Su Bai changed into a new trench coat. He took his car key, walked to the garage and directly drove his car. If Huo Kun's corpse had been cremated in the end or someone went before him, Su Bai would really end up a joke. A treasure being laid bare right before his eyes and yet he actually took a bath, turned his head around and left.
The speed of the car was very fast. Su Bai's bangs were disheveled by the wind. One of his hand was on the steering wheel while the other hand was covering his own mouth. He felt like laughing.
That was the consequence of being ignorant and ill-informed.
It could also be said that Su Bai was reaping what he sowed. It could not be blamed on others; it also could not be blamed on himself. Since Su Bai obtained the broken vampire blood and merged with the zombie lineage, his blood vessels had generated extreme distortions. As someone who had two lineages, it led him to have no way to accumulate story points to exchange in the e-shop. On top of that, with Su Bai's temperament, his networks within the audience circles were very shallow.
Because of that, Su Bai had no idea about associated weapons; it was still reasonable. However, he was still having doubts regarding merging a weapon into one's body as a benchmark between audiences as what Fatty mentioned.
The funeral parlors in the country were public places managed by the government. The funeral parlour consisted of places to handle the corpses (including refrigerating, make up, dress up and so on), mourning ceremony and crematorium. It was an all-in-one package.
Bai Juyi[1] had used 'in front of the desolate horses and chariots loose' to describe the condition of an aged lady in a brothel. However, it actually could be used to perfectly describe the entrance of the funeral parlor.
At the very least, there was no need to worry about lack of parking. It could be said that other than the staff working there, there was nobody hoping to end up driving there.
It was a smaller funeral parlor. With the continuous rise in the economy over these few year, the ideologies of the public had advanced along with time, it included the funeral business. Many funeral parlors started to reform and changed, introducing many services to generate income, even a few funeral parlors in Shanghai had long ago collaborated with the government, generating huge amounts of profit.
Unfortunately, Huo Kun had no relatives, there were no relatives to arrange his funeral. The authorities would not arrange a grand funeral package for Huo Kun, they only found a smaller and run down funeral parlor to cremate him and put an end to things.
The temperature inside and outside the funeral parlor was as clear as night and day. At least that was what Su Bai felt. It was still summer at that moment, but there was a type of natural coolness inside the funeral parlor. Perhaps the best explanation for that would be 'everything is cool as long as one has a calm heart.'
In the office, a lady was taking a nap. Su Bai walked in and knocked on the door. The door was not closed; he had knocked for the sake of waking that lady up.
That lady however was deep asleep and did not wake up.
Su Bai furrowed his brows. Even though it was not a busy day, there was no need to slack off to such an extend. He walked a few steps forward.
"Excuse me, has the black guy you all received today been cremated..."
Su Bai tapped on the lady's shoulder but he felt a type of chillness. His pupils dilated; that lady's body had fallen by just a single tap from Su Bai.
She was not dead. It was a type of suspended animation, her soul should have been shackled.
There were many descriptions of soul shackles in the villages in China. For example, some children are easily frightened by ghastly things, their parents need to request for an amulet or lock for the child to help them shackle their soul to avoid calamity.
"Nowadays, even corpses would be robbed?"Su Bai mumbled to himself as he pulled out both the Hellfire Shotguns.
The funeral parlor was not very large. Su Bai needed to head to the mortuary. If Huo Kun's corpse had not been cremated, it would have been placed there.
The road from the office to mortuary was like a pedestrian street for business. Urns, flower garlands, and items for the dead were sold there, creating a very depressing atmosphere.
With Su Bai's experience and temperament, he would not be intimidated by such environment. He only felt vexed when he thought about other people taking the opportunity due to his oversight. If the compass was really taken away by other people, then Su Bai would really be the brain dead backdrop of this story.
Could that person be Fatty?
Su Bai started suspecting. Based on Fatty's character and desire for that item, when he called him, was he in Sichuan or had he just got off the plane and arrived at Shanghai?
The probability of the latter was much higher.
Su Bai found the mortuary and walked in. Even though the funeral parlor was quite small, there was quite a number of corpses in the mortuary. Su Bai was too lazy to search one by one, there was a list on the wall near the entrance, it recorded the names of the corpse as well as their location. It was very convenient. En, convenient for the corpses to be stolen.
Su Bai kept on glancing towards the bottom, he found Huo Kun's name at the second last position.
Number 13.
Su Bai walked towards chamber number 13, he reached out towards the handle and pulled.
Indeed, as expected, the corpse was missing.
Someone was one step ahead of him and took away the corpse. Huo Kun's corpse had not been cremated because there would be a marking on the list for those who had been cremated. It was obvious that the funeral parlor did not intend to cremate the corpse today, perhaps they were leaving it for tomorrow.
After walking out of the mortuary, Su Bai glanced around. Based on the level of the soul shackle of that lady in the office, it should have been done not too long ago because that person's soul shackles had only put that lady in suspended animation and he did not to cause any harm. It was obvious he had misgivings, Su Bai understood such misgivings.
That lady was still unconscious as the soul shackles were performed not long ago. It would have been too obvious to leave with the corpse. Su Bai started to change his line of thought, if he was the person stealing the corpse and he knew the method to retrieve the compass from Huo Kun's corpse, what would he do?
In a short while, Su Bai inhaled a deep breath.
He would have found a place in the funeral parlor to retrieve the compass from the corpse, there was no need to run around with the corpse.
Su Bai wanted to check the CCTV but gave up that thought. He was not a police officer, the other party was obviously an audience. He did not need to know who stole Huo Kun's corpse because there was nothing he could do even if he knew. What he could do right now was to obstruct that person after he retrieved the compass.
He turned around to check on the path he traversed earlier, SU Bai turned his head and looked inside.
Inside was the core of the crematorium which was the place corpses were cremated.
Su Bai continued walking deeper and pushed open a metal door. The metal door was a little rusty but the items behind the door where shiny. It seems that this tiny funeral parlor had brought in new equipment, it seemed quite new.
Normally, gasoline would be sprayed and then the fire would be ignited during a normal cremation. It would be blazing, that's why it had high efficiency rate. After it was burnt, a person in charge would grind the remains and compile some bones and ashes to be placed in an urn designated by the the deceased's relatives.
The problem was, there was no place to hide the corpse over there. There was a few trolleys with a few burial garments on it, there were also a few flower garlands on the floor but there were no corpses.
Just when Su Bai felt that he had gained nothing, he suddenly heard a soft moan.
There was a tempo to it,
There was a rhythm to it,
Su Bai stuck his tongue out and licked his lips. He stretched his neck and revealed a hint of excitement. 'Seems like this is the right place.'
The Hellfire Shotguns had always been held by Su Bai as it radiated a thick luster. Guns, or it is better to say, weapons are able to give people confidence as well as a sense of security. If the other party was an audience, no, the other party was definitely an audience, the possibility of shedding all pretenses was high but there was a need to maintain enough deterrent force.
Su Bai listened to the sound attentively because it was too soft. After ten seconds, Su Bai's gaze fell upon the cremation chamber.
It seems to be brand new machinery.
The corpse would be placed at conveyor and be sent to the cremation chamber during the incineration process.
If there was a place to hide a corpse, then, the cremation chamber would be the only place.
Su Bai slowly approached the chamber, footsteps could be heard from the crematorium. As Su Bai approached, the sounds of moaning grew clearer and clearer.
Su Bai gradually could distinguish that there was a type of depressive suffering from the sound of the moaning.
'Suffering?'
'Heh heh.'
'It's getting more and more interesting.'
'Really looking forward to it.'
The cremation chamber was covered by a black curtain. It was as if it was a taboo, the curtains would be removed when it was used but the chamber would be covered up during normal times.
Su Bai walked over; he grabbed the corner of the curtain.
After that, he suddenly pulled the curtain!
"Crash..."
It was as if the curtain was ripped by Su Bai. What was happening behind the curtain was completely revealed.
A plump fella was lying below the chamber, his body was trembling endlessly, both his hands was grabbing on the steel plate as he struggled, sweat was covering his face and he seemed to be in suffering.
He saw Su Bai. Su Bai also saw him.
"Ah Bai, help me... help me...!!!!!!"
Fatty was pleading; he almost had no voice left.
"What are you doing..." Su Bai was stunned. Due to the color of the black guy's skin which was as black as the chamber, Huo Kun's corpse was well hidden.
At this moment, Su Bai had finally seen clearly. The corpse of a black guy was on top of Fatty…
… humping endlessly.
[1] Bai Juyi was a renowned Chinese poet and Tang dynasty government official. Many of his poems concern his career or observations made about everyday life, including as governor of three different provinces. Bai was also influential in the historical development of Japanese literature.