Chapter 53: Corpse Against the Current

  The river's surface was dark and gloomy, with a faint mist floating on it. The mist rose and drifted upwards. On the black water's surface, there was a person swimming back and forth with a splashing sound. At first, I didn't notice, but after hearing the splashing sound, I looked in the direction of the noise and saw a child floating on the water's surface.

  That child was lying on the water's surface, his face turned towards us. His face was as white as plaster powder. Those eyes were even more piercingly cold, like a knife, stabbing straight into my heart.

  There are too many stories about the water ghost, and I've heard quite a few. Here's one: A woman was washing clothes by the river when she drowned. After her death, people would often see someone squatting by the river at night, washing clothes.

  When people see this person, they are all puzzled. Late at night, it's so bright that no one can see, who would still be washing clothes? Someone is curious and walks over to take a closer look.

  The person patted the shoulder of the figure washing clothes, and when the figure turned around, the curious person was frightened and screamed wildly. The person squatting by the river was actually the deceased who had died while washing clothes.

  I also heard some other stories about the water ghost, but they are all similar. For example, one year when the river dike was being repaired, a worker died on the dike. Not long after that, someone saw the worker reappear on the dike and still doing the same actions as before.

  There's another story about someone who drowned in a river while swimming. At the time of death, he kept shouting for help. Afterwards, because no one came to rescue him, the person drowned. Not long after, people often heard cries for help coming from the riverbank from far away.

  Someone walked to the river bank and took a look, only to find someone struggling in the water. At this time, if someone jumped into the river to rescue that person, they would definitely not be able to come back up either.

  When I saw the little boy swimming in the river, these stories emerged in my mind. These stories were told to me by my grandfather before he passed away when I was living in our rural hometown.

  In that rural village, everywhere is like telling ghost stories. Because of the monotonous rural life, as soon as night falls, the old people in the village will move a stool and sit down to talk about these strange old things.

  I recall these stories because when I was young, among all the ghost stories I heard, the impression of this water ghost was the deepest. At the same time, I also had a thread of fear towards the water ghost.

  Often heard that someone was washing in the river during the day and being pulled by the foot. The person who was pulled looked down at the water and saw a person standing under their feet, with disheveled hair, holding one hand on their own foot and pulling them into the water. So when I was young, I was very afraid of rivers and thought they were terrifying.

  At that moment, when the little boy appeared in the river, I was also startled. Similarly, the two men beside me were frightened and took a few steps back in a hurry.

  This ghost is not comparable to a zombie, a zombie is more ferocious, after all, it can be seen and touched. However, this kind of thing, the ghost, cannot be seen or touched, when they appear, they will seem even more eerie.

  The three of us retreated at least four or five steps before stopping. When we looked up and gazed out at the river again, we found that the little boy had vanished.

  I forced myself to calm down and put down my backpack, taking out the things I had prepared in advance. There was a paper man, incense, and paper money. On the paper man, I wrote the birth date of that child, and on the paper man, I cast a spell, which was equivalent to Wang Dabao's son's substitute.

  The water ghost finds a substitute, once the substitute is confirmed, it will die and grab it. It must harm its own substitute to death. And now, I'm going to use a paper man to deceive this water ghost.

  I took out the paper man and threw it directly to the riverbank. Then I lit the paper money and incense at the same time, inserting them next to the paper man.

  This paper money was burned for the little ghost in the river, which is equivalent to giving him a sweet head first. Now that things have been done here, let's see how the water ghost reacts next. After I finished burning the paper, I retreated back.

  Two men stood behind me, their faces pale, and they were shaking all over. Cold sweat was dripping from their faces. I walked up to them and patted them on the back, and only then did they calm down.

  Then, the three of us looked out at the water together.

  The paper heap was burning, and it seemed to have illuminated the surface of the water. The surface of the water was extremely calm, I had never seen such a calm river before. A faint white mist floated on the surface of the water, and in the flickering firelight, I saw that the paper man suddenly moved.

  Because my eyes were fixed on the river surface, I didn't expect the paper man to move. In a hurry, I turned my head around and indeed saw that the paper man was twitching in fits and starts. At the same time, the paper man suddenly stood up with a jerk.

  This is a paper man about the same size as a real person, it's just a slightly larger piece of paper with somewhat blurry facial features and limbs drawn on it.

  At this moment, the paper with a human face on it stood up in place. Around, a gust of dark wind blew, and the burning paper money on the ground flew up, swirling in mid-air.

  The two men were scared and trembling, I was a bit nervous and sweating too. The paper man stood up and slowly walked towards the water. As he walked into the water, he was gradually submerged.

  I let out a long sigh of relief, if I'm not mistaken, this water ghost was probably deceived by my paper man. However, it's still uncertain now and needs to be observed for a while longer.

  I called out to the two men: "You continue burning paper and incense, don't stop."

  The two men looked puzzled, but I didn't say much. The incense paper had been burning for a while, and I saw that the river was still completely calm, so I finally felt at ease. I told the two of them: "Throw all the incense paper in, then withdraw."

  The two of them did as I said, throwing all the incense paper into the fire, and we took off running. If my guess was correct, then the Water Ghost had been thoroughly confused by me. The reason I just burned the incense paper was to confuse the Water Ghost, making it think someone really died. At this moment, even if the Water Ghost has discovered that I sent a substitute, it's too late.

  As I expected, after we ran out for a while, the river behind us suddenly made a loud noise. At this time, I said to the two men: "Don't look back, whoever looks back will be found by him and become his substitute."

  The two men originally wanted to turn back, but after hearing what I said, their faces changed greatly. We continued running forward, and the water behind us kept making a loud gurgling sound. And in this gurgling sound of the water, for some reason, I always felt that there were other sounds, very much like a woman's laughter.

  And it was an old woman's laughter. I couldn't help but shout "stop", and the two men stopped immediately.

  I said to the two of them: "You guys listen too, doesn't the voice sound off?"

  The two of them perked up their ears to listen, and their faces suddenly turned pale. One of the men stuttered and said: "What's that sound? How can it be so terrifying?"

  Another Hanzi with a frightened face picked up the sentence: "This old woman's laughter, shouldn't it be that little ghost who made it?"

  This remark made my scalp tingle. A little boy, making an old woman's laugh, shouldn't be the case. My heart kept pounding, thinking carefully, everything I just did was not wrong at all.

  Besides, I didn't do anything complicated, just sent a substitute. The water ghost took the substitute and treated it as a child, that's all, nothing wrong was done.

  Thinking of this, I couldn't help but turn my head back to look. With this one turn of the head, I discovered that we had already run out very far, at least over a hundred meters. And on that riverbank, all the incense papers we had lit up had been extinguished, so that place was pitch black and nothing could be seen.

  I said to the two men: "Let's go back and take another look."

  Two men were terrified, wanting to say something but ultimately didn't. So I took the lead again and returned by the original route. It was only a hundred meters away, and we arrived in just a few minutes. Soon, we came back to the riverbank, and from afar, we smelled the scent of incense paper.

  Suddenly, I stopped in my tracks and pulled the two of them abruptly. Then, the three of us hid behind a clump of grass. Looking through the gaps in the grass towards the riverbank, we saw an old woman standing and squatting on the river path.

  I understand now, the sound we just heard was made by this old woman.

  At this moment, the old woman was muttering something in her mouth, just like chanting scriptures. Suddenly, she pointed to the river water, and a white face floated out of the river water.

  The old woman let out a cold snort and turned to leave. But what we saw was that after the old woman left, the pale face in the river actually started moving along the riverbed. And the direction it moved wasn't with the current, but against it.

  Soon, the old woman disappeared into the dark night, and before disappearing, she chuckled twice.

  My heart skipped a beat and I immediately felt something was off.

  I took two men and immediately ran to the riverbank, getting closer, I saw more clearly. All I could see was that in the dark river water, there seemed to be a human figure. The person was like a fish, moving in the middle of the water.

  I had a bad premonition in my heart, and this bad premonition came from the corpse in the river. I couldn't help but follow the river and walk with the corpse.

  Before long, we walked to the upper reaches of the river and saw a large pool in the upper reaches. At this moment, I saw that old woman again. I immediately stopped my steps, pulled the two men and hid behind a grass nest again.

  Far, far away, I saw the corpse enter the water pool and disappear. The old woman squatted at the edge of the pool, muttering something while scolding loudly, and the water churned up rapidly, splashing and foaming as if many fish were jumping in the water.

  I suddenly said to the two men: "Hurry up and go catch her for me, she is the real culprit who harmed Wang Dabo's son and his companions."