Fierce Coffin - Chapter 1

My name is Xing Yun, and my motto is, “If you don’t do bad things, then you shouldn’t be afraid of death and after”. But when a man lives through a lot of difficulties, he would be forced to do bad things. So was I, and the subsequent happenings were thrilling.

In 2008, my father was ill and needed some money urgently. After he was forced to leave his job, I asked my friend to find a job for me, far in the south to salvage corpses. Although the work was a bit dirty, it paid well.

This work was not only dangerous, but also difficult. In particular, the things I encountered that couldn’t be explained by science, just unnatural supernatural phenomena. But I wasn’t superstitious.

Sometimes I would get tired of all this but as long as I thought of my parents, wife and children, my heart warmed and filled with new found vigor.

In June of that year, torrential rain caused a sudden flood of more than 200 kilometers upstream. I hit a “jackpot” in which more than 70 bodies were salvaged within a week. Except for accidents caused by natural disasters, the victims of drowning were mainly females, especially female migrant workers who worked from rural to urban areas.

Usually, I confirmed their identities from the clothes they wore, and sometimes I found an ID card or a badge as well. Poverty-induced depression, as well as other emotional problems, domestic violence, and family conflicts, often led them to choose this path of no return.

Three days ago, I salvaged a dead body. It belonged to a 17-year-old, such a tender age. The boy suddenly opened his eyes as I was picking him up. As cowardly as I am, I wouldn’t be able to continue this job for long… some young women may also be victims of crime.

Whenever I saw a corpse flowing down the river, I immediately rowed the boat to catch up, then hooked the corpse with a long hook and dragged it back ashore. If I found a head injury, or broken hands and feet, or the skin removed, I would call the police immediately.

During summer, the high temperature exacerbated the decay of the corpse. At that time, I could only relieve the odor of the corpse, by masking it with the smoke of cigarettes. I would work from 6am till dark every day, and I always smelled this bad odor. After the body was recovered, I had to clean it before I could return it to their family. Now, it’s better than before, because you don’t need to bury the bodies anymore, just send them to a nearby crematorium.

The Civil Affairs Bureau would give a subsidy of 500 Yuan for each body recovered. If there was a family member to claim the body, the family members would also pay a certain amount of hardship, but the amount would be negotiated between me and the family in private. For ordinary poor families, it would cost 500 Yuan, and for wealthy families, it would be 3,000 Yuan. Some corpse scavengers were unethical and would ask the family members for 8,000 to 10,000. This was extortion.

The man with me belonged to the Northeast region, in his forties, everyone called him Lao Hu. This person was okay in looks, but had lived like a lavish. He had two money bags in his hand and sent one of it to the owner of the waste station opposite.

Lao Hu usually took good care of me. Sometimes, the corpses I picked up were too rotten and smelly. When I couldn’t take it, he would roll up the corpse with a mat then throw it into the morgue.

I’m not an ungrateful person, Lao Hu treated me well, I cherished him. I found that he particularly liked drinking, especially Erguotou, which was 56 degrees with barbecue, so I bought a stove and made some after dark. But Lao Hu did not eat fish, saying that the fish here grew up eating human flesh.

I knew in my heart that Lao Hu was superstitious.

Lao Hu was often silent. I went out to pee in the middle of the night and saw him several times. Lao Hu spoke to the body in the morgue alone. He would insert a steel golem in the mouth of each body, saying that this meant that it was no longer a living human, and they knew that they should not seek revenge. This money was also its seal fee, and it would not go to the underworld to sue us.

I didn’t care about these things. Even if I believed this, I wouldn’t do it.

As soon as the flood season has passed, there would be fewer and fewer corpses in the river, and there will not be much work until the rainy season next year. Lao Hu and I also took a rest, sometimes without a corpse for three days. Although there are no corpses, there are often other things in Jiangli. The happiest thing is to get ebony, which can usually be sold for a good price. Therefore, I was still willing to keep watching the river with a telescope on the observation deck on the riverside.

There was a person named Lao Shen owning a furniture shop in the city, he would call Lao Hu every few days to ask if there were any good stocked materials. In fact, he was looking for ebony. We sold him a piece of material for 5,000 Yuan, and he made it into furniture, which would cost half a million. This person was very talented, every time you come to shop, you must lower the price and then raise it higher.

A particular day’s wind and sunshine were in great conditions for me to search for targets on the river surface. I was watching with a telescope, and suddenly a foul-smelling figure came out of the river, like a shark jumping out of the water. It washed away the earth, sand, gravel, and it floated up!

I quickly twisted the telescope lens closer and found out that it was a huge black coffin. Lao Hu and me often dealt with them, and they were washed down with water. But such a large coffin came up from the water, it was my first time ever seeing one like that.

I immediately ran down and shouted for Lao Hu to hurry up to get on the boat, before we chased after it, pulling the large coffin out of the river.

After that, Lao Hu and I dragged the coffin to the rail flatcar and pulled it directly into our yard.

“We are gonna be rich!” Lao Hu stretched his neck and looked at the huge coffin. “This is good wood. If I read correctly, this is boxwood! This coffin has been buried at the bottom of the river for a long time, and it’s hoe outside. Inside the coffin, we should find a corpse. These are the good materials used by people from large households before they died. Look at the pattern on this, there are roses, there is the moon, and there is a maid and a lady. It should be a woman.”

I patted the lid of the coffin with my hand, and said, “Lao Hu, you know a lot. You wouldn’t have touched Captain Jin before!”

He looked at me with a grin and then whispered with a finger pointing at the coffin: “If this thing is handed over to the country, it will bring us a maximum of five hundred bonuses and a pennant. If we handle it ourselves…”

Lao Hu watched me silently for a while and then said, “Maybe we can retire after this vote. There should be a lot of treasure between this coffin and the urn. Even if it is not, we can separate the urn. Sell ​​it to Lao Shen, and we could get a good price! “

Then he stretched out five fingers and shook them.

I asked, “Five thousand?”

He said, “Earthworm, this is boxwood. Five million! At least this number! This time it’s not a point to sell.”

I was shocked at what he said, and then became excited. Five million! Lao Hu and I should get two and a half million each. This was not only enough to cure my dad, but also to give my daughter a good life. I immediately became emotional, but I still said carefully, “But is this thing a cultural relic? We can’t get caught!”

He said: “Now it may be counted as a relic, but it won’t be after dismantling. But it takes some effort to dismantle. For so many years, this coffin has not leaked, this shows the great craftsmanship of this coffin. It’s a pity.”

I lit a cigarette and said, “Lao Hu, I support dismantling it. You also know that my dad had a serious heart attack sometime ago and he cannot survive without this money. I need money. I also wanted to talk to the hospital about my thoughts, but they won’t listen. Speaking of the past, I don’t even have surgery money for my dad! Even if he died outside the ward, people wouldn’t care. Let alone a coffin, I will dare to do anything for money. ”

Lao Hu and I opened the door and pulled the coffin inside the log house. I pulled it from the front, and he pushed it from behind. Together, we hid it inside the compartment.

In the evening, the people from the Civil Affairs Bureau made a trip. After they arrived, they gave me and Lao Hu a subsidy of 800 Yuan each. They asked if we had any difficulties in life. They sent some rice and vegetables and went away. As soon as it was dark, Lao Hu and I got into the room and planned to pry open the coffin.

The lid of the urn was nailed with silver. I lifted the cover of the urn and climbed to the top. I reached inside and looked at it. In the middle of the urn was a normal-sized coffin. The gap next to it was not a treasure of gold or silver, but a coffin. Dead body. The corpse was sitting next to the coffin, wearing a brown robe. The robe came in contact with the air, and suddenly it turned into powder, leaving only the bones of that corpse.

Lao Hu came up and said, “Xing Yun, come down, this coffin cannot be moved.”

I said, “Lao Hu, why can’t we move it?”

Looking at the coffin, there was a vaguely drawn amulet on the coffin. On the four corners of the coffin, there were four golden bells the size of the belly of the thumb. This bell glittered in the light.

***
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