In just a few days, the good little girl was tortured beyond recognition. When the old man talked about this, he couldn't help sighing, as if he remembered Xiaofang's miserable condition and felt quite sympathetic.
Xiaofang's condition was serious, so she was locked up in the brigade headquarters, with someone in charge of guarding her. She was not given food for several days and was about to die. Thanks to Xiu'er from Xiping Village, she secretly brought her food in the middle of the night, which allowed her to live a few more days.
But a few days later, one morning, someone found Xiaofang hanged on a tree in front of the ruins of the Beidi Temple. Her death was very tragic, with her tongue sticking out and her eyes wide open. Some people said that she died unjustly and her ghost must be lingering after death. What's even more tragic is that her hands were cut off at the wrists. After they were removed, no one could find where her hands were, which made the villagers feel terrified.
Some people said it was murder, and Xiaofang's hands were cut off and she was hanged. Some people said she cut her hands off after her death to deal with those who criticized her. Because of this, those people had nightmares every day and secretly ran to Xiaofang's grave to repent.
After her death, because there were no relatives to take care of her and she died so tragically, no one dared to bury her in their own fields, so they wrapped her in a straw mat and buried her in a pit dug under the roots of a big tree. For so many years after her death, nothing happened until a Yangxian Temple was rebuilt here in the 1980s. People always heard a woman crying here at night.
Since then, the villagers dared not come here at night. It happened that Qiangzi was five years old and was not afraid of anything. He went out to play at night and encountered heavy rain, so he went into the temple to take shelter. The next day he was stupid. Not long after, his parents died suddenly without illness, which made the villagers guess that it must be Xiaofang's ghost who did it.
So at this temple fair, everyone felt scared and used big red silk cloth to surround the grave, but unexpectedly, something bad happened yesterday.
After the old man finished speaking, he kept looking at the grave, with a look of fear on his face.
Shen Bing and I looked at each other and sighed at the same time. This girl died tragically, but in that era, there were too many people who died from rape, so it was nothing strange. But after hearing this story, we still felt upset.
"Hasn't Xiaofang's family ever come to see her?" Shen Bing asked with a depressed look on her face.
"It is said that her parents were archaeological experts and died earlier than her. There is no one left in the family." The old man stood up and said this with a look of dejection on his face. He didn't say goodbye to us and walked straight back to the village.
When we returned to town, Shen Bing seemed unhappy, probably still thinking about Xiaofang's story. I told a few jokes, but she didn't laugh.
"Don't mess with me, you country bumpkin. I feel like there's a big rock pressing down on my heart. It's heavy." She pouted and said to me, "Why did you cut off your own hand after Xiaofang died? It's bad enough that others were so cruel to you, but you also had to be so cruel to yourself."
I stroked her little head and said, "Silly girl, she didn't commit suicide."
Shen Bing glared: "If it wasn't suicide, who did it?"
"How do we know who did it? But judging from the way she died, it was definitely a murder. The soul is very weak after death and will not cut off its own hands. Besides, I have never heard of a ghost mutilating its own limbs, so suicide is definitely not the case." I said affirmatively.
"Oh, right, why didn't I think of that?" Shen Bing said, tilting her head. "Xiaofang is so popular, who would want to kill her?"
I snorted and said, "Those activists almost fought her to death, so why would it be strange to kill her? Besides, the murderer must have gone after the gold box!"