My suspicion is based on logical grounds.
After I visited Dashan Temple to pay homage, I was no longer troubled by nightmares. I couldn't see The Tongue Licking the Ear in the mirror nor the ghost behind me.
I thought I had gotten rid of the ghost behind me and The Tongue Licking the Ear, but last night I experienced the wedding in my dream again, which means the problem was far from being solved.
Even though I couldn't see the ghost and that terrifying tongue in the mirror, who could guarantee they weren't just hiding?
I was extremely panicked, and I even got distracted while watching the video.
Soon, there was a change in the video. As Jiang Lixin bit my ear, I quickly slumped down. It only took two or three minutes.
A technician couldn't help but complain, "This young fella is so young. How can he be so lousy? What'll he do when he gets married? Can't even meet his marital obligations. His wife might just cheat on him!"
The room instantly erupted in laughter. Even the forensic doctor, who was carefully examining the wounds on the corpse, stopped what he was doing and couldn't continue the examination due to laughter.
I was at a loss for words. I thought to myself, Dude, I'm actually very strong, okay? What was shown in the video was an abnormal state. It wasn't something I could control.
I wanted to explain, but I held back the words. What's the difference between explaining and not explaining? No one would believe me anyway.
In the video, after it was over, I sleep - walked into putting on my shorts and went back to bed.
Jiang Lixin, however, sat by the bed all the time. She started to comb her hair in front of the camera.
The camera she was facing was right in front of the bed, and there was no mirror there.
What's even creepier is that the way she combed her hair resembled that of ancient ladies in TV dramas, not modern people's way, because the hairstyle was wrong.
The way she combed her hair in the air clearly resembled an ancient hair - bun style.
After Jiang Lixin finished combing her hair in the air, she paced back and forth in the room in dainty steps, humming a tune no one had ever heard before.
It was five o'clock when the sky outside started to grow light. Jiang Lixin stopped at the head of the bed, with her back to the camera, staring at me sleeping in bed, standing there still.
After a moment, her body slowly left the ground, her feet hanging in the air, and finally she disappeared from the range of the voyeuristic camera.
These voyeuristic cameras are all aimed at the bed and can only capture up to about a meter. They can't capture the ceiling, so we couldn't see what happened afterward.
Then, in the morning, blood dripped from the ceiling. I was woken up from my sleep and ran out in a panic.
The voyeuristic video cleared me of the suspicion of murder, but a new problem arose: How would the police handle such a bizarre death?
Huang Po and I were taken by car to the criminal police team in the provincial capital for questioning.
Actually, there was no need for questioning. After encountering such cases one after another, the criminal policeman knew these cases were out of the ordinary.
But the procedures still had to be followed. He couldn't just let Huang Po and me go on the spot. Otherwise, he wouldn't be able to justify it later and would be accused of privately releasing suspects.
The interrogation at the criminal police team was also just going through the motions. They asked the two of us to recount what had happened, recorded it on video and stored it. Then they let me and Huang Po leave.
As for Jiang Lixin, her phone had inexplicably gone missing. The police found her family's phone number through her identity information and called, but they always got a shutdown prompt and couldn't get in touch with them at all.
Huang Po was so scared at the criminal police team that he broke out in a cold sweat. As soon as I came out, I smelled the stench on him.
"I never noticed you had body odor before. When did this problem start?" I couldn't help but complain.
Huang Po was stunned for a few seconds before explaining, "I've always had it. I have to go get it lasered every few years. It's about time for me to go again."
Huang Po's body odor was very pungent. I wondered if it was because he'd been a corpse carrier these years, as there was even a faint smell of corpse odor. This made me can't help thinking of the taboo the old employee had told us about.
The old employee said that one shouldn't do the job of a corpse carrier for too long, because after a long time, the body would be contaminated by the death qi and corpse poison. When one got old, they'd be full of health problems.
After all, the dead were corpses. Even if they died a natural death and were immediately frozen, there would still be death qi and corpse poison, just very faintly and hard to detect.
One or two corpses wouldn't show any obvious effect, but since corpse carriers were in contact with corpses year in and year out, over time, the death qi and corpse poison would invade the body, making people's health very poor.
So now, it was always young and poor guys who did the job of corpse carriers. Relying on their young and vigorous yang energy, they'd work for a few years, make some money, then quit and start a business.
It wasn't impossible to be a corpse carrier for a lifetime. One way was to be special, like Old Lin, who had three drawbacks and five deficiencies, and naturally wouldn't be afraid of these things.
Or rather, these people already led hard lives, so adding more hardships to them didn't matter.
Another way was to find someone with real skills every once in a while to expel the death qi and corpse poison from the body.
Whether it was taking Taoist pills, drinking Taoist talisman water, or asking an enlightened monk to help purify the body and mind, it all worked. It was just that the cost was relatively high and it was hard to meet someone with real skills.
So in the past, corpse carriers would choose to quit after working for a few years.
I originally planned to work until I'd paid off most of my mortgage and then switch jobs. But looking at the current situation, it seemed that working was out of the question. I'd better focus on saving my own life first.
Huang Po and I took a taxi back to his place of residence. He took his clothes and went to the bathroom, while I got up and wandered around aimlessly.
I'd been to Huang Po's place many times before and was very familiar with his home situation. Logically, there shouldn't be anything to be curious about.
But today, I just had an indescribable strange feeling in my heart. I always had an urge to search around the house.
My eyes swept across the living room, and something immediately caught my attention. It was a small cabinet placed in the far corner of the living room.
That small cabinet was actually an ordinary, old wooden cabinet that stood out among the furniture in the room.
However, that wasn't the reason it caught my attention. The main reason was that I clearly remembered there was an empty fish tank in that position.
Since I cut my palm on glass in junior high school, I have a natural aversion to glassware, so I've never touched any.
Now, suddenly seeing that it had been replaced by a wooden cabinet, I immediately got curious: Did someone come and replace the fish tank with a small wooden cabinet while we were away from the provincial capital these past two days?
I shouted into the bathroom, but Huang Po was taking a shower and didn't hear me at all.
After hesitating for a moment, out of curiosity, I pulled open the door of the small cabinet.
There was a black-and-white Posthumous Photo inside the small cabinet. I took a look and stood there stunned.
I was far too familiar with this face. Who else could it be but Huang Po?
It was just that Huang Po in the photo looked quite young, with pimples on his face, looking as if he was in his sophomore year of high school.
What the hell? Did Huang Po hide a Posthumous Photo of himself from his sophomore year of high school in his own house?