CH 8

Early the next morning, a phone tremendously vibrated beside the pillow. Ye Feng, who had a drowsy look, picked it up and noticed “Lu Yingjiu” displayed on it.

He connected and yawned. “What?  I am still sleepy.”

Lu Yingjiu: “Yesterday, as the police investigated overnight, aside from finding out that  Zhang Hong and Chen Songhai went to Lujiang City from Dingyang Town together, there was also another man named Yang Meng involved. When they went to find Yang Meng, the person was at the train station, fortunately, he was stopped.”

“What did Yang Meng say? Was he willing to explain anything?”

“He had an ulterior object in view. Knowing that Zhang Hong and Chen Songhai died mysteriously, he has long become terrified…Listen, I’ll explain everything now–He said that last year in Dingyang Town, the three of them got drunk and then saw Ji Cai who was on the night shift that time. They went up to tease her, but the quarrel quickly developed into a physical conflict. Ji Cai accidentally fell into the water while pushing and shoving, and her dead body only appeared downstream the next day.”

He continued, “The three people didn’t dare to say anything, and were about to flee to another city, however, when they bought the train tickets, they found that tickets to Lujiang City was only thing available that day—this was of course not a coincidence, it was Ji Cai’s revenge, luring them to her hometown, where her body was transferred.”

Ye Feng asked, “Then what happened to Zhong Aiguo? Has he also offended Ji Cai?”

“I don’t know yet, but I’m planning to go to Lianhua Primary School.”

“What will you be doing there?”

Lu Yingjiu: “Ji Cai worked as a Chinese teacher in Lianhua Primary School before he went to be a volunteer. The police checked Zhong Aiguo’s whereabouts overnight and found that he had been to Lianhua Primary School three times during the day and would stay more than 3 hours every time.”

Ye Feng became stunned for a moment. “Why are you so interested in this case?”

In his impression, Lu Yingjiu was only interested in particularly special supernatural events.

“I wasn’t interested at first.” Lu Yingjiu said, “But Ji Cai came to see me yesterday. She stood by the bed and only stared at me in the middle of the night. I thought it’s quite interesting, therefore I wanted to communicate with her, but as a result, she couldn’t do it. Thus I burned her again with runes. The ashes were shoveled into the trash can, and I even divided them into several trash bags for disposal. However, this morning Old Liu told me that her body was back downstairs in Meihua Community.”

Ye Feng: “…To be honest, it sounds a bit scary, I mean the part about the ashes.”

“What’s so scary, I even classified it as non-recyclable garbage.”

Ye Feng: “……”

Lu Yingjiu said, “So, would you like to come?”

“I’ll come.” Ye Feng rolled over and got out of bed. “I’ll see you there at 8:30.”

****

40 minutes later, the two stood at the gate of Lianhua Primary School.

Because today was Friday, the school was full of noise and clamor and children were screaming one after another, running faster than dogs, as they vent their excess energy. 

Lu Yingjiu went straight to the back gate of the school.

Ye Feng immediately called him to stop. “Hey, hey, hey..where are you going, the gate is here!”

“Can’t get in, they said they can only give us permission in the afternoon, but we can’t wait that long.” Lu Yingjiu said, “Also, we don’t look like parents either.”

This was true.

Standing outside, while carrying school bags like college students, they didn’t really look like people with kids.

Therefore they went around to the back gate, where there was a wall that was neither high nor low, about the height of two people.

Just as Ye Feng was about to say that he would lift the other up, he only saw Lu Yingjiu take five or six steps back and then speed up suddenly! He stepped on the wall with his right hand hooking the top of the wall in a few steps, and then kicked on the wall with two more steps. Within two seconds, he made it above and merely said, “Why don’t you come up.”

This series of movements could be described as natural and smooth. Ye Feng looked up at him. “Do you always climb over walls when you’re still studying?”

“Yeah, climbing every day.” Lu Yingjiu smiled and stretched out his hand, “Come on, good student, I’ll pull you up.”

Behind the wall was the playground. Far away, a group of primary school students were having Physical Education class, playing football, and rope skipping. No one seemed to have noticed the two of them.

Lu Yingjiu said while walking, “Ji Cai used to be a Chinese teacher in Class 4, Grade 6. After she passed away, her grandma came here and took away some of her things, but there was not much. Her grandma also passed away three months ago. Because she has no other relatives, those relics were cleaned up by the landlord, and are now impossible to find.”

It’s very easy to want to obliterate the existence of a person.

When the relics are lost, when memory fades, nothing remains.

The shadow of the trees danced and fell on Lu Yingjiu’s body. He was thinking about something,  as he gently stroked the longevity lock.

Ye Feng, who didn’t know why he was doing such actions, somehow became sad. “Don’t worry, your female ghost will definitely remember you, you will have a litter of children, and everyone will remember you.”

Lu Yingjiu: “?”

Lu Yingjiu: “You’re still talking about this, the person was clearly reluctant to come to see me, and it’s been so many years.”

Ye Feng patted him on the shoulder. “If she doesn’t come to you, then I’ll be your gorgeous female ghost and stay together with you for generations.”

Lu Yingjiu felt a chill, and stepped back half a step away from Ye Feng.

Ye Feng glanced and spoke again, “Hey, I’m serious, don’t you ever consider finding a girlfriend? We don’t know whether the female ghost is real or not, you can’t just persistently hang yourself on a single tree.”

“Why are you like a relative who’s urging me to get married?” Lu Yingjiu shook his head and smiled, “I’m not interested, besides, I go out every day, and am usually not at home for a few days or weeks, there is no core competitiveness at all. “

“Not only do you not go home, you often skip meals.”

“Busy.” 

“What a busy ghost, do you want to have stomach problems?” Ye Feng really hated iron for not becoming steel, “therefore you should really just find a powerful person to take care of you.”

(t/n Hated iron for not becoming steel-disatisfaction with the expected person who is not up to date and does not make progress, and eagerly hopes that he will get better.)

Lu Yingjiu still shook his head. “I will die sooner or later, and I don’t want to bring disaster to others.”

“You talk nonsense, who won’t die.”

“That’s not what I mean.” Lu Yingjiu smiled, “I like exciting and dangerous things, it’s engraved in my bones and I can’t stop it. I know that there is a high probability that this will be the cause of my death. How do you say that sentence? I have managed to escape the Grim Reaper many times, but it only needs to beat me once to kill me. In terms of probability, the probability that I’ll die naturally is almost zero.”

Ye Feng was at a loss for words for a while, and said after a long time, “Why are you apathetic, don’t speak of unlucky words…..You are the best ghost exorcist I have ever met.”

Lu Yingjiu merely shrugged.

Ye Feng looked at him, thinking that what he needed was not some glamorous female ghost, but someone who could fight side by side with him, climb over walls together with him every day, and someone that could cook.

Although he couldn’t figure out for a while where to find such a versatile person.

Entering the teaching building, they bumped into a very young intern teacher—she was holding a pile of test papers, with smooth black hair on a beige shirt. Lu Yingjiu stepped forward and immediately said, “Hi, we are the family members of Teacher Ji Cai. When she left her job, she missed something and was left behind. We were asked to help get them.” The intern teacher hesitated. “Sorry, I don’t know her. Why don’t you go to the office instead and ask?”

It was almost two years ago that Ji Cai worked here, therefore it’s normal for her not to know Ji Cai. Of course, Lu Yingjiu also didn’t expect to directly receive an answer after asking.

Lu Yingjiu smiled. “They said that those things should have not been lost yet. Where do you keep the sundries?”

“The items of a resigned employee are all in the utility room on the first floor. The security guard keeps the keys there. You have to ask Old Teacher Ji to give him a call before he can let you in.” The intern teacher replied.

The two of them went downstairs, just in between classes, and after passing a group of screaming students, they saw the utility room at the end of the corridor on the first floor.

There was only one security guard there, sitting not far away and doing nothing. Lu Yingjiu took out a talisman and flicked it lightly, then the paper instantly burned and gave off a faint fragrance. When the security guard smelled it, he suddenly felt drowsy. He fought to keep his eyes open yet he eventually lowered his head.

The door of the utility room was still locked, and if directly blasted open with a talisman, it would make too much noise.

There were a bunch of keys with the security guard, yet they didn’t know which one was for the utility room. Just as Ye Feng was contemplating on just trying it one by one, he saw Lu Yingjiu took out a paper clip, straightened it, and then poked it into the keyhole.

“Don’t look for it, this is just an old lock, I will definitely unlock it quickly.”

Ye Feng was suddenly shocked. “What other skills do you know! You can easily climb over walls and then pick locks!”

Lu Yingjiu merely said calmly, “Everyone needs to know some life skills.”

“This is the life skill of a pauper! Why, are you part of a beggars’ gang!”

“It’s very practical, and whoever uses it knows. Compared with this, you should go and see if Zhong Aiguo is on the visit record.”

Ye Feng flipped open the registry on the security desk and saw Zhong Aiguo’s name.

The remark was “Ji Cai’s family”.

“Zhong Aiguo has been to the utility room more than once. He came to look for Ji Cai’s things.”

Lu Yingjiu turned his hand, and with a slight sound of “click”, the lock opened.

He turned the doorknob, and the metal made a sharp grinding sound that made people’s teeth ache. What blew against their faces was the stale smell that accumulated for many years, which made Ye Feng cough violently.

Cardboard boxes were stacked on shelves, labeled with everyone’s name, and filled with personal belongings. The room was very dark, Lu Yingjiu flicked the switch a few times, but the lights didn’t respond, therefore he turned on the flashlight of his phone and looked over them one by one

As the light shone across the front of each box, dust danced in the beam.

Yu Wan.

Xu Zhonghua.

Jiang Mengmeng.

Ji Cai.

“There it is.” Lu Yingjiu said, tugging at the cardboard box.

It’s very light.

It was so light that it seemed that there was nothing inside. He took it down and saw that there was only a dusty book inside.

[Beyond the Mountain]

This should be written by Ji Cai.

Ye Feng came over to take a look. “She also wrote a book?”

“It looks like it.” Lu Yingjiu blew the dust, picked up the book, and briefly glanced at the short introduction. It was a story about a volunteer teacher. While teaching and educating people, she also gained love.

But something was wrong with this book.

Lu Yingjiu took another look and said, “It doesn’t have a publication number.”

A publication number was required for a book to be officially published. He flipped through the front and back pages, but couldn’t find the publisher, edition, or ISBN at all.

This was an unpublished book.

Ye Feng checked it on the mobile phone. “It’s true. There is no information about it on the Internet. Could it be that she printed it out for fun?”

Lu Yingjiu turned the book to the last page, became silent for a while, and then said, “It doesn’t look like it either.”

He showed Ye Feng the last page.

On its last paragraph, there said:

[We stand together in the field, and the mountains in the distance are like Daisy. Today’s weather is very good, he smiled and said to me, ‘Yes, this story will end until we]

There was no word after [until we].

Ye Feng was stunned. “Is this sentence unfinished?”

“Mn.” Lu Yingjiu said, “She probably died before she could finish writing.”

He weighed the “Beyond the Mountain” in his hand and said, “This is not a normal relic. This is an unfinished book of the deceased. It is her obsession. Ji Cai cannot be killed with paper talismans, but as long as we destroy the book, she’ll disappear.”

Some ghosts had “objects of obsession”, which represented their deepest last wishes.

If a ghost exorcist got the obsession of the ghosts, it would be equivalent to getting the trump card to win, and then, no matter how fierce Ji Cai was, she would not be able to jump out of their palms.

Lu Yingjiu was wondering about whether to just burn the book.

When suddenly, Yin energy fluctuated.

He looked back, and outside the window of the utility room, Ji Cai was staring at him silently. The woman’s whole body was still wet, and her eyes were still completely black, leaving only two lines of bloody tears from her eyes.

Drip, drip.

Blood dripped to the ground. She opened her mouth as if she wanted to say something, but in the end she couldn’t utter a word.

When Lu Yingjiu blinked again, she was gone.

Ye Feng didn’t notice the abnormality, and asked, “Do we burn it directly?”

Lu Yingjiu withdrew his gaze. “Let’s leave it for now. Let’s continue, Zhong Aiguo might come back to this primary school again, probably because…”

He paused briefly for two seconds.

Something is not right.

In an instant, many thoughts flashed through his mind—the obsessions left by ghosts were clearly heavy with Yin energy. If a living person takes their obsession back, at the least, he would only experience bad luck, if it was worse, it would include the whole family. Fortunately, this was a school, full of vigor and vitality, and rich with Yang energy, therefore there were no issues. However Zhong Aiguo had been here so many times, it was impossible to not have known of this book.

Why didn’t he take the book with him?

–Because he knew that taking it back might lead to bad luck.

It seems that Zhong Aiguo was not completely ignorant of “exorcism”. Ordinary people didn’t even know the existence of these things.

But it also meant that he was likely to do more.

For example, using the object of obsession to attract ghosts.

In other words, let the ghosts become stronger.

He recalled the memory of that night, in that Japanese grocery store, where Xiao Li said: “I remember before, there were several cases of homeless people disappearing nearby, and it was even on the news. Why are there all kinds of bad things happening there? Is it because the feng shui is bad?”

A series of suicides by jumping from a building, Zhang Hong was the first to appear on January 7 this year.

This was done by Ji Cai.

And from this day on, she became more active.

Ye Feng heard Lu Yingjiu muttering to himself. “Ji Cai died in August, but people didn’t start dying until January this year. During this period, someone strengthened her power. The medium is this book. Zhong Aiguo, who has come here repeatedly, can do it. And the best sacrifice to evil spirits are people…..corpses, there must be corpses, a homeless person is the best choice. We may be wrong, although Zhong Aiguo is a victim, but he was connected with Ji Cai and may even be a murderer.”

Lu Yingjiu immediately called Old Liu. “Help me find out whether Zhong Aiguo has been to Lianhua Primary School from August last year to January this year. There is also the case of missing people near Meihua Community, I suspect Zhong Aiguo is connected with it as well.” 

“I’ll ask someone to investigate right away!” Old Liu replied, “Do you need any help over there!”

“It’s okay, Chu Banyang will bring someone over soon.” Lu Yingjiu squeezed the phone tightly, “I might know where those homeless people are, I’ll tell you later.”

He hung the phone then quickly walked out. 

Ye Feng followed behind him.

Lu Yingjiu said: “Ye Feng, if you were Zong Aiguo, and you were looking for an open place in the elementary school to draw soul-calling talismans and bury the corpse, which would you choose?” 

Before Ye Feng could answer, Lu Yingjiu’s eyes had already fallen on some place in the distance. 

On the playground, lush with green grass, a group of students were playing football and laughing constantly.

“Ah Qiang, pass the ball to me!!” Da Long yelled, his immature face was full of anxiety, and his blue school uniform was all wet with sweat.

Ah Qiang was running out of breath, suddenly something pulled his left foot as he was going to kick the ball, causing him to stagger.

Da Long scolded. “You, what’s wrong with you! I won’t go with you after school today!”

Ah Qiang defended. “Someone just pulled me!”

“There’s no one behind you!”

“Obviously there is! You are an idiot!”

“Rebound!”

“The rebound is invalid! You big fool, big fool!”

The two scolded a few words, both of them were full of anger, and then went after the ball.

The opponent was in the lead, and the score’s gap between the two teams was getting bigger and bigger. Ah Qiang finally got the ball again and ran to the goal.

His angle was good, and the little fat keeper was still carelessly wandering his mind in the clouds.

As long as he could kick, he could score a goal!

Ah Qiang became more and more excited, roared loudly, rushed forward with a puff, and kicked at the goal——

The football flew out, drawing a beautiful line in the air!

“Go!” Dalong raised his hands and cheered!

Thud!

Suddenly, the football flew upside down, it flew a long way, and finally rolled on the ground.

Ah Qiang took a closer look, and saw a blue-gray hand sticking out from the ground, standing upright. 

It was what the ball had hit.

There was dead silence all around.

“Damn…” Da Long murmured, “He made a handball foul.”