novelraw Chapter 319: The Gatekeeper of the Funeral Parlor
Chapter 319: The Gatekeeper of the Funeral Parlor
Singapore’s Chinatown was the most crowded Chinese enclave in the entire Straits Settlements.
Narrow streets were packed with shops bearing Chinese signboards.
Coolies squatted at street corners eating curry rice, while rickshaw pullers ran barefoot across the bluestone roads.
This was the South Seas in 1889: chaotic, filthy, and teeming with life.
The three of them pushed through the bustling crowd.
Led by Julian, they turned into a secluded lane named Shuo’e Alley.
No hawkers shouted here, and even the sunlight seemed unable to reach into the narrow alley.
Both sides of the lane were lined with shops selling long-life services — coffin makers and burial garments.
Rows of crafted paper horses and paper people were placed at the doorways, swaying slightly in the corridor wind.
This was Chinatown’s “dead street.”It was the final stop for Chinese who had crossed the seas to make a living in the South Seas.
“Just up ahead.”
Julian lowered his voice and pointed to a gloomy building surrounded by high walls at the end of the alley.
It was a typical Lingnan-style mansion, black tiles and white walls, with a black plaque and gold characters hung above the gate.
“Guangfu Funeral Parlor.”
Two pale lanterns hung at the entrance, each stamped with the character for funeral rites.
The gate was slightly ajar, and the interior beyond was a black void, depth indiscernible.
“This is the funeral parlor,” Lin Jie said. “Many die far from home. Their families are too poor to buy graves, or they want to send the remains back to their hometowns. The bodies are temporarily stored here.”
“It feels cold.” Evelyn tightened her coat.
“Be careful.”
Lin Jie walked in front and pushed the heavy, black-lacquered wooden door.
Creak—
The hinge’s sound echoed through the silent courtyard.
The three stepped into the parlor courtyard; no one was around.
Several tall banyan trees blocked the sky, their roots tangled and gnarled.
Along both sides of the yard were two neat rows of long wooden racks, not holding coffins but populated by “people.”
Hundreds of finely made paper effigies stood there.
There were “golden boys” in Qing official robes, “jade maidens” with hair buns, “guards” brandishing weapons, and “compradors” fashioned in Western style.
These were not the rough, mass-produced figures seen everywhere.
Each paper figure’s frame was woven from premium bamboo splints, pasted with delicate xuan paper, and the clothing patterns were painted painstakingly with fine-brush work.
Most disturbing were their eyes—dots of reflective black paint.
As Lin Jie walked among them, he could distinctly feel those hundreds of dead, sunken eyes tracking him, turning as he moved.
“These are the rules here,” Julian whispered. “Paper people must not have their eyes painted. If you put in the pupils, you invite unclean things.”
“That paper tailor doesn’t seem to care about that,” Lin Jie said calmly.
He walked to the steps of the main hall; the main doors were wide open.
Inside stood a statue of Ksitigarbha (the Earth Store Bodhisattva) on the altar, and thick white wax candles the size of a child’s arm were burning on the incense table.
The flames flickered, casting faint, wavering shadows over the rows of black-lacquered coffins deeper in the hall.
“Is anyone here?”
Lin Jie asked. No answer came; only the rustling of paper as the effigies moved in the breeze.
“Let’s go in.”
He stepped up onto the platform, and the instant his right foot crossed the threshold, the situation changed.
Clatter!
A uniform scraping noise suddenly rang out.
The paper effigies on the racks at both sides began moving with no warning, as if invisible strings tugged them, altering their previous sliding directions.
Dozens of weapon-bearing paper guards slid to the main hall doorway, cutting off Lin Jie and the others’ retreat.
More paper figures glided from the shadows, forming a tight ring around them.
“Traps?” Evelyn exclaimed, instinctively raising her right hand, the copper plate in her palm depressed.
Sizzle—
Blue arcs of electricity danced along the coil on her glove.
“Don’t act.”
Lin Jie pressed on her shoulder.
“This is a probe.”
He watched the surrounding paper figures with calm eyes; though fragile, they exuded a grim, murderous intent.
These were not mere dead objects.
In Lin Jie’s perception, each paper figure contained a faint but tenacious spiritual essence.
It was the “spirit” gifted to objects by a master craftsman.
“Look at their feet,” Lin Jie whispered.
Evelyn and Julian followed his gaze.
Thin, transparent threads, no thicker than hair, connected at the effigies’ ankles.
Those threads extended into the main hall’s floor cracks or connected up into the beams.
This was a massive marionette array.
Click.
One of the nearest paper figures suddenly raised its arm.
Its “big blade,” though paper-paste, now glinted with a metallic coldness.
If Evelyn had recklessly discharged electricity earlier, these paper figures would most likely have attacked and shredded the intruders.
“Qimen Dunjia,” Julian pushed his glasses up, sweat beading on his forehead.
“They are arranged by Bagua directions. This is an old Qing defensive formation.”
“If we stepped wrong or tripped the alarm line, hundreds of bamboo blades would fall at once.”
“Is there a solution?” Evelyn asked.
“I’ve read about it.” Julian forced a smile. “But these things change too much. Give me half an hour and I might not even figure it out.”
“It’s not that complicated.”
Lin Jie released his hold on Evelyn.
He raised his left arm slightly, and with his right forefinger, quickly toggled something hidden under his sleeve on the Cursebreaker Vambrace.
With the faint clicks of miniature gears engaging, the mode switched—Spiritual Sonar.
If it’s a mechanism, it must be driven by spirit. If the eyes are meant to mislead the naked eye, then use a more essential way to observe.
A perception-only spiritual pulse radiated outward from Lin Jie.
No matter how convincingly the paper figures masqueraded as lifeless objects, the spiritual cores that sustained them lit up like candle flames in night under the sonar’s feedback.
In his mind’s visualization, the chaotic paper array deconstructed into a three-dimensional network of countless luminous points.
Each bright point represented a deadly trigger node, and the faint lines between them were fuses that would topple everything if pulled.
Within that dense “minefield” there was a winding, completely silent “dark path.”
It was a route reserved for those who knew the rules.
“Stick close to me.”
Lin Jie said.
“Don’t touch anything; avoid the red tiles.”
He stepped diagonally left and slipped sideways through the narrow gap between two paper figures.
The two spear-bearing effigies did not move.
Julian and Evelyn exchanged a look and hurriedly followed, carefully planting every step in Lin Jie’s footprints.
This was a dance on the edge of blades.
Lin Jie did not move with ease.
This was not merely physical evasion but a mental contest with the array’s designer.
With each step the surrounding paper figures shifted, and the invisible pressure crashed over them like successive tides.
“Turn left.”
Lin Jie suddenly halted.
Directly blocking his path was a paper bride in a vivid red wedding gown.
The paper bride was crafted with striking sensuality; her chalk-white face was heavily rouged, and she held a red handkerchief.
Lin Jie could tell this effigy was the most dangerous node in the entire formation.
That handkerchief likely concealed poison or a triggering explosive device.
He did not force his way through. He pivoted left, circled behind a pillar in the main hall, and then performed a curious action.
He tapped the pillar lightly three times.
Dong, dong, dong.
It was a signal.
At those three knocks, the paper bride slid back one meter, revealing a passage.
“That was the array’s eye?” Julian asked, astonished.
“That was the ‘doorbell,’” Lin Jie corrected.
He continued forward, passing beside the paper bride, feeling the sensation of being stared at by hundreds of eyes intensify.
Finally they reached the deepest part of the main hall, only a few steps from the ancestral tablet altar.
Beside the altar sat a grand official’s chair, but it was empty.
Lin Jie stopped and turned toward an unremarkable corner on the hall’s left side.
There were piles of unassembled paper effigy frames and buckets of paste—messy and unprepossessing.
But the Cursebreaker Vambrace’s feedback indicated that all the parlor’s “lines” converged there; that was the true control core.
“Junior Lin Jie, I pay my respects with friends present.”
Lin Jie cupped his fists and bowed in a standard martial courtesy toward that shadowed corner.
“Forgive the disturbance to your quiet cultivation if I do not know the rules.”
His voice was calm and respectful.
There was neither the pride of having overcome a trial nor the groveling of one before a master.
Silence lingered; nothing stirred in the corner.
Just when Evelyn wondered if Lin Jie had been mistaken, a wisp of blue smoke drifted from the shadow.
It smelled sharply of dried tobacco, and then a coughing sound came.
Cough, cough…
A figure slowly emerged from the darkness.
A woman, or rather a middle-aged beauty retaining some of her youthful curves.
She wore a black silk cheongsam of old-fashioned cut, nonetheless fitting her plump figure perfectly.
Her hair was coiled into a bun, pinned with a jade hairpin.
Her face bore few wrinkles; the skin was unhealthily pale, as if she rarely saw sunlight.
But her eyes—
Those narrow, upturned phoenix eyes were as sharp as newly honed scissors.
In one hand she held a long opium pipe, and embers glowed in the bowl.
In the other hand she pinched a pair of scissors—large, sharp, made of black iron, coldly gleaming.
Su Sanniang.
The gatekeeper of Chinatown’s funeral parlor—the legendary Paper Tailor of the South Seas’ Hongmen tales—and the puppeteer controlling these dozens of murderous paper dolls.
“Young man, good eyesight.”
Su Sanniang inhaled, exhaled a perfect ring of smoke, and spoke with a thick Cantonese accent.
“You can see through my thousand-device array and haven’t damaged my toys. You’ve got some skill.”
Her phoenix eyes swept Lin Jie, an appraisal not unlike a tailor inspecting fabric.
“A lackey of Western devils?” She sneered toward Julian and Evelyn, disdain in her look.
“A friend,” Lin Jie corrected.
“A friend?” Su Sanniang sneered. “Those who make friends with foreigners in this part of town usually end up sold to the goldfields.”
She sat in the official chair, crossing one leg over the other, her embroidered shoes swinging lightly.
“Speak. Who sent you?”
“If you’re just buying a coffin, go out the left door and find my men.”
“If you’re here to cause trouble…”
Her scissors snapped shut with a crisp click.
“Then I’ll see if my scissors agree.”
At the sound, the surrounding paper figures emitted a chorus of scraping noises.
Evelyn’s face paled; she had never seen such a spectacle.
This oppressive force was more suffocating than any monster.
Lin Jie, however, maintained his composure and was not cowed by Su Sanniang’s presence.
He drew a black envelope from his pocket, sealed with red wax and stamped with a scissors emblem.
“Mr. Morgan sent me to bring you this.”
At the name Morgan, Su Sanniang’s casual expression froze.
She narrowed her eyes at the envelope, and after a long moment reached for it.
She rubbed the wax seal with her finger, her expression growing complicated.
“That old raven…”
Su Sanniang muttered a curse.
“Twenty years, and he still remembers the debt.”
She set the envelope on the table and looked up at Lin Jie.
This time her gaze lost some hostility and shifted into scrutiny.
“If you’re his, then you know the rules.”
She knocked the pipe bowl against her palm.
“I do owe him a life, that’s true.”
“But that doesn’t mean I’ll die for one of his juniors.”
Lin Jie nodded.
“I understand. Do you know where we need to go?”
“Borneo.” Su Sanniang snorted. “Besides that cursed place, what else in the South Seas would make that old raven call in a favor?”
She rose and walked toward Lin Jie; the mixed scent of tobacco and paper washed over him.
“Do you know what that place is?”
“It’s the Heart of the World, and it’s the Gate of Hell.”
“There are things there ten thousand times worse than my paper dolls.”
“There are man-eating flowers, ship-swallowing serpents, and lunatics even I won’t touch.”
She fixed Lin Jie with a stare.
“If you want me to help, fine. Favors are favors; business is business.”
“I, Su Sanniang, may not be a good person, but I’m not willing to watch my craft be wasted by a bunch of incompetents.”
“If you want me to come out of retirement or offer assistance, there’s one thing you must prove.”
Lin Jie met her gaze.
“Prove what?”
Su Sanniang grinned, revealing teeth stained yellow from tobacco. Her smile carried the ruthless edge of someone from the martial world.
“Prove you… aren’t so easy to kill.”
…
Half an hour later.
In the funeral parlor’s side chamber.
Su Sanniang poured tea for the three.
It was not fine tea—just the cheapest Pu-erh, brewed strong and black as ink.
“In the past half month the docks have had strange incidents.”
She smoked lazily as she spoke.
“A few of my men vanished while carrying loads at night. No one saw them alive or dead.”
“All that was left at the scenes was a pool of… black oil.”
“Black oil?” Lin Jie frowned.
“Smelly and sticky, like petroleum but with a corpse stench.” Su Sanniang exhaled a smoke ring.
“The police buffoons say it’s an accidental fall into the sea or gang fights.”
“But I know better. That’s ‘flying descent’.”
Julian’s face changed.
“You mean…jiangshi sorcery?”
“That’s right.” Su Sanniang nodded. “And the nastiest kind.”
“Someone’s practicing dark magic, rendering oil from living people. That black oil is corpse oil.”
She looked at Lin Jie.
“It’s getting bolder. Last night it even came to my funeral parlor’s gate.”
“It tried to steal my ‘goods.’”
She pointed to the coffins outside.
“My paper figures can block it, but they can’t catch it. That thing is slippery and ungraspable, impervious to blades and spears.”
Su Sanniang produced a scrap of paper from her sleeve; an address was written on it.
“It will come out to hunt again tonight.”
“Based on my intel, its next target is Warehouse No. 4, the rubber storehouse at Tanjong Pagar Dock.”
She slapped the paper onto the table.
“This is your test. Before dawn I want to see its skin.”
“If you can finish it, I’ll admit you’re qualified to go to Borneo.”
“If you can’t…”
Su Sanniang snorted coldly.
“Then pick out a coffin for yourself here in the parlor.”
“At least I’ll have fulfilled a host’s duty—given that old raven an answer.”
Lin Jie glanced at the address, then tucked the paper into his chest.
“Deal.”
He stood, straightened his collar.
“Time to work.”
He told Julian and Evelyn, and the three turned to leave.
“Wait.”
Just as they were about to step across the threshold, Su Sanniang called after them.
“Young man.”
Lin Jie paused and looked back.
She still sat in the official chair, smoke curling around her face.
“Remember, don’t let it touch your skin. Or you’ll regret being born into this world.”
Lin Jie nodded.
“Thanks for the warning.”
He pushed the door open and stepped back into the noon sunlight.