Grave Moving Brigade - Chapter 13

Chapter 13 – Mr. Jiang Finally Appears

The connection between Mr. Gao and the dead baby is neither deep nor shallow.

Gao Qing’s body made it difficult for her to conceive, and it took the couple six years to finally get pregnant.

During the first few pregnancy checkups, Gao Qing’s body and the baby in her belly were in good condition. Then one day, she was sitting at home and suddenly had a stomach ache. Mr. Gao immediately rushed home from the company and took his wife to the hospital.

Examination showed that Gao Qing was bleeding, the foetus was unstable, and she might have a miscarriage.

The Gao family was so worried about it that they finally managed to save the child. From then on, Gao Qing became very cautious. She was very careful when walking, sitting, eating, and talking, for fear of hurting the child.

Gao Qing disappeared when she was just 33 weeks pregnant. Mr. Gao mobilised relatives, friends and company employees to look for her and also called the police.

When everyone returned home exhausted, the wife had returned without them knowing. She was sitting in the dining room with a large bowl of food in front of her. There was fruit, medium-rare beef with blood, and various colourful health supplements for pregnant women.

Seeing that she was not in a good state, Mr. Gao rushed over to stop his wife from stuffing something into her mouth and anxiously asked her what was wrong.

Gao Qing giggled as if nothing had happened and said, “I went to the hospital again today. The doctor said the baby is healthy and very beautiful.”

The tone was odd and he knew immediately that something was wrong.

Mr. Gao secretly called the hospital where they usually had the prenatal check-ups done. He received heartbreaking news that the baby’s foetal heartbeat had stopped for almost ten days.

According to Gao Qing’s condition, she had to have surgery to remove the dead foetus, but she refused to do so and cried, saying that the child was still alive. In order to prevent the child from being “harmed”, she ran away from home at night when her husband was not paying attention, regardless of the risk to her life.

It was drizzling that night, the wind was bitingly cold, and people were burning paper money everywhere on the roadside.

The faces of those people who were missing their deceased relatives were made scary and eerie by the flickering firelight. Only then did Mr. Gao remember that it was the Cold Clothes Festival.

The Hanyi Festival, also known as Sending Winter Clothes or Ghost Day, is a day for the living relatives to pay homage to their deceased loved ones.

[[T/N : Hanyi Festival or Winter Clothes Day in China is a day when people pay homage to their ancestors in winter. It mostly marked by sending clothes to their ancestors and loved ones to protect them from the cold by burning paper clothes infront of their grave.]]

Mr. Gao was flustered and tried to control his eyes from looking around.

Around midnight, he finally found his unconscious wife on the side of an empty road.

Gao Qing was so sad that she was in a coma for three days. After waking up, she became even more resistant to the surgery.

There was really no other way, so Mr. Gao had to resort to forceful means to send his wife to the hospital for surgery, and bought a cemetery to bury the fully grown child.

The next day, Gao Qing, who was still very weak, personally led people to the cemetery and forcefully dug the child out.

From then on, her condition became increasingly abnormal. She spent the whole day holding the dead baby, singing lullabies, feeding him milk powder, and bathing him every night.

Mr. Gao tried countless times to snatch the child away, but whenever he did, Gao Qing would scream like crazy. Once, she was stimulated to such an extent that she cut her wrist with a kitchen knife in front of the whole family, and almost died.

These past events brought tears to Mr. Gao’s eyes.

“Mr. Chen, my wife and I have been in love since college. I am really heartbroken to see her become like this. I don’t know what to do.” Mr. Gao blew his nose in a very dignified manner. “After almost two months of having brought back the dead baby, our family members began to hear the baby crying and chewing sounds. The servants found that any fresh meat placed in the refrigerator would have signs of being bitten the next morning. Because of this, the servants were so scared that they resigned one after another. Even my parents dared not live in the house anymore and moved back to their hometown.”

Mr. Gao was in great pain. He knew clearly that the child was no longer a human being. However, Gao Qing refused to face it and stubbornly immersed herself in the illusion and was unwilling to come out.

Chen Ling put the dishes on the plate: “Let’s eat first.” Only when one is full will one have the energy to work.

Chen Ling felt very stressed during the lunch because Mr. Gao was too enthusiastic. He kept picking up dishes for his master and him, or pouring wine and urging them to drink.

Zhao Xunchang is addicted to alcohol, but he never drinks too much. But today is different. The aged wine that Mr. Gao brought has a mellow aroma. The aroma of the wine controls his hands and keeps pouring it into his mouth.

Even Chen Ling was not spared and had a drink.

He had only drunk beer before and couldn’t resist the strong liquor.

By the end of the meal, the alcohol had taken over Chen Ling’s head. He felt his eyelids and cheeks getting hot, and his ears were buzzing, as if someone had covered his ears and was constantly breathing hot air on his face.

Mr. Gao had developed a good alcohol tolerance through various dinner parties, and he was still sober now. When he saw the old man and the child, one drunk and the other dazed, he immediately regretted that he did not control his behaviour properly.

Following Chen Ling’s instructions, he helped Zhao Xunchang into the room, and when he came out again, the young man in the small dining room had disappeared.

Chen Ling groped his way back to the room, took off his clothes, and stood under the shower to take a shower.

Alcohol burned in his blood and his head was hot. He deliberately lowered the water temperature. The slightly cool water washed over his skin, like a gentle hand caressing him, causing him to sigh comfortably.

When he was almost done showering, Chen Ling turned off the shower, wiped the water off his face, pushed the glass door open a crack, and reached out to get a towel.

“Strange…” The towel was clearly hanging on the rack outside, so why couldn’t he get it?

He let out a puzzled cry and was about to stick his head out to take a look when a cold finger suddenly scratched his palm.

Chen Ling: “…”

His heart skipped a beat, and Chen Ling quickly suppressed his panic, pretending not to know. He calmly pushed the door open and stepped out, and immediately saw the towels on the shelf.

The first thing Chen Ling did after taking it off was to wrap his lower body tightly and take out a Five Thunder Talisman from his dirty clothes.

The talisman paper was powerful when it was knocked out, but then it seemed to have no power. It fluttered in the air twice and stuck to the wet floor.

A cold air rose up all over his body, especially on his back, where the feeling was particularly noticeable.

Chen Ling’s eyelashes trembled, and he whispered, “Excuse me, is this Mr. Jiang Yu?”

The cold air stuck to the skin, spreading inch by inch, quickly and urgently, venting some inexplicable anger.

…He didn’t know what was wrong with what he said.

The chill that seemed to be real quickly rose up and reached his neck, forcing him to raise his chin, exposing his most vulnerable Adam’s apple to danger.

Chen Ling clearly felt that several slender fingers were gently strangling his throat, with the thumb just pressing on the side of the carotid artery. Danger and killing intent burst out in the air, and a terrible intuition emerged in his mind.

It is the foreknowledge and fear of death.

The thumb on the artery pressed down, and the cold temperature of the fingertips froze the warm skin and penetrated into the blood vessels. From the collarbone to the cheek, goose bumps were all over the body.

Chen Ling shuddered. The temperature in the bathroom had dropped to a freezing point without him noticing.

A stern face, as if carved by a knife, gradually appeared before his eyes. In the narrow and long phoenix eyes were a pair of light-coloured pupils, cold and transparent, reflecting Chen Ling’s face clearly.

Chen Ling was stunned, and his eyes couldn’t help but move from the other person’s eyebrows down, across the straight nose bridge and delicate nose tip, and stopped on the lips below.

The lips are thin, as if they have just been moisturised by bright red wine, and look plump and moist, as red as April flowers, making people want to reach out and touch them to see if they are really that soft and fragile.

“Am I old?” the man asked. His voice was low and elegant, not as rough and sharp as the spirits he had met before.

‘No need to admit it! It’s really Jiang Yu!’

Even though he had suspicions long ago, when the truth was laid before him, Chen Ling still couldn’t control his inner shock.

His lips moved as if he wanted to answer, but as soon as he opened his mouth, his chin pressed against the hand that remained on his Adam’s apple. Stimulated by the biting cold, Chen Ling calmed down strangely, his eyelashes half drooped, and his eyeballs rolled, looking for any magical weapon nearby that could be used to attack.

The man’s breath approached, and his icy gaze traced the young man’s face, revealing an aggression and intent for exploration that could not be ignored.

The ancestor had made it clear. If he still didn’t know why the other person was angry, then he would be a fool.

Chen Ling raised his head desperately to make his breathing smoother: “You don’t look old, not old at all, and you are very beautiful. I have never seen anyone as beautiful as you.”

The suffocating air relaxed for a moment.

Chen Ling was surprised that praising the other party was a useful tactic!

The young man’s voice was too gentle, and he looked at him timidly with his black and white eyes. He looked timid and weak, and he was shaking all the time…

Jiang Yu loosened his hand, and his completely solid body stood like a majestic mountain in the small bathroom, creating a depressing atmosphere.

Chen Ling’s eyes moved and he found that Jiang Yu was actually wearing a suit. The black fabric was neat and straight, the buttons were straight, and the cufflinks of the shirt exposed at the cuffs were sparkling sapphires. The shirt underneath was as white as snow without a single wrinkle.

No wonder the Jiang family believed in and feared this ancestor so much, it turned out that it was because Jiang Yu had been staying in the Jiang family and enjoying the offerings. Otherwise, where did such decent clothing come from?

But the feeling Jiang Yu gave him was different from that of other spirits.

He had a heavy cold aura, but his ghostly and evil spirit was well restrained, almost non-existent. In addition to the solid body in front of him… except for the body temperature, Jiang Yu was no different from a living person.

If an ordinary evil spirit had reached such a point, it would have been either captured by heaven or chased and beaten by various cultivators. It would not have been so idle as to show up and touch his neck, and it would certainly not have manipulated the Jiang family to relocate his grave in a high-profile manner.

Chen Ling couldn’t guess Jiang Yu’s identity, but he understood his current situation.

“Mr. Jiang, do you have any instructions for me?” He asked softly, because he was too nervous to speak louder.