The opening segment of the plot, which is supposed to be scary, actually seemed rather ordinary to Stephen, of course, the cold drafts that seemed to blow from right behind his neck were indeed quite an experience.
This segment mainly struck Stephen as very eerie.
The flickering candlelight, the drifting white silk, the two coffins, the empty soul hall—there was an indescribable sense of strangeness.
In the West, funerals weren't like this; typically, the deceased would be placed in a coffin from the morgue, and after the viewing, they would immediately be buried without this custom of displaying the body in the hall for several days.
Even in some old-fashioned places, they might chop off the head of the deceased and place it between their legs to prevent them from being bewitched into resurrection by vampires, returning to the world of the living.
This was a custom from the East.
