Chapter 36 Qing Shui Town 08

  The town of Xizhen was shrouded in darkness at midnight, and the old street lamps that had been lit for years were already few. It took a long way to walk before you could vaguely see a faint yellow light in front of you.

  Gu Yin walked along the broken and irregular bluestone path towards the west town's entrance.

  There were many households in the town that kept dogs, but as Gu Yin walked along the way, he couldn't hear a single bark, and the whole town presented an eerie and inexplicable silence.

  Just like last night.

  Gu Yin's footsteps didn't stop, he quickly walked out of the town and arrived at the bank of the Clear Water River that separated the East Town and West Town. He stopped and looked back. What he saw was a piece of farmland not far away. The other farmlands had some withered grass, but this one was just a patch of dark, heavy mud, without any signs of plant growth. This land had been drained of its vitality by the ghost array seventeen years ago. The surrounding farmlands had barely regained some vitality after seventeen years of recovery, but this one - the land where the ghost array was established - still had a gloomy and dead atmosphere to this day.

  Seventeen years ago, it was also a winter night on this land. Someone set up the Wan Gui Tong Ku Array here, gathering tens of thousands of vengeful spirits to form a killing array, attempting to seize his soul.

  At that time, his body was only 12 years old. Even if he knew how to deal with it, his ability was limited by his still weak body. Tens of thousands of vengeful spirits trapped him in the ghost array. At that time, he thought he would definitely not survive. After finally escaping the icy and bone-piercing * of the Naihe River, after finally waiting for himself to repay the sins of his past life, after finally being reborn as a human, but before finding Yuqing, he had to leave the world... Gu Yin was unwilling, but at that time, he was powerless to take a step forward in the ghost array where tens of thousands of ghosts wailed together.

  In the chaotic consciousness, Gu Yin felt someone pulling him, step by step, out of that ghost array. At that time, he thought that person was Yuan Qing. But when he came to, there was only a broken jade pendant in his hand, and the person who saved him left no clues, nor could it be proven that the person was indeed Yuan Qing.

  However, until now, neither the owner of that jade pendant nor Yuan Qing has been found. On the other hand, the person who set up the Wan Gui Tong Ku Array for him seventeen years ago has made a move first.

  Seventeen years ago, the Wan Gui Tong Ku Array that was used on him had no way to dispel it. Therefore, the Gu, Geng, Ren and Qi families joined forces, sealed the Wan Gui Tong Ku Array with a forbidden spell, and every year at a specified time, they would perform rituals to slowly eliminate the death energy brought by the ghost array as time passed.

  Later, the annual Buddhist ceremony in Xizhen was stopped when the town head changed, and the place where the Wan Gui Tong Ku Array was laid out was almost completely sealed off. Although the dead energy still had remnants, the vengeful spirits underground could no longer come out.

  However, seventeen years later, a series of bizarre corpse cases occurred in H City, and Qing Shui Town was once again shrouded in an eerie atmosphere. Gu Yin rushed to Qing Shui Town and investigated the scene where Wan Gui Tong had performed his crying array, only to find that the scene had been tampered with, and there were obvious signs of vengeful spirits being released. Perhaps due to the influence of the grave mountain on the west side of the town, the released vengeful spirits were mostly in the mountains and forests, rather than wandering around the town.

  The formation of the forbidden land was broken, and it was broken cleanly and neatly with a small opening. This is not something that can be done by anyone who doesn't thoroughly understand the original layout of the formation.

  Seventeen years later, the man who had attempted to take his life finally reappeared. It was time for him to pay the price for provoking Gu Yin.

  Gu Yin withdrew his gaze from the desolate land, a cold glint flashing across the bottom of his eyes. His footsteps, which had paused at the riverbank, began to move again, stepping onto the stone bridge over the Clear Water River and heading towards the opposite bank.

  On the roadside of the river bank, a black private car was parked. After seeing Gu Yin walking over from the other side, the old man in the driver's seat got out and silently opened the rear door for Gu Yin.

  This old man is Shaoguanjia. After receiving the news from Gu Yin that the person had appeared in Qing Shui Town yesterday morning, he rushed over to assist Gu Yin.

  Gu Yin got on the car, Shao Guan Jia sat in the driver's seat and respectfully asked the silent Gu Yin in the back seat.

  "Master, will you be heading back to the inn to rest directly?"

  "No, go to Qing Shui Town Police Station."

  "Alright, young master." Shao Guan didn't ask Gu Yin for a reason and after knowing the destination, he drove towards the police station in Qing Shui Town.

  At daytime, the seventh corpse case occurred in the marginal area of Qing Shui Town. Shen Bin, who was mainly responsible for this case, rushed to Qing Shui Town and the entire search team moved into the Qing Shui Town police station. As a result, the originally quiet Qing Shui Town police station at night became busy with many people working in each office until nearly two o'clock in the morning, with people coming and going in the corridors from time to time.

  The tense and heavy atmosphere of handling the case inside the police station made even the duty officer in the transmission room, who was not involved in the case, involuntarily tense up his nerves. It was originally a time when he should have been drowsy, but he remained extremely alert. Therefore, when Officer Shao arrived at the gate of the police station by car, the duty officer noticed it immediately.

  Then followed Gu Yan into the gate, walked to the window of the duty room, and the policeman asked with a serious expression: "What's the matter?"

  "I'm Gu Wenkai." Gu Yin said with a glance at him.

  "What's your name?"

  "Gu Yin."

  "Just a moment." The officer on duty made a phone call to ask where the person had gone.

  When Gu Yin arrived at the Qing Shui Town police station, Gu Wenkai was discussing with Gu Wencheng and Zhou Jun at the end of the corridor, analyzing the clues obtained from the seventh case of mutilated corpse. Although there were three people gathered together, only Gu Wenkai and Gu Wencheng were discussing, while Zhou Jun was basically just listening. Zhou Jun had been a policeman for many years and was also skilled in gathering information from corpses, but when the murderer turned out to be a ghost, an existence beyond his knowledge, his skills became useless.

  "From the corpse's appearance, it was completely gnawed by an evil spirit into that state." Gu Wenqing said, "As for the curse you mentioned, there is no sign of it on the corpse at all."

  "Old Zhang told me that before the man died from the curse, I also thought it was just an evil spirit claiming lives, just like what I said to you on the phone earlier." Gu Wenkai scratched his hair somewhat irritably. "And after investigating those who died, although they weren't exactly good people, basically none of them had done anything to harm others. Even if it were an evil spirit claiming lives, it wouldn't have fallen upon people like them."

  "What if someone is driving out the evil spirits to harm them?" Gu Wenqing proposed a hypothesis.

  Exorcism is a technique for driving out evil spirits and making them do one's bidding. In that case, it would make sense to have someone designated to kill people.

  "Your meaning is that the murderer is a human, and the evil spirit is just a tool for that person to kill?" Gu Wenkai frowned, "But if one can drive out ghosts and kill people, wouldn't the curse on that person be redundant? I heard Zhang Zhixin say that the curse itself can cause death. Would the murderer need two lethal moves on their body, both of which are impossible to miss?"

  "Maybe... the murderer didn't want to leave a complete corpse for the deceased?" Zhou Jun ventured a guess, "Hating someone to the bone is similar to mutilating a corpse."

  "That's impossible." Gu Wenqing immediately negated Zhou Jun's guess, "The curse and the evil spirit attack both occurred before the deceased died. The curse is ineffective on corpses, and the evil spirits won't attack a corpse even if someone drives them to do so."

  "So why make things so complicated? What was the murderer thinking?" Gu Wenkai said irritably.

  "Ah! Here! Gu Wenkai!" Gu Wenkai hadn't finished his outburst when he heard someone calling him. He turned around to see a colleague from the office poking his head out and shouting, "Gu Wenkai, there's someone looking for you outside!"

  "Who is it? Who's looking for me at this late hour?"

  "That's what they called Gu Yin, a man." his colleague replied.

  Gu Wenkai: "......"

  "Alright, Big Brother is here, you can ask him your questions."

  Gu Wenkai ran alone to the police station gate to see Gu Yin, but unexpectedly found that not only Gu Yin came, but also Shao's housekeeper.

  Gu Wenkai greeted Sha Guan's family before asking Gu Yin what he wanted.

  "I want to see the corpse found this morning," said Gu Yin.

  Gu Wenkai's mouth twitched slightly, this sentence was said without any consideration for others. Do you think the police station is a place I opened for my third brother? You can just take a look at the corpse here! Haven't you seen that the eyes of the duty officer are not even looking at people properly?

  Gu Wenkai suppressed the urge to rub his temples and exchanged a greeting with the officer on duty before leading Gu Yin and Shao into the house.

  Gu Yin suggested to take a look at the body, Gu Wenkai naturally wouldn't stop him. Since they couldn't get any more clues from the body on Gu Wenchang's side, they could only rely on Gu Yin now.

  Gu Wenkai went to find Chen Ming to submit an application to go to the morgue, and was sized up by Chen Ming with a strange expression.

  "Going to see the body in the morgue again?"

  Gu Wenkai: "Yes..."

  Chen Ming: "It's your second brother who is supposed to identify the body this afternoon, so who are you coming in the middle of the night?"

  "It's my older brother..."

  Chen Ming was speechless, "Both of your brothers at home are professionals in autopsy?"

  Chen Ming grumbled and complained, but in the end he still signed his name on Gu Wenkai's application. Although it sounded unreliable, as long as there was a possibility, he still hoped to get more clues.

  After getting approval, Gu Wenkai took Gu Yin to the morgue where the body was placed.