Chapter Ninety-Seven: The Female Corpse

At the crown of this sky-piercing giant tree, there was actually a vast platform. Upon it crouched four enormous gargoyle-like statues, much like the monsters that squat in bell towers in Western films.

Only after Ma Yi had carefully confirmed that they were stone carvings did he gather his courage and fly to the platform’s edge. But the moment he landed, he realized that the four statues were arranged to guard each side of the platform, their faces turned outward. In other words, behind the statues, there lay a crystal coffin. Inside it rested a woman in red. Yes, a woman.

Ma Yi slipped between the stone figures and stood before the crystal coffin, looking down at the woman within. She was not especially beautiful, but her skin was pale and luminous, so clear that even standing two meters away, Ma Yi could make out the tiny veins at her neck. She did not look dead so much as quietly asleep.

In front of the crystal coffin stood an altar. On it lay a small pouch and a three-foot bronze sword. The sword looked ancient, its blade the only part still free of corrosion, while the rest of the hilt and scabbard were already thickly furred with blue-green verdigris. Beneath the altar was a place resembling an incense burner, but there was not the slightest trace of burnt ash or offerings. Instead, it had been filled with all kinds of flowers. The blooms had long since dried completely. Ma Yi, unable to keep his hands to himself, reached out and touched one. At once, the flower turned to flying ash.

It was hard to imagine that they were now at such a great height, thousands of li above the ground, where not a breath of wind should have been stirring. Yet there was indeed no wind at all in the tree’s crown. After entering the range of this giant tree, Ma Yi had not felt so much as a breeze. Otherwise these flowers would never have survived until now; they should have long since been blown away.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Ma Yi hurriedly turned back toward the crystal coffin and apologized. It was all his fault for being so handsy. Why had he touched it? He had just caused a flower in the bed of offerings to vanish. After that, his movements became much gentler, afraid that even the faintest stir from his body might ruin the remaining flowers.

After circling the coffin and finding nothing else of note, Ma Yi’s hands began to itch again, or rather, his curiosity did. He stared at the bronze sword on the altar for a long while, several times almost reaching out to take it before forcing himself to stop. After standing there dazed for a while longer, he finally could not resist. Slowly extending his hand, he touched the hilt. The instant his fingers met it, a cool sensation flowed through him.

He gripped the hilt and lifted the bronze sword. At once, flakes of corrosion on the blade and fittings fell off in a rustling shower.

Looking at the edge, Ma Yi could not help but test it with his finger.

“Ouch.”

Most of the time, he was quite satisfied with his own defenses. But ever since coming to this trial ground, he felt as though he had become useless. Like now: he had merely tested the blade, and the pad of his thumb had been split open. The cut was not deep, but a bead of blood slowly welled up on the flesh. With a casual flick, he shook the blood away and blew on his thumb. In the blink of an eye, the wound healed.

This ancient sword was no ordinary thing. It was absurdly sharp.

What Ma Yi failed to notice was that the bead of blood had fallen neatly onto the back of one of the stone statues. The moment it struck the stone, the statue visibly shuddered. Stranger still, the blood bead bounced off as though the stone had become elastic, hopping and rolling toward the coffin. Then, like a rotten egg smashed on the ground, it splattered against the crystal coffin.

That thick crystal coffin somehow absorbed the drop as if it were a sponge. Because the material was transparent, Ma Yi could clearly see the red mist formed from the blood seep straight into the nostrils of the woman sleeping inside.

Meanwhile, Ma Yi was still holding the ancient sword and marveling at it, entirely oblivious to the eerie scene just now.

Setting the sword down, he soon became interested in the small pouch on the altar. It was obviously a woman’s belonging, because if a man carried such a red pouch embroidered with little flowers, he would surely be taken for effeminate.

He pulled both ends of the cord at the mouth of the pouch, and it opened. Seeing no strange reaction, Ma Yi lifted it before his eyes and looked down. At once, he was stunned. Within that small pouch, which looked like a sachet, there was actually a hidden world. A tiny spatial realm lay inside it, and within that space were many objects.

Ma Yi reached in and grabbed at random. The thing he pulled out made his old face flush red: a pair of women’s small shorts, thin as cicada wings, almost transparent, and soft in a way that felt unlike clothing at all.

He hurriedly stuffed it back into the pouch and reached in again. When he pulled out the next item and saw it, well, it was a red bellyband.

Ma Yi was not exactly some lecherous old goat, but having pulled out women’s intimate garments twice in a row from the pouch’s inner space, he could not help feeling embarrassed.

“I refuse to believe it.” He shoved the little bellyband back in and continued searching the small space for other things. Yet each time he pulled something out, it was either another kind of women’s shorts or another bellyband. Several times he even drew out outer skirts.

Ma Yi leaned close to the opening and peered inside carefully. There were clearly many things in there. So why was he only drawing out women’s clothes and nothing else—no rare flowers, no precious herbs, no exotic treasures?

Suddenly, it seemed as if he realized something.

Only then did he remember that this was no longer an age of technology. The woman was probably one of the ancient human elders. To place a coffin atop this sky-reaching tree, she could not have been ordinary. And if she was no ordinary person, then she must be a mighty being. Weren’t there always restrictions on the items belonging to such powerful figures in stories? If one could not break the seal, one could never obtain what was inside. Everything in this pouch had probably been bound by the woman’s restrictions, and that was why he could only touch the contents he had now.

“Ah, what a pity.”

Ma Yi shook his head and tied the pouch closed again, returning it to its place on the altar.

But when he looked up, he realized something seemed different. For a moment, he could not make sense of it. He glanced around the platform, and nothing appeared amiss. Was it just his imagination?

Then he looked once more toward the crystal coffin, and his courage nearly shattered on the spot.

The woman in red inside the coffin was gone. She was truly gone.

Unable to believe it, Ma Yi rushed over and looked more closely. The coffin had no sign of being disturbed. The silks and bedding inside were still neatly arranged. Yet the woman who had been lying there was nowhere to be seen.

A chill ran from the backs of his heels all the way to the crown of his head. Ma Yi spun around in alarm, but there was not even a shadow of a person behind him.

The more he looked, the more frightened he became. When he had come up, he had clearly seen the red-clad woman lying in the crystal coffin. How could she vanish in the blink of an eye?

He lifted his head and glanced at the sky. Though there was no sun, the daylight was bright. There could be no ghosts or monsters in broad daylight, could there?

Then he felt an itch at the back of his neck. He reached up and scratched it. The moment he finished, his face changed dramatically, and he slowly turned his head.

His body was stiff, as though it were a rusted turntable.

“No one there.”

Ma Yi let out a breath of relief. The instant he turned back, the bare scalp at the back of his head itched again. He scratched once more.

“No, something’s definitely wrong.”

His whole body tensed. He looked over his shoulder again. Still nothing.

“Ah! Are you human or a ghost?”

The moment Ma Yi turned his head back around, a deathly pale face was pressed right in front of him. Their noses were separated by barely an inch. Frightened half out of his wits, Ma Yi scrambled backward and fell flat on his backside.

Since coming to this trial ground on his own, his courage had shrunk dramatically.

“Don’t come any closer! I’m very strong, you know!”

Ma Yi stared at the expressionless woman, eyes wide behind his lenses, as she gazed at him without blinking. Every hair on his body stood on end. In an instant, armor enveloped him from head to toe.

But even after he activated his power, the female ghost paid it no mind. A pale hand reached straight for his chest. Ma Yi hurriedly darted away, only to crash hard to the ground. Somehow, a wall he could not see had appeared in the gap between the statues. His charge slammed into it, and he was thrown back onto the platform.

“Am I really going to die here today?” Ma Yi muttered.

He watched helplessly as the ghostly woman stepped closer and closer. He had completely lost the ability to resist. He could feel her power—stronger than anything he had ever encountered. Now he regretted it. He regretted coming up this tree. He and Liu Wen had not even had a child yet. He had not even been able to say a proper goodbye before being sucked into the teleportation passage. He did not want to die yet.

Pfft.

Suddenly, the female ghost smiled.

Her hand, which had been reaching toward Ma Yi, rose to cover her mouth. She laughed with her face hidden, and the sight made the terrified Ma Yi even more afraid. What sort of sickness was this ghost suffering from?

“If you’re going to kill me, then kill me. Why are you scaring me? What are you laughing at? Am I really that funny?”

At this point, Ma Yi had already accepted death. Since he was going to die today anyway, so be it.

To be fair, he did look rather ridiculous now: a three-hundred-pound fat man with a miserable expression, huddled on the ground in fear, completely lacking the bearing he once had when he could raise a hand and command hundreds of thousands of zombie soldiers. He looked like a brat from next door who had lost a fight, afraid of being beaten when he got home, and afraid of being beaten again if he stayed where he was. His face was full of grievance.

“Who are you?” the ghost asked.

She had actually spoken. Her laughter stopped, and then she drifted to a halt before Ma Yi, looking at him.

“What, do killers check names before they kill? My name is Ma Yi. If you’re going to kill me, then hurry up and do it. Stop scaring me. I’m kind of afraid.”

Ma Yi looked at her in pain.

“Which human tribe are you from, boy?” the ghost asked again.

Ma Yi was utterly speechless. What, was this ghost taking a census before killing people?

Still, there was nothing he could do, so he said, “I am human, that much is true, but I don’t belong to any tribe. I was just an abandoned orphan. Later I became a junior employee at a company. Then I turned into a zombie. What else do you want to know? Ask quickly. I’m a little scared.”