Chen Ge crawled out from the tunnel and looked around.
There were no windows in the room, and not far from the entrance of the tunnel, there were several freshly dead poultry.
She used the blood of poultry? She can even fool a Specter like that?
The sound of babies crying could be heard. Chen Ge walked down the stairs to the second floor.
It was obvious that this was a woman's room. The room was decorated with simple furniture, and unlike other houses, there was no coffin inside this room but a wooden bed.
Pulling back the thick curtain, Chen Ge saw several bamboo baskets on the bed, and each of the babies had a blade of grass placed on their lips.
The blade of grass appeared to have a calming effect. Even though the babies had been separated from their parents, they did not cry that hard.
"Every time this Zhu woman takes the child away, it's actually to protect the child?"
Soon, Chen Ge found a book under the pillow. He flipped it open, and it recorded many names and addresses.
The person who wrote these things probably had limited knowledge, so most of the places were replaced with symbols.
"The Zhu woman outside looks like she's in her thirties or forties, but this book is yellowed and old. It feels like it's from many years ago." Chen Ge held the book, but he could not understand the words on it. They looked like Chinese, but he could not recognize most of them. The addresses are very blurry, but I can recognize a few names. Could they be the children that were rescued?
"You're right. They are all children that I've rescued." An old lady's voice came from behind him. Chen Ge immediately turned around with the recorder.
"I should be the one afraid, right? Or do you think an old man like me who has one foot in the grave can pose a threat to you? "
Perhaps due to the lack of teeth, the voice sounded strange. Chen Ge walked into the room with the recorder. In the cubicle on the second floor, he saw an old lady with a serious hunchback and a face full of wrinkles.
She was lying on the wooden bed. The muscles in her legs had atrophied, and only her head and one arm could barely move.
"You are?" The old lady looked very old, and Chen Ge could not help but address her as' you '.
The old lady looked at Chen Ge and grinned. "I am a person who is favored by ghosts."
When he heard that, Chen Ge's head buzzed. He could not be more familiar with the term that the old man used!
"You give me a sense of closeness. You should have interacted with them before, right?" The 'them' the old man was referring to was naturally the Specters.
"That's right. Not only have I interacted with them, but I've also built a home for them to take in."
"Then you're much stronger than me." The old man tried his best to express his kindness. "Please sit down. I didn't hear the door open. You must have come through the ancestral hall's tunnel. I'm guessing you're planning to sneak the baby away during the ceremony?"
"Yes, that is my plan." Chen Ge did not approach the old man. He merely put down the recorder in his hand.
"It's just as I thought. Those who are favored by the Specters must have qualities that even the Specters acknowledge." The old man's voice was calm, but it was comforting.
"A quality recognized by the Specters?"
"Yes."
The old lady nodded with difficulty. Under Chen Ge's questioning, she told him everything that had happened years ago.
It was similar to what Ah Qing had said, but the difference was that the Specters that the old lady mentioned did not kill for revenge. There appeared to be some lingering emotion in them.
The old lady had saved the female ghost three times, and the female ghost had promised to do three things for the old lady that were reasonable.
Normally, she would treat the old lady differently. For example, she would never enter the old lady's house. When other ghosts appeared in the village, as long as they threatened the old lady's life, the female ghost would appear to kill them.
"She bathed the village in blood, and none of the evildoers were spared. I can understand that, and I even feel happy about it. But what happened next made me feel like something was wrong. " The old lady's body was weak, and she had to rest after every sentence. "A red door appeared in the family that she used to live in, and only she could open the door.
After the massacre, she let go of her obsession and was about to leave. Before she left, she wanted to enter the door to take a look, but that was how she saw the problem.
"When she came out from the door, she was haunted by hatred, and her eyes were filled with venom. She had turned into a completely different person.
"I don't know what she ran into behind the door, but I do know that she was filled with malice toward everything. She planned to imprison the descendants of the evildoers here so that they could only be monsters for the rest of their lives. Even normal people were unforgivable in her eyes."
There was a trace of hidden pain in the old lady's voice. "I did not have the power to stop her, so I could only use my own method to save some innocent children when she went mad.
"Like what you saw today, she would wake up once a year to enter the world behind the door. If these children were left anywhere else, she would have killed them. Only at my place could they be safe.
"Endure it. As long as she survives this night, she will fall asleep again when she comes out of the door."
The old lady had no idea what was behind the door. She only knew that the female ghost would go to the world behind the door every year around this time.
"Then why don't you run? All of you leave the village, "Chen Ge said.
"Everyone who drank from the well will be haunted by her for the rest of their lives. That is why I only save newborns."
"Haunted for the rest of their lives? But I heard about ten years ago, some people from your village managed to escape, and nothing happened to them. "Chen Ge was referring to Jiang Ling's father and the rest.
"That was an accident. Ten years ago, after she entered the door, she did not return that night.
The villagers lived in fear for a whole month, but she still did not return. Some people thought she had died on the other side of the door.
"At the time, there were two voices in the village — one was to stay in the village, and the other was to escape.
"Then, some of the people with less obvious physical abnormalities sneaked out. On the third day after they escaped, she returned.
Some of the people who escaped were my descendants. I begged her to let them go. I used two favors to ensure their safety for twenty years. "
The old lady coughed harder and harder. Chen Ge did not dare ask any more questions. He had learned enough from the old lady.
"Granny, rest well. I won't disturb you any longer. I need to take one of the children with me. That is a promise I made with someone from your village. "
Chen Ge turned to look for Ah Qing's child, but he only took a few steps when the old lady's voice came from behind him. "Actually, there's another reason I called you here."
"Is it related to the female ghost who jumped into the well?" Chen Ge had found the baby with the copper coin around his neck. He looked very cute.
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