Chapter 25: Nine Orifice Jade
Chapter 25: Nine Orifice Jade
The old man took a couple of puffs from his tobacco pipe and laughed. “Girls nowadays are precious. If she really wants to marry a ghost husband, this old woman can introduce her to a handsome young fellow.”
The old woman also said, “She’s quite pretty. Plenty of young men are thinking about her.”
Pei Ye found it amusing and asked them,
“Is it hard to find a partner in the underworld?”
“Ah, lots of people can’t find partners. Last time I played matchmaker, a girl in her sixties wanted to find a husband. As soon as the marriage advertisement went out, more than six hundred bachelors were lining up.”
The old woman answered the question reflexively. When she realized who she was talking to, she was so startled that her eyeballs fell out and rolled across the floor twice.
The old man skillfully crouched down to pick them up for her, muttering,
“Look at you. You’re already an old woman over a hundred years old, and you still get startled so easily. Your eyeballs fell out again, didn’t they?”
Pei Ye: “...”
Mei Lixiang was still arguing with Zhou Huirong. The former shoved the latter, causing her to stagger backward.
Pei Ye raised a hand and steadied her.
Zhou Huirong’s expression eased somewhat. “Thank you.”
Pei Ye lowered her head and looked at the old man still feeling around on the floor, as well as the two eyeballs near Zhou Huirong’s heels.
She casually remarked, “No need to thank me. I was afraid you’d step on that old woman’s eyeballs.”
As soon as Zhou Huirong heard that, her face instantly turned pale.
The old man finally found the pair of eyeballs and skillfully stuffed them back into the old woman’s eye sockets.
The old woman touched her eyes and complained, “They’re crooked.”
The old man stuck his fingers into her eye sockets and adjusted their position.
Pei Ye, who watched the entire scene: “...”
Even though she had seen scenes ten thousand times bloodier than this in this lifetime, she still could not handle such a warm yet horrifyingly gruesome sight.
She said to Zhou Huirong, “I envy you for not being able to see it.”
Zhou Huirong asked, “Is it scary?”
“Not really. It’s actually quite heartwarming. It’s just... not quite the sort of heartwarming scene ordinary people would imagine.”
Zhou Huirong could not picture it, but merely thinking about the fact that they were ghosts made her legs go weak.
Mei Lixiang was truly furious now.
The serious conversation between Pei Ye and Zhou Huirong gave her goosebumps.
It was clearly broad daylight, yet she felt unusually cold. She could faintly smell something foul, and her right wrist was aching slightly.
“Have you both gone crazy?”
Mei Lixiang looked almost hysterical, staring at them as if they were some kind of virus.
But what made her even more desperate and frightened was that not only Zhou Huirong was acting this way, the other roommates, including Lei Yating, all wore expressions as though they wanted to speak but hesitated.
After a while, the cold feeling became even more obvious.
“Stop trying to scare me!”
Lei Yating looked at the two faint black shadows in the distance and said with an ugly expression, “It’s true. Return their belongings.”
If they had been malicious ghosts, she would have immediately taken out her red silk ribbon to protect herself.
But this situation was different. Mei Lixiang had stolen someone else’s property first. No matter how protective she was of her roommate, she could not condone wrongdoing.
“Lixiang, stealing is wrong.”
“I didn’t steal anything!”
Both frightened and angry, Mei Lixiang shoved Lei Yating hard. Wind seemed to gather beneath her feet as an overwhelming urge to flee this strange dormitory surged through her.
The old woman said, “Young girls nowadays are full of lies. They’re dishonest.”
The old man said, “If a child is not taught, the fault lies with the father. Let’s go settle accounts with her father and ask how he raised his daughter into a thief.”
Pei Ye relayed the ghosts’ words and successfully stopped Mei Lixiang in her tracks.
“If you leave the dormitory, those two elders will go find your parents to settle accounts.”
Mei Lixiang’s heart pounded like a drum. Breathing rapidly, she said, “Xiao Hong, are you sick? Do you think you can scare me?”
Pei Ye turned and asked the two elderly ghosts,
“Where did she steal your belongings, and what did the items look like?”
Everyone in the dormitory stretched their ears, instinctively doing so even though they could not hear ghosts.
The old woman suddenly looked embarrassed and stammered, too ashamed to say it.
The old man said, “You’re already a ghost of so many years. Why are you still shy about this?”
The old woman glared and said, “If you’re not embarrassed, then you say it!”
The old man replied, “Fine, I’ll say it!”
The elderly couple bickered briefly before the old man said to Pei Ye, “That little girl stole two pieces from her jade plugs... Do you know what Nine Orifice Jade is?”
Pei Ye: “???”
Zhou Huirong asked, “What did they say?”
Pei Ye replied in confusion, “The old gentleman said Mei Lixiang stole two pieces from their Nine Orifice Jade... But speaking of which, what exactly is Nine Orifice Jade?”
The academically weak girls looked at one another.
They had all attended vocational college because their university entrance exam scores were poor. Among them, Zhou Huirong had actually qualified for a third-tier university, but the tuition had been too expensive, so she chose vocational college instead.
Mei Lixiang sneered. “What Nine Orifice Jade? That’s complete nonsense!”
Pei Ye raised a hand in a pause gesture. “I’ll find outside help. He should know what Nine Orifice Jade is.”
Nearby, the old man stared with his eerie eyes and silently exchanged a glance with the old woman. An awkward atmosphere spread among everyone.
After a while, Pei Ye looked at the message Zhu Chun’an had sent and remained silent for a long time, her expression indescribably grave.
She asked the old man, “The two stolen jade pieces... where were they placed?”
The old man held it in for a long while before answering meaningfully, “The water gate and the dry passage.”
As soon as he finished speaking, the old woman was so embarrassed that she threw her foot-binding cloth at him.
“Nine Orifice Jade refers to jade objects placed in the body’s nine openings. Two plugs for the eyes, two for the nose, two for the ears, one for the mouth...” Pei Ye paused, then continued under everyone’s strange expressions. “One for the genital opening and one for the anus. The missing pieces from the two elders’ Nine Orifice Jade set... happen to be those last two, so...”
Ancient people believed that burying the dead with jade could preserve the body from decay, so they filled the nine openings with jade.
The work Master Who Embraces Simplicity also states that “if gold and jade are placed in the nine openings, the dead become incorruptible.”
Of course, not everyone was permitted to use this burial arrangement. Judging by the two elders’ clothing and bearing, they had probably been wealthy and influential people during life.
They happened to live during a chaotic era and secretly used jade for burial, never expecting it to be stolen.
The old woman wore an expression of utter despair.
The old man said, “That girl even kissed them in private. How can the two of us rest in peace after death?”
They had maintained dignity their entire lives, only to be treated like this after death. Sigh.
Life as a ghost was difficult.
Pei Ye: “???”
Bai Xiaoxiao’s eyes widened in shock. “The genital plug and the anal plug... were they inserted in those two places?”
Pei Ye nodded solemnly.
At that moment, Zhu Chun’an sent another message explaining things further.
Although Nine Orifice Jade was rumored to preserve the corpse from decay, its actual purpose was to prevent bodily fluids and waste from leaking out... for example, the anal plug.
Once a person died, the sphincter muscles relaxed, allowing waste matter to flow out.
Blocking the opening with jade was really intended to keep the corpse clean and dignified.
For many ghosts with conservative values, these items were equivalent to underwear and undergarments, belonging to the category of private possessions that others should not casually touch.
“If the owner of the items has already reincarnated, that’s one thing. If they haven’t, the problem becomes much more serious.”