Chapter 20 Chapter 19 Painted Skin

I comforted Li Xiuzhu with nonsense. Seeing her bewildered face, I thought she was about to cry, but she said she had discovered a strange thing and wanted to invite me to take a look.I looked at Zhao Shuai and Liao's second son in the inner room. Li Xiuzhu knew that I wanted to find someone to go with me, so she immediately said that she only wanted me to go alone.Zhao Shuai and Liao Lao Er were happy to have a leisure time, so they didn't care to join in the fun, they just told me to go early and come back early. After leaving the old Wang's house, a few white lights flashed in the dark sky from time to time, but the thunder could no longer be heard.Li Xiuzhu was full of thoughts, and I picked out some encouraging words to say along the way, except for these words, I don't know what else can help Li Xiuzhu.Li Xiuzhu smiled at me wearily, she said that you don't have to bother so much, she can survive it, and it's not like she has never seen a big wind and a big wave.I stared blankly at Li Xiuzhu, this woman is really strong, if she were an ordinary woman, she would have committed suicide long ago.

There was an explosion in the village, and even the children couldn't help but peek at it. The women didn't bother to take care of their children, and they wanted to find out what happened.It seemed that Li Xiuzhu didn't want others to know her whereabouts, so she deliberately avoided the crowd, walked around the village, and entered the house through the back door of Li's house.The moon was dark and the wind was high. A woman and a man sneaked into the house through the back door. Could it be that she wanted to do something scandalous?I couldn't help thinking wildly, although Li Xiuzhu used to be a young lady, she never touched me, so she really had something important to do.

After entering the door, Li Xiuzhu went to the front door to make sure no one was around, and then went back to the back room.There is a tree coffin in the back room. In the narrow space, I always feel that the dead in the tree coffin will jump out.Li Xiuzhu turned on the light, and I was about to ask her what happened, but she suddenly opened the tree coffin.The tree coffin is actually a thick tree trunk. Cut it open and put the dead inside. Two horizontal grids are cut out inside to fix the dead. It means that the dead can rest in the ground and don’t go back to the stockade to eat people. It is the culture of the Ni people.

Seeing Li Xiuzhu open the closed tree coffin, I was horrified. Isn't the tree coffin filled with her mother? Could it be that Li's mother cheated on the corpse?Li Xiuzhu didn't fully open the tree coffin. She probably knew it was scary, so she apologized and told me not to be afraid.I pretended to be calm, but in my heart I yelled for help. Unfortunately, Li Xiuzhu didn't see it, and really thought I was calm.Seeing that I didn't resist, Li Xiuzhu slowly opened the tree coffin, and the strange thing she said was also presented before my eyes. In fact, before this, I have seen dead people several times, so I know that the appearance of dead people is different from that of living people.However, when I saw Mother Li's face, I was still shocked.Li's mother had Dao Le marks on her neck, which were more obvious after death, so she may have died of suffocation.The face of the person who died of suffocation turned purple. The purple color is close to that of an overripe eggplant, which makes people feel chills when they look at it.This kind of death is definitely not a natural death, it is definitely a homicide, but this should not be a strange thing, so I looked at Li Xiuzhu in a daze, meaning to ask what she wanted me to do here.

"I'm the only one who knows about this matter now, and I still can't make up my mind whether to tell other people, so I have to ask you. I don't trust other people." Li Xiuzhu said seriously. "What the hell is that? Is there something wrong with my aunt?" I asked suspiciously. "That's right." Li Xiuzhu bit her lip, bent over and lifted Mother Li who was lying in the tree coffin, and then took off Mother Li's clothes. I was at a loss as to what Li Xiuzhu was doing, why she brought me to her house in the middle of the night and took off her mother's clothes.This is really disrespectful to the deceased. How could I dare to look at the **** of my ancestors, and then turn my head away with a blushing face.Li Xiuzhu realized that there was something wrong with her behavior, so she explained that after her mother was picked up from the latrine, she cleaned her mother's body by herself.Of course, even if it is not picked up from the latrine, the dead body must be washed before it can be put into the coffin.Because Li's mother picked it up from the latrine, it stinks to the sky. Others made excuses to be busy, so Li Xiuzhu had to do it herself.

When Li Xiuzhu said this, she asked me to walk behind her: "Isn't it a bit strange for you to see my mother's back shoulder?" I finally understood what Li Xiuzhu meant. It turned out that I had misunderstood her, so I walked around behind her to see how strange the strange things she said were.Even though I was mentally prepared, my eyes widened when I saw Mother Li's back shoulder.There is a strange totem on the left and right sides of Mother Li's back shoulder. The totems are mainly red and green, and this totem is the ghost-expelling totem on the gate of the village.Li Xiuzhu pulled Mother Li's clothes down again, and it turned out that not only the back shoulders, but her back was full of these totems.Because the totems are too dense and the colors are so dazzling, I can't help but feel sick when I see it.

"These seem to be painted on. I can't wash them off, and I dare not tell the people in the village." Li Xiuzhu put on clothes for Li Mu again, and she said worriedly, "You know, the people in the village are very Superstition, this kind of totem is to drive away ghosts. They will think that my mother has become a ghost, so there will be a totem painted on her, and she will be burned when the time comes." Li Xiuzhu has been in Beijing for several years, but her concept has not completely changed. She still thinks that after death, people should go to the earth for safety, and they cannot be reincarnated after being burned to ashes.I know Li Xiuzhu's worry, so it's no wonder she came to me instead of anyone else.However, this kind of totem will not be produced automatically, and it is impossible for Mother Li to have someone draw something on her body. Could it be that it was painted after her death.

In the past, I read some detective novels in college. Some perverted killers like to engage in art. After killing, they either dismembered or collected the corpses.I looked at the tree coffin in a daze, thinking that the murderer who killed Li's mother would have painted it, but wasn't Li's father who killed Li's mother? Could he know how to draw with his rough appearance?Moreover, why do you want to paint on the corpse after the murder? Is it really the pursuit of perverted art, or is there another reason.Suddenly, I remembered the big lock lost by the Li family. I always felt that it had something to do with Huapi, but I couldn't think of any connection for a while.

Li Xiuzhu put the coffin on the tree and asked me what I thought. She thought I was a scholar, well-informed, and able to give an answer.However, Li Xiuzhu didn't know that there were many things in the world that couldn't be explained by books.I was hesitating about how to answer, but I remembered that the paint on the gate of the village was green and red. Could it be that the paint on Mother Li was those paints.Manlong Village is very remote, and things like paint have to be bought in the county town, so they are very precious to the people in the village.Hu Jie also said before his death that those paints were specially bought, and no one else in the village had them.

I said something to Li Xiuzhu, and Li Xiuzhu was taken aback for a while, and at the end, people who boasted about going to college are different.But I felt very guilty. I came to Menghai with her and did nothing to help. I could only watch her suffer.I thought it was too late and it was inconvenient to stay any longer, so I said goodbye to Li Xiuzhu.Before leaving, I told Li Xiuzhu not to tell about Li's mother being painted. People in the mountains are superstitious, and if people find out, it may cause unnecessary trouble. After I left through the back door of Li's house, I tiptoed back to Old Wang's house, for fear of being misunderstood that Li Xiuzhu had something unclean with me.The village was still quiet, and everyone was very angry. The old man Hu Jie was always kind to others, even if he killed others, he shouldn't be killed.However, they still couldn't argue about the murderer, they all thought it was Father Li, a monster, or something else.Two people died in a row, and so many strange things happened, I gradually doubted whether it was right to come to Menghai.

Liao Er was packing his luggage in the room. Although he said he would sleep on the floor during the day, he had already sat on the bed.Lao Wang probably missed his son too much, so he didn't let Liao's second son sleep in that vacant room, and Zhao Shuai was kicked out when he was about to sleep.In comparison, I was too bad, because after my father died, I disposed of the house and went to Beijing.Seeing that I was back, Liao's second son asked Li Xiuzhu why she was looking for me. Could it be that she was really lonely. "Fuck you, he really has something to do, why are you like Zhao Shuai, thinking about these things all day long." I sat down on the bed. Liao Lao Er pulled up the luggage bag, threw it in a corner, and said to me: "What is that, why is it so mysterious?" Because Liao's second child is not from the village, and he is a grasshopper on the same rope as us, so I told the story of Li's mother's painting in full detail.Liao Er Er had lived for a long time and had seen many strange things. After hearing this, he frowned and stroked his beard without saying a word.I saw that Liao Lao Er had something in his stomach, so I asked him if he had guessed something, and let him fart quickly.The second brother Liao sighed, he said he didn't know what was going on, I'm afraid the village is really like what Mu Qingxiang said, something big is going to happen, let's find the pumpkin head tribute tea as soon as possible, and then run away. I was speechless for a while, if something big happened to the village, it wouldn't be an earthquake.The second brother Liao pondered for a moment and told me: "Old man Li definitely didn't kill his wife. He is not a dangerous person, so I am relieved that you are chasing someone today. Who would have thought that you would run into a tiger and then that woman! Kill Li Mother and old man Hu must be the same person, if I'm not wrong, old man Hu knew that old man Li was not the murderer, and he probably locked old man Li to protect him." I didn't think too deeply about it. Liao Er Er was really cunning. He continued, "Don't even think about it. Old man Hu is a man of culture. Would he know that he will send the murderer out of the village immediately, so he won't be afraid that the murderer will make trouble again? Old man Hu is sure Understand the law! At that time, when I heard you talking about this, I guessed that old man Hu was trying to protect old man Li, and then persuaded the real murderer to surrender. But he failed, and his life was involved. This old man is really confused .” I suddenly realized, nodded suddenly, and praised what Liao Laoer said made sense, why didn't I think of this level.However, this cannot completely explain the case clearly, so I asked again: "Then how did the old man Hu Jie hang on the gate of the village? You must know that the gate of the village has just been painted, the ground has just been paved with cement, and the beams of the gate are high. Four or five meters, how can ordinary humans do this without leaving any traces." Sitting cross-legged, Liao said, "You're thinking in the wrong direction! Don't think about how he did it, but why he did it?" "Why?" I asked blankly. "I said why are you so stupid at this time, of course it is to escape the crime! You deliberately made it look like humans can't do it, everyone will naturally think that it was not done by humans, and the direction to find the real culprit will be wrong. I haven't read it It is unlikely that the person who wrote the book would have thought of this, so it is likely that a more educated person did it." Liao Lao Er deduced. At this moment, I looked at Liao Lao Er with admiration. I didn't expect his analysis to be so logical that there was still a little truth in it.There are not many educated people in the village who have read books. As long as they ask seriously, it is easy to circle the suspect.It was late at night, and I was so sleepy that I yawned, and a few dry thunders sounded again, and I wanted to fall asleep.But he suddenly felt strange, why Zhao Shuai had disappeared after returning to Old Wang's house for so long.Liao Er patted his head and said that Zhao Shuai went out to find me just now, and he was worried that I would be molested by Li Xiuzhu. So much time has passed, and the Manlong Village is so small, even if it goes around ten times, it should be back.I remembered that Zhao Shuai was once pushed down the mountain stream, and I felt ominous from the bottom of my heart. Maybe something happened to that bastard.Liao's second son also realized that something was wrong, so he put on his clothes and ran out of Lao Wang's house with me, and the two crashed into the darkness.Sure enough, we ran a few steps in the stockade, and Xiao Hei walked over with Zhao Shuai who was unconscious.Xiao Hei said that he found Zhao Shuai being knocked out on the road, and happened to help him back when he found out. The back of Zhao Shuai's head was bleeding, and he yelled in a daze not to run or something. He probably realized that someone was about to commit murder.I called Zhao Shuai a few times, but he also answered in a whiny voice, unable to understand what he was talking about at all.When Xiao Hei and we helped Zhao Shuai back to Lao Wang's house, Xiao Hei stayed for a while and then left. Unfortunately, he didn't see the murderer, only heard the sound of someone running away.While applying medicine to Zhao Shuai, I thought about who was going to kill Zhao Shuai. Today is the second time I want to kill him.When I was in the Yaozhai, I thought it was the monsters in the Yaozhai who did it, but now it seems that it is not that simple. Liao Er thought I was clumsy, so he snatched the powder and helped Zhao Shuai to apply the medicine.I stood at the side, my mind full of thoughts, Zhao Shuai came to Manlong Village for the first time, it is impossible to have enemies.Could it be that Zhao Shuai accidentally discovered who the murderer was, but he hadn't noticed yet.Apart from this reason, I can't think of any other reasons. In order to protect himself, the murderer had to kill Zhao Shuai repeatedly. However, I have been with Zhao Shuai all the time, and I have never been separated in sleep and shit. I should be able to see what Zhao Shuai saw, so why did the murderer only target Zhao Shuai?