Otherworldly Merchant

The uncle didn’t think too much of it and ordered the workers to lift up the coffin and move it aside.

Someone suggested, “Uncle, we should open the coffin first and check who’s inside. If it’s a zombie, we’d better burn the whole thing.”

According to a legend in their village, zombies that were about to develop intelligence could move their coffins. They would move them to auspicious places and absorb the luck there to accelerate their growth.

Moreover, if a zombie did manage to develop intelligence, it would absorb the luck of the descendants of whoever lived there. That family would never live in peace; they would be poor forever.

The uncle had children, so he had to consider things carefully. After weighing the pros and cons, he decided to take risks and open the coffin.

After they opened the coffin, the scene inside made the group of people gawk.

A stunning woman lay inside the coffin. She was beautiful and had a thin layer of makeup on her face. She peacefully lay there, with her flawless body naked. From her fair skin, she had to be a city girl. Also, she seemed to have died just recently…

If she wasn’t in a coffin, the uncle would have thought that she was merely sleeping.

Everybody was scared and concluded that the woman was a lustful zombie that was about to become sentient. They told the uncle that he should burn the corpse; they couldn’t simply ignore it.

The uncle also knew that he had to deal with this matter. He asked people to find dry wood. The goal was to burn the beautiful corpse to ashes.

After seeing the flames engulf the corpse, the uncle exhaled in relief and thought that everything would be okay.

However, his son suddenly rushed toward them from the village. After seeing that they were burning the corpse, he panicked. He told his father to stop and jumped into the fire, carrying the corpse out of the sea of flames.

However, that short moment was enough to set his hair on fire and burn his clothes. He hastily threw the corpse aside and rolled on the ground to put out the flames.

The female corpse was still flawless even though she had been in the fire for two whole minutes. Her skin was still snow-white, and not even a strand of hair was burned.

The strange event scared the people there. They concluded that the zombie had become sentient since the flames couldn’t burn it.

The uncle was furious and stormed toward his son. “Why are you here? Why did you take the body out?!”

The young man ignored his wounds and said, “We can’t burn it. Grandma said we can’t burn it.”

“What?” The uncle had goosebumps on his skin. His son’s grandma was none other than his mother.

His mother was gone, so how could she tell his son not to burn the corpse?

“While I was watching the coffin, I heard a knocking sound come from within,” the son said while panting. “The relatives who were joining the wake with me were scared and ran away. However, I felt bad for grandma and thought that she had some last words that she wasn’t able to say before she died. That’s why I opened the lid of the coffin. As soon as I moved the lid, grandma sat up. She was drooling from the corners of her mouth and her eyes didn’t have pupils; she looked very scary. Then, she looked at me straight in the face and called my name.”

He continued, “She almost screamed at my face. ‘You shouldn’t burn her! No matter what, you can’t burn her! She wants to eat me! You filthy animals, you’re not filial!’ After scolding, she laid back down. However, she looked like she was in pain.”

The son didn’t know what his grandmother meant, but she must have had her reasons to say those words. The young man rushed out of the village and saw that his father was burning something. He concluded that his grandmother was talking about that, so he hurried to take the corpse out of the fire.

The uncle gawked in shock. Did my mother’s corpse come back to life?

When he returned with the men, he was frightened to see a crowd of people in his courtyard. They were pointing and talking. He squeezed through the crowd and saw his mother lying in the courtyard.

It was very hot, and his mother’s body had started to swell under the scorching sun. Some parts were decomposing already; it was a horrible scene.

Leaving a late person’s remains under direct sunlight was an offensive act toward that person. The uncle felt a great heartache and almost fainted on the spot. He hurried to ask people to bring the corpse back to the coffin.

Then, he angrily shouted, “Who took my mother out of her coffin?!”

One of the relatives who had joined the wake answered, “She crawled out of the coffin herself. Luckily for us, we were fast enough to escape. Otherwise, granny would have grabbed us and eaten us all. You see, she ate all the food that was offered on the altar.”

The uncle turned to look at the altar and saw that the food on the tray was eaten. There were also pieces of food in his mother’s mouth.

The uncle was stunned. He knew that this wasn’t something he could deal with. The naked zombie and his mother’s corpse were too much for him. The only thing he could do now was to invite an expert to help.

Then, yesterday evening, his mother came to him in his dreams. In the dream, she told him to find me at my antique shop. According to her words, I was in the business of otherworldly items trading and could solve this case. He was instructed to tell me that he had an otherworldly item wreaking havoc in his house.

After the uncle woke up, he kept thinking about his dream. Although he thought it was just a dream, since he was desperate, he followed his mother’s instructions and asked around about me.

His mother’s words turned out to be true as both my name and the address of my shop were correct!

Anyway, it took him a whole night to rush to my shop, so he had no idea if anything had happened in his house during the night.

I had goosebumps on my skin as I listened to him. I had never heard of a similar situation before. Why would a naked female corpse lie in someone’s grave?

Even if someone wanted to steal the luck from another family’s land, they wouldn’t do it so openly. This wasn’t a simple case.

Li Mazi was a little frightened. He looked at my puzzled face and knew that it might be too much for us. He said, “I’m sorry, but I don’t think we can handle this. You should look for someone more qualified.”

However, the uncle got on his knees. “Grandmaster, you can’t just watch someone die and not help! My late mother told me to find you; it means you can handle this. It’s destiny, Grandmaster. Please save us!”

At that time, my head was filled with the content of that grandma’s message. I thought of two possibilities.

The first possibility was that this man was talking nonsense. I didn’t know his mother, but his mother somehow knew me. Still… Since she was dead, her soul wouldn’t contain her full memories. How could she remember me so well?

The second possibility was that someone, possibly my enemy, had controlled her soul and sent this uncle a message in his dreams. That person then asked him to come here to find me.

The second possibility made more sense. If that was the case, the death of that grandma could be related to my enemy, and this was a trap that they had set up beforehand. They were only waiting for me to fall into it.

Chills ran down my spine. I didn’t want to accept this case. However, no matter what we said, the uncle kept kneeling.

I was a man with a soft heart, and the uncle in front of us was an elder. Since he was bowing to me, it would be disrespectful of me to reject him.

The more I thought about it, the more helpless I became. Eventually, I gritted my teeth and said, “All right, I’ll go there and see. But I’m not sure if I can solve this case!”