Chapter 63: Clues

“Is this the ghost mother?” I swallowed a big mouthful of saliva and stared at the object in Ling Qing’s grandmother’s hand in disbelief.

Ling Ruyue was very interested. It looked like she couldn’t help but touch the ghost mother. From what I know about this little girl, her hobbies are very special. She doesn’t like the things that little girls love, but instead loves things like insects, strange flowers and plants, snakes, and other things.

It is true that interests and hobbies are cultivated from a young age, and Ling Ruyue is really not taking the ordinary path.

Yang Sheng’s reaction was the most intense. He held his glasses and repeatedly walked past and around Grandma Ling Qing, shouting, “It’s amazing, really amazing. This kind of thing reminds me of the queen ant of the ant family. Biology is truly amazing. After opening the door, there are endless treasures waiting for me to explore.”

I got goose bumps. Relatively speaking, the ghost mother looked better than Hua Feifei in my mind, because Hua Feifei was a spider, and I had an instinctive fear of spiders, but it was only better than Hua Feifei.

Just because the ghost mother is a what? The ghost mother is a moth!

A black moth the size of half a human head! But don’t think that the ghost mother is not scary because of this. Its horror lies in its pattern. When combined, it looks like a face that is half smiling and half frowning. It looks very visually striking and very strange. It is exactly the same as the relief on the gate of the hungry ghost tomb. This is the legendary ghost mother!

I have thought about its image a thousand times, and even flipped through some of the limited Buddhist classics that my master collected for this purpose, but I just couldn’t think of it as the image of a moth.

“Master, how can it be a moth? Is it powerful? Does it bite?” But no matter how terrifying the moth looks, it is still just a moth. I can’t think of what is so powerful about it.

“Sanwa, what’s the point of it biting people? It’s just a cowardly insect. Its power lies in the fact that it can summon a bunch of its children, including the King of the Hungry Ghosts, to control the Ghost Mother. Therefore, before we go to find the queen, we must first eliminate the hungry ghost eggs and the hungry ghost bugs that have hatched. In an extremely dangerous situation, the queen can cause the dormant hungry ghost eggs to hatch in a very short period of time. This is where it is more powerful than the queen ant. Hu Xueman said angrily.

I glanced at Yang Sheng. No wonder this kid was yelling about the ghost mother queen. It turns out he knew about it a long time ago. He just wanted to know what the ghost mother looked like. Like hungry ghosts, many people can’t imagine that it’s something like a roundworm.

Some of the truth is exposed, often leaving people dumbfounded and unwilling to believe it, but this is the truth, just as it is difficult for you to make ancient people think about modern airplanes and for modern people to imagine the kind of loyalty and spirit of the ancients.

“This is the human world, the human territory. It can’t change its form, otherwise the ghost mother is a powerful guy. Even if there are no devils, it’s still difficult to deal with.” Old man Jiang said lightly.

“Master, how did you get in there for three days? Where did you find the ghost mother? Is it really in that ancient tomb?” Since Yang Sheng was there to shield me from questions, I had no qualms about asking them myself. I was really curious about what my master and his friends had experienced in the past few days.

Master’s face turned grave, and Huijue recited a Buddhist mantra. Grandma Ling Qing didn’t say anything, but she took Ling Ruyue into her arms.

Only Hu Xueman’s eyes suddenly turned red. He took off his hat and placed it on the table, and said in a very low voice, “We sacrificed two comrades, and one is still being rescued…”

Someone died? I stood there in shock. I had been in the hungry ghost tomb before, but I couldn’t imagine that the soldiers who had rested with me in the hall that day and handed me the eggs to eat would die in the hungry ghost tomb.

Didn’t the King of the Hungry Ghosts solve it? Are zombies scary? Or is the ghost mother very…?

The master looked serious, but he just took out a small cloth bag from his bosom. After opening it, there were two things inside: one was the ancient jade I had prised off the wall, and the other was a small bronze plaque with the same symbol as the jade.

After a moment of silence, the master said, “Sanwa, bring me paper and a brush.”

I didn’t know what the master wanted to do, but I went into the room and got the paper and pen for him. I helped him spread the paper out and then attentively helped him grind the ink. The master picked up the pen and thought for a while, then he started writing on the paper.

I thought that he was going to write a report, but I didn’t expect him to write in an ancient script. I could barely recognize a few characters, but I couldn’t read them. The passage wasn’t long, and he finished writing it quickly. After the paper had dried, he folded it and handed it to Yang Sheng.

“Before you go to Xinjiang, you’re going to go back to Beijing once, right?” Master Jiang asked Yang Sheng.

“Yes, I have to go back to Beijing to hand in my report. Master Jiang, aren’t you going back to Beijing?” Yang Sheng was a little surprised.

“Yes, I will go back, but I don’t know if I will see some people or not. I don’t know if I will report back to the department or not. But this letter is very important. You help me deliver it to the head of our operations department and tell him that this is the biggest clue in this hungry ghost’s tomb,” the master instructed.

I was confused. What was the biggest clue? Why didn’t the master hand it in himself?

“Minister Li? No problem!” Yang Sheng nodded.

Then the master rewrapped the jade and bronze plaque and handed it to Yang Sheng, saying, “Give this to the secret investigation department and ask them to check if they have found similar symbols and what they represent. It is very important to find out if it is a person or an organization because they have a lot of information and can be more efficient than me.”

Yang Sheng nodded. This person had no curiosity about some tangled things, except for his scientific research.

After giving all these instructions, the master stood up and said, “You young people can go now. Xue Man, come into the room. We have some things to tell you. Write up the report and then go back and see the seriously injured child. Save him at all costs.”

The words of the master had a rather sighing flavor, and I felt that the master had a heavy heart after returning from the tomb.

Ling Ruyue and I were absent-minded outside, while Yang Sheng started to write and draw again. After about an hour, Hu Xueman came out of the room, but my master and the others were nowhere to be seen.

Hu Xueman walked up to me and suddenly patted my head, saying, “Sanwa, after you go to Beijing, will you forget Uncle Hu?”

When he said that, I suddenly felt a little sad. In fact, this bearded uncle is very nice, but I didn’t expect him to be so sentimental.

I said loudly, “Of course I won’t forget Uncle Hu, but my master is gone. Are you going to stay here?”

“Originally, when your master left, our branch was going to be withdrawn and moved to the city where this branch belongs. After all, such branches cannot exist everywhere in the country for various reasons, but because there is a hungry ghost tomb here, we basically have to stay here, afraid of sudden situations. Beijing will send someone to take us, but they won’t be as good as your master.” Hu Xueman said with some emotion.

As a national person, there are some things that you can’t do according to your own wishes. You have to obey the arrangements of the country. From what Hu Xueman said, he really wanted to follow my master.

“My master is very powerful? Aren’t all the people in that department very powerful?” I was a little confused. In fact, I knew that my master was powerful, but I didn’t have a concept of comparison, and I had no idea what level my master was in the same category of people.

“Very powerful, he’s one of the best in the country. Your master taught several disciples who are all great figures.” Hu Xueman sincerely said, but he seemed to feel that he had said too much. He patted my shoulder and said, “Sanwa, grow up quickly.”

After that, Hu Xue-man turned around and left in a hurry.

I was confused and sad. After this trip to Beijing, could I ever return home? Could I ever see Uncle Hu with his big beard again?

The master and his disciples never came out, but occasionally there were a few voices of argument, as if they were also very excited. But I didn’t know what they were talking about.

Yang Sheng is very mechanical. Unless there is something special, he must go to bed before 11 p.m. He sleeps on the floor in the living room with me. At this time, he is already snoring, and Ling Ruyue and I are silently facing the oil lamp.

Before long, it was late at night…

“Third brother, when Grandpa Jiang was writing, Grandma told me that we would go back tomorrow.” Ling Ruyue broke the silence.

“Hmm.” I was a little depressed. I suddenly felt that life was like a play. I really hated Ling Ruyue at first, but thinking that she would leave tomorrow, I started to feel sad again. Who could have predicted that in just a few days, we would have established such a deep friendship?

The bustling scene suddenly became quiet, and sometimes I felt uncomfortable.

“Third brother, Sheng said he’s leaving tomorrow too.”

“Mm.”

“What are you mumbling about? Don’t you want to stay?”

“Some things don’t happen unless you let them go. We have to believe that we will meet again in the future.”

“Mmm.” Ling Ruyue nodded firmly.

At this moment, the door opened and Grandma Ling Qing walked out.