"Yes, love is something that everyone will experience and have."
Chen Ling turned to look at Father Lin, "Uncle, can you ask Auntie to describe the dream to us in detail again?"
"I'll go ask." Father Lin said and left the room.
Mother Lin was sitting in the living room wiping her tears. Her body was facing the kitchen door diagonally. She felt her shoulder being touched. She looked up at her husband and asked, "What's wrong?"
Father Lin told his wife everything that happened in the room, held her hand and asked, "If you still remember, believe and are willing to tell them, then I will take you to the room. If you don't want to... I will tell the two little classmates to leave first."
Mother Lin, like her husband, could not accept the fact that her well-behaved and excellent daughter had died in such a strange way.
She just didn't trust Chen Ling a little: "Husband, can those two brothers really help me find out? They are too young. Why don't we ask if we can ask his relative who practices cultivation to come over and help?"
"Can we afford it?" Father Lin said, "Just a seven-day ritual costs tens of thousands, not to mention exorcising evil spirits and catching ghosts."
Mother Lin fell silent.
Father Lin recalled the spells that his little classmate had chanted before, which he didn't quite understand. "I think he should be quite capable. After listening to the spells he chanted in the room just now, I felt a lot more relaxed."
Mother Lin said: "Then give it a try..."
She and her husband are an ordinary working couple with low salaries. In addition to daily living expenses, they also have to pay alimony to both parents every month. The little money they have left is almost all spent on their daughter.
They really had no other choice except to trust the friendly-looking little classmate.
In the room, Chen Ling held up the five-zhu coin and asked, "Do you feel it?"
"No." Wu Zhuqian said, "It's very clean here, there is no smell of the same kind or evil spirit."
After double checking with himself and the Wuzhu coin, Chen Ling was sure that Xiaofan passed away peacefully, without resentment or fear. This kind of soul will sense the pull of the underworld after death and automatically walk into the netherworld.
Chen Ling knew that he did not have the ability to ask someone for questioning directly from the underworld.
Hearing the sound of the door opening, he put away the five-zhu coins, turned to look at Mother Lin, and nodded slightly, "Auntie, I guess Uncle Lin has already told you."
"Yeah." As soon as she entered the room, Mother Lin's eyes wandered. She sat down beside her daughter's bed, picked up the photo frame on the bedside table, and gently stroked the smiling face on it.
"That dream was red..." She spoke slowly, "The skirt and the roses were both red, as dazzling as blood, frightening and terrifying. My little classmate, my state at that time was actually very strange. Even in my sleep, I could feel my heart beating very fast, but I couldn't wake up. Then, then I heard Xiaofan calling me..."
Mom, mom, mom, I'm leaving.
Mother Lin subconsciously asked where she was going, and then she saw her daughter appear in front of her. She was wearing an embroidered long dress and holding a bunch of bright red roses made of paper in her arms. There was a smile on her lips, but the corners of her eyes were red as blood.
The strange scene and her daughter's contradictory expression woke her up.
Chen Ling suddenly asked: "Embroidered red dress? What style?"
Normally, dreams would be forgotten soon after waking up, but not Mother Lin. Perhaps it was related to her daughter. She kept tossing and turning in the memories, recalling them over and over again, trying to engrave her daughter's final farewell firmly in her heart.
She said: "It's a split top and bottom style, with a cheongsam collar on top and a long skirt that's slightly spread out below..."
Having said this, she shuddered suddenly, as if she remembered something, and her pupils contracted.
Chen Ling lowered his head and searched on his mobile phone. The key word was "new Chinese cheongsam". His fingertips slid and finally stopped on a wedding dress. After clicking to enlarge it, he turned the screen to show it to Mother Lin.
"Is it like this?"
"It's a wedding dress, how could it be a wedding dress..." Mother Lin had just thought of this, and now when she saw the bright red dress on the screen, she was even more upset, "Why is my daughter wearing a wedding dress?"
It was hard not to be reminded of the scene she saw in the kitchen when she woke up early a few days ago.
That white nightgown stained with blood looks just like the bright red wedding dress in front of me and in my dreams!
Mother Lin was shaking all over and her vision was blacking out. If Father Lin hadn't held up her waist, she would have collapsed to the ground by now.
Chen Ling: "I suspect Xiaofan was chosen to be married to someone in the underworld."
Wedding dress, roses, and funeral music.
Wedding, love, death.
But it's just a guess. We have to find the paper rose.
Chen Ling suddenly remembered something and asked Father Lin: "Uncle, could it be that the paper rose was taken away as evidence when the police came to investigate the scene?"
"No!" Lin's father denied, "I thought my daughter committed suicide at the time, so I didn't think about the paper flower."
It seems that even Li Hongyu doesn't know this detail.
Chen Ling: "So Rose really disappeared on her own."
Even ghosts wouldn't believe me if I told them there were no ghosts or sorcery involved.
Wu Weiwei felt a little scared when he heard this. "Brother Chen, what should we do now?"
"Let me call your brother Jiang first and see if he can find out..." Thinking that Wu Weiwei didn't know the identity of Jiang Yu's Yin God, he paused and changed his words, "Can you ask the Yin Messenger to ask?"
Wu Weiwei was not too surprised, as he had guessed before that Jiang Yu was also a Taoist.
Father Lin thought that Brother Jiang that Chen Ling mentioned was the distant relative, and his attitude became more earnest: "Little classmate, I'm really sorry to trouble you." He thought about giving him a red envelope after the matter was over.
"It's okay." Chen Ling asked Xiaofan about his birth date again, then left the room and went to the Lin family's balcony.
It was his first time calling Jiang Yu, and for some reason he felt a little nervous. The busy tone hit his heart like a heavy hammer, making his chest stuffy and his heart beat fast.
"Hello." A deep male voice came from the receiver.
Chen Ling almost forgot to breathe, cleared his throat to find his voice, and said, "Are you busy with work?"
Jiang Yu glanced at the middle-aged man with a stubble beard sitting opposite him. He ignored the other's dignified expression, stood up and walked to a quiet corner. "No, I'm free now."
"Oh." Chen Ling lowered his head and unconsciously picked at a drop of paint that had already solidified and bulged on the guardrail. "I have something to ask you."
"You say." Jiang Yu leaned back against the wall, his tone gentle.
"I just encountered a suicide case. Li Hongyu and his team's investigation showed that the girl was found to have a scapegoat, but I got another clue today. A paper rose."
Jiang Yu said "hmm" faintly to indicate that he heard it.
Chen Ling continued, "In addition, the girl's mother had a dream on the night the girl died. The red wedding dress and paper roses appeared in the dream. So I suspect this may be related to ghost marriage."
Hearing the words "ghost marriage", Jiang Yu became interested, "Is there no resentment in the deceased's family?"
"No, it's very clean. She may have entered the Netherworld." Chen Ling said softly, "I just want to ask, if you are in the Netherworld, can you help me find the girl's soul."
Jiang Yu smiled softly, "I said, your business is my business, take out the 'can or can'. Chen Ling, you can speak to me in a demanding tone."
Chen Ling: “…”
Isn't this why I want to listen to you
Chen Ling felt his ears numb, and the man's laughter seemed to come through the radio and stick to his ear.
The young man scratched the railing harder, with an uneasy look on his face, and quickly reported his birth date and eight characters. "Then help me check it."
Feeling that his tone was too harsh, he added, "Today is the night when she returns to the spirit world. Perhaps you can give her a little more time to stay in the world of the living. I can ask myself."
After saying that, he hung up the phone.
Jiang Yu listened to the busy tone for a while, moved the phone away from his ear, and stared at the screen with his eyes lowered.
"I'm free. Humph, do you think I'm dead?" A slightly rough male voice came, followed by a roar, "Why don't you come here quickly after the fight!"
Jiang Yu walked back to the pavilion along the quaint corridor. The gentleness on his face was completely restrained. He sat down with his jaw set and his eyebrows cold. He held the pen in his right hand, suspended in the air, and began to copy the scriptures.
The bearded man took a sip of tea, then spread his legs, resumed his previous sitting posture, and closed his eyes to rest.
When the first sheet of rice paper was used up, Jiang Yu was about to peel off the paper, but the person opposite him seemed to have eyes between his eyebrows. Although he didn't open his eyes, he could clearly see the other person's restlessness and irritability.
He warned in a deep voice: "Calm down and don't have any more murderous thoughts."
Jiang Yu glanced at the bearded man's closed eyes nonchalantly and sneered, "You can't move even if your boyfriend is in danger? I'm sorry I can't comply with your request."
"Hey, you kid!" The bearded man opened his eyes, "You think God can't find a chance to kill you, right?"
The calmness in Jiang Yu's eyes turned into a cold one, with a hint of sarcasm in his eyes, "Why don't you just kill me and see."
The bearded man was speechless. He thought that there was probably nothing in this world that could move Jiang Yu.
He shook his head and sighed. He was becoming more and more disobedient as he grew older. After he got married, he became like a wild horse that had broken free from its reins.
He scratched his hair twice in annoyance and was about to say a few more words when two people came over from a distance, bent over and whispered something in his ear.
The bearded man turned around and pointed at Jiang Yu, "If you don't copy it ninety-nine and eighty-one times, you are not allowed to return to the world of the living!"
The noisy person finally left. Jiang Yu put down his pen, stood up, crumpled up the half-copied rice paper and threw it aside.
Then he called the ghost messenger who was waiting nearby, and said: "Go and check whether she is in the underworld. If she is, let her stay in the world of the living for a while longer during the night of the return of the soul tonight."
The shaman replied respectfully: "Yes."
Jiang Yu waved his hand and the people retreated.
Looking at the thick stack of pale papers in front of him, his face became uglier. After a while, he resigned himself to his fate and picked up the rice paper that he had crumpled into a ball in anger, unfolded it and continued writing.
After writing a few words, he began to daydream and took out his cell phone to send a text message to Chen Ling.
I have already instructed that the girl can stay longer on the Night of the Return of the Soul.
Chen Ling looked at the text message and felt a sense of pride in his heart. His ancestor was really amazing. He got things done in less than five minutes.
He put his phone in his pocket, feeling uneasy and his heart pounding. He couldn't help but take out his phone again and asked: When will you come back
Jiang Yu raised his eyebrows, put down his brush, and leisurely tapped on the screen: Miss me
He was just asking the question sincerely, not trying to flirt with anyone, and he didn't feel anything was wrong after sending the question. He even pushed the paper and pen aside, holding his phone and waiting intently for a reply.
Chen Ling slammed the phone shut, his face flushed, and heat kept rising from his chest.
"Brother Chen, what's wrong with you?" In less than ten minutes, he adjusted his sitting position three times. Is there a thorn growing on the sofa
"It's okay, I just feel a little hot." Chen Ling fanned himself with his hands and glanced at the clock on the wall of the Lin family's living room. It was only a little after eleven in the afternoon, and it was still very early before midnight.
On the other side, Jiang Yu showed doubts, then returned to his usual coldness and turned back to ask the Yinchai: "Is the signal down there bad?"
Yinchai scratched his head, "Maybe...right?"
Mainly, the big and small ghosts usually communicate with each other through talismans, and those with deeper skills can directly transmit sound. This mobile phone, which keeps up with the times, is basically only used to play games in the world of the living.
He really didn't know whether the signal was good or not.
Jiang Yu didn't hesitate and sent another message, this time with a few more words: Do you miss me
Chen Ling felt a vibration in his trouser pocket.
Like a thief, he only half of the screen appeared from his trouser pocket.
This time, his ears also turned red.
I originally wanted to pretend that I didn’t see it, but then I thought that doing so would be disrespectful to our ancestors, so I sent a message back asking: Do you think about me or not
When Jiang Yu received this difficult-to-understand text message, his wrist became unsteady and a blob of ink was left on the rice paper.
The little thing is quite good at Tai Chi.
He curled his lips, moved his fingertips leisurely, and replied: I think you did.
Chen Ling couldn't help but smile after receiving the text message. Noticing the gazes from the people around him, he touched the tip of his nose awkwardly.
Wu Weiwei: "...Brother Chen, what are you laughing at?"
Brother Chen is so abnormal today!
"Did I laugh?" Chen Ling stared.
Wu Weiwei was absolutely sure: "He laughed."
Chen Ling shook his head, "I don't know what I'm laughing at." Then he muttered in a very low voice, "It's just a message, what's so funny about it."
Wu Weiwei: “…”
It would be fine if you just asked and answered the question yourself, but why are you blushing
Chen Ling raised his head, with a faint blush on his cheeks, and said to Father Lin: "Uncle Lin, classmate Wu and I have to go back to school. We will come over in the evening."
Father Lin said hurriedly: "You are busy, study is more important. Tonight..." He was a little nervous and excited, rubbing his hands with a hint of anticipation, "Little classmate, if possible, if Xiaofan comes back to life tonight, can we say a few words to her?"
Chen Ling nodded: "I'll try my best."
"Thank you, thank you so much. I, Lin Liang, will never forget your kindness." Dad Lin held Mom Lin's hand tightly and wanted to bow to them.
Chen Ling quickly helped the two of them up, "Uncle and aunt, you are embarrassing me. Xiaofan and I are classmates, so it's only natural for me to help a little."
Mr. Lin's eyes were red and he was filled with gratitude.
Chen Ling took Wu Weiwei away temporarily and went to Ding Junyuan's studio to get the tombstone.
Ding Junyuan's studio was halfway through being renovated, and the area enclosed by iron sheets was littered with fallen bricks and mud. Some previously finished clay sculptures of human figures were also thrown out and broke into pieces and fell to the ground.
"Excuse me, is Master Sun here?"
Chen Ling walked in, and the receptionist who was supervising at the reception desk remembered him and Wu Weiwei, and her eyes lit up: "Mr. Chen!"
Then he turned around and shouted inside: "Teacher Ding, Mr. Chen is here."
In order to save some money, Ding Junyuan painted the walls himself. He came out in a hurry with dirty hands, "Mr. Chen, wait a moment. I'll go wash my hands and come back."
"No hurry." After Ding Junyuan left, Chen Ling asked the front desk, "Are there any new students signing up for the carving room recently?"
“Yes.” The receptionist didn’t know about the previous situation and said curiously, “Before our carving studio was renovated, there were few people who signed up. Even those who came would drop out after a few days. I don’t know what’s going on recently, but more and more people are signing up. They all say it’s because our carving studio has a good reputation.”
As soon as he finished speaking, Ding Junyuan came back and invited Chen Ling to his office.
He took out a check from his desk and handed it to Chen Ling: "This is the remaining 400,000 yuan. Mr. Chen, please keep it first."
Chen Ling asked him: "Can you make ends meet? If not, you can give it to me later."
"Yes." Ding Junyuan said with a smile, "I've been lucky recently. Someone wants to open this carving studio with me and has injected a lot of capital, so I'm not so tight on cash anymore."
Chen Ling put the money into his bag and said, "I see you look pretty good lately."
"That's right. I haven't had nightmares since then." Thinking of those terrible things, Ding Junyuan still felt scared. "But I'm afraid I won't dare to touch the human-shaped clay sculptures anymore. You must have seen it when you came in. I smashed all the finished products that were not sold."
Wu Weiwei felt that he was a bit pitiful: "From your face, I can tell that Mr. Ding is a blessed man. I believe that the remaining bad luck in you will soon disappear completely, and then your fortune will definitely be even better."
"Then I'll take your good words." Ding Junyuan was very happy and laughed for a while.
After he finished laughing, Chen Ling explained his purpose: "I came here today to take the stele."
Ding Junyuan: "Master Sun has not come to work recently due to renovations. He has changed his job to work at home. However, he has already made the stone tablet you ordered. It is in the storage room."
Thinking of the weight of the stone tablet, he took the initiative to say, "Ask the decorator to help move it, and I'll drive it over for you."
Chen Ling didn't bother to be polite with him: "Then thank you for your help."
"It's not a big deal. If it weren't for you, Mr. Chen, I would have died a long time ago." Ding Junyuan expressed his gratitude sincerely, "Will you guys go back to Yuhe Mountain together?"
Wu Weiwei followed the commander-in-chief the whole time and didn't know anything. He turned his head and looked at Chen Ling: "Brother Chen?"
"I'm not going back for now. I want to go to the second deceased's home to take a look."
"The second victim?" Ding Junyuan asked, remembering something. "Was it a suicide?"
Chen Ling was surprised: "You know?"
"Oh, it's almost spread all over our old town." Some topics can never be stopped once they are started, so Ding Junyuan simply went to make tea for the two of them.
He sat down and said, "The first person to commit suicide was a young girl, and the second one was an office worker. Am I right?"
Chen Ling and Wu Weiwei looked at each other and nodded quickly, saying, "Yes, these are the two cases."
"Have some tea first." Ding Junyuan pushed the teacup forward and said with his arms folded, "Have you investigated the first one?"
Seeing Chen Ling nod, he said, "Then I'll talk about the second one."
"I don't know much, actually. I just heard the neighbors talk about it. The second office worker just moved to Xiangyang Road in March this year. He's from another place and doesn't like to get along with others. But I think it has something to do with the fact that he goes to work early and leaves late. After a tiring day, who wants to talk to others?"
It's hard to survive in this society and to find a job these days.
If you want to get a promotion and a raise in salary, you have to be good at dealing with people and work hard.
After work, many people are physically and mentally exhausted and don’t even want to cook when they get home. They just order takeout, which is convenient and saves trouble. They can then rest after eating.
The office worker who committed suicide is one of them.
He works in a software company as a programmer. All he does every day is write code. The thick lenses on his nose make his eyes, which have almost lost their luster due to the torture of life, even darker and more turbid.
On the day of the incident, perhaps because he was frightened by the accidental fall on the railway tracks, he stumbled all the way from the subway station to the community.
The lady from the neighborhood committee saw that he looked unhappy and wanted to ask him if he was feeling unwell when she passed by, but she heard him say: "I was almost crushed into a pulp by the subway, a mixture of red and white pulp..."
And then, he started humming funeral music!
In this situation, who would dare to talk to him? The aunt from the neighborhood committee stepped back and turned around to tell other people about it, suspecting that the office worker had been possessed by evil spirits.
But before the news spread, the office worker died.
The first person to discover his death was the owner of the west household on the fifth floor.
The owner went downstairs to buy groceries and found a man kneeling on the stairs. His forehead was almost embedded in the corner of the stairs due to the strong impact.
Bloody and horrible.
The homeowner was so frightened that he almost tumbled down the stairs and collided with the body of the office worker.
She hurriedly retreated to the platform between the fifth and fourth floors, pressed her chest, stabilized her heartbeat, and called the police.
When the police arrived, they couldn't find anything. Finally, a young man in the opposite building took a small memory card from the drone. After the police left, everyone gathered around the young man and asked him what he had filmed.
Upon learning that the office worker had knocked himself to death, the neighborhood committee lady became more certain that the office worker was possessed by an evil spirit, and in the evening she asked someone to find a Taoist priest to perform a ritual to exorcise the evil spirit.
At this point, Ding Junyuan sneered and said disdainfully: "I don't know where that Taoist priest was invited from. He was wearing a yellow robe, holding a peach wood sword and muttering a few words, and that was it."
"Mr. Ding lives nearby?" Chen Ling thought it couldn't be such a coincidence.
Ding Junyuan waved his hands quickly: "No, no, I live far away, but I have a friend who lives nearby. After I heard that something was fishy, I couldn't help but want to go and take a look."
Ever since he experienced the incident with Zhu Peng and the earthbound spirit, he became particularly sensitive to supernatural events. Whenever anything happened, the first thought that came to his mind was: Is there a ghost again
He pinched his brows and rubbed them a few times with a headache, then looked up and said, "Mr. Chen, that's all I know."