Translator-Rhapsodite
Editor-Agneya, Proofreader-Ghostie
“Old man, I want to ask you something.”
Bei Quan moved a bench and motioned Grandpa Wang to sit down to talk.
The old man sat down tremblingly with his crutches, “You, you go ahead and ask.”
Bei Quan squatted down in front of him so that the old man could see his eyes without having to tilt his head.
“Do you remember how you fell?”
Grandpa Wang had thought that Bei Quan was going to ask about his youngest son, but he didn’t expect the other party to be concerned about himself.
He froze and nodded.
“Remember, I do remember a little.”
Grandpa Wang replied.
“That day I went to play chess at old Zhang’s house, but when I was just outside the courtyard, I felt someone push me from behind…..”
Bei Quan confirmed.
“You think someone pushed you?”
Grandpa Wang, who was stared at by the handsome young man with such serious eyes, somehow actually felt a little embarrassed.
“To be honest….I know, that day I went out of my own yard alone, there was no one else behind me…..how could someone have pushed me…… ”
He lowered his eyes awkwardly.
“But I just feel……like I was pushed hard by someone, and then, fell face down!”
Grandfather Wang, fearing that Bei Quan would not believe him, added eagerly.
“My wife said I had tripped over the threshold! But…but at that time, I was already out of the courtyard, and both my feet were grounded, so how could I still trip over the threshold!”
Bei Quan turned his head in the direction of the courtyard door and had a vague guess in his mind.
Then he continued to ask, “So, when did you wake up this time?”
Grandpa Wang smiled sadly and let out a long sigh.
“I don’t know anything after I fell…..two days, or three days ago I woke up…..”
As the old man spoke, he could not help but start wiping tears.
“My wife told me that……our old son was killed…..Baotai he died……dead ah!”
Then Grandpa Wang cried and said that he did not expect to live to this age, but then his younger son was killed, and to see one’s child die before oneself, why did Yin Cha have to take the wrong person? Damn, it should’ve been himself.
Bei Quan didn’t rush to continue the question, but let the old man cry enough before asking the third question.
“Old man, do you remember who you saw in the days before you fell into a coma?”
“What do you mean?”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Grandpa Wang blinked confusedly, “This …… my wife, and the folks …… I see them every day ah …… ”
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“Szmfqa obg gfijalnfr, oglfcvr, jcv qfbqif lc atf nliijuf. Ljnf sbe wfa jcsbcf firf?”
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“Srqfmljiis ragjcufgr sbe’nf cfnfg rffc yfobgf.”
Xgjcvqj Qjcu kjr raeccfv ys atf defralbc, jcv tlr ojmf jirb ygbeuta bea ofjg jcv qjclm.
Lf ugjyyfv tlr mjcf jcv aglfv ab atlcx obg j ibcu alwf.
“This…..last month I made a trip to the county to buy rice, flour, grain, and oil, but it was my son-in-law and daughter who drove me there……Does this count?”
Qingzhu nodded, “What else?”
“Then there was…..a new teacher at the village elementary school, and I invited her to a meal with a few brothers from the village committee……”
Grandpa Wang continued to ponder.
“Oh, also, there was a person from the county that day, he said he would organize something for the elderly in the village, something with a system, going from door to door to register information etc…”
After Bei Quan, Qingzhu, and A’Liu talked with Grandpa Wang, they asked the Wang family for two relics of Wang Baotai, and then they were about to leave.
When walking out of the courtyard door, Bei Quan deliberately looked carefully at the threshold of the Wang family and soon found the fishy matter.
“It’s really here.”
He squatted in front of the threshold, opened the suitcase, and took out a long, thin black iron needle.
The thin tip of the iron needle poked into the gap in the wood of the threshold, plucked a few times, and picked out a dirty piece of torn paper.
Bei Quan put the piece of paper on a handkerchief and handed it to Qingzhu and A’Liu to see.
The two police officers accompanying him were also very curious and could not help but go over together.
It was a piece of black paper that was only two centimeters long and two centimeters wide, split in half diagonally. Some ghost symbols that were incomprehensible were drawn on the paper with some dark yellow paint.
“This……”
The Younger police officer used to binge watch horror movies when he was a high school student. At this time, he had a flash of inspiration and quickly guessed.
“Isn’t this a head-dropping?”
Bei Quan gave a ‘hmm’ and said, “It’s something like that.”
He paused and then added.
“The old man of the Wang family was brought down by this talisman.”
“But the killer’s target was obviously not the old man.”
Qingzhu on the side said.
“That person just wanted to make the old man seriously ill, and then used that as a reason to lure Wang Baotai home.”
The older police officer seemed a bit unable to accept these explanations, staring at the tattered black talisman, his face showed a hesitant expression.
“But…why did the killer beat around the bush like this?”
After asking, he tapped his head again and said to himself.
“Right, of course, because it is better to do it on the road!”
Bei Quan smiled and nodded once.
“So, the identity of the murderer is not too hard to find.”
He said to the two officers.
“Check the surveillance of the long-distance bus once again, and observe who was in the same car with Wang Baotai.”
—————————–
August 7, Saturday, 6:35 pm.
Wei Fuyuan and Jiang Nan’an were sitting in the living room of the three-story building, eating the dinner brought by Su Lan’s elder sister.
The young couple, Cai Mingjian and Su Lan sat opposite to them. Although they were also eating, they looked like they didn’t know how to swallow the food.
In the early hours of the morning, Wei Fuyuan and Jiang Nan’an chased and lost the shadow, so they could only return to the home of Cai Mingjian and Su Lan.
The couple naturally asked them repeatedly about what had happened.
Wei Fuyuan and Jiang Nan’an could only temporarily change their rhetoric, saying that their current company was of a special nature, and they often received some strange commissions, including dealing with some unnatural events.
Although they were not ‘professionals’, they had worked in the company for a long time, and they had been influenced by it and more or less knew how to deal with it.
“And Xiao Wei even has Yin and Yang eyes!”
Jiang Nan’an slapped Wei Fuyuan on the back and laughed.
“Last night he found something in your room, so we chased after him.”
Cai Mingjian was obviously not convinced right away.
“But what did you guys…..do to catch it?”
“Hai!”
Jiang Nan’an simply took out the Great Five Emperor Coins tied with a red string from his pocket.
“Before I went out, I brought some copper coins from the company that can ward off evil spirits, and I wanted to try it out!”
Su Lan asked again.
“But…..you jumped from the second floor…..”
Her subtext was, “Aren’t you both too good at it?”
“Hey Xiao Lan, did you forget? I used to practice kung fu!”
With that, Jiang Nan’an stabbed Wei Fuyuan with his elbow, “Look at his figure, you can obviously see he has practiced, right? In fact, this kid is still practicing Muay Thai and Krav Maga, it’s no biggie to simply flip down a window!”
Cai Mingjian and Su lan looked at each other and reluctantly accepted Jiang Nan’an’s statement.
“In that case…..”
Su Lan timidly looked at Wei Fuyuan.
“You, you did see that..that…..earlier, right?”
Wei Fuyuan nodded, “Mn. I did see it.”
In order to gain the trust of the two, Wei Fuyuan smoothly added in more detail.
He gestured with his hand on his waist.
“A humanoid black shadow, almost this tall, having the size of a child, with scarlet eyes…..”
Wei Fuyuan abruptly paused, looked at Su Lan, and slowly said.
“It was squatting on the bedside table, huddled into a ball, staring down at you.”
Su Lan: “Ahhh!!!”
The girl let out a scream and jumped into her husband’s arms, her whole body shaking like a leaf.
Cai Mingjian was also terrified.
Wei Fuyuan’s description was too specific, even he, who had never seen the dark shadow could instantly conjure up that horrifying image in his mind, the thought that every day after they fell asleep there would be such a shadow crouching at the end of their bed or in a corner of the room, just waiting for the right time to kill them……
“This, this–”
Cai Mingjian felt like crying too.
“We, what should we do!?”
Jiang Nan’an gave Wei Fuyuan’s wit a hundred appraisals in his heart.
Seeing that the fire was almost ready, he struck while the iron was hot.
“I’m afraid that thing is still going to harm Xiao Lan.”
Jiang Nan’an put on a worried look– in fact, he did worry about his ex-girlfriend, “Since Xiao Wei is able to see it, why don’t we stay here for two more days so that when it appears, we can drive it away in time!”
In this way, Wei Fuyuan and Jiang Nan’an were demoted from ‘guests’ to ‘bodyguards’ and stayed in Cai Mingjian’s and Su Lan’s small house.
The whole day passed by peacefully, and the shadow never reappeared even once last night.
Hearing that the previous night’s ritual didn’t work, Su Lan was like a frightened bird at first, restless and severely anxious.
Because she was afraid that something would happen when she went to the toilet alone, she didn’t even dare to take a sip of water.
Jiang Nan’an looked distressed, and in order to calm her, he could only give a copper coin to carry with her, saying it can ward off evil spirits.
However, the Great Five Emperor Coins given to them by Bei Quan was a specially processed magic tool, which was on a completely different level from the crap one available for 9.9¥ on Pinduoduo.Comrade Xiao Jiang was afraid that the copper coin would have a strong effect on exorcism of evil spirits, but he could only let Su Lan take it with her, letting her feel at ease and think that the dark shadow wouldn’t dare to return now.
Thus, the one he gave to Su Lan was a ‘damaged product’ that he threw on the dark shadow last night and the Yang Qi was washed away by its Yin Qi and it posed only as a psychological comfort, but actually had no use.
Sure enough, after getting the coin, Su Lan’s spirit more or less improved, and she also began to drink water and eat.
Cai Mingjian and Su Lan waited anxiously for a day. Not only did they not encounter any accidents, but the girl didn’t even ‘see’ the slightest abnormality. As a result, her attitude towards them became more polite.
“This…Xiao Jiang, Xiao Wei…”
At the table, Cai Mingjian deliberately opened a bottle of very expensive champagne and poured a glass for each of their two distinguished guests.
“I remember your company can help people deal with ‘that kind of thing’.”
He mouthed ‘ghosts’.
“I wonder if….. you could help us?”
Thanks for the chapter!
They are there for that!
Thank you for your translation 🍵