After we calmed Zhao Xiaosheng down, it was already past three in the afternoon. Not only had we not eaten for the whole day, we had not been home for almost a whole day and night. I wonder how worried my mother was. We asked the child to go back with us, but he refused. If we left him alone, what if he met the evil spirit again after we left? We were so worried.
Shen Bing and I decided to find a raincoat at Zhao Chengshi's house while it was still early. We asked Shen Bing to go back to the provincial capital to tell her mother that she was safe, and I stayed to accompany the child. After Shen Bing left, I looked around the kitchen. In addition to a few half-cooked steamed buns made by Zhao Xiaosheng, there was also some rice and yellow noodles, and a pile of pickled vegetables in a jar in the corner of the room.
It takes longer to cook rice. I was starving, so I cooked a pot of yellow flour paste. Zhao Xiaosheng was still a big kid after all. He probably hadn't eaten well in the past two days. He drank half of the pot of flour paste. I also drank two bowls. It tasted especially delicious with pickled vegetables. You said that the food depends on how it is paired. Rice seems to be a bit high-end. It is definitely not delicious with pickled vegetables. If yellow flour paste or millet porridge is paired with pickled vegetables, it will taste better and better.
After eating, I felt quite comfortable sitting on the chair, but the wet clothes made me feel uncomfortable. Zhao Xiaosheng had a high fever last night and didn't sleep well. Now he was so sleepy that he fell asleep on the chair. I carried him into the inner room and put him on the bed, took off his wet clothes, and covered him with a quilt. I didn't sleep all night last night either. When I touched the bed, I felt sleepy all of a sudden. I yawned and squinted my eyes, and fell asleep unknowingly. When I woke up, I found that it was dark and Zhao Xiaosheng was still sleeping soundly.
I reached out and touched his forehead. I was relieved to find that he didn't have a fever. My clothes were basically dried by the heat. I got out of bed and turned on the light to look at Zhao Chengshi's portrait. Fortunately, there was no change.
Thinking of my sister-in-law, I frowned again and looked at the inner room opposite. That should be the bedroom of Zhao Chengshi and his wife. So I walked in and turned on the light. There was a big bed inside. My sister-in-law was a diligent person and cleaned very well, but I still found two long hairs on the bed.
Just as I was about to go out, I suddenly realized that something was wrong with the ground. I couldn't figure out what was wrong. I simply lay on the ground and saw that the middle of the floor of the house was slightly raised, but the slope was very small. If you don't look carefully, you can't tell what's wrong.
As I was lying on my stomach, I saw that there seemed to be a pile of dirt under the bed curtain, which made me curious. The old-fashioned beds in rural areas were empty underneath, unlike the ones made now, which are integrated and can be used as cabinets. I crawled over and lifted the bed curtain to see that there was indeed a pile of dirt, which looked fresh.
I scratched it open with my hands and found a hole inside, which aroused my interest even more. I went out and took out a small flashlight from my bag and shone it inside. Damn, there was a bone stuck in the hole, and the exposed part was about 30 centimeters. I took a closer look and found that it was a human leg bone, with the upper and lower ends flattened and the bone hollowed out, like a tube.
Why did Zhao Chengshi stick human bones under the bed? No, Zhao Chengshi had not been home for a long time. The soil was fresh and was dug up recently. It was impossible for him to do it. It was even more impossible for a woman like my sister-in-law to do such a thing. Could it be related to the surname Lu? Suddenly, I understood a little bit. Burying my sister-in-law in the grave and performing the magic of subduing a child on Zhao Xiaosheng, it might be for the purpose of digging a hole under the bed to perform evil magic.