Chapter 5 of Ming Niang Yang
All kinds of weird things happened to the Gao family.
A few days ago, Chen Quezi from the next village died in the fields of Old Gao's family. When Old Gao found Chen Quezi's body, he was completely cold. The Gao family knew Chen Quezi's family, and Old Gao couldn't bear to see Chen Quezi's body exposed on the mountain, so he covered the body with his coat. Old Gao also asked his son Gao Wang to help him run around, notifying Chen Quezi's family and contacting the hospital.
Who would have thought that Chen Quezi's family would insist that the Gao family had murdered him? Otherwise, why would a healthy lame man travel all the way up the mountain to die in the Gao family's fields? If the Gao family hadn't killed him, why would the old man cover the body with his own clothes? Shouldn't they compensate Chen Quezi for his losses? Or else, they could take 500,000 or 600,000 yuan, have the police arrest the entire Gao family, and then feed them "peanuts" one by one.
This made Old Man Gao furious. Good intentions don't get good rewards, right? He hadn't yet blamed the death of Chen Quezi on his own land for ruining the feng shui, and he hadn't even asked the Chen family for compensation, but now he was turning the tables and being blackmailed by the Chen family.
Because of this incident, the two families' feud grew increasingly strained, nearly leading to a war between the two villages. Ultimately, the county public security bureau returned with the autopsy report, stating that Chen Quezi had died of stress-related causes—in layman's terms, death from fear. Therefore, Chen Quezi's death had nothing to do with the Gao family. Only then did the Chen family curse and leave the group chat.
With the Chen family making such a fuss, and a dead body suddenly appearing in their own land, the Gao family naturally felt unlucky.
"So, the Gao family, for peace of mind and good luck, asked you to come here to perform a ritual?" Yan Ran stood on the slope, tilting his head and looking at Jie Qianchou. This was exactly where the Skeleton Bride had "sucked dry" Zhu Li last night.
"That's what I thought at first." Jie Qianchou changed the subject: "Have you heard of the legend of the Skeleton Bride here?"
Yan Ran nodded.
"I asked the people in this town, and they told me that the legend of the Skeleton Bride only spread slowly after the death of Chen Guizi. There was no such story here before." Jie Qianchou rubbed his temples.
"You mean this story is related to Chen Quezi's death?" Yan Ran felt that his IQ was gradually bursting out with amazing reasoning ability.
Jie Qianchou nodded.
"So, Chen Guizi's death might be a murder?" Yan Ran looked around.
"Don't look for it. There are no street lights here, let alone surveillance. The police haven't found any witnesses either." Jie Qianchou saw through Yan Ran's intention.
"So, who spread the legend of the Bone Bride? I think this person may be the key clue to this matter." Yan Ran slammed his right fist into his palm.
"Who's looking for? Who are you looking for?" Jie Qianchou yawned.
"That Bone Bride really killed someone here yesterday, and her method was just like the legend says. She actually sucked a person's face dry." Yan Ran looked around: "Where was the body of the Cripple Chen you mentioned found?"
Jie Qianchou pointed at Yan Ran's feet. Yan Ran looked down, then slowly moved to Jie Qianchou's side.
"So, Chen Quezi and Zhu Li died in the same place?" Yan Ran ran down the hillside, looking back and looking at the place: "This is really a bit weird."
"That's why they asked me to exorcise the evil spirits." Jie Qianchou also came down from the gentle slope.
"Their family is so pitiful. They are already unlucky to have encountered such a thing, and now they are cheated by a liar. It seems that their family really needs to take a good look at the feng shui." Yan Ran raised an eyebrow at Jie Qianchou.
"I don't know if there's anything wrong with the feng shui, but the place where these two people died wasn't far from the Gao family." Xie Qianchou didn't care about Yan Ran's tone at all. He was used to her style. "The key is, who knows if anything else will happen next?"
"It seems that this matter is indeed very complicated. So, you know you can't handle it, so you asked me to come and help you." Yan Ran raised her head. Although she was reluctant, she couldn't just stand by and watch him die after all, as they were classmates. She had figured this out when Jie Qianchou chose her as his assistant.
"Ah, no, no, no, it's just because you delayed me from going down the mountain, and I can't let you be idle alone." Jie Qianchou grinned at Yan Ran.
"Put away your insignificant self-esteem! Without me, you would never be able to figure this out. Just like when you copied my math homework!" Yan Ran was very confident.
In high school, Xie Qianchou displayed a strong sense of pride, but in some subjects, such as math, pride is useless. What is a derivative? How do you find an extreme value? Looking at the symbols covering the blackboard, Xie Qianchou felt like he was reading a mysterious book: If he could understand this, he would be an immortal, right? Fortunately, Yan Ran had been good at math since childhood, and he still excelled in high school. Xie Qianchou relied 100% on Yan Ran for his math homework and class notes, otherwise he would have been hung on the wall by the math teacher. Failing a course was fine, but being publicly exposed was not an option; that would be truly humiliating!
It turns out that mathematics is incredibly destructive. Xie Qianchou's mouth twitched as he picked up a branch from the ground. He placed it on the back of his hand and waved it in front of Yan Ran.
"What? Your bones are broken just by talking to you?" Yan Ran added.
"Now this branch is the skeletal arm you saw last night." Jie Qianchou shook his forearm again.
"The skeletal arm is pressed tightly against the back of my hand and forearm, right? Now the back of my hand is facing you, and I'm on that high slope. If you look up from the bottom, can you only see this prop?" Jie Qianchou continued to demonstrate.
"When I extend the back of my hand towards you, what you see is the palm of the prop skeleton arm extending towards you. Then when the skeleton palm pressed on Zhu Li's head, the sleeve of the skeleton bride's arm fell down, blocking our view. At this time, she only needs to flip her arm to allow her palm to press on Zhu Li's head. In this way, when she raises her hand, what we see is the inside of her arm. In this way, the trick of turning a piece of bones into flesh and blood is completed." Jie Qianchou was worried that Yan Ran would not understand, so she kept flipping the branches and arms back and forth for her to see.
"Is it that simple?"
"It's that simple."
"Then how do you explain Zhu Li's face turning into a mummy?"
"His face was already like this before, he wasn't sucked dry on the spot."
"Let me tell you something. Someone saw Zhu Li the day before the incident. So even if Zhu Li's face had become a mummy last night, how could the murderer have managed to mummy only a person's face in less than a day, while the rest of the body remained normal?" Yan Ran asked quickly.
This time, Jie Qianchou pinched his chin and didn't say anything for a long time.
"Also, how did the Skeleton Bride appear and how did she disappear?" Yan Ran saw that Qianchou couldn't answer, so he continued to press the issue.
Xie Qianchou walked back up the gentle slope, and Yan Ran followed. The area had been cordoned off by police yesterday, and after technicians collected evidence, the cordon was removed that morning. Xie Qianchou walked around the slope a few times, squatting on the ground and fiddling with the weeds.
"Look here." Jie Qianchou motioned Yan Ran to come over.
Yan Ran squatted down and looked at the grass for a long time. Apart from feeling that the grass was a little wilted and the color was a little darker, he couldn't see anything else.
"This grass is frostbitten." Jie Qianchou didn't keep him in suspense.
"How could the grass be frostbitten in this season?" Yan Ran pulled up the grass and looked at it carefully.
"Remember the white fog last night? Someone put dry ice on the ground and lit a bonfire in front of it to create the effect. The dry ice quickly released a lot of fog when it was heated, and the Skeleton Bride was hiding behind the fog at the time. She waited until we arrived and performed a magic trick of sucking out a person's face and growing flesh on the bones. After the performance, she went into the fog and left. Dry ice releases fog, and its surface temperature is also very low. Therefore, these plants that have come into contact with dry ice will become brittle and black, and some will die quickly." Jie Qianchou said, pointing to some weeds on the ground.
"Performance?" Yan Ran noticed the word Jie Qianchou used: "You mean, the murderer is a magician?"
"I don't know, I just feel like an insider." Jie Qianchou pointed to the gentle slope below him and said, "Have you noticed what this place looks like from below?"
"What do you mean?" Yan Ran was puzzled.
"This place is like a stage. The place where the Bone Bride killed people was right on the uphill slope, and we were on the downhill slope at the time. Looking up from below, it was like we were in the audience seats of a theater looking at a performance on a higher stage."
"A sense of ritual!" Yan Ran's eyes lit up. "The murderer pursued a strong sense of ritual when killing people. That's why there was a scream at the scene. She deliberately made the noise to attract us. She was performing a killing show for us! From this point of view, the murderer is probably a pervert. He may suffer from a strong paranoid personality disorder. Such people often have obvious symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder, so as long as we observe carefully, we can find the murderer!"
"Stop! Why should I find the murderer?" Jie Qianchou made a stop gesture.
"Then why are you here? Aren't you here to explore the site?" Yan Ran was a little confused.
"It depends on the scene. I still have to exorcise evil spirits tomorrow. If there is trouble again, how will I get the remaining 600 yuan?" Jie Qianchou came closer and whispered to Yan Ran.
Yan Ran thought again about the five hundred yuan that had not been deposited into his account.
"What are you looking for here?" Jie Qianchou approached Yan Ran with a sinister look.
Yan Ran slapped Jie Qianchou on the forehead.
"Get out of the way! I'm not going to lie to you. I want you to come with me to get treatment!"
Wang Jinhua had politely stated that Yan Ran was no longer needed to treat Tian Xiaohu. Although she hadn't chased her away, Yan Ran felt embarrassed to stay at their house. This was her first order, and she absolutely didn't want to give up halfway. She hoped that if Jie Qianchou could find the person pretending to be a ghost, not only would this restore peace to the town, but it would also help Tian Xiaohu resolve his psychological problems—killing two birds with one stone. Fortunately, she had the status of "Master's Assistant" and could now live with Jie Qianchou's employer, Lao Gao.
Rural houses are all built by the family, and from the outside, Lao Gao's house looks quite respectable. It's a square, three-story building, with a long, thin iron pole perched on the roof. This practice is a local custom, meant to make one's house stand taller than others. Even if one's house is actually shorter than others, as long as the pole on the roof is higher than the others, it counts as taller.
This three-story building was specially built by the Gao family for their son Gao Wang's wedding. The old house of the Gao family was not demolished. It was a few low and old bungalows, standing half-dead behind the small building. In addition to being used as a kitchen and warehouse, the bungalow also happened to separate the newly built small building from the pigpen behind. Almost every family in Tiantang Town raises pigs. The Gao family's pigpen is not small and smells very strong. These small bungalows just serve as a partition from the residential area. Gao's eldest daughter Gao Xing has mental problems and lives in the old house by herself and refuses to leave. Old man Gao Shuigen, his wife Zhu Yinghua, his son and daughter-in-law all live in the small building.
In Yan Ran's opinion, the decoration inside the Gao family's small building is simply not decorated at all. The furniture and appliances are all available, and they are placed randomly in one place, without any sense of design. The overall decoration of the room is also a level lower than that of Wang Jinhua's house. Thanks to Jie Qianchou's identity as a "master", the Gao family prepared a very rich lunch. Jie Qianchou looked at the big pork elbow on the table and was very satisfied. Everyone sat down, and just as Old Gao was about to say something, the door on the first floor was kicked open.
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