My Husband and I Sleep in a Coffin Vol. 1, page 14
He kept being woken by Mu Er’s crying, thinking he was about to have a fight to the death with grave robbers, just like in the movies. But every time this happened, Wen Fengjin would briefly open his eyes, close them again, and say, “Go back to sleep. Mu Er has already taken care of it.”
Wang Xiaomie stared speechlessly at Zhen Bei. “Even gamers who camp for roaming bosses don’t work this hard!”
Zhen Bei scratched his head at this talking-to. “That’s ’cause this place has lots of treasures, though,” he chirped quietly.
Wang Xiaomie was indignant. “Bullshit, we don’t have any treasures here! Just look at yourselves! Living on the surface, getting to go on the internet and watch TV whenever you feel like it, and buying takeout whenever you’re hungry and eating whatever you want!” As for us? We don’t have so much as an internet connection or a cell phone, and we have to live by candlelight! We don’t even have any food to eat—we have to survive by picking garbage out of equipment packs every day, wehhh~
“Y-you know about using the internet and watching TV…?”
“Of course I do! I’m a zongzi who keeps up with the times!”
“Oh…but your hair ties all use Fish Pearls for decorations… Sell just one and you can have it easy for life.”
Wang Xiaomie and Zhen Bei both stared speechlessly at each other, each seeing envy in the other’s eyes. Ai, those in drought would die of thirst and those being flooded would die from drowning; if an impassive Wen Fengjin weren’t standing between them, the two of them might even have tried to hug.
“How about I give those things to you? Then you trade them for money and get a few more cell towers built on the big mountain over our heads, and maybe mail me a generator or something while you’re at it…”
“Yeah, sure! I could even help you buy some snacks online!”
“Whoa, you really are a great guy, bro!”
“Heheh, no problem! How about we exchange WeChat info?”
“Sure, let’s—oh, I don’t have a phone.”
“Oh…it’s fine, I’ll bring you one next time!”
“Wahhh! Bro, you’re awesome!”
Just as the two were about to exchange bear hugs and declare their brotherhood, a dark-faced Wen Fengjin grabbed Wang Xiaomie by the back of his collar. Smiling through gritted teeth, he said, “Shi. Xiong!”
Wang Xiaomie startled, realizing now that he’d strayed from the point. Zhen Bei—who acted perfectly natural when talking to Wang Xiaomie—seemed to sense a danger alert popping up above his head when he looked at Wen Fengjin’s face. Without a thought, he lost all nerve to continue talking.
Wang Xiaomie gave a couple of forced laughs in Wen Fengjin’s direction, blinking his eyes adorably as he put on his best good-boy act. Wen Fengjin let out a snort, looking much calmer than before: “Don’t talk about unrelated things.”
“Got it!”
Wang Xiaomie stuck out his tongue the moment Wen Fengjin looked away, and Zhen Bei was no longer quite as on guard as he was before, either.
After all that pointless chatter, they finally returned to the main topic. “Forget everything else for a minute, how exactly did you manage to get around Mu Er? I haven’t seen anyone able to get this far lately—and why is it that you always manage to show up right when I’m using the restroom?”
Zhen Bei awkwardly scratched his head. “I never saw this Mu Er you mentioned…but when I’d gotten halfway through, I kept feeling like someone was following me, only for nothing to be there when I turned my head. Just when I started walking again, I got the feeling something was about to attack me… and then next thing I knew, I’d stepped out onto thin air and landed in some place I didn’t recognize. I thought I’d died! But when I actually stopped to look, it turned out to be the same hallway where my brother and I got separated last time! So I purposely touched the trap I’d set off by accident last time, and then rolled my way down here! Heheh, who woulda thunk I’d have such good luck? I really did run into you two the very minute I got down here! And here I thought I was gonna have to walk a really long way to find you. I made full preparations and came ready to risk my life and everything, y’know!”
Wang Xiaomie expressionlessly looked at Wen Fengjin. “Do you believe that?”
Wen Fengjin looked up at the ceiling as he replied, “This little room and its latrine were built by the craftsmen who built the mausoleum. It is possible that those craftsmen actually used the latrine as cover to create an escape route for themselves. It isn’t necessarily that Mu Er failed to discover him, but that she thought she could deal with this lone straggler on her own, not expecting him to fall down here just as she was about to make her move. She must have assumed he’d fallen into another trap, and so stopped paying him any mind.”
Wen Fengjin seemed to recall something, his face twisting momentarily before he continued, “After you left this mortal coil, Shixiong, I once met another person whom I simply could not kill, no matter how hard I tried. He had terrible luck on the face of it, and wound up in one mishap after another, but always managed to blunder his way into getting some good out of it in the end!”
That…was probably the protagonist, huh… Fuck!
Wang Xiaomie looked at Zhen Bei. “Dude, you’re much too lucky for someone with that name!”
Zhen Bei abashedly scratched his head: “Heheh, it’s no big deal. The main reason I came here this time was to tell you guys about how Corpseface’s gang’s coming next week to rob this grave…”
Following this, Zhen Bei very seriously explained to them how this all began because their family had worked as appraisers of precious items for generations. His ancestors had saved a few valuables over the years, eventually opening a few shops in A City; their family was relatively well-known in antiques circles.
Zhen Bei’s oldest brother happened to be particularly talented on this front, able to tell whether an item was real or fake at just a glance—he was even better than a machine! One day, a guy with a corpse-like face suddenly paid a call to this brother and gave him a wooden box. When Zhen Bei’s oldest brother opened this box, poisonous smoke poured forth and blinded him.
They’d originally planned to turn the bastard in, but his brother was against it. In the end, Corpseface gave them a copy of the mausoleum map and told them to look for the Fish Pearl there. Last time, Zhen Bei had secretly followed his erge and assistants here, and fortunately run into little zongzi Wang Xiaomie, who bore humans no ill-will. He’d even managed to easily get his hands on a Fish Pearl, thanks to Wang Xiaomie’s kindness.
After they returned to the surface, Zhen Bei told the others about what had happened. This made his dage and the corpse-faced man assume expressions of delight. They asked him over and over again to describe what he’d seen to them. They even repeatedly wanted him to tell them the details of Wang Xiaomie’s and Wen Fengjin’s appearances, personalities, and whether or not they were capable of human thought.
An overwhelmingly confused Zhen Bei eavesdropped on his dage and the corpse-faced man that night—only to discover that his dage actually wanted to break into the tomb, together with Corpseface.
Zhen Bei curled his hands into fists as he said in a low voice, “My dage has always been extremely obsessed with precious antiques and secret passages to underground tombs ever since he was a little kid. But it wasn’t until then that I realized he’d already hired a whole bunch of teams to come here, all of which had failed—up until the day that corpse-faced man found him! I don’t know what he said to convince my dage to go to the field himself. He even hired a whole bunch of men for the job. I heard the guy say he didn’t want the treasures, but he did want the heart of the tomb master.”
Wang Xiaomie was stunned. He squinted at Wen Fengjin. “What’s all this about? Don’t tell me this is an ex you owe something to! Geez, they’re even about to come knocking on our door!”
Wen Fengjin was speechless.
Before Wen Fengjin could explain himself, Zhen Bei hurriedly said, “It’s not that kind of heart! It’s the physical kind! He wants to eat the heart of the tomb master, who ate a celestial elixir and doesn’t age or die! They say that if you eat it, you’ll gain the tomb master’s powers, and also become unable to age or die!”
Fuck! They’re digging up hearts!
Chapter 25:
He Has Such a Nice Personality
“THAT’S INSANE!”
“Yeah… Anyway, my goal’s really simple. That guy doesn’t look like a good person to me, and this mausoleum’s not that easy to get into…” Aside from all the monsters guarding the tomb, Wen Fengjin was practically a demon incarnate himself! Last time, Zhen Bei had nearly been choked to death before he could even figure out how the guy got there! Zhen Bei rubbed his neck as he looked at Wen Fengjin and Wang Xiaomie, saying, “If possible, I’d like you guys to spare my dage in return for my having tipped you off!”
Wen Fengjin began laughing lowly. He slowly walked over to Zhen Bei. Under Zhen Bei’s increasingly pale-faced gaze, those eyes—largely occupied by their black irises—curved into a smile as he asked with great amusement, “You’re asking us to let him go?”
“That’s right.”
Just as he said this, some great and terrifying force suddenly left Zhen Bei incapable of movement. Zhen Bei’s eyes widened. Even breathing required so much effort that he felt himself breaking into a sweat. Unable to move anything else, he swiveled his dark eyes over to look at Wang Xiaomie.
Wang Xiaomie, meanwhile, felt no discomfort whatsoever. In fact, he was currently wondering to himself why Zhen Bei had suddenly frozen up.
Does that mean I’m the only one here feeling this?
Zhen Bei watched weakly as Wen Fengjin curled his index finger, pointing it at a spot about a centimeter from his right eye.
“What makes you so sure I’ll help you, hm?” With his red clothes and ink-black hair, Wen Fengjin looked like a vengeful ghost. The pressure in the air around them contracted even further, until Zhen Bei started to think he was about to suffocate to death.
At that moment, Wen Fengjin spoke low enough that only the two of them could hear, his tone laced with both disgust and light laughter. “Besides, the truth is that you have no real interest in convincing me to let your brother go, do you…?”
Zhen Bei, pain still written all over his face, gazed at Wen Fengjin without a hint of understanding in his eyes. “What are you saying—cough!”
Wen Fengjin’s face went completely blank at that. “What’s all this about repaying kindness and tipping us off? Heh—you do indeed want to give us this information, but for what purpose? Let me guess… It’s because you discovered in your previous meeting with my shixiong that he was actually a perfectly normal person, with far too much unnecessary benevolence in his heart. He was nothing at all like the ruthless and bloodthirsty evil creatures you imagined would be in this tomb, and appeared to lack even an ounce of strength… Despite meeting me, you regretfully discovered that you were actually able to leave the tomb uninjured. How could such a benevolent tomb master help you to kill someone?”
Wen Fengjin’s finger touched his forehead, chin lifting slightly with an expression cold as frost: “You worried that your brother and his friend might truly accomplish their goal, and so decided that you may as well tip us off. This way, though we might not kill him, we probably wouldn’t leave him unscathed. A single, heavily injured man, all alone in this isolated underground space, could be taken advantage of by anyone who happened across him at such a time…”
It was like the whispers of a demon from hell, cruelly exposing the darkest depths of man’s heart before breaking out in mocking, raucous laughter. At this point the fear on Zhen Bei’s face faded away like the tide; though his generally open, sunny face was still pale from lack of air. Covered in a cold sweat, he managed to say with some effort, “You’re going to kill me in front of him…”
“Of course. That familiar scent of yours makes me want to vomit.” A strange shade of red gradually began to spread across Wen Fengjin’s already abnormal eyes as he continued, “It might be a bit inconvenient, but even if I do actually kill you, he won’t remember it tomorrow.”
He won’t remember? Why, do you mean the legends are true?! Aside from becoming immortal, did the tomb master really gain other powers too?! So that’s how it is… Haha, so that’s how it is…
“You can’t kill me! I know—”
Zhen Bei quickly said something in a low voice, causing Wen Fengjin’s pupils to contract with a vicious suddenness. “All you have to do is help me, and I’ll happily give it to you!” he finished.
It was at this point that Wang Xiaomie began to realize something was wrong. He frowned and scurried closer, placing a hand on Wen Fengjin’s shoulder as he asked, “Fengjin, what are you doing?”
In that instant, the fog-like redness in Wen Fengjin’s eyes immediately dissipated, and Zhen Bei felt the abnormal pressure suddenly disappear as well. He fell to his knees, hands on his throat as he violently coughed and gasped, sucking in air with all the energy he had, and giving Wang Xiaomie a real fright in the process.
“Oh my god, don’t tell me you’ve got asthma, bro!” Wang Xiaomie hurriedly squatted down to lend Zhen Bei a hand of support, only for Wen Fengjin to pull him backward into his arms with such great force that Wang Xiaomie found himself losing his footing.
“Don’t bother with him.”
For some reason, Wang Xiaomie had the strangest feeling that Wen Fengjin’s words carried a bone-deep chill. It would be a very long time before he came to understand that this was deeply suppressed bloodlust.
At the moment, Wang Xiaomie simply watched with anxiety as Zhen Bei started to dry heave. There was no way he could ignore this! His condition was too scary to be left unattended. Wen Fengjin was still firmly holding him back, but he still carefully called out, “Zhen Bei, Zhen Bei? Are you feeling any better?”
Zhen Bei, who’d been dry heaving for a good while now, waved a hand without lifting his head or getting up from his kneeling position. “I’m fine…” His voice sounded completely different, perhaps because of all the coughing he’d been doing.
Wang Xiaomie reacted to this with a single “Oh,” unable to say anything else before Wen Fengjin turned him around in his arms, basically using his own chest to block Wang Xiaomie’s line of sight.
“What’re you doing?”
“It’s too dirty, don’t look.”
“Huh?” Wang Xiaomie’s mouth twitched—what was he calling dirty? Then again, they’d been chatting at the entrance of a latrine this whole time… Could it be that Zhen Bei’d gotten nauseous from the smell?!
After gasping for a while, Zhen Bei finally stood up, covering his mouth with the back of his hand. He looked a lot worse off than he had a moment ago. Still, that sunny smile was pure as ever as he said, “I’m fine now—plus, this guy already accepted my request!”
“Wen Fengjin promised to let your brother go?! I didn’t hear anything!” Wang Xiaomie was completely lost. “What in the world did you guys do?” He looked up at Wen Fengjin’s chin and the jut of his Adam’s apple as he asked, “Fengjin, did you really agree to that?”
Wen Fengjin hummed vaguely in response before saying, indifferently, “You don’t like blood, so I’ll just have Mu Yi and the others repel them.”
“I’m just not really used to it, is all…” Having become a zongzi, it was possible he’d have to fight a battle to the death against grave robbers one of these days. But he couldn’t help his biases. Wang Xiaomie, lowering his voice, said secretively, “But we can’t let them bully us, either—one of the guys Zhen Bei mentioned sounded pretty formidable. He even wants to rip out your heart! If we do have to fight, it’ll be our last option.” He pursed his lips, an intelligent light flashing in his eyes as he continued, “So even if we do anything to him, it’ll be justified self-defense. Besides, we’ve been dead for years now, and who ever heard of laws that apply to corpses?”
Wen Fengjin stared blankly at that, his arms loosening their grip for a moment before wrapping tightly around him again, though this time much more gently. “Has Shixiong forgotten that I don’t actually count as the dead?” Wen Fengjin asked with amusement.
Okay fine, you’re an immortal old man, happy now? Wang Xiaomie rolled his eyes. “You’re over a thousand years old. I don’t think they could bear to make a thousand-year-old grandpa sit in jail. If you work hard at living a few more years, you can level up from ‘millennium turtle’ to ‘eternal tortoise’! Then you can set a new Guinness World Record or something. When that happens, they can put the two of us on display in a museum. I’ll be the never-rotting male corpse next to your walking fossil!”
The more he talked, the more he could visualize it in his head. Wang Xiaomie found himself laughing. Wen Fengjin also chuckled gently at the sight of Wang Xiaomie so cheerful.
“Did you get all that? I’m not a bleedingheart—if they really do hurt you, then even if you do attack them, I’ll still be on your side!” Wang Xiaomie gazed up at him with a resolute expression as he continued, “So even if you did something, there’d be no need to hide it from me, understand?”
Wen Fengjin lowered his head to meet Wang Xiaomie’s gaze, fingers twitching for a moment before the corners of his lips slowly pulled themselves upward. “…I wouldn’t lie to you, Shixiong.”
I’m sorry, but this, too, is a lie, Shixiong.
Wang Xiaomie smiled once again upon hearing Wen Fengjin’s promise.
Zhen Bei was still panting as he wordlessly stared at the pair’s backs. That strange ability of Wen Fengjin’s had made his chest ache and his head dizzy, along with the added desire to vomit… The master of this mausoleum truly was formidable. Luckily, he could be used.
Despite clearly being an undying monster and a transformed corpse, they embraced each other with as much feeling as if they were real human beings. The sight led a soft smile to make its way onto Zhen Bei’s face. Disgusting. Aw man, it’s so disgusting, I wanna barf.
