Chapter 50: Torture
The spirited young man's whole body was stiff. He knew that he had met a tough opponent this time and did not dare to move at all. His eyes fell quietly on the paper imitation bronze lynx in his arms, praying that Grandpa Lynx would save him again.
Unfortunately, Grandpa Lynx seems to be offline.
A black plastic bag was put over him from behind. Tu Lanxun considerately left a breathing hole and tied the bag behind the young man's neck. Liu Maosheng was responsible for guarding him.
N walked into the house and found that the small gray house was indeed a workshop. There were mounting paper, bamboo sticks, paste, and powdered pigments. Some of the paper products were specially made to resemble jade and gems. Gold foil and gold glue were placed in a glass box.
Even more dazzling than the gold foil was a lump of pure gold. The long-lost golden mirror was floating in the air, like a panicked bird trying to get out from the crack in the window, but was grabbed by N.
It is the one that the Dragon and Phoenix family lost.
N grasped the mirror and gently pinched it, leaving several dents and fingerprints on the golden surface. It screamed, "Don't kill me! Don't kill me!"
Hearing Grandpa Mirror’s scream, the spirited young man covered by the black bag trembled even more violently.
Tu Lanxun looked around the room and found half a paper model that had not yet been glued together. It was a paper replica of a bronze lynx. The spirited young man had been lying from the beginning.
They returned to the hotel with the struggling people and the things here. The night shift receptionist ignored the group's return and was in a daze as if dreaming with his eyes open. It was N's fault again.
As soon as the hotel room door was closed, the young man was tied to a water pipe and his mouth and ears were gagged. Before he was gagged, he said, "Let me tell my family. I told them before I came here. If I don't, they'll get suspicious."
N laughed and said softly, "It's late. Mr. Li should be having a great time. Don't disturb him."
The energetic young man's legs went weak and Liu Maosheng blocked his mouth, so he couldn't say a word.
N had been planning to throw the golden mirror onto one of the beds, but perhaps finding it dirty, he tossed it to the floor, causing another dent. Liu Maosheng lunged over, stomping on the corner of the mirror with the tip of his shoe, and demanded, "Where's Yang Dazhi? What did you do to him?"
The golden mirror reflected the hotel room without a single ripple, as if it were just an ordinary mirror.
Still pretending.
N knelt on one knee and a thin needle appeared out of thin air in his hand, like the soft needle commonly used in traditional Chinese medicine. But the soft needle pierced directly into the center of the golden mirror. A drop of blood oozed out and the mirror screamed in pain.
A human face emerged from the golden light, twisted in pain, glancing outward: "I was wrong! I was wrong! Let me go!"
N said, "Oh, it's you. Why, you won't lie this time?"
There were two people in the room sweating profusely at the same time, one was Jin Jingjing and the other was Tu Lanxun. N knew everything about Jin Jingjing's attempt to deceive Tu Lanxun.
The male ghost in the golden mirror shrank his neck and couldn't even speak clearly: "I'll tell you everything... Please don't do this, you will really die..."
He was right. Drop after drop of blood oozed out of the golden mirror, dimming the golden glow on its surface. N sneered, "Being put in here, I see you're no longer as good as you used to be. Didn't they leave you some of the spirits they sucked away?"
The golden mirror begged weakly, "How can I compete with you? I'm just a little guy. Release me and I'll hand over the sacrifice immediately."
Tu Lanxun squinted his eyes. For some reason, strange colors kept surging across the surface of the golden mirror, evoking a feeling somewhere between joy and impatience. The golden light was so brilliant, so beautiful, like a dream about to become reality...
Alas, this hotel is too simple. The bed is hard, the carpet is rough, and even the bathroom tiles are yellow.
It would be nice if I had a lot of money.
The blue-painted Xun's eyes were glued to the mirror, like a little match girl seeing a warm fireplace. She thought, this mirror is magical. If she could take it away quietly, it would surely help her become rich and comfortable, and get gold, gold, and more gold...
"Yes, take me away. When they are not paying attention, you can take me and run away..." Jin Jing's seductive voice brushed past Tu Lanxun's ears.
She quickly asked, "Can you help me find something?"
The golden mirror secretly in her mind: "Of course. What are you looking for?"
"I haven't thought about it yet...but I know what you're looking for."
The golden mirror continued to transmit: "What?"
"Looking for death." Tu Lanxun imitated N's sneer.
This sentence came from the mouth, not the brain.
Tu Lanxun finally couldn't help laughing out loud, and her eyes were no longer confused. She pounded her chest and coughed twice, and the color of the golden mirror almost turned green.
She straightened up: "You are quite tenacious, and you still have the leisure to deceive others."
The golden mirror was being played around, half angry and half frightened. The face appeared in the mirror and shouted, "Human! Ghosts hate hateful people like you!"
Tu Lanxun lost his patience and picked it up. He took the lighter from the bedside of the hotel room and said, "I heard that real gold is not afraid of fire. Let me try it. Your gold doesn't seem pure."
The flames leaped up and burned the lower end of the golden mirror. The temperature could not do anything to it for the time being, but the figure inside jumped wider than the flames.
If it can survive tonight, it will learn one thing: that although the girl in front of it is not a ghost, her heart is not pure. She looks gentle, but in fact she can be as bad as she wants.
Tu Lanxun was thinking that it was a real waste of time as she still had two commissions to do.
She glanced at N and Liu Maosheng, who were standing silently beside her, and said, "It's best if that living person doesn't see me. You interrogate him. Uncle Liu and I will go to the bathroom to examine the mirror. We'll compare the confessions and take them out. If they don't match, we'll deal with them."
The two ghosts didn't expect Tu Lanxun to say such a thing. N smiled and said, "Why are you so anxious?"
Tu Lanxun angrily said, "Of course I'm anxious. Every extra day means an extra day of accommodation. And finishing work early means getting paid early. Do you understand efficiency?"
As she spoke, she grabbed the golden mirror and walked towards the bathroom. The needle had not been pulled out yet, and the mirror was like a frog nailed to the beam of the house. Liu Maosheng hurriedly followed her.
Tu Lanxun also threatened the mirror as he walked, saying, "You heard me? You'd better tell the truth. There's a living person over there. If you hurt him, it will be very bad. You won't be protected by the law."
The mirror ghost huddled inside and gave Tu Lanxun a look of fear and resentment.
#
The progress was faster than they thought. An hour later, the two guys from the Hei family's Mingji confessed everything.
The Heijia Mingji Department Store in Guihua Town, Pu'er Township is indeed run to harm people. It appears to be selling sacrifices to customers, but in fact the customers themselves are the real sacrifices.
But the spirited young man flatly denied it. He had no idea about the online ghost store Black Forest High-end Department Store and was only responsible for running this paper-making shop. His immediate boss was called Mr. Li.
It is said that Mr. Li manages many people and runs a company. He is a big "leader" and is not only responsible for the Heijia Mingji Department Store.
The Golden Mirror admitted a little more. Thanks to Tu Lanxun's threat to put it in the toilet and flush it repeatedly, the Golden Mirror revealed that it knew something about the "Black Family" and the "Black Forest".
The Golden Mirror guessed that the boss behind the Black Forest and the Black family was the same person, or they had a very close relationship. It also knew Mr. Li, but it was not Mr. Li who put it in the Black family, but another person nicknamed "Morning Glory".
When Tu Lanxun tried to molest it again by drilling a hole in its head and pouring toilet water in, Golden Mirror howled and cried, "I don't know. I'm a victim too. They're the ones who regularly spread the three of us out to harm others!"
Selling the golden mirror to the Dragon and Phoenix Family's gold shop was part of the mission; its purpose was to amplify one's inner desires. The first person to be tempted this time was Zhang Xiaohuai, a money-grubber with no regard for lust. The problem was that his family was so wealthy, and his materialistic needs were high. His busy work with the golden mirror proved fruitless, but it only made Zhang Xiaohuai work harder. His family background meant he was one of those lucky individuals whose hard work pays off a thousandfold.
In the end, the night before Zhang Xiaohuai threw the golden mirror into the gold shop, it gave him a psychological hint: freedom.
Zhang Xiaohuai plays with gold and antiques, and owns many things in the secular sense, but he has never fully experienced the excitement of "freedom".
After that, Zhang Xiaohuai lost himself, quitting his job and taking a vacation abroad, secretly trying all sorts of dangerous sports. But despite his bad luck, he was incredibly resilient, even pissing off his mirror. He managed to escape danger by getting hit by a turbulent skydive, getting his skis stuck in a crevice, and even hitting a crocodile while kayaking.
It was not until that diving trip that Zhang Xiaohuai finally succumbed to the psychological suggestion. He did not check his equipment in advance and almost became a target of the local salvage team. When he woke up, he became a mental patient.
"A little bit of his spirit was sucked away..." the Golden Mirror said, "but it's not with me. The collected spirit will be transmitted away. The three of us mainly act as a conduit."
Tu Lanxun: “Three?”
Golden Mirror: "One is me, one is the Bronze Lynx. There's a paper model of its clone outside. There's also another one called Human Flesh Fruit. It doesn't come back to the store often. I haven't come into contact with it. Lynx said he's seen Human Flesh Fruit before."
"How often does the spirit travel, and where does it go?"
The golden mirror replied, "I don't know."
Tu Lanxun picked it up nimbly and opened the toilet lid. Just as he was about to let go, the golden mirror screamed.
"Ahhh! I really don't know where it is. Morning Glory sends people to pick it up from time to time!" Golden Mirror howled in a pitch comparable to that of a folk soprano, and was so scared that he almost started singing.
"When was the last time?"
"Yesterday! Yesterday! Before you came!"
If what the golden mirror said was true, then the souls of Yang Dazhi and Zhang Xiaohuai had been taken away.
They will become elixirs given to who knows who, the dead and the living, flesh and bones.
The matter was of great importance, so Tu Lanxun asked Liu Maosheng to come out of the bathroom to check the answer with N.
She and the mirror were the only two people left. She pressed the flush button fiercely. Under the loud noise, Tu Lanxun asked the mirror in a whisper, "You have three seconds to answer. Do you know N? How did you know him? You were human before, right? What's your name? Why did you become a ghost?"
The golden mirror froze. Tu Lanxun stared at it fiercely. After flushing it a second time, it finally answered:
"I know him. I met him at the hospital. I'm a human being too."
Tu Lanxun heard Liu Maosheng's footsteps returning and pressed the flush button for the third time. The water tank made a weak sound, "Name and hospital? You didn't answer all the questions!"
Golden Mirror said, "My name is Jiang Rui. You wouldn't know the name of the hospital even if I told you. It's called Blue Bird Metropolitan Hospital."
It gnashed its teeth and said, "The reason I became a ghost... is of course thanks to N's kindness!"
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