Ancient Corpse in the Mountain Village (12)
He Yuhua was buried very deep. Jiang Yu and Yu Shu worked from morning until almost dinner time. They dug more than two meters deep in the hard soil and finally saw the coffin.
The closer to the coffin, the darker the soil becomes, gradually changing from sandy yellow at first to orange-red.
The coffin was soaked in a pool of rotten water, emitting a faint fishy smell.
Fortunately, Yu Shu was a doctor. Sometimes, when the hospital opened abscesses for patients, the smell was so bad that even a three-layer mask couldn't block it, making people nauseous and unable to eat for a long time. But Yu Shu still found it difficult to bear, it was due to his physical resistance.
Before they could figure out what to do next, the rotten water began to bubble, as if something was struggling in the water.
Jiang Yu cursed inwardly that something had gone wrong, and before he could organize his words to explain, he grabbed Yu Shu's hand and ran back.
Sure enough, fog rose before they had run a few meters.
When the mist cleared, the bride in red was still there, like last time, with her hands hidden in her sleeves and wrapped in a red headscarf.
She stood beside Yu Ding'an's tombstone, her head half lowered, tapping the tombstone with her hands. Although her face could not be seen, she gave people a feeling of resentment and anger.
"She...won't suddenly pounce on me, will she?" Yu Shu surprisingly didn't feel any discomfort after encountering a ghost this time, just a few goosebumps. He felt that once is strange, twice is familiar; seeing ghosts more often doesn't make it so uncomfortable anymore.
In fact, it was not the frequency that created resistance, but the Eternal Life Knot that Jiang Yu gave him had the effect of calming the mind and soul. It was like an invisible and intangible protective shield that isolated the evil spirits and formed a safe area.
Jiang Yu said, "If you go over and lift her veil, she might chase you."
Yu Yushu also saw that the Red Bride had no intention of harming them. If she had, they would have been caught up long ago. But he still clicked his tongue and said to Jiang Yu, his expressionless face. Joking was not funny at all, especially when confronting a ghost.
The bride slowly turned her head, and her neck, covered with a red veil, turned little by little like clockwork.
Yu Shu looked carefully and found that she was facing away from them, with her back turned 180 degrees.
The bride pointed to the big hole they had dug and asked them to come over and take a look. She politely stepped back, fearing that she would be too close and make them feel uncomfortable.
Yu Shu looked at Jiang Yu's carefree back and hesitated for a moment. There are good and bad people, not to mention ghosts, who are obviously not good at all.
Even though he had helped drive away the fox ghost that was pressing on the coffin, Uncle Zhang said that she had stayed up all night to report that she was safe. He couldn't guarantee that the bride would not suddenly change her mind and push them into the pit and bury them along with the coffin.
The female ghost seemed to see his concerns and stepped back a little, keeping a safe distance.
Yu Shu then followed. He was extremely alert and cautious, looking back almost every few steps.
Through the veil, Yu Shu seemed to see the bride looking back at him. He felt a little ashamed of his excessive nervousness and scrutiny. If he were to think about it from another perspective, he, a grown man, would also feel uncomfortable if he encountered such behavior, not to mention that she was also a girl in her life.
The cold wind blew again, lifting the bride's skirt, revealing her scarred legs again. Yu Shu felt pain for her when he saw them.
Jiang Yu stood at the edge of the pit in a daze, turned around and stared at the bride with a frown.
It was the first time that Yu Shu saw Jiang Yu looking somewhat at a loss. He was both curious and panicked. He was curious about what was in the pit and whether He Yuhua was buried there unsafely; he was afraid that his worries would come true and that he was in big trouble.
He quickly put away his unnecessary guilt and walked up quickly to stand shoulder to shoulder with Jiang Yu.
Yu Shu glanced into the pit and almost forgot to breathe.
The coffin lid was opened at some point, and in the rotten water was a half-clean corpse that was inconsistent with the filth and disgusting nature of the coffin.
Yes, half a corpse.
Only the lower body.
Moreover, her skirt was torn by water, exposing half of her calf, and the scar on it was exactly the same as the ghost bride's.
No wonder the village suffered. There was no intact body after death. From the roughly cut wounds and the scars on the legs, it was not difficult to infer that the humiliation and harm He Yuhua suffered in her lifetime was unbearable for a human. It was also the first time that Jiang Yu encountered someone being cut in half. It was too cruel and inhumane. He looked at the ghost bride, and a trace of sympathy flashed in his pupils. He guessed that she should still have retained a little consciousness after death, so she trapped the villagers instead of hurting them.
Compared to Jiang Yu, Yu Shu's reaction was much more dramatic. He was a doctor and could tell whether the cut was made with a blunt knife or a sharp knife. The mere guessing gave him goosebumps.
"We were wrong from the beginning." Yu Shu looked at the scarred half-body of the girl and suddenly said, "It's not about why strange things happened in the village, but who made her become like this."
People are very cunning and always tell the truth, but as long as the order of the truth is reversed and the relationship between giving and receiving is reversed, earth-shaking changes will occur.
He had no doubts before seeing the body, and thought that the villagers really had lost some memories. But looking back now, there was a possibility that they knew they had caused a great disaster, which would have a bad reputation in the town if it got out, and they were also afraid of attracting more investigations from public security forces, so they agreed to keep their mouths shut and not mention a word about He Yuhua's death and related clues.
Jiang Yu agreed with Yu Shu's statement. The resentment he felt did come from the ghost bride in front of him. As long as she wanted, no one in this village could survive, but she was obsessed with trapping people here and making those who left suffer a miserable death.
"Can I ask her a question?" Yu Shu's heavy gaze escaped from the pit, his eyes flickering between the ghost bride and Jiang Yu. He asked after hesitating for a few seconds.
Jiang Yu shook his head. "If she could speak, she would have said it long ago. The body is incomplete, and the three souls and seven spirits have no complete place to stay, so they will disperse. They can only follow basic behavioral reactions and cannot communicate."
"It seems you know a way, how do you do it?"
"Find the other half of the body." If someone asked Jiang Yu, he would not bother to tell him the solution. The solution is either difficult or very tricky. To find the body, one needs someone who can repair the soul.
He had studied the art of mending and healing ghosts with his master for years, but he couldn't master it. It wasn't because he wasn't diligent enough, but because it required profound medical skills and a pure Yin constitution. Yu Shu happened to have both of these qualities. If he was willing, he could mend and restore He Yuhua's three souls and seven spirits.
But there are risks in doing so.
The reason why He Yuhua's remaining soul didn't harm anyone might be due to the limitation of her incomplete partner. If her soul was complete, there is no guarantee that it would make the crisis worse.
"Is there no other way?" Yu Shu took a breath imperceptibly.
The villagers couldn't ask anything. The village wasn't big, so who knew where He Yuhua's other half was buried? Finding a body without a tombstone in a village nestled in the mountains and by the water was like finding a needle in a haystack.
Jiang Yu glanced at the ghost bride standing guard about seven or eight meters away and said calmly, "Call the spirit."
Generally speaking, the soul is summoned using the deceased's belongings. In He Yuhua's case, it is almost impossible to summon the soul. There are relics but no complete container.
The reason why Jiang Yu dared to talk about summoning souls was because of Yu Shu. The eight characters of pure yin were the cleanest container. Even if there were no relics, as long as the residual souls and broken spirits entered Yu Shu's body, the lost souls could be found.
No matter which method is used, it needs to be coordinated with the technique.
"You can try going to the west of the village. We met He Yuhua there once." Yu Shu suggested.
Jiang Yu's eyes fell directly on Yu Shu, as if he was looking at a piece of fine jade, wondering whether to make it into an ornament or a decoration.
After a moment's silence, Jiang Yu slowly said, "We need her." He turned and pointed at the bride in red and continued to talk to Yu Shu, "Possess your body and then summon your spirit."
As soon as he finished speaking, before Yu Shu could even open his mouth to refuse, the wind became even colder and biting, and Jiang Yu could hardly bear it.
When he looked back, He Yuhua had already floated in front of him. The hem of her dress was stretched straight by the wind, outlining her slender and graceful body. Although he couldn't see or feel anything, he could clearly feel that she was angry and giving him a warning.
Yu Shu had some difficulty breathing and subconsciously leaned towards Jiang Yu: "Your suggestion is too dangerous." After saying that, he looked at He Yuhua with vigilance in his eyes again.
He Yuhua was stunned, as if hurt by Yu Shu's actions. When she stepped back, her shoulders slumped down like a deflated balloon.
The fog rose again, and when it dissipated, He Yuhua had disappeared, leaving only the two of them and a big pit.
Yu Shu stared at the place where the woman in red was floating for a long time and couldn't come back to his senses.
He hadn't been hurt in either of his two encounters with He Yuhua. Her stepping back just now even made Yu Shu feel like he'd done something wrong or said something wrong. But he was concerned about safety. No matter how skilled Jiang Yu was, he was still afraid. With no financial backing for this kind of endeavor, it was better to be safe than sorry.
It's better to be more careful. He couldn't be sure whether He Yuhua was plotting against them and was waiting to take over his body to do bad things.
However, after seeing the half corpse, Yu Shu had a new idea.
"I have a solution. Let's go home first." Yu Shu said.
Jiang Yu picked up the shovel, pointed at the pile of yellow mud and dirt that had been dug up, and said seriously, "We have to bury the graves we dug up."
Yu Shu felt like he had done a whole day of exercise, and when he got home he didn't want to do anything. After taking a shower he just wanted to lie down on the bed and rest.
According to others, he suspected that He Yuhua was sold to a remote mountain area by human traffickers, and the method he said was actually to look for missing person notices on the Internet.
It is very strange that female students who received education in the 1980s and 1990s suddenly appeared in the village. If they were educated youth going to the countryside, they would definitely be in a large scale and organized, and not alone.
He would speculate that another reason why He Yuhua was abducted was the scars on her body. There were obvious marks of restraint at her ankles. Only very severe restraint would cause the bones to be injured.
The reason for the restriction is very simple, that is, they don't want her to run out for help. This also explains why the villagers kept silent about He Yuhua's affairs, because they were afraid of being exposed and suffering collectively.
Although this assumption might cause my grandfather to be disgraced after his death, if such a thing really happened in the village, there would not be only one victim. Those people from other families who could not be buried in the cemetery could all be someone's daughter.
People can be selfish, but they should not harm others for their own benefit.
However, Yu Shu spent the entire night looking but didn't see He Yuhua's name in the missing person notices posted online. He couldn't help but wonder if He Yuhua was a fake name.
While he was in a daze, Jiang Yu leaned over and glanced at his computer screen.
"You have a photo, don't you? Post it. There were very few women who could go to school in the 1980s and 1990s. You can use the school uniform photo and find out more about her from students back then."
Before he finished speaking, Jiang Yu took out his mobile phone to take a photo of He Yuhua and sent it to the WeChat account logged in on Yu Shu's computer. Then he leaned over, his palm naturally covering Yu Shu's hand to control the mouse, and with the other hand opened a short video website, quickly processing the photo into a short video of a few seconds, adding background music from the millennium, and finally adding a text saying that the old classmates had not seen each other for a long time.
Yu Shu was so shocked by Jiang Yu's series of actions that he couldn't close his mouth.
He only thought about the missing person notice and never thought of trying another way to bring back memories. An old photo would definitely bring out the people of that time or their children. Once this kind of information network was established, it would spread and develop rapidly.
"Not bad, you are very good at using the Internet." Yu Shu praised.
Jiang Yu sat back on the sofa, crossed his legs, and scrolled through the screen with one hand: "When you scroll through videos or Weibo, pay more attention to the comments section."
Not long after the video was posted, I received comments saying that I didn’t expect to see the uniforms of Zhejiang and Shanghai universities from decades ago.
"I really don't read the comment section. I can really learn something from reading it." Yu Shu said seriously.
Jiang Yu couldn't help but burst out laughing. Yu Shu always got dazed when he least expected it. It was obvious that the Internet now had information cocoons. If he simply posted a missing person notice, most of the people he would see would be people facing the same predicament.
Short videos, taking advantage of the contemporary online entertainment-first atmosphere and people's nostalgic habit of reminiscing about the past, can break through the information cocoon and allow messages to spread further.
Yu Shu didn't understand what Jiang Yu was laughing at. Just as he was about to speak, there was a knock on the door at an inopportune moment.
Yu Huan should be asleep at this hour, so Yu Shu asked in confusion, "Huan, what's wrong?"
"Yu Shu, don't go to bed too late. It's already twelve o'clock, and I saw the light in your room was still on, so I came over to take a look and tell you to rest." Yu Huan's tone was very mature, giving people the illusion that he was decades older.
"I'm going to sleep. If you can't sleep, you can heat some milk." Yu Shu frowned.
Yu Huan usually doesn't care how late he goes to bed, and lets him do whatever he wants. But tonight, not only did he come to call him to bed, but his tone was like that of an older man preaching to him.
He looked at Jiang Yu, and Jiang Yu just raised his eyes to look at him, his long eyelashes fluttering slightly, casting a shadow on his lower eyelid.
"Why are you looking at me? Your grandfather has come back to life. Open the door and ask some questions." Jiang Yu said lazily, and started a game while speaking.
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