Три призрака города

Глава 28

Silence fell over the room again. My heart sank; the situation was indeed very serious. Gu Ming patted my shoulder, waved his hand, and took away the talisman that had been stuck to Aunt Gao's chest. Her figure became ethereal again.

“Aunt Gao, it’s been almost seven days. Shall I send you to reincarnation?” Gu Ming said, looking at her.

Aunt Gao looked at all of us, tears streaming down her face, and nodded forcefully without saying another word. Gu Ming immediately lit three talismans. After the flames subsided, a beam of golden light seemed to shoot from afar. Aunt Gao stepped onto the light, turned her head, and smiled slightly at us. I seemed to see her again as she was when we first met, that cheerful aunt laughing and welcoming us into Er Gou Manor, affectionately calling us children. In the blink of an eye, the beam of light disappeared, and Aunt Gao was nowhere to be seen in the room. It turns out that parting is as simple as meeting, but some things can never be erased.

She murmured, "Aunt Gao, may you rest in peace."

Xiao Bi and Deng Fei also had red eyes. Gu Ming pulled me aside and whispered, "Aunt Gao is kind-hearted. Usually, wronged souls who die unjustly are unwilling to be reincarnated and are determined to take revenge. But Aunt Gao stepped into the cycle of reincarnation without any resentment. She will surely be happy and fulfilled in her next life."

"Gu Ming, do you know why she left without seeking revenge?"

"I know, she trusts us..."

The sky over there must be so blue...

After getting up, Xiao Bi, Deng Fei, Jia Yanyan, and I went back to school. The teacher was quite satisfied with our first draft of the design, pointed out a few things that needed to be changed, and gave us the graduation experiment record book. Our graduation project officially began.

For the entire day, apart from eating, we spent all our time in the lab preparing the reagents we needed for our experiments. Wearing white lab coats, we were constantly heating, dissolving, adjusting pH, and sterilizing. It wasn't until it was almost dark that we realized our legs were sore.

Xiao Bi asked, "Why does doing an experiment make me this tired?"

I said, "It's much more painful than carrying dishes and washing cups."

Deng Fei said, "The laboratory is too big, and the instruments are placed in different places. We went back and forth countless times, which is like running five kilometers in disguise."

Jia Yanyan looked at us with schadenfreude and said, "Three lazy pigs, this is the result of not exercising regularly..."

In a fit of rage, we extorted a lavish meal from Jia Yanyan. As he paid, Jia Yanyan exclaimed, "The power of pigs is boundless."

After dinner, Gu Ming called. Hearing me complain about how tiring the experiments were, he told me I had the day off and didn't have to work at "Moonlight." I asked if he'd deduct my wages, and after thinking for a moment, he said, "If you use your charm, I might consider it..."

I pinched my face and pondered for a long time, "The honey trap seems to only work on beautiful women."

Gu Ming said, "Then let's use the chubby girl trick..."

Before going to sleep, I suddenly remembered something and shouted to Xiao Bi, "Oh no, oh no! Didn't Jia Yanji die before? His parents and the school watched him being cremated. Why aren't those people reacting now that he's suddenly reappeared?"

Xiao Bi looked at me with utter contempt and said, "You have a really long reaction time. When we were at Bailu Mountain, Jia Yanyu had already contacted his parents, making an excuse that he was going on a trip. And Director Gao Tian, Gu Ming's soon-to-be brother-in-law, also informed the school that what happened that time was just another male corpse that looked a lot like Jia Yanyu. It was all just a misunderstanding."

"They believe that? That corpse looks exactly like Jia Yanyan."

"How could we not believe it? The police have already issued a notice. Besides, he's a perfectly healthy person, jumping around in front of them. Who would dare not believe it? His parents are overjoyed that their son isn't dead. They don't care whether the body is real or not." Xiao Bi rolled his eyes.

That's good.

April 26, 2005 - A sleepy day

I eat breakfast in the cafeteria and then go to the lab to work.

I go to the cafeteria for lunch, and then go to the lab to work.

I go to the cafeteria for dinner, and then go to "Moonlight" to work.

At 11:30 p.m., I was so sleepy that I lay on the table, and Gu Ming moved me to the backyard of "Moonlight" to sleep.

He concluded: Comrade Lin Xiaomo is someone who values money over life!

April 27, 2005 - Lifeless

I was brushing my teeth and washing my face when I went to the kitchen to sneak a snack. I had just found a jar of jam when I felt a chill down my spine. My lips twitched as I turned around and saw Gu Ming standing behind me, half a fried dough stick in his mouth, saying ominously, "Jam is ten yuan a jar..."

Just as Xia Canyue was about to head back to school at 8:30, she received a call from Gao Tian, saying there had been a new discovery in the case and asking her to go check out Er Gou Manor. It must be that something strange has appeared again.

I called Deng Fei to ask him to help me ask for leave, and Gu Ming said while driving, "You're tired enough during the day, don't come to help at night."

I said, "Watching my salary slip away in front of me fills me with a deep sense of guilt."

"..."

When we arrived at Er Gou Manor, Gao Tian was standing at the entrance waiting for us with a serious expression. When we got closer, we noticed that he looked terrible, as if he hadn't had a good rest for several days.

"How is it?" Gu Ming asked abruptly.

“We guessed correctly, the bones Aunt Gao dug up that day were indeed human bones, but…” Gao Tian paused, “there were far more than one human skeleton there.”

As I listened to their conversation, I remembered that Gao Tian had suddenly left on the day he summoned Aunt Gao's spirit; it turned out he had come to investigate the matter of these bones.

"How many?" Gu Ming asked.

Gao Tian looked at us, took a deep breath and slowly exhaled, saying, "To put it simply, Er Gou Manor can be considered to be surrounded by mountains on all sides. When we went to dig where Aunt Gao found the bones, we found a continuous cluster of bones. So we mobilized more people to help, and it turned out that the entire mountain was buried with human bones. Some police officers suggested to go and take a look at the nearby mountains, and the result was... the mountains on all four sides of Er Gou Manor were like that. That is to say, there are countless corpses piled up on these mountains, surrounding the entire Er Gou Manor."

Hearing this, everyone gasped. There were at least a dozen mountains surrounding Er Gou Manor. If there were countless skeletons on each mountain, who could have killed so many people?

"Is it possible to identify the body?"

"Investigate? The forensic center randomly tested several pieces of bone and found that they had all died hundreds, even thousands of years ago. How can we investigate that?"

"I want to see those bones." Gu Ming's eyes flickered.

"Should we go up the mountain or..."

"Let's go up the mountain."

Upon reaching the summit, one sees gleaming warning tape everywhere, and the ground has been thoroughly turned over, revealing countless broken bones. Looking down, Er Gou Manor truly appears to be surrounded by skeletons.

Gu Ming carefully picked up a piece, examined it closely in his palm, and suddenly exclaimed "Huh?" before handing it to Xia Canyue. Xia Canyue also examined it carefully for a while, then stared at Gu Ming with wide eyes, "Buried alive?"

"Not only were they buried alive, but their souls were also forcibly sucked away after they suffocated."

"There wasn't even a trace of essence left in its bones; it was practically stone."

"With so many bones, what comes to mind?"

"A myriad of ghosts gather to fight evil!"

Hearing those four words again still filled me with fear. Gao Tian led us down the mountain in a hurry, and after returning to "Moonlight", he told the people of White Deer Mountain and Little White the fox about it. They were equally terrified.

If Aunt Gao was murdered because she discovered the skeletons, then those skeletons must be inextricably linked to the female ghost of Er Gou Manor. If these people who died a thousand years ago were really killed by that female ghost, what exactly is she trying to do? Is she also trying to incite all ghosts to gather evil? But souls alone are not enough. Where did she find a ghost with such a strong aura as the Soul Eater?

One question after another popped into my head, and I couldn't find a solution...

We didn't have lunch until 3 p.m., and everyone looked preoccupied.

As Gao Tian was leaving, Gu Ming asked him, "How's the information I asked you to find coming along?"

Gao Tian said, "It was just delivered to the bureau today, I'll pick it up tonight."

Gu Ming said, "Okay, maybe that will help."

I asked him what kind of information it was, and Gu Ming said it was information about the female ghost of Er Gou Manor before her death, as well as... files from a very, very long time ago...

After lunch, I rushed back to school to do experiments, and the strains I cultivated were growing well. I told Xiao Bi, Deng Fei, and Jia Yanchang about it, and they all frowned. Xiao Bi said that those dead people might not have been used to summon ghosts and evil spirits. I also hoped so, but I was afraid that it might be something even more terrifying than summoning ghosts and evil spirits.

We returned to "Moonlight" together that night. Gao Tian had other cases to handle and didn't show up until midnight...

April 28, 2005: Mysteries as numerous as clouds.

At one o'clock in the morning, Gao Tian walked in carrying a large box. When he saw us, he only said one sentence, "Close the door and go to the backyard."

Everyone was crammed into one room. Gao Tian placed a large box on the table and opened it, revealing several thick folders inside.

“Some of the files are practically antiques, so I can’t keep them here. That’s why I’ve made copies of everything I got.” Gao Tian opened the folder and distributed the documents to us. “These are the documents of Chen Sisheng, the former owner of Er Gou Manor.”

I looked down at the photo above, and sure enough, it was the white-clad female ghost. A faint smile graced her delicate face. She was like this in life, so why did she become so ferocious in death?

“Chen Si, born in 1975 in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, disappeared without a trace in 2000. His family in Hangzhou died without cause at home in November 2002, and his cousin’s family in Harbin also died without cause in January of the following year. Chen Si has no other relatives alive. At the time, these deaths were very suspicious, and the local police immediately opened a case for investigation. According to the forensic examination, all the deceased died of sudden heart attacks. However, I contacted the colleagues in charge of the case, and they told me privately that the family’s expressions were very strange when they died. Chen Si’s grandmother had a smile on her face, while her parents’ eyes bulged out, as if they had been frightened by something. According to the neighbors of that family, Chen Si left home at a young age to make a living in the north. His father was a gambler, and his mother had a bad temper. The couple treated the elderly very badly. After they died, Chen Si’s cousin came to collect the inheritance, but for some reason, he suddenly ran back to Harbin, and not long after, the whole family died.” Gao Tian said, sitting next to me, his eyes filled with deep weariness.

"Didn't they suspect Chen Si back then?" Xia Canyue asked.

"Doubt? Chen Si had already been missing for two years at that time. Besides, there were no signs of homicide at the crime scene. As I just said, they suffered sudden heart attacks."

"Does their whole family have heart disease?"

"The strange thing is that, apart from Chen Si's grandmother, everyone else is perfectly healthy."

Was it triggered by medication?

"No, there are no medications in my stomach."

“There’s almost only one possibility…it was not done by a human,” Gu Ming said. “And Chen Si was probably already dead at that time.”

Gao Tian opened another folder, "Information on Er Gou Manor".

Upon receiving it, Xiao Bi remarked, "The blueprints for Er Gou Manor?"

Gu Ming nodded. "Yes, I explained to Xiao Mo that this manor was built using an extremely yin-based soul-summoning formation. The back door is the entrance, and the garden and guest rooms are two channels for the flow of yin energy. Even the architectural structure of the entertainment facilities is a typical ghost-attracting yin dwelling. Then, the yin energy flows from the corridor all the way to the square in front of the door. The terrain around the front door is originally very good, absorbing yang energy and gathering wealth, but it is blocked by the two pillars in front of the door and the lights on the door sign. Not to mention that the lights for 'Er Gou Manor' were chosen to be red, but even these four characters were deliberately chosen. Ordinary people may not be able to see anything, but the light structure formed by these four characters is actually a formation that blocks yang energy. So, although the front door appears to be wide open, it is actually a wall that encloses the soul-summoning formation with the back door as the entrance."

Cang Yue and Cang Yu nodded, "That's right. The person who designed this manor had a sinister intention. Even a person with Taoist skills wouldn't be able to discover it unless they carefully examined every detail."

The information states that the villa was built in 1994 at a cost of 2 million yuan. However, Chen Si was only 19 years old at that time, had only been away from home for three years, and was struggling on her own. She didn't have much work ability, and besides, prices were still very low at that time. How did she come up with 2 million yuan?

"According to information provided by employees who worked at Er Gou Manor at that time, we learned that she loved keeping dogs, but strangely, she only kept dogs in her own bedroom and did not allow anyone to enter. The employees never saw the dogs during the day, and only occasionally saw two dog shadows going in and out at night," Gao Tian said.

"Is this guy a pervert? Who keeps a dog in their bedroom and doesn't let it out for a walk during the day?" Xiao Bi exclaimed from the side.