Chapter 5 Chapter 4: Exploring the Tomb at Night

It was already late at night when he left Mai Qinghe's dormitory. 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 submit: "I would rather go to jail than go to that horrible place again." If I hadn't drunk too much last time, I wouldn't have followed Brother Shu and the others down that damned path. If I went with you again, I would definitely have been killed by Tingyue like Brother Shu." In fact, we can't arrest him yet, although he has admitted to assisting Fang Shu in killing Shen Tingyue and burying the deceased's body.But these are all his own words, and there is no evidence to support his confession.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 college.But given his current situation, he shouldn't be running around.After all, in his eyes, there is danger anywhere, and the safest thing is his own bed.

After leaving the college, according to Mai Qinghe's description, we walked along 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 are not only tall, but also have lush branches and leaves, which block the already weak light, and you can hardly see your fingers when you step into the forest.Fortunately, we brought flashlights, otherwise we would have to enter this eerie place in the dark. With the help of the light of the flashlight, I found a small plaque in the banyan forest. Although the paint has fallen off a lot, I can still make out the words "Chen's Cemetery" written on the plaque.I think this is what we're looking for.

Just as I was about to enter the cemetery, Zhen Zhen let out a terrified scream, and hid behind me, pulling my clothes and shaking uncontrollably.I asked her what she saw, and she buried her head on my back, pointed to a banyan tree, and said in a trembling voice, "There is something floating around on the tree." I took a picture of the tree with a flashlight, and suddenly panicked, and almost didn't cry out.There were no ethereal ghosts on the tree, only a cat, but it was not an ordinary cat, but a dried cat corpse. I checked for a while and found that there was more than one dead cat, and there were two or three dead cats hanging from each of the banyan trees on both sides of the entrance to the cemetery.These cat corpses are all hung from trees with red ropes around their necks, which feels like hanging themselves collectively.Although it was just a cat's corpse, it looked horrifying as it swayed in the desolate evening wind, and it was in a weird place like the entrance to the cemetery.

"Who is so cruel to kill so many cats, what a pervert!" Zhen Zhen scolded timidly. I shook my head: "I don't think it has anything to do with being perverted or not. These cat corpses have been air-dried and should have been hung for many years. If it was just a prank, someone would have untied them long ago. It is said that dead cats were hung from trees. It will bring bad luck, and there are so many cat corpses hanging at the entrance of the cemetery, it is impossible for people living nearby to turn a blind eye. Unless..." "Unless what?" "Unless the owner of the cemetery, or a nearby resident hangs it up."

"Why did they do this? Isn't it disgusting?" Zhen Zhen showed a look of disgust. "Maybe it's some kind of ritual! This place is remote, so it's not unusual to have some unique customs." After accepting the "welcome" of dozens of cat corpses lined up, we walked into the mysterious Chen's cemetery with anxiety. 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 forests surround the entire cemetery, not only blocking most of the light, but also significantly reducing the temperature.Under the light of the flashlight, behind every banyan tree there seems to be an evil ghost from the depths of hell. From time to time, a ferocious face pokes out from behind the tree, spying on our every move.

Weeds are overgrown in the huge cemetery, and the tombstones are looming among the knee-length weeds, like greedy hungry ghosts, waiting to sneak up on the lost travelers who break into the cemetery, in order to fill the never-ending appetite 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 netherworld. Zhen Zhen shivered suddenly, she didn't know whether it was because of the cold or fear, maybe she also felt that there was something hidden in the darkness. "Do you feel strange?" I asked Zhen Zhen.

"What's so strange?" She looked around in the darkness with an unnatural expression on her face. "Sacrificing ancestors is a very important thing, especially in rural areas. Tomb-sweeping Day is as important as Spring Festival. However, don't you find it strange that this cemetery has been abandoned like this?" "What's so strange, maybe the descendants of these ancestors have gone out to work and don't have time to come back to worship their ancestors." Although she was trying to be brave, her body trembled slightly, and she approached me unconsciously.

"Impossible, look..." I moved the flashlight and took a look at the tombstones around me. "This is a family cemetery. Based on the number of tombstones, there are dozens if not hundreds of descendants of this family. Most of the young labor force has gone out to work, and the old people who stay will definitely come to pay respects on a regular basis.” "Probably because of demolition and other reasons, the whole family has moved away." She tugged on my clothes intentionally or unintentionally. "Even if the descendants relocate, it is impossible not to come back to pay homage to the ancestors for a long time!" I shook my head, "Filial piety is the first of all good deeds, and worshiping ancestors is the most important form of expression of filial piety. Young people may You may think it’s nothing, but the older generation attaches great importance to it. Even if you move to a far away place, you will come back to worship your ancestors at least every three to five years! But judging from the situation here, at least eight or ten years No one took care of it."

I walked to a tombstone with doubts and brushed away the weeds around, hoping to get clues to solve the doubts from the inscriptions.However, before the inscription can be seen clearly, a new question arises—there is a big pit behind the tombstone. "Has the owner of the tomb been buried yet?" Zhen Zhen asked. I looked at the tombstone, and it was written 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 is full of weeds, obviously it is not newly dug.Then I checked the surrounding tombs, and found that all the tombs in the cemetery were empty, with only tombstones and pits overgrown with weeds.

Maybe the long silence made Zhen Zhen feel scared, so she asked again: "Are these empty graves that haven't come yet to be buried?" "Impossible." After thinking for a while, I explained: "There is a tomb before the monument. Anyone who is engaged in the funeral industry knows that the tombstone must be erected after the owner of the grave 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 bodies, how do you know these things." Zhen Zhen's gaze swept over the surrounding graves, her face immediately turned pale, as if there were countless wandering ghosts hidden in each grave.

I shrugged and said, "All these things were told to me by fleeting time, but he also knows something about corpses. He once told me before that some descendants would visit the tomb owner in order to choose an auspicious day." The monument is erected two or three years after the burial, but it is absolutely not possible to erect the monument first and then bury it." "So, what's the matter with the empty tomb here?" "It must be dug up after the burial." "Why do you want to do this?" "Hard to say." I examine each grave carefully.According to the inscriptions, the erection time of these tombs ranged from more than ten years at the shortest to 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 be dug at the same time, and the excavation was very hasty. "How do you know that the excavation is in a hurry?" Zhen Zhen frowned and asked. "It's not because of these tombstones." I went to a cemetery and explained to her, "The tombstones are 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 he is a black household, that is, a wandering ghost. Moreover, empty tombs with monuments but no owners will be occupied by wandering spirits and wild ghosts, and they will also disturb the descendants of the grave owner." "Could it be that all descendants of the Chen family have died, so no one takes care of this cemetery?" I replied angrily: "If they are all dead, who else will dig the grave?" "If the descendants of the Chen family dig the grave, it is impossible not to dispose of these tombstones!" Her assumption is not completely unreasonable. If the descendants of the Chen family were digging the grave, they would definitely remove the tombstone as well.If it's not a descendant of the Chen family, what's the point of digging up the graves of their ancestors?This is just a family cemetery for ordinary people, and there may not be valuable funeral objects. What the hell is going on here? Although this strange phenomenon makes me curious, 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 no grass grew, and Shen Tingyue's body was buried in the open space. We walked through the messy grave pits to the depths of the cemetery, and there was indeed an open space without grass.However, we did not find Shen Tingyue's body in the open space, only a shallow human-shaped pit that made the scalp tingle. "What's going on?" Zhen Zhen looked at the shallow pit in front of her, her body trembling uncontrollably. I checked the condition of the shallow pit carefully and found that the soil was loose and should have been dug recently, but it didn't look like it was dug from the outside with tools.Judging from the position of the soil around the pit, the soil seems to have turned outward from the shallow pit. A bone-piercing chill made me shiver unconsciously, and a terrifying image immediately appeared in my mind-loose soil flew outward, and a rotten arm shot out from under the soil.The tranquility of the cemetery disappeared instantly, replaced by groans from hell.The hair was disheveled, and the hideous corpse slowly crawled out from under the soil, the red eyes flashed with an angry and fierce light... Did Shen Tingyue cheat? Just when I was confused by the facts in front of me, Zhenzhen quietly pulled my clothes, I asked her what was the matter, her red lips trembled, she seemed to want to speak, but she couldn’t speak, 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 were a pair of eyes hiding beside the tall banyan tree, and its owner was a female figure with loose long hair, spying on our every move in the dark. Could it be...Shen Tingyue? The other party has obviously noticed that we found her existence, turned around and fled outside in a hurry. This might be a key clue, of course I couldn't let her slip away under my nose, so I immediately dragged Zhenzhen to catch up. The figure in front moved very fast, it felt like "floating" instead of running, and the other person seemed to be very familiar with the surrounding terrain, even a guy with well-developed limbs like Zhen Zhen had a hard time chasing him, let alone me.Although I am also a criminal police officer at any rate, I just pass the physical fitness test in vain every time. After chasing me for a while, I can't bear it anymore, and my pace can't help but slow down.Seeing that there was a considerable distance between her and the other party, Zhen Zhen became anxious and pulled me to catch up.However, the opponent's speed is too fast, if this continues, sooner or later he will be thrown off by the opponent.So I told Zhenzhen to leave me alone and catch up first. However, Zhen Zhen showed embarrassment: "What if she is a female ghost?" Longevity God, what time is it, still afraid of this and that! 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 purpose does she have? Regardless of the Viagra she sells in her gourd, or Tetramine, we can't let her go easily.Strolling around in the deserted cemetery in the middle of the night, even if she wasn't Shen Tingyue, there must be something wrong with her, and it is most likely related to this case.So I regained my breath a little bit, and continued to catch up with Zhenzhen. The other party was floating about 100 meters in front of us like a ghost. No matter how hard we chased, we still couldn't close the distance.After chasing for about ten minutes, we came to a huge fish pond. The area of ​​the fish pond is about five acres. The water in the pond 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 is very peaceful here, I always feel a mysterious aura, and I can't tell what is wrong.Fortunately, apart from the ghostly figure floating in front of us, we didn't encounter any strange things here. After bypassing the fish pond, the ghostly figure led us into a winding field road, and then into a quiet village.We followed her in the narrow alley with nine twists and eighteen turns, and we were thrown away by her after a while. "It's strange, why is it missing?" Zhen Zhen looked around blankly, her face gradually turned pale, "Should we really see a ghost?" When we couldn't keep up with her pace just now, she would slow down and even stop to wait for us.But at this time, there was no sign of it, and it seemed that it was deliberately attracting us here.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 nearby with Zhenzhen, hoping to find valuable clues. It was already past two o'clock 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, but didn't find the ghostly figure that was suspected to be Shen Tingyue, but it was not in vain, because we found that the lights of the Security Council were still on, and there seemed to be someone on duty. Perhaps, we can obtain some valuable information at the Security Council.