Chapter 91

“May his soul ascend to the Lord’s kingdom,” Father Adrian said—a phrase that, in Kraft’s understanding, was no different from “take comfort,” something people blurted out when they didn’t know what else to say at a funeral, useless and improbable nonsense.

He gripped the double-winged circular pendant at his neck, pulled in his stomach to appear more formal, and added with a professional demeanor, “I’ve seen many suffer prolonged illness; for him, release is no misfortune. Even disregarding age, you’ve done more than enough—better than most I know—so you need not blame yourself.”

These words elicited no response; Yin Feng merely hummed softly, squeezed past the priest, and walked deeper into the alley.

The priest followed a few steps, clutching the apples, then stopped in frustration, watching her leave without a backward glance. Kraft heard his muttered whisper, “Oh, Father…”

Objectively speaking, it was indeed a good thing—for the deceased, and perhaps even better for his daughter.

His fingers pinched the holy symbol for a long while; some priest realized he ought to do something else to ease his conscience.

“Where was he buried? I can help say a prayer.”

Logically, a clergyman should always recite a eulogy at burial, guiding the soul toward the Father’s kingdom. Given Yin Feng’s situation, finding another priest at the church was clearly impossible.

“Not yet.”

“Good thing I’m no longer employed by the church—the rules about payment don’t bind me.” It was rare for a priest to be expelled from the church to be considered a good thing, though he might have just made that up; still, it seemed plausible.

Yin Feng seemed persuaded. Few in this port didn’t believe in religion; most had some spiritual anchor. The hope that loved ones lived on in another world was a vital part of the Church’s influence—often stronger than the hopes for the living.

After all, no matter how mature she seemed, she was still a child. The faintest possibility that her father might ascend to heaven was something she longed for.

Her pale lips pressed tight; the indent of her teeth took several seconds to flush with blood. She hesitated. Even before her father’s death, those frequent visitors—doctors or those claiming to summon spirits—had come and gone, all chasing some secret she still didn’t understand.

Now that he was dead, the secret had vanished with his soul—what could anyone possibly gain? Yet another question made her decision difficult.

“Not yet.”

She didn’t mean no one had prayed for him—she meant something further.

“Oh, Father.” Adrian tossed the bag to Kraft and broke into a run to catch up.

…

They pushed open the door and entered the windowless room. Against the corner stood a hard bed without sheets; a stiff figure lay upon the plank.

A smell like rotting mold filled the enclosed space, growing sharper with each step closer—reminding Kraft of his time in the Salt Tide District, but even more unbearable. It was a repulsion not merely physical, but psychological.

“Oh, Father.” The priest had repeated this phrase since entering; now he dared not approach.

“Someone needs to find a coffin. You must know someone who can get one.” Having overcome the physical discomfort, the psychological barrier held little weight for Kraft. He gave the paralyzed priest an excuse to leave and walked alone toward the bed.

After opening the door, Yin Feng had stood watching. Kraft glanced at her questioningly; she showed no clear refusal.

She might have been seeking a more dignified end—certainly not simply leaving him outside. But given the three-day delay, she had found no solution, lacked funds to resolve the problem, and had only closed the windows to slow decomposition.

Fortunately, the weather had not been hot; no active gas-producing bacteria had bloated the corpse, preserving its general form.

The smell… still unbearable. He couldn’t imagine how she had endured these three days. It surpassed even his first encounter with a metal cabinet filled with formaldehyde—the lingering stench of death.

The corpse was emaciated. The chronic illness had slowly, painfully drained him; muscles, unused, had atrophied and thinned, covered by rough, yellowed skin. His slender frame could no longer fill his clothes, which hung loosely, the collar gaping open to the sternum.

Contrary to the rest of his body, his fingers were thick—like oversized medicinal pestles at the ends of his withered palms, swelling beneath the nails. This was hypertrophy caused by chronic peripheral hypoxia.

[Coughing, wheezing]

Father Adrian had described the condition he witnessed during his visits to Yin Feng’s father—he must have suffered from a chronic respiratory disease, with oxygen supply chronically insufficient, leading to clubbed fingers.

The desperate suffocation forced him to gasp with all his strength, “like a bellows,” pulling his ribcage to expand his chest and draw in more air; his ribs flared outward into a barrel shape, while the negative pressure caused the skin between unsupported bones to sink inward, leaving grooves along the intercostal spaces and supraclavicular fossae.

These opposing movements shaped his upper body beneath the clothes into a skeletal outline, as if a dried hide had been draped over a skeleton—a walking corpse from legend.

His lips, open and cyanotic, revealed he had been struggling to breathe until death—even though the oxygen reaching his alveoli was insufficient to meet even the body’s minimal physiological needs.

A painful death. The deceased had been unable to voice his suffering; that fall may have damaged his brain’s language center, stripping him of the ability to speak.

“Oh, Father.” Kraft unconsciously echoed the priest. Any meaningful words seemed hollow before such suffering—only a sigh remained, a lament against the cruel fate imagined to govern human lives. He wished he had understood nothing at all.

The priest soon returned with men and a coffin. Together, they lifted the corpse from the bed into the coffin; a foul-smelling liquid stain marked the plank where he had lain—unusable from Kraft’s perspective.

Blocking the closing lid, Kraft gestured to Yin Feng. “Would you like to see him one last time?”

“Thank you,” she said to the strangers in the room, gripping the coffin’s edge as she stared at the withered face. Only now did grief and confusion—appropriate to her age—surface on her features, reminding all that she was merely a girl of thirteen or fourteen.

This gave the onlookers more patience, allowing ample time for silence to complete this farewell.

In the quiet, with nothing to do, Kraft’s thoughts drifted, unexpectedly turning to matters of age.

If Yin Feng was only thirteen or fourteen, then her father could not have been more than thirty—still a young, able-bodied laborer in an era with low average life expectancy, at the peak of physical vitality.

No tobacco was present, and Yin Feng showed no signs of having contracted a severe respiratory infection. Logically, his condition should not have progressed this far at his age—unless some external factor was involved.

What could it be?

The priest was already preparing the eulogy. Yin Feng stepped away from the coffin as the lid was being nailed shut. While no one was watching, Kraft briefly opened his spiritual senses and scanned the corpse’s thoracic cavity.

Countless round and irregular nodules filled the entire lung field, scattered like stars; where densest, they merged into large lesions.