Chapter 20 Chapter Four: The Legend of the Mirror Ghost

"You suspect that this teacher is the murderer who killed the little girl!" the boss said without hesitation. I nodded and said, "According to the confession of the proprietress and the nearby shopkeepers, the street was very deserted at that time. Except for this teacher, no other pedestrians passed by. The time when Cai Shaomeng left the back hall of his house was about 7:30. The proprietress It was found that the time of her accident was about 7:35, which means that the murderer took less than five minutes to commit the crime. If she really died of homicide, then the murderer could only be the teacher. Because if the murderer After that, he fled the scene in a hurry, which will definitely attract the attention of people in nearby shops."

"Well, since you're so convincing, I'll just believe you. If you fail to dig out this so-called cult, I won't let you go." The boss waved me away with a wave of his hand. Zhen Zhen and I set off by car to investigate the cult organization suspected of being involved in the deaths of eight children surnamed Cai.Our destination was two adjacent villages—Wang Village and Liang Village, but instead of going directly to the villages, we first went to the county police station to find out about the situation of the other seven children. Wang Da, a policeman on duty at the county police station, was at a loss for our request to consult relevant files.He told us that although several children died in a row, they all died of accidents, but they just happened to happen together. He didn't understand why we still need to investigate.Although he felt that our investigation into the causes of the deaths of these seven children was superfluous, he was very cooperative in helping us find relevant files.

According to the records in the file, fourteen days before Cai Shaomeng's accident, the five sisters and brothers of the Cai family in Wangcun did not return all night. His father Cai Quan reported to the police station the next day. The police on duty refused to accept the case on the grounds that the missing time did not exceed 24 hours. .On the third day, Cai Quan reported the case again, but the police on duty only made a record, but still did not file a case.It was not until the fourth day that Cai Quan went to the police station for the third time to file a case, but no police officers were sent to search for the missing Cai family five siblings.

On the same day, villagers in Wang Village found the bodies of five children floating on the water in a fish pond near the village's primary school. After salvage, it was confirmed that they were the fifth siblings of the Cai family who had been missing for four days. On the third day after the Wangcun children disappeared, that is, 12 days before Cai Shaomeng's accident, Cai Fen and Cai Fang, sisters of the Cai family in Liangcun, were found floating in a reservoir not far from their residence.The police who arrived at the scene did not find anything special, thinking that they just stumbled and fell into the reservoir, so they only made a simple record and did not file a case for investigation.

These records are almost the same as what Uncle Qingsheng said, but they are a little more detailed.After reading the files, Zhenzhen became furious and asked why Cai Quan had not filed a case for the previous two reports! To this question, Wang Da just responded lightly: "The wild children in the countryside don't run around every day. If someone loses a child and asks us to find it, then we don't even have time to sleep." "How can you say that, we are paid by taxpayers, so we can be so perfunctory. If the father of the child reports the crime for the first time, you should immediately send the police to find these children, and they may be fine! "Zhen Zhen glared at Wang Da, with a posture of baring his teeth and claws, which made the latter back unconsciously in fright.

I was afraid that she would beat him up, so I quickly grabbed her. "You must have never been at the grassroots level, so you don't know the situation. Although it is said that you can report a missing person within 24 hours, the police station usually delays it for ten and a half months, or even refuses to file a case." Wang Da muttered softly, as if it was too late to file a case. A great gift to Cai Quantian. "Why?" Zhen Zhen roared at him, if I hadn't pulled her, she would have rushed over and kicked him. "Isn't it to increase the rate of solving cases..." Wang Da timidly explained: "Cases like disappearance are usually thankless. Even if all the police force is used, it may not be possible to find the person back. If the person is not found, the case cannot be closed. Failing to close cases will naturally lower the detection rate.”

When he said this, Zhenzhen was about to get into trouble again. I pulled her hard and whispered in her ear: "Most of the grassroots police stations are like this, and many policemen say, 'Do less and make less mistakes, it's not bad if you don't do it' In principle. When I was in the Anti-Pickpocket Squad, I encountered similar situations every day. After the owner’s property was stolen, if the thief could not be caught on the spot, even if he went to the police station to report the crime, the police officers on duty would just casually Make a record to perfunctory the owner, and will not file a case at all.”

"It's no wonder the law and order is so bad now!" Zhen Zhen gave me a vicious look, as if the bad law and order were caused by me alone. In this regard, I can only show my helplessness. After leaving the county police station, we went to Liangcun, hoping to learn about the situation of the Cai sisters on the day of their accident from their parents.But when we arrived, we found that it seemed that we had arrived at the wrong time. In the chaotic hall, there was an oppressive atmosphere. A man and a woman sat in two opposite corners. They were Cai Guangyao and Liang Juan, the parents of the Cai sisters.At this moment, Liang Juan seems to be still immersed in the pain of losing her beloved daughter, staring blankly at her daughter's textbooks and awards, as if looking for the breath left by her daughter.While Cai Guangyao was drinking Erguotou, he pointed at his wife and cursed, blaming her for not taking good care of his daughter.

Cai Guangyao was so dizzy from drinking that it would be a waste of time to ask him questions, so I plan to focus on Liang Juan.However, Liang Juan's mental state is not very good, she just muttered to herself that her two daughters are very good-looking and sensible, especially her elder sister Cai Fen, who never needs her to worry about and often takes the first place in her studies. When I asked about the situation on the day of the incident, she suddenly held my hand and said in a slightly nervous tone: "My sister has always been very sensible, and I will never take my sister to play in dangerous places, absolutely not, absolutely ..."

"Is that cistern dangerous?" Zhen Zhen asked. Liang Juan replied nervously: "Last year, a pig fell into it and drowned. My sister also knew about it, and she would never take her sister there to play." Liang Juan told us a lot of things about the Cai sisters in nonsense, but it didn't seem to be directly related to their deaths.Moreover, her mental state is getting worse and worse, and I'm afraid she won't be able to ask anything if she continues to ask, so we have to leave first. Later, we came to Wang Village and found Cai Quan who was doing farm work in the field.Unlike Cai Guangyao and his wife, he is still immersed in the grief of losing his children, but when I mention his children, he can't help but feel sad, the corners of his mouth tremble, and he mutters in frustration: "If the hidden mirror ghost I want to find a maid, I just want those three stinky girls to go there, how can I even hook up with the fourth and youngest..."

"Hidden mirror ghost? What is a hidden mirror ghost? Does it have something to do with the death of your five children?" Zhen Zhen asked in surprise. "The hidden mirror ghost is a terrible evil ghost. Everyone in our village is very afraid of her..." Cai Quan sat on the ground beside the field, smoking a hookah while holding a bamboo tube, and told us a terrible story that spread in Wangcun. legend.His narration was very disorganized and mixed with a lot of dialect slang, but I could barely understand it.The legend he narrated is roughly like this—— This should have happened before liberation. At that time, there was a landlord named Wang Shou. Because he was very rich and almost all the farmland in Wang Village belonged to him, he naturally became the village head. He has a son named Wang Qing, relying on his father's wealth, often domineering in the village, the villagers are very afraid of him.Maybe he did too many bad things. One night after drinking flower wine, he fell into a fish pond and drowned when he returned home.When he died, he hadn't begged for a wife. According to the customs at the time, he was not considered an adult if he didn't marry him, and he couldn't have a tomb and monument after he died. Although Wang Shou had several wives and concubines, he only had one son, Wang Qing. Of course, he couldn't die without a tombstone.So he went to the sorceress for help and arranged a ghost marriage for his son. (Zhen Zhen asked: "What does Mingqin mean?") Ghost kiss is to arrange a blind date for the dead. The witch will ask the family members of both parties to put their spirit cards in an empty room, let them get along quietly for a while, and then ask them if they would like to be a ghost couple.If both parties are willing, then arrange a ghost marriage for them, and if not, arrange another ghost marriage. Wang Shou is rich and powerful, so it is not difficult to find a ghost daughter-in-law, as long as he asks, let alone a ghost daughter-in-law, even if he wants to find a working daughter-in-law, there are people rushing to be her.However, although many people were willing to establish a relationship with his in-laws, they all returned disappointed.The reason is that every time the sorceress asked Wang Qing's wishes, he would be furious at the sorceress, scolding the sorceress for finding some vulgar fans to perfuse him. The sorceress was wronged enough. Not only did she bring all the young girls who died in the past three years to Wang Qing, but she even brought several living girls, but Wang Qing didn't like any of them. The son has not been able to pick a ghost daughter-in-law he likes for a long time, so naturally Wang Shou will not give the witch a good face.The sorceress was so confused that she had no choice but to ask Wang Qing what kind of daughter-in-law he wanted.Wang Qing said that the sorceress brought either maids or maids from peasant families, all of them were from humble backgrounds, and they were not worthy of the young master of a rich family like him.This time the sorceress finally understood what he meant, so she asked around where the daughter of a wealthy family died early. After several inquiries, the sorceress finally found out that a wealthy family named Cai in the county had two daughters. The youngest daughter died before she was sixteen because of her infirmity since she was a child. destination.However, the Cai family is a big family in the county after all, Master Cai is not willing to go to a rural place like Wang Village. In order to find a suitable ghost daughter-in-law for his son, Wang Shou took his son's spirit card and went to the county town with the sorceress to visit Master Cai and arrange for a ghost marriage. Although Mr. Cai didn't want to run to the countryside, he wasn't the kind of haughty white-eyed wolf, and he was quite polite to Wang Shou, a small landlord who came from the countryside.The two put the spirit cards of their children in the room respectively, and went to the living room to drink tea and chat together, waiting for the sorceress to tell them the result of the ghost marriage. Originally, no matter what the outcome of the dark marriage is, whether the two parties are willing or unwilling, they will live in peace, and at best it will be a waste of time.However, out of curiosity, Master Cai's eldest daughter wanted to know what kind of person her younger sister's dark relative was, so she sneaked out of the room where her younger sister and Wang Qingming were married, and peeked inside through the crack of the door. Something went wrong when she saw it! After Mingqin came back, the sorceress told Wang Shou that although Wang Qing didn't like the second lady of the Cai family, he liked the eldest lady of the Cai family, and she also said that she would only marry her. The blue-headed ghost forgets.Wang Shou is now in a difficult situation. If his son is interested in the daughter of a poor family, then no matter whether the other party is dead or alive, he will have a way to arrange this marriage for his son.However, the son turned out to be the eldest daughter of the Cai family. ("Qingtougui" refers to a male ghost who has normal fertility, but has never had sex with a woman, and died before the end of his life. According to legend, Qingtougui's status in the underworld is extremely low, not only will he be bullied by other ghosts , can not be reincarnated, is the most miserable kind of ghost. In Cantonese dialect, "Qingtougui" is often used to ridicule other people's unmarried affairs, and has the meaning of cursing the other party's short life.) Master Cai is a prominent figure in the county town, and Wang Shou can't compare to him in terms of wealth or power. This time he is willing to marry Wang Jiaming, which is already condescending.If the other party wants the living elder daughter to marry his dead son, it is simply a dream. However, Wang Shou only had this son. Since he insisted on marrying the eldest lady of the Cai family, he couldn't control so much. The young lady is the daughter-in-law. Money can turn ghosts around. In order to earn a considerable amount of red envelopes, the sorceress put all her heart into buying Miss Cai's close maid and finding out about her living habits.It turns out that Miss Cai already has a sweetheart, and every time she meets her sweetheart, she will dress up carefully. After the sorceress learned about it, she asked the maid to secretly take out the mirror and lipstick that Miss Cai used to dress up, draw a spell on the back of the mirror, and put poison in the lipstick, and then asked the maid to put it back in place. When Miss Cai, who didn't know it, used poisoned lipstick to dress up, she died immediately after her lips were poisoned.At this time, she was facing the mirror with the spell drawn on it, and the mirror sucked her soul into the mirror.Afterwards, the sorceress bought the mirror secretly with a lot of money and a maid, and easily obtained Miss Cai's soul. Although the sorceress had tried her best, she didn't expect Miss Cai to be wearing a bright red dress when she dressed up.When she discovered the problem, it was too late, because Miss Cai had already turned into a ghost. In order to fulfill his son's wish as soon as possible, Wang Shou immediately held a ghost marriage for his son on the night when the sorceress brought back the mirror containing Miss Cai's soul.When the sorceress put the mirror and Wang Qing's spirit card together, Miss Cai immediately understood what was going on, and was angry that she was killed by them, so she took revenge on them. It was the full 15th month that night, and the moonlight happened to shine on the mirror. Miss Cai rushed out of the mirror with the aura of the moonlight.Whoever the moonlight reflected on, she strangled to death. The first person to suffer was the sorceress who killed her, and all the servants of the Wang family were killed afterward. The terrible scene in front of him frightened Wang Shou out of his wits. He picked up a teacup and threw it at the mirror. He knocked the mirror off the altar, fell to the ground and broke.He originally thought that if the mirror was broken, Miss Cai would lose her soul, but he never thought that the mirror was used to imprison Miss Cai's soul.Once the mirror is damaged in any way, Miss Cai's soul will no longer be bound, and she can freely shuttle between any mirrors. Overnight, everyone in the Wang family, including maids and long-term workers, was killed by Miss Cai who had turned into a ghost of the mirror.After killing all the members of the Wang family, she still felt incomprehensible and harassed other villagers from time to time.Although she didn't directly harm anyone, she often appeared in the mirror in the middle of the night, which frightened people greatly. Many children were scared out of their wits by her, and some older people were scared to death by her, making the whole village goosebumps. Flying dog jumps. Later, a wandering Taoist priest passed by, and the elders of the village asked him for help to subdue this terrible ghost.The Taoist priest originally planned to eliminate harm for the people and eliminate this evil spirit, but he did not expect that the other party was very resentful and difficult to deal with.After a round of confrontation, the Taoist not only failed to subdue her, but angered her instead. This time, the Cangjing Ghost no longer just harassed the villagers, but went on a killing spree, killing many innocent villagers.The Taoist priest couldn't deal with her, so he had to negotiate with her, asking her how to stop hurting the villagers.She told the Taoist priest that she was a young lady before she was alive, and she was used to being served by a maid, so she asked the Taoist priest to find her a maid. The Taoist thought to himself that this is not easy, just burn a paper-tied maid ring for her.However, what she wanted was not a paper maid ring, but a living sacrifice, and she also specified that a girl with the same surname as her should be used for the sacrifice.Because she was killed by her close maid, so she doesn't trust people with other surnames. This is a difficult time for Taoists. Life sacrifices are done by evil spirits and heretics. Even offering sacrifices to cattle, sheep and livestock is despised by the Orthodox Church.However, when he discussed the matter with the villagers, the majority of the villagers were in favor of life sacrifices.After all, enough people have been killed by the hidden mirror ghost, so I don't care about having one more in order to live a peaceful life in the future. After discussion, the villagers decided to let a girl surnamed Cai, who had been bedridden for many years, be the candidate for the sacrifice.The villagers told the Taoist priest that the girl did it voluntarily, and asked her to hold a life sacrifice as soon as possible, so as not to cause trouble for the hidden mirror ghost again. Although the Taoist priests were unwilling to give birth to sacrifices, after all, they angered the hidden mirror ghost by themselves, which made things worse, so they had to follow the wishes of the villagers.He thought that after the life sacrifice, the matter would be settled, but he didn't expect that although the girl surnamed Cai volunteered to be a sacrifice, her mother was not. It turned out that the girl's mother was a widow in the village. She suffered so much to take care of her daughter who was bedridden for many years, and even had sex with men in the village for her livelihood.The daughter couldn't bear her mother's suffering for her own sake, so she volunteered to be a candidate for a life sacrifice.In order to make the life sacrifice go smoothly, the villagers paid off the widow with excuses. When the widow knew that her daughter had been sacrificed, she was in pain.In order to retaliate against the cruelty of the villagers, she put on a red dress in the middle of the night and hanged herself in front of the mirror. After death, she turned into a ghost and demanded the villagers' lives. Knowing that he had made a big mistake, the Taoist felt ashamed of his teacher, so he was willing to die in exchange for the widow's forgiveness. After the Taoist priest died, the matter of the widow was settled, but the matter of the hidden mirror ghost was not yet resolved.Because the Taoist priest performed a ritual ceremony for the widow's daughter before her death, saving her dead soul, so that she no longer needs to be the maid of the ghost of the hidden mirror, so the ghost of the hidden mirror still has no maid to serve in the end. Since then, every once in a while, three or two girls surnamed Cai will die inexplicably in the village... After hearing the frightening legend about the ghost with the mirror, Zhen Zhen asked with a cold expression on her face, "Are they all killed by the ghost with the mirror?" Cai Quan nodded sadly, and said sadly: "The hidden mirror ghost will kill three or two girls surnamed Cai every once in a while, and capture their souls to go back to be maids. It's fine if she catches the maids, why bother?" What about my two sons?" Although he described this horror legend vividly, it is just a legend after all. I don't think it can be related to the death of the five children.However, in the face of my doubts, he resolutely retorted: "This is not a legend, it is true. On the night that the fourth child disappeared, someone saw the hidden mirror ghost with their own eyes!"