Chapter Five: The Sound of Grinding Teeth at Midnight

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  Since ancient times, professional tomb raiders have been divided into four factions based on their methods: Faqiu, Mogin, Banshan, and Xieling. The "Xieling Force" and the "Mogin School Lieutenant" are vastly different, as can be seen from their names. The "Xieling" faction uses a trumpet-shaped tomb raiding method, which is primarily based on using external force to destroy. In contrast, the "Mogin" faction places more emphasis on technical aspects. Each faction has its own exclusive talismans for warding off evil spirits, and the Mogin faction's is the Mogin symbol. Regarding this profession, Xiao Xuan knew that a fellow practitioner in the real world had written a book about it, which became a bestseller and caused a stir in Luoyang, making paper expensive and sparking a temporary craze.

  It was just that what made Xiao Xuan slightly surprised was that the one who pointed out that this was Mò Jīn Fú's, was actually that very solemn and stern-looking Zhái Jié from when they were offering incense. This guy definitely wasn't an ordinary person, he must have had his own secrets on him, and even more so, perhaps these secrets could have an unexpectedly significant effect on helping himself get through this task world.

  Xiao Xuan slightly raised his head, his eyes fixed on Zhai Jie's eyes, but the other party's gaze seemed to be staring at the Moxin symbol on the offering table, without any intention of making eye contact with Xiao Xuan. This made Xiao Xuan feel that Zhai Jie was a very straightforward and persistent person, yet also very simple. He had previously thought that Zhai Jie was similar to himself, both being calm and collected, but now it seemed that his own calmness was due to thinking more, while Zhai Jie's calmness was probably because he thought less.

  "May I... touch it?" Jie asked, his eyes gleaming with a fierce light as he made the request to Xiao Xuan.

  "Alright." Xiao Xuan agreed, watching as Diao Jie picked up the Touching Gold Token with both hands, admiring it as if it were a very "sacred" object.

  After about five minutes, Jie let out a deeply regretful sigh.

  "Unfortunately, this is not the real Mó Jīn Fú passed down from the Three Kingdoms period, but a later imitation. However, judging by the style of the inlaid border pattern, it should be from the late Ming dynasty." Zhai Jie shook his head disappointedly and put the Mó Jīn Fú back on the offering table.

  "So, Fu Bo was also a pallbearer when he was young, and only returned to take over the job of guarding the righteous village after he got older. It's really been a lifetime of dealing with the dead." Xiao Xuan seemed to be saying this to himself, but also seemed to be saying it to Di Jie.

  "The dead in tombs have seen many, ordinary dead people, and they all seem to think they are somewhat lovely." Zhai Jie stuck out his tongue and licked his lower lip.

  "When you introduced yourself earlier, you said you were a university student, but now I think it's somewhat unlikely."

  "I'm actually just an ordinary university student, but my grandfather spent his whole life studying mysticism and my parents are both involved in archaeological work, so some habits have been influenced since I was young."

  Xiao Xuan nodded, Jie's explanation was indeed reasonable. Sometimes, archaeologists pay more attention to some traditions than ordinary people, such as the small details of burning incense. They are very particular about it because they have more contact with it and naturally understand what reverence means.

  "Is Xiangdu finished?" Xiao Xuan asked.

  Dai Jie nodded and said: "There are a total of thirteen coffins, all of which have been opened once. However, one of the coffins seems to have some problems, I think you should take a look."

  "Point it out to me." Xiao Xuan also wouldn't ignore any details at this time, and followed Zhai Jie to a clearly new black lacquer coffin.

  Xiao Xuan used his spiritual power to detect that inside was a female corpse. The specific facial features were not clear, but the female corpse should have been young before her death, probably in her twenties or thirties. She was well-preserved and there were no special changes on her body.

  "It's this one, use your hand to touch it and see if there is a layer of smooth feeling on the surface." Zhai Jie reminded.

  Xiao Xuan was slightly dazed, he had just seemed to be relying too heavily on his spiritual power to probe, while thinking about it, he stretched out his hand and lightly stuck it to the surface of the coffin.

  Very slippery, very greasy, like touching a layer of oil. Xiao Xuan put his palm in front of his nose, but didn't smell any special odor, and the slippery feeling on his palm was gone too.

  Dai Jie continued, "This is corpse energy, and not just ordinary corpse energy. It can actually penetrate the coffin lid. It seems that this corpse's corpse energy has started to condense gradually. Only someone who died unjustly with great resentment in life would have a slight chance of condensing corpse energy after death."

  "What's next?"

  "The gathering of corpse energy may stimulate the corpse to regrow, causing hair and fingernails to grow, and some bodily functions to reactivate in a pseudo-living state. This is a prerequisite for a corpse to come back to life. If there are sufficient stimulating factors or environmental triggers afterwards, it may lead to corpse transformation, also known as becoming a zombie."

  "What should we do now?"

  "It's not necessarily true that gathering corpse energy will stimulate the corpse to regrow, and even if it does regrow, it may not necessarily be able to stimulate a fake resurrection. However, since this is the world of 'Mr. Zombie', these originally almost impossible things can suddenly become very possible. So, in order to be on the safe side, the most stable solution is to pull out this coffin and burn it directly."

  The branch task is to let us guard the righteous village for one night, that is, to act as a kind of righteous village manager. Although we know that something bad may happen at night, we must also be obedient and stay here. If we directly pull out the coffin and burn it, what kind of guarding the righteous village is this?

  "Why not just burn the whole temple down and be done with it? We can set up a makeshift shelter in the ruins and spend the night there. This corpse, we can't even touch, let alone burn it. None of the corpses inside this temple can be moved, otherwise, even if we stay here for a night, the main god won't consider our side quest complete, and it'll all be for nothing." Xiao Xuan explained to Zhai Jie.

  Hearing Xiao Xuan's words, Di Jie immediately retorted: "But this is obviously very dangerous, why don't we abandon this branch mission and choose another branch mission to complete?"

  "There is no side quest that is absolutely safe, and if you can't complete each side quest to the best of your ability, you won't be able to strengthen yourself with resources from the main god, then you will eventually be swept away like trash by the main god, it's death either way, might as well take a risk."

  Dai Jie's eyes revealed a thoughtful expression, and finally, as if he had made up his mind, he said to Xiao Xuan: "You are an expert, I believe in your experience and advice. Next, just in case, I can try drawing some talismans to see if they can calm down the thing inside this coffin."

  "Drawing a symbol? Ah, you're indeed talented." Xiao Xuan patted Fei Duijie's shoulder, "Go ahead and draw. There are paper and pen over there, do it yourself."

  After finishing speaking, Xiao Xuan looked at the coffin again deeply, then turned around and walked to the chair beside the offering table, sat down, and took out the "Primary Necromancer" manual from his spatial ring to start reading.

  On the other side, Zhu Yu and Su Zihao had already roughly swept through the mourning hall, both of them found a tatami mat to sit on, watching Di Jie busily drawing talismans on the coffin. The two of them would occasionally whisper to each other, at this time, the two senior members were in a superior position, and among the three newcomers, Di Jie was a bit out of it, so only these two could have some common language.

  ……

  Until the sky was about to darken, Su Mo Ran brought in the food he had bought and everyone started eating. After dinner, after a simple cleanup, Zhu Bi Yu really spread out a layer of bedding on the ground as she said before and lay down inside, only her eyes were wide open, apparently, she was determined not to fall asleep, but perhaps felt that the quilt could bring her a great sense of security.

  Su Zihao sat down beside Xiao Xuan and Su Muran, feeling that being close to these two veterans would maximize his safety. Of course, if he knew how each of the companions who walked alongside Xiao Xuan in the previous task world died one by one, he probably wouldn't have such a naive idea anymore. As long as there was enough benefit or reason, Xiao Xuan not only wouldn't protect newcomers but would even take the initiative to kill them off.

  Dai Jie finished drawing the symbol on the coffin and leaned against a pillar, muttering to himself.

  Xiao Xuan was still staring at his own notes, Su Mo Ran sat beside Xiao Xuan with his eyes closed to meditate, around them, the flames of several candles flickered slightly, thirteen coffins lay quietly there, as night fell, the atmosphere became even more oppressive.

  Finally, the sky outside had completely darkened and night had fallen.

  "Heh heh...... Heh heh...... Heh heh......"

  "Who is it? Who's grinding their teeth? Don't scare people, okay?" The voice asking the question was Su Zihao. He felt a chill from the sound that seemed like laughter and yet also sounded like teeth grinding, his whole body feeling uncomfortable.

  Xiao Xuan put down the handkerchief in his hand, Su Mo also slowly opened her eyes, and even Jie's face showed a solemn expression. Everyone's gaze was cast towards the quilt where Zhu Biyu was sleeping. The eerie voice came from Zhu Biyu's bed, and at this moment, no one knew why Zhu Biyu, who had always kept his head exposed, now covered his entire body with the quilt.

  "Heh heh...... Heh heh...... Heh heh......"