Chapter 4 The Last Car

“Sir.” Lieutenant was in front and pointed to the door leading to the next car. It was covered in cobwebs, and when they were removed, they could see a few strange words painted on the door. “It’s in Japanese.”

“Can you understand it?”

“Hook turn… hook point…” Lieutenant looked at the Japanese characters on the door. “Hook…hook something.”

“If you don’t understand, just say it.” Zhang Qishan scolded him. Lieutenant was embarrassed and pressed the brim of his hat down as he bowed his head. He then pulled out his pistol, loaded it, and went to open the door, only to find that it had been welded shut.

At that time, trains were connected to each other by huge iron brackets, so in order to get from one car to the next, it was necessary to cross an open area. The movie “Railway Guerrillas” (1) described the structure of trains very clearly, but in order to prevent the Japanese armored trains from being blown up, these parts were also wrapped in iron. Even the areas under the cars’ connecting cables had armor under them.

The three of them had to go back the same way they came. Qi Tiezui felt a chill when he got off the train, but seemed to be very hot. Just as he wiped the cold sweat from his head and breathed a sigh of relief, the iron sheet on the next car was cut off. This time, the iron sheet tipped over into the car and fell down with a muffled bang. Fo Ye went to check it out without any hesitation, while Qi Tiezui muttered darkly to himself but followed him anyways.

A big hole in the next car had been opened, and it was also dark inside. Zhang Qishan also pulled out his pistol and slowly walked forward with the lantern in his hand. Qi Tiezui swallowed and said, “Fo Ye, you have so many men. Why do you want to be the vanguard yourself? Let’s go for tea instead.”

“Now that a war is approaching, the city is full of Japanese spies. Morale is the most important, so the less people in the army that know about this strange and unknown thing, the better.” Zhang Qishan said softly.

Qi Tiezui immediately realized Zhang Qishan’s concern. If rumors started spreading about a ghost car full of coffins coming to Changsha, who knew what kinds of stories would be made up. If this situation had occurred in normal times, it really wouldn’t need to be handled with so much excitement. But now it was the eve of a great war, and there was no such thing as a trivial matter right before a war.

The three of them filed into the next car and found that it was also full of coffins and cobwebs, but the numbers on the coffins were getting lower and lower. As Zhang Qishan continued to look at them very carefully, his expression became more and more gloomy. They made their way through the rest of their inspection, but it wasn’t until the iron sheet was cut from the second to last car that everyone covered their mouths.

There was a strange smell in the car.

After climbing up, they could see that the car was covered in cobwebs so thick, they blocked the passageway. There were also double-decker beds on both sides of the car, and something was lying on each of the upper and lower bunks, completely wrapped in cobwebs.

“Why was this spider so fierce?” Lieutenant wondered softly.

Qi Tiezui saw clothes hanging from the bedframes, along with many daily necessities, cups, and chopsticks that were all covered in cobwebs. Zhang Qishan used his pistol to peel off the cotton-like thread and gradually approached the nearest bed. He held the lantern aloft so that it illuminated the bed and found that the outline looked like a person lying down.

The man was curled in on himself and motionless, and Zhang Qishan knew at a glance that he was dead. He handed the lantern to Lieutenant and drew his saber. It was clear the saber was too light for him, as if it weighed as much as a reed. He stabbed the corpse on the bed and peeled the cobwebs off its face. Even though the man was lying on his stomach, his distorted face was exposed, and Qi Tiezui could see that his mouth was wide open and his chin was resting on the pillow.

Qi Tiezui took a step back. He wasn’t afraid of the corpse, but the corpse’s “face”—if you could call it a face—was full of small holes like barnacles.

“Fo Ye. Is it rotting or still dry?”

“Something bore into it.” Zhang Qishan said thoughtfully. Then he turned to Lieutenant and said, “Get someone to prepare a white cloth bag and a gas mask. The body has to be sealed and all these things have to be burned. It will be bad if it’s an infectious disease.”

Lieutenant nodded and walked back to tell the others outside. Qi Tiezui looked at Zhang Qishan anxiously: “Fo Ye, don’t we need to wear gas masks too?”

Zhang Qishan looked at him and squeezed out a smile: “No, you and I are used to corpse poison. It’s a small risk.” With that said, he took Zhang Qishan’s hand and walked forward.

Qi Tiezui smiled wryly and said to himself, you’re so carefree. You’re used to it, but I’m not. Since I was a child, I’ve been the only heir of my family. Just as he thought that, Zhang Qishan pulled him along and quickly checked the twelve remaining beds in the car. All of them had bodies in the same condition as the first corpse. What puzzled Qi Tiezui the most was that all these corpses were lying on their stomachs and their hands were tucked into their chests, as if something was on their backs, pressing them down onto the bed.

Not only was it not normal to sleep like this, but all twelve bodies were in the same position. There had to be a special reason. Was it possible someone placed them like this? The fear in his heart had gradually been replaced by curiosity, and he thought, did a master do this? Is it a feng shui setting? But why would he put the bodies like this?

Zhang Qishan pondered over it for a moment, and then used his saber to pick the cobweb off a nearby corpse’s foot. He could see that the corpse’s big toe was bent, which was common for those who wore clogs. This indicated that the person had worn clogs for a long time.

One of the most well-known ways to distinguish Japanese spies in this era was to look at their feet. Before Lugou Bridge, Japanese agents infiltrated a large number of Chinese introspection activities and collected intelligence. Some of them had been lurking for decades, and their dialect and behaviors were exactly the same as those of Chinese people, which made it difficult to distinguish them without these characteristics.

After leaving the train car, Zhang Qishan gave a few instructions to another lieutenant surnamed Wang, who immediately turned and left to report the information to headquarters. Zhang Qishan didn’t say another word and merely turned to move on. At this time, however, a contemplative Qi Tiezui suddenly realized something and stopped in front of him.

“Fo Ye, look at this last car. What’s the difference between it and the previous ones?”

<Chapter 3> <Table of Contents><Chapter 5> 

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TN Notes:

(1) 2006 Anti-Japanese movie about coal miners and railway workers becoming guerilla fighters under the Communist Party’s lead to fight against the Japanese along the Lin-Zao railway line in Shandong province during the Anti-Japanese War. As you can imagine, they attempted to damage the Japanese’s transportation and hamper their troops.

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Sorry dears, only 1 tonight. Had to go to the grocery after work and I’m sure you can imagine how that went lol. Tiffany’s extra:

• Wu Xie’s Private Notes: Chapter 29 The Book of the Ruler of Dead Soldiers