As the saying goes, the more the merrier.

Soon, the villagers prepared the red cloth soaked with rice wine, covering the skeleton with it.

According to history, Zhong Wuyan had been incredibly gifted. No one could have ever thought that she would have such an end!

I sighed and gestured for the others to close the coffin lid and use the red thread to circle it three times. Once they did so, I passed the ends of the red thread through a coin that dated back to the Qianlong period (1735-1799) and tied a slip knot.

After all the preparations were completed, I crawled out of the grave, asking people to cover the tomb with soil again.

According to the common rule, this was the time I had to say something to ease the deceased and let her rest forever. Thus, I cleared my voice and said, “Zhong Wuyan, Zhong Wuyan, since you’ve already gone to the afterlife, you should no longer care about beauty or ugliness. You should leave and reincarnate soon—”

Flames flashed before I could finish my speech, and the entire tomb boomed as if it had exploded.

Zhao Wuyang was fast. He jumped and pulled me aside with him.

Some spots on my clothes were burning, and my eyebrows and fringe were burned a little bit by the blast.

But the other two men who were filling the tomb weren’t as lucky as I was. Parts of their bodies had caught on fire; they were screaming and rolling on the ground. Some villagers took off their coats and used them to extinguish the flames. However, the two men still had many burn blisters on their exposed skin.

Li Mazi was scared. He asked me with a pale face, “Little Brother Zhang, are you okay? Did you get hurt?”

I hurried to get up from the ground, sending Zhao Wuyang a thank-you nod. Then, I watched the tall flame in front of me in puzzlement.

Why did this happen?

Why is the tomb burning all of a sudden?

Did I take a wrong step somewhere?

Impossible. I followed the rules and steps to a tee. Moreover, it’s not the first time I've done this!

I carefully recalled the procedure and found the mistake.

The fire burst out when I mentioned the name Zhong Wuyan. Perhaps I shouldn’t have said the name aloud?

To deceased people, except for their souls, which were in an immortal form, everything they had ever owned was gone. Their names were their sole belongings. When I called her name, she should have been happy since someone had remembered her. It should have been like that.

Is Zhong Wuyan buried somewhere else?

I was scared by my own thoughts. However, I couldn’t find any other suitable explanation.

But if Zhong Wuyan wasn’t buried there, whose skeleton was that?

From its overreaction, I guessed it loathed the name Zhong Wuyan.

Right then, Li Mazi suddenly pointed at the place we had put the mirror. “Little Brother Zhang, look, the mirror is gone!”

“What?!”

I quickly turned around. While we were handling the coffin and the grave, we had left the mirror underneath a big tree not far from us. However, it was no longer there. The red thread we had hung there had become an empty loop, laughing at me like a broad mouth.

I bit my lip and called the others to put out the fire first. The fire wasn’t ordinary, and it burned for almost three hours before it finally subsided. We had tried all kinds of methods to extinguish it, but to no avail.

However, the whole situation was somewhat amusing since it was us who would always try to burn coffins. It was the first time that we were saving a coffin from a fire.

Once the fire was extinguished, I didn’t even mind the burning-hot soil as I jumped into the pit and checked the area. Except for the ashes from the coffin, there was nothing else, not even a piece of charred bone. 

In theory, there was no marrow inside the bones as this person had been dead for a long time. It would be very difficult to burn the skeleton into ashes, and even if it did happen, some ashes should have remained. Yet, there was nothing left.

I found this unbelievable.

Not only that, the missing mirror wasn’t inside the pit.

Li Mazi pulled me up and asked in a hurry, “Where’s the mirror?”

“Not here.” I shook my head.

I asked the villagers to fill the pit yet again.

The villagers wore long faces on their way back home. They deliberately slowed down, pointing at me and whispering amongst themselves.

I knew they were doubting my abilities!

Since the mirror had disappeared, no one knew what Wuyan Village was about to face.

However, as soon as we returned to the village, a few of the women who lived near the village entrance dashed toward us. “Uncle Wang, you should go home! Hurry up! Your mad daughter is acting strange. She broke away from the chain and grabbed a sickle. She’s about to go on a killing spree!”

Opening the coffin was a task that required the Yang energy from the men. That was why we had asked the women to stay in the village. 

Uncle Wang ran back to his house. I paused to think for a moment, then followed him.

When Uncle Wang kicked his door open, we saw that the madwoman had freed herself from the iron chain and was holding a sickle in her hand. She was pressing Aunt Wang onto the floor and had placed the edge of the sickle by her ear. She just needed to move the sickle a little bit, and she would be able to peel off her mother’s face.

The madwoman didn’t want to kill Aunt Wang. She wanted to skin her face!

Uncle Wang slumped directly onto the ground.

Fortunately, Li Mazi and Zhao Wuyang were also there. They charged forward without much thought. One of them pulled the madwoman away, and the other snatched the sickle from her hand.

The madwoman screamed deliriously, “Get off me! I want to peel your face! Why do you get to have a face while I don’t have mine anymore? Give me your face!”

I dashed toward the mud-walled room where the mad girl stayed and kicked the door open. A strong light flashed right at me.

The bronze mirror was on the madwoman’s table.

Why did it look for the madwoman?

Does it want to borrow her hand to take revenge?

I took my jacket off and used it to cover the mirror since I wasn’t daring enough to come into direct contact with the artifact.

The madwoman in the courtyard stopped struggling right when the mirror was covered. She beamed genuinely at Li Mazi, who was keeping her in control, thinking that he was playing some games with her.

Aunt Wang had a bleeding cut on her face. She was so scared that her face was chalk white. She covered her wound, lying on the ground and clueless about what she should do.

Uncle Wang finally got a hold of himself. “What happened? Why did my daughter suddenly attack my wife?”

I shook my head and explained, “It wasn’t your daughter. She was possessed.”

Aunt Wang was scared. “I couldn’t understand why she suddenly became so strong. She easily pinned me down… Who was that person?”

If it wasn’t Zhong Wuyan, who was it? This sudden change made me feel flustered.

My conscience would never be at ease again if my actions had done harm to this village.

I needed to solve this.

I went back to the madwoman’s room and grabbed the mirror, which was carefully wrapped with my jacket. Uncle Wang was frightened after seeing it. “How did this thing come to my house?”

He reacted as if he had seen the God of Plague. He waved his hands and said, “Hurry, throw it away!”

“It’s no use,” I said coldly. “It proactively 

sought your daughter

. It seems like it has chosen her as its second master!”

The madwoman sat next to them, giggling foolishly.