After pleading for mercy, the two elderly people gradually calmed down.
Their eyes were wide open, the corners split, staring straight at the ceiling;
Blue veins were exposed at their necks, the blood vessels beneath the skin turned black;
Both hands and feet were curled beneath them, as if they were bound by invisible ropes, their final cries were like the wails before execution.
Doctors and nurses came in, they arrived quickly, but they didn’t leave them any time.
Whether it was the horrifying amount of bleeding or the current state of the elderly couple’s vital signs, there was no point in attempting resuscitation.
What followed was dispersing the crowd outside the ward and having the attendants come quickly to clean the room.
The family members were then called to the office for the aftermath.
Li Sanjiang saw his great-grandson, and pulled Li Zhiyuan aside in confusion, asking, "Shouldn’t you be with your grandfather at the river? How did you find this place?"
Xue Liangliang then took out his student ID and handed it over, saying, "Grandpa, I’m a student from Haihe University. I was originally at the river working, and I brought a sick classmate to the hospital. Xiao Yuan knows the way, so I had him lead, and I’ve already talked to Xiao Yuan’s grandpa about it."
"He knows the way?" Li Sanjiang pointed at Li Zhiyuan while looking at Xue Liangliang, "He hasn’t been back to his hometown for long and hasn’t come to the city area. What roads does he know?"
Xue Liangliang replied, "Actually, I am quite fond of this kid, and I thought I’d take him out for some fun along the way."
Li Sanjiang took Xue Liangliang’s student ID, took a careful look, then gave it back to him, seemingly believing this reason – after all, being a university student still holds significant weight.
At this moment, the middle-aged man and woman who were previously in the ward walked out of the doctor’s office, heading straight for Li Sanjiang.
Li Sanjiang sighed at them and said, "Condolences."
Li Zhiyuan guessed, they must be Sister Yingzi’s uncle and aunt.
However, this couple seemed to have no reaction to the grief of losing relatives, or rather, something more urgent was pressing on them, and they each grabbed one of Li Sanjiang’s hands, whispering and pleading eagerly:
"Grandpa Sanjiang, please, save me, save me."
"Yes, Grandpa, help us, it’s really too terrifying."
Li Sanjiang glanced at Li Zhiyuan beside him, signaling them to walk to the terrace on each floor before speaking.
Li Zhiyuan did not insist on following them; his third aunt was still going through the process in the doctor’s office, while Sister Yingzi sat on the bench, distraught.
Having just witnessed such a terrifying scene and experienced the departure of relatives, the shock was naturally great.
Li Zhiyuan sat down to talk and comfort her, and in the process, also casually asked about the incident.
Yingzi’s maternal grandparents worked in a private aquaculture farm, and half a month ago, they discovered a small coffin while dredging an enclosure.
The coffin was entirely red, soaking for who knows how long, but it wasn’t rotted at all. Instead, it seemed even more brilliantly red from the immersion.
The elderly couple called their boss over, saying that according to local customs, this small coffin had to be offered with incense and a sacrificial burning before being sent into the river.
But the boss was from out of town and didn’t believe in this, so he called a couple of workers to pry open the coffin with tools.
Inside the coffin was a girl’s corpse, roughly eight years old, dressed in a black cotton-padded jacket and embroidered shoes, likely buried in winter. When they just opened it, she looked somewhat lifelike and not the least bit decayed.
It led everyone to almost think that this was a newly buried body!
But who would have thought that in just a few minutes, the originally tender corpse suddenly began to wither, the flesh quickly decayed, leaving only a skeleton wrapped in the black cotton-padded jacket.
The girl’s corpse had a set of jewelry, a jade hairpin on her head, rings on her fingers, and a gold ring around her neck.
In addition, there was a porcelain bottle sealed with talisman paper and a carved blackwood plaque in the coffin.
The carving had a row of large characters:
"The corpse wards off the evil spirit, Merit aids ascension."
And then a line of smaller characters followed by a signature:
"Whoever sees these words, must not desecrate the body, must not touch its objects, seal the coffin wood quickly, cast it into the rivers, to avoid calamity.
Yingzi’s maternal grandparents began to beg the boss to quickly seal the coffin as instructed and push it back into the river, but the boss was stubborn. He thought the jewelry in the coffin were valuable items, and the porcelain bottle might be a treasured object, so he took everything away. As for the coffin and the bones inside, they found a spot by the nearby riverbank, dug a hole, and buried it.
Then, terrifying things began to happen.
First, the boss mysteriously disappeared, and then Yingzi’s maternal grandparents started having endless nightmares, with visions of the girl coming for revenge. Soon after, both started feeling unwell and were admitted to the local health clinic, which even led to tendencies of self-harm.
One day, while the third aunt went home to get food, the old couple told Yingzi they wanted to drink water with mandarin crystals inside and tricked Yingzi into leaving. Then they secretly ran towards the roof wanting to jump off, but fortunately, the Grandmaster happened to arrive just in time and stopped them.
However, after this commotion, the clinic did not want to keep them any longer; if the two elderly really sought their end in the clinic, it would be a big trouble for the institution, so they had to be transferred to the city’s People’s Hospital.
Yet, the symptoms of the old couple became increasingly severe. With the sedatives given by the doctor and the strict care of the family, they were prevented from further attempts at self-harm.
But who would have thought that they would end their lives in such an unfathomable and terrifying manner.