I can rewind time to prevent death

Chapter 227 - 222: Spirit Guarding (4)

The sky had started drizzling at this time, and the staff at the funeral parlor were bustling about, preparing to expedite the process and send the old man who had acted like a corpse and Ren Susu to the cremation room one after the other.

The exorcist, on the other hand, was examining each funeral hall. The funeral parlor was quite spacious, with over 80 halls just for the spirits; some were quite a distance from each other.

Some halls were even situated halfway up the hill and required a drive or climbing many steps to reach.

Checking them one by one would take some time.

Of course, it couldn’t be ruled out that the acting corpses were only in the halls. If there was any abnormality in any hall, the grieving family members would have either run to the parlor’s duty room or made a call to 4747 by now.

After careful consideration, Yan Junze, with the help of the exorcist, decided not to inspect the halls any further.

He quickly came up with a plan, left the restroom quickly, and followed the signs toward the funeral parlor’s offices.

Along the way, he deliberately hugged the walls of the buildings; the funeral parlor was already desolate at night, and he hardly saw anyone else on his walk.

Moreover, since it wasn’t his own body, he wouldn’t worry about Fang Ning appearing even if the shadow of the strange baby was cast by the moonlight.

He soon approached the office. Due to the scarcity of duty staff, who were busy with the cremation process for the two acting corpses, the office was lit but unoccupied.

Yan Junze walked in and looked at the funeral parlor’s layout map on the wall. Enjoy exclusive chapters from NovelBin.Côm

The indicators were clear on the map, and he quickly found his location, then looked toward the surrounding buildings.

Before long, he noticed a building marked "Lonely Hall."

The words "Lonely Hall" were marked with a different font size and color, clearly distinguished from the other halls.

Moreover, the word "Lonely" indirectly indicated that there might not be anyone performing spirit guarding there.

After taking note of the position, voices suddenly came from outside.

Yan Junze realized he couldn’t leave and hurriedly crouched down, squeezed under a desk, pulled a chair over to block his figure, and silently squatted down.

Soon, two people walked into the office.

They arrived in a rush, one opening a drawer to grab a logbook, the other taking a few freshly printed papers from the printer while they talked rapidly.

"How is it? Noticed anything unusual elsewhere?"

"The director and the exorcist are checking each hall one by one. I think there shouldn’t be any more issues."

"Hurry up and send those two bodies for cremation. I always feel like those two corpses might move again, and I was so scared earlier I didn’t dare look at their faces."

"I saw it just now. The old man wasn’t that bad, but that woman’s chin was covered with mortuary wax, very terrifying."

While talking, the two people quickly left the office and their footsteps faded into the distance.

Yan Junze crawled out from under the desk, confirmed that there was no one outside, opened the door, and left the office, quickly disappearing into the night.

Before long, a short figure slipped into a flat-roofed building that looked pitch-dark from outside, with a very dim light shining over its gate that could only be seen from up close.

Next to the electric light, if one didn’t look carefully, they would almost miss the words "Lonely Hall."

The structure of Lonely Hall was different from other funeral halls; entering it one first came across a spacious but still dimly lit corridor.

Perhaps to save electricity, about every fifteen meters, there would be one light the same as the dim one outside, casting a quiet stillness within the entire Lonely Hall, not a sound to be heard.

Even as Junze occupied the body of the Great Strange Baby, and even though he was a semi-spirit himself, the environment still could not stop a chill from creeping up inside him.

He had guessed an unclaimed body, or one with no relatives to be found, that’s what Lonely Hall meant. Such bodies were likely gathered by the local authorities and handed over to the funeral parlor for processing, with the burial expenses covered by social welfare programs.

Passing through the dim corridor and around a corner, he found himself before an open hall.

The decor inside the hall wasn’t much different from the smaller ordinary halls, the difference being that it housed more than one body. Each one was covered with a white cloth, and beside each body was a dimly lit lamp.

A quick glance revealed there were probably more than twenty bodies.

More than twenty bodies were arranged in two opposite rows; they didn’t enjoy the luxury of individual ice coffins, but Junze could feel the cold inside the hall—there was central air conditioning, and the temperature was set quite low.

This was more cost-effective than individual ice coffins for each body.

He stood at the entrance for a moment before walking in.

Although the body he occupied wasn’t his, the eerie environment still made his skin tingle.

Because of his short stature, he couldn’t see the bodies at the back very clearly, nor did he know whether the people beneath those white cloths were all still lying there properly.

Furthermore, the lighting here was really dim; you had to get close to see clearly.

Step by step he moved closer, quickly passing the first two bodies in the row. The walkway was in the middle, with a body on each side of him. Standing by the feet of the corpses, he peered closely with the help of the dim light, found everything in order, with no sign of movement.

He continued to walk forward.

At each body, he would stop, lean in, and take a careful look.

Some of the bodies were beginning to emit a foul odor, but it wasn’t severe; you had to get close to smell it.

At this moment, Yan Junze was feeling increasingly cold, but it wasn’t due to the strange baby; rather, the central air conditioning in the hall was turned up high, and the corpse baby was only wrapped in a coat, with nothing underneath.

Especially around the groin area, it felt constantly chilly and hollow, as if something was missing.

Yan Junze looked down and came to a conclusion: underdeveloped.

Enduring the cold, he soon reached the eleventh row, beyond which he couldn’t proceed.

Because the corpse on the left was covered with a white cloth and looked ordinary, but the white cloth on the corpse to the right showed signs of movement.

As unclaimed corpses, in order to save costs, their feet were left exposed, with a name tag hung on the big toe to prevent mix-ups by the morgue staff.

Yan Junze stepped closer to examine the name tag on the oddly covered corpse.

"Jiang Yinan, male or female?"

The upper half of the white cloth was wrinkled, obscuring the corpse’s sex.

He released the mallet and, due to his height, dragged it along the ground, the sound of metal scraping echoing as he approached the head of the corpse named Jiang Yinan.

The grating noise in the eerily silent Lonely Hall was unsettling.

Although the white cloth on the surface of the corpse had moved, the body itself remained indifferent, lying there motionless and silent.

Just as Yan Junze reached the left side of the corpse, the white cloth beside him suddenly moved, and a pale, slender hand emerged.

Yan Junze thought the hand was going to grab him, so he immediately stopped and stepped aside, nearly swinging his mallet down in defense.

However, he soon paused, realizing that the hand wasn’t reaching for him but had slipped out, hanging limply in the air.

Now he was certain that the corpse named Jiang Yinan was a female.

The fallen hand and arm were slender and the skin was delicate, suggesting that she must have had tender skin in life.

It was clear that not only was Jiang Yinan female, but she must have been young at the time of her death.

While Yan Junze was examining the arm, the corpse he had his back turned to began to slowly sit up.

Because the white cloth covering it was draped so high, it was above the corpse’s head, the cloth only slowly slid down after the body had silently sat upright.

Revealing the disheveled white-haired old woman beneath: the wrinkles on her face were deep enough to hold a pencil in place, and her drooping eyelids nearly covered her eyes.

After sitting up, she turned her stiff head to look at the back of Yan Junze’s head.

With no sound to warn him, Yan Junze was contemplating whether to walk over and uncover the white cloth over the female corpse Jiang Yinan, ready to swing the mallet if necessary.

The old crone’s corpse behind him stared at Yan Junze for a few seconds before slowly opening her mouth wider and wider, then leaning forward to the right, inching closer to the back of his head.

"Ah——"

A sigh-like sound suddenly rose behind Yan Junze’s head, as if a demon, eager for its feast, couldn’t help but express its delight.

Yan Junze instantly felt goosebumps erupt on his spine, as though something was nearing his scalp.

Almost instinctively, he whipped around to see a wrinkled face right in front of him, the gaping mouth almost touching his nose, nearly taking a bite.

A foul stench rushed at his senses.

Thud!

The next second, Yan Junze’s mallet connected squarely with the old woman’s head, knocking half of her body sideways off the mortuary bed.

Just then, the white cloth covering the corpse of Jiang Yinan was furiously flung aside, and a naked woman leaped up, pouncing behind Yan Junze. She opened her lips to reveal a row of sharp teeth coated with a thick yellow mucus, and bit down hard on Yan Junze’s shoulder.

Clang!

Yan Junze preemptively lifted the mallet from behind, causing Jiang Yinan’s bite to land squarely on its surface instead, producing a clear sound.

With the strange baby’s body, swinging the mallet was effortless. Yan Junze gripped it with both hands, spun around, and struck Jiang Yinan who was preparing for another bite.

Jiang Yinan fell to the ground, and Yan Junze quickly followed with a second and third strike, forcing out a half-human-sized shadow from her body.

Ignoring Jiang Yinan, Yan Junze continued to hammer at the shadow.

At that moment, he felt a tightness around his ankle and a surge of pain. Looking down, he saw the old crone he had just knocked down had crawled over and bitten his little ankle.

Since the body wasn’t his own, and the strange baby was already a ghost body, Yan Junze wasn’t worried that the bite would harm it.

He swung the mallet down onto the head of the crone biting his ankle, pinning her to the ground.

Then he lifted the mallet and shattered the half-human-sized shadow.

The old crone, however, was still struggling.

"There’s even a fourth one!" Yan Junze muttered to himself.