The Fatty grunted, "That’s easy enough. Chop off its head with a knife, and if you’re still uneasy, dismember the rest and toss it down the sewer." Old Sheepskin countered, "When a jiangshi is found in Shaanxi, it must be burned. Before incineration, the corpse must be covered with a fishing net to prevent its malevolent energy from seeping into the earth and causing mischief."

I told Old Sheepskin, "There's a similar saying in the mountains of Northeast China, but it refers to a hanged ghost. Wherever someone has been hanged, digging three feet down will invariably unearth a black object shaped like coal—that’s the lingering resentment of the departed. If it's not excavated, it will eventually turn into a plague. Though, I’ve never personally seen it."

No one wishes to end up in such a state after death. To utterly destroy a reanimated corpse is beneficial for everyone involved, but as for the method—incineration or dismemberment? And why has this body taken on such a bizarre and ferocious appearance, sprouting avian feathers on its upper body and bestial fur below? Without understanding the cause, I was hesitant to act rashly just yet.

As far as I knew, a jiangshi appearing in a location generally stemmed from a few causes. First, a distortion in feng shui, preventing the corpse’s qi from dissipating, causing it to solidify over time into a dried husk. Second, the individual taking slow-acting poison before death for preservation, or having mercury injected post-mortem; corpses containing mercury inevitably develop large black patches. If, following folk remedies, they ingested a mixture of arsenic, lead, and mercury before death, the body would show signs of moldering. The third cause is electrical action, where the surface of the body remains uncorrupted in death, only to rise upon contact with bio-electricity or a lightning strike, whereupon it attacks the living.

These three are the most common reasons. There are rarer, less-heard-of phenomena, such as the corpse being possessed by a spirit, or an anomalous cause of death. Moreover, in locales with unique feng shui environments, the deceased’s flesh and skin can remain lifelike for ages, but such auspicious, blessed grounds—like a dongtian fudì—are exceedingly rare.

I pulled out the Sixteen-Character Secret Art of Yin-Yang Feng Shui and flipped through it, locating a passage about the "Turtle Slumbering Ground." The book recounted how someone once saw a black mountain suddenly emerge from the sea. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be dozens of large turtles carrying the corpse of a giant turtle from the depths. These turtles deposited the dead one in a cave beneath a cliff before returning to the ocean. The person who secretly witnessed this was skilled in geomancy and recognized the spot as one favored by the Four Spirits. The "Dragon Qi" in the cave was surging heavenward. Coincidentally, a relative of his had recently passed away, so he investigated the peculiar shape of the turtle corpse and buried his ancestor there without a coffin. Afterward, this man rose quickly through the ranks, achieving regional dominance. That turtle-slumbering cave later became the ancestral burial site for his clan. Several hundred years later, the dragon qi was exhausted, the earth collapsed, revealing countless corpses. The locals flocked to watch, and every body was found to have grown avian feathers and dragon scales. After being exposed to the sea wind for a day and a night, all the corpses vanished simultaneously.

When I first read this passage, I was rather skeptical and paid it little mind. But seeing the jiangshi in this basement sprouting bird feathers exactly matched the description in the Sixteen-Character Secret Art of Yin-Yang Feng Shui, sending a shiver down my spine. Many years later, I learned the truth: in certain unique environments, there exist microorganisms that nourish the corpse and prevent decay, but over time, they cause mutation. In such places, a broken branch stuck in the ground would keep its leaves fresh for months. In antiquity, such regions were considered "auspicious earth" by feng shui masters, and countless people spent their lives traversing mountains just to find such a parcel of land, yet could not. Old Sheepskin and the Fatty, seeing me poring over the tattered book without making a decision, kept pressing me. I closed the Sixteen-Character Secret Art of Yin-Yang Feng Shui and said, "I’m learning on the fly here, applying what I know quickly, so I can’t be too certain. This jiangshi likely mutated due to this subterranean environment. We lack fishing nets and black donkey hooves, but we have bedsheets. The only way to eliminate it is to wrap it up and douse it in foreign liquor to burn." Thereupon, I led the Fatty and Old Sheepskin. We wrapped cloths around our noses and mouths and wrapped our hands, then ripped the bedspread off the bed in the inner room, wrapped the Russian jiangshi lying on the wooden chair, and dragged it into the sewer.

I told the Fatty to fetch some foreign liquor. We didn't know if this was the vodka the Russians favored, but the spirit was potent. We smashed the necks of the bottles and poured the liquor all over the corpse. Fearing there wasn't enough to burn it completely, I moved to pour the remaining bottles, but the Fatty grew protective. "Old Hu, we must conserve for the revolution! We must be frugal in all endeavors. Good enough is good enough," he urged.

I relented and ignited the corpse with the torch in my hand. Flames leaped up almost as high as a man, crackling fiercely. In the firelight, the wrapped body convulsed, its bones seemingly twitching as if suddenly coming back to life—a terrifying sight. We stood there, frowning deeply, watching until the body was reduced to a charred lump. It seemed impossible to destroy it entirely unless we dragged it to an incinerator with an intense fire. But at this stage, it was probably sufficient.

We returned to the Russian’s room. Ding Sitian had already deciphered most of the contents of the suicide note. To conserve light, we lit only one candle, and the four of us sat around it at the table. The Fatty poured a cup of liquor for each of us. At this point, everyone’s mental state and stamina were nearing their limits. Although this room was far from ideal, compared to the cremation room and the sewer, it felt like heaven. We needed this opportunity to rest briefly and gather vital intelligence about the Hundred-Eyed Grotto before planning our escape. I told Ding Sitian, "Haste makes waste. We have no clear path forward right now, so there's no need to rush whatever we do. Tell us carefully what the Russian wrote before he died; some of that content might prove useful."

Ding Sitian composed herself and, under the candlelight, looked at the pages, translating what she could understand piece by piece. Content she couldn't decipher, she temporarily skipped. The record was roughly as follows: A company of the Japanese Kwantung Army mysteriously vanished in the Hulunbuir region near the northern edge of the desert. As the search unfolded, reconnaissance troops discovered strange supernatural phenomena near the Hundred-Eyed Grotto. The Hundred-Eyed Grotto was situated in a hilly area between the great desert and the grasslands, possessing a unique geographical location and environment. Not only was it densely wooded inside, but people and livestock frequently disappeared at the mouth of the pass, and many claimed to have witnessed dragons there.

At that time, Japan and Germany were allied, and the Nazis were staunch believers in mysticism. The Germans learned of this mysterious phenomenon in the Mengjiang area through some channel and offered technical support to the Kwantung Army, hoping they would conduct a thorough investigation to uncover the root of this strangeness.

By then, the Japanese military strength was stretched thin across the long front lines, and they were preparing the world's largest bacteriological warfare research facility—the infamous Unit 731 of later history. The Russian who wrote this note was a descendant of the Tsarist family who had fled to Germany. He was not only accomplished in medicine but also a microbiology expert. He had been held under house arrest by the Germans for years before being temporarily seconded by the Nazis to the "Bo" research institute, subordinate to the Kwantung Army's Epidemic Prevention and Water Supply Department, where he was forced to assist in a secret study at the Hundred-Eyed Grotto.

During their investigation of the Hundred-Eyed Grotto, the Japanese dug out a massive, multi-layered cavern filled with countless well-preserved ancient corpses—so many they seemed endless. At the highest point, the corpse of a woman wearing a strange mask and unusual attire stood out prominently. After expert examination and comparison with ancient texts, they reached an astonishing conclusion: this was the legendary Great Xianbei Sorceress from the Han Dynasty, a figure semi-deified during that flourishing age of shamanism. The ground where she was interred was saturated with surging Dragon Qi, considered a sacred place by the Xianbei, equivalent to the Gaxian Cave on Mount Daxianbei in the Greater Khingan Range, where they frequently held stone-offering ceremonies. In Xianbei legends, the weasel was the god of death in the underworld, and this ossuary cavern was considered the entrance to hell itself.

This so-called "Dragon Qi" existed only at the mouth of the Hundred-Eyed Grotto; it was invisible, intangible, and elusive, capable of swallowing all people, livestock, and beasts. Only when dark clouds gathered and lightning flashed could one see a black, dragon-shaped shadow writhing in the clouds near the pass. The Japanese believed this was the "Fenfeng" (Burning Wind) recorded in Buddhist scriptures brought to Japan by Monk Jianzhen during his eastward voyage—a demon-like gust originating from the Avīci Hell, capable of instantly reducing any living thing it touched to ash. They believed mastering this "Fenfeng" would be a weapon of immense destructive power.

But humanity is too minuscule and powerless before natural phenomena to grasp its mysteries. However, the preservation of the Xianbei woman’s corpse without decomposition, even exposed to the air, offered a subject for bacterial research. Thus, they established a semi-above-ground, semi-subterranean secret research facility in the mountains. The institute bred large numbers of rats and centipedes, highly venomous creatures. Many Japanese soldiers fighting in the tropical Pacific theater suffered bites from jungle insects and venomous snakes. Therefore, utilizing the unique natural environment here, the institute also created a special experimental zone for cultivating tropical toxins, using special components from the soil of the corpse cave for detoxification experiments.

After the institute was completed, as excavation deepened, more and more bizarrely shaped corpses were unearthed from the ossuary. Suddenly, the Hundred-Eyed Grotto became haunted. At night, ghostly fires flickered everywhere; by day, mist began to rise, and the clouds over the hillside shifted constantly, intermittently revealing shapes resembling palaces and towers. When approached, the area looked lush and green, like clustered huts, gathering myriad forms, but upon further inspection, everything would vanish again.

The Japanese staff in the institute panicked, as these "ghost market" phenomena were also known in Japan. Believing they had released all the vengeful spirits from the ossuary, they summoned an Onmyōji from the homeland. Following his instructions, they constructed a hidden, semi-underground crematorium inside one of the research buildings. All rooms and windows were sealed; the few exits and entrances had specific directional requirements. Then, they sent the large number of corpses dug from the ossuary into the crematorium to be burned. They believed this would placate the restless spirits in the ossuary, and indeed, it seemed to have some effect.

The Russian who wrote the will lived entirely in the basement. He was only allowed out for necessary fieldwork. The Japanese knew he would be executed if he fled back to the Soviet Union anyway, so their guard over him wasn't overly strict, though his personal freedom was severely curtailed. Later, he befriended a Japanese medical officer with anti-war sentiments. With the officer's help, he learned about the outside world, realizing that Japan’s defeat was inevitable. He planned to escape the devil's den. The officer provided him with maps and all necessary escape supplies. When everything was ready, he secretly dug a tunnel, intending to exit through the sewer system, but he miscalculated the angle and failed to bypass the iron grate. Just as he was preparing to dig again, several local bandits from the Northeast transported a newly unearthed bronze casket. That very night, alarms blared throughout the entire institute.

The Russian writing the will had a terrible premonition. After the alarms subsided, there was silence outside. He was locked alone in the basement with no way out, uncertain of what had transpired. When he tried to dig a new escape route, he realized his life was nearing its end. So, he wrote down his experiences, hoping someone would find the letter—that casket was extremely dangerous...

The will abruptly ended there, with no signature or date. Clearly, the Russian died at that point. We don't even know his name, though we can infer the timing was likely just before the Soviet forces attacked the Kwantung Army, which is why the secret institute wasn't destroyed by the Kwantung Army after the sudden incident.

As for what was inside the bronze casket and the source of its danger? What the Russian encountered before his death? We know none of this yet. However, the escape supplies he left behind were exactly what we urgently needed, especially the institute map mentioned in the will. Furthermore, his testament resolved many mysteries that troubled us. Yet, the Russian’s knowledge was limited, and Ding Sitian's translation was incomplete; many secrets within the institute remained hidden from us.

At this point, having consumed strong liquor and being utterly exhausted, none of us wanted to move. We intended to rest for a short while, then retrieve the Russian’s maps and tools and escape this place as quickly as possible. But Ding Sitian and the others were too weary. Soon, they slumped over the table, fast asleep. Old Sheepskin and the Fatty were snoring loudly. I wanted to wake them, but my whole body ached with fatigue, and my eyelids started drooping. Though I knew this was no time for sleep, I rationalized: having spent a night in this institute, any bacteria or viruses that were going to infect us already had. Worrying was useless now. My body was nearing its absolute limit; if I didn't rest first, I wouldn't be able to handle whatever came next. With that resolve, I clutched the Kangxi Precious Saber, steeled my will, and also slumped over the table to sleep.

I slept fitfully for an unknown period. I woke suddenly. The long candle on the table had long since extinguished, leaving the room in pitch darkness. As I moved, my elbow bumped against something on the table. Instinctively, I reached out and touched it—it felt like the Russian jiangshi, now reduced to charcoal, was lying on the table.