Chapter 5: There are ghosts here

Hearing the old man’s words, I became interested. In fact, don’t think of Taoist priests as magical. Some things are like police solving a case. You always have to collect clues from all sides to find the key to the matter.

The heavenly eye is indeed very useful. Not to mention that not all Taoist priests can open the heavenly eye, even if they can, they can only see that the energy field here is not right, and they cannot find the key place. You cannot see the spiritual body either.

The heavenly eye must reach a higher level before it can penetrate the many barriers. For example, it can ignore the physical objects, such as walls, and see the essence of the aura and energy.

I asked myself if I had that kind of power, not to mention that this is a 20-story office building. Without a clue, do I have to look for it room by room? The spirit is still thinking. If it deliberately hides from me, then I will have wasted a lot of effort.

Therefore, this old man is my first breakthrough point. I must talk to him.

Thinking about it, I took out a pack of cigarettes from my pocket and handed it to the old man. Over the years, my addiction to cigarettes has only grown stronger. I always carry two packs of cigarettes with me, and since I’m going to be on night watch here today, I brought an extra pack. I didn’t expect to need it so soon.

But I didn’t expect the old man to be so firm. After I handed him the cigarette, he didn’t even look at it and just shoved it back at me. He said, “You don’t get something for nothing. If something is lost in this office, I can’t afford to be blamed. Why did you come here?”

The crispy meat was speechless. Did he think we were thieves who came to check out the place?

He took out his cell phone and dialed An Yu’s number. After a few words, he handed the phone to the old man. The old man took the phone with some confusion, probably wondering if thieves could use cell phones these days.

After all, in 1999, a mobile phone was not a luxury item, and not everyone could afford one.

I don’t know what An Yu said to the old man on the phone, but when he returned the phone to Su Rou, he was already very respectful. But that’s not what I want. I still gave the cigarette to the old man and said, “You don’t have to be polite. To be honest, we are here to solve the problem of this office building. So, you know what, just tell us, no matter what you know, whether it’s too far-fetched, we believe it.”

The old man hesitated for a while, probably because he cherished this job too much, and finally said, “Let’s go inside. This area of the building is the cleanest in this guard booth, and it’s not clean standing outside.”

I carefully felt it, and I didn’t think it was that bad outside, but I still squeezed into the guard booth outside the door with the crispy meat.

The guardhouse was not big, and it was crowded with three big men, but no one cared. The old man opened the pack of cigarettes I handed him, lit one, and then said to us, “Don’t believe that my place is quiet. Without a diamond, how dare I take on the job of guarding the porcelain? I’m afraid that no one else in this area, except me, would dare to guard this building at night.

I smiled and took a sip of tea, asking, “Grandpa, what’s your last name? Why do you say that you’re the only one in this area who dares to keep watch at night?”

“My name is Chang, Chang Shuicheng. I’m 60 years old this year. If it weren’t for my youngest son who is in college and needs money, I wouldn’t want to do this job. If anyone else were to do it, they would have died here long ago. More than ten years ago, this area was still a village. I was born and raised in this village. Why do I dare to come alone to keep watch at night? It’s because my grandfather was a Taoist priest, and I know a little about taboos. And my grandfather left me something, and it’s this little thing that keeps me safe at night.” The old man said slowly.

After hearing this, the old man winked at me, meaning that I had met a fellow practitioner.

I kept my composure and asked, “Mr. Chang, was your grandfather a very powerful and famous Taoist priest?”

“Not very powerful, not very famous, just doing some rituals for the villagers. But when my grandfather was young, he met a Taoist priest who taught him a few things. It was enough to handle the usual rituals and some small things. The Taoist priest also gave my grandfather a statue of a god, which I brought here. This is the key to keeping me safe.” Obviously, my pack of cigarettes had an effect, and the old man even told me about this past.

I stood up, looked around, and then asked Chang, “Can I see your statue?”

Statues are usually placed on an altar, so I was surprised that there was no statue in the police box, so I asked curiously.

The old man didn’t waste any time, and pulled a rope from his neck. I took the statue in my hands after getting permission from the old man.

Nowadays, many people wear a Guanyin or Buddha, but very few people wear a Taoist deity. According to Taoism, there are many deities, each with their own realm. If you set up a complete altar, you can have several rows of deities, but ordinary people generally only know the Three Pristine Ones.

The old man’s statue is made of wood, and it is no accident that it is also the Daoist god of morality, the Supreme Lord, also known as the Supreme Lord. There is nothing special about it, but I can tell at a glance that the style of the wood statue is too obvious to be carved by an individual. If my judgment is correct, it should have been carved by the Taoist priest that Chang’s grandfather met that year.

Close your eyes and feel it. You can still feel the energy attached to the statue. It is a gentle personal energy, that is, the personal power is attached to it, but it is already very, very thin.

To put it plainly, this is a Taoist-sanctified immortal, which is also a kind of ornament. It is very different from the statue I imagined, which has a trace of the will of the gods.

After playing with it for a while, I returned the statue to Old Chang. Taoist objects are not easy to open, but if you talk about the effect of warding off evil spirits, they are the most powerful. It seems that Old Chang really relies on this statue to stay safe and sound.

A statue of a god has already made me feel a little bit jealous. You have to know that Taoist objects that have been blessed need to be nurtured for many years. They can’t be truly blessed in just one ceremony. Once they are blessed, the spiritual power is definitely deeply attached to the blessed object. If it is not consumed, it will not dissipate for hundreds of years. But this old man’s statue…

If my guess is correct, the power of the statue was consumed in this office building, but this still needs to be confirmed.

After playing with the old man’s statue for a while, I returned it to the old man and asked, “Old man, have you ever encountered anything strange before?”

“What could I possibly encounter? I carry this with me, and I’m not afraid to walk through the graveyard at night. The strangest thing in my life is right here.” The old man took a puff of his cigarette.

Su Rou asked enthusiastically, “Tell us more. You know we’re here to solve this problem.”

The old man looked at me and Su Rou with a suspicious look, probably thinking that we were too young. But he wasn’t the boss, so he couldn’t care less. After a moment of silence, he stubbed out his cigarette and said, “If you really want to hear it, I don’t mind telling you. In theory, I shouldn’t talk about ‘them’ here. If I do, I’ll be haunted. I’m just going to take a chance, relying on the ancestral statue…”

The old man was so long-winded that he wouldn’t say anything. Su Rou, who was a smart guy, quickly took 500 yuan out of his bag and slipped it into the old man’s hand, saying, “Old man, just tell us. Take the money. It’s just for the story.”

After receiving the money, the old man stopped talking and said to me and Su Rou very directly, “There are ghosts in this office building, I’m sure! And they’re powerful ghosts. During the day, don’t you hear people talking about the uneasiness? I, as the night watchman, have a better understanding. There really are ghosts. I’ve encountered them before.”

When Chang Lao Er got to this point, there was a strange gust of wind outside, blowing the few trees in the courtyard 鈥榮oughing鈥� and 鈥榮oughing鈥�. Su Rou, who was a man of the world, couldn鈥檛 stand it when he encountered this, and immediately grabbed my arm.

I, on the other hand, stood up immediately, looked out the window and yelled, “Get out!”

When I shouted, even Old Chang was scared and shrunk his neck. But could I not shout? Although I did not have the power of clairvoyance at this time, I had a strong spiritual sense, and sometimes I could feel it very strongly, or what ordinary people call “seeing.” I clearly saw a baby lying on the window.