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Capítulo 14

Without saying a word, she barged in, closed the door, and turned on the light.

"What's up?" Xu Miaomiao mumbled, opening her eyes. "Hey, are you a dance teacher?"

"Xu Miaomiao, listen to me. Pack your clothes, grab your schoolbag, and take all your textbooks and homework. Come with me! Don't ask why. You're in danger anyway. I'll take you somewhere to hide, and we'll come back in a while. Hurry, pack your things."

As Xu Miaomiao tidied up, she asked, "Who wants to kill me? What happened? Why is it always our family? Is it the person who killed Mom and my brother who wants to kill me?"

"Don't ask, I can't explain it either. Hurry up, the clothes are in the bag. Don't take this."

"My hair is messy, let me tie it up." Xu Miaomiao said, using her fingers to smooth her hair and then tying it at the back of her head with a yellow silk ribbon.

"What are you still looking for? Don't bring anything else."

“Bear. And... we need to lift the mattress.”

"Stop rummaging, what are you taking?"

"The money my mother left behind..."

She took out the loose change from under the mattress, unfolded a small handkerchief, put the money inside, and carefully wrapped it up. Wu Bingbing looked at it and suddenly felt a pang of sadness.

The two of them quickly went downstairs, quietly left the courtyard, and disappeared into the thick night fog.

After crossing two intersections, they finally flagged down a taxi. Wu Bingbing told the driver a place name—her grandmother's house in a small town 200 kilometers away. The driver hesitated, saying that driving such a long distance late at night wasn't safe on that road. Bingbing said she would pay double, stuffing several hundred-yuan bills into the driver's hand and urging him to drive quickly, the faster the better, because she wanted to ride back in his car.

That night, Wu Bingbing took Xu Miaomiao to her maternal grandmother's house. When she returned to the city, it was still dark, in the pre-dawn darkness. Adding to the fog, she quietly made her way home, feeling completely unnoticed. After washing her face, she felt neither tired nor sleepy.

Just then, a gust of wind blew by, and Jiang Lan appeared in her bedroom.

"You look like you didn't sleep all night? Did you get everything I asked you to do?"

"It's done, I'm all done."

"How did you do it?"

"I did as you said."

"Should we kill her?"

"Yes. Kill her."

"Where is the body? In her house?"

“I buried her in a hole I dug in the suburbs.”

"Don't lie to me, or I'll get angry."

"I'm not lying to you. If you don't believe me, go to her house and see for yourself. She's never coming back."

Where in the suburbs is the body buried?

"It was very far. I put her in a plastic bag and took a taxi all the way to the outskirts. I don't know how far we went, but we just stopped somewhere and started digging and digging... What happened?"

"Go on, tell the story!"

"I buried it after I dug the hole."

“Yes, I saw it buried there. They dug such a big pit, enough to bury several people. It’s really far away. You buried the body so far away, in a small ditch 200 kilometers away…”

Wu Bingbing's eyes widened: "What did you say? You followed me?"

"Don't be surprised. I saw the place where you buried the body, and I also saw the dead person. Hmm, the little girl still had blood in her mouth, but she was hugging her teddy bear tightly. And the bow in her hair, so pretty, it was such a waste to bury it in the ground, so I brought them all back."

As she spoke, she pulled a teddy bear out of her skirt, with a yellow bow tied around its neck.

Wu Bingbing opened her mouth in astonishment, bit her fingers in pain, and burst into tears.

“I haven’t finished yet!” Jiang Lan stared intently at her and said, “That pit was so big, besides that girl, there was another person buried there, an old woman, whose white hair was stained red with blood.”

Then, she took out two strands of hair, one black and one white, and waved them in front of Wu Bingbing.

Wu Bingbing let out a heart-wrenching scream and charged at Jiang Lan with all her might. Jiang Lan jumped up to dodge, and said to the enraged Wu Bingbing, "That person is your grandmother!"

Wu Bingbing grabbed whatever was nearby and threw it, but Jiang Lan dodged it by jumping around. Then, the two of them started fighting in the room. Because the lights were off, all that could be heard was the sound of crashing and smashing. The dressing table, clothes rack, paintings on the wall, and flowers on the coffee table were all overturned and in a mess. Wu Bingbing cried, cursed, and yelled, throwing things randomly at Jiang Lan until she finally collapsed to the ground, exhausted.

As Jiang Lan left, she said coldly, "I warned you not to try anything funny with me. You didn't listen, and you're only hurting yourself. Because of your foolishness, you've harmed your grandmother, and you'll harm your whole family!"

The following afternoon, Wu Bingbing retrieved her father's hunting rifle and two boxes of loose ammunition from a dusty corner of the storage room. As night fell, she propped the rifle against the bedside table, staring out the window, waiting for Jiang Lan's arrival. She knew Jiang Lan was afraid of guns; tonight she would take revenge and destroy this female ghost.

The light in the room next to her mother's was off, but she was clearly still awake; intermittent sobs could be heard. Since hearing the news of her grandmother yesterday at noon, she had cried, run to the countryside crying, buried her grandmother crying, and then returned home crying. She had cried almost all her tears out in the past two days. These cries cut into Bingbing's heart like knives, filling her with immense guilt and pain, yet she dared not tell her mother everything. She feared her mother's blame for her negligence and incompetence, which had not only harmed a 12-year-old girl but also caused the tragic death of her own family.

She loaded the shotgun, crouched at the head of the bed, her hands supporting the trigger on her shoulders, her fingers tightly gripping the trigger, her eyes fixed on the window with hostility; even the slightest tremor of the curtains made her highly tense.

After an unknown amount of time, Jiang Lan finally appeared. As she swept through the air into Bingbing's bedroom through the window, she landed directly in front of the bed. As she approached, Bingbing pulled the trigger. A deafening "Boom!" echoed as the gun's muzzle flashed, piercing Jiang Lan's body before striking the window and shattering the entire pane. Jiang Lan screamed and fled through the window, leaving behind scattered pieces of torn clothing and a patch of blackened blood…

Wu Bingbing went to the window and looked out, but did not see Jiang Lan. Instead, she saw several people downstairs looking up at her – the noise in the middle of the night had disturbed the residents below.

The mother ran over and was stunned by the scene in the room.

The police arrived too. Ugh! It was someone downstairs who called the police.

When they entered, Wu Bingbing had already hidden the gun. The police asked what had happened. "More than a dozen people in the neighborhood called the police, saying there were gunshots coming from your house. Why were they shooting?"

Bingbing said, "There's a ghost. I'm fighting a female ghost."

The policeman said, "Shooting ghosts? Never heard of that before. Where's the gun?"

They quickly found the gun under the bed. Bingbing rushed over: "Don't take my gun, that's mine—" Two policemen stepped forward and stopped her.

The police officer said, "The government has long stipulated that citizens are not allowed to possess firearms, including hunting rifles and air guns. Your gun, which you didn't surrender, is considered illegally possessed and is now confiscated… Now, tell me why you fired the gun?"

"Why did you confiscate my gun? I need it to fight ghosts! My whole family will be wiped out by ghosts!"

"What a joke! Where's the ghost? Where's the ghost? Where is it? —"

"She was shot and ran away. Look at the ground—"

Everyone looked down at the ground, which had been filthy just moments before, but was now spotless and completely empty. Even Bingbing herself was dumbfounded.

The mother quickly stepped forward and said, "Officers, you can go now..."

"What the hell? Maybe it's a nightmare? You shouldn't be shooting randomly like that! This is a residential area, not the wilderness! We'll take the gun with us, and we'll talk about this when Director Wu gets back."

After the police left, Wu Bingbing hugged her mother's shoulders and cried...

The next morning, Wu Bingbing went to the hospital. When she came out, she had a scalpel in her handbag. She then walked towards the museum with the scalpel, thinking to herself, "Jiang Lan is probably dead now, or at least seriously injured. She must be afraid of scalpels. Dr. Meng used a scalpel to protect himself."

After entering the museum, she first went to the medical area on one side. She needed to calm herself down. So she took out a scalpel and practiced its movements, figuring out how to make a powerful cut. After this preparation, she tucked the scalpel back into her handbag, left the zipper open, and then walked into the art gallery.

Standing before the painting "Woman Practicing Yoga," her mind was filled with thoughts of her grandmother's death, the manipulation and injustices she had suffered, and the dangers her family might face. This gave her courage and strength; she was determined to destroy this painting that concealed a demon. Suddenly, she grabbed a knife and leaped towards the center of the painting—she felt so close, she should have hit it, but for some reason, the knife seemed to strike nothing, as if hitting thin air. Looking at the painting again, it was like a shattered pool of water, so distorted that nothing could be seen clearly; her hand and knife seemed to be hanging in a jumble of churning paint.

Confused and uneasy, she drew her knife, cried out Jiang Lan's name, and stabbed her again.

The image trembled, forming a vortex, and the scalpel plunged into the dark hole at its center. The wolf, hidden in the background, suddenly leaped out, its mouth agape, eyes wide, teeth bared, and it hissed threateningly from between its teeth. She felt a sudden fear; her wrists trembled. Each time she tried to reach for the scalpel, the wolf would leap forward, hissing a warning at her. The two remained locked in a stalemate.

Suddenly, a woman's screams rang out in the video. The wolf, as if driven away, raised its head and howled, then pounced from the inside, its front paws striking her face. She felt as if she'd been struck on the head, and instantly lost consciousness…

She was brought home by the museum staff. When her mother laid her flat on the bed, she was already awake, but she was still clutching the scalpel in her hand, protecting it tightly to her chest.

Dad was notified to attend a meeting, and he said he would be gone for two days. But he hadn't returned by the third day, and Bingbing was getting anxious. She tried calling his cell phone, but it was switched off. She thought either the meeting had been extended, or he had already returned and gone to that female colleague's house. She impulsively wanted to go find him, but after thinking it over, she controlled herself. She was anxious to find her father so that he could go to the police station to get his gun back.

For the past two days, Wu Bingbing had spent all her time thinking about what to do next, how to deal with Jiang Lan, this bloodthirsty female ghost. She sensed that Jiang Lan would target her family, killing her father and mother, and then killing her. She had to take action; for the sake of her family, she couldn't just sit and wait to die.

When evening came, Dad finally returned home. He carried two large bags, his steps hurried, and he looked exhausted. As soon as he got home, he went into his bedroom, closed the door, and didn't move. She knocked for a long time before the door opened, and she saw that Dad's eyes were red, his face full of sorrow, and he was gripping the doorknob agitatedly, as if he wouldn't let her in. She asked what was wrong. Dad said nothing. She squeezed into the room. Dad paced back and forth, sitting down and standing up again, but he never looked at her. Bingbing could tell that Dad was troubled; there was a clear fear in his eyes, and he had just been messing up his hair.

Bingbing said, "The police station took away our gun."

"Police station? What kind of gun?" Dad was surprised.

"I fired that shotgun yesterday."

"Have the police arrived?"

"They're here, they've taken the gun away."

Why did you touch that gun? At this time—

"Could you go and get the gun back?"

"No! I don't want it!"

"Dad, what happened?"

Why do you ask that?

"Did something happen?"

"No! Nothing happened, nothing at all."

"Did you get angry with that woman?"

"What? ……"

"I know that woman—"

"What else do you know?"

"Is she your colleague at the bank?"

"Stop talking!" Dad yelled irritably. "I don't know any woman, I don't know any colleagues at all! Don't talk nonsense, you don't know anything!"

"What's wrong? I didn't tell Mom. But..."

"Get out! Can't you leave me in peace and quiet?" Her father pushed her out and closed the door.

Bingbing sat outside and sensed her father's unusual mood. She also held her head in distress.

That night, the light in Dad's room stayed on all night. He kept pacing back and forth, occasionally rummaging through drawers and cabinets looking for things, making a lot of noise. Clearly, he hadn't slept all night.

The next day, he left early in the morning. He didn't return by noon, and his phone was still switched off. Bingbing was worried and called the bank, but the person on duty said they hadn't seen him. By the afternoon, the bank was also looking for him, and they called his home, the person on the other end sounding very loud and urgent. Bingbing asked what the emergency was. The person on the other end said it was something important to report to the bank manager: a female employee at the bank had died. They added that she might have died yesterday, and that she hadn't come to work that morning; her colleagues had found her murdered in her dormitory.

Bingbing's heart felt as if it had been struck by a heavy object, and she immediately felt a sharp, throbbing pain. She guessed it might be that beautiful woman, and she also began to doubt her father's unusual behavior and sleepless night. Could that woman be dead? Who killed her? Was it her father? Impossible! Impossible!

Then Bingbing started looking for her father, fearing that something might have happened to him.

She couldn't find her father, but when she went to the bank, she saw him there. He had clearly composed himself, appearing remarkably calm as he sat unperturbed in his office. He had already assigned someone to handle the aftermath of the female employee's situation and had reported the incident to the police according to procedure. Seeing his daughter, he was somewhat surprised. He welcomed her into his office, closed the door, gave her a drink, and lit a cigarette for himself.

"Dad, where did you go? Mom and I are very worried."

"It's fine to drive to the suburbs for some fresh air."

"Was that woman murdered?" Bingbing asked cautiously.

Dad glanced at the door and exhaled a heavy puff of smoke.

"Believe me, I didn't kill her. That afternoon, after my meeting, I went to her house. When I opened the door, I found the house quiet, so I went in and saw her lying on the sofa outside. Her face was bluish-purple, her eyes were wide open, and her mouth was agape. She was already dead. It seemed like she had just died; there were strangulation marks on her neck, and her body was still warm."

I looked around the house, inside and out, and realized the killer had escaped. I became frightened; I never expected this—"