"How...how did they do that?"
I leaned closer to the screen, my breath condensing into white mist on the glass.
Liu Sandao took out a flask from his suit pocket and took a big gulp.
The liquor dripped down his chin onto his wrinkled shirt.
"'Youth-preserving powder' mixed with my heart's blood, plus the ancestral 'reverse life curse,' can lock in your life essence from ten years ago."
He suddenly lowered his voice, "However... the effects of this medicine will only last for three days."
My heart sank, and I almost dropped my phone.
"Three days? You're kidding me!"
Liu Sandao hurriedly grabbed my shoulder, the gold chain jingling against my chest.
"Don't rush! Listen to me. That female ghost who specializes in cutting off faces is nicknamed 'Thousand-Faced Asura.' It's recorded in 'Tales of the Underworld, Volume Seven': 'In Yunnan, there was a woman who became obsessed with jealousy. On her wedding day, her husband disfigured her and abandoned her. Her resentment entered her body, took on the form of a vengeful spirit, and specifically targeted the groom's face to make up for her own disfigurement.'"
"To put it bluntly, it means that this female ghost was originally a daughter of an official, but on her wedding night she discovered that her groom already had a mistress."
"That heartless man poured scalding hot wax on her face, disfiguring her. She died with resentment, and her obsession turned into a demon that would appear on festive days to peel off the groom's face and piece it back together to make her own."
I gasped, as if I could see countless twisted human skins being pieced together and writhing in the moonlight.
Liu Sandao suddenly grabbed my wrist: "The face skins she collected contain extremely strong Yin energy. If we can subdue her, we can use those face skins to refine a 'Rejuvenation Pill'..."
He paused deliberately, raising an eyebrow at me: "Don't even mention restoring your youth, I guarantee you'll look like this for the rest of your life!"
I stroked my smooth cheek, the sensation from my fingertips was terrifyingly real.
I thought about it over and over in my head several times, and finally gritted my teeth and said, "If you dare to lie to me..."
I'd be a dog if I lied to you!
Liu Sandao stamped his feet in frustration, his gold chain jingling as he shouted, "As long as we get the face skins she's collected, the yin energy contained within can reshape the physical body!"
Before the words were finished, the sound of bamboo poles hitting the ground came from afar.
An old man with a jujube wood cane strolled out of the fog. His hunched back was bent like a shrimp, and his face was so wrinkled that it could trap flies. He was also muttering in an incomprehensible dialect.
Liu Sandao immediately went to meet him, and the two chatted for a while in Spanish before turning around and introducing themselves in Mandarin.
"This is my distant cousin. Don't let his older appearance fool you; he's only fifty-eight."
I stared wide-eyed.
The old man in front of me, with his white hair and age spots all over his face, is probably only a dozen years older than Liu Sandao.
As if sensing my confusion, Liu Sandao whispered in my ear, "The village is next to a mass grave with heavy yin energy, and people there age quickly due to the influence of the earth's veins."
The old man suddenly grinned, revealing his two remaining front teeth, and spoke in broken Mandarin.
"Young man, come inside and have a bowl of oil tea!"
...
On the way to the village, Liu Sandao also told me about his cousin's son.
“My cousin’s son has always been an honest person. He finally got into university, but after graduation he insisted on going back to the village to do some kind of ecological farming.”
Liu Sandao handed each of us a cigarette.
Smoke rings dissipated amidst the mountain mist, and his voice suddenly lowered: "Three years ago, I married a girl from the neighboring village. Her name is Axiu. She is beautiful and quick at work. People from all around praise my cousin's family for being so lucky."
I kicked away the pebbles that had rolled down my feet, listening to the cawing of crows in the distance: "And then?"
"Then?"
Liu Sandao took a deep drag on his cigarette: "On the second day of the wedding, before dawn, Ah Xiu's screams came from the courtyard. My cousin kicked open the door to the new room."
He sighed heavily: "There was blood everywhere. His son was lying stiffly on the bed, his face skin torn off like a sheep's skin, leaving only a bloody skull."
The mountain wind swirled fine sand into my collar, and I couldn't help but shiver.
Liu Sandao continued, "At the time, nobody believed it and insisted that it was Ah Xiu who did it. My cousin picked up the cow whip and beat her until she was covered in bruises. He then locked her in the cowshed for three days and three nights."
He took out his wine flask and took a swig: "But later, seven grooms from the neighboring village and the back mountain valley were murdered one after another. They died in the same way, and even the red silk on the bed was neatly arranged, without any signs of fighting."
"By the time my cousin remembered to let Ah Xiu out, she had already gone mad. She would spend all day huddled in a corner, clutching a ball of red cloth and muttering, 'Give me back my face.'"
He suddenly stubbed out his cigarette: "We found seven or eight Taoist priests, but they were either charlatans who cheated people out of their money, or they were so scared that they wet their pants as soon as they entered the village. Last month, the beams and pillars of my cousin's ancestral hall suddenly started bleeding, and the ancestral tablets on the altar all cracked in two."
I gazed at the village in the distance, its lights flickering in the mist like will-o'-the-wisps.
Liu Sandao pulled a yellowed talisman from his suit pocket, its edges stained with dark red dirt.
"This was left by the seventh Taoist priest. It reads, 'Thousand-faced Skin, Blood Sacrifice for the Bridegroom.'"
"Later, I read the book 'Strange Tales of the Underworld' and learned that this female ghost changes her face every 49 days and specifically targets the groom with the strongest yang energy."
"So I thought you could lure her out. On one hand, it would solve your problem, and on the other hand, it would help my cousin and his family. It's a way of accumulating good karma!"
...
While we were talking, we arrived at Liu Sandao's cousin's house.
"Knife Boy! We've been waiting for you!" A hunched old woman rushed out of the main room.
It was Zhou Guilan, Chen Dashan's wife and Liu Sandao's cousin.
Zhou Guilan stumbled out, her knees hitting the bluestone slabs hard.
Rough hands gripped Liu Sandao's trouser leg tightly: "Knife Boy, you have to save our Chen family! If this continues, the whole village will be finished!"
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