BPIFC -Volume 1 – Chapter 148 Curse Painting

Hearing how urgently Yang Xiao spoke, Sun Desheng couldn’t help interrupting.

“Old Yang, speak clearly. What do you mean ‘hiding corpses’? Isn’t it just a drawing?”

“Sun Desheng, you’re there too? Good…” Yang Xiao gasped for breath and forced himself to continue.

“The photo you saw was taken on a bus, right? Find that bus immediately and erase that curse… otherwise more people will die. Go deal with the painting first—I’ll explain everything to you slowly later.”

Yang Xiao rarely sounded this anxious. Everyone immediately sensed something was seriously wrong.

Without delay, they left the hotel and headed toward Xiaobei Prison’s direction. Sun Desheng even used his connections to detain the bus involved, preventing anyone from boarding it.

The Hao brothers drove a van over, which was just enough to fit everyone. As the vehicle started moving, Yang Xiao began explaining the origin of the graffiti.

This “dissection curse technique” originated from a conflict during the Yuan Dynasty between two Taoist practitioners of the Zhen Gu Daoist Temple—Jiang Zhen and his disciple Han Guang.

Jiang Zhen, the temple master, had taken in Han Guang as a disciple. The disciple was extremely talented. After only ten years of studying Taoist arts, he had already begun to surpass his master.

Jealous and threatened, Jiang Zhen stopped teaching Han Guang entirely. Instead, he sent him out to wander the world under the guise of “cultivating Taoism in the mortal realm.”

Han Guang left and never returned for thirteen years. No one knew his whereabouts. Over time, Jiang Zhen assumed he had died abroad.

Not long after Jiang Zhen’s seventieth birthday, a wealthy benefactor who frequently donated gold and silver to the temple passed away. His family came to inform the temple of the death and requested Jiang Zhen to preside over the Taoist funeral rites.

Since the temple had long relied on this patron, Jiang Zhen personally led his disciples down the mountain.

The funeral rites lasted seven days. Due to his age, Jiang Zhen could no longer fully preside over the ceremonies as he once did. After discussing with the family, he only performed the first day’s ritual before being invited to rest in the study. For the remaining days, he appeared briefly in the morning and evening, while another disciple handled the ceremonies during the day.

Soon, the seven days passed.

On the day of burial, Jiang Zhen was to oversee the final interment. He arrived before dawn with his disciples. But when they prepared to send the deceased off, something shocking happened—

The coffin was empty.

The body was gone.

Jiang Zhen was terrified. On the first day he had clearly seen the corpse inside. How could it disappear without anyone noticing?

For seven days, the disciples of Zhen Gu Temple had guarded the coffin. Now the body was missing—there was no doubt the family would hold them accountable.

After calming himself, Jiang Zhen ordered his disciples not to spread the news and examined the coffin.

Inside, he found several strange drawings along the inner sides.

All of them depicted the same theme: a dismembered human running.

Some drawings showed no head. Others showed missing arms or legs. Some showed a body with the upper or lower half cut off.

At first, Jiang Zhen did not take them seriously, thinking they were merely childish scribbles. But one disciple later reminded him:

“Master, over these past few days many people came to pay their respects. Some of them cried extremely loudly, even collapsing on the coffin and wailing until the family had to pull them away. At first I thought they were close relatives or sworn brothers. But later I asked—and it turned out they were just neighbors. They even fought last year. There’s no way they had that kind of bond…”

Hearing this, Jiang Zhen seemed to realize something—but could not fully grasp it.

Before dawn, while the family had not yet arrived, Jiang Zhen had one disciple lie inside the coffin. Then he instructed the disciple who had noticed the anomaly to imitate a mourner, crying over the coffin.

What happened next was horrifying.

The disciple leaning over the coffin suddenly changed expression. Without control, he pulled out a dagger and tried to decapitate the disciple inside the coffin.

The others rushed in to stop him—but then they, too, changed. Instead of stopping it, they began assisting him, trying to behead the person inside.

Jiang Zhen was horrified and rushed forward to break them apart. He ordered the disciple inside the coffin to get out, finally putting an end to the chaos.

Only then did he understand—

Someone had been casting a spell in secret, drawing those curse paintings on the coffin. When mourners came, the curse would activate and gradually “take away” the corpse in stages.

Jiang Zhen was no ordinary man. Using the deceased benefactor’s spirit as a guide, he tracked the corpse to a ruined hut—where he also found a copper coin talisman he had once personally made for Han Guang.

At that moment, everything became clear.

His disciple bore a deep grudge. After more than a decade of wandering, Han Guang had learned powerful arts and returned for revenge.

However, Jiang Zhen had also kept a safeguard—he retained Han Guang’s hair and birth chart.

Suppressing his anger, Jiang Zhen first returned the corpse to the coffin. Then he invoked thunder to strike down Han Guang, killing him in hiding.

After Han Guang’s death, Jiang Zhen discovered the remaining writings left behind by him. They contained the principles and methods of the curse painting.

But as a self-proclaimed orthodox Taoist, Jiang Zhen despised such techniques and sealed them away in the temple.

After Jiang Zhen’s death, the curse paintings disappeared.

No one expected that after so many years, they would reappear on a bus.

Yang Xiao had once seen fragments of the curse painting before—this was the first time he had encountered the real thing.

After hearing the explanation, Che Qianzi couldn’t help asking, “Old Yang, are you saying someone dismembered a person on a bus? People get on and off at every stop—how could someone split a living person apart right under everyone’s eyes and take the body away?”

Yang Jun replied over the phone:

“If it were me, I would tamper with the bus doors. Anyone who boards would be affected without realizing it. By the time it’s over, all traces would already be erased—including the curse markings on the doors and seats.”

Hao Wenming also spoke up.

“Then let me ask—if someone really did dismember a person, how is there no trace of blood on the bus? That’s a living human. Where did all the blood go?”

Yang Xiao seemed to have already considered this.

“If I wanted to prevent bleeding, I have at least twenty methods. Anything I can do—someone else can also know how to do.”

Just then, Xiao Yifeng’s phone rang again.

He glanced at the caller ID, frowned, and answered.

A voice came through:

“Is this Director Xiao? We’ve found Gao Yanlian’s body. But she’s been dismembered. The remains are scattered across different parts of the city…”