Chapter Sixteen: The Day of Heavy Mourning

  The shifu rushed back home and found that the formation of the nine-lived cat was broken, guessing that Wenjing had already encountered an accident. In a state of anxiety, she shouted for the soul at home, just like when she cried for the old lady on my floor before, and called back Wenjing's soul. At that time, Shifu Xiaobai didn't know where the ghost entwining Wenjing came from, so naturally, he couldn't find out where Wenjing's body was. If it was destroyed, Wenjing would definitely die. If it was kept intact, there was still a glimmer of hope for survival.

  Because of this, the master didn't let Wenjing know the truth, but instead sent her back home to live as usual. So what we saw the next day was actually Wenjing's soul, with the master's secret help, looking no different from a living person.

  But especially don't send me back home to see Jing, only ghosts know who it is, because at that time Jing's soul was still in Shifu's house.

  That day, during the daytime, we went to find the strange old man from the paper mache shop to save our lives. Liu Weimin also asked Master Po again and met at the entrance of the paper mache shop. He still thought we were relatives of the old lady and wanted to remind him, but was distracted by those two pairs of cloth shoes.

  Ghosts walk on tiptoes, their heels don't touch the ground. Although having a light body is one reason, the main reason is that after death, people will turn into dust and return to the earth, being dispersed by the earth's energy, so ghosts can't step on the ground with their full feet, otherwise they would slowly hang down like a person who has been boiled in a pot.

  So people dare to receive the earth's energy, but ghosts don't. Wearing a pair of shoes that were peeled off from a dead person's feet, the vital energy in the human body is isolated from the outside world. It's not that the ghost can't see, but rather it has become one of them.

  Ghosts wearing people's shoes are the same principle, tiptoeing on the road is too tiring. If you get up in the morning and find that your slippers have been moved, it's either because your dog has taken them or a ghost has worn them to rest their feet.

  I and You Wu were holding two pairs of dead men's shoes, among which there were many possibilities. What really caught Liu Wei Min's attention was the small thing hidden in the soles of the shoes. Specifically what it was, Liu Wei Min didn't say, only telling us that this thing had a function, able to control our feet for a period of time and drive us to go where someone hoped we would go.

  If it were an elderly woman's relative, there wouldn't be such a thing, so Liu Weimin had suspicions about us. It wasn't that the two of us had shaken him off, but rather he quietly followed behind us, watching as I got on the big bridge and talked with the middle-aged man. Later, he followed us back home and discovered that my house was indeed the girl's house that Shifu Po had mentioned. He figured it out roughly because we had the idea of going to the big bridge due to the shoes, so he thought that the construction team was taking advantage of us.

  Liu Weimin speculated that since the construction team took advantage of us and harmed Wenjing, they should also be responsible for throwing someone into the river to commit suicide. Thinking of this, he went down to the water at night to salvage and found Wenjing's body. After finding me fainting on the bridge head, he carried both of us back home. When we arrived downstairs, we also found that Youwu was being beaten by his mother-in-law, so Liu Weimin saved him as well.

  Later, Yu Wu told him everything, and then Liu Weimin went to find Shifu Po to clarify the misunderstanding.

  Liu Weimin knew only that much, and after he finished speaking, I asked him: "What do I have against the construction team? Why did they want to do this? When you saw me at the bridgehead, did you see a girl? And what's going on with the old lady in my building? And what was the old man who sent us cloth shoes trying to do?"

  As for my question, Liu Weimin could only say three words - I don't know!

  He had never seen An Su and didn't know why the construction team was bullying Wen Jing, let alone the old lady. It was me who just told him that there were two different old ladies upstairs in my building, as for the old man with the paper mache shop...

  Liu Weimin said it should be Huang Jinbai who found the helper, Shifu's wife ran to the construction team and shouted, wanting to let the workers die without a place to bury them. The consequence was that she brought disaster upon herself. That old man directly rented a room and blocked Shifu's wife every day, forcing her not to dare return home. In just seven or eight days, she narrowly escaped death twice.

  This is the reason why Liu Weimin didn't ask her to join forces. Huang Jinbai could easily find someone to make Shifu's wife surrender, but Liu Weimin had rescued Wenjing, and Huang Jinbai knew he had intervened, so he immediately retreated in disarray.

  But who killed the old monster, that's unknown. The master's wife didn't confess, and Huang Jinbai wouldn't harm his own people. It can't be that the paper man rebelled, right?

  I asked the two of them what kind of grudge they had, but Liu Weimin refused to say. He only told us that by intervening in this matter, he would be harming us. If it were someone else, Huang Jinbai wouldn't care about appearances and might have let Wenjing's soul go free. But now, they must treat Wenjing as a ghostly entity and use her to threaten Liu Weimin.

  In short, Huang Jinbai is the root of all evil. To save Wenjing and understand the reason for this storm, he can only help deal with Huang Jinbai.

  I took a peek at him without saying a word, who knows if this old man is a scammer? Although we followed the middle-aged man's method to drive out the evil spirit when Wenjing was taken away, what if Liu Weimin was secretly causing trouble at that time? I don't know Huang Jinbai at all, could he be a mad dog, biting people as soon as he sees them.

  The atmosphere was a bit awkward, and I didn't want to make excuses to slip away. Wen Jing woke up from her nap, stretched languidly, and crawled onto my lap. The 1.6-meter-tall girl struck a cat-like pose, which was very cute but made my heart ache.

  Liu Weimin didn't know what he was thinking, but from the bag in the corner of the wall, he pulled out that black four-sided Buddha, whose head had been knocked off by someone. Liu Weimin said: "I'll explain to you the mistake you made that night, although you don't understand, there are always fixed principles in life, you can figure it out yourself."

  He picked up the Four-Faced Buddha and said to me, "That night at 7 o'clock, you placed the wooden Four-Faced Buddha in the bathroom, which was wrong from the start. The Four-Faced Buddha has four faces so that it can observe all six directions and listen to all eight sides; it must be placed in an open space. The bathroom is narrow, and the toilet is against the wall, so not only will the Four-Faced Buddha not bless you, but it will also bring punishment. And 7 o'clock is the hour of Xu, which belongs to the element of earth. The Buddha statue is made of wood, and when wood is placed in the earth, it should grow, but you opened and closed the bathroom door three times, so the wood was trapped by the wall. These two mistakes brought bad luck to everyone in this room at that time, causing them to trip on the road, encounter ghosts when passing by tombs, and create conditions for the ghosts who visit at midnight."

  I never thought there would be so many twists and turns in this, I was suddenly stunned.

  Liu Weimin said that the Four-Faced Buddha is also called the God of Unrighteous Wealth, and it protects wealth, life, love, and fortune that are not obtained through normal means. It won't help with regular income or reasonable romance. I placed it at home to only protect people from ghosts, helping the ghost obtain tranquility.

  But what's even more vicious is that mirror. The mirror isn't used for reflecting people, and if it doesn't reflect ghosts, it can only attract them.

  Although mirrors indeed have the effect of reflecting evil spirits and bad luck, they can also absorb at the same time.

  It's as if someone is standing outside the window, and their figure appears in the mirror inside the house. Although it's just a reflected shadow, it also draws him into the house.

  The fake Yumao's ghost is not terrible, the hundred taboos are for gods and not ghosts. Most factories that make doors need to worship their ancestors and door gods. Ordinary ghosts can't even enter the door unless I open it for them.

  No one expected that I would quarrel with You Wu that afternoon, he left in a huff, and the male ghost knocked on the door and came in purely by luck. The first thing he did after entering was to chop up two catfish. Liu Weimin asked me if there were any unusual movements at the time, I said no, I was accompanying Wenjing, and that ghost also closed the bathroom door.

  Liu Weimin then told me that if I was nearby, I should be able to hear the carp making a baby's crying sound, because it had been fed special feed by the master's wife, leaving behind a protective quiet thing. If we hadn't quarreled earlier, the male ghost would have knocked on the door at midnight. After I removed the cat's eye, there was a small hole in the door, and the mirror reflected the ghost outside the door, allowing him to take advantage of the situation and enter. However, he used this method to take Wenjing away, so the money that was given fell behind me, not as the middle-aged man said, passed through the cat's eye.

  I was told by Liu Weimin that I had no expression on my face, but in my heart, 10,000 grass mud horses were galloping by, who the hell could think of such an evil way?

  Liu Weimin took a sip of water, and I asked him why he wanted to give me copper coins, and what those flat baskets of glutinous rice cakes meant.

  Liu Weimin smiled and said, "Getting married, after all, you have to give your elder brother-in-law some betrothal gifts. As for the copper coins, haven't you ever attended a wedding? That's the red envelope for opening the door. He handed you the money from outside, you took it, and that means you agree to marry off your sister."

  As he spoke, Liu Weimin took out copper coins from his bag and threw them into the cup of water, but didn't hand it to me. Instead, he seemed to have received some kind of signal from You Wu, who went to the kitchen and fetched glutinous rice, which she then poured into the cup. Within three to five seconds, the water in the cup turned black and emitted a foul odor.

  "After a person dies, a coin is placed in their mouth as a fee to prevent them from speaking out against their relatives in front of the King of Hell. This coin will carry the last breath of the deceased, known as 'calamity', and whoever comes into contact with it will be haunted by misfortune and disaster. The term 'suffering calamity' originated from this. And this copper coin is likely the hush money in that ghost's mouth. He not only wants to marry your sister but also harm you."

  His face changed, I was about to curse loudly, Liu Weimin said that this is not the end, the hush money is just an auxiliary means, the real killer move to get rid of me is that someone deliberately made me commit adultery.

  This doesn't need his explanation, that household in our old village which invited a monk to perform Buddhist rites was the one that committed the Butterfly Lovers' Double Flying.