Chapter 38: Why Bother
Lin Ling poured the watering can, watering the Lycoris radiata on the table, while appreciating the sight of the Lycoris radiata trembling under the cold water, and asked Wei Jiang, who was doing his daily cleaning of the shop: “Lycoris radiata is also called other shore flower. Do you know what the other corresponding flower is?”
Facing Lin Ling’s sudden question, Wei Jiang was already used to it. He thought for a moment and replied: “Lycoris radiata is called Manshushahua in Sanskrit, which is a red lotus. It is said to bloom on Yellow Springs Road, and the corresponding one should be a white flower called Mandala Hua, which blooms on the welcoming road to heaven. But actually, there are also sayings that they are both flowers from heaven, two of the four heavenly auspicious flowers.”
“Looks like you’ve done your homework on this.” Lin Ling laughed. “Then, according to your first theory, what similarities and differences do you think there are between Manshushahua blooming on Yellow Springs Road and Mandala Hua blooming on the road to heaven?”
Wei Jiang thought for a moment: “The similarity is that they both guide departed souls and point the way to new life for the souls of the dead. As for the differences…” He couldn’t figure it out and shook his head.
Lin Ling chuckled and said: “If you see Manshushahua, you fall into hell; if you see Mandala Hua, you ascend to heaven… Although both carry the meaning of death, the former leans toward the negative side of death, toward the nothingness of death, implying degeneration, while the latter leans toward the positive side of death, toward the life in death, implying new life. In essence, there is actually no difference between the two.”
Wei Jiang seemed to gain some insight and said admiringly after a moment: “I’ve learned something.”
“By the way, do you know what the flower language of Manshushahua is?” Lin Ling lightly patted the cat claw that stretched out from the darkness, stopping it before that unruly cat claw could shred the flower petal of that Lycoris radiata.
Wei Jiang seemed to think of something and let out a long sigh, saying: “Never to meet again… despairing love…”
Thump thump thump!
“Mrs. Xue! Xue Hanlei!” Li Jiahong fiercely pounded on the apartment door where Xue Hanlei lived, shouting loudly into the house.
Seeing no response from inside, Li Jiahong pressed his eye to the cat eyes, barely seeing some candlelight flickering inside, and vaguely spotting a fallen human body. Sensing something was wrong, he gritted his teeth and began ramming the door forcefully.
The commotion caused by Li Jiahong attracted the neighbors around Xue Hanlei’s apartment. Seeing a grown man suddenly appear late at night at the door of an apartment housing a widow and her orphan daughter, everyone felt suspicious and thought Li Jiahong had ill intentions.
Fortunately, Li Jiahong quickly explained, and he also had the apartment security guard who arrived later look through the cat eyes. After confirming there was an unmoving human figure inside and no response to repeated knocking, all the men gathered at the apartment door became grim-faced.
In response, everyone unanimously decided that saving a life took priority, so they rammed open the apartment door together with Li Jiahong. The scene that immediately met their eyes shocked everyone.
Inside the house was dim, with only a dozen candles arranged in a magic array pattern providing light sources in the darkness. Vaguely, they could see a plump woman lying on the magic array, but when the electric lamp was fully turned on, where was the fallen woman on that magic array?
That was a headless female corpse! Xue Hanlei’s corpse!
The onlookers seeing such a brutal scene for the first time all screamed in horror.
“I came too late.” Li Jiahong looked incredulously at the scene before him, suddenly slumping to the ground in despair, muttering, “Why couldn’t you wait just a little longer… Why use this manner…”
Xue Hanlei’s death quickly alerted the law enforcement officers, but since the case involved anomalies, it was quickly transferred to the Mysterious Group for handling. Soon, at Xue Hanlei’s death scene, Li Jiahong saw He Jia’an and the other three again.
“What an indescribable tragedy.” He Jia’an looked at the corpse lying in a pool of blood and couldn’t help shaking his head. After examining the scene, he had basically guessed the process of what happened.
“She has a daughter from her remarried partner, who is now missing.” Li Jiahong grabbed He Jia’an’s shoulder like it was a life-saving straw and said urgently, “I suspect her daughter has been taken by Huo Gu. We have to save her.”
Soon, the discovery by the mystic investigator responsible for scouting the scene—a rubbing of ancient text—proved Li Jiahong’s conjecture.
He Jia’an just flipped through a few pages of the document and immediately understood. He looked at the ritual array left at the scene and said: “This Mrs. Xue somehow obtained the evil magic ritual procedure used back then to summon Huo Gu, and she actually succeeded in replicating it alone. The transaction was completed; her daughter who was just short of four years old naturally became Huo Gu’s target and was forcibly taken away by Huo Gu. We just don’t know what wish Mrs. Xue made.”
“But they kill when they kill, so why take Xue Hanlei’s head this time in particular?” Li Jiahong was filled with doubts inside.
He Jia’an held a cigarette in his mouth and said: “Unclear. Maybe Mrs. Xue’s head was processed and discarded in various places around, or there’s another possibility—that it was a special wish Xue Hanlei made to Huo Gu.”
Li Jiahong pondered for a moment and guessed: “Mrs. Xue’s strongest wish must have been to see her missing child one more time, and Huo Gu granted Mrs. Xue’s wish, so it took off Mrs. Xue’s head in some manner we can’t quite understand and really took her to the dimension where they live, to see her long-missing biological child.”
“Not impossible.” Yu Lianyun said. Her gaze scanned back and forth over the corpse at the scene, her attention fixed on the headless neck. “There are countless ways to kill, yet they chose this inconvenient method of decapitation, and… if not done deliberately, the neck couldn’t have such a clean cut surface.”
“Brain in a vat?” Li Yingqi thought of a conjecture circulating in the scientific community. “If Huo Gu is a race with a civilization surpassing human technology, perhaps they can keep humans alive with just a head remaining, which would explain why Mrs. Xue’s head disappeared. The logic holds.”
Li Jiahong held his forehead. “But what’s the point of all this…”
“Indeed, if she could have waited a little longer, she might not have had to die.” He Jia’an bit his cigarette filter, his eyes showing some complex emotions. “We just inquired about the location of Huo Gu Graveyard, and she missed it just like that.”
“Found it?” Li Jiahong was stunned, unsure whether to feel sad or happy, his heart filled with conflicting emotions.
He Jia’an didn’t explain much about this, just saying: “Mrs. Xue might be beyond saving, but her daughter who was just taken should still be salvageable… Although it’s not a good choice, with lives at stake there’s no time to consider. We have to head to the location of Huo Gu Graveyard now.”
“Please, let me come with you.” Seeing He Jia’an, Yu Lianyun, and the others turn to leave, Li Jiahong hurriedly blocked their path and said sincerely.
“No.” He Jia’an rejected Li Jiahong’s proposal without thinking, then ignored him and left.
Li Jiahong clenched his fist tightly for a moment before quickly deflating and loosening it. He felt a deep sense of powerlessness.
After chasing for a while and stopping in fatigue, he could only stand at one end of the street gasping for breath, watching as He Jia’an and the others drove around the other end of the street, their taillights disappearing into the darkness.
Flap!
Suddenly, a sound of flapping wings abruptly entered his ears. A shadow blocked the street lamp light, enveloping Li Jiahong. Before he could look up, the next moment he found himself far off the ground, his arms carefully gripped by a pair of sharp bird claws, hoisted into the high air.
Came too late… Been so busy like a dog these past few days… Begging for collections, votes, and such
