Judge of Souls - Chapter 93

“Also, Jiang Feng, although I spoke with righteous indignation, I always felt something was wrong,” Kong Su said confusedly from the other end. “Was it really like that? I seemed to have forgotten something. I went back and watched the video of Tian Guang going to the graveyard. That guy didn’t have such acting skills at all – it was impossible! Based on my years of experience being cursed, there was definitely something ghostly about it, right?!”

A bowl of Meng Po’s soup could make people forget their past lives, and sprinkling a little specially-made Wangchuan water could cause minor gaps in people’s memories. With Meng Po’s slight guidance, they became confused.

This ghost village incident involved too many people, and the Underworld didn’t want these unrelated individuals to get entangled in supernatural events in the future, so they simply let them continue being good children who believed in science and loved life.

Jiang Feng asked, “Does it matter?”

Kong Su was made to doubt life by his words. “Doesn’t it matter? Don’t people live to understand things clearly?”

Jiang Feng said, “Don’t you live to make money?”

“Oh right!” Kong Su said. “I’ve really been making money lately – the popularity just won’t drop. Every time Shanyuan Village trended, I trended along with it. Those human trafficking gangs kept causing trouble and trending… Oh right, with the way they were acting, there was definitely something ghostly about it!”

The captured Shanyuan Village residents were all elderly and weren’t the main criminals. Based on their confessions, they caught the real criminal gang that had developed human trafficking as an industrial chain.

Before being discovered, the group seemed to have lost their sanity. One person ran out the door in a crazed state and was directly hit by a car and killed. The others also appeared foolish – either grinning stupidly at people or violently destroying things in fits of rage, nearly injuring both police officers and lawyers.

Their behavior was incomprehensible. The lawyer wanted to defend them on grounds of mental illness and transfer them to a psychiatric hospital for treatment, though the public was skeptical about this. However, during the evaluation, they suddenly regained their sanity, acting confused and pretending to be stupid, but the doctors saw through it.

While detained in the holding facility, they complained that their whole bodies ached, as if blades were constantly scraping their flesh. At night when they slept, they constantly had nightmares, with the sound of crying constantly in their ears. They reported mental breakdowns, saying they couldn’t take it anymore.

With precedent before them, people deeply suspected their claims. After examining their physical condition and finding nothing wrong, their requests were rejected. Moreover, their previous behavior was deemed as showing no remorse or reflection, and combined with the surging public opinion, the judge sentenced them to the maximum penalty when announcing their crimes.

In ordinary people’s eyes, it was probably just these people trying to be clever and suffering the consequences of their own actions. But Kong Su felt it wasn’t that simple. However, she understood this wasn’t something she could manage.

Seeing that the criminals could now receive severe punishment and Mr. Yu could reunite with his daughter was the best possible outcome.

Thinking about it this way, what the truth was seemed indeed unimportant.

Kong Su said, “By the way, Brother Jiang, I almost thought about changing careers. I’ve been getting involved with supernatural events lately – is this my destiny or just coincidence?”

“Once you start, it’s easy to encounter more,” Jiang Feng said. “And some of them you clearly brought upon yourself. This is the death you courted.”

Kong Su couldn’t refute this and could only say with world-weariness, “Having stepped onto this path, my curiosity and sympathy are as strong as my survival instinct – what can I do?”

Jiang Feng understood immediately when she said this. “How has your curiosity been acting up now?”

Kong Su replied, “These past few days, I’ve received a huge pile of private messages on Weibo, with netizens describing various strange events they’ve encountered. Some, I estimate, are their own imagination running wild – the developments are fascinating. Others seem like they’re made up from novels. Then there are a few cases that feel like they really happened – particularly realistic. The private messages I used to read as bedtime stories on Weibo can no longer bring me joy. I’ve been suffering from insomnia for several nights now. If this continues, my agent will kill me.”

The little Mountain God was helping wash vegetables in the kitchen, but he was making water everywhere and kept stepping on the puddles with bare feet, causing chaos. He really liked this new place – after all, the bed was big and there were many rooms, letting him know what a single room was like.

Jiang Feng pulled him aside and said, “So what did you find from all that?”

“I successfully found one genuinely real case from hundreds of ghost stories!” Kong Su said proudly. “She also has an old account – oh, I don’t mean she’s old. She got pregnant last year but later had a miscarriage. Our accounts had some interaction, and she even posted about crying over this incident on Weibo at the time. However, what she didn’t mention was that since the miscarriage, she felt something was wrong with herself. She kept hearing dogs barking, which made her somewhat mentally exhausted. At the time, she thought it was unstable mental state after the miscarriage and figured it would get better after some time, but there was no improvement. She went to a Taoist temple, but they couldn’t find anything. With metaphysical matters, she didn’t know which people to trust. The Taoist priests in major temples couldn’t protect her twenty-four hours a day either. She’s quite wealthy, and her husband is also fairly successful, so she wanted to ask if I had any solutions or could introduce someone. So I came to ask your opinion.”

Jiang Feng said, “Are you really going to change careers to become a middleman?”

Kong Su hummed, “Middlemen do charge a markup, but Sister Kong does it for free! Plus, I must have the credentials to boast – a Taoist priest introduced by a celebrity has higher value! For social harmony, and also to save up for buying a house in the future, why don’t you meet with her?”

Jiang Feng thought about it and said, “I’ll take it. Let me take a look first.”

Whenever Kong Su and Zhang Yangyang got involved in cases, they somehow always escalated inexplicably. Just like this ghost village exploration – if he hadn’t gone, who knows what would have developed.

Originally just two ordinary people, but the aura around them was really too strange.

Kong Su said, “Great! She said she’s available anytime. She’s from this province, lives not far from here – a four-hour drive away. When’s the earliest you can make time?”

Jiang Feng replied, “Tomorrow at noon, twelve o’clock then. I don’t have classes tomorrow afternoon.”

Kong Su said, “Perfect!”

The woman was indeed anxious. After setting the time, she immediately used her phone to communicate with Jiang Feng to confirm the location. She arrived in A City at ten in the morning the next day.

The weather had already turned hot – it was past June. A City’s noon sun was blazing, and walking outside for a while would make one sweat profusely, yet Mrs. Miao wore thin long sleeves and a hat.

Jiang Feng finished class early, with the little Mountain God following closely behind him. At the first-floor stairwell, the little Mountain God chased after a silly dog and ran off. Jiang Feng wasn’t worried about him getting lost. When he came out of the elevator, he encountered Mrs. Miao.

The other party’s gaze carried a hint of doubt, but she quickly suppressed it and didn’t make any impolite gestures.

Jiang Feng opened the door and invited her in.

Mrs. Miao was still vigilantly looking around at the entrance, not knowing what she was looking for. She took off her shoes, stepped into the room, and nodded to Jiang Feng in acknowledgment.

She walked to the tea table and took off her hat.

Jiang Feng couldn’t understand her current situation and said, “If you feel hot, I’ll turn on the air conditioning.”

“That would be wonderful,” the other party sighed with relief. “Thank you.”

Although she had broken into a sweat, her makeup hadn’t smeared much. She greeted Jiang Feng and then went to the bathroom.

When she came out, she had already touched up her makeup.

“Go ahead,” Jiang Feng asked. “Why are you wearing long sleeves?”

Mrs. Miao rolled up her sleeves, revealing two forearms covered with scratch marks. Some were new, some old, extending upward along her arms.

“These are the marks I had on me when I woke up this morning,” she said with a slight frown, pulling down her sleeves, her face showing a trace of fear. “I don’t know what’s happening, but recently, I wake up like this. Although there’s no life-threatening danger, and I don’t know what scratched me, I really can’t take it anymore.”

Mrs. Miao continued, “Sometimes in the middle of the night, I feel like something is pressing on my chest – very heavy, making it hard to breathe, and I can’t turn over. I know sleep paralysis has scientific basis, but science certainly doesn’t say you can hear dogs barking during sleep paralysis, right?”

She stared at Jiang Feng, wanting to gain some sense of security from his expression.

Jiang Feng didn’t react much, just asked matter-of-factly, “Mm. What else?”

“It’s been really strange lately. Oh, where should I start?” She pressed her chest, trying to stay calm, then looked up and said, “Several times before going to sleep at night, I clearly remembered closing the doors and windows properly, but when I woke up the next day, they had opened by themselves. I was awakened by cold wind in the middle of the night and discovered this. There was even a squirrel that came in through the window.”

Mrs. Miao said, “In the middle of the night, things in the house would break inexplicably. Including flower pots and dishes placed in the living room – all kinds of things would be knocked to the floor… Um… and… on the calligraphy and paintings hanging on the walls, bloody handprints appeared – big and small, but I don’t know whose they were.”

Jiang Feng asked, “Have you encountered any danger? Or is it just purely similar pranks?”

“Have I? Does that count?” Mrs. Miao said. “When I was driving, someone would come grab my steering wheel. When I was standing by the roadside and cars were coming, I was suddenly pushed from behind. Do these count as attempted murder?”

Jiang Feng replied, “They do. Perhaps the ghost’s magic power is relatively weak and can’t act directly, so it has to use similar interference methods to kill people.”

Mrs. Miao’s face turned pale upon hearing this. “Really? Then what should I do? Now when I walk on the street, I don’t dare stand anywhere where there are billboards. Even passing by hardware stores or knife shops makes me feel scared. I only dare stay at home, but if this continues, I’ll go crazy, right? How long can I hide?”

Jiang Feng gestured for her to stay calm. “Every time problems occur, are there dogs barking nearby?”

Mrs. Miao nodded emphatically. “Yes! Sometimes there are also baby sounds, or screaming. Taoist master, has my child come back too?”

Jiang Feng asked, “Kong Su said you had a miscarriage?”

“Yes, I was just about to mention that.” Mrs. Miao’s eyes showed some sadness. “We used to have a husky at home. That was a pet my husband started raising before we got married, but I also loved dogs very much. I had heard that when the owner gets pregnant, pets like cats and dogs usually have intuition and really like the little master, so I didn’t pay attention and didn’t think about giving it away. But for some reason, when I just got pregnant, Tangyuan’s reaction was very intense – oh, Tangyuan was my dog’s name – it kept chasing me and barking ferociously. After more than a month, there was still no improvement. My husband was afraid it would harm me and the baby, so he sent it to my mother-in-law’s place to foster, thinking we’d see how things went after the child was born.”

Mrs. Miao wanted to reach up and grab her hair but restrained herself, her hand pausing in mid-air as she said, “At twenty-four weeks of pregnancy, it suddenly ran back home. Honestly, I don’t know how it managed to run back across half the city. When it saw me, it charged at me fiercely and tried to bite my belly. I fell down, and because of the shock, I lost the child.”

Jiang Feng asked, “What happened to the dog?”

“My husband beat it severely. He couldn’t bear to kill it, so he sent it for euthanasia.” Mrs. Miao pressed her forehead and sighed. “It wasn’t like that before. I know killing the dog was excessive… but it had shown aggressive behavior toward people. We couldn’t let it loose, couldn’t give it away, and we really didn’t want to keep it anymore… Is it resenting me, so it’s come back to get revenge on me?”

As they were talking, two dog barks came from outside. The little Mountain God rode a husky’s soul and rushed in through the half-open door.

The black and white large dog let the little Mountain God ride on its back, panting with its tongue out, the corners of its mouth slightly upturned, looking quite cheerful and naturally silly.

…It was most likely this silly dog.

The little Mountain God was kicking his legs on top, obviously having a great time.

“It’s so well-behaved!” the little Mountain God said. “This dog is so smart!”