Chapter 48 Zhang the Scoundrel Covered in Sores
"..."
Chu Ci looked up in surprise, her eyes meeting his amber gaze.
She was very familiar with the emotions in his eyes, and had seen them more than once.
When she first traveled through time, she sometimes looked at herself in the mirror with this kind of gaze.
But it's more obvious in Lin Ming and Shen Xiuhe, especially Lin Ming.
She took him to Jiang Caixia's house to communicate with spirits. When they left, his steps were unsteady, and he had this same emotion in his eyes.
Overwhelmed by a massive influx of information, I began to doubt the world and my own past...
Chu Ci looked at him and tentatively asked, "Did you also...see...?"
Before she could finish speaking, Shen Zaikun nodded.
He took a deep drag on his cigarette, his voice hoarse: "Yes, I saw Granny Guo."
“Every day after she died, I could see her…”
He finished the long cigarette in just three puffs.
In the gray smoke, he sat on the sofa, like a frozen statue, motionless for a long time.
Lin Ming led the remaining colleagues out, patting Shen Zaikun on the shoulder before leaving.
"You guys chat first, I'll take my people to work."
He nodded to Chu Ci and led away his colleagues, each with a different expression.
After Lin Ming left, a while later, Shen Zaikun finally made a move.
He lowered his eyes, clutching the cigarette pack in his hand, his voice hoarse: "Can I have another one?"
"Of course, do as you please," Chu Ci nodded.
After another cigarette, he felt much calmer.
He raised his bloodshot eyes and looked at Chu Ci, then began to recount what had happened in the past two days.
"Grandma Guo hanged herself from the banyan tree. My colleagues at the police station notified me on the same day her body was discovered."
"But the test results weren't out yet, so I had to wait another day. I took the earliest flight back the next day, and that's when things started."
“After I got off the plane, I went straight to the police station to start investigating Guo Po’s death. But the evidence was clear, the facts were obvious, and there was even a camera in the distance that captured the whole process of Guo Po’s suicide.”
"Therefore, the police concluded that Guo Po committed suicide that same day."
After speaking, he paused and looked at Chu Ci.
He remembered that it was she who took the desperate Granny Guo to report the crime.
I thought that upon hearing this news, Chu Ci would be puzzled or agitated and argue that "Granny Guo was clearly forced to her death."
But she didn't. She just looked at him calmly, waiting for him to continue.
Shen Zaikun lowered his eyes.
Even though Chu Ci didn't have any negative feelings about the matter, he still offered an explanation.
It was for her to hear, and also for myself.
"Suicide. There is no murderer. We all know who started this, but there is no evidence."
Even if we follow the clues and catch the people who spread rumors about Grandma Guo's granddaughter, they insist that they have nothing to do with anyone else, so we still can't bring the culprits to justice.
"That very night, I saw the deceased Granny Guo in the mirror."
He took another cigarette out of the pack, but this time he didn't light it.
He just held it to his lips and remained silent for a while.
"At the time, I thought it was because I had been too busy lately and my eyes were blurry."
"After all, I know the truth about Grandma Guo's death better than anyone else. Even when I returned from the police station, her body was still lying in the forensic room, and a detailed death report had not yet been issued."
“I stared at Grandma Guo in the mirror for a long time. For as long as I stared at her, she stared at me.”
"She wasn't as ferocious or terrifying as she was portrayed in the movies. She was just like I usually see her, standing quietly in the corner, wearing her usual clothes, watching me."
"I was so dazed for a moment that I almost thought our police station had made a mistake, and that maybe Grandma Guo wasn't dead at all..."
He paused abruptly as he spoke, seemingly choking up.
But when Chu Ci listened carefully, his voice had returned to normal, as if the sob she had just heard was just her imagination.
"But I soon realized that wasn't the case, because when I turned to look at her, I didn't see her in the corner."
"And soon, I heard her crying. She was crying and questioning why I wouldn't help her, why she had to suffer this injustice even though her granddaughter had died..."
That night, I kept hearing her crying. She didn't hurt me, she just kept questioning me.
"Perhaps she didn't understand why, even after someone was dead, people would still try to smear her child..."
He closed his eyes and sighed silently.
“Since that night, I’ve seen her almost every day. At first it was only at night, then it became anytime, anywhere…”
As he spoke, he looked around the small shop he was in and forced a smile.
“I don’t see Granny Guo here. No wonder Inspector Lin said that Miss Chu, you are a truly capable person and recommended that I come and ask you.”
Chu Ci raised an eyebrow and subconsciously turned her head to look towards the door.
To make it easier to welcome customers, the store's main door is open, facing the long corridor outside.
By this time, Inspector Lin had already left with his colleagues, so the figure approaching from afar outside the door was particularly noticeable.
As she slowly approached the house, the soul-guiding bell above Chu Ci's head rang.
Shen Zaikun looked up at the bell above her head and was taken aback when he saw that there was no bell clasp inside.
Chu Ci pointed to the door, "She can't get in."
Shen Zaikun looked out the door following her hand, but saw nothing and was not afraid.
He could probably understand Chu Ci's answer to his question.
My tense nerves relaxed a little, and my eyes fell on the empty doorway.
"Well, it's alright if she comes in. I don't think she wants to kill me. Maybe she just wants an answer from me..."
If the law can't give Granny Guo the fairness she wants, she'll get it herself.
She continued to follow him, probably because she was still dissatisfied with the outcome for her granddaughter.
Having figured this out, he looked up at Chu Ci and asked, "Miss Chu, could you please pass on a message to Granny Guo for me?"
"No need." Chu Ci shook her head. "She's right outside the door. You can just talk to her directly."
Shen Zaikun stood up and walked to the door.
Granny Guo is right here.
"Grandma Guo, I know what you're trying to do."
He pulled out a black USB drive.
"Don't worry, I've almost finished collecting the evidence. I know a lot of journalists with a sense of justice, and they would definitely be willing to help if they knew about your granddaughter's situation."
“I won’t let your granddaughter live with rumors after her death. Soon everyone will know that she was framed. I also contacted a forensic doctor to conduct an autopsy on Guo Miaotong.”
"Zhang Wulai's words will soon fall apart on their own. As for those who harmed you and your granddaughter, I have a lot of evidence of their evil deeds, which I will also release then..."
He kept muttering to himself outside the door for a long time, and only stopped slowly after Granny Guo had left.
Staring blankly at the empty corridor outside the door for a while, he turned to Chu Ci and asked, "What did Granny Guo say?"
"She's gone."
Chu Ci and he stared at the corridor outside the door, their eyes slightly vacant.
The Granny Guo she saw was different from the Granny Guo Shen Zaikun saw.
Shen Zaikun saw that Granny Guo looked no different from a normal person, but what she saw was how Granny Guo looked when she died.
He wore his mourning clothes inside out, a red silk ribbon around his body, and an iron weight hanging from his feet. Because he had hanged himself, his tongue was almost touching his chest...
If there's any difference, it's the color of Granny Guo's mourning clothes.
Mourning clothes should be white, but Granny Guo's mourning clothes were stained with large patches of red blood.
She chatted briefly with Shen Zaikun about Hui Po's live-streamed suicide attempt, and then quickly sent her away.
Then she opened the "Quick Guide to Fortune Telling" that the system had previously rewarded her with.
But it was full of fortune-telling stuff, and the second half of the book was locked, so she didn't find the answers inside.
It was during lunchtime, while chatting with my grandmother at the dining table, that she inadvertently brought up the issue.
Grandma paused for a moment, then sighed, "If Granny Guo is like this, then she's probably going to become a monster."
"The perpetrator?" Chen Xinxin asked, puzzled.
Her hand holding the chopsticks trembled slightly. "Grandma, what does 'cheng xiong' mean?"
"It means you'll become a vengeful ghost!"
Grandma shook her head, suddenly feeling that the food no longer tasted good.
Her gaze fell into a blank space as she recalled the old woman, Guo, who stood with her hands on her hips, her son and daughter-in-law blocking her house, almost jumping up to yell at her.
I couldn't help but sigh.
Such an unreasonable person back then has ended up like this.
Chu Ci placed some food on Chen Xinxin's plate, who was absentmindedly eating her rice, and said softly:
"Grandma Guo isn't as unreasonable as we thought. Grandma and I are going to Kowloon City tonight. Why don't you come with us?"
"Grandma Guo and Tongtong have no living relatives left. You are Tongtong's best friend, so go and help tidy up her house."
Chen Xinxin still looked somewhat frightened, but after biting her lip and thinking for a moment, she nodded.
-
That evening, Chu Ci and Grandma arrived in Kowloon City. The dinner they had promised to treat their neighbors to earlier had been postponed until now.
With the landlady acting as a loudmouth, the neighbors all know that Chu Ci has turned over a new leaf and started a new life.
Seeing Chu Ci's completely different mental state at the dinner table, everyone nodded in approval.
Some people heard that Chu Ci is doing quite well in Kwun Tong District and has even opened a small shop, and couldn't help but feel envious.
"Danpo, you've raised your daughter so well! I even saw someone praising Aci in the newspaper!"
Grandma happily raised her glass, "The kids are just playing around! But if anyone needs anything in the future, they can come to Ah-Ci for a checkup. Our Ah-Ci is very reliable now!"
The old neighbors all laughed.
Cheng Zhenzhen, who was sitting next to the landlord and his wife, remained silent.
Just as everyone was having a pleasant conversation, she suddenly spoke up:
"That scoundrel Zhang who framed Guo Miaotong is covered in sores and is about to die."
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