Chapter 22
GUO CHANGCHENG clutched the little baton Zhao Yunlan had given him in a death grip. He was still reeling from the extreme terror of coming practically nose-to-nose with a youchu—a youchu that, just a second ago, he had electrocuted into a burnt pancake.
Not only that, but the youth who’d just been talking and laughing with them also turned out to be a monster. His reflection in the glass showed a monster with a mouth that opened a full 180 degrees, as if its head had split in half to reveal a scarlet tongue and a fanged maw. Wandering through an empty resort to collect the souls of the recently deceased sounded like a horror film in its own right, but that was just setup—the main event was about to begin.
Chu Shuzhi sidestepped the shower of electrical sparks, which didn’t distinguish between friend and foe. He shoved his fanny pack into Guo Changcheng’s arms. “We went through a lot of work collecting those, so hold on tight. Don’t drop it.”
Guo Changcheng’s hands were shaking like he’d suddenly developed Parkinson’s. All he could do was hug the bag tight to his chest.
“Are you afraid?” Chu Shuzhi asked seriously.
Ever honest, Guo Changcheng nodded so vigorously that he looked like a chicken pecking at rice.
“Scared to death?” Chu Shuzhi continued. Guo Changcheng wiped his tears and kept on pecking. “That’s good.” There was zero sympathy in Chu Shuzhi’s voice. “Keep it up.”
That left Guo Changcheng speechless. Chu Shuzhi patted him firmly on the shoulder and adopted a creepy tone, pointing past him. “Look. What’s that?”
Guo Changcheng looked where he was pointing and found himself staring straight into the eyes of a few youchu. With his fear primed by Chu Shuzhi, a bloodcurdling, inhuman scream exploded out of him. “Ahhhhhhhhhh—!!!”
The little group was burnt to a crisp. Chu Shuzhi gave Guo Changcheng a thumbs-up.
A moment later, moving with such speed he seemed to teleport, Chu Shuzhi vanished and reappeared on the roof of one of a row of small houses. He ripped his jacket open, exposing an arm that had turned a weird shade of blue. He wiggled his fingers, making his joints creak stiffly, then got out a piccolo carved from bone and began to play.
A string of eerie notes sounded as his fingers danced. The calm earth underfoot started to ripple and buckle, and the “dust” that had coated the ground of the resort drifted up into the air. The dust motes were quickly drawn to each other, and one by one, intact human skeletons took shape. Several of the skeletons took up positions by Guo Changcheng; the others threw themselves at the mysterious youth.
The “youth’s” eyes had become completely red. He turned his gaze on Chu Shuzhi. “Corpse King.”
The notes Chu Shuzhi was playing became sharper. As though he had issued a command, his bone soldiers started to attack. One skeleton’s sharp phalanges thrust toward the youth’s chest with lightning speed, only for him to vanish, ghost-like, on the spot. The skeleton’s fingers punched five small holes into the ground.
Flickering back into view off to one side, the youth struck at the skeleton soldier. The skeleton was unable to avoid the heavy blow, and its skull shattered, sending fragments flying in all directions. But at the renewed sound of the piccolo, the bone shards pieced themselves back together. The restored skeleton stretched out its neck, throwing itself at the youth again.
Since the skeletons Chu Shuzhi had conjured were made of the ashes blanketing the resort and he could just keep rebuilding them, even being pulverized only slowed them down. Although they weren’t very powerful, their attacks served to tangle the youth up. The moment he made a mistake, the skeletons’ narrow phalanges could stab in deep.
The youth gave a cold laugh. “This would be one thing coming from anyone else. But don’t you think it’s funny that you’re part of the Soul-Guarding Order? You, a criminal Corpse King surrounded by the stench of death? Back when you slaughtered people without batting an eye, bled them dry, and feasted on their corpses, were you putting on this act of being a good person?”
“I’ve already paid for my crimes,” Chu Shuzhi said. He reflexively glanced at Guo Changcheng and saw that he was too busy trying to deal with the endless swarm of youchu to listen to the conversation. Inexplicably, Chu Shuzhi found himself sighing in relief. “And what do you think you are?” he countered.
The youth’s lips quirked up. He decapitated a skeleton and stuffed the whole skull into his mouth. As he chewed, he said, “Me? We gui are part of the natural order.” Then, abruptly, he recited, “‘Guard the souls of the living, bring peace to the hearts of the dead, atone for crimes done in life, and complete the unfinished cycle.’” Having rattled off the inscription on the back of the Soul-Guarding Order, he seized a skeleton and dismembered it, one limb at a time. Simply tightening his fist around the bones was enough to crush them. With another icy laugh, he said, “Whoever wrote that must’ve been a complete idiot!”
As a human, Guo Changcheng’s unique status among his colleagues meant that when he’d started at the SID, he’d only signed a labor contract. Since he wasn’t bound by the Order itself, he only vaguely knew about it and had never actually seen it. This was the first time he’d ever heard the entire Soul-Guarding Order…and it came from the mouth of this monster.
But for some reason, the words suddenly flooded his mind, pushing everything else out. He just stood there, frozen, and the baton in his hand also calmed down. A youchu hidden in a corner suddenly launched straight at him from its hiding spot. One of Chu Shuzhi’s skeleton soldiers responded by doing something a human would do: it took a huge diagonal step and spread its arms wide, shielding Guo Changcheng with what few bones it still had left. The youchu smashed it to pieces, and Guo Changcheng scuttled backward and fell on his ass. He yelped and closed his eyes, holding the baton above his head. It went off just as the youchu’s claws were about to brush against him.
Medium well.
Guo Changcheng struggled to catch his breath while the shattered skeleton gradually rebuilt itself. Slowly, it walked over to him. Despite knowing Chu Shuzhi had made the skeletons, Guo Changcheng couldn’t suppress a shudder of fear when it extended a creepy, white-boned hand toward him. But in the next second, the hand came to rest on his head, as though comforting him. It patted his hair gently.
If a forensic scientist or other expert had been there, they might’ve been able to tell Guo Changcheng that this skeleton had belonged to a very young man, probably just over twenty years old.
The soul of the living, the heart of the dead—perhaps every corpse on the verge of turning to dust still held a fragment of a treasured memory.
For reasons Guo Changcheng didn’t understand, the rims of his eyes suddenly stung.
The skeleton turned to face away from him, standing guard.