The words of the lunatic were already numb to me. Grandfather had told me when I was young that besides those with strong Yin energy and unlucky people, the mentally deranged can also see things that normal people can't.
If I had listened to the lunatic last night, maybe I wouldn't have experienced so many horrifying things. But discussing this now was pointless.
As I reached the front gate, Du Xiaolan had already come out with her bag. I called out to her and headed for the car. She stopped me and asked curiously, "Shouldn't we let Liu Jiguang know?"
Without telling her about my recent discovery, I forced a bitter smile and said, "I've already informed him, let's go back now."
Du Xiaolan didn't think much of it and nodded, then happily hopped into the car.
The car started, and I saw that many gates in the village were open. Some people were gathered playing mahjong, while some women were quietly gossiping about others.
The journey was silent until we reached a dangerous stretch on the highway, and I saw a roadblock ahead, with two police cars and an ambulance parked on the side.
In passing, I saw a medical stretcher on the ground, carrying the body of a man in a smoke-gray hoodie, his face severely scratched. Despite being covered in blood, it was still recognizable as Liu Jiguang's face.
From the location where the accident happened, it seemed that after Li Qingqing's death, Liu Jiguang, consumed by longing, had taken his own life.
Glancing at Du Xiaolan, she didn't pay any attention to this, instead, happily taking selfies with her phone, changing poses.
It was already past 1 o'clock in the afternoon when I returned to Xi'an. I quickly turned on the air conditioning in the shop, feeling the cool breeze, and my previous fear disappeared as the temperature dropped around me.
I lay in front of the mirror looking at the red mark on my neck. Du Xiaolan came out of the bathroom, sat next to me, and asked with a smile, "Mingyang, I remember you didn't like to look in the mirror before, why so vain today?"
"Didn't you notice anything different about me?" I pointed to my neck with my finger, indicating her to look carefully.
Du Xiaolan leaned over and looked carefully, puzzled, "It's the same as before, nothing different."
"You really can't see?" I turned to look at her, in a moment of doubt, quickly raised my arm with five claw marks and asked, "Can you see this?"
"Do you really think I'm blind?" Du Xiaolan gave me a look, and I thought she had really seen it. I was about to speak, but she continued, "If I really couldn't see your arm, I would have gone begging with a crutch long ago."
I chuckled awkwardly. She really couldn't see the ghostly marks left on me.
I asked her to order takeout and was about to make another call to my grandfather when his call came through.
Quickly answering the phone, before I could speak, my grandfather anxiously said, "Mingyang, have you seen a ghost?"
I sighed silently. My grandfather was indeed sharp, he guessed right away that I had seen a ghost.
I quickly asked my grandfather how he knew. He was silent for a moment and then said, "I got your call last night, and there was no sound on your end, just a very strange woman's laughter. I figured you saw a ghost, but I called several times and no one answered."
"What?" I was shocked and my back felt cold. I hurriedly said, "But when I called you yesterday, you couldn't answer."
"I was afraid that the place you stayed in yesterday was not in the mortal realm," my grandfather said, and then said, "Come back as soon as possible, I'll be waiting for you at home!"
After hanging up the phone, my heart started beating rapidly. Without hesitation, I asked Du Xiaolan to stay in the shop for a few days and hurriedly ran out.
I took a bus from Xi'an for an hour, then transferred to another bus, and finally arrived at the front door after more than an hour of bumps along the way.
My grandfather had been waiting at the front door for I don't know how long. When he saw me, he stopped me in my tracks.
I dared not disobey and quickly steadied my steps. He turned and went back inside, then came out with a yellow paper. I was puzzled and watched as he lit the yellow paper, waved it over my shoulder a few times, and then stopped.
After this action, I suddenly felt much more relaxed, and asked in confusion, "Grandpa, what just happened?"
"The two flames on your shoulder were extinguished, but the other one has nothing to do with it. I just rekindled them," my grandfather said nonchalantly, lit a cigarette, and went back inside.
Grandpa had once told me that there are three flames on a person's body, one on each shoulder and one on the head. If the flames on the shoulders are extinguished, one might see ghosts or even be possessed by them. And if the flame on the head is extinguished, one can only wait for death.
Grandma noticed that I had lost weight and told me to eat more good food. I had inherited my father's physique, and even eating rich food every day, I still didn't gain weight.
At a height of 1.82 meters, I weighed just over 70 kilograms. Although not very thin, in grandma's eyes, I was like a bag of bones.
Although my grandfather was old, he still had the demeanor of the head of the family. Seeing grandma pulling my hand all the time, he coughed and said, "Hurry up and cook, or are you planning to starve us?"
"You old man!" Grandma muttered and went into the kitchen after telling me to cook something delicious.
Following my grandfather to the wing room, he sat on the heated brick bed and tapped the tobacco pipe, asking, "Have you seen the hanging ghost?"
I nodded hurriedly, pointing to my neck and said, "Grandfather, why can't other people see the red mark on my neck?"
"That is the mark left by the ghost on you. People who can't see ghosts naturally can't see this thing," Grandfather said casually, seemingly unconcerned.
I sat uneasily, quickly asking about any aftereffects. But my grandfather said it was nothing, then got up and opened a wooden box at the head of the brick bed, took out some glutinous rice, and wrapped it in a yellow paper. After igniting the yellow paper, the glutinous rice burnt black. While it was still hot, my grandfather grabbed a handful and applied it to my neck.
A piercing pain radiated from my neck throughout my body, and I clenched my teeth, squinting my eyes. A burnt smell filled my nose, and I tried to look to the side, seeing a black smoke rising from the spot where the glutinous rice was applied.
After a while, the piercing pain gradually disappeared, replaced by an itch.
Retracting his hand, my grandfather looked at my arm and squinted, asking, "Do you see her?"
The "her" in my grandfather's mouth was the ghost bride I had been married to in infancy.
I nodded, recounting my encounter in the dream and how the ghost bride had pulled me back from the dream. Grandfather shook his head, saying it wasn't a dream, but rather that my soul had been lured away by the hanging ghost. The building I saw was the ghost gate, and if it wasn't for the ghost bride, I would have entered the court of Yama long ago.
His words frightened me, and I hurriedly asked my grandfather why I couldn't see any living people in that village. Grandfather took a few puffs from his tobacco pipe, then looked at me seriously and said, "The problem is not with the village you went to, but with the fact that you visited the underworld, not the mortal world."