Chapter 1185: Chapter 796: Head-Wrapped Burial (Part 3)
Luckily, Yang Xiao’s fears did not come true. After walking for about ten minutes, a breeze blew through the night, slightly dispersing the fog. Yang Xiao and the others saw that strange procession again, now they had come to a lakeside.
The procession stopped by the lakeside, and the boat was lowered down.
Now closer, Yang Xiao and the others could see clearly that the two ends of the boat were not some white sculptures but were actually two people, or rather two bodies wrapped tightly.
On the way, Professor Cui had mentioned to Yang Xiao about the customs in the Myanmar-Thailand zone, where ancient burial practices were still prevalent in remote and backward areas, commonly known as "head wrapping burial".
It involves washing and cleansing the deceased, then stuffing the nostrils with cotton, wrapping the entire body with white cloth, and finally tying a massive knot on the head.
Soon, the boat was pushed into the lake, confirming Yang Xiao’s speculation. After floating for a few seconds, it began to sink. The hull seemed to be made from something like thick cardboard glued together; the entire boat consisted of only a wooden skeleton, which explained why eight people could carry it.
But just as the hull was sinking, Yang Xiao witnessed an unbelievable scene. The boat seemed to be pulled by some force, while sinking, it swiftly moved towards the center of the lake.
Before Yang Xiao could comprehend, a more terrifying scene appeared. A body linked at the stern, with only a third of its torso above the water, bizarrely twitched, the motion was subtle, but Yang Xiao saw it clearly.
"The body moved," Yang Xiao exclaimed, then suddenly realized something, "No, it...it seems like there’s a living person inside!"
However, when the others looked, they saw no movement. Aisha adjusted her glasses and said she had been looking all along; the corpse hadn’t moved. She suspected it was the light refracting off the broken water surface that deceived Yang Xiao.
"Didn’t you see it?" Yang Xiao pursued.
"No."
"No."
"Only you saw it." Adila said thoughtfully, looking at Yang Xiao.
"Damn..." Yang Xiao fell silent, this was not a good omen.
As soon as the paper boat fully sank, the procession dispersed like a rush, everyone fleeing back as if something terrible would happen if they slowed down.
But this caused trouble for Yang Xiao and the others, who were hiding behind nearby bushes. If they ran, they would immediately be discovered. Fortunately, those guys were only focused on running, paying no attention to others hiding nearby.
Within two minutes, over a hundred people at the scene fled completely, the lakeside returned to calm.
Once assured they wouldn’t return, Yang Xiao and the others emerged from hiding, led by Imam Musa to the lakeside to search for clues.
The lake was shrouded in fog, with a sense of disconnection from the real world. Looking at the misty lake surface, Yang Xiao felt a sense of déjà vu.
He seemed to have seen a similar scene before, not long ago.
Suddenly, a cry rang from behind, bringing Yang Xiao back to his senses. He saw patches of light emerging from the fog on the lake.
The lights layered intricately, revealing, soon, the faint outline of a village, though extremely blurry, like a mirage.
A flash of images crossed his mind, and Yang Xiao suddenly realized where the familiarity came from; it was the script box, and that village was on the cover of the script box!
But Yang Xiao hadn’t expected the village wasn’t in deep mountains but on a lake.
More precisely, it should be on an island at the center of the lake, it was a solitary island!
The next second, the sound of water clashing came from amidst the lake mist, approaching rapidly, soon revealing the outline of a boat.
At the moment they saw the boat clearly, Yang Xiao and the others felt like they had been drenched with ice water, chilled from head to toe; at the bow and stern stood bodies wrapped in white cloth like ferrymen, and along both sides, two rows of decayed bodies sat rigidly.
The bodies uniformly turned their heads, looking in unison, pairs of pallid eyes stared intently at those on the shore.
