Ghost Record

  The villagers in the field were pulling seedlings or plowing, and when they saw several policemen suddenly emerging from the ditch, they couldn't help but feel extremely surprised, stopped their hands, and looked over.

  The police officers couldn't see clearly in the cave, but when they came out, they saw that each of them looked like a homeless person who hadn't taken a bath for two months. Especially the younger brother, he was actually a disabled and mentally challenged homeless person. The four police officers' clothes were just dirty, while mine and the younger brother's clothes were both wet and dirty. It didn't feel uncomfortable in the cave, but when we came out, it felt cold and unbearable.

  Several police officers borrowed hoes, some moved stones and others dug up mud. Before long, the entrance to the cave was filled in. Then Captain Zheng told the villagers that it was a geological survey team from Guigang, and gave some other explanations that left people bewildered.

  We didn't know where we were, and it wasn't until we asked that we found out this was Xunwang Village. We entered the cave and walked almost all night, stopping and starting as we crawled for tens of kilometers underground. Captain Zheng warned the villagers that the tunnels they had dug out of the ground were for scientific purposes, and anyone caught digging into them without permission would be sentenced to 20 years of labor reform.

  When we were about to part ways, Captain Zheng warned me that everything I saw, heard and encountered in the cave must be kept secret, as if it was just a dream when I slept. If I spoke out, I would end up in jail.

  Although I've only known this beast of a little brother for one day, we've been through life and death together. He said that after his leg heals, he'll come to listen to my explanation about some things, such as why he didn't die when he fell into the underground river's rapid current.

  The police left and only then did I feel hungry to the point of breaking out in a cold sweat. Consuming too much energy in the cave, now even walking doesn't have any strength, there's no money on me, and nothing can be dug up or picked from the ground to eat.

  I'm tired, hungry and cold. After walking for almost three hours, I finally arrived home at 12:30 pm. I changed my clothes, ate some peanuts and fell asleep on the bed. In my dream, Tongtong told me that she was too tired from frequently possessing human bodies, and asked me not to call her out this month so she could have a good rest. Possessing human bodies in the dark cave water for years can be tiring, but maybe because Tongtong had eaten many boys before, we didn't suffer any harm when she possessed us.

  I slept from noon to 1:30 the next morning, in the quiet mountain village at night, I could only hear the sound of the wind blowing through the leaves outside the window. I was already awake but didn't want to move, in a daze, when suddenly a "clatter" came from the kitchen, completely startling me out of my daze. It seemed like the sound of a bowl shattering on the floor, my first reaction was that it was a mouse, and I didn't pay much attention. After a few minutes, there was another noise, as if someone was in the kitchen, and after a while, they smashed another bowl. Even if it was a mouse, my bowls couldn't withstand this kind of play.

  I got out of bed and went to the kitchen, turned on the flashlight, but found nothing except a few broken bowl fragments on the floor. I checked the kitchen again but still didn't find anything. So I went back to my room pretending to sleep, and when I heard the sound, I rushed into the kitchen again.

  After waiting for more than half an hour, "bang" another bowl was smashed in the kitchen, and the sound of smashing bowls was very piercing in the middle of the night. This time I almost spent only two seconds rushing from my room to the kitchen, but still nothing was found. With a gloomy face, I turned around to go back to my room, when another bowl was thrown behind me, I quickly turned around, but still saw nothing.

  Just when I was feeling extremely depressed, the water vat in the kitchen corner made a noise. This water vat is usually covered with a wooden board, and the water was still full when I cooked chicken two days ago. At this time, the water vat was shaking, which made me feel a little scared.

  I'm not afraid of ghosts now, I'm just afraid that they won't appear and don't know where to hide. The water jug in the corner keeps shaking, as if something is hiding inside. I walked over, took a deep breath, and then suddenly opened the lid with my hand, shining my flashlight inside, but except for the water, there was nothing else inside, so how did it shake? I checked the bottom of the jar again, and there were no animals, this is really strange to the extreme.

  As a thousand questions were arising in my mind, I suddenly heard footsteps coming from my room. Yes, the sound of footsteps wearing water shoes, this sound was all too familiar to me, almost every night when I was young I could hear it. The one making these walking sounds was a mass of black fog about the size of a black cat, who knows what it is?

  Now it's estimated that I'm alone at home, it ran out again, but I'm no longer the child who was scared to hide under the quilt and didn't dare to breathe. Now as soon as I hear a sound, my brain gets excited, after being frightened for so many years, I finally have the chance to catch you.

  I grabbed the flashlight and rushed back to the room in three or two steps. The flashlight shone, and I saw a black thing floating above my bed head. This thing was like a black dress floating in the air, motionless and suspended above the bed head.

  I cursed as I pulled out a small copper knife from the bag beside me, ready to give it some color. However, this thing didn't know what it was, but it was very cunning, seeing that I wasn't afraid of it or maybe feeling the danger, it floated and escaped from the window. Only after it ran away did I feel a little scared, although I've been through a lot in the past year, but it's still my first time facing something that left a psychological shadow on me since childhood.

  After the black fog escaped, I had just sat down on the bed and let out a sigh of relief when another bowl in the kitchen was smashed. This time I was really infuriated, but instead of going to the kitchen to look for it, I used a method that Zhang Sheng's wife had taught me before.

  I took an incense stick from the hall, lit it and inserted it into a sweet potato, then placed it on the kitchen floor. At first, the smoke from the incense stick rose straight up, but two or three minutes later, the smoke began to drift in a specific direction.

  I followed the smoke to the bathroom door, but was blocked by a wooden door. The smoke drifted into the gap under the door. It seemed that something strange was inside the bathroom, what exactly was hiding in there? Should I kick open the door or not? What if some monster rushed out after opening it? For safety, I went back to my room and took out the awl, holding the awl in my left hand and the knife in my right hand, with the flashlight clenched between my teeth. With one kick, I opened the bathroom door.

  The door creaked open and the flashlight in my mouth fell to the ground, because the moment I opened the door, I saw my grandmother who had passed away eight years ago standing stupidly inside the bathroom. Although her face was very blurry and couldn't be seen clearly, and her feet were faintly visible, I knew it was really my deceased grandmother, I was too familiar with her figure.

  I immediately picked up the flashlight from the ground, but when I shone it again, there was nothing. I shouted at the air, Grandma, come back home and tell me what's going on in my dreams! I've grown up now. But Grandma didn't respond to me, as if she had never been here before, and that strand of fragrant smoke in the kitchen just floated straight up.

  I returned to my room and lay on the bed, thinking about things from when I was a kid until dawn without falling asleep again. Around 7:00 in the morning, my elder uncle rushed over to tell me that my aunt had been possessed by a ghost, crying and shouting for me, asking me to hurry over and take a look.

  Could it be the outsider? I followed my uncle to his home, only to see my aunt sitting on the edge of the bed with her hair disheveled and staring blankly, while many adults from the neighborhood had already arrived.

  My big uncle told my aunt that I had arrived. All I saw was her originally dull eyes suddenly shining with light, and then she called me in with a voice that wasn't her own.

  I can hear that this is Grandma's voice. It really is Grandma. Maybe she doesn't have the skill to send a dream, so she has to rely on possession. Perhaps there's something she wants to tell me.

  I walked into the room, and my uncle followed, but was scolded away by my grandmother. She then told me to close the door, which I did, and stood there blankly, feeling a bit uneasy as I looked at my aunt who had been possessed by my grandmother's spirit.

  It's only been 8 years since my grandmother passed away, but it feels like a very long time ago. A 15-year-old remembering things from when they were 7 is completely different from a 25-year-old remembering things from when they were 17. The former feels like several decades have passed, while the latter feels like just a few months.

  My grandmother asked me to sit down, and after I did, she turned around and told me that she had been worried about my uncle, as well as my sister and me, so for many years she had been hiding in the attic in a ceramic vat used for storing yellow beans. My grandmother said that over the years she had seen everything, but was powerless to do anything; all she could do was watch helplessly. This time, she risked coming down to find me because something had happened to my uncle.

  Grandma said that Uncle killed someone and is now hiding in Guigang, asking me to go save him, saying only I can save him. After grandma finished speaking, Aunt fainted without telling me where in Guigang he was, so how am I supposed to find him? And what's more, he's a murderer! How am I supposed to save him?!

  I remembered the male corpse in the mountain cave wearing my uncle's coat, could it be that my uncle was the one who killed him? Was that person my uncle's creditor and then was deceived by my uncle to the mountain cave to be silenced?

  Yesterday, the whole day, wasn't the body taken back by the police? Wasn't it said that it was thrown into a rock crevice? How am I supposed to save my uncle now? Where did my uncle escape to?

  I gave my uncle 50 yuan and asked him to buy something good for my aunt, but I ended up bringing a string of problems back home.

  My uncle has killed someone, how can I save him? But this is grandma risking her life to come and ask me for help, how can I not save him?

  I've thought about it all day and finally came up with a plan. The police still don't know that my uncle was the one who killed him, so I can fake an accidental death and make it look like he wasn't murdered, as long as the body hasn't been taken away by the police yet.

  Doing so would make me uneasy in my conscience, although to me this world is just a place where the strong prey on the weak. But then I think of that male corpse and how he may have had children and a wife at home waiting for their dad to come back every day, and it makes my heart ache.

  It wasn't until I went to the neighboring village at noon that I found out they had lost someone, a man named Chen Dapao. This guy was always a rascal, often sneaking out to gamble and cheat others, and even beat his wife and elderly father at home. His wife ran away last year, leaving only an old father in his sixties with a four-year-old daughter.

  Chen Dapao is a man who makes me want to fake his accidental death, and if I do, my guilt will be much less. Also, if possible, I plan to support the upbringing of his four-year-old daughter.