He Bi whispered to me, "Just as Third Master expected, there's really an abandoned graveyard blocking our way. This saves us the trouble of looking for it. Now all we need to do is find the corpse with the heaviest Yin energy and take a handful of its hair."
Gu Yuan and I had split up. My task with He Bi was to find the person with the heaviest Yin energy in the graveyard, open the coffin and take the hair, and then find an old jujube tree at the exit of the graveyard to pick seven jujubes.
Gu Yuan, on the other hand, was going to capture the white celestial being that had borrowed the Yin lifespan.
It was said that taking the Yin hair of a corpse with heavy Yin energy, burning it into ashes, mixing it into talisman water and feeding it to the person who had borrowed the Yin lifespan could help the person cut off the corpse energy and prevent them from becoming a Yin corpse.
He Bi and I stood in front of the graveyard and looked around. The dry grass in the graveyard was tall and dense, and the snow was very deep. We couldn't even set foot in it without clearing it first.
Many tombstones were covered by snow. They were all tilted and badly damaged.
The two of us first cleared the weeds and walked through to make a few paths. After all, we were on someone else's territory, and it was only right to do something for them.
After everything was more or less sorted out, He Bi lit a bunch of incense sticks and inserted three incense sticks at each tomb. After waiting for about a few minutes and observing the direction of the white smoke from the incense, we had basically locked in the place where the Yin energy was concentrated. It should be at the back of the graveyard.
He Bi and I followed the white smoke and found the tomb. Seeing this scene, we couldn't help but feel sad. This wasn't even a tomb at all. It was clearly a body that hadn't been buried.
He Bi sighed and shook his head repeatedly, saying, "How pitiful. No wonder the Yin energy is so heavy. The coffin is exposed in the wilderness and can't be buried properly. There isn't even a name on it. There must be a strong grudge and the Yin energy won't disperse."
"She must have been a poor person."
I squatted beside the coffin and drew a circle. I lit a stack of yellow paper inside the circle and then took some more yellow paper and placed it outside the circle. This was to burn for the homeless ghosts in the surrounding graveyard. I mumbled a few words asking for their forgiveness.
After all the aftermath was taken care of, we were ready to open the coffin.
I nervously held the talisman paper and dagger and stood beside the coffin, always on guard in case something terrible emerged from the coffin.
Seeing that I was ready, He Bi used his hands to clear the snow on the coffin. With a gentle push of both hands, he basically didn't use much effort to push the coffin lid open.
Suddenly, a warm current wafted out of the coffin. The strong stench of the corpse made me cover my nose. I couldn't help but blurt out, "Why is it warm? Is she not dead?"
"Absolutely impossible. With such a strong smell, even if she wasn't dead, she'd be choked to death."
He Bi and I covered our noses and looked inside. Lying inside was the corpse of an old woman, and her body hadn't rotted yet.
She was dressed in a full set of burial clothes, with a wide forehead band wrapped around her head. Her gray hair was coiled into a bun. Her face was covered with a thick layer of white plaster powder, and her cheeks and lips were painted blood - red. She looked more like a paper effigy.
"Sis, this isn't right. It's thirty degrees below zero, but a dead person's body is still soft. Isn't this too strange?"
"Don't worry about it so much. We just need a handful of her hair. Grab it and let's go."
"Okay, I'll do it."
Saying that, He Bi took out a pair of scissors from his backpack, held his breath, and reached out his hand into the coffin.
I stood beside He Bi, swallowed hard, took two steps forward, tightly gripped the dagger in my hand, and stared intently at the old woman's face.
Just as He Bi was about to touch the old woman's hair, something strange happened.
The white powder on the old woman's face cracked, and it fell off one by one. The old woman's mouth gradually widened, showing an extremely unnatural smile. It kept widening, and the arc almost reached her ears, revealing her white and sharp teeth.
"Giggle, giggle..." The old woman's laughter echoed in the coffin.
Just as her blood - red eyes opened, He Bi seemed to be under her spell and started laughing along with her. His laughter was extremely creepy.
I instinctively shouted He Bi's name, quickly pulled his hand out, and raised my hand to cut a gash on He Bi's palm with the dagger.
He Bi winced in pain and regained his senses. Before he could ask any questions, I quickly dragged him to a place far away from the coffin.
At this moment, He Bi was so scared that cold sweat was pouring down his back. He fumbled around in his backpack for incense, trying to summon his celestial being to possess him.
But because he was too nervous and in a hurry, all the incense sticks in his hand broke and scattered on the ground.
"Let's get out of here first." We couldn't worry about taking the hair anymore. Saving our lives was the most important thing. I grabbed his arm and was about to turn around.
Unexpectedly, the old woman didn't know when she had already stood behind us. When I turned around in a hurry, I almost bumped into her arms.
This close - up scare made me gasp.
I saw that the old woman was bloodless. Her large front teeth protruded from her blood - red mouth. She looked like a giant rat spirit. It was simply terrifying.
"Son, come down and accompany me," the old woman said in a lazy and shrill voice. Her arm stretched out very long and reached for my shoulder.
Although I was also very scared in my heart, I still had some experience. Just as her hand reached out, I raised my hand and slapped the talisman paper on her arm.
The talisman paper emitted white smoke, forcing her to quickly withdraw her arm. Taking advantage of this opportunity, I quickly pulled He Bi and ran towards the outside of the graveyard.
But no matter how much we ran, it seemed like we were just going around in circles around the coffin. We simply couldn't get out.
Gradually, white fog rose from all around the graveyard. The tombs were submerged in the white smoke, making it even more difficult to find our way.
"It's a ghost wall," I blurted out.
"Sis, quickly summon Bai Qi. We can't get out," He Bi said.
"Okay." Just as I was about to take out the incense, the old woman floated down slowly from above my head like a hanged ghost.
"Son, come down and accompany me. Giggle..."
Goodness, she didn't even give me a chance to summon the divine being. Suddenly, two hemp ropes fell from the sky and directly wrapped around He Bi's and my necks, hanging us under a crooked - necked tree.
At this moment, I desperately tugged at the rope around my neck. I could even hear the cracking sound of my neck bone being pulled by the rope. One hand reached for the rope around my neck, and the other hand held the dagger and rubbed it against the rope.
Looking at He Bi, he was no better. At this moment, he was desperately pulling at the rope around his neck with both hands. His fingernails left bloodstains all over his neck. After struggling for a few seconds, he started sticking out his tongue. His eyes rolled up, and his legs stopped kicking. He probably wouldn't last much longer.
Just at this critical moment, I don't know where I got the strength from. I stabbed the dagger hard, and the rope snapped.
He Bi and I were tied to the same rope. When I fell, he also fell to the ground.
I didn't have time to think about anything else. I shook off the rope around my neck and quickly crawled to his side to help him untie the damned rope.
He Bi took a deep breath and looked at me in horror, his eyes fixed on something behind me.
A sinister aura lingered behind me. I already knew what He Bi was so terrified of. The old woman was floating over again.