Witchcraft

  Is there a tattoo on the face? It looks like some kind of totem shape. As soon as I mention tattoos on my face, I almost subconsciously think of the Maori people in New Zealand. The Maori are a mix of Mongolian and Australian races, and ancient Maori were very enthusiastic about tattoos, but their attitude towards tattoos was full of respect, especially for facial tattoos, which usually represent a person's status.

  But I pinched my fingers and thought for half a day, but I couldn't think of when I had ever met a New Zealander, let alone a Maori. From childhood to adulthood, I have never left the country, sometimes seeing foreigners at train stations, wanting to go up and say a few words, but every time it's just a thought.

  It's clear that Gao Peng has some understanding of the Maori people. This guy, who makes a living by selling rare books every day, often records strange and unusual things in his books. Although Gao Peng is not a bookworm, he owns a bookstore and spends all day inside, even if it's just treating books as commodities, but over time, he will inevitably be influenced by them.

  Gao Peng said to me: "I'm telling you, Pei Xi, when did that old guy offend the Mori people again?"

  "This thing you don't ask me, I don't know anything." I said: "Besides, you can't just determine that someone is a Maori just because they have tattoos on their face, this is too arbitrary."

  Gao Peng said impatiently: "I know I know, isn't this just an assumption? Anything is possible."

  He let Gao Peng continue, and he said: "That day was really scary for me, but I thought that it's rare for Pei Xi to give me a task, so even if I have to risk my life, I must complete it. In the past two days, I've been secretly monitoring your family's situation. That night, when I saw those two people, I felt they were not good people. Those two people rarely left the house, and I don't know where they got such a big nerve, completely treating your dad's house as their own home, every day only that scar-faced man went out to buy some food back. When I saw this situation, it seemed like they were preparing for a long battle, but what surprised me was that just now, those two people suddenly left your house, and when they left, they took away a package of things, looking like they didn't plan to come back again. So after they left, I snuck into your dad's house."

  "How's our family?" I asked.

  "Everything is fine, there are no signs of the house being disturbed, and the cleanliness has been well maintained, except for one room."

  "My dad's room?" I asked.

  "No," Gao Peng replied, "it's the study. The study is the only room that has been disturbed, you still remember that your father had a row of rare books on mysticism on his bookshelf, don't you?"

  I nodded and said I remembered. My father had always been a book lover, and he hated it when others touched his books. Even I wasn't allowed to flip through his books without his permission, especially the rare ones on mysticism that Gao Peng mentioned, some of which were ancient volumes that would fall apart easily. Whenever my father took them out to read, he was extremely careful.

  I remember one time when Gao Peng came to my home and saw the rare books on my father's bookshelf. He casually pulled out a book, and at that moment, my father's face fell. I quickly put the book back. Later, Gao Peng told me that those books were all very old and were hard to find in the market for second-hand and rare books. Moreover, the content of those books was such that with just a bit of hype, selling them for 1.8 million would be no problem at all.

  But I never said those words to Father because I knew he would never sell his books.

  Gao Peng suddenly raised his voice and said to me, "Those rare books were all stolen by those two bastards. The entire bookshelf was untouched, only that one row of books was moved. Damn it, those two thieves are quite professional. Not only is their vision professional, but their thieving skills are also very professional. They pried open the lock without leaving any signs of damage."

  "What's the point of stealing books?" I asked.

  Gao Peng replied, "To make money, of course. I'm not the one who told you that your father's books are very valuable, but what I don't understand is that if they came for those books, they could have just stolen them and left. Why did they have to stay in your house for two or three days?"

  "I wish I knew." I thought to myself. Two or three days? It's possible that it has already been at our house for a few weeks.

  "How was it? I didn't do too badly on this task, did I?" Gao Peng said.

  "Not bad," I replied somewhat dazed: "Thanks a lot, I'll invite you to dinner when I get back, there's something else I need to take care of here, so I'll hang up for now."

  Gao Peng wanted to say something else, but I had no intention of continuing to chat with him, so I hung up the phone.

  "What's wrong?" As soon as I hung up the phone, Liu Zhen hastily came before me and asked.

  I repeated to Liu Zhen the things that Gao Peng had told me earlier and what he just said on the phone. But after listening, Liu Zhen didn't seem to have any big reaction. I asked him and only then did I know that on the night my father went to find Liu Zhen, apart from entrusting some matters to him and asking for his help in finding Duan Yuwen in Yunnan, he also gave him a small task.

  Liu Zhen told me that he always felt that my father seemed to have anticipated that someone would sneak into his home, so on the night before going to find Liu Zhen, he secretly installed a small bug in the house, which was actually a small tape recorder. Before leaving, my father instructed Liu Zhen to retrieve the bug three days later. Liu Zhen followed my father's instructions and sneaked into my home with the key my father had given him after a few days (of course, he experienced an experience that was very different from Gao Peng's, and also saw other people entering and leaving my room, but they were not the two people Gao Peng mentioned). He found the bug installed by my father and heard someone impersonating my father telling me to go find Wang Chengbao, and immediately contacted me by phone.

  I shook my head and cursed, "It's too damn chaotic, my brain is about to explode! Stop thinking about it! I'm in Yunnan now, even if something big happens at home in Liaoning, I won't be able to do anything about it. Now I just want to find Duan Yuwen as soon as possible!"

  Liu Zhen also nodded and complained: "That's right, it's already eight o'clock now. I don't know when Duan Yuwen will be back."

  "Could it be that old man is driving a black car outside and got into an accident? Or maybe he's already dead?" I said casually.

  Liu Zhen said: "You say, will it be that he came back when we went out for dinner, and we didn't know?"

  I felt enlightened and said, "It's very possible. Let's go up and take a look now. Even if we can't find Duan Yuwen, we can ask the young man with a long face who came in at noon if he knows anything about him."

  Liu Zhen was very much in agreement with me, apparently this guy's patience was also almost worn out.

  The two of us sat up and patted the dust off our buttocks. I walked to Bolin's front, gesturing as I told her we were going upstairs to take a look.

  But unexpectedly, Bo Jin didn't react at all after hearing it. He just pointed to the old apartment building and said two words without even looking at me: "Danger."

  "What danger? What's the worst that could happen, just a crazy old lady and some stray cats? You don't actually believe those ghost stories, do you?" I'm not sure if Bo Jin understood what I said, but in fact, I was saying it to myself, trying to boost my own courage. My attitude towards ghosts has always been ambiguous.

  "Never mind," said Liu Zhen from the side: "I think that girl is scared, no matter what, she's still a girl."

  Afraid? I looked at Bo Jin, her face was as expressionless as a porcelain doll. Would she feel afraid? I couldn't quite imagine it, but I said: "Okay, Bo Jin, you stay here, and I'll go up with Liu Zhen."

  I believe Bo Jin can still understand this sentence. She finally stopped staring anxiously at the old apartment and turned around to look at me with a puzzled expression, as if asking "Did you really understand what I said?" Then she pointed to the old apartment again and repeated what she had just said: "Danger."

  "What's wrong with her?" Liu Zhen said with concern.

  "Don't mind her, she's mentally unstable and often has fits like this." I said irritably. "Come on, let's go up."

  Liu Zhen didn't say much either, and followed behind me. The two of us went upstairs along the outer staircase, leaving Bo Jin alone in the empty space in front of the building.

  After walking two steps, Liu Zhen asked: "Leaving a girl alone at the bottom of the mountain in the middle of the night won't be a problem, will it?"

  "I say, why are you always worrying about her? Have a crush on her? Want me to help you pull some strings?" I teased.

  Liu Zhenyi heard my words and immediately became tongue-tied, saying: "That's not it, but you also said that Long Bujin is our only real clue, and don't forget, the teacher originally let you come to Yunnan to pick up this girl, we can't lose her."

  "Don't worry about it, you don't have to bother with this trivial matter."

  The two of us walked up the stairs, one in front of the other, and came straight to the third floor. The fourth floor was only inhabited by an elderly couple and an old painter, while the two floors below were empty except for a cat. Only this third floor had a madwoman and two rooms that seemed to be occupied.

  As soon as we entered the corridor, that familiar stench came rushing towards us. Fortunately, today's weather was gloomy, and by nightfall, the hallway was quite chilly, so the smell wasn't particularly strong. The corridor had no lighting, and at noon it was already very dim; now it was pitch black, and the two of us were almost feeling our way forward in the dark.

  Neither of us had any intention of asking that crazy old woman again. Originally, Liu Zhen still had some respect for the old lady, but after hearing the boss's wife's story, he also felt a chill and we unconsciously quickened our pace towards the two rooms at the end of the corridor. If my guess was correct, then one of them must be that long-faced young man.

  As I walked, I gradually felt something was off. The most intuitive feeling was that the temperature around me was getting lower and lower. Unconsciously, I had already started shivering, my teeth chattering non-stop, and every time I breathed out, it seemed like I was breathing out mist. I thought to myself, this isn't summer weather at all. Even in Northeast China where I'm from, the summer nights aren't this cold.

  Fortunately, after walking for a while, my eyes gradually adapted to the darkness of the environment here. In fact, it's not completely dark here, at least there is only one window at the end of the corridor that lets in a faint starlight, although it's extremely weak, but it's better than nothing. On the other hand, some iron doors on both sides of the corridor are half open, and the windows in the rooms can also project out a little starlight.

  I didn't make a sound, enduring the cold, and continued walking forward. Soon, I discovered another strange place. Those stray cats! This afternoon when I came, I could see an old cat almost as soon as I took a few steps, but now I couldn't see any cats at all. Where did those beasts run off to?

  People are most afraid of stimulating their imagination in a dark environment, which is undoubtedly scaring themselves. But at this time, my brain didn't listen to my command, and all I could think about were the various strange stories that the owner of the restaurant told me about the crazy old lady at noon. At this moment, I quickened my pace, almost running towards the two rooms at the end of the corridor.

  As I walked, my cold sweat came down. I had a bad premonition in my heart. I secretly calculated that this corridor looked less than 100 meters long, and when we checked it door by door in the morning, it only took less than five minutes to reach the end. But now, I was almost running at a small pace, and it should have taken at least two minutes, but when I raised my eyes, the two rooms at the end seemed to be still ten or more meters away, and no matter what, I couldn't get there.

  I couldn't help but shudder and turned back to ask: "Old Liu, don't you think this corridor is longer than it was this afternoon?"

  My words were like a big stone thrown into the sea, although they produced a huge echo in the quiet corridor, no one answered me.

  My heart skipped a beat, and I was stunned. The darkness in front of me made it impossible to see where Liu Zhen was standing. I couldn't help but ask softly again: "Old Liu? Old Liu? Where are you? Don't play this kind of joke on me in this broken place, or I'll turn against you."

  Still no answer, I stretched out my hand and turned around in a circle, but still didn't gain anything. Wasn't Liu Zhen always following me from behind? When did he suddenly disappear?

  I stretched out my hand and turned around to walk towards the stairs, but as soon as I took a step, my heart skipped a beat, my scalp felt numb, and my outstretched hand touched something fluffy and wet.