Inside the coffin, Xin Lin and the corpse maintained an ambiguous posture throughout the trip, making the remaining journey long and eerie.
Remaining in one position for an extended period, coupled with the earlier commotion at Tianxiang Building, left Xin Lin both tired and hungry, and she eventually drifted off to sleep.
When she awoke, the carriage had already come to a stop by the side of the road.
Outside, all was silent, leading Xin Lin to deduce that night had fallen.
The carriage had been traveling for a day and a night, and if her memory served her correctly, they should be nearing Qian Village.
Xin Lin crawled out of the coffin.
"I really want to see what this Rascal Corpse actually looks like."
After some thought, Xin Lin took out a flint and quietly struck a flame.
A flash of firelight revealed a mummy inside the open coffin.
The fabric Xin Lin had felt earlier turned out to be the pale-white Mummy Cloth.
Her previous groping was indeed correct; the corpse was very tall, and even as a mummy, one could tell he must have been robust in life.
Xin Lin's gaze inadvertently shifted downward, and when she noticed the protrusion at the man's lower body, her heartbeat quickened.
From afar, a beastly howl startled Xin Lin, and her foot, caught off guard, caused her body to lean forward, rolling back into the coffin.
Xin Lin's pupils narrowed slightly as something cold and soft met her lips.
A gust of night wind blew through, scattering the Mummy Cloth covering the corpse previously wide open.
That cold softness, however, was the man's lips.
Lips that belonged to a man who had been dead for a thousand years.
From just the contact with her mouth, Xin Lin could tell they were full and sensuous lips, beautifully curved.
Xin Lin was dumbfounded, but in the next moment, she felt a slight coolness in her throat, as if something had entered her esophagus.
That chilly thing slid into her stomach in an instant.
She leapt up, hunched over the side of the coffin, and began to retch.
There was nothing in her mouth, as if what had just happened was merely an illusion.
So eerie, truly eerie.
Xin Lin glanced inside the coffin and saw the densely-packed golden-red characters on the Mummy Cloth, unfamiliar to her, likely not the script of Longteng Country.
For some reason, the sight of these characters made Xin Lin's soul shiver, and she instinctively felt danger.
In the forest night, only the crackling sound of burning firewood could be heard.
Xin Lin darted out of the forest and walked towards the official road, with distant mountains and forests beyond, and scattered lights that belonged to the villages nestled in the mountains.
As night deepened, the two coachmen were sound asleep under a tree not far away.
The carriage was stationed just outside a forest, surrounded on three sides by woods and facing the official road.
The coachmen had chosen this spot deliberately, wanting to avoid the wild beasts in the forest. Those familiar with the area knew there weren't many beasts around, and the nights were typically peaceful.
After Xin Lin left, the deep forest rustled.
A pair of green eyes appeared.
First one pair, then two, then three or four, a multitude of green lights emerged like fireflies.
The Black-Backed Wolf King, the size of a calf, led a group of wolves as they sprung forward.
It was covered in stiff fur, with bulging muscles on its limbs and a slightly protruding brow bone, with a fierce glow in its eyes.
The Black-Backed Wolf King wasn't a beast from this area, but had been forced to flee here to avoid a sudden intrusion of cultivators into the mountains.
It and its pack were famished.
The Wolf King caught the scent of living beings, saliva dripping from its mouth, and its eyes gleaming green as it dashed towards the closest target, a horse.
The wolves closed in, the two black horses becoming increasingly agitated, stomping their hooves.
Inside the carriage, the thousand-year-old coffin swayed.