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Chapter 302: Corpse in the Bag

The intense foul smell made Yang Haoran subtly frown. The man's reaction, however, was far more pronounced than Yang Haoran's.

The man quickly covered his nose with his hand and recoiled a step. The overwhelming stench made him forget to retrieve the fishhook hanging from the sack.

After covering his nose, the man felt the foul odor he was inhaling not only didn't lessen but grew even stronger. It was then that he realized the hand covering his nose was the very same one he had just used to carry the sack.

The man quickly let go, his brows tightly furrowed in disgust, and his gaze towards the sack became peculiar.

"What in the world is inside? Why does it smell so bad? It couldn't be a corpse, could it?"

As the man spoke, he looked at Yang Haoran again. There was no fear on his face, only a strong aversion to the stench.

Yang Haoran, his face serious, drew on his cigarette. Hearing the man's words, he calmly stated, "You're right. It's a corpse. And it's a human corpse."

The man's expression stiffened, clearly startled by Yang Haoran's words. Regaining his composure, he gently placed his fishing rod on the ground, and a hint of mockery entered his gaze towards Yang Haoran.

"A human corpse? Who are you trying to scare? I'm someone who goes night fishing often; do you think I'd dare do that without some guts? Besides, this sack is so tiny, could it even fit a person? Could it fit *you*? Unless someone was dismembered, but is that even possible?"

To prove his analysis correct, after saying his piece, the man simply endured the foul odor emanating from the sack and reached out with both hands to untie the ropes at its opening.

Yang Haoran watched the scene unfold. He had no intention of stopping the man, letting him proceed as he wished.

When his hand touched the ropes binding the sack, the man's heart still felt a little weak. Despite boasting about his courage, he wasn't as brave as he claimed.

He initially didn't believe there was a human corpse in the sack. He was more willing to believe it was the carcass of some animal. But then he thought, what kind of animal corpse would need to be put into a sack and then sunk to the bottom of the water?

Better safe than sorry, as they say. So at this moment, the man's heart still trembled slightly, worried that the outcome might indeed be as Yang Haoran had suggested.

A rope was tied around the middle of the sack, but it was loosely bound. It seemed it was meant to secure some heavy object, ensuring the sack would sink and not float.

His previous struggle, when the fishhook snagged the sack, must have dislodged this poorly secured heavy object from the sack, which was why he had been able to slowly pull the sack from the bottom of the water.

Thinking of this, the man naturally felt even weaker inside. The hand that had already touched the sack even began to consider retreating.

"What, are you scared? " Yang Haoran asked.

The man's expression changed. He glared at Yang Haoran, then spoke with disdain, "Scared of a ripped sack? What do I have to be scared of? Tell me, why should I be scared? Hmph, useless coward!"

As his words fell, fueled by his inner irritation, the man gritted his teeth, then mustered his courage to untie the ropes at the sack's opening.

The man's movements were flustered, which clearly showed his inner tension at that moment.

The ropes were tied very tightly, in a dead knot, making them extremely difficult to undo. Even if the man had been calm and composed, he wouldn't have been able to untie the ropes quickly, let alone in his current flustered state.

The more he panicked, the more tangled the ropes became. Finally, in a fit of frustration, he directly took out a small pair of scissors from his nearby tackle box.

This simple pair of scissors was meant for cutting fishing line, but now the man was using them to cut rope.

Snip.

Snip.

Snip.

The ropes were severed by the scissors. The man swallowed hard, then slowly opened the burlap sack, his gaze peering inside.

In the next instant, the man's facial expression froze, and his pupils dilated instantly.

"Ah!"

A gut-wrenching scream tore from the man's throat. He looked as if he had seen the most terrifying thing in the world, his face contorted in horror, scrambling backward on hands and knees.

"P-p-p-people. . . it's a person. . . a dead person!"

The man was utterly terrified. His whole body trembled uncontrollably, and he didn't even notice he had wet himself. He pointed at the sack while shouting at Yang Haoran, seemingly trying to alleviate his inner fear in this way, or perhaps hoping Yang Haoran could share some of his terror.

Yang Haoran ignored the man. With a cigarette still hanging from his lips, he slowly squatted down, lifted the opening of the burlap sack, and peered inside.

The first thing that came into view was a pair of wide-open, unseeing eyes, followed by a small face, bloated and pale, with traces of decay. Finally, there was the petite body and limbs, though the limbs still retained the struggling posture from before death.

There was indeed a human corpse inside the burlap sack, but it wasn't an adult. It was a small girl, appearing to be only seven or eight years old.

From the current circumstances, it was highly probable that the little girl had been shoved alive into this burlap sack, and then, completely disregarding her struggles, thrown directly into the river.

But this was merely Yang Haoran's conjecture. He couldn't be certain if the truth aligned with his guess, yet whether his guess was correct was fundamentally unimportant. What mattered was that this little girl had indeed been murdered.

Yang Haoran's face remained grim. He slowly withdrew his hand, and as he did, the opening of the burlap sack folded back together.

The Yin Qi he had sensed actually originated from the little girl's corpse. However, he hadn't detected the presence of a Soul within her body.

Only one possibility could explain this: the little girl's Soul had already coalesced into a Spirit, then departed from this decaying flesh. The faint Yin Qi emanating from the corpse was merely what remained after her departure, so it was very weak, so faint that even he had almost overlooked it.

"What kind of deep-seated hatred would drive someone to harm a child like this? The perpetrator was truly ruthless. But the child's Spirit Body isn't nearby, so where did it go?"

Yang Haoran mused, and several possibilities came to his mind.

The little girl's Spirit Body might have disappeared because it was guided away by an Underworld Office agent, or perhaps it was captured by someone with such abilities, like a Spirit Medium.

Of course, it was also possible that the little girl simply disliked the place, so she left after her Spirit Body successfully formed.

Besides these possibilities, there was one more: the little girl's Spirit Body had gone to seek revenge on her killer.

"Hello, hello, hello! Someone's dead! There's a dead person here! I'm calling the police! Police! Someone's dead!"

The man's incoherent call to the police made Yang Haoran's expression subtly change. Once the police arrived, it would likely be troublesome for him to leave.