Le Banquet des Cent Fantômes

Chapitre 50

"Who is it?" Officer Qi asked softly, suppressing his excitement.

Ge Lao Er looked around and then whispered mysteriously, "He told Lao Er not to say."

"Who is 'he'?" Officer Qi asked anxiously.

"Old Master Li," Ge Lao Er said, letting out a long sigh.

The crowd burst into hearty laughter once again, leaving Officer Qi momentarily puzzled.

"Officer Qi, this old man Li is paralyzed; he's been bedridden on the kang (a heated brick bed) for decades," the village chief explained to Officer Qi with a smile.

Officer Qi said seriously to the village chief, "Village chief, this is no joke."

"Of course, who in the village doesn't know that Old Master Li is paralyzed?" the village chief replied seriously.

"That's right, the old man has been lying on the kang (heated brick bed) for years," the villagers chimed in.

Officer Qi frowned, still unwilling to give up, and asked Ge Lao Er, "What is Old Master Li doing now?"

Ge Lao Er got excited: "He's kissing the biggest 'female catfish' at home, and she's got lots and lots of roe in her belly..."

Officer Qi was dumbfounded after hearing this; this guy was a complete idiot...

“Hey, there’s not a soul in this village, turns out they’re all here…” someone suddenly said from outside the crowd, their accent soft and gentle, unlike the harsh, unpleasant accent of the local Northeastern folks.

The crowd parted to make way and turned their gazes in that direction.

An old woman of short stature, travel-worn, with silver hair flowing down her shoulders and a face full of wrinkles, wore a long-sleeved, short-sleeved jacket with a red striped apron tied around her waist, a single-piece skirt with a black front shawl, leggings, and black cloth shoes. She carried a large bundle on her back, dressed in the attire of a minority group from out of town.

Beside her stood a boy of seven or eight, carrying a long, green, fuzzy, umbrella-like object in his hand, and a huge, majestic blue parrot perched on his shoulder.

The old woman and the child were none other than Hakka nanny and Shen Caihua.

Since leaving Kokang in northern Myanmar, the old woman and her child endured hardships and traveled by car, train, and horse-drawn carriage. Finally, they arrived at Li Dishui's hometown—Yaowopu Village in Kaoshan Township on the banks of the Songhua River—to send her husband's ashes back from afar.

"Is this place called Demon's Den?" the Hakka old woman asked.

"Yes, this village is called Yaowopu. Who are you looking for?" The village chief squeezed forward, looked at the strangely dressed old woman, and answered politely.

The children were instantly drawn to the majestic figure of Dudu, the blue-and-white macaw perched on Xiaocai's shoulder. They all looked on with surprise and envy, but dared not reach out to touch it. Even the adults were full of praise and admiration.

"Look, this magpie is really big!" an old man with small eyes exclaimed.

"Nonsense, that's not a magpie, it's clearly a pheasant!" someone immediately retorted, dissatisfied.

"Is there a person here named Li Dihuo?" the Hakka woman asked again.

"Old Master Li? What do you want with him?" the village chief asked curiously, thinking that this paralyzed old man had lived a lonely life and never had any contact with outsiders.

“He is my brother-in-law,” the Hakka woman replied.

The village chief scratched his head, having never heard of Old Man Li having any brothers.

At this moment, an old woman with white hair, looking frail and decrepit, stepped forward and said hesitantly, "Li Dihuo has an older brother named Li... Dishui. He went to study at a modern school in the early years of the Republic of China. Later, around the time of the September 18 Incident, he returned home, riding a horse and carrying a gun. I heard he was in the Northeast Army. After that, there was no news of him. He probably died abroad."

“I am Li Dishui’s wife,” the Hakka woman said.

"Oh? Li Dishui is still alive?" the old woman muttered to herself. "He's probably over ninety years old, isn't he?"

"He's dead," the Hakka woman said calmly.

"Then what is this...?" the village chief asked respectfully.

"Sending his ashes back to his hometown has been Di Shui's wish for many years." The Hakka woman patted the urn in the bundle, her eyes reddening.

"Is that so? Grandpa Li Dihuo is still alive, but he has been paralyzed for many years. Look, this Ge Lao Er is the one he adopted in his early years," the village chief said, pointing to Ge Lao Er.

"Second Brother knows, you are the 'turtle shell' that's coming today." Ge Lao Er asked the Hakka nanny with a grin.

"Distinguished guest? You knew I was coming?" the Hakka woman asked in surprise.

"The old man knows. Last night he told the second son to set up a 'ground hook' to catch catfish, saying that a 'turtle shell' would arrive at our door by dawn today," Ge Lao Er said foolishly, his eyes lingering on the big parrot Dudu.

The Hakka woman felt quite strange. Perhaps the Di Shui brothers had some kind of connection. "Take me to see Li Di Huo," she said to Ge Lao Er.

"Wait a moment," Officer Qi suddenly said from the side, "I need to question Ge Lao Er in more detail about the situation." He was still somewhat unwilling to give up.

"What happened here?" The Hakka woman looked at the village chief.

The village chief sighed and said heavily, "Someone has died, and for no apparent reason. It's probably some kind of monster causing harm."

"A monster?" the Hakka woman asked, puzzled.

"His chest was completely sunken, and his eyes were sticking out. It was terrifying..." the village chief said, gesturing with lingering fear.

"Judging from your description of the deceased, it seems to have been done by a 'wriggling barbarian'," the Hakka nanny said calmly.

Chapter Seventy-Three

"'Worm-headed Barbarians'? What are those?" the village chief asked, his eyes wide with confusion.

The Hakka woman glanced at him and asked, "May I take a look at the deceased, old lady?"

Upon hearing this, the village chief glanced at Officer Qi, who nodded and turned to lead the old woman into the earthen house. Shen Caicai was surrounded by a large group of children and had no choice but to stand still, letting the children point and whisper. Dudu, on the other hand, raised her head, looking every bit the star.

Inside the room, the forensic technician was still meticulously collecting fingerprints by applying silver powder to the table, cabinets, and the edge of the kang (a heated brick bed). The forensic doctor stared blankly at Wang Laonian's corpse, muttering, "Impossible, it's simply unbelievable..."

The Hakka woman approached the naked corpse on the kang (a heated brick bed), pressed her hand on the sunken and shriveled chest, and said calmly, "Officer, please find a small bottle for the old woman."

Officer Qi looked at the old woman with a puzzled expression, but in the end, he asked the technician to hand her a small glass bottle used for collecting physical evidence.

The Hakka woman gently extended her left and right ring fingers and pressed them on the left and right Tianshu acupoints, two inches to the side of Wang Laonian's navel, while silently chanting, "曱曵曶曷书曺曻朁..." She used the third move of the Zhuyou Divine Skill, "Walking Corpse".

The technician glanced at Officer Qi in surprise and whispered, "Old Qi, where did you get this shaman?"

Officer Qi gave a wry smile, offering no reply, but staring intently at the Hakka woman's hand movements. He mused that this old woman from out of town might actually have some skills.

Wang Laonian's navel slowly opened a crack, and then a shiny, milky-white object with two small triangular eyes poked its head out. It slowly moved its neck, looked around, blinked, and seemed quite confused...

The Hakka woman continued chanting her incantation...

Officer Qi, the technician, and the other two police officers in the room were stunned, looking at each other speechlessly.

The insect continued crawling out, until its entire body emerged from the corpse's navel. It was more than a finger's length long, plump and fleshy, and surprisingly had short limbs, like a small gecko. Its body was milky white, with an eerie bluish glow...

No sooner said than done, the Hakka woman moved with lightning speed, quickly pinching the strange worm between two fingers and dropping it into the glass bottle. She then put the stopper on the bottle and breathed a sigh of relief.

"What...what is that?" Officer Qi asked tremblingly.

The Hakka old woman sneered, "You little 'wild rascal'."

Officer Qi was still puzzled and asked, "What exactly is this 'Worm-Headed Barbarian'? How did it crawl out of Wang Laonian's corpse?"

“‘Worm-headed Barbarians’ are creatures left over from ancient times,” the Hakka grandmother said to herself, frowning. “Strange, how did these things end up in Guandong? They should have been living in the Central Plains…”

"The navel?" Officer Qi was even more confused.

"The navel of the earth is where the energy of mountains and rivers converges, so there are some ancient creatures that still live within the navel. But the Northeast Plain does not have such geographical conditions for formation," the Hakka old woman explained, frowning in confusion.

Officer Qi shook his head. The old woman's words were filled with extreme feudal superstition and were not credible.

Officer Qi turned to the forensic technician and asked, "Was that insect some kind of maggot or something?"

“No,” the technician said, looking puzzled, reciting the textbook-like words, “Under normal circumstances, rigor mortis begins to appear 1 to 3 hours after death, initially on the face and eye muscles, then spreading to the torso and limbs. After 12 hours, rigor mortis will reach the whole body. It will soften again after 30 hours and return to its original state in about 70 hours. However, the process will be delayed in soil or water, or in cold and dry conditions, while it will be accelerated under hot and humid conditions.”

Officer Qi nodded, signaling him to continue.

The technician licked his dry lips, pointed to Wang Laonian's back, and continued, "This person has developed large areas of lividity, rigor mortis has spread, the cornea is slightly cloudy, and the lips are starting to wrinkle. We just used miotic drops in his eyes, and the pupils are still responding. This indicates that he has been dead for about eight hours, which means he should have been dead for approximately..."

"At midnight, the 'Ruotou Barbarians' always kill people in the middle of the night," the Hakka old woman interjected.

“Yes, the exact time of death should be around midnight,” the technician nodded. “The ileocecal region of a corpse is prone to accumulating feces, so the lividity first appears in the lower right abdomen, then spreads throughout the abdomen and the whole body. Flies, attracted by the deceased's scent, will lay eggs in the mouth, nose, eyes, external auditory canal, anus, and vulva. Each fly lays 150 eggs, which hatch into maggots in 8-14 hours at summer temperatures of 30 degrees Celsius. But now it's spring, and the weather is still relatively cool, so if maggots appear on the body, it will be several days later…”

Officer Qi interrupted the technician's lengthy explanation, saying, "We all know about corpse maggots, but I've never seen one this big before. I think this thing is definitely not a grasshopper from a fly's nest. Could it be some kind of strange parasite?"

The Hakka woman shook her head and said nothing more, only asking, "Officer, can this little 'wriggling' be taken away by this old woman?"

“No,” Officer Qi refused decisively. “This is physical evidence and needs to be taken back to the county bureau for testing.”

"You'd better be careful, those 'Worm-headed Barbarians' can be dangerous." The Hakka old woman handed the glass bottle to Officer Qi with a cold smile, then turned and walked out of the house.

The village chief told Ge Lao Er to take the Hakka woman and the child home to see Grandpa Li Di Huo. The group of village children followed Du Du reluctantly, heading north of the village together.

"Grandpa, the 'turtle shell' you mentioned has arrived..." As soon as he entered the courtyard, Ge Lao Er shouted at the top of his lungs.

Upon entering the east room, Old Master Li Dihuo slightly raised himself on the kang (a heated brick bed), a cryptic expression on his face, and said calmly, "My brother Dishui has come home?"

The Hakka woman stared at the old man with her sharp eyes, nodded slightly, and said, "I am Li Dishui's wife. I have met my brother-in-law." As she spoke, she untied the bundle on her back and put the urn on the kang (a heated brick bed).

"Alas, he is dead after all," Li Dihuo sighed softly.

"He died in the spring of 1966," the Hakka woman told him.

"The Republic of China?" Li Dihuo looked at the old woman in surprise, and said hesitantly, "You're from Taiwan?"

“Miaoli, Taiwan,” the old woman replied.

"Is this child from our Li family?" Li Dihuo caught sight of Shen Caihua behind the Hakka nanny, his eyes lit up, and he asked.

“Di Shui left no children; this child is Shen Caihua, the old woman’s apprentice,” the Hakka nanny said, looking at little Caihua with gentle eyes.

"Oh," the old man sighed upon hearing this, "The Li family was originally a wealthy family, but I never imagined that my brother and I would both be without descendants..."

"Uncle, the old woman came here specifically to take Di Shui's ashes back to her hometown. I wonder when he can be laid to rest?" the Hakka nanny asked.

"No rush. You haven't eaten yet, have you? Last night I had my second son catch some catfish. I'll have him stew them for you now. Second son, go stew the fish," the old man instructed.

"From what Mr. Ge said, it seems you already guessed that we would be here today?" the Hakka old woman said with considerable surprise.

The old man looked closely at his sister-in-law from out of town, and then slowly replied, "Brothers, when they have a feeling in their heads, they dream. I dreamed that you led my brother home."

The Hakka woman smiled slightly after hearing this and said nothing more.

"This child is born well, he has a certain charm," the old man changed the subject, looking at Chen Caihua with admiration. Then his gaze fell on Dudu, and he said with surprise, "This long-haired magpie is quite big."

Upon hearing this, Dudu's face showed anger and dissatisfaction. He thought to himself, "How can the Kanto region be so ignorant that they don't even recognize the world-famous Amazonian blue-and-silver macaw?"

"Uncle, what illness do you have?" the Hakka nanny asked.

"Sigh, it's high-level paraplegia, he fell off the roof, it's been decades," sighed Old Master Li.

"When we entered the village, we saw a family where someone had died. The appearance was very strange; the chest was sunken and the eyeballs were bulging out. Do things like this often happen around here?" the Hakka old woman asked casually.

Upon hearing this, Li Dihuo coldly replied, "Hmm, I've heard of it. It's probably haunted."

"Haunted?" the old woman asked doubtfully.