[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-survival-guide-in-a-mysterious-world":3,"chapter-survival-guide-in-a-mysterious-world-survival-guide-in-a-mysterious-world-chapter-80":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","Survival Guide in a Mysterious World",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},2299049,4497,"Chapter 80: Will","survival-guide-in-a-mysterious-world-chapter-80",80,"\u003Cp>Beneath the stilt house was no place for people—usually used to pile clutter or trash, sometimes fenced off with bamboo barriers to raise pigs; in short, not somewhere anyone would live.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Placing an elder’s coffin beneath the stilt house was already grossly disrespectful, let alone that not a single paper money or symbolic wreath of pine or cypress surrounded it—just a bare coffin dumped beneath the house, utterly vulgar.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ning Zhe shed his owl feathers in the forest, transforming into a young man clad in a trench coat, face masked by an ogre’s visage, and walked to the open ground beneath the stilt house, crouching to tap lightly on the coffin’s side with his knuckles.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Thump. Thump.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A crisp, hollow sound, indicating the coffin lid was thin—likely less than two centimeters.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Traditional Chinese valued lavish burials; the poor could only wrap corpses in straw mats, while emperors used nine layers of coffins and nine layers of outer casings. Ji Bochang wasn’t a feudal emperor, but he wasn’t poor either—why such a shabby coffin?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ning Zhe pinched the coffin’s surface with his fingers; his nails pierced straight into the wood.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Paulownia?” Ning Zhe’s suspicion deepened.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Paulownia is a fast-growing wood; a sapling, well-tended, can mature in as little as five years. Lightweight and cheap, it’s commonly used for low-end furniture—functional and affordable, but never prestigious. Using it for a coffin was barely better than wrapping a corpse in straw.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ji Bochang was a moderately famous calligrapher and painter in Yunzhou, and suspected to be an Ascender. Even if his children were the most unfilial, they couldn’t have sunk so low.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Then Ning Zhe realized he might have been biased:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>【Ji Bochang’s funeral held at Chuyun Shanzhuang ≠ the coffin inside Chuyun Shanzhuang contains Ji Bochang】\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The inequality collapsed—this coffin might not be Ji Bochang’s at all. But if not his, then whose? Was there another dead person in the estate?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ning Zhe knew some terminally ill elders pre-bought their own coffins and stored them in separate storage rooms, but he’d never seen anyone just dump a coffin—such an ill-omened thing—randomly beneath their own house. At least build a shed?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“The sheep statue at the gate, the strange couplets before the stilt house, the coffin casually left beneath it…”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ning Zhe stood up from before the paulownia coffin painted with the character “Lu,” frowning slightly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Chuyun Shanzhuang was riddled with oddities; every flower and tree gave Ning Zhe an inexplicable sense of wrongness. Just minutes by car to the east lay the bustling metropolis of Yundu, home to nearly ten million, with other villas and estates dotting the hills and rivers nearby—yet Chuyun Shanzhuang stood out with an utterly alien aesthetic.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It felt as if the estate had never belonged to this world, but had been forcibly cut and pasted from somewhere else.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Like photoshopping a cat’s head onto an emperor’s armor—it was a sign something strange was about to happen.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“No wonder Ji Bochang’s children sent black invitations, asking Yu Ziqian, the Ascender, to attend the funeral…” Ning Zhe mused, turning to gaze at the vast marsh beyond.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As he turned, a stick-like object—perhaps a branch—suddenly fell from above, landing precisely where Ning Zhe had just stood, with a thud. Lucky for him—he’d have been struck in the head if he’d stayed a moment longer.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Huh?” Ning Zhe instinctively looked up. The second-floor window of the stilt house had opened; a slender silhouette leaned against the sill, her delicate profile illuminated by bright light.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Damn, Pan Jinlian.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ning Zhe bent to pick up the fallen object—it wasn’t a stick, but a large wolf-hair calligraphy brush.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“So she’s cosplaying Pan Jinlian.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ning Zhe exhaled in relief. The woman upstairs waved at him; he waved back, then carried the brush around the small hill to the upper floor, where she was already waiting by the gate.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The woman greeting him was a delicate girl, her eyes soft as water, her face painted with beauty, her slender frame exquisite—but somehow unreal, as if no cosmetic surgery could produce such perfection, as if she’d stepped straight from a painting.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ning Zhe’s ogre mask didn’t frighten her; she smiled politely and said softly, “So you’re Master Yeyao. The memorial service doesn’t begin until tomorrow—no one else has arrived yet. You’re early.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As she spoke, the rules of Taiyi subtly activated, and information flowed into Ning Zhe’s mind: this woman was Ji Bochang’s only daughter, born late in life, taking her mother’s surname Shi, named Shi Yurou.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Shi Yurou was an ordinary person, never involved in any strange events, unfamiliar with Yu Ziqian—she’d only seen his photo in Ji Bochang’s will.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ning Zhe pulled the invitation from his pocket and handed it to Shi Yurou along with the brush. “It’s all the same, really. And I don’t go by Ximen—don’t throw sticks at me.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Shi Yurou laughed softly. “Master Yeyao, you’re joking. Please, follow me upstairs.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Alright.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ning Zhe glanced at the couplets flanking the gate, then followed Shi Yurou inside.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The interior of the stilt house was antique and elegant. A massive root-carved tea table dominated the living room; all four walls were paneled in solid wood, hung with calligraphy scrolls of idioms in flowing brushwork. From décor to furniture to the rounded corners, everything was standard traditional Chinese style—typical of a wealthy Yunzhou family.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But as before, Ning Zhe saw no trace of funeral elements anywhere in the house.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Whose coffin is downstairs?” Ning Zhe asked.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“My father’s,” Shi Yurou replied honestly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>=9+book_bar\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>So it really is Ji Bochang’s…\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Then you’re truly disrespectful,” Ning Zhe murmured.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Your own father dies, and you bury him in a cheap, thin coffin made of paulownia, then dump him in a pigpen? This isn’t mere filial neglect—it’s how you treat an enemy.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But Shi Yurou shook her head. “All of this was my father’s own request.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“You mean he told you to dump his corpse in the pigsty?” Ning Zhe’s tone grew sharp.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Shi Yurou nodded, leading Ning Zhe upstairs into a study. From her, he learned the full situation within Chuyun Shanzhuang.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Before his death, Ji Bochang left a will instructing Shi Yurou and her brother Ji Yunying to follow these orders:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>1. Ji Bochang demanded his body be placed in a thin coffin beneath the stilt house, nothing else.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>2. He ordered them to leave every object and item in the house exactly as it was at the moment of his death—do not move anything.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>3. He gave the siblings a list, instructing them to send black invitations to those named to attend his funeral.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Yeyao” and his contact details were on the list—but the siblings knew nothing of these people’s true identities.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Also, last night, my brother and I were keeping vigil downstairs for Father.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Shi Yurou paused before the desk where her father used to write, turning to look at Ning Zhe’s ogre mask, and whispered, “Suddenly, we heard knocking from inside the coffin—like someone tapping on the wood… I remember clearly: three long knocks, two short. It happened once, then never again. I thought it was an illusion.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“But when we returned to the house after our vigil the next day and washed up, we found one copper coin missing from each of us.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Here, Shi Yurou’s expression turned grave. “Later, we checked again—and discovered our father’s body was gone from the coffin.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>(End of Chapter)\u003C\u002Fp>",1232,"2026-06-20T06:29:21.893Z",1,"Qwen3-Next 80B","8c6d449b1f95eb2ef41434e40f203f0ed1083bc2b18f24f2ec8d24c3d3334a16","survival-guide-in-a-mysterious-world-chapter-81","survival-guide-in-a-mysterious-world-chapter-79",353,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fsurvival-guide-in-a-mysterious-world-cover.jpg"]