Chapter 5
Inside the cave, not far away, a man dressed in a yellow Taoist robe stood before a table laden with ritual objects, seemingly performing a ritual. He held a peachwood sword in his hand. Two coffins were placed beside him. Although Song Ling was also a cultivator, she couldn’t understand what the Taoist priest was doing.
The Taoist priest chanted incantations, piercing a talisman on the table with his peachwood sword. He then leaped up and struck the two coffins with the sword. The coffin lids burst open, releasing thick smoke that instantly filled the cave with a demonic aura.
Song Ling’s heart tightened. Although she didn’t know what kind of demon was inside the coffins, she could tell from the aura that it was incredibly ferocious and formidable.
The Taoist priest walked to a nearby stone wall and retrieved a lifeless-looking person from behind it. He grabbed the person’s arm and made a cut on their wrist. Blood flowed from the wound, dripping into the coffin. The Taoist priest then took the person to the other coffin and repeated the same action before casually tossing the person aside.
The Taoist priest continued chanting incantations. Something stirred within the coffins. A pair of blackened hands with long, black fingernails emerged from the first coffin. The skin on the arms was wrinkled and didn’t look human.
Low growls emanated from the coffin, accompanied by a foul smell of decay. Li Xinjun, witnessing such a scene for the first time, bit her finger to prevent herself from crying out. However, the sudden appearance of the creature from the coffin terrified her. She saw a partially decomposed corpse jump out of the coffin. Not only could the corpse move, but it also bent down and began to gnaw on the unconscious person on the ground.
The person’s flesh was torn and bloodied by the creature’s bites, their body trembling uncontrollably. Perhaps unable to bear the pain, the person seemed to regain consciousness momentarily before losing it again. Li Xinjun gasped at the sight.
Seeing Li Xinjun’s fear, Song Ling worried that she might be traumatized. She shook her head, signaling that they should leave. Li Xinjun snapped out of her daze, nodded at Song Ling, and slowly stood up to retreat.
They quickly backed out of the cave. Song Ling sensed that something was amiss. She felt the need to return to Mount Tian and consult her master about this type of demon.
She was deeply concerned about the potential consequences of this encounter. She knew that some cultivators would resort to any means to enhance their powers, including refining elixirs and manipulating ghosts and demons.
But what was that creature they had just seen in the cave, neither human nor ghost? It resembled the “Gu people” mentioned in ancient texts, but not entirely.
She recalled reading about sorcerers who raised “Gu” to control people’s behavior. Those afflicted by the Gu would lose their minds, become impervious to pain and fear of death, and be completely at the mercy of the sorcerer.
The creature in the cave was clearly a long-dead corpse with dried skin. However, if it were a Gu person, it shouldn’t be a true corpse but rather a living dead, a living person.
Unable to solve the mystery, Song Ling decided to return to the Li residence with Li Xinjun. Back at the residence, Song Ling searched through the ancient books she had brought with her, hoping to find clues about the creature. She instructed Li Xinjun to lock the doors and windows and go to rest while she stayed in the study, poring over the books.
She hadn’t brought many books with her, as she had prioritized convenience. However, most of these ancient texts were written in classical Chinese, which Song Ling only partially understood. Learning classical Chinese was challenging, and she had always been more active, preferring not to spend hours in the classroom. As a result, it took her longer to decipher the meaning of the texts.
She diligently read through the texts one by one until dawn, finally collapsing from exhaustion onto the table, falling asleep. Li Xinjun woke up and didn’t see Song Ling. Assuming she was sleeping in her own room, she went to the adjacent guest room and pushed open the door, but Song Ling wasn’t there. She then went to the study and found Song Ling slumped over the table. She returned to her room, fetched a cloak, and went back to the study to drape it over Song Ling.
She gently pulled Song Ling’s hand away and retrieved the ancient book. She happened to see a drawing of a creature on the other side of the book that resembled the one they had seen the previous night. She had attended a private school and learned some classical Chinese from a teacher. She carefully translated the text into vernacular Chinese, character by character, writing it down on a piece of paper.
She discovered that the creature was indeed a corpse. In ancient times, some people, in their quest for the throne, had collaborated with sorcerers to transform the deceased into such creatures, using them as weapons against armies.
Even the bravest warrior would falter or perish when facing a vast army alone. However, a corpse wouldn’t feel fear, nor could it die in battle, as it was already lifeless.
Therefore, a corpse capable of attacking could potentially kill hundreds of soldiers before being brought down. Such power was undoubtedly a desirable weapon for those in positions of authority. Consequently, in ancient times, people had invested vast resources in researching this type of creature.
The book also mentioned that people had successfully developed methods to reanimate corpses, making them even stronger than ordinary humans. Because these corpses were rigid, ordinary weapons could hardly harm them.
Only divine weapons or immense strength could pierce these corpses. Due to their stiff appearance, these creatures were referred to as “jiangshi*” or “stiff corpses.”
The book recounted that during ancient wars, although the jiangshi army had indeed helped secure victories, subsequent incidents made people hesitant to use them as weapons again.
They discovered that those bitten by jiangshi would transform into jiangshi themselves within a few days. Moreover, these bitten jiangshi were different from the refined ones. Refined jiangshi lacked the ability to think, similar to Gu people, essentially puppets controlled by others.
However, bitten jiangshi retained basic cognitive abilities. They knew they needed to consume blood to survive and would attack others to obtain it, even without instructions, similar to wild beasts.
Because they were difficult to destroy, and those bitten would also turn into jiangshi, eventually, more than half of the city’s population became jiangshi.
Finally, someone proposed sealing the city gates and burning everything, both the living and the jiangshi, to put an end to the tragedy. The death toll was in the tens of thousands. From then on, no one dared to refine these creatures as weapons again.
In addition to the origin of jiangshi, the ancient book also recorded their weaknesses. Jiangshi craved blood because they relied on their beating hearts to move, and hearts needed blood to function. Therefore, their weakness was their hearts. Piercing their hearts would immobilize them.
The book also mentioned that first-generation jiangshi were blind. They relied on hearing and smell to locate people. Therefore, if one encountered a first-generation jiangshi, holding one’s breath and remaining motionless could make them lose track of their presence.
However, the book also stated that second-generation jiangshi could see because they had only recently died and transformed, so their eyes were still functional. To distinguish between first and second-generation jiangshi, one had to observe their skin condition.
Since first-generation jiangshi were typically refined from long-dead corpses, their bodies would be desiccated, and some might even be partially decomposed. Second-generation jiangshi, on the other hand, were those bitten by first-generation jiangshi and transformed within a few days. Their skin and flesh would only appear grayish-purple, similar to corpses that had been dead for a few days.
After translating everything, Li Xinjun placed the written pages on the tea table, weighing them down with a teacup. She was terrified that the creature they had seen the previous night was a jiangshi. If it were indeed a jiangshi, the people in the city would suffer again. She didn’t want the place where she had grown up to be burned to the ground, nor did she want to witness such a devastating loss of life.
With a heavy heart, she left the study, gently closing the door behind her, careful not to wake Song Ling. She could imagine that Song Ling must have stayed up all night. Li Xinjun went to the main hall and sat down, her heart filled with worry. She felt that the creature they had seen yesterday did resemble the jiangshi described in the ancient book, and it seemed like a first-generation jiangshi. She clearly remembered that the creature looked like a walking desiccated corpse and had a foul smell of decay.
If that were the case, then the Taoist priest they had seen must be the one controlling it. The book mentioned that first-generation jiangshi couldn’t move on their own and required a controller to give them commands. Therefore, the Taoist priest’s constant chanting must have been the incantations to control the jiangshi.
Now she had a plan. She decided to discuss it with Song Ling when she woke up and see if it was feasible. She resolved to set fire to the creature in the cave, regardless of whether it was a jiangshi or not. Burning it would eliminate the threat, preventing it from harming people.
With a plan in mind, she finally felt a sense of relief and went to the kitchen to prepare breakfast.
***
T/N: Jiangshi is an undead creature found in Chinese folklore. As the name implies, this creature is a reanimated corpse that “hops” to move around. As such, jiangshi are also known as “Chinese hopping vampires” or “Chinese hopping zombies”, considering they share many characteristics with the Western concepts of vampires and Romero-style zombies, respectively.
Source: https://zombie.fandom.com/wiki/Jiangshi
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