Chapter 23: Together Forever
The old woman closed the door again.
At this moment, Liu Haoyu approached the half-piece of pork and the large pile of black plastic bags. After observing them carefully for a long time, he asked Qin Liu, “Is this what you saw in the refrigerator?”
“Yes,” Qin Liu said, feeling a little disgusted and nauseous as she looked at the black plastic bags that were constantly leaking liquid. “Those bags are filled with things like chicken, duck, and fish. I only opened one of them, so I don’t know what the rest are.”
Hearing Qin Liu’s words, Liu Haoyu squatted down, put on plastic gloves, and began to open the black plastic bags one by one. As Qin Liu had said, the bags were all filled with chicken, duck, and fish. Liu Haoyu did not find any traces of human flesh among them.
“It seems there’s really no human flesh…” It appeared that Qiao Siyi’s body was not in these black plastic bags. “Then where did Qiao Siyi’s body go?”
Qin Liu was a little confused, but Liu Haoyu seemed to have thought of something. He took out his mobile phone, opened his “Bad De De” map, and searched for nearby farms. As expected, he found that there was indeed a farm nearby! And this farm was managed by Zhao Kaiwen’s wife.
“If I’m not mistaken… the body is likely in this place.” Liu Haoyu narrowed his eyes, combining all the clues. If he couldn’t figure something out from this, then being a ghost exorcist would be a complete failure.
“Hehehe…” After Liu Haoyu stood up, a girl’s innocent and carefree smile echoed in the corridor again. The sound was extremely penetrating and continued to reverberate in the corridor. However, it did not reveal its form, and Liu Haoyu did not know where it was hiding. He only knew that the laughter sounded so strange and terrifying. Even Qin Liu unconsciously tightened her grip on the red embroidered shoes in her hand. If something terrible were to happen, she wouldn’t mind smearing those shoes on the entity’s face. After all, with Qin Liu’s superficial understanding, she only knew that the shoes could be used to hit fierce ghosts like swatting cockroaches; anything else was a complete question mark.
Liu Haoyu also sounded the alarm in his heart at this moment. The strength of ghost infants was generally terrifying, let alone a ghost infant that had been raised for so long. Who knew what tricks it had up its sleeve. In the darkness, Liu Haoyu tried to find the ghost infant’s trace. However, he found nothing. the darkness also began to become dense and thick, as if falling into a swamp. Along with the terrifying laughter, the sounds of fingernails scratching echoed from all the rooms on the fourth floor, chilling Liu Haoyu to the bone.
In the next second, Liu Haoyu saw what appeared to be the girl’s figure in the darkness. She slowly turned around to face Liu Haoyu. The girl’s face was very blurry, as if distorted by something, making it impossible to see clearly. There was an imprint of embroidered shoes on her left cheek, but even so, she did not flinch. She moved on all fours, crawling twistedly on the ground.
“Come in!” Just as Liu Haoyu was preparing to fight the ghost infant, the door behind him opened, and a withered, branch-like hand pulled him into the room with great force.
“Bang!” The iron door slammed shut heavily. Through the goggles of his gas mask, Liu Haoyu realized it was the old woman who had pulled him inside.
“Bang bang bang!!” Frantic banging came from outside the door, followed by a crisp sound.
“Slap!” It sounded like the sole of a shoe making intimate contact with a face.
“Ahhhhhhhhh!!” “Wuwuwu!!” Qin Liu, with a mournful face, passed through the iron door into the room. She was holding the red embroidered shoes, and the soles were still stained with a layer of dark red blood. Qin Liu thought Liu Haoyu had been caught by a fierce ghost. Closing her eyes tightly, she was about to shout, “Evil ghost, take a shoe!” when she realized Liu Haoyu was standing right in front of her, unharmed.
“I’m fine,” Liu Haoyu comforted the terrified little ghost. It seemed that being suddenly pulled into the room had caused her to panic. As for that crisp sound just now… it was probably the sound of the embroidered shoes hitting the other side of the ghost infant’s face.
“Why haven’t you left yet?” For some reason, even through the gas mask, the old woman recognized Liu Haoyu at a glance. “Didn’t I tell you to leave earlier?” “And… who is this beautiful girl in the red wedding dress next to you?” The old woman’s gaze fell on Qin Liu. She seemed to be somewhat confused as to why someone would be running around in a red wedding dress late at night. But Qin Liu was also confused. She was wearing a JK uniform and white stockings, so why did it become a red wedding dress? “Wearing a red wedding dress late at night… Are you crazy? Or possessed?”
When the old woman first came, she couldn’t see Qin Liu, but this time, she noticed Qin Liu’s presence. Moreover, it seemed the old woman didn’t realize that Qin Liu wasn’t human. Liu Haoyu, while thinking, casually answered her questions. “This is my wife. We’re getting married tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” The old woman was very surprised. She looked at the calendar on the wall and said, “Tomorrow is the fifteenth, which isn’t considered a good day at all.” At this moment, Liu Haoyu also noticed the calendar on the wall and then checked his phone. The time on the calendar and his phone were completely different. In response, Liu Haoyu continued, “Young people nowadays don’t pay attention to that. Marriage is all about convenience.”
“That’s not very good…” the old woman muttered, but she didn’t dwell on the matter any further. “Wait a moment, I’ll see if the thing outside has left.” The old woman picked up the red candle on the table and slightly opened the door a crack. When she picked up the candle, the already unlit room became even darker. The old woman peered into the world outside the door. The wind blowing through the door crack caused the candle flame in her hand to flicker constantly. The candlelight cast a long, long shadow of the old woman, making her look like a monster.
The old woman closed the door again. After a long while, she finally spoke. “The monster outside has left.”
“Monster?” Before entering the room, Liu Haoyu noticed that the old woman’s granddaughter was named Ying’er. Wasn’t the ghost infant outside just her granddaughter? Why did this old woman see her granddaughter as a monster? Liu Haoyu was puzzled, so he directly asked, “Grandma, isn’t the monster outside your granddaughter Ying’er?”
Facing Liu Haoyu’s words, the old woman sat down on the chair powerlessly, sighing. “That’s not Ying’er… that’s not Ying’er…” She seemed to have suffered a great blow, unable to accept the reality. Her already aged face now looked like half her body was already in the grave, and she exuded a deathly aura.
Liu Haoyu did not insist that it was Ying’er but asked more tactfully, “She looks exactly like your granddaughter. If she isn’t your granddaughter… then where is your granddaughter?” The old woman sat slumped on the chair, seemingly reminiscing or perhaps making excuses. “Ying’er was a very good child. She was very introverted since she was young and didn’t like to talk, so she didn’t have any friends at school.” “Later, I found out that Ying’er might have developed a mental illness and started talking to herself, as if she were communicating with someone.” “The usually quiet Ying’er suddenly became lively. This should have been something to be happy about, so I didn’t pay much attention to it.” “But over time, I began to feel that something was increasingly wrong. She often collected very strange folk items, either paper money or talismans, and then burned these things under a tree just before sunset.” “Even from a distance, I could hear Ying’er whispering in a voice that was completely unlike her own.” “We are best friends, we will walk together for a lifetime and a lifetime…”
