Chapter 56 The Corpse of Chizuka

The moment Shao Yanzhe's eyes met the corpse on the ground, he couldn't help but tremble. It was the first time he had faced such a situation, and he truly didn't know what to do.

It was at this moment that the last rays of sunlight completely disappeared.

The surrounding white lanterns emitted a faint white glow, and the cool night breeze rustled the soul-guiding banners. Even though there were many people standing here, it inexplicably made people feel uneasy.

Suddenly, the corpse lying on the ground twitched, and the white sheet covering it was pulled off, revealing a pale face underneath.

"Ah! The corpse has risen!"

"Run!"

Someone shouted, and the crowd scattered and fled, trampling the white wreaths leaning against the wall.

Shao Yanzhe's heart began to pound wildly, and he ran while tightly holding Xuan Yao.

Unexpectedly, something grabbed her ankle, and a chilling sensation invaded her ankle.

Holy crap!

Shao Yanzhe was jolted awake, his scalp tingling. He instinctively kicked backward, quickly breaking free from whatever was holding his ankle, and ran forward without looking back.

The sky, not yet completely dark, brought him some light as he ran breathlessly through the dimly lit alley.

His body, which had barely recovered, was panting heavily, and his legs were sore and weak that every step required great willpower.

Shao Yanzhe felt a dryness in his throat and his chest ached as if it were about to explode. Just as he was about to stop, he heard a sizzling sound behind him.

It felt like something heavy was scraping against the ground, traveling through the narrow alley.

He immediately had a bad feeling, and his heart started pounding again. Without looking back, he quickened his pace and ran away.

"Meow!"

Xuan Yao, who was being held in Shao Yanzhe's arms, jumped out of his arms and pounced fiercely on his back.

Xuan Yao let out a series of increasingly fierce shouts, his voice filled with warning.

The sounds behind him stopped abruptly. Shao Yanzhe leaned against the wall, breathing heavily, and his somewhat dazed mind finally calmed down.

He quickly took out the jade hairpin pen, and his literary energy surged out wildly.

Having a weapon in hand immediately filled me with a sense of security.

He stood behind Xuan Yao, holding the jade hairpin pen that emitted a dazzling white light, pointing it at the dark alley behind them, ready to launch an attack at any moment.

He could sense that the thing following behind him hadn't left.

Perhaps because it thought it could handle a person and a cat, the thing hiding in the darkness slowly came out.

Only then did Shao Yanzhe realize what this thing was.

It was that corpse from just now!

His hand trembled, and he almost dropped the jade hairpin pen. He quickly grabbed it with both hands.

Even though he had faced many ghosts and monsters, the feeling of facing a corpse was completely different.

"Save me!" The corpse stared at Shao Yanzhe and reached out to him.

Shao Yanzhe was stunned. Wasn't he already dead?

Is it still salvageable?

"Help me!" the corpse cried out again.

Shao Yanzhe carefully examined the corpse in front of him and found that its face was somewhat familiar.

After thinking it over carefully, he finally remembered that the owner of the body had been tied up in a cocoon with willow branches and hung up by Mr. Liu last night.

He tried hard to recall and finally remembered the scholar's name.

"Chen Xuyan?"

As soon as the name was uttered, the corpse turned its grayish-white eyes and looked at him.

Shao Yanzhe tilted his head slightly and glanced at his head, then saw a fine, tightly stitched scar on the side of his ear. Now he was truly certain.

"How do you want me to save you?"

"Help me!" the corpse cried out again.

It seems he can't say anything else besides those two words.

Helpless, Shao Yanzhe pondered for a moment and slowly walked over.

"I'll take you back, but you can't attack me."

He tentatively reached out and grabbed the corpse's wrist. The corpse stiffly turned its head to look at him, its pale eyes blurry and empty.

Shao Yanzhe forcibly resisted the urge to let go and tentatively pulled him forward.

The corpse obediently followed him and showed no intention of attacking him.

He felt a little relieved, but holding his wrist like that was still somewhat dangerous.

He stared at the corpse and pondered, and soon came up with an idea.

He sent Xuan Yao back to that house to retrieve the cloth that had been covering the corpse.

After being torn apart in a few quick movements, they were joined together to form a rope nearly five meters long.

He tied one end to the corpse's waist and held the other end by hand, a distance that made him feel more at ease.

Bang bang bang!

Zhou Jiming heard a knock on the door and immediately stood up and walked towards the door.

"Is that Brother Shao back? I'll go open the door!"

He guessed that Shao Yanzhe might have returned. He didn't wake up until noon today and then found the note stuck on the door.

The note was left by Shao Yanzhe, mentioning that he had gone out to buy dried fish for Xuanmao, and that there was no need to worry about him.

But now that it's dark and they still haven't returned, the group started to worry.

Hearing a knock on the door, Liu Mingyuan and the others were a step slower, following behind Zhou Jiming.

"Brother Shao! You've finally..."

Zhou Jiming opened the door, and after his gaze fell upon the pale-faced corpse, he didn't utter another word.

He was so startled that he took several steps back and bumped into the person behind him.

He screamed and quickly dodged to the side. Looking behind him, he saw Liu Mingyuan and the others, and breathed a sigh of relief before panting heavily.

"Don't be afraid! He is Chen Xuyan, the scholar who was tied up by Mr. Liu yesterday. He is still alive, but his soul has left his body, which is why he looks like this. If your soul is separated from your body for a long time, you will also look like this."

Shao Yanzhe quickly explained that the corpse was just two meters away from the door, but it suddenly came closer when Zhou Jiming opened the door.

Zhou Jiming, his face pale, looked the corpse up and down. Seeing that it had no intention of attacking, he was slightly relieved, but he still had a clear fear of the corpse. He looked away and his heartbeat slowly calmed down.

Instead of opening the door, Liu Mingyuan and the others were less afraid of facing the corpse directly.

"What happened?" Wen Yanqing asked.

Shao Yanzhe briefly recounted his previous experience to them. Zhou Jiming, who was standing to the side, looked at him with sympathy. If it had been him who had been grabbed by the ankle by that thing, he probably wouldn't have made it.

Surprisingly, despite his thin appearance, Shao Yanzhe is quite bold.

"Since he was able to ask me for help, he's probably not dead yet. Let's put him out there for now and deal with the willow tree demon later, then we'll figure out a way to help him get back into his body."

“Okay, but where should we put him?” Zhou Jiming asked.

“They will definitely need my black cat's protection, so when our souls leave our bodies, they will definitely be with us,” Shao Yanzhe said.

Chen Yunhe glanced at the corpse and said with a conflicted expression, "But isn't it too dangerous to leave him with our bodies? What if he suddenly goes berserk when we're not around?"

Shao Yanzhe nodded: "Your concerns are not unfounded. Leave it to me!"

"What method?"

Shao Yanzhe led the corpse to the room where they studied that night, and then found a rope and began to wrap it around the body.

Soon, he was bound from head to toe to a pillar in the room with ropes.

Shao Yanzhe clapped his hands, looked at the tightly bound corpse, and nodded in satisfaction.

"How is it? Is this okay?"

Zhou Jiming and Chen Yunhe exchanged a glance and nodded in unison: "Okay!"

Shao Yanzhe and the other five sat together around the desk, taking out their books to review them.

"By the way, I still need to go to the government office tomorrow to look up information about the willow tree demon. If Mr. Liu allows us to go, I'll have to trouble you to ask for leave for me," Shao Yanzhe said.

"good."

"Did you find any information about the willow tree spirit today?"

"I only know a little bit about it. The willow tree spirit has been appearing for thousands of years. At first, some scholars would pray in front of the willow tree in order to pass the exam, but they did not expect to pass the exam because of it."

Later, some scholars failed the imperial examinations and, unable to cope with their situation, committed suicide by the willow tree. From that point on, the willow tree changed.

Later, more and more scholars prayed in front of the willow tree that they could pass the imperial examination, but very few of them actually succeeded. Every year, several scholars would commit suicide because of this.

The willow tree, perhaps influenced by the resentment of those scholars, gradually began to possess negative demonic properties, and started to actively attract those scholars, wanting to help them achieve their goal of passing the imperial examination.

That's all I saw; there's still half left to see.

"I see. But since the government knows all this, why don't they take action to get rid of that willow tree demon, instead of letting it grow to this extent?"

"I'm not quite sure about that. I'll answer your question once I figure it out."

"good."

Thus, at midnight tonight, the six people's souls left their bodies again. Under Mr. Liu's urging, they studied diligently for four months, just like last time, before returning.

When they returned, they saw the body tightly bound with ropes, and they could faintly hear him snoring.

"Damn it! Why am I a little envious?" Zhou Jiming stared at the corpse and gritted his teeth.

Chen Yunhe raised his hand from the side: "I'm envious too!"

Liu Mingyuan looked utterly drained: "How about I follow Chen Xuyan's example next time? That way I won't have to study so hard. Hahaha!"

In the end, he seemed to be imagining a wonderful, carefree life, and he chuckled to himself.

"Alright, you still have to study tomorrow, stop daydreaming and go get some rest!"

Shao Yanzhe patted Liu Mingyuan on the shoulder, pulling him out of his reverie.

Liu Mingyuan immediately deflated, not to mention Zhou Jiming and Chen Yunhe.

Even Shao Yanzhe, Wen Yanqing, and Su Yuheng are finding it hard to keep up with this level of study intensity. It's truly remarkable that Liu Mingyuan and the other two have managed to persevere this long.

The next day, Shao Yanzhe went to the government office again and finished reading the remaining books.

He walked out with a frown, read through all the information about the willow tree spirit, but couldn't find a way to solve the current situation. With only four days left until the seventh day of the test, he couldn't help but become anxious.

“Young man, you seem a bit impatient,” the old man guarding the registers said slowly, his eyes slightly closed.

Upon hearing this, Shao Yanzhe squatted down beside the old man in a very unladylike manner, and then sighed.

“They were all my classmates, and we got along fairly well. They even helped me before. I couldn’t just stand by and watch them die in front of me. But after reading those books, I didn’t find a solution. I wasted two days like this. If I had known this would happen, I wouldn’t have done this useless work.”

The old man shook his head: "You can't say that. Doing it is useful, and it might come in handy at some crucial moment."

"That's true."

After chatting with the old man for a while, Shao Yanzhe's initial frustration gradually subsided.

He bid farewell to the old man and hurried back. Since he couldn't find the key information in the register, he could only go to where Chen Xuyan was now to see what was going on.

That night, at midnight.

Shao Yanzhe returned to this strange space. He had already informed Zhou Jiming and the others that he needed to go to the place covered with green cocoons and that they should not worry.

As soon as Mr. Liu appeared, Shao Yanzhe, just like Chen Xuyan, said that he did not want to continue scientific research.

After provoking his anger, Shao Yanzhe was suddenly enveloped by willow branches, and then abruptly lifted into the air, arriving in another space.

Using the jade hairpin pen he had hidden beforehand, he broke through the willow branches that were wrapped around him and crawled out.

After taking a clear look at his surroundings, Shao Yanzhe's eyes widened in surprise.

This place looks like this!