Even if Ma Ruoxing and I took the earth eggs and left, with so many people in the ancient tree village, we wouldn’t just slaughter an entire village for two earth eggs like in some novel.
Since the Taoist raised two zombies and was guarding these two immature earth eggs, he must be quite skilled. It wouldn’t be hard for him to track down Ma Ruoxing and me—a young man and an older man carrying a child, coming from Hubei. With these clues, it wouldn’t take long to find us.
Ma Ruoxing finally grasped the situation, holding the two round earth eggs awkwardly, unsure whether to keep them or not. But when it came to these treasures, he clearly couldn’t bear to part with them. He really, really couldn’t.
“Master Xiao, what should we do? It’s been so many years—maybe that old Taoist is already dead,” Ma Ruoxing asked.
I sighed. “Uncle Ma, even if the father is dead, the son remains. If the master is gone, the disciple still lives.”
Ma Ruoxing fell silent again. So did I. Since ancient times, there’s been a saying in the martial world: there are certain types of people you don’t mess with.
First, monks—the *sangha*. Second, Taoists—the *dao*. Third, women and children. These three types all have their own deadly tricks, and sometimes, their temperaments can be extreme.
Ma Ruoxing tried to rationalize it: “We can’t just assume this desolate mountain belongs to someone else. We found these and took them—it’s not illegal, right?”
He jumped out of the pit, wrapped the earth eggs in paper, and stuffed them into his bamboo basket. Bai Yueming giggled and reached out to touch them.
I sighed. “Fine, fine. Raising corpses is unethical in the first place. We dealt with those two black zombies, so taking the earth eggs is just our payment.” I stepped forward and shouted, “Gu Zijue, Lady Liu, if you keep thrashing around, I’ll smash your bones to dust!” After shouting a couple of times, I repositioned the two heavy counterweights, and the banging from the coffins finally stopped. I turned my palms over and saw my fingers had turned black—infected by the corpse miasma inside.
It seemed that once the earth eggs were removed, the black zombies in the coffins had stirred, but after I suppressed them, they quieted down for now.
Ma Ruoxing cheered. “You Ghost Sect guys aren’t afraid of some scruffy old Taoist, right? Anyone raising zombies can’t be a good Taoist.”
I sighed inwardly. Of course a good Taoist wouldn’t raise corpses here, risking harm to the villagers of the ancient tree village. It must be an evil Taoist. And one with the surname *Gu*, no less.
Once Ma Ruoxing packed the earth eggs away, I suggested burning the coffins outright or finding a way to extract the last breath from the black zombies’ throats—then everything would be settled.
When we returned to Gudun’s house, moaning sounds came from inside. Ma Ruoxing and I waited by the door for a while.
I chuckled. “Uncle, how long do you think Uncle Gu will take?”
Ma Ruoxing thought for a moment, then grinned. “At least an hour. Remember when I was with Song Shijiu’s wife…”
Five minutes later, Gudun stumbled out, exhausted.
“Master. Brother Ma. Am I about to die? Will my grandparents come for me tonight?” Gudun asked.
The big yellow dog at his feet kept darting around, unusually restless.
I smiled. “Uncle, I was just messing with you earlier. You’re fine. But I do think cremation would be the safest option. Or maybe relocating the graves—it’s up to you.”
Gudun led me inside. His wife, Su-shi, had just fixed her hair, her cheeks flushed.
“They’re still my grandparents. Let’s just move them—no need for cremation,” Gudun said.
At lunch, the snakes in the backyard hut seemed unusually agitated.
When Su-shi brought out the noodles, I caught a flash of cunning in her eyes—quickly masked, but strange for an ordinary village woman.
Su-shi laughed occasionally, but there was something off about her smile. I asked a few questions and learned she was a child bride, raised alongside Gudun to be his wife. She’d never left the mountains, so she only spoke the local dialect, not standard Mandarin.
Even now, child brides exist in many places—families who can’t afford to raise daughters or save on dowries arrange them. Like all women, some child brides are happy, but most suffer. Gudun’s wife seemed to be one of the lucky ones—she’d borne three sons.
In the afternoon, Ma Ruoxing and I scouted a new burial site not far from the Moon-Emerging-From-Clouds formation. The final step was to release the last breath from Gu Zijue and Lady Liu’s corpses and destroy their bodies.
We picked an auspicious time—tomorrow—to rebury them. Having found the earth eggs, Ma Ruoxing skipped bug-hunting in the mountains and even showed me his “Green Beauty,” a creepy little thing perfect for scaring girls.
He filled a basin with water and washed the earth eggs. They looked like ordinary yellow pears, and when I held them to my ear, I heard nothing unusual. I still couldn’t believe a magical bug would crawl out of them. Such things don’t exist, right?
I spent the afternoon studying the Moon-Emerging-From-Clouds formation, wishing I had a map. I tried pulling up Google Maps on my phone to trace the dragon veins, but only telecom signals worked here—no luck with mobile or Unicom.
This area connects to our mountain range, part of the Yangtze vein—Jiugong Mountain, Huangshan, maybe even Dabie Mountain. Not a supreme spiritual site, but decent. Such places shouldn’t produce zombies unless someone tampered with it, injecting malice or altering the feng shui.
I shared my thoughts with Ma Ruoxing and added, “A Taoist surnamed Gu might return anytime—maybe even yearly—to check on the graves, whether secretly or openly.”
Ma Ruoxing scoffed. “You’re joking, right? You’re saying he’d come back just to check if the earth eggs are still here?”
I shrugged. “It’s possible.”
After dinner, we heard Su-shi sharpening a knife by the kitchen door, the rhythmic *hiss-hiss* filling the air.
As I lay in bed, I imagined quitting this grave-digging life and returning to my artsy youth aspirations. Maybe I’d write a memoir—not for money, just for the bohemian dream.
But before I could settle on a title, someone knocked.
Bai Yueming peeked out, his dark-blue eyes fixed on the door. When I opened it, Su-shi stood there, gripping a kitchen knife.
She smiled—unnervingly—and swung at me.
Interrupting my artistic reverie? Rude. And attacking this early, before I’d even fallen asleep? Amateur.
I dodged, crashing into the wall as the blade grazed my scalp. “Murder! Murder!” I yelled, scrambling to grab the blanket and fling it at her. She slashed through it effortlessly. Mountain women could wrestle tigers—let alone a deranged one.
“What ‘treasure’ did I take?” I snapped, blocking with a chair that quickly splintered under her blows.
She just screamed, “Give it back!”
Gudun and Ma Ruoxing rushed in. “Wife, have you lost your mind?” Gudun shouted, tossing me a rope.
Su-shi turned, browning teeth bared, eyes bloodshot. “Old man, hand over the treasure!”
While she was distracted, Gudun and I wrestled her down, binding her after a struggle.
Gudun apologized, “She has these episodes every year, Master. Please forgive her.”
I cursed inwardly. *Episodes?* She was after the earth eggs—she was a spy, planted here to guard the graves!
Ma Ruoxing laughed. “No worries. Our master isn’t so easy to kill, right?”
Then Bai Yueming, who’d been silent during the attack, suddenly wailed.
Ghost infants sense danger before anyone else. Half a year ago, in the Golden Triangle, his crying had saved me from Zuo Shan’s rocket launcher.
A moment later, two thunderous explosions rocked the night.
I picked him up, soothing, “Don’t cry, Xiaoming. It’s just two zombies. Dark, but not scary. Daddy’s ready for them.”
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