Here Lies The Wicked

Chapter 58: Walking in the Underworld

“Shh! Quiet, stop making unnecessary noise!”

It was Butcher Zhang’s voice.

It was no longer far away and was just right in front of Fang Zheng.

Fang Zheng became calm after hearing Butcher Zhang’s voice again. He held back the question he could not wait to ask, and held his breath quietly.

The boat under their feet continued moving forward slowly, and it shook mildly from time to time.

In a dark world with thick fog, everything seemed eerily quiet. It was as quiet as someone walking past a cemetery alone at night; the creepy feeling was hanging over their hearts like rocks.

Fang Zheng stared at the unbelievable scene in front of him. Was this how walking in the underworld was like?

At this moment, Fang Zheng heard some vague, strange noises in the midst of the dense fog. It sounded like people were whispering to each other.

There were weird, soft hisses.

It sounded like flesh being teared apart, and it also sounded like bones were being scraped. It sent chills down people’s backs.

All of a sudden!

Fang Zheng caught a glimpse of a black shadow rushing through the water under the boat. It seemed like…the thick, black hair of a woman?

Fang Zheng held his breath.

Although strange things had been happening along the way, fortunately, they were nothing horrible. The mist surrounding him began to fade; to Fang Zheng’s surprise, a city appeared in front of him.

However, it was a world of black and white. It was dead quiet and lifeless.

A bridge appeared in front of Fang Zheng before he realized that this was the Tongjiang Bridge!

The black and white city before him was Zhou City!

He realized that he was standing on a small boat, and the person rowing the boat was Mr. Fu at the bow.

At the same time, there was a green lantern at the bow of the boat. It emitted a dim light that pierced the mist ahead of them.

When the boat was docked, Mr. Fu lifted the green lantern at the bow of the boat and Butcher Zhang followed him. The duo entered the eerily black and white Zhou City.

Fang Zheng did not have time to clear his doubts at the moment. He followed them.

Fang Zheng wanted to ask questions multiple times along the way. However, he did not know if there was any taboo walking in the underworld; he could only hold his questions and follow Mr. Fu and Butcher Zhang.

This eerie version of Zhou City was dead quiet. It was an empty city.

The trio had been walking for an hour, yet not a single person could be seen. Streets were empty; there were no cars at all, let alone people.

It seemed like…an empty shell of a city.

It was a shell without blood or flesh.

In a creepy, black-and-white Zhou City, Fang Zheng did not know if Mr. Fu, who was leading the way, knew where he was going. He looked up and glanced at the soul-guiding lamp in Mr. Fu’s hand while deep in thought.

Rather than saying that Mr. Fu was the one leading the way…

Why not say that the soul-guiding lamp was the one leading the way instead?

The soul-guiding lamp eventually led the trio to the morgue of a hospital.

Fang Zheng was stunned.

Other than corpses and the cabinets that store them, a morgue would not have a person hidden in it, would it? Just as that thought appeared in his mind, Fang Zheng unconsciously looked at the rows of cabinets in the morgue…

Mr. Fu and Butcher Zhang began going through the cabinets. It was as if they wanted to verify Fang Zheng’s thoughts.

However, the cabinets were empty. There were no corpses in them.

Fang Zheng began helping by looking through them as well.

There were only sounds of cabinets being pushed and pulled in the dark, black-and-white morgue for quite some time. All of a sudden!

Bang!

The sound of a cabinet being pulled out and pushed back within a split second attracted the attention of Mr. Fu and Butcher Zhang.

They turned around and looked at Fang Zheng.

Fang Zheng did not say a word. He pointed at the cabinet in front of him.

Soon after that, the trio tacitly exited the morgue carefully under the direction of Mr. Fu.

Fang Zheng was even more confused at this point.

Were they not walking in the underworld to find the fourth lost girl? Since she had been found; Since she was lying inside this cabinet in the morgue, why did they not save her?

When Fang Zheng opened his eyes again and saw the lifely, colourful world around him, he could not wait to ask every single question he had been holding back. However, at this very moment, Fang Zheng was stunned…

He was standing exactly where he was before he started walking in the underworld. He was not even one step off where he was.

Fang Zheng saw the wall clock at the corner of his eye at this moment.

It was 10.57 pm.

Fang Zheng remembered clearly that it was not past 11pm before he began walking in the underworld.

They had been walking in the underworld for hours… Could it be that it was only for a few minutes?

Fang Zheng wanted to clear his doubts with Butcher Zhang, but Butcher Zhang was holding his phone and contacting someone. Fang Zheng heard him mention something about the morgue and cabinets among others.

Fang Zheng wanted to look for Mr. Fu, but he had gone up to the second floor with the green lantern in his hand.

After Butcher Zhang was done with his call, Fang Zheng asked him curiously, “Was the black-and-white Zhou City real?”

“What’s the truth about walking in the underworld?”

“Why didn’t we save the fourth lost girl?”

Butcher Zhang answered Fang Zheng’s chain of questions calmly. “Actually, you wanted to ask if that world was a parallel space like the ones in the movies? Was it the same as an alternate universe?”

“Or let’s be even more frank. Did you actually mean to ask if walking in the underworld was the same as the underworld stated in ancient folklore?”

Fang Zheng did not rebuke.

This meant that he acquiesced.

Butcher Zhang continued, “I’ve said this from the beginning. The underworld and hell are all just ancient beliefs. The misty world, and the Zhou City you saw before this…that wasn’t a parallel universe. You were just experiencing and seeing what the three victims saw before they died.”

“The soul-guiding lamp borrowed the grievances of the dead for you to see bits and pieces of their memories for a brief moment. Did you see a shadow of black hair in the misty world? Did you hear weird sounds as well?”

Fang Zheng frowned, but he nodded eventually.

Butcher Zhang said, “Think about it, how did these three girls die?”

“One was scared to death, one was choked to death by hair in her body, and another one died after clawing her own face. Weren’t these all experiences in the misty world?”

“A walk in the underworld is actually easily understood. It borrows grievances of the dead, and like a hound, it tracks the location of the evil for us. It’s not as mysterious and omnipotent as the ancient beliefs where it includes walking in hell, or asking about the alive or the dead.”

“You can understand the walk in the underworld as a way to enter a person’s mental state. While psychologists enter the mental state of the living, walking in the underworld is like entering the mental state of the dead.”

“If you’re still in doubt, you can look at the time. Although it seemed like we walked in the underworld for hours, it was only a minute in reality. It was all a dream; basically, a few years in a dream are just a few minutes in reality.”

Fang Zheng did not need to look at the time. He was already about 70 or 80% convinced.

“Who are you and Mr. Fu?”

“Why do you know these things?”

Fang Zheng looked straight at Butcher Zhang.