"No one can come back from the dead. It should be a medical false death. Or maybe her family made it up for publicity," I said euphemistically.
"It's not what you think. She had a cerebral hemorrhage and was sent to the hospital. The hospital declared her brain dead after failed resuscitation. The hospital shouldn't be wrong about whether she's dead or not, right?"
"What happened next?" I found it hard to believe.
"After the hospital declared her brain dead, the family took her home for the funeral. Her corpse was kept in an ice coffin at minus ten degrees Celsius for several days. It was only transferred to a regular coffin on the day before the burial."
"Just as they were nailing the coffin shut, she suddenly sat up and shouted in pain, almost scaring the people there to death."
"Impossible! This is too strange!" Huang Po and I exclaimed in unison.
As corpse carriers, we've seen many corpses, especially frozen ones. One thing's for sure: when a corpse is frozen, its organic activity gets completely destroyed.
Not to mention other things, take the eyes for example. The eyes are vitreous bodies, mostly made of water. Under freezing conditions, the eyeballs will freeze into ice lumps, destroying the cell structure.
When the corpse thaws, the eyes will turn into a mess like rotten grapes.
If you don't understand the principle, you can refer to frozen pears from Northeast China (a well - known local specialty).
Even if the witch was misdiagnosed by the hospital and taken home in a false death state, lying in an ice coffin at minus ten degrees Celsius for several days would have turned her false death into real death.
Even if there was some miracle that allowed her to come back to life, her eyes would be damaged and she would be blind.
"There's nothing impossible. Everyone in that local area knows about it. Later, the hospital even took her for a physical examination, and the blood clots in her head had disappeared. No one can explain how it happened."
Seeing Jiang Lixin's serious expression, I knew she was being stubborn, so I didn't refute her.
Why pick a fight with a woman for no good reason? Arguing about this is pointless.
I still thought the story of the witch coming back from the dead was made up because it didn't even conform to basic logic.
"And then?"
"After she woke up, she told her family that she had gone to the underworld. The judge said that her lifespan wasn't over yet and that the black and white impermanence had grabbed the wrong person, so they let her go. Since then, she's been able to have people's fortunes told and has the Walking in the Underworld ability."
The more I listened, the more the story seemed like something out of a folk tale. I suddenly regretted it. I suspected that Jiang Lixin had been deceived. The witch's experience was so clichéd.
Jiang Lixin continued to talk about the witch with great enthusiasm, but I had already started to lose interest.
As for the Walking in the Underworld ability that Jiang Lixin mentioned, I actually knew something about it.
Walking in the Underworld is actually a shorthand for going to the underworld.
This ability is quite special and mostly found in women because women's bodies are inherently yin, making it easier for them to go to the underworld.
Men are yang by nature, with strong yang energy. Unless they have a pure yin body and a feminine appearance, it's impossible for them to Walk in the Underworld.
There are two ways to acquire the ability of Walking in the Underworld. One is through inheritance. For example, a mother passes it on to her daughter, and a mother - in - law passes it on to her daughter - in - law. As long as a person has the talent, after being taught the incantation and taken to the underworld a few times, they can master Walking in the Underworld.
The second way is rather special, which is to obtain the ability after a serious illness or a false death.
My grandpa told me that humans represent yang, while ghosts represent yin. Even though women are inherently of the yin nature, there is still yang energy in their bodies.
However, in the case of a serious illness or false death, the yang energy in the human body becomes extremely weak. At this time, it's not an exaggeration to say that the body is purely yin.
At this time, the soul can step onto the Yellow Spring Road, go to the underworld, and talk to ghosts.
But humans live in the world of the living after all. When someone walks in the underworld, they will come into contact with the yin energy of the underworld or the ghostly aura of ghosts and become contaminated.
As time passes, this yin and ghostly energy will continuously accumulate in the body of the person who can walk in the underworld. In old age, they will be plagued by all kinds of strange diseases, suffering unbearable pain, and will die a rather painful death.
Judging from what Jiang Lixin told me about this witch, she belongs to the second type. After a serious illness and false death, she accidentally mastered the ability of Walking in the Underworld.
However, this process of false death must not be as exaggerated as the rumors. It's estimated that she was just in a state of false death for a while and then woke up.
At least, she never lay in an ice coffin.
With the low temperature in an ice coffin, the human body would be severely damaged. This witch isn't so foolish, so she definitely didn't lie in an ice coffin.
In fact, it's not just the eyes. After the human brain is frozen at a low temperature and then thawed, it will become a mess. I saw this with my own eyes when I was a corpse carrier, which is why I think the witch's story is exaggerated.
Jiang Lixin is obviously quite in awe of this witch and continued to tell the strange stories she heard about her.
There are a few interesting things. For example, a man suddenly died of an illness and didn't have time to tell his wife and children where he had saved the money. As a result, the widow and orphans were forced to pay off debts, and the only way out was to sell their house.
The widow and orphans were really at the end of their rope. By chance, they heard that the witch could walk in the underworld and call up the souls of the dead to talk. So they brought gifts and came to beg the witch.
The witch asked for the man's name, address, and birth date and time. Then she walked in the underworld and called up the man's soul, which possessed her body.
After the man possessed her, the witch's original female voice turned into the man's pre - death voice, which amazed the onlookers.
The man's soul not only told where the family's bankbooks and bank cards were stored, but also told his wife that the business partner who came to collect the debt actually owed their family money. He told his wife to take the IOU and go to the police and file a lawsuit.
That business partner originally wanted to embezzle the man's inheritance when he died suddenly of a serious illness. Unexpectedly, he tried to gain an advantage but ended up worse off. In the end, his business collapsed. It can be regarded as a popular just deserts.
Another thing is that there was a family where two children died one after another. Both of them were raised to two or three years old and suddenly died unexpectedly, either by suddenly choking to death or falling to the ground and dying.
When the first child died, the family thought it might be an accident. But when the second child died in the same way, the family suspected that there might be a problem with the feng shui. They came to the witch for help to see if there was a problem with the family house or the ancestral grave.
After examining the situation, the witch lit incense, burned paper money, and after summoning a ghost, began to let out a stream of curses.
When it was all over, the family members learned that the death of the two children was due to the fact that the deceased grandfather of the children wasn't quite right in the head. When he came back and saw his lovely granddaughter and grandson, he couldn't help but take the children away to play.
When a ghost takes a living person away to play, it's essentially luring away their soul. And given that children are inherently fragile, they're bound to die.
The witch knew that this grandfather was a bit stupid. So after she summoned him, she gave him a good scolding and demanded that he return the two grandchildren.
Upon hearing this result, the family was a bit skeptical. They thought that no matter how stupid the grandfather was, he wouldn't do such a thing.
Unexpectedly, the next year, the woman in this family gave birth to a boy and a girl. They looked exactly like the two deceased children, and even the birthmarks on their bodies were exactly the same. Only then did the family completely believe what the witch had said.
Just chatting idly like this, time passed quickly, and we finally arrived at our destination.
Jiang Lixin led us familiarly to a small building. Before we could even step through the door, an old voice came from inside.
"Stop! Don't come in. You're bringing something unclean. It's lying on him."
Hearing this, I felt a chill run down the back of my neck. Immediately, I thought of the female ghost lying on my back.