Xu Hu led me out of the airport and into the hotel's nanny van that had come to pick me up.
Although one car was enough for all of us, two cars came to pick us up. It seems that Wei Shengnan really didn't want to have any contact with me.
Hot, dry, dirty, and polarized.
My first impression of New Delhi was very bad.
This city is the capital of India and its largest city, with a population of over 25 million, ranking among the top in the world.
Before disembarking from the plane, I imagined this place to be a bustling, vibrant international metropolis.
When I saw it with my own eyes, I found that while it was busy, it was far from being prosperous.
The area around the airport is fairly developed, but further away, the city feels like a county town in China in the 1980s, or even worse.
The streets here are extremely dirty and chaotic. There are few tall buildings along the roadside, the semi-open toilets reek of foul odors, large areas of shantytowns and residential areas are mixed together, homeless people and cows are everywhere, and there is garbage everywhere.
The city is not very developed, but the population density is very high, and luxury cars and yellow tricycle taxis compete for road space on the highway.
If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I would never have believed that someone would be herding sheep on the main road of the capital.
It wasn't until the vehicles entered the city center that the area began to resemble a large city, with greenery and relatively clean streets.
Aside from the architectural style, there's nothing particularly remarkable about this place; it just feels like a second- or third-tier city in China.
My vehicle arrived five minutes later than Wei Shengnan's due to traffic congestion.
Although New Delhi is generally underdeveloped, the Taj Mahal Hotel is quite luxurious and looks like a palace from afar, which is out of place with the overall tone of the city.
The monkey seemed quite excited about this, giving me a slightly lewd look: "Young Master Duan, are we going to stay here tonight? Or how about we go out for a walk tonight, and I'll show you some exotic sights?"
I rolled my eyes: "You're kidding me. Indians are so fierce, they don't even spare monitor lizards. What if they mistake you for some exotic species and catch you? Would you throw away your ass?"
As soon as the car stopped in front of the hotel, Xu Hu received a phone call. After saying a few words, his expression changed drastically. He handed the phone to the driver, who then honked the horn repeatedly to disperse the pedestrians ahead and sped onto the street.
I saw the car change direction and asked Xu Hu, "Weren't we supposed to be meeting the descendants of the Song family? Why aren't we going to the hotel?"
"Something happened to him!"
Xu Hu looked at me with a solemn expression: "After the young lady arrived at the hotel, she knocked on the door for a long time but received no response. After inquiring, she learned that the descendants of the Song family had not returned to the hotel for three days."
"You've been kidnapped?"
When I heard this news, my first reaction was that the descendants of the Song family had been kidnapped.
In recent years, China's economy has developed rapidly, and more and more people are traveling abroad. Because Chinese people are generous spenders, they are seen as easy targets by many criminals.
Xu Hu shook his head: "Miss made some inquiries and it is said that the descendants of the Song family have been detained in the Tibet market, but the specifics are still unclear."
The Tibetan Market that Xu Hu mentioned is located on Jambat Street in New Delhi. This area is almost entirely filled with shops run by Tibetans and is also known as Tibetan Street.
The street wasn't very wide, and overhead were haphazardly strung electrical wires like a spider web, with sparks constantly flying from the joints.
The buildings on both sides are predominantly yellow, and the shops are covered with colorful fabrics, blending Tibetan and Indian cultures in a somewhat incongruous way.
Next to Tibetan Street is the largest flea market in the area, a paradise for the poor. The streets are packed with people, and there are many folk artists performing snake charmers, monkey shows, and dances along the way, making it a lively and bustling place.
We got off the bus and walked, and saw Wei Shengnan and her group in the distance. We quickly followed them.
With the help of the translator, we entered an alley and stood in front of a shop with a traditional Chinese antique-style facade.
In an alleyway brimming with exotic charm, a shop with distinctly Chinese characteristics appears, creating a sense of incongruity.
The shop's signboard wasn't in Hindi, but rather in Chinese characters: "奇物坊" (Qiwu Fang).
I followed Wei Shengnan into the shop, and as soon as I entered, I felt extremely uncomfortable.
It's not physical, but psychological.
The shop, Qiwufang, was located on the shady side, and all of its windows were covered with dark film, making the whole room look very dark.
The display shelves inside are not placed against the wall, but rather arranged in a circle. On the left side, there is a display shelf with a piece of ancient and vigorous Taishan Yang stone tied with red silk.
At the entrance, there are two screens placed outwards, with the narrow section facing the shop entrance.
My discomfort stems from the room's furnishings. Perhaps it's because I know a little about feng shui, but the layout here just doesn't look right to me.
Most people who do business focus on accumulating energy to generate wealth, but this strange goods shop has a yin-yang energy dispersing array.
Taishan stones are used to ward off evil spirits and protect the home. They are considered to be extremely yang in nature, making them the most suitable yang core for dispersing qi arrays.
Logically, there should be an extremely yin object placed directly opposite it for symmetry, but the space to my right is empty.
With this question in mind, I continued to observe, and when I saw the wall on the right, I instantly got goosebumps.
The walls of this shop are covered with wallpaper, and the colors are quite vibrant in order to create a classic and antique atmosphere.
What terrifies me is that among this pattern is a Thangka depicting the hell of scissors.
Thangka is a transliteration of the Tibetan word, referring to religious scroll paintings that are mounted on brocade and hung for worship, and is classified as Tibetan cultural artifacts.
There's nothing inherently scary about this kind of thing. The reason I was startled was because it was a Thangka made of human skin.
According to the records in the Judge's Record, there are two origins of human skin Thangkas.
One type is the practice of a few high-ranking monks in Tibetan history who would peel off their skin to copy scriptures and paint on their bodies. After their death, their skin would be peeled off and offered as a sacrifice. These Thangka paintings are generally mandala paintings, depicting the cycle of life and death, and images of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, and are considered sacred objects.
Another method is to punish those who have committed many evil deeds. Bon religion has a method of execution, in which evil people are killed through rituals. In order to prevent the evil spirits of the killed evil people from causing trouble, people paint on their bodies, drawing images of guardian deities to suppress the evil spirits.
This Thangka depicting the hell of scissors is a product of the bloody rituals of the Bon religion, indicating that the deceased had persuaded the widow to remarry or acted as a matchmaker for her during his lifetime.
This method of skinning people for Thangka is extremely cruel. First, patterns are drawn on the body of a living person, then the body is fixed in place. A small hole is drilled in the skull, and the skin is separated from the flesh and bone by about two centimeters around the hole with a knife. Then, mercury is poured little by little into the crack between the skin and flesh.
Because mercury is very heavy, it will quickly flow from top to bottom throughout the body through the gap between the scalp and flesh on the top of the head.
At this point, the skin is completely separated from the rest of the body.
According to legend, those who are subjected to this punishment will never be able to reincarnate and will be eternally suppressed within this piece of human skin. It is an extremely insidious thing that needs to be placed in a place with great karmic power to suppress. If ordinary people come into contact with it, they will either suffer from serious illnesses or, in severe cases, have their families destroyed and die.
This very strange thing appeared in this strange artifact shop and even became the Yin Yin core of the Qi Dispersing Array, which is enough to show that this place is strange.
I estimate that this place is probably a business dealing in funerary objects or evil ritual items. Because the items they handle have too much yin energy, they set up this energy-dispersing formation to prevent evil energy from accumulating and attracting unclean things.
Just as I was observing the shop, a middle-aged man in a Tang suit came out from the back hall and said in a hoarse voice, "Gentlemen, you have come to the wrong place. This is a private club and we are not open to the public."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com