Chapter 86 Yin Tao Hua (16) She was the Yin Tao Hua. ...
The male ghost in my dream made a scene several times that didn't seem like a modern person. I don't know if that was his tomb or someone else's.
The boy in the photo looked to be only in his early twenties, and that's exactly what the information said. From his name and age to his address and hometown, to his schooling and work history, Xie Tan thought that if Su He's subordinates were here, they would be excitedly showing off this information and saying, "This is what you call real!"
This person's surname is not Zhang, but his name is indeed Cheng Xiao. Xu Jinbo said that his biological father's surname is Zhang, but his mother remarried when he was seven years old. He spent most of his time and memories with his stepfather. Later, he changed his surname to his mother's surname. His stepfather had a daughter who was older than him, so he was the second child in the family.
Zhang Chengxiao, that's him.
"Is he dead?" Xia Wujin asked.
“He went missing. This is a short-term incident, but after visiting the relevant departments, we found that he does not have any serious illnesses, his family is the beneficiary, and his family has no debts.” Xu Jinbo said with a bitter face, “This family is very cooperative. They are really worried. The last time I saw his mother, she had white hair.”
Xiao Lin has "come back to life" from the dead, and now that he is "missing," it sounds like he is "still alive," but he's hiding.
No wonder the birth chart was blurred; the male ghost wasn't a ghost at all, but a person!
The solitary graves outside the cemetery are not coincidences; it is likely that someone is deliberately misleading people.
The most urgent task is to find him.
The ghost handprint suddenly snatched the paper, excitedly crumpling and waving it. Xie Tan thought to himself, "Yes, it's best to hand this over to Ms. Hu Songqing. She might know some secrets."
The next day, Xia Wujin followed Xu Jinbo to Zhang Chengxiao's current home again, pretending to inquire about the situation, while Ghost Handprint silently searched for clues.
This trip yielded two pieces of information. First, Zhang Chengxiao seemed to be frequently unwell before his disappearance, but the hospital couldn't find anything wrong, so he didn't want to go anymore, saying he was just too tired lately.
Secondly, the ghost handprint "touches" Zhang Chengxiao's trace.
Hiding Xiao Lin in the residential area is a clever trick, using the ashes from the funeral hall to lure away the ghost.
Zhang Chengxiao probably thought that the most dangerous place was the safest place, so he hid in a nearby underground rental house.
They didn't rush forward, but observed him for a day. He hardly went out, and wouldn't open the door even when someone knocked, but that didn't matter, since there was a ghostly handprint there.
So, on a dark and windy night, the broken door to the basement was easily pushed open by an unnatural phenomenon. The room was small and dark, and it was crowded with just one person standing at the door. On the bed, one could see a person curled up.
Xia Wujin, the first to enter the room, was about to turn around to signal his companions to come in when the cool night breeze woke the person in bed. A heart-wrenching cough was muffled under the covers, as if he were coughing up half his life.
Xia Wujin froze, changed her hint, and told them not to come in yet. The ghost handprints intertwined around her neck, forming a protective posture.
So Zhang Chengxiao sat up and saw this scene.
In the cramped, old basement rental room, it was dimly lit. The door had been opened at some point, and a person stood inside, with long hair, motionless, backlit by the moonlight, his skin pale, the rest of him shrouded in shadow.
She faced him, saying nothing. The wind gently lifted her hair, and two black handprints crawled across her neck, like the culprit who strangled her.
There couldn't be a more classic ghost encounter than this. Zhang Chengxiao's heart skipped a beat, yet the figure seemed familiar.
He suddenly opened his eyes wide, relaxed unusually, and revealed an extremely gentle smile: "It's you... But is it alright for us to meet before the formal wedding? I don't mind, but I'm afraid it might affect you. Women in ancient times were easily subject to such gossip, or... have you come to take me away early?"
He was looking at Xia Wujin, and Xia Wujin was looking at him too. His face was even paler than hers under the moonlight and the angle of the camera, and his cheeks were slightly sunken inward, as if he were terminally ill.
Wait, a woman from ancient times? Who picked up whom?
Xia Wujin had a sudden inspiration and asked in a faint, ethereal voice, "You... really want to marry me?"
The young man smiled wryly: "Those gifts were all yours. I guess you're the one marrying me, not the other way around. Sorry, I think I did the ceremonies correctly, right? I looked it up online."
Xia Wujin remained silent, partly to bluff him, and partly because her mind was blank.
All those betrothal gifts were hers? And he looked up the "Three Letters and Six Rites" online?
She had to ask herself, which of the two of them was the shameless bastard who forcibly took what was hers?
“Don’t worry, this is my own choice. I don’t feel unlucky at all; on the contrary, I’m fortunate. I need you. With your demeanor and wealth, you must have come from a noble family in your lifetime. In fact, I’m the one who’s climbing the social ladder. As long as you keep your promise and let me ‘die’ in an accident, that’s enough.” The young man said softly, “I don’t have much time left. It’s better to take me away sooner rather than later, so I won’t be a burden to them. I’m so grateful that you appeared in my dream…”
"Matchmaker..." Xia Wujin suddenly asked, his meaning unclear.
Clearly, for Zhang Chengxiao, who was suspected of being seriously ill, she was the female ghost he encountered in his dream.
They were both tricked. And the person who secretly acted as matchmaker, in the bizarre system of formal letters and rites, was naturally positioned as the "matchmaker."
"Those envelopes? They were all burned..."
At the same time, Zhang Chengxiao fell down outside the door with a thud. Zhang Chengxiao stopped and looked warily outside the door.
Xu Jinbo can't be blamed; he had been very patient. But in just a few days, his mind was forcibly crammed with too much complicated information. He finally managed to figure out Zhang Chengxiao's increasingly bizarre words, and was so shocked that he lost his balance and bumped into the clutter used for shielding.
He covered his mouth, and Lu Jinzhao kindly steadied the teetering debris.
Zhang Chengxiao did need this ghost marriage. Even though he thought Xia Wujin was a ghost, he still used his emaciated body to block Xia Wujin when he saw that Xia Wujin did not move.
She's very adept at handling things, acting as if she's afraid of being jilted.
But as he got closer to Xia Wujin, he belatedly realized that she was neither without facial features, missing limbs, nor a thin, ghostly figure with a terrifying appearance, nor had a captivating gaze.
She was like a real person, just like the woman in my dream.
Are all ghosts like this? No wonder they can be mistaken for real ghosts.
He couldn't help but turn his head, wanting to see her more clearly, but he saw that her gaze went past him and looked behind him.
Then he was knocked unconscious by Lu Jinzhao, who nimbly slipped in.
"Take it down." Lu Jinzhao leaned on the shovel, smoothing his hair with a hint of smugness, his strength precisely controlled, and looked at his phone screen.
Xie Tan chuckled as encouragement.
When Zhang Chengxiao woke up, he was immediately faced with a joint trial by three judges.
He was bewildered, but looking at Xia Wujin under the bright lights, he finally understood: "You are...you are not..."
“Not a ghost.” Xia Wujin nodded calmly. “Just like you, I am a human.”
Zhang Chengxiao was completely stunned.
So they heard the story from Zhang Chengxiao's perspective. Before the story began, Lu Jinzhao politely raised his phone to act as a remote support for Xie Tan.
Zhang Chengxiao said that he felt unwell and when he went to the hospital for the first time, he did not receive a report. The hospital showed that there were no records of his consultation or examination.
That evening, however, he received a letter containing his medical report, which was indeed from the hospital he had consulted—late-stage cancer.
He thought it was a prank, but when he checked the report again the next day, it showed that the fire had spontaneously combusted, and he felt uneasy.
I went to get checked again, even to other hospitals, but got the same result and received the same envelope.
His health did indeed deteriorate, and then he started having dreams.
What follows is like a gender-swapped version of Xia Wuchong.
He dreamt of a blurry figure, which slowly became clearer, and finally, it was Xia Wujin dressed in red.
If he receives her promise and marries her in the afterlife, she will leave him a legacy for his worldly desires.
Xu Jinbo's face turned pale. Wasn't this the high-value accident insurance policy that the young man had? He had taken out the policy a year ago, and Zhang Chengxiao had confirmed it repeatedly, saying that he had never bought it.
This is unbelievable... It's really unbelievable! Ghosts are buying insurance for people, conspiring to commit insurance fraud?
But what's most terrifying is that, in Zhang Chengxiao's eyes, Xia Wujin is the one who harbors resentment.
Two people who are still alive are connected in their dreams, and they both believe that the other is the ghost who took them to a ghost marriage.
However, there are still differences. Xia Wujin said that Zhang Chengxiao's appearance, words and actions were consistent with those in her dreams, but Zhang Chengxiao said that Xia Wujin in her dreams was sometimes a double image.
He thought it was because he was still in a dream, so it was inevitably blurry, but the shadow sometimes gave him a strange feeling, different from Xia Wuxian's indifference... eerie.
Whenever he had a doubt, he would observe and think carefully, but he would feel that it was indeed Xia Wujin.
Just then, on the phone, Xiao Lin, who had been sleeping soundly beside Xie Tan, finally woke up; today marked the end of the fake seventh day after death.
She heard many of their conversations while half-asleep, and as if eager to wake up, she opened her eyes and grabbed Xie Tan's arm tightly, saying hoarsely, "It's a female ghost... the one who's been haunting me is a female ghost!"
She wasn't talking about Xia Wuxian's mother.
Xie Tan patted her reassuringly, speaking softly as if coaxing her: "Do you know who she is?"
“I know her name, she said it herself… her name is Xia Wujin!”
In a high-end club nestled against the mountains and beside the water, in a private room on the top floor, a brother and sister with strikingly similar features sat facing each other, creating an eerie atmosphere.
The greenery outside the window is both nature's outstretched tendrils and a way of shading the sun.
Xia Changfeng looked exhausted and said in a deep voice, "Juanjuan, I know you don't like Jinjin..."
"You'd rather say I'm jealous of her, that I hate her, right?"
Xia Yongjuan was unusually dignified today, wearing only simple accessories, which was already a level of simplicity befitting her "mourning" attire: "That was a long time ago. I'm not jealous of her anymore... I pity her."
"……What?"
“You really don’t know anything, brother. No wonder, Chang Sheng needs you. You’re too busy.” Xia Yongjuan said calmly. “I’ve always thought that my father used me as a tool for a marriage alliance, and that’s true. He didn’t need me to have any hobbies, he just needed me to be a qualified bride in the end. But he treated her like a little princess. She could do whatever she wanted, and study whatever she wanted… Psychology, ha, maybe the Qingxin Project was restarted for her too?”
She held the glass, remained silent for a long time, and then said, "But later I realized that being a tool for a marriage alliance was already a good ending. I was the one who benefited. She... Jinjin, she was born a 'shell'. Everything she enjoyed from birth was 'end-of-life care'."
Xia Changfeng became increasingly uneasy as he listened: "What is a shell?"
“It’s a physical body offered to something, waiting for another soul to move in at any time. When that happens, her own soul has to leave to make way for the true master,” Xia Yongjuan said. “Have you ever been to an ancestral hall?”
"Of course, we've all been there, during the annual ancestral worship..."
“It’s not the one at home, it’s the one in the mountains, right below the cemetery.” Xia Yongjuan interrupted him, her eyes filled with a coldness, or perhaps fear. “You should go there and take a look; maybe you’ll see a familiar name.”
The room fell silent, save for the clinking of cups and saucers.
“It’s because I don’t understand.” Xia Changfeng realized something and suddenly said, “Juanjuan, you know more than I do. Just tell me, I’m begging you.”
“Xia Wujin…what a fine name.” Xia Yongjuan smiled sarcastically. “It’s the name of a dead man. Brother, our father gave his youngest daughter the name of a dead man.”
Xia Changfeng was completely stunned.
But Xia Yongjuan seemed unwilling to let him go. He had a lot to say and pressed on as if venting, saying, "Although our names don't use the names of the dead, they're like curses, right? A curse about Changsheng... immortality."
She said quietly, "I heard from my sister-in-law that you often sleepwalk lately and sometimes lose control of your emotions. Once you even scared your own son to tears. Is that true?"
"No, I should ask...do you remember this?"
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