Volume One: The Soul-Attracting Gourd, the Spirit-Igniting Lamp Chapter Twelve: Passing Through the Hall of Corpses

A bright moon hung high in the sky, casting a chill over the world. Gu Mo frowned as he followed behind Feng Kaixuan. After a few steps, a pitch-black object loomed ahead.

With a swing of her pillar-like legs, Feng Kaixuan took a giant stride and—

Clunk!

The black object sank abruptly under her weight.

Gu Mo finally saw what it was: before him, an expensive motorcycle roared to life with a thunderous engine growl that announced its worth. Just by the sound, you knew how costly this machine was.

Staring at Feng Kaixuan’s bulky figure, Gu Mo broke out in a cold sweat. That poor motorcycle must have been cursed through eight generations to end up with this owner.

When Gu Mo didn’t get on, Feng Kaixuan turned her head and said, “Mr. Gu, we should be going!”

Left with no choice, Gu Mo climbed onto the passenger seat, gripping the tail of the motorcycle but adamantly refusing to wrap his arms around Feng Kaixuan’s barrel waist.

With a deafening roar, the motorcycle shot off into the night.

The cold wind on the road was biting. Gu Mo could barely keep his eyes open, his long hair streaming back, snot and tears freezing instantly on his face.

When the bike finally stopped, Gu Mo got off and squatted on the ground, rubbing his frozen forehead with his hands.

“Mr. Gu, we’re here!”

At those words, Gu Mo looked up to examine the small courtyard before him.

Moonlight spilled down, casting the row of secluded bungalows in a sinister, haunted light. The air was thick with the tar stench of tobacco.

The yard was overgrown with weeds, the ground littered with messy footprints and cigarette butts of various brands.

But what truly caught the eye was the scattered paper money—pick up any note and it would read a billion yuan.

Looking further, all the bungalows were dilapidated except for the one directly ahead, which still had a light on. Yet in the glow, not the faintest shadow of a person could be seen.

Suddenly, with a snap, a flash of cold light—Gu Mo’s left hand was cuffed to the motorcycle by a gleaming pair of handcuffs.

Wasn’t this fat fool supposed to be a city inspector? Why did he have handcuffs? Oh right, he had a cop in the family! Damn it, why was he threatening me again?

Furious, Gu Mo could no longer contain himself.

“Fat Feng, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Feng Kaixuan, all smiles, immediately squatted down, pulling out an unopened box of cigarettes and a thick envelope, which she shoved into Gu Mo’s hand.

At that moment, Gu Mo caught a glimpse of a deep red mark on Feng Kaixuan’s wrist.

“Mr. Gu, please don’t be angry. I need to talk to you!”

Gu Mo scowled, glaring at her. “If you have something to say, spit it out!”

Despite the curse, Feng Kaixuan kept grinning, unfazed.

“To tell the truth, there’s a woman’s corpse lying in that shack.”

The words sent a chill straight up Gu Mo’s spine, making his hair stand on end and goosebumps break out all over his body.

“A woman’s corpse? Then why did you cuff me? Why not cuff the corpse instead?”

The fat city inspector was momentarily stunned, but then replied with a forced smile.

“I asked you here to help me check it out. That woman’s corpse…”

At this, Feng Kaixuan’s tongue tripped over itself, her whole body trembling. She really seemed to have witnessed something terrifying.

Her sudden change in expression made Gu Mo suspicious. Clearly, the corpse inside was no ordinary matter. If this fat fool had no guilty conscience, that would be the real miracle.

With that in mind, Gu Mo tested her cautiously.

“What’s wrong with the woman’s body inside?”

Feng Kaixuan looked distinctly shifty as she stammered, “I… my friend’s name is Feng Kai—pretty similar to mine, but he’s a real bastard.

Feng Kai and the girl inside were once a loving couple. But not long after they started dating, the jerk got her pregnant.

When it came time to talk marriage, they fell out over the bride price. The woman’s family disapproved of the match.

Seven days ago, the girl couldn’t take it and hanged herself. Tonight is exactly the seventh night since her death.”

Hearing this, Gu Mo felt uneasy. The mention of the seventh night sent a shiver down his spine.

“Fat Feng, even if the bride price negotiations failed, would that really drive her to suicide? Why not just have an abortion at the hospital? It’s hardly a big deal these days!”

This seemed to hit a nerve. Feng Kaixuan, her jowls quivering, sighed.

“Right? I can’t make sense of it either. Even if things went wrong with the bride price, it shouldn’t have led to hanging herself. With modern medicine, having an abortion is nothing earth-shattering! Wouldn’t you agree?”

At this, Gu Mo’s lips curled in a wicked smile. His words had been a probe, but they had confirmed Feng Kaixuan’s status as a scumbag. Perhaps the corpse inside was actually Feng Kaixuan’s girlfriend. Otherwise, how to explain the red mark on her wrist?

Suppressing his suspicions, Gu Mo continued to play dumb.

“If the girl is dead, why did you bring her body to this rundown house?”

Feng Kaixuan looked troubled and waved her hand.

“It’s all Feng Kai’s fault! When he got off work, the girl’s relatives blocked him at the door, saying he needed to ‘pass through the corpse hall’!”

The phrase struck Gu Mo like a bolt of lightning. He instantly understood.

‘Passing through the corpse hall’ was a terrifying custom in some regions.

In earlier times, women held low status. After marriage, they were expected to do hard labor for their husband’s family, and failure meant beatings—sometimes to death or to the point of suicide.

The woman’s family found this hard to accept. Since suicide brought no punishment to the husband’s family, a gruesome custom arose.

Passing through the corpse hall meant that, on the seventh night after a woman’s death, her husband was tied up and forced to spend the night in the same room as her corpse. If nothing happened by morning, it proved the husband was innocent or had been forgiven by the dead woman.

In truth, it was just a way for the woman’s family to vent their anger, making the man suffer.

But in such a terrifying scene, many men couldn’t withstand the psychological torment and were scared half to death.

Gu Mo recalled a particularly chilling story about this custom.

The first half was much the same: a man, after his wife died, was bound tightly by her furious family and thrown into a dark, sealed room with her body in a coffin.

He begged, “It’s not my fault! She had mental problems and threw herself down the well! What does this have to do with me?”

But seeing he was going to be locked in with a corpse, the man’s bravado collapsed, and he began to scream. The wife’s relatives ignored his pleas, nailing the doors and windows shut.

Inside, the room was pitch-black and deathly silent—only the man and the corpse remained.

Imagine the terror. No wonder the man’s screams rang through the village for over an hour.

By eleven o’clock, his cries faded, exhaustion overtaking him. Outside, the woman’s relatives continued their malicious vigil.

Suddenly, the corpse in the coffin let out a ghastly laugh.

The laughter was so horrifying, and the body quivered unnaturally, shaking loose the white shroud.

After a while, the drowned corpse slowly stood up, a puddle of fetid water spreading through the room.

The man’s eyes bulged in terror, but bound hand and foot, he couldn’t escape.

Drip, drip.

Water trickled from the corpse as it slowly approached, its face bloated and deathly pale, eyes swollen and shot with red veins of venomous hatred, fixed on the man.

His last defenses snapped—he seemed about to confess everything.

The corpse’s ghastly face pressed close, and the man could neither move nor speak or even breathe.

A shriek of terror pierced the night.

Outside, the woman’s relatives cheered. They weren’t afraid; this had all been their doing. The “corpse” was really their brother Li Goudan in disguise, meant to teach the man a lesson.

But as they gloated, a chill crept up their spines. Behind them stood a woman in a white lab coat, hair covering her face.

The onlookers were scared out of their wits—until the man in white removed the wig. It was just Li Goudan.

Only then did they remember: the corpse in the house? Li Goudan was supposed to climb in later—so who was it inside just now?

Goosebumps rising, the relatives scattered in terror.

By morning, the man inside had been scared insane.

In Gu Mo’s memory, there had been three such absurd incidents.

He never imagined that, after all these years, such horror would find him again.

With that, Gu Mo’s lips curled in a faint, careless smile.

“Oh, so that’s how it is. Since your friend Feng Kai was caught by the girl’s family, he must have been tied up?”

Feng Kaixuan nodded eagerly, like a pecking chicken.

“Yes, yes! And this old courtyard about to be demolished actually belongs to my friend Feng Kai’s family!”

She paused to stub out her cigarette, then lit another for Gu Mo.

As the smoke curled, the two continued their muted conversation.

“My friend Feng Kai was so petrified, he called me…”

Gu Mo, watching her shake like a leaf, asked, “If that’s the case, why didn’t you call the Taoist priest? What am I supposed to do? Don’t you have a police officer in the family?”

A world of difficulty was written on Feng Kaixuan’s face. It seemed that calling Gu Mo was a last resort.

She took a deep drag, sighing.

“Mr. Gu, I already told Master Xiao the whole story, but he’s out of town. Over the phone, he gave me your home address. I had no other choice!”

This only piqued Gu Mo’s curiosity. Who exactly was this Master Xiao? How did he know my address without ever meeting me?

Just then, a long sigh drifted through the air. Feng Kaixuan’s face turned from green to white.

“Mr. Gu, besides, even though I have a police officer in the family, this can’t be made public. If the authorities get involved, none of us will come out of it well.”

At that moment, with a crisp snap, the broken-down house plunged into pitch-black silence.

Locking eyes, both Feng Kaixuan and Gu Mo felt their hearts clench, as goosebumps broke out all over…