Bloodstained Clothes for Ghost Festival

Chapter 15

"Don't push your luck. You have no right to negotiate with me. Unless you have a better solution, if we miss this opportunity the day after tomorrow, it will be another twenty-one years. I don't want to wait any longer!" The clan chief was equally resolute.

"Why be so cruel? Aren't other people's lives valuable? Do you know how many new tragedies this will cause?" Jiang Ping said emotionally.

"I don't care, I just want my people to be resurrected! People always have to die, whether it's from natural disasters or man-made calamities, from birth to old age and sickness. I'm just helping them end it sooner. If they have any grievances, they can come to me anyway!"

If your siblings, wife, parents, relatives, and friends were in the afterlife, and you could exchange the life of a stranger for theirs, would you do it?

“No!” Jiang Ping said.

"Haha, then you just wait. If I don't see you by the day after tomorrow, I'll make sure your entire family suffers the Bloodstained Torture! Then you'll be on the same side as me. Let's see which you value more then: your family or strangers. Alright, I'm not going to waste any more time with you. I need to get ready. Let's go!"

The ghosts of the clan chief and Bian Jizhong vanished from sight in an instant.

We stood there stunned for a while until the taxi horn finally snapped us out of our daze.

"Let's go, they're gone!" Jiang Ping said softly.

When we got back to the city, Tian Juan and her mother breathed a sigh of relief when they saw us return. Tian Juan had initially wanted to scold us, but seeing our preoccupied and dejected expressions, she quickly changed the subject: "What happened? Where did you go?"

I quickly recounted what had happened tonight, concluding, "The situation is even worse than yesterday!"

Jiang Ping said dejectedly, "Actually, I wanted to make a move several times, but the clan leader secretly suppressed me. I'm still no match for him!"

“I feel something’s not right. The day before yesterday, he was using force to coerce people into complying. Today, when you refused his request, I thought he was going to attack, but you managed to restrain yourself.” I raised a question.

Jiang Ping's eyes lit up: "You mean he wasn't fully recovered from his injury that day, and then forced himself out yesterday, damaging his vital energy, so he doesn't dare to fight head-on?"

"Perhaps! What I want to know is, must a ghost's soul return to its grave before dawn?"

"That's how it's described in the Liaozhai novels, but I don't know if it's like that in reality," Mr. Bian said.

"Not necessarily. To a ghost, the body is just a shell. After a person dies, the shell has no function, and the grave has no meaning either," Jiang Ping said.

“Oh, that makes things difficult! Can you sense where he is? How did you know his grave was by the river?” I asked.

"You can only sense it when you're very close. But I didn't sense it just now; I observed it."

The ridge resembled a long dragon peering out to drink water. Knowing the clan chief was a water god, I deduced that his tomb should be near water, and that place was the best location.

"I remember you, but what did you mean by saying that what's below isn't just a skeleton?" I asked.

"It was just a feeling. Since the patriarch wanted to be resurrected, I believed he would let the corpse slowly heal and enter the sleep state he described. And that's exactly what happened."

Mr. Bian said, "The conflict is now very clear. If we don't help him, we will all suffer. If we help him, we don't know how many people will be killed. So there is only one way: seal him in a grave and find a way to help him pass on to the afterlife!"

"Will it work? He's no ordinary ghost!" Tian Juan said worriedly.

“We have no other choice. This is the only way forward right now. Let’s take a gamble and see! We just want to find out one thing: whether they will be in the grave tomorrow during the day. If we can subdue him, I will eventually be able to use my magic to help him pass on to the afterlife,” Jiang Ping said.

Mother Tian sighed and said, "I wonder how crazy and terrifying that ghost will be if it escapes!"

"Alright, don't think about it too much. Grandpa Sun said we'd get through this. Everyone, just go to sleep! We can discuss anything tomorrow morning, we're all exhausted."

I slept very well all night, but I was awakened by urgent knocking on the door just as dawn was breaking.

When I opened the door, I saw it was Mr. Bian. He said hurriedly, "Hurry up and wash up! Reporter, you have some news to tell."

"What happened?" I asked anxiously as I got into the taxi.

He pulled a dark-colored memorial tablet from his pocket and said, “I found this by my bedside this morning. This tablet has always been placed on the shrine in my cousin’s house as a memorial tablet for our ancestors. Take a look at the back.”

He turned the old memorial tablet over, and on the back were two newly engraved lines of traditional Chinese characters: "Take care of yourself, don't waste your efforts, and you won't be a pig next time."

"What kind of nonsensical talk is this?" I asked, puzzled.

“I just called my cousin, and he said all the pigs in the village had been murdered. I didn’t get any details because the cell phone signal was bad,” Mr. Bian said.

"The pig was murdered?" Tian Juan laughed out loud when she heard that.

But judging from Mr. Bian's serious expression, things didn't seem so funny.

The car was taking the same route as yesterday. It was still early, and there weren't many cars on the road. However, there was a very obvious tire track ahead, which looked like it had just been left.

The village is only a few hundred meters from the stone bridge, and a police car was parked at the entrance of the village.

As soon as I got off the bus, I heard a familiar voice call out to me: "Hey, you little rascal, you're quick! I just got here and you're already here!"

It turned out to be Uncle Chen. I happily went up to greet him: "You're back from your business trip? Let me introduce you to someone."

Mr. Bian stepped forward, grasped Officer Chen's hand, and said excitedly, "Detective Chen, do you remember me?"

Uncle Chen's eyes lit up: "How could I forget! Bian Zhiguo, it's you! How have things been all these years?"

"It's a long story; more than twenty years have passed since we parted," Mr. Bian said with emotion.

Who are the next three?

I guessed he must have misunderstood that the four of them were a family, so I quickly gave a brief introduction. Officer Chen was probably confused after listening, and he said, "We'll talk later, there's a case here."

Accompanied by the village chief, we visited several pigsties, and the situation was roughly the same: the pigs had been killed with sharp blades and their bodies were covered in wounds. It was obvious that the clan chief was behind it.

Officer Chen and his colleagues must have been very puzzled: there were no human footprints in the pigsty, so why would the murderer do this? Was it out of revenge? And how come no one heard the noise?

A villager who claimed to be the first to discover the situation said, "Our pigs usually start squealing incessantly around five o'clock, demanding food, more punctual than an alarm clock! Today they were all silent, so I was afraid it was a pig thief. I quickly got up to check, and all the pigs were dead, with blood everywhere. Who could be so cruel!"

I pulled Officer Chen aside and said, "Uncle Chen, don't waste your time! I know who did it. Remember the bloodstained clothes case involving Bian Zhiguo's sister? It was the same killer."

He looked at me in astonishment, finding it utterly unbelievable: "No way! Who could it be?"

"Do you remember the Miao merchant who was killed, as recorded in the county annals? It was his ghost and Bian Jizhong's ghost who did it. We saw them with our own eyes! Well, it's a long story. Let Jiang Ping tell you. I have to finish a manuscript, or the editor-in-chief will kill me."

I asked Jiang Ping to explain it to him, and then I went to a few more places and dictated a news article to the editor-in-chief on my phone. I believe this will become a topic of conversation for millions of citizens, but they may never understand why.

Uncle Chen talked with Jiang Ping and the others for a while, asked them some questions, and finally, when he saw me walking over, he said to me, "I believe what you said is true, but we still need to collect evidence as usual, otherwise we won't be able to explain ourselves. I have other cases to handle, so it seems I can't be of much help. What are you planning to do? You'd better not talk about the ghosts, so as not to cause panic."

At this moment, a middle-aged man and a young man came to greet Mr. Bian. They must be the cousin he married twenty-one years ago.

His face was full of wrinkles, and he said with great concern as soon as we met, "If you hadn't called me this morning, I really wouldn't have known the memorial tablet was missing. What exactly happened?"

Mr. Bian smiled slightly and changed the subject, saying, "Don't be nervous, it's alright! I told you to find someone with magical powers, have you done that?"

"Of course there are! I've consulted several shamans and fortune tellers these past two days. They either say it's some kind of evil wind from a thousand years ago, or that I offended the head of a Rakshasa demon and startled it. They've said all sorts of fancy things, but none of them are accurate. I doubt they're anything special."

Officer Chen and his team were suddenly surrounded by a group of people not far away, who pointed to the other side of the mountain and talked all at once.

Jiang Ping said, "Let's go take a look too."

We went over and listened for a while. It turned out that someone had found unburnt human bones on the mountain, as well as dozens of caves. They guessed that wild ghosts had come out to find food and had killed and eaten a pig.

Many people vividly recounted stories of this haunted mountain. Some said they often saw lights on the mountain at midnight, while others said they accidentally dug up a bone on the mountain, which caused them to fall seriously ill, and they only recovered after asking a certain deity to perform a ritual. Both the storytellers and the listeners were terrified and shuddered.

Officer Chen shouted, "Don't believe this!"

These are just rumors. We have intelligence that this was a theft ring from out of town. They wanted to extract an illegal drug from the organs of live pigs. They didn't dare to buy them from the food station, so they used sedatives to anesthetize the pigs in the middle of the night, then dismembered and stole them.

Everyone should be more careful in the future. Let's get rid of those pigs quickly and stop being so paranoid.

The lights on the mountain at night are a trick used by tomb raiders to create an illusion, hoping to raid the tombs at night without being disturbed. We will do our best to solve the case.

Almost everyone who heard this suddenly understood, and then grumbled that the world is so big and full of wonders. I really admire Uncle Chen's ability to make up stories, but this is indeed a necessary white lie.

Mr. Bian's cousin said, "Don't stand outside, come and sit at my house."

“We won’t go, we have official business to attend to,” Officer Chen politely declined, then said to me, “Little girl, keep me updated on the latest developments.”

"Hey, where's Jiang Ping?" Tian Juan suddenly asked.

We searched around, and finally, one by one, the children told us that he had run to the other side of the river.

Just as we were about to head over, Jiang Ping came running back, panting heavily.

He paused to catch his breath, his expression extremely anxious: "We need to hurry and buy train tickets. The chieftain's grave is empty; he moved his body! My words yesterday alerted him."

Mr. Bian pointed to his cousin and nephew and asked, "Mr. Sun said I have a pale face, so what do you think of them?"

Jiang Ping instinctively reached for his glasses, only to find he had reached for nothing. It turned out he no longer needed glasses. He looked him over and said, "No, you're just like them, only showing signs of recent contact with ghosts. You look much better. They don't need to go."

"Where did the clan chief put the corpse?" Tian Juan's voice was full of disappointment.

"I don't know, but we don't have time to look for it. The police car is still there, let's go and hitch a ride."

We hurriedly said goodbye to Mr. Bian's cousin's family, and Officer Chen took us to the station and helped us book our tickets smoothly.

Mr. Bian originally didn't want the three of us women to go, but they knew they couldn't persuade me otherwise. Although Aunt Tian didn't say anything, her meaning was firm. In fact, everyone knew very well that this trip had a sense of desolation and uncertainty, perhaps these were their last few days together.

Soon a bus to Kunming arrived. Before boarding, Jiang Ping seemed to suddenly remember something, asked Mr. Bian for his cell phone, made a call, and talked for several minutes.

"Who are you calling? You're being so mysterious," Tian Juan said quickly.

"Oh, it's nothing, I just explained some protective measures to Uncle Bian," Jiang Ping said casually.

We managed to buy seats in the dining car, which gave us time to discuss our next steps.

We are now forced to the brink of despair: helping the chieftain will result in the deaths of countless lives, perhaps countless children.

If we do not cooperate with the chieftain, each of us here, as well as our relatives, may be killed. In the chieftain's eyes, apart from his own people, other people's lives are probably no different from a sacrificial animal.

The last and only path, which seemed to be the only way yesterday, was to suppress the clan leader and then find a way to send him to the afterlife. But that hope was completely shattered.

Tian Juan shook her head, gave me a sad smile, and said, "Perhaps in a few days this will be world-shaking news, and you, as the only reporter who witnessed it, will become famous worldwide. Hundreds of people were massacred, and a group of people who died many years ago miraculously came back to life. Who would believe it? We might end up in a mental hospital."

"Don't be so pessimistic. Who knows what miracle might happen until the very end?" I comforted her with a tone that even I didn't believe.

Mother Tian sighed and said slowly, "I remember that night when the clan chief was furious and accused no one of saving his people. I can also suddenly imagine his ghost wandering among his people, unable to let anyone know of his existence, and his despair."

Perhaps after experiencing such torment, his humanity was completely extinguished. Fate loves to torment the kind-hearted. Alas, who says that Heaven is impartial and always favors the virtuous?

Jiang Ping didn't interrupt, his brows furrowed as he intently pondered something.

Mr. Bian remained calm and smiled as he said, "But last time was different. If the chieftain hadn't destroyed his own tribe, the situation would have been completely different. Don't worry, there's always a way out. Last time we had the help of the Victorious Fighting Buddha, and this time we'll have his help too. We'll definitely find a way."

Jiang Ping, who had been silent, suddenly snapped out of his reverie and interjected, "Hmm, the Victorious Fighting Buddha? What are you talking about?"

"Oh, Uncle Bian said that with your help, we'll definitely turn bad luck into good. What are you thinking about? You've lost your mind!" Tian Juan said.

"Oh, I was just concentrating on thinking about the problem. Actually, I was so foolish. I missed a golden opportunity yesterday and didn't grasp the key to the problem. I should have subdued and helped Mr. Bian's ghost pass on first. That way, at least we wouldn't be in such a passive position. I still lack experience!"

Mr. Bian patted him on the shoulder and said, "You absolutely can't be blamed for this. In fact, the situation was truly terrifying. I only had one thought at the time: to destroy those skeletons. I don't believe anyone could remain calm in that situation."

Jiang Ping nodded: "What's done is done, but the future can still be pursued. I'm still thinking about that point of doubt we discussed yesterday, whether the clan leader's ghost suffered any damage to its vital energy?"

"I think the most powerful threat is to show us his power and then make us do this or that without any explanation, and then disappear."

Before I saw the ghost, it seemed unfathomable, and I felt surrounded by danger. But after actually seeing it, the threat of death became more concrete and intense, and I wasn't so afraid anymore. Roosevelt was right: fear comes from fear itself. Indeed!

Judging from the clan chief's killing of the pig, it really reflects his anxious and insecure mentality, which may be a result of his weakened power. Look how arrogant he was when facing Mr. Sun," Mr. Bian analyzed.

“But what’s the use? Even so, we still can’t subdue him!” Tian Juan pointed out the crux of the matter.