SES Chapter 62 Part 1

Chapter 62

What just happened? Why was it supposed to be her uncle’s body being cremated, but a strange woman appeared instead?

The CCTV feed was live—did that mean that right now, this very moment, a woman was being burned alive?

Yan Hongsha felt like her blood had suddenly reached a boil, as if the flames were scorching her from the inside out. She burst out of the surveillance room and sprinted toward the cremation chamber, shouting at the top of her lungs, “There’s someone in there—there’s someone inside!”

The crematorium worker was still standing outside the furnace. Yan Hongsha ran up, stumbling over her words: “There’s… that… someone…”

But mid-sentence, she suddenly realized something was wrong.

She looked down.

The back of the cremator’s pants, right where the tailbone should be, was oddly puffed up—like something was moving. Like…

Like a tail.

Then, slowly, he reached out a gloved hand to lift the furnace curtain. First, his neck came into view—covered in fur. Then his mouth…

Yan Hongsha screamed. That scream finally snapped her awake.

In her dream, the man had a dog’s head.

Cao Yanhua broke out in a cold sweat from the nightmare—he had originally wanted to comfort her, but now he was spooked himself.

Luo Ren looked down at the drawing in his hands. Sure enough, it was only half finished. It showed a house engulfed in flames, with a woman’s pained and twisted face emerging from the fire. In the lower right corner, a few strokes suggested something squatting there.

He handed the sketchbook back to Yiwansan.

Luo Ren had a feeling: the dream Yan Hongsha had and the picture Yiwansan drew were depicting the same scene. The picture was straightforward, while the dream was chaotic—distorted by Yan Hongsha’s own thoughts and emotions, making the whole vision more complex.

When Yan Hongsha learned that her dream and Yiwansan’s drawing might depict the same scene, she was stunned. “How come I could see it too? I thought only you guys could see these things?”

Mu Dai said, “Even if it was a dream, you saw it through the fire.”

That sparked a thought—five people, five elements: wood, metal, water, fire, and earth. Each with their nature… It felt symbolic somehow.

Luo Ren said nothing. Yiwansan was troubled by the same thought, frowning deeply. Meanwhile, Cao Yanhua had rushed to his bedroll, dumping out a plastic bag filled with sandy soil and staring at it intently.

He felt an irrational sense of urgency—if even the newcomer Yan Hongsha was seeing things now, and he, an old hand, still hadn’t seen anything—this was just…

Unacceptable!

The next morning, everyone passed around Yiwansan’s latest drawing. He had redone it based on the earlier vision, adjusting the proportions, distance, and detail. With some refinement, the scene was now clear at a glance.

It showed a courtyard—rooms consumed by fire. A woman’s face appeared in the flames, twisted in pain and hatred.

In the lower right corner was a lush cluster of banana leaves. Beside them crouched a dog.

Or maybe a wolf—sometimes it was hard to tell.

The animal was seen from behind, so its expression wasn’t visible. But something about it made everyone’s skin crawl. It sat so still, so composed, as if it were calmly enjoying the sight of the woman being burned alive.

Yan Hongsha trembled and said, “That can’t be a pet dog, right? If I had a dog like that at home, I’d rather beat it to death.”

She’d read too many stories about loyal dogs saving their owners. The idea that a house pet would just sit and watch while its owner died in agony—it went against all natural laws.

Then she suddenly had a thought. “Luo Ren, what if the dream was a premonition? I was planning to have my uncle cremated nearby—could it be something’s going to happen at the crematorium?”

Luo Ren shook his head and pointed at the drawing.

“Look at her clothes—see the right-over-left lapel? That style’s at least from the Republic era, maybe earlier. And here…”

He pointed to an arched doorway in the flames: “If you reconstruct this arch, it looks like one of those side gates in traditional gardens. And banana trees in a courtyard? That’s not modern architecture.”

He paused. “Conservatively, I’d say it’s from eighty to a hundred years ago.”

That long ago? Then how could they even begin to investigate?

Mu Dai asked Yiwansan, “Only one vision this time? Last time, there were two, right?”

Previously, Yiwansan had drawn two images and kept one hidden—though everyone eventually received the message individually.

But this time, Yiwansan was quick to clarify that he’d only seen and drawn one vision from the water this time.

Luo Ren said nothing, but his gaze lingered on the creature in the corner of the sketch. He remembered a similar animal in the water vision they saw at Xiaoshang River.

Back then, Fatty Cao had interpreted the imagery symbolically—saying the dog-like creature represented an evil force.

Sure enough, Cao Yanhua now blurted out, “I think that dog isn’t a dog—it’s a metaphor! Didn’t Hongsha see a guy with a dog’s head in her dream? It means that thing is a beast in human clothing—a heartless monster!”

“Did you see that woman’s eyes? So full of hate. I bet it was that beast that set the fire. Wait—I’ve got it!”

His eyes lit up with excitement: “These two images must go together. Remember the first drawing? The dog was squatting near the cursed scroll. It must have been possessed by it—just like how that old shellfish spirit got possessed and started killing people!”

Twisted logic—but somehow it made a disturbing kind of sense.

There didn’t seem to be any new leads for now. Luo Ren rolled up the sketch and paused. “I’d like to discuss something with you all.”

He brought up the shaman’s theory about drawing out the scroll’s spirit by injecting it with blood.

No one objected. After all, it was just a little blood—not like it’d kill them. Cao Yanhua even rolled up his sleeves, slapping at his veins like he was checking where to insert the needle.

Luo Ren said, “Well, our work at Wuzhu Village is done. If you’ve got nothing else here, let’s head back.”

There was a brief silence.