The graveyard under the scorching sun.
Everyone looked bewildered.
"Young Master, this is Old Gen's mother's urn."
"Her remains were indeed cremated; all of us old folks were there at the time."
The old village chief said, flustered and at his wits' end.
Lu Fei stared at the grave, pondering for a moment: "Huzi, get the coffin out. There might be something hidden underneath."
"Okay."
The coffin was not too heavy; Huzi could drag it out of the grave by himself.
The soil beneath was so damp that it oozed water.
"Tiger, dig more!"
Lu Fei and Tiger held the hoes, digging down a few times, when a puff of green gas suddenly emerged.
"Be careful!"
Lu Fei hastily pushed Tiger away.
The elderly village chief and a few others, who were watching from the side, hurriedly took several steps back.
After the green gas dissipated, everyone gathered around again, cautiously examining the grave pit.
In the moist soil that was dug up, a palm covered in green fur could be seen.
Dry burial!
Lu Fei's eyes widened; there really was another dry burial!
"Tiger, quickly, dig it all out!"
Huzi swallowed hard and followed Lufei to quickly dig through all the soil.
The appearance of this dry burial was completely exposed to everyone.
It looked like a man in his thirties.
His pale skin was covered with green fur, his body had become elongated, and there was a hole in his belly, which was swollen quite high.
Beside his lips, sharp fangs were slightly protruding.
"Isn't this Dogdan?!" the old village chief shouted in disbelief.
"Who is Dogdan?" Lufei immediately asked.
"He's Old Gen Shu's son!" Huzi replied, "This guy was lazy, loved to gamble, and it wasn't uncommon for him to be missing for ten days or half a month. How... how did he end up under his grandmother's grave?"
The old village chief and the others exchanged glances.
"Come to think of it, we haven't seen this kid since the drought. We thought he had run off to enjoy himself somewhere else."
"I see!" Lu Fei's eyes brightened, "After a drought burial takes shape, it will first eat the family's poultry and livestock, then its own relatives."
"And the relatives it drags into the grave and eats will turn into the next drought burial."
The crowd was stunned for a moment.
Huzi was the first to speak up loudly, "No wonder, when we burned Old Gen's mother's remains, it looked like it was going to rain, but in the end, it didn't. It turned out that another drought burial had appeared."
"Exactly! Who would have thought that there was still a body hidden under the coffin when everyone was digging up graves? Fortunately, this drought burial's fangs hadn't fully grown, or it would have come out to eat people too!"
Lu Fei breathed a long sigh of relief, finally understanding the truth behind the village's drought.
What came next was much simpler.
All they needed to do was burn this drought burial as well.
"We shouldn't delay. Let's get it out and burn it right now."
Lu Fei and Huzi reached out to drag the corpse covered in green fur.
The evil creature's eyes suddenly opened, staring intently at everyone and scaring the old village chief so much that he staggered.
"Everyone, don't be afraid! In broad daylight, this evil spirit can't move. It's just trying to scare us!"
Lu Fei waved his hand and placed a ghost-repelling talisman on the forehead of the dry-bone burial.
Then, he and Hu Zi dragged the evil spirit out of the grave pit with great effort.
The old village chief went to inform Uncle Laogen.
After all, it was Uncle Laogen's son, and he had to be allowed to see him one last time, no matter what.
Lu Fei looked at the corpse.
Hu Zi and the others went to gather firewood.
When preparations were almost complete, the old village chief arrived with Uncle Laogen, followed by the entire village.
Uncle Laogen limped over, and when he reached the body, he collapsed in front of it. His eyes were fixed on his son, who had already transformed, his mouth wide open, but unable to make a sound.
The villagers hated Old Gen because of the dry bone burial and the cat spirit.
But seeing this scene, they could not bear to blame him.
"Old Gen, things have already turned out this way, try to look at it from a positive angle." The village chief sighed and patted Old Gen on the shoulder.
"Burn me with it! Burn me with it!"
From deep in his throat, Old Gen let out a roar of grief and anger.
The villagers shook their heads and stepped forward to pull him away.
Old Gen did not struggle but kept shouting that he should be burned as well, tears streaming down his face.
The flames started to rise.
The dry bones gradually turned to ashes.
Old Gen seemed to have lost half his soul, aging by several decades in an instant, staring blankly as he sat on the ground.
The misfortune started with his family.
Now, he has nothing left.
His mother, his wife, and his children, all turned to ashes...
Ending up in this situation, it was largely his own doing.
Lu Fei looked at him, then at the dug-up grave, feeling conflicted.
No one can clearly explain the root cause of dry bone burial, but this kind of evil is very rare. Can it form just because the deceased died with resentment?
Then wouldn't there be many more cases of dry bone burial in the world?
Above the village, dark clouds gathered layer upon layer.
Crack!
A clap of thunder.
The rain poured down in torrents.
"It's raining!"
"Great, it's finally raining!"
The people of Zhao Village stood in the rain, cheering loudly.
Zhao Village, which had been suffering from drought for several months, finally received the nourishment of rain.
The rain lasted for a whole day and night.
The long-parched earth finally quenched its thirst. The next morning, even the air was filled with a fresh scent.
Zhao Village seemed to be reborn after a disaster, with smoke rising from every household, brimming with vitality.
The village head called people early in the morning to go to the town to buy meat, preparing a full table of dishes to entertain Lu Fei. They also sent a meal over to Uncle Laogen.
The entire village gathered around to toast, but Lu Fei, unable to keep up with all the drinking, replaced alcohol with tea to get through it.
Everyone praised Hu Zi, saying that finding such a good boss as Lu Fei had made him much more successful than before.
Then, they started recounting a bunch of embarrassing stories from when Hu Zi was a child.
Things like mistaking sheep droppings for candy, losing his shoes while running away from a large goose, and climbing a tree to fetch bird eggs only to end up with a swollen face from bee stings.
Lu Fei laughed heartily, while Hu Zi was thoroughly depressed.
After the meal.
Lu Fei went to the graveyard again.
"Boss, it's raining in our village. Why are you coming here?" Hu Zi asked, full of confusion.
"I always feel there's something suspicious. Drought burials aren't that easy to form. On one hand, Old Gen's mother has unresolved grievances, but there must be another special reason,"
Lu Fei squatted down, looking at the grave pit washed by heavy rain.
"We need to get to the bottom of it to prevent future troubles."
"People are buried and then undergo changes later, maybe the real problem is with this land."
"Is there something wrong with this land?" Hu Zi's heart sank. He knew that the boss wouldn't joke about such matters. He looked around, his face filled with confusion.
"But this is our ancestral burial ground. Our ancestors have been buried here for generations, and there has never been any problem before."
"Everything in the world is changing! Feng Shui is no exception. Perhaps over time, the Feng Shui of this burial ground has developed some issues. Hu Zi, dig a bit deeper. If everything is fine, that would be the best, but if there's a problem, we can address it promptly," Lu Fei said thoughtfully.
"Okay!"
Hu Zi went back to the village to get a hoe and started digging, turning up a lot of soil.
After digging about a meter deep, he really unearthed something strange.