Chapter 161 Jinjiang First Launch

Kong Qingsheng looked at Bai Mian with doubt: "Then tell me, what is the truth?"

Bai Mian spoke slowly: "On your fifth birthday, someone in your family did cheat on you. But it wasn't your mother, it was your father."

Kong Qingsheng instinctively defended his father: "How is that possible? Master, I told you, my mother ran away a long time ago, and my father was already single at the time. Even if he really found a woman, it was free love, not cheating!"

Bai Mian corrected him, "This concept was instilled in you by your father and his family. You lost your memory before the age of five, so you don't know when your mother left you. The fact is, on your fifth birthday, your mother was still by your side."

Kong Qingsheng scratched his head and said, "Was she there? I don't remember anything at all. I remember that I had dinner with my dad, grandpa and grandma, and cut the cake. We were the only ones there. I don't remember my mom being there."

Bai Mian: "You didn't see your mother at the dinner table because she was cooking in the kitchen and never showed up. She only ate a quick bite in the kitchen after you guys finished eating. When you were cutting the cake, she was washing the pot in the kitchen, so you didn't have her in your mind."

Kong Qingsheng was stunned for a few seconds, and then he reluctantly accepted Bai Mian's explanation: "Okay, then what happened that night?"

Bai Mian looked out the window at the gradually darkening sky and told the story: "That night, after you had finished eating the cake, it was already very late. Your mother went back to the house to pick up your father's coat, preparing to wash it the next day. As a result, she accidentally found a sexy bra in the coat pocket. It was a worn bra, and it was not your mother's size. It was obvious that your father had cheated on her."

"You were all in the yard at the time. Your father had just lit a lotus candle for you when your mother angrily called him in. The two of them were arguing in the house. Your father was furious and started fighting. Your mother threatened him that she would tell the whole village about this scandal. Your father was so angry that he simply grabbed her neck and strangled her to death."

Everyone gasped, and Kong Qingsheng's eyes widened: "You mean - my mother - my mother didn't run away on her own - she was strangled to death by my father himself?"

Bai Mian nodded, and Kong Qingsheng's legs went soft: "Oh my God, this is different from what they told me. I thought my mother was a bad woman who abandoned me, but the result is... Oh my God, in this case, my father has become a murderer, this, this, this..."

Kong Qingsheng looked at Bai Mian suspiciously: "Master, are you sure you didn't make a mistake? This is too outrageous. Do you have any evidence to support your claim?"

Bai Mian ignored him and continued to recount the past: "Your mother's face turned purple and she soon fell to the ground. After confirming that she was dead, your father started screaming. Your grandparents rushed into the room and immediately understood what was going on. As the boy's parents, they must protect their son."

"You were outside making a wish. When you heard the scream, you wanted to open your eyes to see what was going on. Your grandmother was quick to cover your eyes and hold you tightly in her arms. Then your grandfather and your father stood together and started to discuss how to hide the body."

"At that time, information was blocked and there were many unknown crimes in the countryside. As long as the body could disappear, your father's crimes might not be discovered. After a brief discussion, they decided to dismember the body."

Hearing this, Kong Qingsheng's face turned very ugly, his lips trembled, and he couldn't say a word. Although Bai Mian had not produced any evidence yet, Kong Qingsheng already had a bad premonition that what she said might be the truth of that year.

Xia Mang said, holding a lollipop in his mouth, "This is too much trouble. There is land everywhere in the countryside. Can't we just find a place to bury it?"

Lu Xue reminded her quietly, "It's not that easy to bury a person. If you don't use a coffin, the body will soon start to smell foul. If you use a coffin for a formal burial, you need to dig a big hole. These things can't be done overnight. Don't interrupt. Listen carefully to what the master is saying."

Bai Mian continued, "Before I tell you, you should be prepared - she was cut into pieces and given to the whole village."

Although he had prepared himself mentally, Kong Qingsheng still found it hard to believe. He stammered, "How, how...how could this be?"

Bai Mian faced the window and began to describe the details of the incident: "They discussed it and decided that there would be a lot of meat left after the body was cut up. They had to either throw it away or eat it. At that time, rural families were generally poor. If a family threw out a lot of fresh meat for no reason, it would definitely arouse suspicion. So they had to eat it. But with only a few people in your family, it would take a long time to eat all the meat. So, they just gave it to the whole village to eat together."

"Before dismembering the body, the most important step is to remove the skin. There is a difference between human skin and pig skin. In order to prevent people from seeing that this is human flesh, your father decided to peel off all the skin on your mother's body—"

When Bai Mian said this, Kong Qingsheng suddenly started to have ringing in his ears. He held his head and felt dizzy. He accidentally bumped into the corner of the table and his head was hit hard. He rubbed his head and squatted on the ground in silence. After a while, he raised his head and said loudly:

"I remember it now. I remember it all!"

Seeing him like this, Bai Mian stopped telling the story. Kong Qingsheng stood up excitedly and said to everyone: "I remember now. What I saw that year was not a female ghost, but - it was my mother."

After saying this, Kong Qingsheng's eyes instantly turned red. He squatted on the ground weakly, too weak to say another word. Bai Mian's reminder reminded him of everything before he was five years old, including what happened on his birthday.

That day, after Mom died, Grandpa held Mom's body while Dad took a kitchen knife and cut open Mom's skin from the back. Then he tore open the skin on both sides of Mom's back. The skin hung under Mom's arms, looking like drooping wings, making her look like a bat.

As for the bright red color, in his memory, the female ghost had blood-red skin all over her body. Now he finally understood - the red color he saw that day was not the skin, but the texture of his mother after her skin was peeled off.

Kong Qingsheng shivered from time to time. The great sorrow made him start crying uncontrollably, just like on his fifth birthday.

On his fifth birthday, his father killed his mother, his grandfather was an accomplice, and his grandmother held him in her arms and witnessed everything from outside the window. Although his grandmother covered his eyes tightly the whole time, he still made a mistake for a moment and caught a glimpse of the scene inside the house. It was the scene of his mother being skinned, and that one glimpse left him with an unforgettable impression for the rest of his life.

He remembered a pair of resentful eyes and long black hair. He thought it was a female ghost, but in fact it was his mother's last appearance in the world. His mother died with her eyes open and full of hatred.

Afterwards, his grandmother covered his eyes tightly. Although he could not see anything, he could hear the chopping sounds in the house. Dad swung the knife again and again, chopping hard at Mom's body. The flesh was cut apart, and blood flowed down the chopping board, soaking Dad's shoes. His cloth shoes became wet and left one bloody footprint after another...

While my father was doing all this, the lotus candle was still ringing. It was pitch black at night, and it stood alone on the table. The candle had long since burned out, and holes had been burned in the petals, but it was still singing the birthday song in a distorted tune. The song kept repeating like this, ringing all night long... Happy birthday to you... Happy birthday to you...

This song echoed in Kong Qingsheng's ears and was imprinted in his mind. From then on, whenever he heard the birthday song, he would think of that thrilling scene.

Seeing Kong Qingsheng lost in thought, Xia Mang walked up and patted him on the shoulder, startling him so much that he broke out in a cold sweat. Kong Qingsheng came out of his memories and looked at the surrounding environment, feeling as if he was in another world.

What happened next?

Kong Qingsheng couldn't explain it either. After all, he only had the perspective of a child and couldn't see the whole picture. He only knew that from that day on, his mother disappeared from his life. Everyone said in unison that his mother had abandoned him and ran away.

Thinking of this, Kong Qingsheng looked at Bai Mian anxiously: "Where is my mother?"

Of course, they all understood that the "mother" Kong Qingsheng was referring to was not the mother herself, but her body. Where did her body go after that night?

Bai Mian looked at him sympathetically. "The next morning, your grandparents gave these pieces of meat to the villagers in the name of celebrating your birthday. Since your family usually raises pigs and occasionally kills pigs, it's not surprising to have so much meat. The larger pieces of carcasses were given away, and the smaller parts that can be seen as human at a glance, such as fingers and ears, were fed to the pigs at home. Pigs are omnivores, and they will eat whatever you feed them."

"The remaining bones were large and difficult to dispose of, and were buried under the pig pen, where they remain today."

Kong Qingsheng desperately tore at his ears, his head buzzing: "No wonder, I remember when I was a kid, I saw pigs eating meat at home. I thought it was strange at the time. The family was so tight, the meat should be eaten by people, why give it to pigs? But, but I didn't expect...they ate...actually..."

At this point, Kong Qingsheng had already burst into tears and could not continue. Bai Mian gently patted his shoulder to comfort him. Xia Mang suddenly said, "If these pigs ate human flesh, and you ate these pigs, wouldn't that be equivalent to indirectly eating human flesh? No, I have a more terrifying guess, maybe... they left some meat for their own family, which means that you have eaten your own mother's meat!"

After Xia Mang said this, everyone cast a condemning look at her. Xia Mang quickly apologized: "I'm sorry, I'll shut up now."

Hearing this, Kong Qingsheng's face turned red. He put his fingers into his throat and kept pushing them in until he vomited. Then he lay on the ground and vomited all over the place. No one dared to help him. Everyone could see that his spirit had collapsed.

Bai Mian picked up Kong Qingsheng's phone and handed it to him:

"You already know the truth of the matter. Now, it's time to make a choice."