Volume 1 Chapter 023: Ten Thousand Mountains
Amid the screams and noises of the crowd, I accidentally glanced at Liu Nan. The girl was still standing there motionless. Her body was splattered with her father's blood. I suddenly discovered that the bone nail that was originally driven into her body was slowly withdrawing.
I quickly shouted, "Uncle San, the bone nail!"
Uncle San and Dead Face were busy dealing with Liu Wenxuan's affairs. When they heard the shout, they looked up suddenly. At this moment, the eight bone nails that had been sealed in Liu Nan's body suddenly shot out and hit the wall and broke into powder. One of them happened to hit the thigh of a relative of the Liu family, and he immediately let out a miserable howl.
Uncle San and Dead Face immediately moved. Uncle San used the corpse rope, and Dead Face pasted several talismans on him. I saw that Liu Nan's eyes had turned a strange bloody color, and I couldn't help but jump with fear.
Fortunately, with the help of the two old foxes, Uncle San and Dead Face, Liu Nan was finally suppressed.
"Kill that little bastard for me! Kill that damn debt collector! Kill him for me!" The old woman of the Liu family screamed, gnashed her teeth, and jumped and shouted.
The dead face shook his head and just looked at the remaining bone nail in his hand over and over again.
Third uncle's face darkened: "Even the Nine Yin Sealing Orifices doesn't work. We are in big trouble!" He turned around and told Liu Wen Chong to quickly prepare another coffin of the same specifications as Lin Wenjing's.
Afterwards, there was chaos in the Liu family mansion again. Some people were cleaning up Liu Wenxuan's body, some were preparing the coffin, and some people took advantage of this opportunity to escape from the Liu family.
After all this trouble, the east was gradually getting brighter. I left the Liu family's house and saw that the rotting corpses were gone. They were probably scattered without Liu Nan's control. When I returned to the front hall, Liu Nan had been tied up with corpse ropes and sealed in a coffin. The diamond wall was also set up, and he was placed side by side with Lin Wenjing.
Most of the Liu family's relatives had already run away, leaving only some of the Liu family's children and some hired workers at home. Liu Zining went to the kitchen to help and was preparing breakfast for everyone.
I was tired and exhausted, so I moved two chairs together and slept for a while. Until Liu Zining woke me up and told me to get up and have breakfast. A group of people gathered around a big round table in the front hall. Without the group of relatives, there were not many people left in the Liu family.
Breakfast was hot buns, some side dishes and porridge. A group of people ate in silence. The old woman from the Liu family was not there. Liu Zining said she was not feeling well and was lying in her room to rest. Uncle San and that dead face were also absent. I knew that the two of them were now locked in the room for a secret discussion. Even breakfast was sent in by someone.
Liu Zining was sitting next to me. She had changed her clothes into a plain long skirt and a ponytail. She was distracted while drinking porridge and asked me, "Your Third Uncle and Mr. Zhong have been in there for a long time, right?"
I nodded and said yes. She asked, "What happens next?"
I shook my head. I actually didn't know how this would end. Although Liu Nan had been temporarily subdued, it was obviously only temporary. In fact, the most correct approach to this matter was to bury Lin Wenjing and Liu Nan and pray for their souls.
But now it seems basically impossible.
After the meal, everyone went about their own business. Liu Zining sat with me at the door for a while, and then I saw Uncle San and Dead Face coming out of the room. Liu Wen Chong immediately summoned all the Liu family members to the scene.
"Who among you knows more about Baimei's incident back then?" Uncle San asked loudly.
Everyone looked at each other, and the younger generation looked even more confused. However, Liu Zining's mother said that although she and Bai Mei, the sisters-in-law, did not interact much, they knew each other better than the other members of the Liu family.
Uncle San asked, "I heard that Bai Mei had a habit of disappearing for a month every year when she was alive. Is that true?"
Mother Liu nodded: "That's true. She always leaves the Liu family during July every year, and goes out alone, without even taking Wenxuan with her."
"Oh? She's alone?" Uncle San asked, "Then do you know where she went?"
Mother Liu thought for a moment and said, "I once asked her specifically, and she said she was going back to her hometown. As for what she was going to do, I'm not sure."
"Where is Baimei's hometown?" Dead Face asked expressionlessly.
Mother Liu said quickly: "I know this. I was afraid I would forget it, so I wrote it down specially." She called Liu Zining over, whispered a few words to her, and asked her to go to her room and get the things for her.
Liu Zining went to his mother's room and brought back a mahogany box. His mother took the key, opened it, took out a book, flipped through a few pages, and said a place name.
The name of this place is a bit strange, it is called Maobizi Village. Later, Uncle San and his friends checked and found out that this small mountain village was actually a small mountain village far away in southern Xinjiang.
According to the discussion between Uncle San and Dead Face, they believed that in order to completely resolve this matter, they must find out the origins of Liu Nan's mother Bai Mei.
The final decision was to set off early tomorrow morning, led by Uncle San and Dead Face, and take the two coffins of Lin Wenjing and Liu Nan to Maobizi Village. Accompanying personnel would include Liu Wencong, Liu Zian and several other male members of the Liu family, while the rest would stay at home to handle the funeral.
However, when the old woman of the Liu family heard the news, she immediately climbed down from her bed and insisted on going with them. I was worried about my uncle, so I also joined the team. My uncle originally firmly disagreed and told me to go back to the village and repair the house first.
However, Dead Face held the opposite opinion and suggested that I go with the team. Liu Zining also wanted to go, but he was unable to go because he had to stay to take care of his mother and help his family with the funeral arrangements.
Since we had to transport two coffins at the same time, we couldn't take the train and had to hire two large trucks locally, one for the coffins and one for the people. The Liu family was very wealthy, and in addition to the several Liu family members who accompanied us, they also hired ten strong men at a high price to escort the team.
The journey from where we live to southern Xinjiang is long have ever traveled far away from home. I couldn't help but feel fresh. I sat by the window and kept looking out the window.
Uncle San and Dead Face took turns to sit in the coffin truck at the back. They were exhausted and stopped along the way, and arrived in southern Xinjiang about seven days later.
Bai Mei's birthplace, that is, the Maobizi Village, is located deep in the Shiwanda Mountain in southern Xinjiang. Shiwanda Mountain is located in the western part of southern Xinjiang and belongs to the Goulou Mountain System in southwestern Guangxi. After arriving in southern Xinjiang, we found a local to be our tour guide. This man is dark, thin, and short. Let's just call him Black Monkey. Looking at his appearance, he really looks like a monkey.
Along the way, Black Monkey told me that the "Shiwan" in Shiwan Mountains is not a number, but comes from the phonetic notation of "Shifa" in Zhuang language. In Zhuang language, Shifa Mountains means "Dingtian Mountains", which means mountains stacked up one after another, towering over the sky.
Maobizi Village is located south of Diaona Pass, next to Maobi Mountain, which is named after the large stone on the mountain that looks like a cat's nose. As we went deep into the mountains, the car began to become difficult to drive. After barely advancing a few dozen miles, we finally could not move forward. A group of people got off the car, and several hired strong men, in groups of four, carried the coffin forward.
Before leaving, Uncle San repeatedly told them the precautions for carrying the coffin and warned them not to act rashly.
The mountain road was winding, with peaks on both sides covered with green. Although I grew up in a mountain village, most of the hills there were small ones. I had never seen such a vast mountain before, and I couldn't help but feel curious. After about three days of walking in the deep mountains, the black monkey stood on a towering rock, made a canopy with his hands, looked forward for a while, and shouted: "Just walk for another half a day, and we will be there!"
When we heard this, we were all excited. The team stopped to rest, boiled water and cooked some dried beef and fried cakes. The old woman of the Liu family is quite hardy. After these days of walking on the mountain road, she can still hold on until now, which makes me look at her with admiration. I found my third uncle, took a piece of beef jerky, and ate it while whispering: "When this matter is over, what should we do? We can't let Miss Lin die in vain, right?"
Uncle San was silent for a moment, then sneered, "The Liu family has to bear the blame for this. Notify the police station. Killers must pay with their lives, and debtors must pay their debts. We will deal with them as the time comes. As for the man named Zhong, I'm afraid the police station can't do anything about it."
I was bored, so I grabbed a piece of dried beef and climbed up the rock alone, wandering around. Uncle San told me not to go too far, and I said "oh" and continued walking forward.
In this deep mountain, the temperature is much lower than outside, and it is chilly. I turned around a rock that looked like a big yellow cow, and saw a steep rocky slope in front of me. There is also such a rocky slope in the back mountain of our village, but it is not as large as this one. When I was very young, my third uncle took me to climb and jump.
Uncle San said that this is a compulsory course for our industry, because in our industry, we deal with dead people and ghosts. It is a high-risk industry and we will encounter some unexpected things from time to time, so we must have a flexible and strong physique and be proficient in various survival skills.
So when I saw this rocky slope, I still felt quite familiar with it. I put the beef jerky in my mouth and used my hands and feet to quickly climb to the top of the slope. This kind of rocky slope is easy to climb, but the most worrying thing is that you accidentally climb on the loose rocks, which may cause a disaster, so this is also a technical job.
After reaching the top of the slope, I looked out and saw that the scenery was indeed very different. I lay on the top for a while and heard a faint voice coming from the front. I got up and turned around a rock that looked like a big yellow cow. I looked over and found that there was a canyon below. There was a group of people sitting on the ground on the narrow road to rest. Judging from their luggage, they seemed to be outsiders entering the mountain just like us.
