American Zombie Detective

Chapter 136 The Village Guardian (Five chapters, please subscribe)

Based on Lily's information, Qin Jin and Detective Carter, after some searching, arrived at an abandoned courtyard at the end of Zongyeshu Street.

The Dodge silently stopped outside the yard, the air thick with a faint stench of decay.

The three of them got out of the car, pushed open the gate, and soon discovered countless ants crawling and scurrying about in the corner of the yard, looking unusually busy.

As you get closer, the stench becomes even stronger.

Aresa pulled Yuanxiao, who was running around wildly inside, out and calmly pointed in the direction: "Corpse."

Carter found a shovel in the yard; it looked brand new. He dug a few times in the ground and soon touched something soft—

He used a shovel to remove the mud, revealing a sealed suitcase covered in ants and residual stains, the soil emitting a strong smell of decay.

As is customary, this place contains either US dollars or beautiful women.

"No need to open it," Qin Jin said bluntly, "Make a call and call someone."

While Carter was calling for forensic experts and physical evidence, Qin Jin had already entered the house. The living room was covered in a thick layer of dust, but countless trampling marks could be clearly seen pointing towards the basement.

The lock on the door leading to the basement was corroded; I kicked it directly.

The air in the basement was even more murky and chilly, mixed with the smells of dust, rotten wood, and mold, but there wasn't too much dust—

It's not that there's no dust, but compared to the dust accumulated above, this is just a thin layer.

This indicates that although no one had been here for two or three months, the place had clearly been cleaned before that, which fits the description of a secret base.

The basement was filled with discarded furniture and clutter, but in one corner stood a long sofa, a coffee table, a single sofa, and a cabinet, with some scattered items on them, including a lighter, beverage bottles, cigarette boxes, and several packets of moldy leaves.

Qin Jin rummaged through the cabinet and found something rather unusual:

This must be the notebook that has been mentioned many times. Opening it, you can see distorted symbols drawn in ink, with the handwriting progressing from clumsy to fluent, as if it were a constant practice of copying.

These symbols belong to a type of talisman, but they exude an evil aura and are completely different from orthodox Taoist practices.

Further on, there were copied texts, followed by dense annotations of his own concise notes.

[The Method of Using a Substitute to Avoid Ghosts]:

Take a strand of your own hair and burn it to ashes at midnight; take three drops of blood from your fingertip and mix them with the ashes; also prepare a substitute talisman and burn it to ashes.

Mix the three types of ash together with rootless water, knead into a pill, and have someone else take it. When this pill takes effect, the person who takes it will be imbued with your aura. Although their appearance will be different, in the eyes of the vengeful ghost, they will become your substitute! The effect lasts for about one and a half hours.

If a vengeful spirit or evil ghost seeks to take your life, it will first devour your substitute body. Your true self can then escape or use magic to counterattack!

Important: The substitute must be a living person! Inanimate objects are ineffective!

[The Eternal Mother Breaks the Evil Spell]:

A talisman for exorcising evil spirits is pasted on the back of a pure yang Bagua mirror. When a fierce ghost comes, the mirror will strike the top of the head while chanting: "The Eternal Mother rides on the clouds, the white lotus blooms to illuminate the world."

The red sun protects my body, the white sun protects my soul;

A peachwood sword points to the gates of hell, and Vajra Arhats arrive by imperial decree!

"By imperial decree! By imperial decree! By imperial decree! The Eternal Mother has manifested her divine powers!"

Qin Jin's lips twitched involuntarily. This thing was similar to the one he had seen before, but—Qin Jin remembered very clearly that this was a spell used by a senior believer. What was a non-believer doing?

Just then, Carter's shouts came from outside the basement.

The backup officers had arrived and seemed to have dug out the body; Carter had made a discovery.

Qin Jin carefully put away the ancient books and notebooks, then, finding nothing particularly important, left them to the police to handle.

When he came out, he saw that the body was already laid out in the garden, and the forensic doctor was examining it. The body was badly decomposed, but Qin Jin could still roughly tell the age of the deceased. He had gray hair, a beard, and was wearing a Tang suit. There was a large knife wound on his chest. If he was not mistaken, this should be the owner of the second-hand shop.

It was already quite late when David arrived.

Qin Jin had already gathered most of what he needed, so he didn't need to keep it any longer. He told Carter and drove straight to the hospital.

Upon meeting, there was naturally another round of thanks and pleasantries. Qin Jin said a few words to them, then neatly and efficiently sent the Chief Justice and his wife away, leaving only himself and Alessa.

Qin Jin asked the doctor to put a bed next to Matthew and have Alessa watch over him, while he turned around and went to the roof. He didn't know if that thing would come or not, but if it did, it would most likely appear from the roof, so he would try it first. Alessa was mainly on guard against a sudden attack.

The night was quiet and still. Qin Jin sat on the rooftop, beginning to gather, organize, and painstakingly unravel the complex information to reveal the truth.

Judging from the current situation, Lin Hao should be the core of this matter, but Qin Jin just can't connect all the things together and feels like something is missing.

It's not that Qin Jin lacks experience. You have to understand, Qin Jin has been a member of the Imperial Guard, a constable, a ranger, a cowboy, and even one of the earliest police chiefs. He has seen countless cases.

He felt that what was missing was the key link connecting the whole incident, preventing him from connecting the Lin family's affairs with the ghost, like a puzzle piece was missing.

Late at night, Qin Jin got information about the secondhand shop owner from the guy with the rooster-like haircut. Perhaps it was the $500 incentive, or perhaps it was because the secondhand shop was still open, making the search easier and faster.

The owner of the secondhand shop was nicknamed "Zhang the Fortune Teller." He had spent his entire life in Chinatown. The secondhand shop was just a front; his main business was helping people with feng shui, choosing burial sites, summoning spirits, performing rituals, seeking good fortune and warding off evil, beating villains, and casting curses—and other miscellaneous things.

As for his skills, they were sometimes good and sometimes bad. On the one hand, he was indeed unreliable, having helped people deal with many cases of being possessed by evil spirits or haunted. On the other hand, he was often inaccurate in his predictions, as the cemetery he was looking at was destroyed by a flood within two years.

Most importantly, before the Lin family rose to prominence, they were said to have a good relationship with Zhang the fortune teller. After they became wealthy, they often sent him money. Then one time, Zhang the fortune teller got drunk and boasted that the Lin family's rise to wealth was entirely due to him. No one believed him, and when the commotion escalated, Zhang seemed to remember something. His eyes dimmed, and he actually backed down, muttering something like, "You can't compare people; no one is a true man without ruthlessness."

Later, the Lin family caused trouble for Zhang the fortune teller over this matter and stopped all contact with him, thus severing the relationship between the two families.

As for the secondhand shop closing down, it was probably two or three months ago, which was about ten or twenty days before Lin Hao died.

With no clue what to do, Qin Jin opened the Penglai Ghost Stories section of the mobile forum, and to his surprise, he actually found a reliable reply.

The ID that replied was "Calm and Gentle," but the tone of the reply felt very familiar to Qin Jin.

It's a bit like the "free and unfettered" tone on Xiaohongshu (a Chinese social media platform).

The reply explained in great detail: "What you posted looks a lot like a kind of mountain spirit, called a village-guarding spirit."

Legend has it that in ancient times, some villages located deep in the mountains worshipped mountain spirits to seek protection from attacks by wolves, tigers, and leopards, and from disturbances by wandering ghosts. These worshipped mountain spirits were called village guardian spirits.

If the village guardian ghost agrees to protect the village, then a village guardian will appear in the village. Originally called the village spirit or the village fool, he is mainly responsible for communicating with the village guardian ghost and offering sacrifices.

Most of the village guardians are foolish and simple-minded. To ordinary people, they seem confused and muddle-headed. In fact, it is because one of their three souls has been given to the mountain spirit, and the other soul is tied to some place in the village, such as a big banyan tree, a mountain rock, or an ancient well.

The guardians of the village may take turns, be hereditary, or be chosen by lot—there are many different methods, but there must be one, otherwise it will anger the mountain spirits, who will guard the village entrance on the seventh day after death and devour the souls of the deceased who return!

The situation you described fits the description of a mountain spirit very well, and it's the kind of mountain spirit that has been provoked and has gone mad.

"The mountain spirit—the village guardian—hereditary—if angered, it will guard the village and devour souls on the seventh day after death."

Qin Jin read it word by word, a faint inspiration flashing through his mind.

A chilling conjecture, like a giant ghostly eye opening in the darkness, suddenly took shape in his mind!

These scattered clues, interpreted with a certain malice, were strangely linked together, forming a roughly complete closed loop. However, to confirm them, some more work was needed—

The human heart is indeed the darkest place!

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