The Death of Yuhuan (VIII)
After visiting the Fourteenth Lady, Xu Wei had nothing else to do, so he headed south.
After walking a short distance, they saw three or two servants hurrying towards a place in a hurry.
He ran a few steps, turned several corners, and entered a small courtyard. This courtyard was more than half the size of Du Xingye's luxurious courtyard. The door of the main house was closed, and the sidewalks on both sides were narrow and cramped, overgrown with weeds, and dust was everywhere inside and outside. Dead branches and leaves were scattered all over the ground, as if no one lived there.
There was a small well by the wall of the backyard. Lu Fanye and Taoist Jiang were standing beside the well, both looking down into the well.
The servants ran to the well, but there was no movement. They pushed each other, hesitating and not daring to talk to Lu Fanye.
Xu Wei approached and heard the leading servant whisper: "Mr. Lu, this is a serious matter. We dare not make the decision. How about asking the housekeeper to make the decision?"
After saying this, he looked carefully into the well.
Lu Fanye was about to speak, but when he saw Xu Wei coming, he swallowed it back.
Xu Wei: What? Am I your spokesperson?
"Ahem," Taoist Jiang regained his serious look, stroking his beard and said, "That's fine, but the body still needs to be fished out first. It's not a good thing to let it sink to the bottom. Why don't you send one person to notify Lihua, and the others will come with me to fish out the body."
The leader let out an "ouch" and was about to leave, but Xu Wei pressed him back on the shoulder.
"First, fish out the body and confirm who it is. We are all here. There is no need to rush, housekeeper." She looked down at the bottom of the well. The well was not deep and had long been dry. She could see bones and rotten pieces of clothing. "Please try to keep it as it is."
"Oh my dear! It's so rotten that it's hard to fish it out intact, and you still want to keep it in its original state? Aren't you making things difficult for me?" Before the servant could respond, Taoist Jiang slapped his belly and began to complain loudly.
Xu Wei: “…”
Lu Fanye asked: "How are you going to fish it out?"
Taoist Jiang put his hand on the edge of the well and said, "The well mouth is too small. We, grown men, can't stretch out. Let them fish out some bones and pieces of clothing. I can use these to detect whether there is any ghost energy attached."
Seeing that Xu Wei did not raise any more objections, he called on others to get the salvage ropes and barrels.
He hurriedly prepared all the tools and asked the water carrier to put the bucket in.
After falling for a long time, I saw the man moving the rope left, right, forward and backward. He pulled for a long time, sweating profusely, but only managed to pull up a little bit of clothes.
Fortunately, this little bit of information can be used by Taoist Jiang to investigate.
Taoist Jiang fiddled with the compass and made hand gestures, and all kinds of techniques appeared in his hands with endless changes. The atmosphere suddenly became lively, and the servants on the side applauded and cheered as if they were watching a magic show.
Surrounding a well where a corpse was hidden, a group of people were watching a dog Taoist perform the ten methods of catching ghosts.
Xu Wei did not join in the excitement. After comparing, he found that he could enter the well with his body shape.
I just don't know what dangers may lie ahead.
A pile of bones is not as scary as the headless and missing limbs corpses that lifeguards carry in the swimming pool.
"Are you going down?" Lu Fanye touched the edge of the well, his hands covered in dust.
Xu Wei nodded, picked up the rope on the ground and tied it around his waist.
"Did you tie it well?" Lu Fanye frowned when he saw that she was having some difficulty tying it.
Xu Wei stopped his clumsy movements, shook his head, and then found it funny: "Who would tie themselves up for fun?"
Lu Fanye said nothing, took the rope, and continued to tie her around the waist.
Xu Weixu lay in his arms, and had nothing to worry about: "I will wait until Taoist Jiang finds out the situation before I go down, so that I can be mentally prepared."
Lu Fanye nodded, "Well, whether there is ghost energy or not, treat it as if there is a ghost, and be careful."
He didn't believe the Taoist priest.
"I know. By the way, just in case, I have to tell you what I asked this afternoon."
So the two of them kept on tying one up and talking to the other until Taoist Jiang's performance came to an end, and this place was almost over too.
Lu Fanye tied the last knot, straightened Xu Wei's messed up skirt, and said, "Don't force it."
Xu Wei was covering her skirt and putting her feet on the well mouth to test it. She smiled when she heard this: "I thought you would say something like 'Don't be afraid, I'm here'."
Lu Fanye said nothing and raised the rope in his hand.
The remaining men lined up, grabbed the rope and slowly lowered themselves down. Lu Fanye leaned against the well and was the first one in line.
As we fell, the light became dimmer and the voices above us became increasingly blurred.
It's impossible to say I wasn't nervous.
Although Xu Wei did not suffer from claustrophobia, entering a strange, narrow shaft in a world full of ghosts, with unknown corpses and possible dangers underfoot, was still enough to make people uneasy.
Fortunately, the well was not deep, and the torment caused by the unknown soon ended. Xu Wei's foot touched the bottom of the well and accidentally stepped on bones, which made a crackling sound.
After waiting for a while and seeing nothing happening, she began to bend down with difficulty and pick up the bones and fragments.
The ground below was still somewhat damp, and had a faint stench in the air. Moss grew between the cracks in the rocks, and felt slippery and wet to the touch.
Putting the things he picked up into the wooden barrel he carried with him, Xu Wei noticed that there was a diamond-shaped object in the darkness near the corner of the well.
When I touched it, I found it was a half-rotten sachet. In the barely perceptible light, I could barely make out the blue surface, which had textures to the touch, and the herbs wrapped inside had all withered.
Putting the sachet into the bucket, Xu Wei continued.
The picking process lasted for a cup of tea.
After checking inside and out and making sure nothing was missed, Xu Wei prepared to pull the rope three times to signal the return journey.
As soon as I pulled it for the first time, I felt something sharp pressing against my ankle. Then, that thing, cool and wet, climbed up like a vine, tightly gripping my entire ankle, getting stronger and stronger.
Xu Wei even took the time to look at what was grabbing his feet.
A pair of shiny white bony hands, looking well-maintained, suddenly emerged from the ground and tried to strangle her ankles.
Sigh for no reason.
The next second, the bony hand loosened, and the entire hand suddenly stretched out and pointed to the sky.
Xu Wei pulled the rope three times, and immediately a pulling force was felt from above, hanging her in the air.
He lowered his head, hugged a bucket of bones, and silently watched the bony hand stuck on the ground start doing radio gymnastics.
Not to mention, although it only has five fingers, its fingers can be bent to extraordinary angles, and the force of their opening is extremely great. The posture is passionate and powerful, which is much more professional than those ghosts in the swimming pool.
When we were almost at the top, we heard a loud "click" from the bottom of the well.
Xu Wei’s first reaction: Osteoporosis?
The male voice in my mind was singing passionately, but suddenly his throat was choked and he became mute.
After a while, he said in disgust: "This is too brittle."
He did not communicate with Xu Wei and disappeared after saying this.
Xu Wei’s mind was filled with: points +5.
The rope tightened and reached the top.
Wearing a school uniform, holding a skull in his arms, two leg bones under his arms, and holding several large bones in his hands that could not fit into a wooden barrel, Xu Wei dragged all these heavy bones and looked at Lu Fanye at the wellhead.
The two servants behind him seemed to be shocked by the sudden change of outfit. They thought that the wronged ghosts at the bottom of the well had come up to claim their lives, and their hands were shaking so much that they almost couldn't hold the rope steady.
"Don't move! Don't let my aunt fall, or I'll cause you trouble!" Taoist Jiang was obviously frightened, but he stood up and taught the others a lesson, "My aunt has magical powers that are not something you mortals can comprehend!"
The servants bowed their heads and said yes.
After taking the bones off and finally stepping firmly on the ground, Taoist Jiang came up to them and said, "Auntie, there was a loud noise down there just now. Did you encounter anything?"
Xu Wei was helping Lu Fanye untie the rope around his waist, and he was too lazy to say more to him: "It's just a bone hand."
Taoist Jiang bowed respectfully and did not dare to ask any more questions. He turned around and worked with the servants to piece together the bones in an attempt to create a complete human body.
After a while of hard work, I finally figured out the location of the leg bones.
"I seem to have seen this dress somewhere before." The leading servant held his chin with his hand, looking thoughtful.
"Me too, I feel it's strangely familiar." Another servant carefully touched the piece of gray cloth with the largest remaining area.
The Taoist Dog was still useful. He fiddled with it for a while and actually pieced together the shape of the garment: "This is a gray robe with a brown jacket on the outside."
"Oh! I know!" The leading servant clapped his hands and pointed at the clothes that Taoist Jiang had put together and said, "Isn't this the clothes of Butler Liu? He was wearing this jacket and scolded me before he disappeared!"
Another servant was also surprised and said, "Huh? It seems like this happened! I always thought he went back to his hometown after that incident, how come he really died!"
"What happened?"
"Oh, he embezzled the public funds of the mansion into his own account. What's his name...?" the leading servant turned around and asked the person next to him.
"Embellishing one's own pockets!"
"Yes, yes, he embezzled money. If it weren't for the Second Madam's desperate pleading for him, he would have been executed by the Master long ago! In the end, he just resigned and said he was going back to his hometown—" He seemed very excited, showing off his knowledge to the people in front of him, "I think he died a good death! It's bad enough that he looked down on us servants all day long, but he relied on the Second Madam's support behind him to bully others. He was so hateful."
"Before, the old butler and the second wife were the housekeepers together?" Xu Wei took the pocket bag from Lu Fanye. She had just changed her clothes through radio gymnastics and put the cheongsam in the backpack column.
The servant nodded affirmatively and added, "It's better for Butler Lihua to be in charge."
Xu Wei picked out the inconspicuous sachet from the pile of bones and asked, "Is this also from Butler Liu?"
The leading servant examined it for a while, bent down and flipped it over, and was puzzled: "Is this the sachet of Butler Liu? Why doesn't it look like it? He doesn't seem to wear these things."
"Yes, yes, sachets are not for us servants to wear. It will not be convenient to work with them on." The others echoed.
Xu Wei took out a silver ingot from her pocket bag and waved it in front of them, causing everyone's eyes to roll.
He took out another silver ingot and spread it on his palm: "Two silver ingots, help me find out who this sachet belongs to."
"Okay, okay," the servant quickly smiled flatteringly and walked forward with his hands in a heart shape, "Leave it to us."
Unexpectedly, Xu Wei took it back and glanced at them: "If you have any news, come to the west wing to find me. If I'm not here, come at night."
"If you find out any additional information, I will pay you according to the importance of the information. Of course, do you know what the most important thing is?"
The leading servant rolled his eyes, patted the two brothers beside him, and said loudly: "Keep it a secret!"
The brothers on both sides followed suit and said, "It must be kept secret!"
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