Chapter 4: The Ghost Shadow

  Dead person? I was confused by her sentence, and I thought, did she mean that someone had died in this bathroom? So I asked her: "Are you saying that someone has died in this bathtub?"

  She nodded and said, "Before."

  "How did you know?" I asked somewhat incredulously.

  Bo Jing ignored me, continuing to examine the walls of the bathroom, then suddenly walked out and opened the suitcase I had just bought for her. She took out a cloth bag she had brought from the mountains. Bo Jing calmly opened the bag, and I was curious, so I stood beside her watching her every move. Inside the bag were several small wooden boxes, a package of tobacco-like substance, and a small pipe. I stared in surprise, thinking to myself that this little girl actually smoked?

  Then Bo Jin took the package of tobacco and the pipe back to the bathroom. I followed her, saw her crouching on the ground filling the pipe with tobacco, didn't know what she was going to do, but felt very curious, didn't disturb her, just quietly pulled out the lighter from my pocket, lit it and held it in front of her. She put the pipe in her mouth, then leaned over the flame, took a puff of smoke.

  I soon discovered that Bo Jin was not smoking, but rather creating smoke. She inhaled the smoke into her mouth and then immediately exhaled it. In no time, the entire bathroom was filled with a thick fog. The smell was not ordinary tobacco, but a rich and refreshing scent similar to her body odor, which felt very comfortable. During this time, Bo Jin continued to add tobacco leaves to the pipe, and I kept lighting them for her until the bathroom was completely surrounded by a faint mist. Strangely, despite the bathroom being filled with smoke, I didn't feel any irritation in my eyes, but rather everything seemed blurry, and the white light in the bathroom took on an eerie quality.

  Then, she did something even more bizarre. For some reason, she started dancing in this smoke-filled room. Although Bo Jin looked beautiful and elegant, I have to say that her dance was really ugly, just like a giant gorilla showing off its might. And I gradually realized that she seemed to be imitating some kind of animal, sometimes a monkey, sometimes a tiger, and sometimes a cow. She danced silently, sometimes calmly and sometimes excitedly, with her long black hair flying around her face, giving me an increasingly creepy feeling.

  Suddenly, I realized what she was doing. She was performing witchcraft. Witchcraft, also known as sorcery, is a practice that my father told me about when I was young. In ancient times, witchcraft mainly took the form of dance performances, and over time, these dances evolved into sacrificial dances, which eventually became purely entertaining performances. However, in ancient times, witchcraft dances held an extremely sacred and mysterious position, with people believing that witches could communicate with gods and ghosts through dance and predict fortunes and misfortunes for humans. To this day, some Miao ethnic minority groups still have witchcraft forms such as "Jumping for the Public," "Telling Yin Fates," "Chasing White Tigers," and "Transforming Nine Dragon Waters," most of which are also expressed through dance.

  Since Bo Jing is the successor of Ah Shu Na's witchcraft, it's not surprising that she knows some witchcraft. But what is her purpose for doing this? And how can she be sure that someone has died in this bathtub? I watched Bo Jing dance stiffly and unnaturally, although I still had some doubts in my heart, but the back of my spine had already involuntarily broken out in cold sweat.

  As Bo Jin's dance came to an end, the smoke in the room began to change, swirling around her as if being drawn towards the bathtub. Finally, she stopped her awkward movements and returned to her usual calm demeanor, staring intently at the bathtub. I followed her gaze and took a peek, and what I saw made me gasp, my legs weakening beneath me. In the smoke-filled bathtub, a vague, dark shadow had appeared out of nowhere. Upon closer inspection, it was unmistakably a person crouched in the tub. I thought it was just a trick of the light, but when I rubbed my eyes and looked again, the shadow remained, prompting a startled cry from me.

  I stepped back, and involuntarily cursed, saying: "Damn it, what the hell is this thing?"

  At first, I thought it was just the shadow of Bo Jin and me under the lamp's illumination. But soon I realized that was impossible. Firstly, the black shadow was crouching, while Bo Jin and I were standing; secondly, the shadow seemed to be three-dimensional, not a flat figure, and I could even see its thickness from the side. It felt like seeing someone walking towards me on a foggy day.

  Bo Jing turned his head and looked at me, nodded, and said in a flat tone that was somewhat cold: "Look, a dead person."

  I looked at her expression, seemingly accustomed to this dark shadow. Could it be that this is the Miao people's soul-calling sorcery? I was staring at Bo Jin in surprise when suddenly the black shadow in the bathtub stood up and floated through the ceramic tiles to appear before Bo Jin.

  I saw that the situation was not good, so I quickly pulled Bo Jin, but unexpectedly, she suddenly flung her hand back and glared at me with a fierce gaze. That gaze, I will never forget for the rest of my life. It was an extremely ferocious gaze, as if it could tear me to pieces in an instant, like minced meat. Rather than saying that her gaze was unthinkable, it's better to say that it wasn't even human-like, but rather like some kind of bloodthirsty beast. What made me even more terrified and uneasy was that in that instant, I seemed to see a faint red glow flashing in Bo Jin's pupils, which was intimidating and mesmerizing.

  I stood there in a daze, not knowing what to do. To be honest, I wasn't afraid of being laughed at by others, but at that moment, I was actually a little scared of her. Although I'm a tall and strong Northeasterner, for a split second, I really believed that Bo Jin might kill me on impulse.

  That black shadow seemed to hesitate for a moment, and stopped moving. And Bu Jin started staring at the black shadow again, motionless. After a while, the black shadow floated into Bu Jin's body.

  That's right, it was as if she had "floated" into Bo Jin's body, and in an instant, the two seemed to merge together. Immediately, the smoke in the bathroom almost disappeared instantly, the light became bright, and the scenery also became clear. I looked at Long Bo Jin again, and found that she had suddenly fainted, softly falling to the ground.

  I called out to her several times from beside her, but she didn't react at all, seemingly having lost consciousness completely. I wanted to go over and help her back onto the bed, but my heart was still wary of the look in her eyes earlier, so I hesitated for a long time. I only tentatively touched her arm first, and seeing that she had no reaction, I finally worked up the courage to carry her back onto the bed. Her forehead was covered in cold sweat, her face deathly pale, as if she had just gone through an extremely exhausting ordeal. Looking at her like this, I was a bit shocked - thinking about how she had walked so far on the mountain trails that morning without even breaking a sweat, how could dancing for two segments exhaust her to this extent?

  I sat on my bed, looking at Bo Jin who was sleeping soundly, my heart racing. I glanced at my watch and it was already past 10 pm, but I still decided to give my father a call. After all, what had just happened was too strange, leaving me wide awake.

  In order not to disturb Bo Jin, I specially came to the hotel's corridor to make a phone call. To my surprise, the phone was busy. I thought it was strange in my heart. My father's daily routine is very regular, before 10 o'clock at night, he will definitely go to bed and rest, but why is the phone busy today?

  I had just hung up the phone, but my mobile phone suddenly rang. I took a look and it was the home phone number. It turned out that my father and I had coincidentally dialed each other's numbers at the same time, causing the line to be busy.

  As soon as I picked up the phone, before I could even say a word, my father asked directly: "Has the person been received?"

  I was taken aback, this wasn't Father's way of speaking. Given my father's personality, after answering the phone, he should have chatted with me for a bit before getting to the point. But hearing Father ask so directly, I also replied straightforwardly: "I received it."

  Unexpectedly, the father on the other end of the phone asked back: "Are you sure you've dialed the right person?"

  As soon as I heard this, my heart skipped a beat. What is meant by "confirming the right person"? Am I not supposed to have picked up that Miao girl? Then who is the Miao girl I picked up? But thinking about it again, I thought it was impossible, after all, I had seen Ah Shu Na and she clearly said that Long Bu Jin was her descendant. Although everything seemed so certain, but after my father asked this question, I was also a bit confused, so I said: "Dad, what do you mean by this? I didn't see the descendant of Ah Shu Na before, how can I be sure that the person I picked up is the right one?"

  My father thought for a moment and asked me: "Is Ah Shu Na's descendant male or female?"

  "It's a girl," I replied, "still very young, probably just over twenty."

  "Go take a look, is the woman wearing a jade pendant the size of an egg on her neck?"

  "Jade pendant? How did you know what was hanging around her neck?"

  His father seemed somewhat impatient and said, "Don't ask so many questions, just go take a look."

  It seems that Father was in a hurry this time, so I told him to wait for a while and then quietly returned to the guest room. I tiptoed to Bo Jin's bedside and found that there was indeed a black rope around her neck, but what was hanging from the end of the rope was hidden inside her white shirt, and I couldn't see it. I wanted to reach out and grab it, but felt that such a posture was really obscene, almost like molesting a young girl. But since Father had ordered me to do so, I didn't dare disobey him, so I carefully used two fingers to pinch the black rope around Bo Jin's neck and slowly pulled it outwards. Fortunately, Bo Jin had completely lost consciousness at this point and wasn't awakened by my actions. After pulling a few times, indeed, a thick jade pendant the size of an egg appeared from her neckline.

  I took a closer look, and it was indeed a beautiful jade. Although I don't know much about jade, the pendant on Bo Jin's neck was obviously a high-quality piece, even to an untrained eye. It was a white jade, about the thickness of three stacked coins, but it was transparent, allowing me to see the skin underneath. The jade was crystal clear, unlike lower-grade jades that often have cloudy or cotton-like inclusions. On top of that, there were several lines of text carved onto the pendant, which looked like seal script, but I couldn't decipher their meaning.

  After seeing the jade pendant, I quietly walked out of the room and spoke into the phone: "Dad, are you still listening?"

  "What's taking so long?" I really don't know what's wrong with my father today, he's always in such a rush.

  "I wasn't afraid of waking her up." I said somewhat displeased, "I've seen what you're talking about, just like you said, there's indeed a jade pendant on her neck."

  On the other end of the phone, he seemed to let out a sigh of relief, and Father said, "That's good, that's good."

  I was just about to tell Father about the strange and bizarre things I had just experienced, but unexpectedly, Father preempted me by saying: "Listen to me, I want you to stay in Yunnan for now, don't go back home."

  "Why..."

  "Don't ask so many questions!" My father interrupted me and continued, "In the next few days, you may encounter all sorts of strange and bizarre things, but you must not be afraid, nor should you go around shouting about it. Just stay there."

  The more I listened, the more confused I became, and said: "Then I must find a place to settle down."

  "My father said: 'You go find a colleague of mine from back then, his name is Wang Chengbao, he's in Kunming. I've already told him about your situation, it'll be easy once you find him.'"

  "What should I do to find him?" I asked.

  My father left me a phone number and asked me to remember it. The number was easy to remember, so I memorized it quickly.

  I responded with a murmur and said, "Dad, what you're saying isn't the issue, but there's something I must tell you, just now..." Suddenly, I realized that the phone had already been hung up.

  I went back to my room, the more I thought about it, the more I felt that something was off. What had happened to make my normally calm and composed father become so flustered? Looking at Miao Niulang's daughter, Bo Jin, who was lying on the bed next to me, I had a strange premonition that she was just pretending to sleep. I hope it was just my imagination. What exactly did this girl do? I couldn't fall asleep, thinking about it over and over again, unable to suppress my curiosity. Finally, I quietly got up and started rummaging through Bo Jin's bundle of clothes. The first thing that caught my eye was something I had already seen before - those large and small wooden boxes. I randomly picked one up and opened it, and suddenly my scalp felt numb, and I broke out in a cold sweat. Inside the wooden box, there was an enormous green-backed centipede!