When he left Mai Qinghe's bedroom, it was already late at night.
Although I repeatedly asked him to take us to the cemetery where Shen Tingyue's body was buried, he refused to go, even if Zhen Zhen threatened to arrest him, he still refused to obey: "I'd rather go to jail than go to that horrible place again. If I hadn't drank too much last time, I wouldn't have followed Brother Shu and the others along that damn path. If I went with you again, I would have been killed by Ting Yue like Brother Shu. "
In fact, we cannot arrest him yet, although he has admitted to assisting Fang Shu in killing Shen Tingyue and burying the dead body. But this is all his own words, and there is no evidence to support his statement. Therefore, until Shen Tingyue's body is found, we can only let him stay in the dormitory, but tell his roommates to pay more attention to him and not let him leave the academy. However, in his current state, he should not be running around. After all, in his eyes, there is danger anywhere, and the safest thing is his own bed.
After leaving the academy, according to Mai Qinghe's description, we followed a secluded path to a gloomy banyan forest, and the cemetery was inside the banyan forest.
We walked into the banyan forest under the hazy moonlight. The banyan trees here not only grow tall, but also have lush branches and leaves, blocking the already weak light, and walking into the forest can hardly reach out. Luckily we brought flashlights, otherwise we'd have to grope in the dark to enter this spooky place.
With the help of a flashlight, I found a small plaque in the banyan forest. Although the paint has fallen off a lot, I can still identify the words "Chen's Cemetery" written on the plaque. I think this is where we're looking.
Just as I was about to enter the cemetery, Zhen Zhen really let out a terrified scream, and hid behind me, pulling my clothes and trembling. When I asked her what she saw, she buried her head on my back, pointed to a banyan tree, and said in a trembling voice, "There is something floating on the tree."
I used a flashlight to take a picture of the tree, and suddenly panicked and almost didn't cry out. There is no ethereal ghost on the tree, there is only one cat, but it is not an ordinary cat, but a dried cat corpse.
I checked a little and found that there was more than one cat corpse. The banyan trees on both sides of the entrance to the cemetery had two or three cat corpses hanging on each tree. These cat corpses are hung from trees with red ropes around their necks, and it feels like a mass suicide. Although it was just a cat's corpse, it was quite terrifying to be swaying from side to side in the desolate evening wind, and it was still in such a strange place as the entrance to the cemetery.
"Who is so cruel to kill so many cats, what a pervert!" Zhen Zhen cursed timidly.
I shook my head: "I don't think it has anything to do with being perverted. These cat corpses have been dried and should have been hanging for many years. If it was just a prank, someone would have taken them off. It is said that dead cats were hung from trees. It will bring bad luck, with so many cat corpses hanging at the entrance of the cemetery, it is impossible for those who live nearby to turn a blind eye. Unless…”
"Unless what?"
"Unless it's the owner of the cemetery, or a nearby resident who hangs it."
"Why did they do this? Isn't it disgusting?" Zhen Zhen showed a look of disgust.
"Maybe it's some kind of ceremony! It's a remote place, and it's not uncommon to have some unique customs."
After receiving the "welcome" of dozens of cat corpses, we walked into the mysterious Chen's Cemetery with an uneasy mood.
The moment I stepped into the cemetery, I began to understand why Mai Qinghe was so afraid. It was indeed as eerie as he said.
Tall and dense banyan trees surround the entire cemetery, which not only blocks most of the light, but also reduces the temperature significantly. Under the light of the flashlight, behind every banyan tree seems to be a hidden evil spirit from the depths of hell.
The huge cemetery is overgrown with weeds, and the tombstones are looming among the knee-long weeds, like greedy hungry ghosts, waiting to attack the lost travelers who break into the cemetery, in order to fill the never-eating with fresh flesh and blood. abdomen.
However, the most disturbing thing is that I didn't hear any frogs and insects here, as if I had entered a lifeless nether zone.
Zhen Zhen shuddered suddenly, not sure if it was because she felt cold or because she was afraid, maybe she also felt that there was something hidden in the darkness.
"Do you find it strange?" I asked Zhen Zhen.
"It's strange there?" She looked around the dark surroundings with an unnatural expression.
"Sacrificing ancestors is a very important thing, especially in rural areas, the Qingming Festival is no less important than the Spring Festival. However, don't you think it's strange that this cemetery is abandoned like this?"
"What's so strange, maybe the descendants of these ancestors have gone out to work and have no time to come back to pay homage to their ancestors." Although her mouth was stubborn, her body trembled slightly, and she approached me unconsciously.
"Impossible, look..." I moved my flashlight and took a look at the surrounding tombstones. "This is a family cemetery. Based on the number of tombstones, there are dozens of descendants in this family, if not a hundred. The young laborers have all gone out to work, and the old people who have stayed will definitely come to pay their respects on a regular basis.”
"Maybe because of the demolition and other reasons, the whole family moved out." She pulled my clothes intentionally or not.
"Even if the descendants relocate, it is impossible not to come back to worship their ancestors for a long time!" I shook my head, "Bai Shan puts filial piety first, and worshiping ancestors is the most important form of filial piety. Young people may You may think it's nothing, but the older generation attaches great importance to this. Even if you move to a far away place, you will come back to pay homage to your ancestors at least every three or five years! But looking at the situation here, at least ten or eight years No one took care of it.”
I walked over to a tombstone with doubts and brushed away the surrounding weeds, hoping to get clues to unravel the doubts from the inscription. However, the inscription has not been clearly seen, and a new question has emerged - behind the tombstone is a large pit.
"Is the owner of the tomb buried yet?" Zhen Zhen asked.
I looked at the tombstone, which said that the owner of the tomb was named Chen Shi, who died more than 30 years ago. Looking at the tomb pit again, the pit was full of weeds, obviously not newly dug. Then I checked the surrounding graves and found that all the tombs in the cemetery were empty graves, with only tombstones and grave pits overgrown with weeds.
Perhaps the long silence made Zhen Zhen feel scared, and she asked again: "Are these empty tombs that haven't been buried yet?"
"Impossible." After thinking for a moment, I explained: "There are only tombs that have tombstones. Anyone in the funeral industry knows that tombstones must be erected after the owner of the tomb is buried, otherwise it will become an empty tomb. Like an empty house, it may be occupied by others. However, it is not people who occupy empty graves, but wandering ghosts."
"Don't scare me, you don't carry dead corpses, how do you know these things." Zhen Zhen's eyes swept across the surrounding tombs, her face immediately turned pale, as if every tomb was hiding countless wandering ghosts.
I shrugged and said: "These things are all told to me by fleeting years, but he also knows more or less about things related to corpses. He once told me before that some descendants will go to the grave owner in order to choose the auspicious day. The monument will be erected two or three years after the burial, but it will never be erected first and then buried."
"So, what's going on with the empty tomb here?"
"It must be dug up after burial."
"Why do it?"
"Hard to say."
I examine every grave carefully. According to the inscriptions, these tombs have been erected for more than ten years at the shortest, and nearly seventy years at the longest. Because the tomb has been washed by wind and rain and covered with weeds, it is difficult to judge when it was dug, but it should have been dug at the same time, and it was very hasty.
"How do you know that the excavation is in a hurry?" Zhen Zhen asked with a frown.
"It's not because of these tombstones." I walked to a grave pit and explained to her, "The tombstone is equivalent to the real estate certificate of the underworld, and the owner of the tomb must have the real estate certificate to enter the house, otherwise it is a black household, that is, a wandering ghost. Moreover, empty tombs with monuments and no owners will be occupied by wandering ghosts and will disturb the descendants of the tomb owners.”
"Could it be that all the descendants of the Chen family are dead, so no one takes care of this cemetery?"
I replied irritably, "If they're all dead, who's going to dig their graves?"
"If the descendants of the Chen family were digging graves, it would be impossible not to deal with these tombstones!" Her assumption was not entirely unreasonable.
If it was the descendants of the Chen family who dug the grave, they would definitely remove the tombstone together. If it wasn't for the descendants of the Chen family, why would they dig the graves of their ancestors when they had nothing to do? This is just a family cemetery for ordinary people, and there may not be valuable funerary items.
What the hell is going on here
Although this strange phenomenon intrigues me, I don't want to stay here and study it slowly. It's better to find Shen Tingyue's body quickly and leave this eerie place as soon as possible. Anyway, what we want to investigate is Fang Shu's murder, not the history of the Chen family.
Mai Qinghe said that although the cemetery was overgrown with weeds, there was an open space in the deepest part, where Shen Tingyue's body was buried.
We walked through the messy grave pits to the depths of the cemetery, where there really was a clearing without grass. However, we did not find Shen Tingyue's body in the open space, only a numb human-shaped shallow pit.
"What the hell is going on?" Zhen Zhen looked at the shallow pit in front of her, her body trembling uncontrollably.
I double-checked the condition of the shallow hole and found loose soil that should have been dug recently, but it didn't look like it was excavated from the outside with a tool. Judging from the location of the soil on the side of the pit, the soil seems to have been turned out from the shallow pit.
A bone-chilling chill made me shiver involuntarily, and then a horrific image came to my mind—the loose earth flying outward, and a rotting arm shot up from the ground. The silence of the cemetery disappeared in an instant, replaced by a groan from hell. The hair was messed up, the hideous-looking corpse slowly crawled out of the soil, and the red eyes flashed with anger and fierceness...
Shen Tingyue cheated
Just when I was confused by the facts in front of me, Zhen Zhen quietly tugged at my clothes, I asked her what was the matter, her red lips trembled, she seemed to want to speak, but she couldn't, she just motioned me to look at the banyan tree on the edge of the cemetery .
I looked in the direction she indicated, and the first thing I saw was a pair of eyes that glowed strangely in the darkness. Those are a pair of eyes hidden by the tall banyan tree. Its owner is a female figure with long hair scattered, who is spying on our every move in the dark.
Could it be... Shen Tingyue
The other party obviously noticed that we found her existence, and hurriedly turned around and ran away.
This might be a key clue, of course I couldn't let her slip away under my nose, I immediately pulled Zhen Zhen to catch up.
The figure in front was moving very fast, it felt like it was "floating" instead of running, and the other party seemed to be very familiar with the surrounding terrain, even Zhen Zhen, a guy with well-developed limbs, had a hard time chasing, not to mention me. Even though I am also a criminal police officer, every time I pass the physical fitness test, I just pass the test. Seeing that she had opened a long distance from the other party, Zhen Zhen became anxious and pulled me in a hurry to chase after her. However, the speed of the other party is too fast, and if this continues, the other party will sooner or later get rid of it. So I told Zhen Zhen to leave me alone and chase after me.
However, Zhen Zhen had an embarrassed expression on her face: "What if she is a female ghost?"
God of longevity, what time is it, what are you afraid of!
Just when I thought I would be thrown off by the other party, the other party actually slowed down. Although she kept a good distance from us, her pace slowed down significantly, and then I stopped because I couldn't run, and she actually stopped and waited for us.
Strange, what is her purpose
Whether she sells Viagra in her gourd or tetramine, we can't let her go easily. In the middle of the night, she went to the abandoned cemetery for a stroll. Even if she was not Shen Tingyue, there must be something wrong with her, and it was most likely related to this case. So I took a breath and continued to chase after Zhen Zhen.
The other party floated about a hundred meters in front of us like a ghost, and no matter how hard we chased, we couldn't close the distance. After about ten minutes of chasing, we came to a huge fish pond.
The area of the fish pond is about five acres, the water is very clear, and there is no ripple on the water surface, just like a huge mirror placed on the ground. Perhaps it was influenced by the ghostly female figure in front of me. Although it was very peaceful here, I always felt a mysterious aura, and I couldn't tell what was wrong there. Fortunately, apart from the ghostly figures floating in front of us, we didn't encounter anything strange here.
After bypassing the fish pond, the ghostly figure led us into a winding field road and then into a peaceful village. We chased after her in the narrow alley with nine and eighteen bends, and she was dumped after a while.
"It's weird, why are you missing?" Zhen Zhen looked around blankly, her face gradually turned pale, "Shouldn't we really see a ghost?"
When we couldn't keep up with her just now, she would slow down or even stop and wait for us. But at this time, it disappeared, and it seems that we were brought here on purpose. Does she have some ulterior purpose
No matter what medicine she sells in her gourd, I don't want to give up any clues. Since she led us to this village, there should be something we want here. Therefore, I plan to investigate with Zhen Zhen nearby, hoping to find valuable clues.
At this time, it was past two in the morning, and almost every household in the village was closed, and the whole village was like a dead city. We walked around the village and didn't find the ghostly figure suspected to be Shen Tingyue, but it was not without gain, because we found that the light of the security council was still on, and it seemed that someone was on duty.
Perhaps, we can obtain some valuable information at the Security Council.