Chapter 13: The Legend of Guidaowan (12)

No one knows what happened that night.

The slope on which the dilapidated wooden house was located was a somewhat steep cliff, and below the cliff was the frozen Yellow River. Only the gentle slope near the timber yard had a small path leading up to it.

The head of the team, along with all the people who knew what was going on, had been waiting at the trailhead for miles. They were afraid that someone else would go up there, that another person would die, and that they would have to rely on Gou Sheng’er. If he failed, the consequences of this matter would be…

For these three reasons, even though it was a cold snowy night and even though standing here made him feel infinitely terrified, the chief still insisted on staying with the others.

Time was so hard, but it never stopped. The leader himself didn’t know how many steps he had taken back and forth here, or how many cigarettes he had smoked. It wasn’t until he reached out to touch the cigarette case and found it empty that he realized that the east had already turned pale. Winter mornings always come much later, and this hint of white means that it is at least close to 7 o’clock.

Has Gou Sheng not come down yet? The first person licked his dry lips… He thought to himself, should I go up and take a look? But he really didn’t have the courage, and no one else around him had the courage either.

As the sky grew brighter, the first person himself couldn’t make up his mind.

At this time, Liu Er stood up and said to the first person with a determined look: “Why don’t I go up and take a look?”

The first person looked at Liu Er with some emotion, neither agreeing nor refusing. He was really afraid that another person would die. With the corpse’s strange appearance, how could he get away with it?

Just as the head of the team was hesitating, a worker exclaimed in surprise: “Look, over there… it’s Dog Left coming down.”

The head of the team and Liu Er looked up and saw that it was indeed the dog that had come down.

It was a bright morning after the snow had stopped falling. Liu Er had never forgotten the sight of Gou Sheng coming down the mountain. He was carrying his hands behind his back and walking steadily down the mountain. The ground was covered in snow and the sun was shining behind him. He was very calm, but there was an indescribable sadness on his face.

This is what Master Liu thought. That kind of calmness, that kind of compassionate expression, what else could it be but a great man?

From that moment on, the idea that Gou Sheng was a great man was already fixed in Liu Er’s mind.

From then on, things became simple. According to Gou Sheng’er’s instructions, the broken wooden house was burned down along with the corpse… He said the corpse was in the wooden house!

Before, they were afraid to burn the corpse, for fear that the spirit of the dead would not rest in peace. But since Gou Sheng’er said that it was solved, everyone was eager to burn the corpse. After all, if the sky were to fall, there would be a high person to hold it up… Gou Sheng’er was that high person.

Except for the few people who first discovered it and the tragic death of Wei Dahan, no one has seen the corpse again, but everyone, including Liu Er, is convinced that the corpse was burned… Because after that night, the matter really subsided completely, and there was no more movement.

For various reasons, Gou Sheng was taken to work at the timber distribution office by the boss. At first, Gou Sheng was not too willing, but later, for some reason, he was willing. He just had a strange request, which was that he had never worked before, and now that he was working, it was a new life, so even his name should be changed.

So the boss personally changed his name to Lin Jianguo, and there was no more Dog Left in the town, only the worker Lin Jianguo at the timber distribution office.

“Is what you said true?” The old woman, after hearing the whole story, was still not sure if she believed the story.

“Do you think I would make up a fake story to scare you?” After telling the whole story, Liu Er’s heart also felt a little relieved. His tone was very calm. It was so unbelievable that even convincing his closest people was a very difficult thing.

“You mean there was a ghost in our house? Standing in front of our bed?” The old woman couldn’t help but lean closer to Liu Erniang as she spoke. She was really scared.

Liu Ershu patted the old woman’s back reassuringly and said, “Isn’t it all over now? Don’t be afraid… I just want to say that in this world, there are many things that ordinary people can’t figure out. It’s hard to meet a great man, even if it’s not to flatter others, but you can’t help but feel close to him. If he is willing to take care of things in the future, he will suffer less after he goes, and he will have more spiritual power. Look at you, do you still dare to talk nonsense now?”

The old woman, hearing this, remembered what she had said and couldn’t help but slap herself in the mouth, saying, “Look at my mouth, will the sage not hold it against me?”

“He is a great man, how would he care about a woman who has never seen the world? Don’t worry, just don’t be so easily…”

“Oh, of course not! It seems that this timber distribution center is really not a good place, and they won’t let our son go! Also, you’d better make friends with Jianguo, or else ask him to come to our house for dinner tomorrow? I’ll make him some noodles with minced pork.”

“Don’t worry about it…”

As Liu Er and his wife talked, the night outside grew deeper. Outside the courtyard, all you could hear was the two of them whispering. There was no more excitement or arguing. Instead, it became warm and peaceful. The short storm at Liu Er’s house completely subsided after a certain buried secret was revealed.

At the edge of town, in the dilapidated shack, Lin Jianguo had finished eating another bowl of noodles, washed the pot and bowl, cleaned the room, and sat in front of his broken desk, lost in thought.

The oil lamp flickered, and with the moonlight shining through the cracks, no one knew what he was thinking. Looking at his somewhat vacant eyes, one would think he was simply daydreaming.

After sitting there for ten minutes, Lin Jianguo suddenly sighed, then took out a cigarette case from his jacket and rolled a cigarette for himself, which he then lit.

When the smoke came out, it seemed that he was mumbling a name, but the voice was so soft that it seemed like he wasn’t mumbling anything at all, just an illusion.

“After you finish smoking, go to bed.” Lin Jianguo suddenly said to himself, and he had already started making the bed. After living alone for a long time, he got used to talking to himself.

“It’s not necessary to burn the kang in this season, and it can still withstand it. This shack is not bad… there is a good kang inside… tomorrow…” Lin Jianguo continued to talk to himself. Of course, he didn’t know that at this moment, some hasty footsteps were heard in the town. The one running at the front was the somewhat plump second in command.

At this moment, the second-in-command’s expression was somewhat panicked, and his face was covered in sweat that was steaming. In the deep autumn weather, sweating like that could only mean how urgently he was running.

They didn’t find Lin Jianguo directly because he was not easy to approach. The only person in the whole town who had a good relationship with him was Liu Er, and Liu Er was also an insider at the time.

The sound of ‘knocking, knocking, knocking’ echoed in the courtyard of Master Liu’s house. Master Liu, who had just finished chatting with the old woman and was about to go to bed, was very puzzled. It was already late at night, and who would be looking for him at this late hour? The sound was urgent!

Thinking this way, Liu Er opened the door and saw the panic-stricken face of the second-in-command.

“Master Liu, we’ve found another corpse.” The second-in-command said this, and Master Liu’s heart began to sink.

But he could still barely maintain his composure. He coughed and ushered the second-in-command and the others into the room. He said, “Let’s talk inside.”

“If we don’t go inside, we can talk here.” The second in command was very anxious. Behind him were several senior staff from the timber transportation office, who were also considered insiders at the time, but the second in command was still quite cautious. He didn’t make a big fuss, but instead leaned over Liu’s ear and began to whisper.

Liu’s face grew more and more serious. In fact, since Lin Jianguo started working at the timber transportation office, the place had been miraculously free of floating corpses. In the two years since Lin Jianguo started working there, he had only encountered three ordinary corpses.

When the second-in-command came over in such a hurry to talk about the dead body, Liu Er knew that it was no ordinary matter, and that he was not there to perform a ritual.

He had hoped for this, and so he reluctantly calmed down and let the second-in-command come in. But how could things be as good as expected?

This time, another strange corpse floated in, just like the female corpse last time, holding a thick piece of wood, but this time it was a male corpse!