Chapter 50 The Sleeping Curse (14) He immediately fell silent, okay...
If the European-style art museum by the sea still retains a trace of the lingering charm of the former art harbor, then the coffin shop is an inconspicuous little grave that grew out of the town itself, standing amidst the forests and the tranquil sea.
The coffin shop is simply called the Coffin Shop. A sign stands at the entrance of the drab storefront, exuding a sinister aura; those are the three words.
Below the characters is a pattern, a vertical semicircle, like a bowl, with several snake-like lines inside, as if sprouts have grown from the bottom of the bowl.
There were no windows, and the only closed door looked like a coffin lid.
The silky human-skinned monster that had been following them slipped through the crack in the door and opened it for them. Chang Mingai easily pushed it open, and even paused for a moment.
There was a sound on the door. She looked up and saw a wind chime made of finger bones, clattering together and making a not-so-crisp sound.
The room was dark, with no windows or lights. Ten coffins stood against the four walls, pressing against the ceiling, staring down at the visitors with an oppressive air.
Ten people? Xie Tan thought, there are eleven of them.
The floor and wallpaper were made of some kind of leather, with bloodstains and dirty drag marks intertwined. On the simple sandalwood table sat a lamp, which looked like a curled-up baby embryo. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a small lamp made of kidneys, with renal arteries, veins and ureters trailing behind it, seemingly pulsating.
“So those… things were all made by the coffin shop,” Chang Mingai frowned, recalling the skull lamp on the hotel table. “That phone call was probably a pre-made ‘recording’ stored in someone’s head. Is this a coffin shop? They’re just trying to find customers themselves, aren’t they?”
Xie Tan said calmly, "It's more like a craftsmanship operation." So this is the den of the human-skin monster?
No, it's more like a manual laborer doing heavy lifting.
Chang Mingai: "..."
A foul stench permeated the air. Chang Mingai covered his mouth and nose, feeling a bit nauseous, but he held back and continued banging on the coffins.
There was a surprise when the lid was opened. The first two coffins contained a red-haired boy and a boy with a buzz cut. One of them had been strangled by chains, with red marks on his neck. His abdomen had been ripped open and completely emptied. The other was lying face down in the coffin, with a chain still stuck in his chest. His limbs were disjointed, and a layer of skin had been peeled off his back.
She asked Xie Tan for help and was about to open the next one when she suddenly heard a muffled noise behind the house, like... a corpse coming back to life in a coffin and hitting the lid.
There's a coffin inside. Is Xia Wujin here?
They entered through a door behind a coffin. At the end of a narrow corridor, there was another room. The leather wallpaper on all four sides of the corridor was covered with intricate patterns like ocean waves, and two rows of skull lamps were placed on the floor.
The inner room was the workshop, where all sorts of things were processed and shaped, some soaked in the pool during processing, and others still bloody and unprocessed. There were also piles of bones stacked into boxes, arranged by length, and human skin drying on poles.
The whole room was filled with the smell of blood and stench. Chang Mingai almost fainted, and Xie Tan wasn't much better off; his temples were throbbing again.
This smell... Fortunately, his pheromones were only a dull, unpleasant odor, not this strong, nauseating one. Otherwise, he wouldn't have survived until he was kidnapped by the horror comic book world and would have strangled himself with the umbilical cord the first time he smelled it after birth.
Despite the filth and chaos, the center of the room was kept clean and empty, where two coffins were placed.
The ten coffins in the outer room were made of cedar and cypress wood, which are commonly used in the countryside, but these two were made of ebony wood, with both ends slightly upturned, like small boats.
The front of the coffin shop was printed with that strange image.
There are twelve people, and now there's one more. It can only be a local person other than them. Who should it be given to?
That old lady?
When they went downstairs, the hotel owner wasn't at the front desk. He was muttering something in the locked room 101, and there was the sound of chains rattling, as if he was holding something and gently shaking it.
Xie Tan suspected that the old woman's body had not been dragged away by the human-skin monster, but had been taken back by the hotel owner first.
After they finished eavesdropping outside Taipei 101, as they were leaving to return to the lobby, he seemed to sense something and turned back.
The door to room 101 had opened at some point, and the old man's only remaining eye was peering at him through the narrow, dark crack in the door, not looking away even when he was discovered.
Hmm... this feeling of being watched feels familiar, is it him?
A hotel owner, with no reason to monitor him, was it instigated by the Black Goat?
He ignored that for the moment and returned to the present.
These two coffins couldn't possibly have been given to just two of the eleven people, because one was old and the other new, with a time difference of at least a year, yet they arrived one after the other.
Of the eleven outsiders, one could be separated and grouped with a local, using a special coffin.
Xia Wujin didn't know much about the others. So far, the only ones who could be considered special were the freckled girl who voluntarily entered the dream and was assimilated by the town, and Chang Mingai, who was once a member of the dream and even had her own room in the dream hotel. Both of them could be considered as half residents of the town.
But by this standard, if they dismantle it, who will get the other "local" coffin? They can't just choose a representative from all the sleeping townspeople, can they?
So most likely, this was prepared for him.
The other coffin contained the remains of the Black Goat tribesman who had long been sleeping in the town.
They followed the sound. Chang Mingai suspected that Xia Wujin was locked in one of the coffins, or was hiding in it to avoid someone. Just as he was about to lift the coffin lid, Xie Tan stopped him.
Xie Tan gave her a look that pointed outwards, and Chang Mingai let go of her hand and said, "There are only two. I'll leave them to you and go check on the outer room."
She left the inner room, closed the door, and walked back into the corridor.
She understood Xie Tan's meaning; those two coffins were not the real ones. Xia Wujin was in the original nine coffins.
If he wants to stay, he can only rely on her.
She paused, and in the light of the skull lamp pressed against the ground, the human-skinned monster was right in front of her, its "skirt" swaying slightly, like a hanged, wronged soul.
“A corpse collector,” Chang Mingai said calmly.
She remembered that it had secretly followed her all the way, so it wasn't that Xie Tan wanted to use it himself, but rather... that Xie Tan left it for her to use?
The coffin shop door was open, and the wind blew the petals of the corpse flower that were stuck in the seams of her human skin onto her body, which she gently brushed off.
The petals fell to the ground.
Xie Tan couldn't catch it, and fearing the bouquet would fall, he moved it further inside the human skin chair.
He opened the old coffin and there it was, indeed, the man in his thirties, still fast asleep. The hair knot around his waist had been untied and was growing wildly inside the coffin, binding him tightly.
But the focus isn't on him; the inside of the coffin looks somewhat familiar.
Suddenly, a withered hand emerged from the gap in the other coffin, lifted the lid, pulled him inside, and flipped him over, switching places between the two. The coffin lid was then closed again.
Xie Tan returned to the familiar coffin and touched the edge of it; sure enough, there were traces of burning.
At the time, the coffin was buried in the soil of the forest. He had never seen the exterior of the coffin, only the interior.
Old Han's voice rang out from outside the coffin: "My craftsmanship is not bad, is it? I've been doing this my whole life. You came in a hurry, so I didn't have time to fix the edges, but it's not a big problem... You're just a fake, you don't deserve a top-quality coffin."
It was indeed him. The human-skin monster was clearly a monster raised by the Black Goat, and the coffin shop must also be the Black Goat's stronghold in the town.
As for his identity being exposed, Xie Tan was mentally prepared. Since Old Man Han made the coffin, he must know what happened inside.
Xie Tan knocked on the coffin wall a few times, as if groping for a way to open it: "Since I'm not one of your people, why did you capture me?"
His voice was calm and reasonable, which made even the gloomy old man choke for a moment.
Old Man Han began to complete the pattern on the other coffin, making it a complete black goat family crest: "Don't waste your energy. That good-for-nothing's hair was burned in the coffin, and yours was burned too. It's a mark. Whether it's you or that good-for-nothing's hair knot on your body, it all matches the coffin. This is where you rest."
Xie Tan: "Is that so?"
He felt the hair around his waist was indeed growing longer, like vines climbing up his limbs.
When Old Man Han no longer heard him knocking on the coffin, he knew that the hair knot activated by the coffin had bound him.
He sighed dramatically, patting the old coffin: "I didn't expect you to wake up. Look at this, sleeping peacefully, in sweet dreams, not having to worry about anything, away from the world, isn't that peaceful? You didn't know any better, now you can only suffer. Blame your companion, he meant well but did something wrong. But... a bunch of crazy believers who don't understand the true meaning, they probably didn't mean much better either, maybe he did it on purpose."
The long hair formed a net inside the coffin. Xie Tan couldn't squeeze through, so he let it wrap around him. Hearing this, he raised an eyebrow.
Xi Rui kicked him out, probably because he thought he was a member of the Black Goat tribe and that the Black Goat was looking for the sea monster. Xi Rui couldn't let the Black Goat succeed, so he used him to lure out the sea monster and then kicked him out.
However, Xi Rui did not believe that the siren was the Black Goat's target. He just had a grudge against the woman who was mistaken for a siren and was going to kill her, but he did not expect to be trapped.
Therefore, the mirror belongs to the black goat.
Old Man Han knew he wasn't a member of the Black Goat Clan and assumed he was in cahoots with Xi Rui, a follower of the Mirror Clan. But he went along with it, since the man had a hair knot, so he could be considered a member of the Black Goat Clan and complete the coffin sealing. He didn't know what kind of ceremony was required, but he wanted to give the old man a satisfactory answer.
The woman, like the skin-covered monster, is a creature raised by the Black Goat, serving as a facade to confuse them and facilitate the family's true activities in this area.
The song led Xie Tan into a dream, perhaps at the behest of the black goat. It made things easier for him to fall asleep without struggling.
But during the day, when the painting inexplicably collapsed, the woman gave him a hint and revealed clues to him in a dream.
However, Xie Tan thought that the old man still had a trick up his sleeve. Perhaps the woman was too eager to lure him into a dream, which made him realize that something was wrong.
That senior who had long since fallen asleep was indeed brought to my dreams by the song. If he wasn't in the tiled house in my dream, he should be in the coffin shop in my dream.
By deliberately leaving him an open door, she aroused his suspicion. Combined with the woman's hints, even if he accidentally left the dream, he would still walk right into the trap.
The mirror shattered, and then it started to rain, separating the inner and outer worlds.
Old Han thought that if Xi Rui released him first, the two of them could investigate each other thoroughly and efficiently. However, his scheme backfired.
Now that Xie Tan is on the verge of death, Old Man Han still can't resist stirring up trouble. The two major forces are indeed fond of competing with each other.
But this also confirmed that Old Man Han was also one of Black Goat's men.
"Your name is Su Han?" The black goat's surname is Su.
So Black Goat's mission was actually to sacrifice his own people? If he wasn't killed and was sealed in a coffin, this was the only thing Xie Tan could think of.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve been called that. It’s not good that my people aren’t around. I’m quite homesick.” Su Han said nostalgically, her tone softening. “Using cultists? I find that disgusting. But things have to be done. I have a lot of audio recordings here. Do you have any last words? Leave them for your companion to hear… if he can get out.”
The words sounded like end-of-life care, but the action was more like slapping another believer in the face, mocking the religious group.
However, this old man Su has been making coffins for a long time and probably hasn't left the town in a long time. Like the Black Goat, he's past his prime and his information is a bit outdated.
He didn't think that mirror could trap Xi Rui. Since he was so young and already a confidant of the vice leader, he could only be trapped for a short time.
Unless the mirror was meticulously designed by Su He, judging from the previous series, Su He is straightforward and doesn't bother with fancy tricks, so the mirror was probably designed by Old Man Su.
So Xie Tan, adopting an objective, neutral perspective, said, "You underestimate him."
Xi Jinping has either already emerged, or it's only a matter of time, or there are still noteworthy aspects in the dream world, so he's staying for now.
In Su Han's ears, however, it was the stubbornness of the despicable cultist who dared to impersonate the Black Goat before his death. The gentleness brought about by his homesickness disappeared. With a snort, he completed the Black Goat mark on the coffin. Sure enough, there was no sound from the coffin.
The old man murmured something, and the family crest burst into flames, instantly encircling the coffin. The blackened flames traveled backward, seeping into the cracks of the coffin.
Slowly, black mist began to seep out from the cracks, but it had no smell, not even a burnt smell.
Su Han didn't hear any screams, which was a bit of a pity. His hair must have grown too long, burying the sound and probably even blocking his mouth.
Fire merely leaves a mark, for both the coffin and the person.
It wasn't for torture; after all, it was prepared for the clansmen. It's just that the offerings didn't look good, so we dared not send them to the gods. We scalded the coffin with fire, and then the fire went out.
It's time to send the coffin.
As for the two young girls in the outer room, he didn't care about them at all. If there were corpse collectors around, they were probably already in their coffins.
Su Han pushed the coffin and discovered that the lid of the new coffin was not closed properly, as it was stuck by wildly growing hair.
He lifted the lid slightly and stuffed the hair back in, but the hair wrapped around his wrist first, like octopus tentacles, soft and flexible, quickly wrapping around his entire arm and pulling him into the coffin.
Meanwhile, another person, whose head was covered by long hair, pushed open the lid, grabbed the edge of the coffin, and stood up to make way for the old man.
His long hair slowly receded, hanging like tangled tassels on Xie Tan's body—the fire was completely blocked by his hair, and Xie Tan was unharmed.
Su Han looked closely and noticed something strange about Xie Tan's long hair. Each strand was bound with a strange talisman. After absorbing the black mist, the talisman was almost black, as if it had been stained with ink. The blood-red incantations were even brighter. In the dim room, the dark hair seemed to glow with a light like a deep-seated hatred.
He was shocked. This was not the hair knot of that good-for-nothing collateral relative. He also had a hair knot. Could this boy really be a member of the clan?
But even so, the other man lying in the coffin was also a member of the tribe, and he was lying there obediently. How could he possibly block the sun's flames!
Moreover, the talisman tied in the hair looked somewhat familiar...
Before he could think about any of that, the old man’s wrinkled body twisted and folded, trying to squeeze through the hair. In no time, he actually managed to find a gap and jumped out of the coffin like a weasel.
As soon as he got ashore, he was slammed back into the coffin with an axe.
Sun Enze stood silently to one side, then slammed the axe into the coffin, pressing it against the old man's face. He pressed down, the blade hovering over the old man's eyes, the axe reflecting his changed expression.
He roared, "As a member of the clan, you should know why we do this! When the clan was glorious, you knew to enjoy the blessings; when the clan was declining, you should repay the kindness and do your best to turn the tide! Besides, this is the clan's century-old heritage, something the Su family is destined to give back. Don't forget where you came from! And yet you're associating with those cultists who don't understand the true meaning..."
Sun Enze frowned, remembering that Xie Tan disliked noise, so he lowered the axe slightly. Xie Tan raised his hand slightly to stop him: "I have something to ask you."
The sharp light forced the old man to close his eyes briefly, cutting off half of his eyelashes, stopping him and silencing his noisy mouth.
Xie Tan bent down, his long, tangled hair slipping down and hanging down. He reached out and brushed aside a bit of the axe, the blade narrowly grazing the old man's forehead.
The boy stared intently into his eyes and asked softly, "Did you make the coffin?"
Su Han was taken aback at first, wondering what was so interesting about the question. She had already said it several times, and for a moment she didn't understand what he meant: "Nonsense, of course it's all my fault..."
His eyes darted around again, and he realized what he meant. He looked at the child as if he were a crude illegitimate son, abandoned or forgotten in the countryside: "You grew up outside, never learned anything. No wonder you're so ignorant, even associating with cultists. How pathetic. It's a disgrace to the goat blood in your veins. You don't need to ask anymore. I'm different from you. I was born a member of the family, and I will die guarding the family's glory..."
He fell silent immediately, because he thought he saw the boy smile through the loose strands of his long hair.
The cool air, like scattered centipedes, crawled from his spine throughout his body.
After confirming that his guesses were correct, Xie Tan stood up, and Sun Enze No. 2 extended his clean hand to Xie Tan.
He took Sun Enze No. 2's hand, stepped out of the coffin, and threw the useless young master's hair knot into it. The hair knot, which matched the coffin, quickly bound Su Han to death inside, like countless spider webs binding an old, frail insect.
Even after being buried, the insect continued its annoying chirping, repeating the same old family glories and divine truths over and over. It was unclear whether it was a brainwashing slogan or a genuine, deeply ingrained belief.
Xie Tan wiped his hands indifferently, not bothering to listen to a single word. He casually tucked the bouquet into his arms, turned and left, only saying, "Thank you for your hard work."
Sun Enze No. 2 nodded, swung his axe, and the sound suddenly stopped as the coffin lid closed.
The coffin sealing is complete.
After he left, the "phonographs" that had been playing the old man's impassioned last words started to speak one after another, their voices clashing and creating a deafening cacophony.
The terrifying stench of blood lingered for a long time.
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Author's note: I miscounted the coffins, sorry [smiley face], it's corrected.
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