After only a few glances, Chen Ping looked away from the photograph.
The individuals singled out by the special investigation team had either witnessed supernatural incidents themselves or had immediate family members entangled in supernatural cases.
Or, they had ancestors who made a living in the metaphysics trade.
Regardless of whether it was a second grand-uncle or a third-cousin-in-law—no matter how distant the relation—as long as there was a connection, they were scooped up in the vast net cast by the special investigation team.
The files provided by Qin Yue were thorough down to the smallest detail.
Blood types, ages, ancestral origins, places of birth, parents, and maternal relatives were listed in a large, clear table at a glance.
It included where they went to school as children, who their homeroom teachers were, their college entrance exam scores, what class positions they held in university, their job performance after entering the workforce, whether they got along well with colleagues, and whether they had encountered any supernatural events recently...
As for the young woman before him named Nan Zhi, her ancestral home was in Xixiang; her parents were divorced and had both started new families long ago.
Consequently, she had lived with her grandmother, Dao Magu, her uncle, Nan Fang, and her aunt, Wang Qiuping, since she was thirteen.
Nan Zhi’s relationship with her uncle was actually quite terrible. During her university days when she returned home, there was even a record of the two getting into a physical fight, prompting neighbors to call the police.
Only after Nan Zhi graduated from university and Dao Magu passed away did the girl return to her hometown for the funeral, after which she never stepped foot in Xixiang again.
The reason her dossier was placed before Chen Ping was because of her grandmother, Dao Magu.
Dao Magu belonged to an ethnic minority. She later married Nan Zhi’s grandfather, giving birth to Nan Zhi’s father, Nan Yuan, and Nan Zhi’s second uncle, Nan Fang.
Before the founding of the republic, Dao Magu’s father was a locally renowned “witch doctor” who earned a living by “seeing work” and “settling matters” for others.
Later, during the campaign to Destroy the Four Olds, Dao Magu’s father washed his hands of the trade, but died shortly thereafter.
From the data, this girl Nan Zhi seemed entirely ordinary—commuting strictly between work and home, occasionally hanging out with friends, or otherwise nesting at home playing video games.
He seemed to have a faint impression of her.
Fair-skinned, slow-speaking, and always gossiping with others?
Chen Ping racked his brain and finally dredged up such a person from his meager memories.
—Back when his eyes were clouded with resentment, he had even blown up a light bulb over her head.
He shook his head.
This girl was completely normal; she couldn’t be further removed from that “Song Dynasty female ghost.”
Chen Ping tossed the photograph aside and moved on to the next dossier.
The night was long, and he still had several files to go through.
...
...
A cramped room, walls plastered with yellowed newspapers, and a torn admission letter strewn across the floor in yellowed shreds.
“Don’t even dream about it! A money-losing goods like you wants to go to college? The measly amount your parents sent isn’t even enough to feed anyone, where the hell are we supposed to get money for your tuition?
What’s a girl going to college for? You’ll belong to someone else’s household sooner or later anyway, marrying a few years early or late makes no difference!”
On the man’s face, hypocritical sneers and ferocious rage alternated back and forth, his hysterical roars still ringing clearly in her ears as if from yesterday:
“You dare glare at me? I raised you for all these years for nothing? School? School my ass! I already settled things with them. A college-student bride—they’re willing to pay thirty-eight thousand in bride price, whether you like it or not!”
“Admission letter? What about it? Isn’t it gone now? I don’t give a damn. If you dare go to school, I’ll break your legs! I’m your own uncle, let’s see who dares stop me from marrying off my niece!”
An indifferent aunt, a grandmother who could only weep, and a cousin sitting nearby playing on his phone as if none of it concerned him.
Nan Zhi couldn’t remember whether she had cried back then.
All she remembered was leaping up like a young leopard, sinking her teeth viciously into the man’s ear, and tearing off a chunk of flesh with frantic bites.
That was the first time Nan Zhi learned that a man’s scream wasn’t really any different from a woman’s.
“You idiot, you legally illiterate piece of trash! Human trafficking of women is a crime! So what if you tore up my admission letter? It’s not like the university won’t let me enroll without the physical paper!”
Spitting out the bloody flesh in her mouth, Nan Zhi flashed a triumphant, exhilarating grin:
“Who asked you to raise me? Who ever wanted you to raise me? State policies are great—you can get student loans for college! I can work part-time to support myself and earn my own tuition!
Isn’t it just because your son failed to get into university while I passed, and you felt humiliated? If you dare try to sell me, I’ll call the police on you!”
“You dare talk back to me? Think your wings are fully grown now, huh? Fine, you want to fly out of this godforsaken ditch, do you? Let’s see if you even have the luck for it!”
Having his sore spot struck, the man flew into a violent rage, clutching his mangled, bloody right face and roaring:
“They already paid the bride price! You’re getting married whether you like it or not! Your Grandma is getting old, and I’m the one paying to support her in her old age! Just try refusing! Even if you’re a golden phoenix hatched from a poor gutter, once I snap your wings, you won’t fly anywhere!”
“Go ahead and sell me! Whichever family you sell me to, I’ll slip rat poison into their food, set fire to their house, and murder them! Let’s see who dares buy me!”
Nan Zhi didn’t back down in the slightest, craning her neck and glaring at him:
“If they have cattle, I’ll poison their cattle; if they raise chickens, I’ll bite their chickens to death; if they have dogs, I’ll beat their dogs and cook a dog meat hotpot!
As long as I draw breath, I will never let you have an easy day! Even if I die, I’ll turn into a ghost and come back to drag your entire family down with me!”
Seemingly intimidated by the ruthless ferocity in Nan Zhi’s words, the man’s raised arm, poised to strike her, remained frozen in midair.
And after that?
All she remembered afterward was the reassuring flash of red and blue police sirens bringing an end to the turmoil.
Much, much later, when dreaming in the dead of night, Nan Zhi could still recall her second uncle’s resentful curses, the numbness in her aunt’s eyes, and the envy etched onto her cousin’s face.
As well as the ID card and stack of crumpled small change secretly passed to her by her Grandma.
A wrinkled old woman had saved a fistful of wrinkled bills for her tear-stained, crumpled granddaughter.
That was the ticket to the beginning of her new life.
“Good child, good child... No one in this world is unable to live on without someone else. Grandma left some things for you under the tree.
If life gets hard out there in the future, come back to see Grandma... Don’t tell your younger uncle, he’s already rotten to the core, with eyes for nothing but money...”
Wearing a pastel blue burial shroud, the tiny old woman sat astride the tall locust tree, smiling down at Nan Zhi:
“I’m living very well right now, riding horses and watching operas every day. It’s just that I’m leaving soon, and I wanted to see my little Zhizhi.”
“Magu... time to go...”
“Magu, it’s time to leave...”
“Magu, the hour has come, don’t delay now...”
In the dream, someone seemed to be calling Dao Magu’s name in local dialect.
The voice was exceedingly bizarre, not like something a human could make, accompanied by a faint buzzing sound.
“Zhizhi, remember this, you must remember.”
The old woman grew anxious. Pointing at the locust tree she was straddling, she grinned, revealing a mouth missing several front teeth:
“Remember, remember, it’s right beneath the tree, under the tree. Go get it, go get it.”
Suddenly, thick fog rolled in, and the kindly face in her memory gradually blurred...
Nan Zhi woke with a start.
It was only a dream.
She stretched her neck, letting out a soft sigh.
“Squeak, squeak, squeak?”
The Golden Mouse sleeping beside her pillow rolled over, its beady black eyes half-asleep and filled with confusion:
“Squeak, squeak?”
Smoothing down the tuft of cowlick sticking out on its head, Nan Zhi smiled and replied:
“I’m fine. I just dreamed about the past, and dreamed of my Grandma talking to me. It wasn’t a nightmare—”
She abruptly stopped.
Her second uncle, Nan Fang, hated her to the bone; he hadn’t even been willing to tell Nan Zhi when Grandma passed away. It was only thanks to a kind-hearted fellow villager that word reached her.
Nan Zhi rushed back overnight, but she still missed seeing Grandma one last time, arriving only in time to watch the coffin being lowered into the ground.
In other words, she had never seen what the little old woman looked like in her burial shroud.
Rate on N.U.
