Chapter 496 Above the Posa (31) (1st + 2nd) [VIP]
The revolving lantern in front of me continues.
The kind-hearted woman with the ghost next to her was squatting beside Wen Qi, trying to reach out and touch her swollen cheek after being slapped. The angry man seemed to have lost his mind, staring at Wen Qi viciously for several minutes, and cursing a long string of ugly words in a trembling voice.
From beginning to end, Wen Qi was very calm. Apart from taking a few steps back and falling to the ground when she was slapped, she didn't even make any unnecessary movements.
After the man had finally vented his fear and resentment, he walked a few steps in the direction he came from with a ferocious face, turned around and cursed loudly: "Why aren't you following me?"
Wen Qi lowered her head and followed his footsteps. The ghost woman followed her. Although she couldn't touch her, she still insisted on following Wen Qi and wanted to rub her swollen cheek with her hands.
The woman's tone was as gentle as ever, but her words were a little harsh: "Although your father hit you, he didn't mean it. He definitely still loves you. Don't hold a grudge against him."
Xiao Wen's tone remained calm: "Oh."
While the two were walking, Bai Jinshu raised his head and observed the ghost woman's dress.
She was wearing clothes that looked a little outdated. She looked very young, about twenty years old. Even if she had become a ghost, one could tell that she had not lived a good life before her death. Her face was haggard and pale, and her hair had not been taken care of in a long time. Only the brown color at the end of her hair could barely show that she had been one of those who followed the trend and went to the barber shop to dye her hair some time ago.
In addition, there were needle holes of varying sizes and depths on her exposed body, most likely from long-term infusion treatment.
At present, it seems that the physical conditions of these ghosts before their death will be reflected in the ghosts themselves. There are no fatal wounds on the ghost woman's body, nor are there any signs of abnormal death such as drowning, hanging, and electric shock. The most likely cause of her death is that she was seriously ill and died.
With just a few quick glances, Bai Jinshu could roughly sketch out her image in his mind: a woman who once had a medium standard of living, but whose quality of life dropped sharply due to a serious illness and eventually died.
A ghost who may have lived in a stable and peaceful family before being diagnosed with an illness. Even after being diagnosed with the illness, he was not given up by his family, but instead insisted on receiving treatment until the last day of his life.
Her experience may have determined that she could not understand Wen Qi's situation, nor could she empathize with her.
Wen Qi obviously knew that the ghost woman would say this. There was no resentment or dissatisfaction on her face. She just listened to the woman's chattering, lowered her head and followed the man forward. After crossing the corridor, the two soon arrived at the door of a room.
Sitting inside the room was a woman wearing grey fur, holding a two-year-old boy in her arms. On the floor beside them was a puddle of water and the remains of a water cup that had been shattered into countless pieces of glass.
Hearing the footsteps, the woman raised her head critically, her long and thin willow-shaped eyebrows raised sarcastically, her lips were bright red, and the corners of her mouth were deliberately raised. When she looked carefully and saw that it was not only her husband but also Wen Qi who appeared at the door, everything she had just raised suddenly fell down. Disgust vividly emerged in her eyes, her wrinkled nose matched with the disgusted corners of her mouth, and her apple cheeks raised a sour arc: "I asked you to keep an eye on your brother, how do you look at your brother? You put the water cup on the edge of the table, deliberately wanting him to cut his hand, right?"
This should be Wen Qi’s mother.
Bai Jinshu looked back and compared them. Among the couple, Wen Qi was undoubtedly more like the father, while her brother was more like the mother.
"Mom," the little boy in her arms shrank his fingertips, "it hurts."
"It doesn't hurt, it doesn't hurt." Wen Qi's mother lowered her head and blew on the wound on the child's fingertips. Her fingertips painted with bright red nail polish held the child's tender skin. From Bai Jinshu's perspective, he could only see the woman's full forehead and the parting of her hair at the bangs. When she lowered her head to blow on the boy's fingertips, she slightly raised her head and cast a disgusted look at him. The tip of her hooked nose almost swallowed up her philtrum. "What do you think of your brother?"
Wen Qi lowered her head and answered, "I put the cup inside the table, and he grabbed it and broke it."
"You're still being stubborn!" She grabbed the pillow next to her and threw it over.
Bai Jinshu heard Wen Qi sigh slightly, as if he had known this result would happen. He fell back a few steps in the direction where the pillow was thrown, and then fell to the ground.
The woman felt much better when she saw Wen Qi being knocked down by the pillow. She raised her eyebrows, pointed at the puddle of water and the glass fragments in the water, and said in a commanding manner, "Clean it up for me."
At this moment, a middle-aged woman in nanny clothes appeared at the door: "Madam, let me do it. There are broken glass on the ground. It's not convenient to clean it up."
Wen Qi glanced at the nanny out of the corner of her eye and saw a smile quickly appear on the face of the ghost woman who had been following her. She came over briskly and said, "Mom!"
The nanny naturally couldn't see her or hear her, but the ghost woman obviously didn't care about that. Instead, she leaned close to the nanny, combing her hair and rubbing her hands.
However, Wen Qi's mother didn't seem to be going to let her go. The woman raised her chin towards the nanny, motioning her to put the trash can on the ground, then leaned over and looked at Wen Qi: "You, clean it up."
"I know." Wen Qi replied in a low voice.
"You are not allowed to use gloves or brooms," the woman said, pulling her lips and adding word by word, "Use your hands to pick up the dust."
Wen Qi still said those three words: "Got it."
"Let's go, we'll find Doctor Zhang to bandage you." The woman stood up from the chair, holding the little boy, glanced at her sideways, rolled her eyes, and walked out of the room, taking the man behind her with her.
The host family all had this attitude, so the nanny naturally didn't dare to say anything. She just quietly took out a few pieces of white paper from her pocket, quietly stuffed them into Wen Qi's hand, and walked away with the broom without looking away.
Wen Qi is the only one left in the room now.
Bai Jinshu saw Wen Qi, who was only three or four years old, sigh slowly, then squatted on the ground and started to pick up the glass fragments as if nothing had happened.
The edge of the glass was sharp, but she had obviously been in this situation many times before. She used a napkin as a cushion and moved quickly and accurately, and she cleaned up the broken glass and water stains without hurting her hands.
While she was cleaning up, Bai Jinshu also looked around.
If we ignore the fact that her biological parents took the lead in mocking violence, Wen Qi's living environment is pretty good. This house looks like a detached three or four-story villa. Looking out from the window, this seems to be a wealthy community. Although there are other people living in the community, the nearest one is not far away from them. It is great that the independence and quietness of the house can be guaranteed while not being out of touch with the community.
It is not difficult to see from the scene just now that Wen Qi's family background is really good. In addition, Xu Ke once said that Tianquan is her family's company, which shows that her parents had accumulated a certain amount of wealth before she was born.
It is certainly disturbing that Wen Qi can see ghosts, but this is a non-materialistic world. Ghosts, raising little ghosts, and the underworld are all real.
Even in Bai Jinshu's real world where there are no ghosts or gods, there are still a lot of people who believe in these things. Even if rich people don't believe in gods and Buddhas, they will respect them as much as possible. Why is it that Wen Qi's parents treat her like this just because she can see ghosts?
This is not normal.
There must be more hidden secrets about Wen Qi's identity.
And according to Skao's experience, Wen Qi is too precocious, and she has never experienced a normal family environment since she was a child. It is unlikely that she has been taught to be kind. Then she will most likely become a person like Skao. What exactly caused her not to show this kind of external aggression at the age of fifteen...
In the revolving lantern, Wen Qi finished cleaning up the glass shards, and suddenly picked up an extremely sharp piece with her fingertips, walked to her brother's bed, picked up his pillow, and carefully tried to hide the broken glass in the folds of the fabric, disguising it as fragments that fell onto the pillow when a water cup broke.
At this moment, the ghost woman ran in excitedly from the door: "Wen Qi! Wen Qi! Are you ready? Let's go read a book. We haven't finished reading the novel we read yesterday. My mother is going to the garden outside. I'll take you to the study!"
Wen Qi paused.
She lowered her eyes, calmly placed the pieces in her hand on the pillow, stood up and looked towards the door: "I'm done, let's go."
The ghost woman seemed to have no idea what had just happened. She led the way enthusiastically, and shared excitedly as she walked: "I just went to the kitchen! My father made his most famous cream of mushroom soup tonight. They will definitely not be able to finish it tonight, so I will sneak you into the kitchen to eat the leftovers! My death anniversary will be in a few days. I used to love eating fried chicken the most. Then we can go to my grave and steal the tribute!"
Wen Qi held his forehead with his hand: "What do you mean by stealing tributes..."
Bai Jinshu touched his chin and found that the current revolving door was quite interesting.
Scarao didn't mind showing his revolving door to Wen Qi. After all, first, those things happened abroad. Second, all the people who appeared in the incidents did not belong to this world. Third, Scarao had never really participated in any of the murders. Many times, there was not even any obvious intersection between him and the murderer.
Watching Skao's memories is like watching a pair of hands moving the limbs of the puppets in a puppet show, manipulating them to make these movements.
The audience can only see the puppet on the stage but not the invisible hand, so they naturally cannot realize that these things are related to him.
As for whether Wen Qi would mind showing him her revolving lantern... Bai Jinshu wasn't sure.
However, there is still a lot of information that can be revealed from Wen Qi's revolving lantern, such as the ghost woman.
After watching some of their interactions, Bai Jinshu quickly figured out the identity of this ghost woman. She was the daughter of the nanny and the cook in Wen Qi's home. A few years ago, she was diagnosed with a genetic disease called hemochromatosis. She dropped out of school and went into the hospital before graduating from college. She struggled for three or four years relying on her parents' savings and loans from relatives, but eventually her condition worsened and she passed away.
Perhaps her obsession was too strong, the ghost woman turned into a ghost after her death and returned to her parents, and also met Wen Qi who could see ghosts.
Compared with Wen Qi, the ghost woman is too simple. From birth to death, she has never left the ivory tower of school to enter the society. Even though her family has the most common configuration of a strict father and a kind mother, after she was diagnosed with a genetic disease, her always strict father also showed a soft side and borrowed money from relatives and friends for her.
Perhaps it is because of this that the ghost woman naturally has a kind of innocence and simplicity. Before Wen Qi entered elementary school and really came into contact with other people, the only person who could talk to her in the entire room was this ghost.
Perhaps it was because of such a friend that Wen Qi did not become a complete pervert. It was also because she did not want to lose the only friend who could communicate with her that Wen Qi did not strangle her brother to death when he was a child.
She was on the verge of taking action several times, but perhaps because she could see ghosts, she was always worried that the person who died in her hands would also become a ghost. She didn't want to lose the only person she could communicate with, so in the end she chose not to kill directly, but instead created some coincidences.
For example, a water cup placed deep on the table but with a piece of paper underneath for easy dragging, sharp glass fragments that accidentally break onto the pillow, and small parts that accidentally appear within the range of young children's activities and may cause choking if swallowed.
More like Skao.
Bai Jinshu touched his chin and looked at his brother Wen Qi, who had a high fever the next day because he did not close the window tightly the night before. He couldn't help but sigh at Wen Qi's talent in small movements and his brother Wen Qi's unusual crispness.
——Of course, it’s hard for him to be healthy when he grows up after being tormented like this by her.
Wen Qi has been insisting on creating various coincidences at home for ten years. At the beginning, the couple would blame Wen Qi without any explanation. Later, they seemed to believe some explanations, thinking that it was because Wen Qi's younger brother had a weak horoscope and a weak body, so he would often suffer disasters.
Strangely, they accepted this statement well, and no longer felt any fear or resentment about Wen Qi's ability to see ghosts. Instead, they treated her brother with great care and love, holding him in their hands for fear of breaking him, and holding him in their mouths for fear of melting him.
One cannot help but sigh at the double standards of these two people.
In addition, Wen Qi's life has undergone more changes after she reached school age. She walked out of the home that had imprisoned her for six or seven years, and met more ghost "friends" in the outside world. As she entered school, her unusual precocity quickly broke out.
He is unusually calm and composed, unusually precocious and intelligent, and has a pair of eyes that seem to be able to see through everyone's soul.
Even without her parents' advice, the teachers in the school were somewhat resistant to this terrifyingly smart child.
So not long after, this frighteningly smart child suddenly changed her personality. Her grades suddenly dropped from full marks in the first midterm exam to average level. She no longer stared at everyone who passed by with her black eyes, and she would cry for her mother along with her classmates who had just left kindergarten and had not yet adapted to primary school life.
She seemed to have become a very "normal" child.
Bai Jinshu watched Wen Qi and his deskmate wave goodbye with a smile after school, then turned and walked into an alley near the school.
At the end of the alley, there was a young man with knife scars all over his body. When he saw her coming, he waved his hand casually: "Hey, school is over, little girl. Those few moves I taught you are useful, right?"
"It works, thank you, Brother Mosquito," Wen Qi pursed her lips and took out a bunch of things from her backpack, "This is the beer you wanted, Brother Mosquito."
“Hey, hey, hey, thank you!” The young man jumped up from the ground, revealing his back covered with cuts. “I like this. I haven’t had a drink in a long time since I died! I said that group of brothers were really boring. After all, I died in a gunfight, and no one gave me some beer in such a long time…”
Bai Jinshu stood at the entrance of the alley, holding his chin and watching the gangster with knife scars all over his body start drinking impatiently.
Wen Qi's parents deliberately sent her to the worst primary school in the city, so Wen Qi met Mosquito, a gangster who was hacked to death in a gunfight near the school. For the first time, she learned how to integrate into a group.
When she was in junior high school and living in the school dormitory, it was late at night when there was no one around. Wen Qi quietly left the dormitory, walked to the end of the corridor, and gently knocked on the last door.
A girl with bruises all over her neck walked out from behind the door.
"Senior, this is the photo I took for you. That scumbag's grades plummeted after he went to high school. I even hired some thugs to beat him up. He's been lying in the hospital recently." Wen Qi pushed the things in her hand forward, opened the window in the bathroom, and set the stack of papers on fire.
"He deserves it," the girl lifted her eyes and looked at Wen Qi, "You are going to participate in this year's Mathematical Olympiad and win the first prize, right? Although I have been dead for several years and I don't know the latest test questions, I am more than enough to tutor you."
A few years ago, a girl hanged herself in a dormitory at the end of the school corridor. It was said that she wanted to commit suicide because she broke up with her boyfriend and was so depressed.
…
Apart from the living people who are full of malice, the ghosts who have their own agenda seem more real.
They know more than living people, and their love and hate are purer than those of living people. They will not be intimidated or bribed by Wen Qi's parents. They have been ghosts for too long, and Wen Qi is their only communication partner.
There is no better "friend" than this.
With the help of the ghosts, Wen Qi was able to survive for fifteen years in this environment where it was impossible for her to grow up normally.
It was not until high school that a new ghost he met in a new school told Wen Qi a strange story. There had been a campus legend similar to the Thirteenth Step circulating in the school. One day, he saw a wanted criminal do this story and then disappear.
When he disappeared, he was one person, but when he came back, he became two people.
The wanted criminal hid in the corner, watching the police arrest another "person" who looked similar to him but could not speak, and left as expected.
Soon after, news came that he had been sentenced to death.
Wen Qi narrowed her eyes slightly when she heard the news.
She seemed to have a plan to escape from this life.
*
After an unknown amount of time, three people finally arrived on the shallows.
Zhao Yinglai limped and looked forward. As expected, she did not see Skao and Wen Qi at the positioning point.
"Let's keep going forward..." Before she finished her words, she suddenly saw a white shadow in the deep shallows in front of her, "Is that Wen Qi?"
Xu Ke and Lan Yiyi who were standing beside her looked in the direction she pointed: "The one in the water at the back is Skao!"
The three of them quickly ran in the direction of the two men.
Xu Ke and the man in blue were indeed tripped by the beach, but surprisingly, Zhao Yinglai seemed not to be affected at all.
"Wen Qi, Wen Qi? Skao?" Zhao Yinglai shouted while dragging people out.
Wen Qi closed her eyes, as if she had drowned and passed out, and in the revolving lantern—
A narrow space and a very bright light.
Wen Qi stood in the corner of the room and witnessed with her own eyes a woman hysterically hacking a drunkard in the corner of the room to death again and again with a kitchen knife.
The drunkard was no longer breathing, but the woman seemed unaware that he was dead. She continued to hack down and seemed to be mumbling something.
Wen Qi didn't understand French very well, but she could vaguely recognize that it was a very familiar word.
She was reading the name of Skao, the owner of the revolving lantern she was seeing.
Just a few conversations, some easy provocations, and staying in Skao's revolving door for too long actually gave her the illusion that she could easily control others and become the hands behind the puppet stage.
The man on the tall building in front of him leaped forward and landed on the tempered glass window of the building below, creating a dazzling flash of blood on the blindingly white glass.
Skao stood outside the cordon, looking up at the glass that had not been cleaned up and had a faint trace of blood in the gaps. Wen Qi looked up with him, and the human blood and the cleaning agent reacted, leaving light pink marks on the glass as the cleaner moved. The sunlight shone through these marks and fell on the ground, reflecting a dizzy shadow.
The next second, she was suddenly pulled away and woke up from the dazzling afternoon shadow.
"Wen Qi? Wen Qi!" Zhao Yinglai's voice rang out, "Are you okay, Wen Qi? Wake up, wake up!"
When she found the two people according to the location, Wen Qi and Skao were both lying in the water. She had no time to pretend to be lame and quickly fished the two people out.
Scaro was fine, but Wen Qi fell into the water in a white dress, and the four people around her were all men. Zhao Yinglai, who appeared to be a man but was actually a woman, had to take off his coat quickly and put it on Wen Qi before he began to ask questions softly.
Wen Qi was in a trance for a moment before she realized that she was now on the shallows.
Jiang Jie and Xu Ke were all around her, and she...
She suddenly remembered everything she had seen before, and a chill ran up her back from the cold water. She turned around abruptly and looked in the direction of Skao.
She met a pair of meaningful eyes.
Bai Jinshu stood up with the help of Xu Ke's shoulder and realized that someone was looking at him with a very indescribable gaze.
He looked back in the direction of the gaze and met Wen Qi's eyes.
He looked at his current posture, then looked at Wen Qi who was also sitting in the water. It seemed that his guess was correct.
After he entered the revolving lantern, Wen Qi in the outside world realized that something was wrong and tried to pull him out, but unexpectedly, she was also affected by the Wangchuan River and fell into the river.
When they fell into the river together, some unknown error or rule occurred, causing the two people's revolving lanterns to be swapped. He saw Wen Qi's past, and Wen Qi... I guess she has seen everything about Scarao in such a long time.
Bai Jinshu narrowed his eyes and looked over meaningfully.
The author has something to say:
I really like this kind of brainless summary. I have to think for a long time about what to write in the summary every day...
First 20 + Random 20~
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