Volume 1 Chapter 008: Ghost Smoke Rising
On that day, Grandpa Liu brought gifts to celebrate his granddaughter's birthday. Old Mrs. Liu was initially unwilling to go, but then, somehow, she remembered that Liu Nan was her granddaughter after all, and had half of her son's blood in her body, and her heart softened.
So afterwards, I went there quietly, wanting to see what this granddaughter I had never met looked like.
Unexpectedly, when she went there, she accidentally discovered her old man and the woman named Baimei, alone in the room, behaving intimately.
She rushed into the room and beat Baimei, calling her a vixen who flirted with men. Mr. Liu was so angry that his face turned pale, and he turned around and left, not coming home for the whole day.
Later, the bad news came that the old man of the Liu family went out for a boat ride to relieve his boredom, but the boat sank and the old man drowned in the river.
The old lady of the Liu family was like a madman, holding a kitchen knife and wanted to kill Baimei, calling her a cheap woman , shameless, and a reincarnated evil ghost who had harmed her children and now her husband.
Five days later, a fire suddenly broke out in Baimei's room. When Liu Wenxuan rushed back with his daughter, he only found a charred body.
The police were not called at the time and the fire was treated as an accident. The old lady of the Liu family jumped up and down and cursed Bai Mei as an evil ghost who wanted to collect debts and wanted to kill her whole family. She even refused to let her enter the ancestral tomb.
Liu Zian finished the story in one breath, and then he exhaled a long breath, his face red and white. No wonder he didn't want to talk about it at first, it was really not glorious to talk about it.
"That damn old woman hated her own granddaughter because of this?" After hearing what Liu Zi'an said, my impression of the old lady in the Liu family became even worse. She is simply an old monster.
"It's not just because of this." Liu Zian opened his mouth but didn't say anything else, as if he had some great concerns.
I said it’s already this time, there’s nothing that can’t be said.
Liu Zian looked at me, then at my third uncle, sighed, and said, "My grandmother has always suspected that... my cousin is the daughter of my second aunt and... my grandfather..."
My uncle and I looked at each other in confusion. Was this old woman exaggerating too much?
Liu Zian stammered, "Maybe it's because my second aunt passed away too early. My cousin has always had a strange temper since she was a child and never gets close to others."
"And...she seems to be a little different from ordinary girls. For example, I feel a little uncomfortable when I get close to her. I feel...a little afraid of her..."
I was a little puzzled. Liu Nan was definitely pretty, and she was only twelve years old. Why would she scare a twenty-something adult man?
"I can't explain it. I just felt nervous for no reason and just wanted to escape quickly." Liu Zian said intermittently.
After hearing this story, my uncle and I fell into deep thought. In this way, the origin of the woman named Bai Mei was a bit strange, and there was also a family feud that was not clear, but this could not explain the current condition of Liu Nan's body.
Uncle San asked, "What's with the stitches on the little girl's body?"
Unexpectedly, Liu Zian looked up in surprise and asked curiously: "What stitches?" His expression did not seem fake, as if he really did not know.
I just told him the whole story.
"What? My cousin's body was sewn on?" Liu Zian screamed in disbelief.
"To be precise, your cousin's head and limbs were sewn onto another person's body," I added.
"You are kidding!" Liu Zian stood up suddenly and pointed at me angrily. He looked like he was going to rush over and hit me.
I pointed at the coffin helplessly and said that your cousin's body was in the room, and if you didn't believe me you could go and see for yourself.
Liu Zian's face turned from white to red, and then from red to blue, with veins throbbing on his forehead, but he still didn't dare to open the coffin. He sat down dejectedly and muttered, "Are you telling the truth?"
I was too lazy to answer him. But Uncle San nodded: "Really."
It seems that Liu Zian really didn't know the inside story. Uncle San asked, "Who asked you to deliver the coffin to my house?"
Liu Zian was in a daze. After a long time, he shook his head and said that he didn't know either. It was his father who asked him to send it over and said that it must be handed over to us.
Uncle San asked, "Have you heard of us before?"
Liu Zian shook his head and said he had never heard of it before. Uncle San frowned and said nothing. I was thinking about it, and suddenly I thought of someone, so I asked Liu Zian if he knew who the person invited by the old lady of the Liu family was.
Liu Zian said he was not very clear, he just knew that the man's surname seemed to be Zhong and he was friends with his grandfather. After a while, Liu Zian seemed to remember something and said that after his second aunt was burned to death, this Mr. Zhong also came to their house.
Uncle San glanced at me. Now we have some clues. This matter may really be related to this Zhong. When the coffin was delivered, the ink line was tied with a knot using the seven-star twist method. Maybe this person is an expert.
This old dog!!! I hated him so much that my whole body went cold. This man probably saw that there was something wrong with the girl from the Liu family, so he came up with a plan to divert the trouble to our village and let our family take on this hot potato.
Uncle San asked me to take out Lin Wenjing's photo. I said I didn't have it. How could I have a photo of a girl? Uncle San looked at me and said, "Stop talking nonsense and go get it!"
This old tyrant!
I had no choice but to run to the inner room and pull out a photo from under my pillow. I had secretly torn this photo off the school's honor wall once. The girl from the Lin family is the prettiest girl here. What's wrong with me hiding a photo of her?
"Have you seen it?" Uncle San put the photo in front of Liu Zian.
Liu Zian took it and looked at it carefully, shook his head and said he had no impression of it, then looked at me and my third uncle with a puzzled look on his face.
"This is me...a little girl from our village who disappeared a few days ago!" I snatched the photo back, took it back and carefully hid it under my pillow. Then I came back and asked, "Does your cousin have a birthmark on her butt?"
Liu Zian blushed and said he had no idea about this.
That night, Liu Zi'an stayed at my house. My third uncle asked Liu Zi'an to stay in my room with me, but I was not happy about it, so I asked my third uncle and Liu Zi'an to go back to sleep, and I was responsible for guarding the coffin in the main room.
That night was fine. But Liu Zian looked pretty and handsome, but he would snore when he slept, which made my teeth itch.
The next morning, Uncle San took Liu Zian out again, saying that they were going to investigate the background of the Zhong family. Liu Zian had rested for a night and was in much better spirits. This man was not completely useless. He still had some affection for his cousin and said that he would help us investigate.
After they left, I became a lonely person again, guarding a coffin at home all day and night. That night, after dinner, I sat on a chair and read a novel. I looked up and found that three incense sticks lit in front of the coffin were emitting three white smokes , which actually formed a spiral around the incense.
At this time, the doors and windows of the room were closed and there was no air convection. The three wisps of smoke circled the incense seven or eight times before floating out of the door.
I was startled. At this moment, there were several knocks on the door. I was shocked and walked to the door and asked, "Who is it?"
No one answered.
I leaned against the door and peeked out through the crack. It was dark outside and I didn't see anyone.
I asked again, but still no one answered, but I heard the knock on the door clearly. I hesitated for a moment and opened the door.
I went out to look around. There were insects chirping outside, the sky was covered with dark clouds, and there was no one around.
"That's weird!" I muttered and closed the door.
When I turned around and took a look at the main room, I was so scared that I screamed.
On the chair where I was sitting originally, there was a man sitting upright. He had gray hair and was wearing a dark blue Tang suit. Under the incandescent light in my room, he looked a bit ghostly.
"Who is it?" I was so nervous that my voice was trembling. This old thing walked into my house silently. Is he a human or a ghost?
The man was holding the novel I had just read and flipping through it page by page.
"Who do you like in the book?" the man asked without even looking up.
The novel in his hand was "The Investiture of the Gods" written by Lu Xixing, a Taoist priest in the Ming Dynasty. I didn't know where this person came from, so I suppressed my fear and said, "Of course it's Daji."
The man looked up, seeming a little surprised.
When I looked up, I could see his appearance clearly. He was wearing a pair of golden glasses, and his face was elegant and scholarly, but his face was pale, which made him look a little spooky in the middle of the night.
"You like a fox?"
I don't know why, but when I saw this person, my scalp went numb and cold sweat ran down my back. I took a deep breath and said calmly, "Because she's pretty!"
The man closed the book and said expressionlessly, "Don't you know that this fox is a man-eating monster?"
I thought about it, laughed dryly and said, "Is it not nice to eat people?"
The man raised his gray eyebrows and suddenly laughed strangely. I was wondering what he was going to do when I saw him raise his hand and make a weird gesture towards me.
