Chapter 49 Corpse Herding Drawing

Fatty smelled it, too. We hadn’t eaten for a long time, so the smell was enough to make our stomach muscles contract. When he looked at me, I handed him Shigong’s mole.

Fatty took it and sniffed it. At this time, the mole no longer looked as disgusting as it did before. Fatty was looking at me as he sniffed it hard, almost like he would eat it when I wasn’t paying attention.

“What are you playing at?” I asked him. “Eat it if you want to. I won’t stop you.”

“It smells like you.”

“Shit, don’t be so disgusting.” I felt a little creeped out. Fatty’s degree of disgusting behavior had really plummeted in recent years. Since we were so familiar with each other, it would just make things awkward if we got all mushy with each other.

“No, it’s definitely your scent,” Fatty said. I reached over to take the mole back, but he wouldn’t let me, “You certainly wouldn’t notice it, but we outsiders can definitely smell it. Of course, the smell coming from this mole is very strong—actually, it’s much stronger than the smell coming from your body.”

I thought he was joking, but then I wasn’t sure if he actually was. Fatty threw the Shigong’s mole to Poker-Face, who sniffed it and then looked at me.

They looked so sure of themselves that it almost seemed as if I was the carrier of some strange body odor.

“Do you know Xiang Fei?” Fatty made an Er Kang expression.⁽¹⁾

“First it was about dancing girls and now you’re talking about Xiang Fei,”⁽²⁾ I said. “What are you up to? You want to see me dance? I’ll dance for you when we get out of here.”

“This Shigong’s mole is covered in your scent and it’s even stronger than your own,” Fatty said. “You cook less than I do so you probably don’t know what it means.”

At this time, I was sure that Fatty was being serious, so I took the mole and smelled it myself. I only felt hungry.

“You put this mole in your bag and it’s been absorbing your scent,” Fatty said. “This is a way to make spices. In other words, you take a big pot of flowers or herbs, boil them in water, and then put a hollow stone inside. By the time it’s done boiling, the scent will be absorbed into the stone. Then you can use this stone to cook a flavorful soup.”

“But I usually only smell sweat on my body,” I argued. “I’ve never felt like I’ve smelled fragrant.”

“This kind of stone can only absorb fine molecules, so the sweaty odor was probably filtered out, leaving your original scent.” Fatty took the mole again, smelled it, and added, “This smells like meat.” He suddenly took a deep breath and said to Poker-Face, “Little Brother, you’re experienced and knowledgeable. In ancient times, people used to eat human flesh, right? Was the flesh divided into different grades since the taste differs from person to person?”

Poker-Face looked at me and nodded.

I shuddered at the look in his eyes as Fatty continued talking, “I heard a friend say that eating people is different from eating animals. Animals eat grass, so if you eat a bunch of them, the taste won’t be all that different. But people eat a mixed variety of things, so each person tastes very different. That’s why you need a professional who can smell and figure out who will be delicious and who will be unpalatable before you eat them. If they’re not delicious, they’ll be killed, air-dried, and then used as firewood. I think this Shigong’s mole is used for this purpose.” He smelled the mole again and said, “Mr. Naïve, you should be grade A5.”⁽³⁾

I rolled my eyes at Fatty, but in my heart, I was already convinced. At this Corpse Country banquet, it was apparently normal to eat human flesh. The ancients were definitely crazy, after all.

When I thought of the amazing sight of underground corpse herding and the Shigong’s moles in Old Bing and his team’s stomachs, I realized that this really did have something to do with meat. Ah, Old Bing and his team stuffed their stomachs with spices and then buried themselves in the ground. Isn’t this called beggar’s chicken? Damn, I probably ruined the dish by digging the corpses out.

“Then why didn’t it smell before?” I asked Fatty. “Why did it suddenly start to smell when I arrived in the underground palace?”

“When we were on the road before, the wind was blowing. And when you were sleeping, the bag was far away from you. But after spending so long in that narrow grave robbers’ tunnel and sweating a lot, the smell became stronger,” Fatty said. “But don’t panic, Fat Master will keep it close and cover it for a while. Maybe my scent is better than yours. Let’s conduct an experiment.”

I sighed but didn’t say anything else. I was still hungry, so I took out the hardtack in my bag and threw some to Fatty and Poker-Face. After eating them quickly, my hunger had somewhat abated a little bit. It’s really shameful to be feeling hungry after smelling my own body odor, I thought to myself.

As we continued moving forward, I kept shining my flashlight all around. I didn’t know why, but those figurines had me feeling very stressed out. I felt like I was a delicious piece of food walking in the midst of gluttony and they were all turning their faces towards me.

But it had to be an illusion because I couldn’t actually see them clearly.

We soon arrived at the mural on this side, which was more complete than the previous one.

Fatty looked at the picture, glanced at me, and then said to me, “So this is what herding corpses is.” I looked up and saw that the entire mural was a huge picture depicting corpse herding. Both horse and human corpses were all lumped together like a flock of sheep, which seemed to indicate that there was some kind of religious significance to it.

<Chapter 48><Table of Contents><Chapter 50>

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TN Notes:

(1) He’s a character from “My Fair Princess”. This is probably the face Fatty is making:

(2) Xiang Fei was a concubine in the Qing Dynasty, who was said to have an extraordinary fragrance because she had been brought up in flower petals and other spices since she was a child. The Chinese characters for “Xiang Fei” mean “Fragrant Concubine”.

(3) If you can’t tell, that’s like top grade meat. Wu Xie’s a handsome hunk of beefcake hehehehehe

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This might be it today and there might not be anything tomorrow. My friend is coming into town and I haven’t seen her in like a year and a half so we’re gonna live it up (≧◡≦) Til next time darlings~~~