Chapter 2: The Mysterious Village (8) Human Skin Envelope Green Beans

  (?

  I can understand Old Jin's feelings at that time, "When was Hongying found?"

  As soon as I uttered this sentence, I noticed a hint of despair on Old Jin's face, his eyes staring blankly out the window.

  Silence... Old Jin's face was gloomy as he stared out the window, while I kept staring at him. The rain had stopped by now, and all that could be heard was the sound of water dripping from the eaves, a crisp "patter" in my ears.

  After a long while, Old Jin finally came back to his senses and let out a deep sigh. "In the following months, strange things happened again," he said. "During the day, Tang Jun and I did almost nothing but search for our daughter and Jindouzi's whereabouts. At first, we looked in abandoned houses in the village, then gradually expanded our search to all possible places, even including that deserted grave mound. And at night, we would return home with empty stomachs, hastily cook a meal, eat it, and then sleep with our hunting guns in our arms."

  It had been about half a month since such days passed, one night, I suddenly heard my daughter's cry of surprise by my ear, and vaguely also heard the crying voice of Jin Douzi. I sat up from bed with a start, and in front of me was a complete darkness. When I woke up, my daughter's cry of surprise disappeared, and at that time, I thought it was just myself missing my daughter too much to have had a nightmare. But when I lay down again, the cry of my daughter came to my ear once more, and the voice was as faint as a strand of silk.

  My heart tightened, I quickly woke up Tang Jun, the two of us grasped the shotgun and followed the sound out, pushed open the door, my daughter's voice seemed to be coming from the south side of the village, I hastily ran in the direction of the sound while loading the gun.

  But just as we approached the sound, it drifted northward again. We chased after it to the north, but the sound shifted eastward instead. This continued until dawn was near, and I was exhausted. Suddenly, the sound vanished, and Tang Jun had to support me as we trudged back home in disappointment.

  As soon as I entered the door, I suddenly had an epiphany and a dangerous idea flashed through my mind. I quickly rushed into the house in three strides, and Tang Jun seemed to have realized something too. Sure enough, that last mouthful of wine was gone by now.

  I slumped at the entrance like a deflated balloon, knowing I had been deceived again. Anger suddenly arose in my heart, so I carried a hoe and iron shovel to that wasteland, thinking that since my daughter was nowhere to be found anyway, I might as well get rid of this evil creature. Who knows, maybe it's the lair of those two monsters.

  But as soon as I arrived at the deserted tomb, I was shocked. I clearly remembered the location of the grave, but now it had become empty and desolate. The soil on top had all collapsed, leaving only a large pit. Next to the pit, that piece of fur-like thing was still scattered around. I distinctly remembered burying it in the ground, so who could have dug it up again?

  I jumped into the pit and used an iron shovel to remove all the floating soil. It took about half a day, and a three-meter-long, two-meter-wide rectangular pit appeared before my eyes. But what surprised me even more was that in the north-south direction, there was actually a deep ditch, which was built with broken white ceramic pieces.

  "I bent down to take a closer look at those white ceramic pieces, and I saw water erosion marks on them. But where did the water come from?" Old Jin said this and coughed lightly twice, then got off the kang and walked in with a kerosene lamp.

  He went back to his seat and poured me another cup of wine, then said softly: "Little Luo, do you understand Feng Shui?"

  I furrowed my brow, although I had read some books, but still felt ambiguous about those things, so I shook my head.

  "Haha, that's no wonder, I was just wondering why there would be such a ditch at the time. In an instant, I remembered that my ancestors had said something like this before: 'Yin Quan'!" Old Jin Tou said word by word.

  "Yin Quan?" I listened to these words as if in a dream, mechanically picked up the wine cup and drank it all in one gulp. The moment I put down the cup, I suddenly caught sight of something black and sticky on the bottom of the cup.

  "The yin spring is rarely seen in general places, but a long time ago, it began to prevail in the village of Beigua. It started by digging a ditch about one foot deep under the coffin, with the edge of the ditch built up with stones. It's said that this can prevent people with heavy resentment from becoming evil spirits. I don't remember when it started to flourish, but I vaguely heard old people say that it was first created by a high-ranking monk." Old Jin sighed deeply.

  Before this, I had seen many ghost movies like Lam Ching-ying's "Mr. Vampire", but I was still skeptical about the existence of vampires. Even now, hearing Old Jin say such things, I couldn't help but feel doubtful - could it be that there really are such ferocious creatures in this world?

  "What happened after that?" I hastily gathered my thoughts and asked.