Part 2 Chapter 18: Old Love
I turned my head and asked Qin Yiheng, he just pursed his lips, asked me to stand up, and then went to open the door of the house .
Qin Yiheng walked in and paced in the living room for a long time, looking left and right as if he was looking for something.
Finally, it stopped under the lamp in the living room, stepped on a folding chair, stood up, and touched the lampshade. After touching it a few times, it shook its head, got down, and went to another room.
I felt helpless because of him, so I stood up and followed him in.
Qin Yiheng was seen standing under the lamp in the master bedroom again, still standing on a folding chair and feeling around under the lampshade.
Although the furniture in this house has been moved out, the lamps are still there, and they all look like high-end goods. I wonder if he likes this lamp and plans to dismantle it and take it back?
I looked up for a while, but I felt that it was not the case, so I had to ask him. He said "hmm" and asked me to hold on to the chair . I reached out and held the folding chair, and he exerted force on it, as if he was pulling something.
After a while, he came down from upstairs, holding a few pieces of yellow paper in his hands.
As soon as I saw the yellow paper, I felt something was wrong.
These are obviously talismans. Although Qin Yiheng seldom uses these things, I have seen quite a few of them in movies.
So this house had been moved before, or was it put there when Xu Chuanxiang first came to see the house?
When asked about Qin Yiheng, he thought about the yellow papers for a while and said, "I have figured out this house now, but to confirm, we still need to go out for a walk."
He still kept me in suspense, but I didn't feel so upset anymore.
Since he said he had figured out the reason, then the house was basically his. If he could make money, he would naturally be in a good mood.
I followed Qin Yiheng out the door, got into the elevator and went downstairs directly, and finally stopped outside the community.
Qin Yiheng asked the security guard if there was a waste recycling station or garbage disposal center nearby. Needless to say, he actually got the answer. The security guard told us that there was a large waste recycling station just east of the community.
After asking for the location, we didn't waste any time and directly hailed a taxi and headed straight to the recycling station.
On the way, I saw Qin Yiheng's expression was always gloomy, and I was a little worried. According to the current situation, the source of those shoes is probably this waste recycling station. However, why did they run to the door of that house for no reason?
Moreover, from his expression, I can see that he doesn't look happy about making money. Why does he look like he lost money?
I couldn't help it and asked him what was going on and whether the house could be taken down.
Qin Yiheng still didn't explain, but just nodded and told me that the house problem was easy to solve and I just needed to prepare the contract in a while. After that, he looked out the window in a daze and didn't intend to open his mouth.
His behavior really deserves a beating, but after all, I'm used to it, so I just keep my mouth shut.
The recycling station was farther away than the security guard said. I don’t know if the taxi driver took us a longer route, but it took us more than ten minutes to get there.
After opening the door and getting out of the car, Qin Yiheng walked straight in. This waste recycling station was located in another older community. It was not a store, but a small house built in a corner of the community, surrounded by a yard with red bricks.
It was already past nine in the evening. Although the light was on in the small room, the recycling station had already closed. Qin Yiheng called out a few times, but no one responded at first. Instead, the dog tied in the corner of the yard barked first. After the dog barked for a while, an old man came out of the small room.
Qin Yiheng didn't even exchange pleasantries. He just went up to ask the old man if a dog had died in his family in the past year.
The old man was stunned by the question. At first he thought that his dog was not tied up properly and caused some trouble, so he quickly shook his head and said no.
Qin Yiheng saw this and persuaded the old man, saying that we were not here to cause trouble. The old man then narrowed his eyes and nodded, telling us that a dog had indeed died, but it was two years ago. That dog was the one that they were raising now, and the rest were given away. Only the puppy was close to him at the time, so he kept it. Unexpectedly, after raising it for a few months, the dog actually ran out to play by itself and was run over by a car.
Qin Yiheng nodded after listening to the old man, as if he was very satisfied with the old man's answer, and then took out a hundred yuan from his wallet and stuffed it into the old man's pocket. The old man didn't dare to take it at first, and refused again and again, but finally accepted it.
I was confused as I watched from the sidelines. How did this become a visit to an elderly widow?
I couldn't ask in front of the old man, so I could only wait patiently until Qin Yiheng finished talking to the old man and asked him on the way back why this house was related to dogs?
He then answered me that because the filth had touched my shoes, he used my shoes as a lead to see what it was, and the result was quite unexpected. The mark I saw in the corridor before was the mark of the dog's paw. This is why the shoe always comes and goes with one shoe, because the dog has no hands and can only hold it in its mouth, so it can only carry one shoe.
After Qin Yiheng said this, I recalled the incense ash pattern. It really looked like a dog's paw print, but I don't have the habit of keeping pets, so it's hard for me to associate it with this. It seems that I guessed right. The shoes in front of the house really came from this waste recycling station.
Qin Yiheng rolled down the car window, lit a cigarette, and continued, "It is impossible to find the dog's paw prints at ordinary times, even if you use magic. The reason why we can see it now is because he put a "thorn" in his shoes in advance, and this "thorn" is also a thing to ward off evil spirits."
Although the dog is not a fierce ghost, it is still filthy after all. So when the dog's soul tried to pick up the shoes, it naturally felt that the shoes were extremely heavy, and that is why the mark of its claws was left behind.
This is why the shoes were not taken away, but only moved a short distance and thrown in the middle of the corridor.
That was because the dog's soul couldn't bear it anymore and had to let go.
According to the current situation, it would be fine if the "Zhuangci" was accidentally picked up by the cleaner or the residents on the same floor, otherwise the dog's soul is probably gone, and the "Zhuangci" is its final grave.
After saying that, Qin Yiheng exhaled a puff of smoke and pretended to be quite depressed.
I only half understood what he said, although he had explained it clearly enough, but why did the dog go to this house to pick up shoes for no reason? Would it insist on doing this even if it wanted to be a ghost and not be reincarnated?
I thought to myself: 'Is there still the spirit of the dog's spouse in this place? Is it because of love that there is no vicissitudes? But I haven't heard this family say that they had a dog before.'
I threw my questions to Qin Yiheng and waited for him to answer them.
But he let out a long sigh and said, "If my guess is correct, then your guess is somewhat correct."
While we were talking, we returned to the neighborhood, got out of the car, and Qin Yiheng took me to the door of the house.
After he stood still, he looked around, took out the yellow talisman in his hand and told me: "This talisman is the most common one in Taoism. It is widely used. It is the most common talisman for warding off evil spirits. Many people who have even a little knowledge of it can write it. So even though it is not popular to use Taoist talismans to ward off evil spirits in many places now, you can still see them frequently."
"And this talisman actually has a certain effect. It can protect the house and lock in the bad luck, so that the family members are healthy and will not get separated."
"But there is one thing you need to note. Although this talisman is also called a house-suppressing talisman, it is not used to drive away evil spirits or suppress ghosts. It may be more appropriate to use it as a 'pillow', because it can only suppress the energy in the house and prevent it from dissipating. The most important point is that this talisman can only be posted in a house with a sense of earthiness. That is, when you stand in the house, your feet are close to the ground. Even if it is a building, this talisman can only be used in a room on the first floor, and this is when the total number of floors in the building cannot be too high. It cannot be posted on the first floor of a high-rise building like this."
"Today, many people are superstitious and believe everything they hear. They blindly follow the trend and apply such things, but it is easy to bring disaster upon themselves. Take this talisman for example. Many people who don't know the truth will casually put it in their homes. If it does not meet the conditions mentioned above, then this talisman will bring many bad effects. The most obvious one is that it can easily make people depressed. If this person is a person whose mood is difficult to stabilize, in the jargon it is called hysteria, then there is basically no escape."
"This talisman is out of touch with reality. When placed in a high place, it is basically an invisible mountain. The higher the floor, the more powerful it is. The hostess of this house committed suicide. I think she was influenced by this. In addition, she quarreled with her husband during that period, and became depressed and unable to extricate herself. In the end, she committed suicide. This talisman was probably put up by this family themselves, but it backfired and harmed themselves. This is not uncommon in the industry."
After that, Qin Yiheng handed me the talisman. I took it in my hand and looked at it carefully. It was no different from a ghost painting. There were a few scattered brush characters on it, but I couldn't recognize a single word.
I scratched my head and pondered. I understood what Qin Yiheng meant. The talisman was put there by his family members themselves, which caused the hostess to commit suicide due to depression. But what does this have to do with the dog? Moreover, someone else died in the house. The male owner's cousin also committed suicide. Could it be that he was also depressed because of the talisman?
I asked Qin Yiheng, he nodded and said: "The dead cannot be resurrected, and we can only infer the reason for death through the clues we know now. The male host's cousin, 90% of the time, lost his life because of this talisman. We don't know exactly what day he died, but we estimate that those days were when the yin energy was very heavy. Legend has it that the yin energy is heavy, and the talisman is pressed down, and finally it can only squeeze onto people. If we associate this with science, it may be related to the oppression of the human spirit; in metaphysics, this is called disaster without release. And the soul of the dog..."
Qin Yiheng paused here, and seemed to be finding it difficult to speak.
His behavior was driving me crazy, but since things had come to this point, there was no need for me to rush him. I lit a cigarette and waited patiently for him to finish his words.
He sighed and continued, "The dog's purpose is actually very simple. It didn't have any evil intentions in bringing shoes or stealing shoes. We used to think that every filth was a ghost that came to hurt people, so we overlooked such a simple clue. Shoes are worn on the feet, and feet are used for walking, so the dog has been reminding the people in the house to leave in its own way. I guess it knew there was something wrong with the house, so it was desperate to save the people in the house."
This was really surprising. Even if a dog was a spiritual being and could see the yin and yang with its eyes, it would not be so spiritual. So, he thought about it carefully and felt that there was only one possibility: this dog was the dead mistress of the house.
Maybe this is really related to love. Even if she is dead, she still cares about her husband in the world of the living, and can't bear to see him repeat the same mistakes. And she ended her life by herself, and although she was lucky enough not to turn into a ghost, she couldn't be reborn safely, so she could only wander around this house, looking for a solution.
It was also by coincidence that she happened to catch the female dog giving birth at the scrap recycling station. As the puppies had just been born and their souls had not yet filled their bodies, she took the opportunity to possess the puppies' bodies, hoping to come back and remind her family in this way.
But there is a destiny in the dark, even if it attaches to the dog, it still cannot avoid death. This must not be an accident, but the work of the underworld.
Her belief was very strong. I don't know if it was the power of love or if it was her only belief before she died, so she instinctively wanted to fulfill it after she died. Anyway, after she died, she tried to warn her family again and again, but she was separated from her family by the Yin and Yang. The warning failed, but she scared people away and became a legend of haunting.
The cousin left a shoe at the door before he died. It was probably her last effort. It is said that the spirits that move entities are also divided into different levels according to their grievances. Some evil spirits can even push cars, but for her, holding a shoe in her mouth is already the limit.
After listening to Qin Yiheng's analysis, I was also deeply moved.
To be honest, although I had often heard him talk about the cause and effect of the house before, I had never heard him talk in this tone. Even in the ancestral hall, he did not use this tone.
This passage was spoken very emotionally, and was not at all like his previous sharp language style. It sounded a bit sentimental.
If what he said was true, this would indeed be a tragic love story. However, the title of the story is not tragic at all, it's more like "A man and a dog's love is still going on".
There are so many things in this world that are difficult for us to understand. If everything was done out of kindness or love, then even the scariest house would not be scary at all.
Having known Qin Yiheng for so many years, I understand why he was so moved. It might be because he was influenced by the things he had been exposed to since he was a child, mostly the things about ghosts and gods, which were inseparable from intrigue or bloody storms. Unexpectedly, today he met a person who didn't want to be reincarnated after death and would rather be a dog to remind his lover. This really subverted his "career outlook".
I wanted to say something to comfort him, but when the words came to my lips, I found myself at a loss for words, so I simply asked him what he was doing with the house to divert his attention.
Qin Yiheng smiled quickly and told me that the house was not dirty after all. Although the cousin died here, he did not stay in the house. We just need to do a thorough cleaning on an auspicious day as we did in the past, paste a layer of red paper on the door, and leave it empty for a few days, and the house will be at peace. Now that the house-guarding talisman has been removed, the hostess has fulfilled her wish and will not come again.
