Chapter Forty-Three: Another Hidden Meaning

  Bang!

  Just as Su Tong was intently reading the post, the wall behind her suddenly made a noise, sounding like someone had forcefully bumped into it from the other side. She was startled and turned to look at the wall, only then realizing that on the other side of the wall should be her own home, but currently there was no one in her house, or maybe just a fierce infant spirit.

  So what's hitting the wall? The answer is almost unnecessary.

  Su Tong was a bit nervous, turning his head to look at Tang Ao. Tang Ao also heard the sound coming from the other side of the wall. He faced that wall and sneered: "Some things really don't give up. It seems like it sensed you're on this side, so it's anxious to come over, but unfortunately, this wall is absolutely impassable."

  "Are you sure there's no problem?" Su Tong was terrified in her heart, but she had already stood up and pulled a chair to sit next to Tang Ao, trying to make herself feel a bit more at ease. "I won't disturb you from reading or looking for materials, will I? It's not that I don't trust you, it's just that thinking about the wall behind us being right next to that terrifying thing makes me feel uneasy. How can it sense my presence here? Can it see through walls?"

  "It can't," T'ang Ao explained a few more sentences to make Su Tong feel at ease, "The reason it can sense your presence is that there's a bond between you two. When you were cut by the small statue and bled, but the blood disappeared later, I think this bond was formed back then. From the moment you fell down, got cut, and coincidentally brought the small statue home, all of these were manipulated by the infant spirit. So it can still sense that you're nearby over there, but we have a barrier set up here, and look around."

  Tang Ao stood up, walked to the wall, took down a painting hanging on it, turned over the back of the frame and let Su Tong see. Su Tong found that the back of the frame was not what she thought, but a yellow paper pasted on it, with a dark red complex symbol drawn on it. He hung the frame back and said to Su Tong: "Besides this one, there are also in the living room and bedroom, these symbols are used to enhance the protective power of the boundary, if that infant spirit can break through this double boundary, it will not be trapped in the abandoned house for so long, and it needs to rely on the blood bond with you to escape."

  Su Tong let out a slight sigh of relief, but thinking that there was some kind of bond between her and the ferocious evil spirit made her feel uneasy all over.

  "What were you just looking at? You looked so focused." Tang Ao sat back down and asked casually.

  "Oh, it's this post, take a look." Su Tong hastily pushed his laptop in front of Tang Ao.

  Tang Ao quickly scanned the passage, then shook his head and laughed: "This is definitely a fabricated story. Didn't you also know that before? That abandoned house was an orphanage during the liberation period. Since it's an orphanage, how could there be any young and beautiful female ghost creating illusions to confuse passersby?"

  Su Tong was also reminded, and he came to his senses: "But isn't it! I clearly knew what the old mansion used to be for, but after reading this post, which is particularly well-written, I accidentally got caught up in it and almost took this fabricated story as true! I don't know if my reaction counts as a compliment to the original poster."

  "Moreover, it's actually quite easy to distinguish between what's real and what's fake. Just like you said earlier, the ones that are written in a particularly brilliant way are probably mostly fabricated stories, not facts. Only when someone is carelessly making up a story will they be able to design the plot with a relaxed attitude, even spending a lot of ink to describe some terrifying scenes. People who have actually experienced some strange things wouldn't do it this way. For example, if you were asked to describe the scene where you saw that ghostly baby tonight, do you think you could write something as effective as this post?" Tang Ao asked.

  "That's really not possible," Su Tong honestly admitted, "even thinking about it a little makes me especially scared. I reckon if I had to write it, I would be so frightened that I would drop my computer and hide under the quilt halfway through."

  After ruling out the authenticity of that post, Su Tong started searching for others. Having had the experience of being misled by a post with vivid descriptions and wasting a lot of time, she learned her lesson this time around. She no longer looked at posts with extremely detailed descriptions or those that were overly atmospheric, regardless of how popular they were. Even if a post's narrative style seemed more realistic and believable, but its account of the abandoned house's past differed significantly from what Su Tong already knew, she would also exclude it and not waste any more time on it. Like this, Su Tong sifted through one post after another in the Ghost Story Forum about the abandoned house, yet surprisingly, none of them seemed reliable. This affected Su Tong's mood to some extent, making those originally intriguing descriptions gradually become somewhat annoying. Just when she was about to give up on the forum, a post with very low popularity that had long since sunk to the bottom caught her attention.

  This post is not long and does not take much time to read, and unlike other posts that excessively embellish the horror atmosphere, the artistic processing degree is no less than that of a ghost story. This article is basically straightforward throughout, with concise language, although the meaning is expressed very clearly and easily understood, but compared to other posts related to abandoned houses, it lacks interest, perhaps this is one of the reasons why it has so few views.

  The post says that the large mansion behind Changqing Mountain was built before liberation, and it is no longer possible to find records of who invested in its construction. After all, at that time, many things were either unrecorded or have become untraceable after so many years. It is said that the big house was originally an orphanage set up by a Japanese family, taken care of by several Japanese people with anti-war sentiments, specifically to receive children who had lost their homes and families due to the war. This act was considered a way for them to atone for the crimes committed by the Japanese military in China. In order to accommodate more orphans, they demolished the original one-story house and rebuilt it into its current scale.

  This project sounds and looks full of noble light, it's absolutely a good thing for those orphans at that time, but in fact, it's not that simple. Although it was nominally an orphanage, its essence was not the Japanese military's conscience awakening and deciding to do good deeds.

  The orphanage was just a cover.

  Behind this hypocritical facade, the reality is inhumane. In fact, that abandoned house was not an orphanage at all, but a secret experimental base of the Japanese military. On the surface, it claimed to be taking in children who had lost their families or parents due to war, but in reality, it conducted experiments similar to those infamous Unit 731, also known as human experimentation.

  Because on the surface it was an orphanage, most of the children who were sent there or came seeking help had already lost their parents and no longer had anyone to protect them in this world. These children were mostly weak and sickly or very young, and at that time, adults were also struggling to survive, finding it difficult to even take care of themselves, so who would have the leisure to pay attention to a group of orphans? As a result, from start to finish, no one noticed that the orphanage was always taking in more and more children but never saw any being adopted or taken away, nor was there ever an issue with overcrowding.

  This post also mentions that the Japanese who set up orphanages are similar to Unit 731, but their ultimate goal is different. They don't conduct human experiments or biological warfare; instead, they focus on researching Chinese Taoist numerology and mysticism. However, it's not entirely accurate to say they're interested in orthodox Taoism - rather, they're drawn to heretical and malevolent practices like demonic possession and soul manipulation. These dark arts often require less rigorous spiritual foundation and can have extremely toxic attacking power, but because they go against the natural order, success is fleeting, and failure can lead to terrifying consequences. To address this issue, the Japanese devised a method to ensure the "peace" of their houses and gain more powerful dark magic: when building these houses, they employed the technique of "living foundation".

  Until the liberation, the Japanese withdrew one after another. The house was abandoned and had a heavy evil spirit due to being hit by a birth nail. Generally, people who approached felt uncomfortable all over their body, with cold sweats, and the surrounding area also caused condensation, so no grass grew. Previously, the municipal department was worried that this abandoned house stood in the mountain, which is a remote and quiet place. Over time, it would be easy to hide fugitives or become a secret place for some people to engage in illegal activities, affecting the city's security. Therefore, personnel were organized to demolish the abandoned house, but the demolition task was not completed. The construction team arrived there, and before they started demolishing the house, workers mysteriously got into trouble, lost their lives, or were frightened, with unclear minds, rumors, or being stunned like a wooden chicken, with no reaction to anything. The municipal department had to reassign personnel, but similar situations occurred again. After several attempts, almost no construction team was willing to take on this task, and even if they were assigned, they could not be dispatched. Although the municipal department did not want to believe in superstition, they also did not have the courage to be so unbelieving, so they compromised and let the house stand in the shade of Changqing Mountain, hoping that natural factors such as wind, sun, rain, etc. would cause the house to collapse automatically due to years of disrepair. Unfortunately, this wish has never been fulfilled. The abandoned house has stood there for many years, still in the same state, until now.

  Su Tong finished reading the post and thought it looked like a serious matter, so he hastily called Tang Ao to take a look. Tang Ao carefully read the content of the post, and when he saw the three words "fighting in the birth", his eyebrows furrowed tightly, twisted into a big knot, and his face turned gloomy. Since Su Tong knew Tang Ao, it was the first time she had seen his face so solemn. Just from this reaction, she understood that things were not only tricky but also very pessimistic.

  "Do you know what 'da sheng zhuang' means?" Tang Ao asked Su Tong, pushing the computer aside after reading the post, his face still showing no signs of relief.

  Su Tong shook her head, wanting to say that piling was more or less related to construction, in order to make the building strong enough, so when laying the foundation, some piles need to be set up in the pit. But what "pounding live piles" meant, she couldn't say at all. The only thing she could confirm was that from Tang Hao's current expression and tone, this "pounding live piles" would definitely not be a good thing.

  Before speaking, Tang Ao let out a deep sigh: "The so-called 'hitting the living stake' is when people building houses, in order to calm the house, bind boys and girls to the foundation of the house during construction, use cement to fill them in, and bury them alive in the foundation, making them part of the house. This way, the dead souls are trapped in the house, and when the house collapses, the souls of those boys and girls who were buried alive will also be scattered. This method is not only extremely evil but also very vicious. The dead souls who were hit by the living stake suffered great pain at the time of their death, and after death, this torture would continue to repeat, causing them to produce a strong resentment. The people who hit the living stake used spells to bind and control these dead souls, similar to some people using ghost cultivation to enhance their own luck. The resentment of the dead spirits was used to enhance the power of the spellcaster, and because the ghosts who were hit by the living stake suffered greatly, their resentment would only rise and never fall. For the spellcaster, it's like an endless wellspring."

  "Then... when we two went to the abandoned house, what made you fall into a trap was these vengeful spirits that were beaten to death by people?" Su Tong asked.

  Tang Ao shook his head: "No, the ghost that was beaten to death and tied up with a living stake can't get out to harm people. It has merged with the house and cannot be separated. There's something else in that abandoned mansion, something trapped by the living stake ghost."