Les trois histoires de fantômes de Jinzhong Deux Tai Sui détruisent la ville

Chapitre 4

The landing point was wrong? Sun Jing immediately understood the purpose of this simple experiment.

The police have really sharp eyes these days; they even noticed that the flowerpot's original position and the spot where it fell weren't perpendicular, there was a slight discrepancy.

Judging from this red brick, the error was about half a meter. In other words, if there were no other influencing factors, the flowerpot should have landed at Han Shang's feet, giving her a big fright.

But there could be many factors at play, Sun Jing thought as he walked toward the other end of the alley.

For example, a pigeon landed on the flowerpot, causing it to lose its balance and fall, bumping into a nearby flowerpot; or Han Shang staggered half a step before falling when hit. Therefore, the calculated original position of her is inaccurate. The latter possibility is more likely, as people have forward momentum when walking and don't fall cleanly and directly.

And of course, there's the wind.

What the person could think of, the police could certainly think of as well. Therefore, this was still an accident.

Sun Jing suddenly became alert. He realized that subconsciously, he seemed to be thinking about something that was not unexpected.

"It's a ghost claiming my life! It's a ghost claiming my life! I'm going to speak out!"

Sun Jing heard a terrified voice, turned around, and saw the old woman from the tobacco and sundry shop she had seen earlier. She tried to rush out of the shop, but was held back tightly.

"Are you crazy? You're acting crazy again," the young woman grabbing her snapped.

Sun Jing got goosebumps again. He suddenly remembered something, stopped at the shop entrance, and turned around to look.

That's right. Although it wasn't far from where the accident happened, the winding curve of the alley made it impossible for him to see where Han Shang had fallen. If he couldn't see her, then of course the people in the tobacco and sundry shop behind her couldn't see her either.

The old woman stretched out a hand and beckoned to him forcefully: "Are you a police officer? I'm telling you, it's a ghost demanding a life, police officer, I saw it."

"Oh dear, my mom has a mental illness, I'm so sorry. This old lunatic, you really need to go to the hospital." The daughter forcefully pulled her mother back to the shop.

Sun Jing gently stroked the back of her neck with her hand, her warm palms soothing the raised pores.

It was just a mental illness that happened to occur at the same time as the death.

Or perhaps, things aren't that simple.

He felt a surge of emotion washing over him. This emotion wasn't entirely unfamiliar; it reminded him of the fear that filled his chest as he plummeted down the cliff at high speed, the imminent danger of death constantly reminding him to deploy his parachute. But he chose to wait a little longer.

The mind is like a beach. The surging tides make the sand finer and harder time and time again, but if the waves are fierce enough, they may unearth treasures buried beneath the sand. For example, the tsunami at the end of 2004 unearthed stone sculptures from more than a thousand years ago on the beaches of Mahabalipuram, India.

People are all despicable, just in different ways. Sun Jing gave a self-deprecating laugh.

"Foo, fuo, fuo," Sun Jing made a strange sound as he walked into his small house.

This three-story building with a yard used to belong to his family. The exterior was covered in mosaic tiles, which was quite modern eighty years ago. There was a very thick magnolia tree in the yard, and when it bloomed, its fragrance couldn't be blocked even with the windows closed. Forty years ago, many uninvited neighbors moved into the building, and at the time, there was no reason to argue about it. Now, Sun Jing owns three rooms on the second floor, plus a toilet.

The mailbox was normal today. Sun Jing closed the small door, walked through the narrow passage, and went up the stairs.

"Fufufu," he started again. What would Han Shang want to say to him in her final moments?

No, it was just one word. Sun Jing felt that what Han Shang wanted to say repeatedly was just one word.

Which word is so crucial?

Sun Jing sighed. There are too many homophones in Chinese, and what Han Chang was talking about was not a homophone of "弗", but a word that started with "弗". It's just that her rapidly dying life left her with no strength to utter the following syllables.

There are three rooms. One bedroom, one study/collection room, and the remaining room is the one where Sun Jing is staying.

The sunlight was fragmented by the blinds and fell onto the tortoise shell.

Many turtle shells.

Layer upon layer, piled together, they formed a tortoise-shell mountain.

The tortoise shells on Tortoise Shell Mountain are all blank. These are not oracle bones from the Shang Dynasty, but simply tortoise shells. The oldest piece inside could not have been owned by someone who died no more than five years ago.

Scattered in other corners of the room were tortoise shells of entirely different appearances. They were ancient in appearance, more or less damaged, with rows of drill marks on them, and some had been scorched by fire, resulting in fine cracks on the other side. In the Yin and Shang dynasties, these were called divination patterns or omen patterns. Diviners and shamans would use the patterns to determine whether the divination result was a good omen or a bad omen.

They looked exactly like precious artifacts unearthed from the Yin Ruins—or at least, only superficially. That was enough, Sun Jing thought. He believed he was not only the best expert on oracle bones, but also the best expert in forging them. In this field, he had few worthy competitors.

Sun Jing looked at the pile of raw materials, which included both mountain turtles and marsh turtles. The divination turtles that were originally presented as tribute to the capital by various regions of the Shang Dynasty were all different.

"Crack".

Sun Jing immediately scanned the area to see where the sound was coming from.

"Crack".

There was another sound, from that pile of tortoise shells. Sun Jing stared intently at the mountain of tortoise shells, and right under his gaze, the small mountain continued to make sounds, then collapsed with a "crash."

Sun Jing's shoulders relaxed as he remembered he'd left the live tortoise shell letter in the room. He hadn't fed it for two days; it seemed quite energetic, only the sender was dead.

Sun Jing was too lazy to rearrange the tortoise shells; the room was messy enough anyway. He leaned back in his work chair, pressed down, and half-reclined.

A few seconds later, he suddenly straightened up and stared blankly at the fallen tortoise shell.

A flash of lightning streaked through my mind, instantly illuminating a corner I hadn't seen before.

Sun Jing braced himself against the handrails and slowly stood up. He walked to the half-collapsed pile of tortoise shells and squatted down. He reached his hand into the pile of shells and groped around for a while.

"Damn it," he cursed under his breath, unable to resist adding more force to his hands and savagely twisting them. The tortoise shells scattered everywhere.

When he finally stopped, there was hardly any room left to stand in the room. He smiled silently, lowered his head, and began to examine the turtle in his hand, which was so frightened that it had tucked its head and feet into its shell.

He remembered that Han Shang had made a ridiculous mistake in this tortoise-shell letter; she had written the character "余" (Yu) backwards. This was a basic error that anyone with even a slight knowledge of oracle bone script wouldn't make, yet Han Shang was someone who was prepared to spend two million to borrow the wizard's skull for research. Perhaps Han Shang wasn't actually interested in academic research; she wasn't an oracle bone scholar, and most likely had other motives. But would she be a novice so inexperienced as to make such a mistake?

She wrote it backwards.

Sun Jing could picture Han Shang's last few lip movements.

It's all about "opposition"!

Sun Jing turned the tortoise around but didn't notice anything. Without any hesitation, he flipped the tortoise over.

"Yu" is me; turning "me" upside down is a coded message.

"Hmph..." Sun Jing let out a long sigh.

There are characters on the turtle's plastron. They are not oracle bone script, but rather neatly carved small regular script.

The first few words startled Sun Jing.

"If something unexpected happens and I'm unable to meet you..."

That wasn't an accident! A thunderbolt struck my heart.

On the coffee table was today's evening paper. The top page was the social section, and the headline was about a stage actress being killed by a flowerpot in the street at noon.

As Sun Jing expected, the news reported that Han Shang had already passed away when she was taken to the hospital. Upon confirming her death, he couldn't help but sigh.

The clock struck eleven. Sun Jing stood up from the sofa, changed her shoes, and went out.

There are too many people and too much attention during the day, so now is the perfect time to go to Han Shang's house. There's something there that was specially reserved for him.

A night breeze rustled the roadside trees. An empty taxi pulled up and slowed down. Sun Jing waved to the driver; his destination was within walking distance.

The plastron of a turtle is such a small area, and Han Shang doesn't know micro-carving, so of course she couldn't explain what it was on. But this was definitely a crucial clue, and Sun Jing believed he would soon find out why Han Shang had died. At the same time, this also meant that he was completely involved.

Or you could look at it and put it back where it was, as if nothing had happened. Sun Jing smiled.

Han Shang's rented house was very close to here. The nearby residential areas were all old houses. When Sun Jing arrived, he realized that this small building was very similar to his own house, only the yard was a bit smaller.

Han Shang lived on the third floor. The evening newspaper reporter reported the accident in great detail, so Sun Jing knew that Han's mother had fainted and been hospitalized, and all the burdens were on Han's father. No one had time to come here to sort through Han Shang's belongings.

However, Sun Jing still walked around the building once, noted the location of the lit room on the third floor, and then turned to walk towards the flower bed.

At this time, the main door on the first floor would already be closed. Sun Jing walked to the flower bed, and after confirming that no one was around, he took out his small flashlight and shone it around, finding a wooden chopstick stuck deep in the outer left corner.

There was a small plastic bag buried under the wooden chopsticks, containing two keys.

Sun Jing used one of the doors to open it, then gently closed it behind him, plunging into complete darkness.

In a building with many households, there must be numerous light switches at the entrance. Every household has one, and Han Shang certainly has one too. Sun Jing didn't know which one belonged to Han Shang, nor did he intend to turn on the light.

Using the flashlight's beam, he climbed the stairs. Despite being extra careful, each step still creaked and groaned. The wooden stairs were terribly old; it seemed as if stepping too hard would cause a hole to form in them.

On the third floor, Sun Jing stood in front of Han Shang's room. He realized that the room with the light on earlier was another one, which put his mind at ease.

After turning off the flashlight, Sun Jing felt for the keyhole and inserted the key.

It felt awkward when turning it. Sun Jing tried a few times and wondered if he had used the wrong key to the door, so he pulled it out and changed it.

It still won't turn on.

Sun Jing switched to the original key and tried again. The sound of the key turning in the dark was particularly jarring. If a neighbor's door suddenly opened at that moment and saw him groping in the dark trying to open someone's door, it would be troublesome.

Han Shang couldn't have used the wrong key, could she? How could it not open? Sun Jing applied more force and felt it loosen a bit. It was definitely the key. Opening old locks often required a bit of skill, such as pressing it to the left or right.

Sun Jing tried pressing the key to the left, and the door suddenly opened.

Sun Jing was startled; this wasn't the one he opened. Someone else...

Before the thought was even halfway through, a hard object struck him hard on the head, causing him to spin and fall to the ground.

The blow didn't completely knock him unconscious, but he was so dizzy he couldn't come to his senses for a moment. The person who hit him quickly darted past him and ran downstairs.

Oh no, this commotion is too loud. Sun Jing knew something was wrong, but he was still in a daze and couldn't get up from the ground.

The neighbor's door opened, and the light shone on him.

"Oh dear!" came a cry of surprise.

"Old man, come out quickly!" The frightened old woman turned around and called into the house.

When the old neighbor ran out, Sun Jing propped himself up against the wall. This was the best he could manage for the time being; his head was spinning and throbbing, and he touched his forehead where a large bump had appeared, stained with blood. A metal rod lay on the ground beside him—the weapon that had beaten him. Actually, it was a hollow, retractable indoor clothesline; thankfully, otherwise his fate might have been similar to Han Shang's.

However, he already looked quite frightening, and with Han Shang's door wide open, the old man who came out later was also quite startled.

"Who are you? What's going on?" the old man asked nervously.

Then, without waiting for his reply, she said to her wife, "Quickly call the police."

"I am a police officer," Sun Jing said.

"ah?"

"I am a police officer," Sun Jing calmly repeated. "The owner of the house behind here died this afternoon."

"I saw it in the evening paper. What a terrible thing that girl did," the old woman said, but there was still some doubt in her eyes as she looked at Sun Jing.

The old man's face was filled with even more questions.

"Are you a police officer?" he asked. "Then what just happened? Are you really a police officer?"

My colleague will be here soon.

Under the watchful eyes of the two people, Sun Jing took out his phone and dialed a number.

"Officer Xu, there's been a problem with the operation. Come over immediately. Yes, I'm still here..." Sun Jing quickly recited the address and hung up the phone.