Chapter 062: Made from Human Bodies!

It was only then that I realized this Kuman Thong was different from the others—the eyes were not the same. This Kuman Thong was made of wood, with painted clothes and face, but where the eyes should have been, two human eye-sized holes had been gouged out, and within those holes, a pair of human eyeballs had been stuffed.

When I picked up the Kuman Thong, Wang Yazhuo took several frightened steps back, and even Luo Feng’s two subordinates recoiled in shock. After the initial fright, they began vomiting again, for the eyeballs embedded in the Kuman Thong were already decaying—only the vague outlines of whites and pupils remained, and the red-and-yellow pus oozing from them nearly touched my hand.

I paused in astonishment. Regaining my composure, I examined the eyeballs closely. Judging by their condition, they had been separated from a human body for at least a week; otherwise, in such cold weather, they wouldn’t have rotted so thoroughly. I shook the Kuman Thong a few times—the eyeballs didn’t fall out, indicating that they had been glued in place with something like all-purpose adhesive.

The eyeballs had shriveled so badly that I couldn’t tell if they belonged to a man or a woman. Shining my flashlight on them, I caught a whiff of formalin—a chemical used to preserve corpses and organs. Clearly, someone had tried to slow the decay, but ultimately failed.

The black pupils reflected the flashlight’s beam. Luo Feng’s men dared not come closer, shivering as they gazed at the glint in those eyes. They asked me, trembling, what was going on. Indeed, with those decaying eyeballs set in its face and the faintly twisted curve at its lips, the Kuman Thong looked even eerier—almost alive, grinning at me.

“These eyes might belong to the missing Taoist,” I told them.

Based on the time since removal, my estimation matched the timeline of the Taoist’s disappearance. Since he’d once been here, I drew my conclusion. Wang Yazhuo asked what we should do next. After some thought, I said we had to call the police—a dead body couldn’t be concealed, nor could our investigation. If we didn’t report this, and were later implicated, it would be even harder to explain.

Yet, instead of calling the police directly, I phoned Chen Fan.

Chen Fan had already fallen asleep, but when he heard the news, he promised to come as soon as possible. After I hung up, we waited a while. More of Luo Feng’s men, and people summoned by Wang Yazhuo, soon arrived. The once-empty mansion now bustled with over twenty people, and the earlier terror had subsided.

With flashlights in hand, we searched every corner of the supposedly haunted house. Soon, more and more people reported finding Kuman Thong dolls in cupboards and cabinets. Because I’d warned them in advance, no one touched the dolls—better to leave no fingerprints before the police arrived.

However, the bloodied Kuman Thong that Xiaomei and I had knocked out of the cabinet was nowhere to be found. We searched the entire house, but it had vanished. We even scoured the forest outside, but found nothing suspicious.

We returned to the spot where Luo Feng had been injured. The subordinate who’d taken him to the hospital sent word that Luo Feng was now in the emergency room. Luckily, thanks to timely first aid and the wound missing any vital organs, his life was no longer in danger. I finally relaxed.

Just then, the little ghost tugged at my hand, saying she sensed someone else in the pile of Kuman Thong dolls. Wang Yazhuo pulled the girl aside, asking who she was and why she always noticed things no one else could. Shaken as she was, Wang Yazhuo’s nerves were fraying.

Her constant questions irritated me, so I coldly told her to be quiet. She stared at me in shock, not expecting I’d speak to her like that in front of her own people. Predictably, one of her subordinates stepped forward, pointing at me, but before he could speak, I seized his finger and bent it back sharply.

He yelped in pain, pleading for mercy. When I released him, more people looked ready to rush me, but Wang Yazhuo intervened with a shout, glancing at me with a complex expression before ordering everyone to stand down. Ignoring them, I pulled leather gloves from my coat pocket and began carefully sorting through the pile of Kuman Thong dolls.

Only then did I realize there were even more than I’d imagined. One by one, I searched through them, and soon I found another abnormal doll. Its eyes were normal, but its tongue was not—the tongue was not carved or painted, but glued on. And it was a human tongue.

The tongue was shriveled, not as badly decomposed as the eyeballs, but the swollen, discolored flesh was enough to make anyone nauseous.

A chorus of screams rose from those around me. I set the Kuman Thong aside and continued searching. It felt as though this horror was only beginning, and something more terrifying awaited. Swallowing my disgust, I pressed on, and sure enough, I soon found several more unusual dolls.

Each one had a different human organ attached—a rotting, pus-oozing ear, a pair of human lips, and the last one had a patch of human skin stretched across its surface. The reactions of those around me grew more intense; glancing at the little ghost and Wang Yazhuo, I saw that the girl, used to raw meat since childhood, was unfazed, but Wang Yazhuo was so horrified she could not utter a word.

The deeper I dug, the stronger the stench became—a rank odor of death. Working quickly, I uncovered the entire pile, and my gloved hand brushed against something shaped like a human head. When it came into view, nearly everyone staggered back.

The flashlight beams wavered. I could not command the Wang family’s men, but Luo Feng’s subordinates obeyed me as if I were Luo Feng himself. At my glare, they nervously stepped closer, and the beams once more illuminated the mound of dolls.

At last, I saw it—a human head. The flesh was already a mangled mess, and the reek of decomposition in the frigid winter air was suffocating. Normally, a corpse would keep for some time in the cold, unless it had open wounds—which would speed up decay.

This head’s face had been flayed. What remained was a mask of coagulated blood, stiffened muscle tissue, the skin long since removed. Exposed to the air, the muscles had already begun to blacken and turn green. The eyes had been gouged out, the tongue cut away, the ears severed, and even the lips had been hacked off, leaving a few teeth bared to the air. On the cheeks, fragments of white bone were faintly visible.

Now, those around me could bear it no longer. Their fear turned to revulsion, and many vomited on the spot. Overcome by the stench, I nearly lost control myself. Standing up, I grabbed the corpse by the shoulders and dragged it from the pile.

Apart from the mutilated head, the rest of the body appeared uninjured, still clothed in the robes of a Taoist priest.

I could now be almost certain: this was the missing Taoist, and all the skin and organs removed from his face had been affixed to those Kuman Thong dolls…