Chapter Eight: His Name Is Peanut

It all happened so suddenly. Old Tan let out a howl and began kicking wildly in panic. I was frantically trying to pull him back. Only then did I see clearly that the thing reaching out from the coffin was a blackened, skeletal human hand.

"It's a corpse rising, a corpse rising..." The thought flashed through my mind as I desperately tried to drag Old Tan towards me, but no matter how hard we struggled, that bony hand clung tightly to his ankle. Worse still, the coffin started to crack open bit by bit, and from the pitch-black interior, a blurred, monstrous face slowly edged toward us. The sight was so terrifying that I almost wanted to let go of Old Tan and flee for my life.

Whatever was inside the coffin was creeping out, producing a chilling creaking sound as its bones scraped against the wood, making my scalp tingle. Old Tan's face had turned ashen with fear, and he kept flailing about; I noticed his pants were soaked.

"I'll see if there's something we can use to break that hand off," I stammered, regaining a sliver of composure.

"Yuan, are you really going to leave me behind? Damn it, you brought me here, if I die, you won't get away with it either—the law will come for you," Old Tan shouted, his words nonsensical with terror.

Damn, even in this state he could still think about that—he must be scared out of his wits. I ignored him, turning to search for something useful nearby. At that moment, the crack in the coffin widened, and the face I dreaded most finally came into view. I had expected a skull, but luck was clearly not on my side.

The face before us was strangely intact, with skin and flesh, but it was deathly pale—so white that even the eyeballs and pupils were pure, snowy white. I could even see strands of white hair poking out from the split in the coffin lid.

Old Tan was frozen, his legs trembling uncontrollably. I was on the verge of collapse myself, steadying myself against the pile of coffins, where my hand happened to touch a porcelain doll. I don’t know what came over me, but as that ghastly face slowly emerged from the coffin, I grabbed the porcelain doll and smashed it down onto the thing’s head.

I’d expected the porcelain doll to shatter, but instead, as my strength ebbed, I saw the doll sticking to the ghostly face.

No, not sticking—the doll’s sharp little teeth had sunk into the ghost’s face. Shock now overpowered fear; neither Old Tan nor I could comprehend what was happening. What followed utterly overturned everything we thought we knew.

The porcelain doll suddenly stretched out its arms, craned its neck like a lion devouring prey, and in an instant tore a strip of skin from the ghost’s face. The pale face contorted in agony, its mouth gaping soundlessly as a foul white vapor poured out, so revolting that, if not for the horror of the scene, I would have vomited. The creature in the coffin had no power to fight back against the doll; it released Old Tan’s foot and began retreating. Simultaneously, the other porcelain dolls atop the coffin piles sprang to life, crawling toward the crack and following the pallid face inside.

From within the coffin came the sounds of flesh being ripped, bones splintering, and a host of other hair-raising noises. In my mind, it was as if an earthquake had struck. Even after silence finally fell, Old Tan and I just stood there, dumbfounded.

The next moment, a new sound arose from the dark coffin right beside me.

I instinctively scrambled backward, dragging Old Tan with me. He could barely walk, his face twitching with the faintest hint of awareness, but I knew that one more fright would finish him off.

The central, jet-black coffin shuddered, causing the surrounding coffins to topple to the sides. I realized at once what was about to happen. Had I been thinking straight, I would have bolted immediately, but we were both paralyzed with fear, forced to watch as the coffins tumbled, one after another. The thunderous noise echoed through the stone chamber, dust and splinters flying everywhere. Starting from the central coffin, the whole pile collapsed, rolled, and shattered under some strange force.

For a moment, dust clouded our vision and foul odors assaulted our nostrils. Old Tan and I stood like wooden statues, utterly incapable of resistance.

I don’t know how long passed before the dust finally settled. The pile of coffins had become a heap of rotten timbers. The metal coffin lay overturned in a corner. Oddly, not a single bone remained, but viscous liquid was splattered everywhere. The black coffin that started it all now lay intact atop the debris.

“Yuan Jie, let’s get out of here,” Old Tan finally croaked.

I stood dazed for a few seconds, then anger welled up inside me. Looking back, I was probably already half-crazed with fear. “Leave? Damn it, I refuse to let these dead things scare me in my own house!”

“What?!” Old Tan’s mouth fell open. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going to open that coffin and see what’s inside.” I picked up a length of broken wood from the floor.

“No, no, let’s just leave it,” Old Tan pleaded, reaching for me.

Truthfully, I was bitter by now, feeling as though all my childhood memories had been trampled by these horrors—and my own father was the one who set all this in motion.

Just as I prepared to move forward, a half-faced porcelain doll crawled out from the debris. It quickly climbed onto the black coffin, its expression turning vicious. Clinging to the crack beneath the lid, it acted like a guard dog, making threatening gestures.

Suddenly, the black lid flew up with a bang and landed on the floor. Almost simultaneously, a hand shot out from the coffin; before Old Tan and I could react, the porcelain doll was smashed to pieces.

Old Tan immediately shrank behind me. I gritted my teeth and held the wood across my chest.

“Dad, your son is probably going to be killed by the monsters you left behind,” I thought, as a shadow rose from the coffin.

That shadow… that…

I was stunned, because the figure rising from the coffin, whichever way you looked at him, appeared to be a young man.

He was tall and skinny, with what looked like freshly permed hair—trendier even than Old Tan and me. He wore a short-sleeved T-shirt and jeans, and most striking of all, his large eyes blinked with unmistakable liveliness.

Despite this, neither Old Tan nor I dared to lower our guard. Then, we heard him cough twice. I immediately realized those two coughs were the same ones that had frightened me into this mess earlier.

“Whew… Finally out,” he said, sounding relaxed as he stretched his limbs.

“Yuan, he really does look alive,” Old Tan and I stared, dumbfounded.

After a while, the young man smiled at us. In the blink of an eye, he was standing right before us.

“Are you human or a ghost?” Old Tan and I scrambled backward in fright.

He glanced back at the coffin, then smiled wryly. “Came out of a coffin—what do you think?”

Hey, if he could still joke, he had to be alive. With that certainty, I finally felt my muscles relax. “Who are you? Why are you in my family’s cellar?”

“Your family?” He seemed surprised. “You’re Yuan Liu’s son—Yuan Jie?”

“How do you know my name and my father’s?” Only my father’s old circle ever called him Yuan Liu, and this guy looked even younger than me. I was baffled.

“Uh, your dad and I are old friends. He used to mention you,” the young man replied with a smile.

Liar. I watched his face; he was putting on an act. Since he’d stood up, he wore a roguish, mocking grin, but his eyes gleamed with a sharpness that surpassed even my father’s.

“Old friends? Hmph. My dad told me about his buddies too. What’s your name?” I snorted, probing for information.

“I…” He hesitated, glancing around and rummaging through his pockets. Suddenly, he pulled out a moldy old peanut shell. “My name is Peanut.”