NOVEL NEXT Ch. 14
Chapter 14: The Corpse Retriever
Hong Sanjiang was the corpse retriever of Hongjia Village.
A corpse retriever, as the name suggested, was naturally someone whose profession was to fish out the bodies of those who had fallen into lakes and rivers.
But in the Ten-Thousand Mountains, human life was cheaper than grass.
Death came in countless ways, and thus nothing was surprising.
Though he carried the title of corpse retriever, in truth, what he did was closer to burial work.
People drowned in water, died from venomous snake bites, or were mauled to death by tigers, leaving behind incomplete corpses—these were all common occurrences.
Even for those born and raised in the mountains, when faced with corpses like these, they were often at a loss as to how to deal with them.
Therefore, usually each village had a person dedicated to handling the corpses of the entire village.
If neighboring villages were close enough, one man could even handle the corpses of two or three villages.
In Hongjia Village, the one responsible for such matters was Hong Sanjiang.
Each time someone died, Hong Sanjiang would be politely invited to retrieve the body, prepare it, bury it, and even carry out rites of thanks and passage.
But once his work was done, everyone avoided him like the plague.
Hong Sanjiang, however, had long grown used to this.
Every time he went out to retrieve a body, he earned a handsome payment.
With no wife or children, no father or mother, he only needed to feed himself, and had no worries about providing for anyone else.
The money left over allowed him to decorate his home a little, even whitewashing the walls.
Recently, as the weather began to warm, villagers preferred lazing in bed.
As a result, accidental deaths had become fewer, and Hong Sanjiang found himself with much idle time.
This very day, he was lying on his bed resting, occasionally reaching under the blanket to scratch his bare backside, enjoying himself thoroughly.
“Knock knock.”
At that moment, Hong Sanjiang heard someone knocking at his wooden door.
“Who’s there?”
“Knock knock.”
No one answered.
The knocking continued, unhurried and steady.
Perplexed, Hong Sanjiang sat up.
In the past, whenever someone in the village had died, they usually sent the same two men to knock at his door.
After so many times, Hong Sanjiang could recognize who it was just by their footsteps, and he knew exactly how to address them.
But today’s knocking was strange—no one had ever knocked on his door like this before.
“Damn it, could it be that a bear from the mountains saw people knocking on my door before and learned to knock, trying to trick and ambush me?”
The thought made Hong Sanjiang’s face turn grim.
His house was the closest to the mountains.
If a bear decided to wander down from the slopes, his place would indeed be the most likely target.
Thinking of this, Hong Sanjiang carefully climbed out of bed and picked up his rusty firewood cleaver that had long been sitting idle in the corner.
He crept up to the door and peeked outside through the window.
“Huh? No one’s there?”
Looking from inside, he saw no one at the doorway.
Not a bear? Could it be children playing a prank?
“Knock knock.”
But just then, the knocking came again.
What was going on?
Hong Sanjiang tilted his head for a better angle.
That one glance nearly made even the well-experienced Hong Sanjiang cry out.
Outside his door, a five-meter-long python was coiled up, its tail tapping gently against his wooden door.
A cold sweat instantly drenched Hong Sanjiang’s back.
He had heard of bears pretending to knock like humans, of wolves resting their front paws on people’s shoulders—but he had never heard of a snake knocking on a door with its tail!
Could such a human-like snake really exist in this world?
This wasn’t a snake anymore—this was a snake demon!
Though Hong Sanjiang managed to stifle his scream, he had no idea that Mo Lin, outside the door, had already sensed his presence through the vibrations in the ground.
Seeing that Hong Sanjiang hadn’t opened the door, Mo Lin lifted its head and glanced through the window—meeting Hong Sanjiang’s eyes directly.
That one look made Hong Sanjiang lose all control and cry out.
For on the snake’s head, he saw a human face!
“Discovered?”
Mo Lin felt a trace of regret.
It had intended to pretend to be human, knocking to lure its prey outside.
But it couldn’t speak, and it had underestimated the caution of a man who lived alone.
Its first attempt at mimicry had failed.
Since trickery wouldn’t work, brute force would have to do.
Locking eyes with Hong Sanjiang, Mo Lin stopped knocking with its tail and instead slammed violently into the door.
“Bang! Bang! Bang!”
Dust fell from the wooden door under each strike.
Hong Sanjiang had no doubt the giant python would smash its way inside within three blows.
In that moment, he cursed himself bitterly.
Why had he ever moved out to live alone, all because of a few words of gossip from the villagers?
If he were still in the village, even as a despised corpse retriever, one shout would bring help.
But now, with his house several hundred meters away, no one would hear him even if he screamed until his throat bled.
He could only rely on himself!
“Pah! Pah!”
Hong Sanjiang spat into his palms, psyching himself up desperately.
Outside, Mo Lin watched coldly as he tried to muster courage, yet it did not relent in smashing the door.
“Boom!”
With a final crash, the wooden door splintered.
As the black python forced its way inside, Hong Sanjiang gritted his teeth and swung the cleaver at its seventh inch.
“Ahhh!”
“Clang!”
The metallic clash rang out.
To Hong Sanjiang’s despair, though his rusty cleaver struck true at the python’s seventh inch, it sank barely an inch deep—no further.
For Mo Lin, it was little more than a scratch.
“Hissss\~”
With a flick of its tail, Mo Lin knocked the cleaver from Hong Sanjiang’s grip and slithered fully into the house.
Its five-meter body crowded the doorway, leaving no room for Hong Sanjiang to dodge.
Without his blade, the corpse retriever had no chance against Mo Lin, who had already shed three times and grown immensely stronger.
In an instant, Mo Lin coiled tightly around him.
For a python, the most efficient way to kill was not venom—but constriction.
“Ughh...ugh...”
Entangled from legs to waist, even around his neck, Hong Sanjiang struggled frantically, but it was useless.
Blood trickled from his mouth and nose.
His internal organs had ruptured under Mo Lin’s crushing coils.
“Is...
is my life really ending here?”
Hong Sanjiang tried to pry the snake’s body away, but all he managed was to tear off a scale that had already been damaged by the cleaver.
Beyond that, he had no strength left.
As the last breath of air was forced from his chest, suffocated by the crushing coils, Hong Sanjiang fell into utter despair...
Moments later, the once-chaotic white-walled house fell silent again.
The giant python that had broken in was gone.
And so too was the master of the house—the despised yet relied-upon corpse retriever of Hongjia Village, Hong Sanjiang.
Both had vanished together...