The building where the Lin family lives is blocked by the water tower. The entire building is covered by external shadows and the light is dim.
The two of them stood in the shade and finished eating the popsicles in their hands. They threw them into the trash can before walking inside.
Just after reaching the first floor, a piece of putty fell off the ceiling, revealing the gray cement inside. The air around me also gradually changed its taste. It was no longer refreshingly cool, but rather inexplicably chilly.
Wu Weiwei touched his goose bumps caused by the cold, "Brother Chen, I looked carefully when I entered the door. Other places are okay, but the orientation of this building is really bad. There is no sunlight all day long."
"It's not very good, but it's clean, and there are no evil spirits wandering around." Chen Ling also felt a little chilly, but he was a senior in name after all, and he had to keep up his face.
Wu Weiwei said: "Today is the night of the return of the soul. Do you think the girl's parents will not be at home?"
"Traditionally, we shouldn't avoid it." Chen Ling stopped and looked up at the bright red "2nd Floor" sign on the wall opposite him. "The seven days after a person dies is called the Bardo period. The deceased still has memories and attachments to the world of the living. Some don't even know they are dead. After midnight, they will come back from the underworld to visit their relatives and family members."
Wu Weiwei scratched his head. "But I heard before that family members need to avoid the night of the return of the dead, otherwise it will offend the deceased."
"This is not right." Chen Ling shook his head and said, "The deceased came back just to fulfill his wish, but when he comes back and can't see his relatives, he will be left with regrets and will not feel at ease when he returns to the underworld."
Moreover, during the day, the family members of the deceased would start busying themselves as soon as they got up in the morning. They would put a bowl of water and a bowl of grains at the door in the early morning.
Clear water indicates washing away the dust, setting off on the road with peace of mind, and welcoming a new life; the five grains have the meaning of exorcising evil spirits, lest the people returning suddenly don’t want to leave, and feel resentment and evil spirits and want to stay.
The two walked up one more floor and stopped in front of the door of Room 303 on the third floor.
The place was empty, with no water or grains placed there. Wu Weiwei was stunned for a moment, "Nothing to welcome us was placed there."
"Maybe he's inside." Chen Ling raised his chin, "Ring the bell first."
Wu Weiwei stood a little closer to the front and could press the doorbell with just his hand.
The ringtone was hoarse and intermittent, as if it was out of battery.
Shortly after the bell rang, footsteps were heard from inside and the rusty anti-theft iron door was pushed open from the inside.
The man of the house looked haggard, with bags under his eyes, bloodshot eyeballs, and chapped lips. He was wearing a cross-country vest, wrinkled shorts, and a pair of flip-flops.
Seeing two strangers, he opened his mouth and squeezed out two words from his throat after a long time: "Who are you looking for?"
Chen Ling lowered his eyes, his expression becoming serious, "Hello Uncle Lin, we are Xiaofan's classmates, and we are here to see her for the last time on behalf of the whole class."
The Lin family did not dare to keep the body at home for a memorial service, so they dragged it to the funeral home early and placed it in the freezer in the morgue.
What is set up in the house now is just a simple mourning hall.
Hearing this, Father Lin wiped his face and stepped aside, "Come in."
Their child Xiaofan died so violently that none of his relatives or friends dared to come. Father Lin was grateful that they were willing to come and visit, and he shouted inside with some restraint: "Mother of the child, there are guests."
Mother Lin walked out of the room to the west of the living room, tears in the corners of her eyes had not yet dried.
She choked up and said, "Who are you?"
"He's Xiaofan's classmate." Father Lin asked Chen Ling and Wu Weiwei to sit down in the living room first. He left his wife to greet people while he went into the kitchen to pour water for the guests.
The Lin family's conditions were not good. The couple should be working, and the light-colored furniture and electrical appliances in the house were covered with a layer of shadow by the years. Every object looked gray.
My daughter, who has excellent academic performance, is the center of this family and also their hope.
Mother Lin wiped her tears with a tissue, sat on the small stool opposite the coffee table, held her knees with both hands, and looked at the two of them eagerly: "Thank you for coming to see her, Xiaofan will be very happy when he knows."
Chen Ling: "Auntie, I'm sorry."
"I know, I know everything, but I just can't help it." Mother Lin said as she sobbed, her tears falling like beads from a broken string.
The mournful crying was moving. Both Chen Ling and Wu Weiwei felt bad, especially Wu Weiwei. The scene in front of him reminded him of the dead blind man.
The man called father was the first person in the world who was kind to him.
Unable to help himself for a moment, he sniffed hard, turned his face away and dared not look any further.
Chen Ling still remembered that Wu Weiwei mentioned that he was an adopted child. Judging from his abnormal emotions, the Lin family's affairs must have reminded him of the pain of losing his adoptive father.
He sighed softly in his heart, put his hand on Wu Weiwei's shoulder and pressed down.
"It will pass." Chen Ling said, "If Xiaofan is still alive, he definitely wouldn't want you and Uncle Lin to be stuck in pain forever."
These words were said openly to Mother Lin, but secretly they were also meant to comfort Wu Weiwei.
How could Wu Weiwei not know? He said to Mother Lin, "That's right, Auntie. Xiaofan is a sensible girl. Don't let her feel uneasy in heaven."
Mother Lin nodded while sobbing, "Yes, I can't keep crying. She will be worried when she comes back and sees me."
After she finished speaking, she looked up and saw her husband coming over with a glass of water.
She stood up, took the cups of water and placed them in front of Chen Ling and Wu Weiwei respectively. Only then did she remember to look at the two of them.
The young man in the simple T-shirt looked young indeed, but he had a strong social atmosphere. Mother Lin did not think much about it. Children nowadays dress maturely and are exposed to many new things, so how could their temperaments be the same
She pursed her lips: "Drink water."
Chen Ling took a sip from the water cup, his fingertips resting on the wall of the cup, his eyes sweeping across the living room and the entrance, and reminded: "Auntie, today is the seventh day since Xiaofan's death. According to custom, after twelve o'clock tonight, it is the night of the return of the soul. You should put clean water and grains outside the house."
“This…” Mother Lin was stunned and looked at her husband at a loss.
Father Lin said: "Little classmate, we don't understand this either. Who did you hear this from?"
"I have a relative who practices asceticism in a Taoist temple. I heard it from him." Chen Ling said frankly, as if it were true.
After hearing that it was the master in the Taoist temple who said this, Mr. Lin’s doubts disappeared. He hurried into the kitchen, put the food in two bowls, opened the door, and carefully placed them at the doorstep.
Not long after putting it away, a shout came from outside the door: "What are you sniffing for! Come back here!" followed by the barking of a dog.
Father Lin hurried out, and as soon as he opened the door he saw that the bowls he had just placed on the table had been knocked over, with water and grains spilling all over the floor.
The neighbor next door hadn't come downstairs yet. He was holding his dog and coaxing it, while wiping the water off its body with a tissue.
She glimpsed Lin's father coming out of the corner of her eye, and she said sternly: "Old Lin, we all understand that you are sad about your daughter's death. But you can just do it behind closed doors. Why do you put these things outside? Anyone who sees them will think it's unlucky."
The Lin family is not a soft-tempered family, but recently because of their daughter's incident, their temper has been worn out.
Father Lin stood there in a daze, not knowing what to do, and even felt that what the neighbor said made some sense. After all, there were many households living upstairs and downstairs, and placing it at the door would indeed cause inconvenience.
Chen Ling walked out and looked at the mess on the ground. "Auntie, today is the seventh day since Xiaofan's death. It's the night of his return to the dead. These things are placed at the door to guide the way."
The neighbor froze, hearing the young man's hidden meaning.
If there wasn’t this bowl of water and grains, what if the dog walked into the wrong door or entered the wrong house… The more he thought about it, the more scared he became. The neighbor subconsciously tightened his arms around the dog and almost strangled the dog to death.
She swallowed and said in a weak voice, "Well, then it's up to you."
It was not until the neighbor completely turned around the staircase and went down to the second floor that Father Lin bent down to pick up the bowl on the ground, and then went to the house to get the cleaning tools without complaint.
Mother Lin took the empty bowl from Chen Ling and went into the kitchen to fill it again.
After cleaning, Dad Lin watched Mom Lin put the two full bowls back at the door, then stood at the door for a while before returning to the house.
The two remaining people in the family were tortured by grief and were no longer human. Chen Ling was suffocated by the depressing atmosphere and wanted to ease it a little. "Uncle Lin, we want to see Xiaofan first and burn some incense for her."
"I'll take you there." Father Lin led the two into his daughter's room.
The room was clean and tidy, with a small bed, a filled bookcase and a small desk.
On the desk were a portrait with black flowers on it and a candle, and in front of it were some of the little girl's favorite handicrafts and comic books, as well as a notebook.
Seeing Chen Ling staring at the diary, Lin's father said, "This is her diary. She didn't write every day, but she has been writing on and off for three years. I thought, when she is cremated tomorrow, I will burn it with her."
Because Miss Lin died an unnatural death, she needs the consent of the police before she can be cremated. Tomorrow is the eighth day.
Chen Ling said: "Generally speaking, cremation takes three or five days, and a few take seven or nine days. Uncle Lin, I think we should wait one more day."
Father Lin thought about it and nodded, "Okay, since she's not burned, it feels like she's still alive, so let her stay with us for another day."
He took out six incense sticks from the desk drawer, three for Chen Ling and three for Wu Weiwei.
Chen Ling lit the incense with a lighter, raised it to his forehead, closed his eyes and chanted the Dharma Food Rebirth Mantra.
Unlike the common rebirth mantras that are used directly against evil spirits, the Dharma Food Rebirth Mantra is a blessing for the dead.
"The golden light of merit and virtue is faintly opening in the dark. The true fragrance flows from the Huachi, and the lotus canopy floats with the clouds. The immortal spirit Chongyuan asks for peace, and often lives in the twelfth floor. Urgently spread the will of the spiritual treasure, and wander freely in heaven."
The meaning is profound and the voice is clear.
As the young man finished speaking, Father Lin felt less tired from the past few days. After the two of them finished offering incense, he asked, "Little classmate, did you also learn what you just recited from your relatives?"
"Yeah." Chen Ling turned to look at Father Lin, lowering his eyes with a sad look, "Uncle Lin, Xiaofan has always been a very good person. How could he suddenly become so depressed that he committed suicide? I can't understand."
Father Lin was stunned for a moment, his expression darkened, and he shook his head helplessly, saying, "Her mother and I also find it strange."
Afraid that his wife in the living room would hear him and remind her of her sadness, Father Lin closed the door and whispered, "My wife and I suspected that it was a ghost because it happened so suddenly. On the night of the incident, our family of three was sitting in the living room watching a variety show."
Chen Ling knew that it must be the relative who practiced in the Taoist temple that he fabricated, and the Dharma Food Rebirth Mantra that just happened that made Father Lin let down his guard.
Then he asked, "What happened next?"
Father Lin raised his hands and buried his face in his palms, exhausted and deeply annoyed: "What happened that night was not without signs."
In the evening, after the family had dinner, Dad Lin was responsible for washing the dishes, Mom Lin was responsible for collecting yesterday's washed clothes, and Xiaofan went into the room to do homework and preview lessons.
Around nine o'clock in the evening, after my daughter finished her studies, she came out to eat some fruit and watch a variety show with her parents to relax.
It was almost ten o'clock when Xiao Fan went to the bathroom to take a shower as usual and stayed there for more than half an hour.
Several times during the process, Mother Lin couldn't help but go to the bathroom to call for help, but there was no response three times in a row. The last time she wanted to call her husband to break the door, Xiaofan finally opened the door and came out.
Mother Lin asked her, "Why do you take so long to wash?" Then she grabbed her daughter's hand and said, "Look at your fingers, the skin is wrinkled."
Xiao Fan shook off her mother's hand, "I want to scrub it more to avoid getting it dirty."
Her daughter is a very clean person. She takes a shower every day before going to bed and every morning after getting up. How dirty could she be? Mother Lin thought her daughter just said it casually and didn't take it seriously.
Father Lin, however, looked at Xiaofan twice more, frowning slightly. He always felt that there was something strange about his daughter, especially when she passed by him, he clearly heard her humming a song.
The tune is weird, not a popular song nowadays.
Chen Lingsheng interrupted: "Uncle Lin, do you still remember how to hum the song?"
"... I don't remember it very clearly." Father Lin changed the subject, "But it sounded a bit creepy, each syllable was a bit long, a bit like... oh, like a suona."
"Suona?" It was the first time Wu Weiwei heard someone humming a suona tune.
"Yes, it's the suona." Father Lin became more and more certain, but his face turned pale. "Now that you mention it, I remember it. I seem to have heard that piece of music before!"
"Funeral music?" Chen Ling guessed.
Father Lin's body suddenly tensed up, his lips trembled, his voice stuck in his throat, and the words he managed to speak were very obscure. "Our community is old, and there are many elderly people living here. In the past, when no one cared about it, when an elderly person in the family passed away, they would set up a tent downstairs to set up a mourning hall..."
There is a coffin in the mourning hall, and outside the coffin is a table for greeting guests who come to pay their respects.
Every time this time comes, funeral music will be played on the tape recorder, sad and heavy, as if to take away the grief of the loved ones, or as if the grief is not strong enough, so it deliberately drags out the tune as a reminder.
“My dear classmate, you are right. It is funeral music. It is funeral music… How can it be funeral music…” Father Lin was almost on the verge of collapse.
It is self-evident what the funeral music represents. Why didn't he react at that time
Chen Ling said, "Uncle Lin, I think this matter is probably not that simple. I have learned a few tricks from my relatives. If you believe me, can you tell me more details of that night?"
"Yes, yes." Father Lin grasped at the life-saving straw.
If his daughter was really killed by a ghost, he would spend all his money and sell everything he had to ask a master to take away the ghost! To comfort his daughter's soul in heaven.
That night, Xiaofan entered the room and never came out again.
Before going to bed, the couple went in to check on their daughter as usual, but found that the door was locked unlike before.
Father Lin knocked on the door and heard the person inside say, "Dad, I'm writing in my diary. I'll go to sleep after I finish it."
The couple looked at each other, and Mother Lin said, "Then I won't come in. When you finish writing, go to bed and cover your belly with a thin blanket to avoid catching a cold."
Xiao Fan responded vaguely and said nothing more.
The couple returned to their room, turned off the lights and quickly fell asleep. However, in the middle of the night, when Mr. Lin got up to go to the bathroom, he discovered that there was a gap in his daughter's door.
His daughter was older now, so it was not convenient for him to go in and check. He vaguely caught a glimpse of a corner of the quilt and turned back to the house.
At dawn, Mother Lin had a nightmare and woke up in fright.
She grabbed her husband's arm and said with a pale face: "Hubby, I dreamed of our Xiaofan, wearing bright red clothes, holding a bunch of paper roses, and told me that she was leaving and asked us not to miss her..."
"Bah, bah, bah, don't talk about nightmares so early in the morning. How old is our Xiaofan? Where can she go except staying with us?" Father Lin got out of bed and went out. Seeing that his daughter's door was still the same as he saw when he got up in the middle of the night, he reached out and gently pushed it.
The door opened slowly, the thin quilt on the bed was messy, and the alarm clock next to the pillow suddenly rang.
Mr. Lin was inexplicably annoyed by the alarm clock, so he quickly went in to turn it off, went to the bathroom, and found that his daughter was not there. He then went to the balcony, but still no one was there.
He went back to the living room and was about to go to the kitchen to check when he heard his wife's terrified scream...
…The narration of his memories suddenly stopped. The scene at that time was so shocking that he could not continue.
Chen Ling was silent for a moment, and waited until Father Lin had adjusted his mood before continuing to ask: "Did Xiaofan have any other abnormalities before this?"
"No." Father Lin shook his head, "Really not, she has always been normal."
When looking for a scapegoat, you cannot kill the person immediately.
The Yang energy in a living person is the nemesis of Yin objects. The scapegoat needs to use its own Yin energy to invade the human body little by little in order to disturb the consciousness of the living and make them die without anyone knowing.
Only in this way can the newly dead avoid becoming evil spirits with resentment and be qualified to be reincarnated in the underworld.
So if Xiaofan was really chosen as a scapegoat, he would definitely show other behaviors before committing suicide.
Chen Ling continued to ask, "Uncle Lin, think about it again. For example, did she say anything strange or bring anything strange back?"
"Do paper roses count?" Father Lin asked tentatively.
Chen Ling: "I remember that paper roses also appeared in the nightmare you just described about your aunt."
"Yes... My wife also mentioned it when she woke up... Three days before Xiaofan died, the monthly test results came out, and she did very well. As soon as she walked in, she happily announced the good news to me, holding a paper rose in her hand. It was bright red and folded very beautifully..."
Chen Ling asked, "Where did she get that rose? Was it given to her by a friend?"
"Friend? You mean Lan Peng, right? He didn't give it to me." Father Lin smiled. "You don't have to be so subtle. The child's mother and I know that she's in a relationship. As long as it doesn't affect her studies, we have no objection."
As if he remembered something, his sorrowful eyes were tinged with a little warmth, "Lan Peng is a good child. He has been helping us with the arrangements these past few days. On the way to send Xiao Fan to the funeral home, the child cried even harder than I did."
If you don't have deep feelings, you can't fake it.
Father Lin paused and continued, "But the paper rose was not given by Lan Peng. Xiao Fan said she picked it up on the road."
"Picked it up?" Chen Ling's face darkened. "Where did you pick it up? Why didn't you throw it into the trash can? Why did you bring it back instead?"
"This... I don't know, but she cherishes the flower very much. After she brought it back, she put it in the room and didn't allow us to touch it." Father Lin stood up and walked to the bookcase, searching anxiously.
"Strange, how come it's gone?" He said to himself in confusion. He opened the glass of the bookcase and fiddled with the spine of the book with his fingers, but still couldn't find the paper rose.
Chen Ling walked over and stood behind Father Lin. "Do you remember where the paper rose was placed?"
"Right here." Father Lin pointed to the place in front of the two dictionaries. "I saw her put it there, leaning against these two books."
What is the charm of a picked rose that makes people cherish it so much
Chen Ling reached out and touched the spine of the book that had been touched by the paper rose, but felt nothing. He withdrew his hand, and while Father Lin lowered his head to look somewhere else, he took the five-zhu coin from his wrist and put it on the bookcase.
Father Lin straightened up, his eyes empty, puzzled: "How come it's gone..." He turned around and looked at Chen Ling, "Little brother, is there something wrong with that paper rose? Shouldn't Xiaofan have picked it up?"
"I can't make any conclusions before I see the things. But if you find red paper or money on the road, it's best to throw it away or spend it. Because some people will attach evil spells to these things to divert bad luck. Whoever picks them up is willing to accept the bad luck."
In life, luck can be good or bad.
If you are lucky, you will be successful; if you are unlucky, you will meet villains, encounter evil spirits, or simply lose money... These are actually a small experience in life, but there are always people who only want to accept the good and resist the bad.
Fate cannot be easily resisted, so some people transfer their bad luck to others.
But Chen Ling felt that Xiaofan’s problem was more than just a simple transfer of bad luck.
A mother carries her baby for ten months, and the bond between them and their children is unspeakable. The dream that Mother Lin had about Xiaofan might very well be a foreshadowing.
"Rose..." Chen Ling murmured and looked at Wu Weiwei, "Speaking of roses, what can you think of?"
Wu Weiwei: "Love?"