And if it fails to get your affirmation, it’ll hold a grudge and seek revenge. I always thought it was just a story to scare children—never imagined such things were real.

“Do I look like a person to you?” the weasel asked in a shrill, grating voice, more like the screech of metal than human speech, as if it had strained itself trying to mimic the way people talk.

Before I could answer, Fatty Zuo piped up, “You look like a damn prick to me!”

At that, the weasel’s eyes flashed with shock and fury. It flung the cow dung straight at Fatty Zuo, then bolted off in a panic.

Fatty Zuo burst into raucous laughter, sounding like a complete idiot.

I was speechless.

Wasn’t he afraid the weasel would come after him?

Ahead of us stood the City God Temple—ruined walls, cobwebs hanging everywhere.

Fatty Zuo parted the webs and squeezed inside first, facing the half-broken statue of the City God and shouting, “Damn you! Monsters run wild all over this village and you do nothing? I won’t rest until I give you a piece of my mind!”

Was he really going to take on the City God?

From his pocket, Fatty Zuo pulled out a talisman, bit his finger, smeared blood all over it with haphazard strokes, then waved at me. “Lighter!”

I handed him my lighter, and he burned the talisman before the statue.

While the paper burned, I asked, “Other priests use magic to ignite their talismans, but you always use a lighter?”

He shot me a scornful look. “Using magic is a waste of effort. This is called keeping up with the times—don’t talk nonsense if you don’t understand.”

When the talisman finished burning, not a mouse stirred, let alone the City God himself. I thought to myself, Fatty’s really overdoing it this time. I’d better steer clear of him during a thunderstorm—if he gets struck by lightning, I might get caught up in it too.

Frowning in anger, Fatty Zuo shouted, “Get your ass out here!” He kicked over the altar before the City God’s statue, sending up a cloud of dust.

Then something remarkable happened.

The statue shuddered twice, then with a loud crack, a fissure split its center. Immediately, a chill wind blasted from behind the statue, swirling leaves from the ground up into the air.

Was the City God coming out?

Fatty Zuo stood tall and unmoved amid the whirling leaves, hands clasped behind his back, his beady eyes fixed ahead with a godlike composure.

The leaves spun into bizarre symbols on the ground.

Fatty glanced at them and said, “If you don’t dare show yourself, at least tell me what’s going on!”

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The leaves swirled again, forming more strange symbols. Fatty Zuo glanced at them and warned, “If I find out you’re lying to me, I’ll report you to the Five Thunder Tribunal and see your head chopped off! Now send that creature out to guide us!”

From a corner of the temple came a rustling sound, and out slithered a snake, white-necked and patterned, as thick as a bamboo pole.

I recoiled in fright.

Fatty Zuo, unfazed, barked at the snake, “Lead the way!”

Unable to contain my curiosity, I asked, “What did the City God say to you?”

Fatty Zuo, a cigarette dangling from his lips, replied, “The coward didn’t dare say much—just told me he couldn’t mess with whatever’s in the river.” He pointed at the patterned snake. “So he sent a lackey to guide us so we can investigate ourselves.”

“The City God has lackeys?” My worldview was once again upended.

Fatty Zuo gave me a look reserved for the simple-minded. “That penniless wretch gets no incense from mortals, he’s starving. Quietly started accepting worship from animals. These spirits are happy to have a minor god watching over them—so they cozy up nearby, sucking up to him. Don’t you smell that beastly stench all around? If the Five Thunder Tribunal finds out, he’ll lose his post for sure.”

I eyed the strange snake. “Can it talk, like the weasel?”

Fatty Zuo said it couldn’t—it hadn’t cultivated enough years, so it was just like a family dog at best, only good for leading the way.

“If the City God is such a big shot, why does he listen to you?”

“Big shot my ass! I hold an official title above him—Heavenly Marshal Wang, Right Guardian of the Jade Fire Palace… Hey, why do you have so many damn questions? Just get moving!”

Fatty Zuo, unwilling to chat further, pressed ahead on the path.

I committed Fatty’s title to memory and later looked it up. Wang Lingguan, whom he mentioned, is a revered guardian god, chief bodyguard to the highest Daoist deity. As Right Guardian, Fatty’s position was akin to an imperial bodyguard with a blade. “One village, one Earth God; one township, one City God; one county, one Tribunal; one Dao, one King of Hell”—no matter how mighty the City God seems to common folk, before a bodyguard of the emperor, he’s nothing at all.

The patterned snake led us straight to the Wax Channel.

Fatty Zuo’s face changed instantly.

I asked him what was wrong.

He said he couldn’t swim.

After days of Fatty Zuo boasting nonstop, I finally found something he couldn’t do. Having grown up on the banks of the Yellow River, I could swim like a fish, so I couldn’t help taunting him. While I was feeling smug, he untied an anchor and sneered, “What’s the use of swimming? Can you outpace a boat?”

I fell silent.

The two of us and the snake boarded the boat, and I began rowing toward the center of the river.

I felt a deep, instinctive fear of the Wax Channel—leopard frogs, monsters with house-sized heads, the mysterious boy in white… these had haunted my nightmares for years.

Fatty Zuo, meanwhile, regaled me on the boat with stories of corpse possession, scaring me so much my hands trembled on the oars. Eventually, I threatened, “If you don’t shut up, I’ll jump overboard and swim home, and leave you alone on the river.” Only then did he fall silent.

We drifted for several hours, covering more than ten miles.

I asked Fatty to row for a bit, but he only managed to make the boat wobble dangerously.

I had no choice but to take over and row alone, wearing myself out. Exhausted, I finally paused to rest.

Suddenly, the white snake reared up and dove into the water, vanishing before us.

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We looked at each other in confusion. What was that supposed to mean?

Were we supposed to investigate here?

The boat began to sway violently, and Fatty Zuo’s face turned ashen.

I rushed to the side and peered over, seeing the river water muddy and roiling, churning like boiling soup, thick with silt and weeds.

Something was at the bottom!

Fatty Zuo, regaining his composure, pulled out two talismans, stuck them to the sides of the boat, and began chanting frantically.

I grabbed a bamboo pole and jabbed it into the water.

A tremendous force shot up, nearly wrenching the pole from my grip.

Fatty Zuo hurried over to help me pull. Together we hauled it up, staggering and falling onto the deck. I examined the end of the pole—it was streaked with blackish blood, and even tangled with long strands of hair.

Before I could react, the boat suddenly lurched upward, and both of us were thrown into the river with a splash.

I felt water rush into my ears and nose, the muddy stench burning my lungs with pain. Flailing desperately, I tried to swim back to the boat, but just as I reached it, something icy clutched my ankle and began dragging me down.

I gasped, swallowing more water, and kicked frantically at whatever held me.

But underwater, I was no match for the force pulling me downward.

Opening my eyes, I felt my blood run cold.

A woman—her body bloated and pale, hair floating in the current, eyes rolled completely white, no pupils—was greedily gulping river water, her hands locked tight around my ankle, dragging me deeper into the Yellow River.

Corpse possession?!

My scalp tingled with terror as I kicked with all my might.

With a surge of effort, her grip loosened slightly. Seizing the chance, I dove even deeper. The woman’s strength had been pulling upward, so she wasn’t prepared for my sudden dive. Her hands slipped from my ankle. Like an eel, I darted behind her and shot desperately toward the surface.

But the woman was relentless. Spitting out mouthfuls of mud and sand, she chased after me, surging upward.

Just as my head broke the surface, a pair of cold, corpse-like arms wrapped around my chest, dragging me down again. I swallowed another mouthful of water as my body was pulled swiftly downward.

I didn’t care how disgusting it was—I opened my mouth and bit down on the swollen, pale hands.

It felt like biting into a sponge—soft and yielding. The hand showed no sign of injury, just deformed briefly before returning to its original shape, like some lump of gelatin.

I was completely dumbfounded.

What in the world was this thing made of?!