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墨書 Inktalez
"What kind of person specializes in stealing children and women’s entrails?"
As Yuan Jun gazed at the six corpses that had been hollowed out, he couldn't help but exclaim.
Captain Liu had contacted the forensic expert from the criminal investigation team to assist Xu Yiman with the autopsy. Meanwhile, Old Shao had also reached out to the person in charge of managing the funeral home; they were all on their way. The old man at the gate pulled up the electric shutter, allowing some light to seep into the funeral home.
Standing aside, he looked at the six bodies with gaping wounds in their abdomens and ominously remarked, "Have you ever heard of a type of ghost that specializes in hollowing out corpses?"
The members of the task force were waiting for others to arrive and, with nothing else to do, Old Shao was curious to hear what strange story might come from this eerie old man.
"Corpse Robber? What kind of nonsense is that?" Old Shao asked slowly as he sat on a bench in the corridor of the funeral home.
The Gatekeeper remained standing, leaning against the wall of the funeral home. His body was still hunched over, eyes squinting into slits as he coldly looked at Old Shao. "You’ve lived this long and still don’t know what a Corpse Robber is?"
Old Shao chuckled; he had never been mocked like this before. He didn’t feel angry but found it rather amusing and asked, "I’m not that old. I haven’t heard so many strange tales. Why don’t you tell us all about it?"
The Gatekeeper snorted and then began recounting a story he often heard from his parents—a tale about a Corpse Robber.
In his time, he lived in a destitute village. His parents had never left the mountains and never wished for him to do so either. Back then, there were no means of transportation; getting out of the mountains would take an entire night, and there were too many supernatural and terrifying legends surrounding those hills.
This story was based on a true event that happened to his parents.
He was around five or six years old when his mother was pregnant with his sister.
One time, his mother fell ill, and the village's Barefoot Doctor couldn’t figure out what was wrong. The Barefoot Doctor suggested they go see an Old Chinese Medicine Doctor in town; perhaps it would yield some results since he felt helpless.
With no other options, his father borrowed a cart from someone else to take his mother to town for treatment.
At that time, every household was poor; they didn’t even have a donkey. His father had no choice but to act as the donkey himself, pulling his mother out of the mountains.
He wanted desperately to follow his parents but was refused by his father. He still had to take care of things at home; how could he let him come along?
No matter how much he cried and protested, his father wouldn’t take him. It was frustrating because his father had not always been like this. He had only become a father at forty and had always cherished him, granting any request he made. But this time, he did not comply.
It took a long time to get from the mountain to the town, and he waited and waited, always hoping for his parents to return.
But after several days, there was still no sign of them. He had nightmares every night, fearing that his parents might never come back.
Finally, one night, his father rushed home. He was shocked to see that his father was covered in blood. He repeatedly asked where his mother was, and his father told him that she had been attacked by a Corpse Robber. That night, the entire village was stirred up; his father went from house to house gathering the villagers, wanting them to join him in confronting the Corpse Robber in the mountains.
The villagers chattered all night long, and it was only through their conversations that he learned what had happened.
His father had taken his mother to town for medical treatment. After receiving medicine from an Old Chinese Medicine Doctor, they were on their way back home. However, the journey was long, and they only made it partway into the mountains that night, unable to return to the village. They chose to spend the night in the mountains and planned to continue their journey at dawn when they could see the path clearly.
His father carried his mother down from the cart and laid her on a flat stone, making her comfortable with blankets so she could rest. Meanwhile, he gathered branches to start a fire and prepared roasted Steamed Buns for her. People in those days were extremely poor; those three Steamed Buns were given by someone who saw their poverty and wanted to help his mother during her journey.
Along the way, his father had only eaten some wild vegetables found by the roadside and hadn’t touched any food himself, saving all the Steamed Buns for his mother. He remembered being hungry since he could first recall; he had never eaten a full meal or tasted meat—he was always starving.
His mother ate a piece of Steamed Bun with water and then fell asleep on the ground. His father stayed awake all night, silently shedding tears as he watched his wife suffer.
He didn’t know how long it had been when fatigue finally overcame him. Sitting on the ground with his head resting on his hands, he fell asleep. When he woke up, the fire beside him had long since gone out. He looked over at his wife; she was still sleeping peacefully, which eased his mind.
He reached out to touch her, but the coldness of her skin sent chills down his spine. That was not the warmth of a living person; it felt like that of a corpse. His father hurriedly checked for her breath and realized she had already passed away. He quickly pulled back the blanket covering her and discovered a large gaping wound in her abdomen.
Blood stained both the blanket and his mother's body, yet the outer layer remained intact.
He looked at her belly; all of her Entrails were gone—along with his unborn sister—completely vanished.
In that moment, fear gripped him. It was still early morning; there wasn’t a soul in sight in the mountains—no living creature at all.
His wife lay beside him, having been vivisected without him noticing anything amiss. He wondered if some lurking monster in the depths of the forest had been watching him. Suddenly, he recalled tales of the Corpse Robber.
It was said to be a creature that roamed at night, specifically targeting women and children to extract their Entrails. They could do so without anyone realizing what was happening. According to legends, it resembled a human but had an oversized head, exceptionally sharp teeth, long arms, and razor-sharp claws—the Corpse-Digging Ghost.
This ghost's claws could easily rip open someone's belly and devour their Entrails. His father knew that it must have been a Corpse Robber that took away his mother's Entrails. This type of Corpse-Digging Ghost wouldn’t consume men’s Entrails but sometimes would brutally kill men as if playing with its prey like a well-fed cat with its catch.
He survived unexpectedly.
His father, unable to stay there alone, ran back to the village in a frenzy, arriving by nightfall.
Amidst the villagers' chattering discussions, the men of the village took up their machetes and headed up the mountain. They discovered the cart and found the body wrapped in a blanket nearby. The villagers noticed that there was indeed a large hole in his mother's body, and her entrails were missing. The hole connected to her womb, where the baby was also gone.
The villagers suspected it was the work of corpse robbers, but even after his mother was buried, they had not caught any of them.
Word of this incident reached the town, and some kind-hearted individuals offered his father some jerky as consolation. He felt conflicted during that time. On one hand, his mother had tragically been violated by corpse robbers; on the other hand, they now had meat to eat. Since he could remember, he had never eaten meat before; his first taste of it came after his mother’s death when others brought it to him.
His father hid the meat and turned it into jerky, giving him a piece each time. He forbade him from telling anyone about the meat because at that time, every household was struggling for food. Only the wealthy landowners in town could afford to eat meat, yet they managed to survive on jerky for nearly a year.
Those days were both his happiest and saddest times.
That was the best meat he had ever tasted. Even now, he could afford meat every day, but he had never eaten anything as delicious as that again. Just thinking about it made his mouth water.
"Maybe it was wild wolves from the mountain," Yuan Jun suggested.
The old man looked at Yuan Jun and snorted coldly. "Do wolves only eat women? If there were really wolves, my father wouldn’t have come back either. Besides, back then we were encouraged to hunt wolves; people were eating tree bark and roots—do you think they would let wolves go? It wasn’t wolves eating people back then; it was people eating wolves."
Yuan Jun was momentarily speechless, shrugging and sitting aside, unsure of what to say next.
Old Shao turned to the old man and asked, "Are you saying that the holes in these corpses are similar to the hole in your mother's belly?"
Hearing Old Shao's blunt question, the old man didn’t get angry but replied, "The hole in my mother's belly was much larger than this one; this is definitely a hole made by corpse robbers."
"Do corpse robbers eat entrails?" Old Shao asked again.
The old man grew impatient. "Of course! Haven't you figured that out yet?"
Old Shao remained calm. "Then did you never hear any noises at night?"
The old man nodded, "I've heard of it, but what does that matter? This yard is overgrown with weeds, and there could be wild cats or dogs inside, or even a Corpse Robber living here. It's such a large place, and I'm just an old man keeping watch. Should I really go out to check every time I hear a noise?"
"Isn't that your job?" Yuan Jun retorted.
The Gatekeeper spat on the ground, "They hired me to guard the door, not to risk my life. I close the doors and windows, and the Corpse Robber can't get in. But if I go out, I might end up dead at the hands of a Corpse Robber. It's better that you haven't discovered this secret; the Corpse Robber can stay here and keep feeding on corpses."
The Gatekeeper smiled lightly, "But now you want to destroy his home, leaving him with nothing to eat. You see, things like this hold grudges."
With that, the Gatekeeper walked away slowly, disappearing into the night.
Yuan Jun remarked, "This old man is even more terrifying than any Corpse Robber."
At that moment, Jiang He spoke to everyone, "I understand now; it's the Compass."
"Vengeful spirit? Compass?" Yuan Jun turned to ask.
Jiang He pointed at the corpse, "Every corpse has no navel."
"That's right," Xu Yiman said to Jiang He. "They all had their belly flesh cut off and taken away by the Murderer."
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