The muffled thunder clapped incessantly across the grassland. Old Sheepskin’s son, along with Fatty and me, set to work digging up the body of Old Sheepskin once more. We buried him eight feet deep this time, a considerable effort even to unearth again, but beneath the death-knell thunder, we dared not delay. In no time, a layer of white silk was exposed in the trench. We knew beforehand the body was buried feet-to-the-sky, but upon digging, we found the shroud had been stretched into myriad white strands, resembling a tightly bound net of white cord. It was as if Old Sheepskin had suddenly come alive after being interred, struggling to tear free from the cloth that encased him, resulting in the state we now beheld.

If the earth had reached past one’s chest, even a living person would have suffocated. How could the buried stir and struggle? Seeing this, everyone felt a chill. Old Sheepskin’s son’s knees buckled, and he dropped to the ground weeping hysterically, cursing his own filial impiety for seemingly burying his father alive. Using the light from the kerosene lamp, I spotted a few wisps of white down poking out from the white cloth at the bottom of the pit. It looked almost as if a huangpizi (weasel) was wrapped inside, but that was impossible. Knowing something was deeply wrong, I ignored the wailing lamentations of Old Sheepskin’s son beside me and bent down myself, intent on seeing if the tightly bound corpse had undergone any change beneath those layers of white fabric. Fatty called from the edge of the pit, “Old Hu, be careful! I don’t like the look of this. Why don’t we find a stick to poke it first, just to be safe… What is that inside the white cloth, it looks like a reanimated corpse, covered in white fur?”

As I slowly approached the exposed feet of the corpse in the earth, I told Fatty, “Using a stick might damage the body; let me take a look first…”

While speaking, I had already raised the oil lamp close to the scene. The body within the white cloth had been completely still while buried, but as I drew near, just as I was about to lift the lamp for a closer inspection, the bundle of white cloth suddenly convulsed violently. Even though I was mentally prepared, this sudden shock nearly made me drop the lamp on the ground. I immediately forgot about examining Old Sheepskin’s body. Driven by pure instinct, as if I had encountered a venomous snake or received an electric shock, I spun around and scrambled up out of the pit.

Witnessing this, Old Sheepskin’s son was completely terrified. Shock wiped away his tears, and his mouth hung open, unable to close for a long moment. Fatty and I froze on the spot, unsure how to react. A large section of something wrapped in a white net was now visible above the dirt in the pit. The object was wriggling, pushing itself upward, seemingly uncomfortable with being buried and struggling to break free from the soil. Because the white cloth held it so tightly, even though the struggling inside had ripped the fabric, it was still impossible to clearly see what was wrapped within, but its shape was definitely not that of a corpse's feet.

Old Sheepskin’s body had been in the ground for over ten hours. It was one thing for the shroud to be torn and rent by movement, but the body was now moving before our eyes. Old Sheepskin’s son’s face was a mask of panic; he was certain his father had turned into a jiangshi (vampire/zombie). On the grasslands, strange tales of jiangshi were plentiful. Though most people had never seen one, everyone could recite a string of rumors—how a male and female jiangshi mated in the wild, how they suddenly sat up and pounced on people, how they tore out hearts and drank blood and marrow, and how they were impervious to blades and bullets. The sudden twitching of the corpse naturally caused him to fret.

Although Fatty and I were startled, we grew up in the army and never flinched even during times of chaos. How could we be afraid of a corpse wrapped in white cloth? Especially since this was Old Sheepskin, who had shared hardship with us. Though I had panicked earlier and nearly bolted from the yurt, I had quickly calmed myself. It was clear Old Sheepskin’s death was bizarre, and we had to unwrap the shroud to see exactly what was going on.

I signaled Fatty with my eyes, and we prepared to advance and dig up the corpse again, planning to haul the entire thing out to see just what the hell was happening. We refused to believe such an unholy phenomenon was possible.

But Old Sheepskin’s son threw himself onto the ground and clung to my leg, desperately trying to stop us. If Old Sheepskin had truly reanimated and we dug him up, people would die; it was better to just fill the hole with dirt again.

I looked at Old Sheepskin’s son—a man in his mid-thirties, one who drank liquor and ate meat, whose own Mongolian wife never suggested he was less than a man—and wondered why he was acting so cowardly now. The corpse was half-dug up; how could we simply rebury it?

Still, he was Old Sheepskin’s direct kin, and we couldn't use force against him. Though anxious, I managed to suppress my impatience and tried to soothe him. Since the dismantling of the ‘Four Olds,’ a nationwide campaign to transform customs had been underway for two years, and the forest farm and pastoral areas were naturally following suit. Every household had received several pamphlets, including one titled Embrace Science, Break Superstition. It was a thin booklet of about thirty pages containing a detailed explanation of why a corpse might move after death.

I had read this book before, and I saw that Old Sheepskin’s son had a copy at home. I told him this was definitely not reanimation. Even though thunder was striking, this movement was not typical of a jiangshi. Embrace Science, Break Superstition explained it clearly: movement occurs because the body is decomposing too rapidly, and the vital decay qi is sealed inside the white shroud, unable to escape. Thus, the moment the earth is broken, the buried corpse twitches as if electrified. If the body wasn't removed, the qi would eventually seep into the soil, harming the living nearby. A materialist doesn't lie; if you don't believe it, you will regret it someday.

My impromptu fabrication actually succeeded in frightening Old Sheepskin’s son. He was barely literate and, although he had received the materials, he had never opened that copy of Embrace Science, Break Superstition. But this lack of education had its advantages: he believed anything written in a book was gospel truth. Hearing that this phenomenon was literally described in print, he immediately believed me about seventy percent, finally releasing his grip and letting Fatty and me dig for the corpse.

Fatty clapped him on the shoulder and said, “That’s right. The living have their truths, and the dead have theirs. How can we not believe the truth? Today, we’ll see whose truth is wrapped in this white cloth.” With that, he raised his shovel. Before the blade could descend, the thunder outside intensified. A series of rapid, blinding cracks shook the ears of those inside the yurt, and streaks of ghastly white light illuminated the dim interior.

I quickly pulled Fatty back from the pit edge. Not good—these successive thunderclaps were hitting much closer, far more violently than before, as if aiming specifically for this yurt. The chance of being struck inside the tent was too high. We needed to retreat quickly and figure things out once the storm passed.

Lightning cracked and thunder boomed, yet no rain fell. Everyone knew this thunder was an ill omen, signifying something terrible would happen tonight. But facing such a situation with no recourse, we could only retreat to a safer place for now. Fatty dragged his shovel, and Fatty and I flanked Old Sheepskin’s son, attempting to pull him out of the yurt.

Just as we reached the tent flap, a flash of lightning illuminated the scene, and suddenly a blue ball of fire darted into the tent. It moved as fast as a shooting star; we had no time to react before the fireball zipped just over our heads. A massive thunderclap struck the earth pit where Old Sheepskin’s body lay, followed immediately by a wave of acrid, burnt stench rapidly filling the tent.

Though we were a beat slow in our reaction, we instinctively ducked our heads and crouched low inside the tent to take cover. Moments later, the foul, scorched smell hit our nostrils. The thunder outside gradually subsided. I turned back to look. Where the lightning had struck, the body, already wrapped in white silk, had been blasted into a charred piece of black charcoal. The corpse was utterly burnt, unrecognizable.

Ding Sitian and Old Sheepskin’s daughter-in-law, in another tent, had rushed in when they heard the commotion, worried something was amiss. Seeing the black, smoking corpse in the pit, they were too stunned to speak. Old Sheepskin’s son squatted in a corner, his eyes vacant, appearing completely shell-shocked. Was the lightning strike a blessing or a curse?

I reasoned that if it was misfortune, we couldn’t dodge it; someone had to retrieve Old Sheepskin’s body to ascertain what had happened. Why was the lightning so fixated on a dead man? Suppressing the biting stench, Fatty and I started digging again, intending to reach in and move the body. But when I touched it, the outer layer of charcoal-like human flesh crumbled off, revealing a shocking, vivid red beneath. Pulling it out of the pit by hand was now impossible; we would need a plastic tarp to scoop it up.

Seeing Old Sheepskin meet such an end, my heart ached, yet this lightning strike couldn't have randomly hit the corpse and ignited a fire without some deeper strangeness behind it. Hardening my resolve, I forced myself to look closely at the remains. I noticed the body seemed to have swelled underground; after being scorched by the lightning fire, it was now two or three sizes larger than Old Sheepskin’s actual frame. The white shroud, being highly flammable, had long since burned away. The charcoal-like remains looked nothing like a human form.

When we first dug it out, I thought what emerged from the white cloth looked like a very large huangshulangzi (weasel), but I had dismissed it as an illusion. Now, looking at the body burned by the lightning fire, sure enough, besides Old Sheepskin, there was a very large huangpizi whose body had been scorched beyond recognition along with the man. We could only guess from the remaining shape that it had likely been a large weasel, and from its posture, it seemed to have been struggling to crawl out of the white shroud just before death. Sunfeng typed.

We had already killed the two old huangpizi in Hundred-Eyed Cave. Where did this one come from? Or had Old Sheepskin transformed into a huangpizi after death? Everyone exchanged glances, unable to answer these questions, but simultaneously felt waves of icy fear. Although Fatty and I weren't present when Old Sheepskin’s son prepared the body, he certainly wouldn't have wrapped a weasel together with Old Sheepskin. I couldn't deduce the reason, but I knew this matter must never get out.

Old Sheepskin’s son and daughter-in-law also understood that it couldn't be revealed. They could only say Old Sheepskin died suddenly of illness, and his body was burned by lightning fire during storage. They absolutely could not mention the weasel, or it would surely be interpreted as a "new trend in class struggle," the implications of which were unknowable. It was best for personal matters to be kept private. With tears, they began picking through the remains, lighting an extra fire to completely incinerate the charred weasel body. Old Sheepskin’s remains were wrapped in fresh white cloth again, awaiting inspection by personnel from the banner administration.

While cleaning up the remains, Old Sheepskin’s son found an object among the charred remains. Not recognizing it, he brought it to me for identification. I took it and immediately recognized it: it was the bronze dragon tally that Old Sheepskin had brought back from Hundred-Eyed Cave. The dragon was eyeless—extremely rare and strange. Legend held it was found in the tortoise bone cave in Hundred-Eyed Cave by the Yuan Sect who worshipped the Great Immortal Yellow Deity, possibly an ancient artifact from the sea. No one knew its true purpose; it had been hidden within the bronze coffin that held the body of the Great Immortal Yellow Deity. Old Sheepskin had insisted on keeping it as a memento, secretly bringing it back to the pastoral area. What exactly was this dragon tally? And why did Old Sheepskin insist on bringing it back?