dmims Chapter 60: Is the blood-soaked bun made from one's own daughter delicious?
Chapter 60: Is the blood-soaked bun made from one's own daughter delicious?
Tong Kexin took a step forward. "The east end of the alley, Aunt Zhang told me about it last month."
"That couple had something dirty on them."
"It is said that the son got into debt with loan sharks, so they tricked their married daughter into coming back, bought her an accidental death insurance policy, and then she drowned in their own water tank on the third day."
Her throat bobbed.
"They reported it as an accident and paid 600,000 yuan in compensation. The money was used to cover up the losses. Aunt Zhang said that the water vat was left to dry for three days afterward, and the bottom of the vat was still damp. A pair of old wooden chopsticks was missing from the chopstick holder next to the stove. Whenever anyone asked, the couple said they didn't know anything about it."
Cheng Xiaojin's throat tightened.
Zhou Banxian nodded.
"The resentment of those who drown is heavy. The air they held in the water cannot dissipate and all of it is deposited on the last things they touched before they died. The chopsticks were used for her last meal, which was cooked by her mother. After that meal, she was gone."
The pair of dark red wooden chopsticks lay quietly on the table.
The black grime in the cracks gleamed wetly under the streetlights. The chopsticks, one long and one short, sat on the table, looking from a distance like the upside-down chopsticks left for the dead on a dining table.
Cheng Xiaojin stared at the chopsticks, her mind starting to race.
"Uncle Zhou, can the resentment emanating from this thing disrupt a person's five senses?"
Zhou Banxian narrowed his eyes.
"It not only disrupts the five senses, but this kind of resentment from the extinction of a family is the yin energy of someone who was killed by their closest relatives, and it is most likely to penetrate the tactile channels of the living."
"Whoever touches it may see what the deceased saw before they died, hear the sound of water being poured into their lungs, and even feel the sensation of water blocking their throat."
He tapped the edge of the table with his fingernail.
"Eating the dead is a taboo in the old Beijing alleys. If a man in a family dies, the relatives will come to the door, eat and drink everything, take everything, and even take away the iron pot from the stove. That is called cutting off the stove."
"When the stove is broken, the incense also goes out; these chopsticks are stained with this kind of filth."
Cheng Xiaojin squeezed the Qianlong Tongbao coin in his pocket with his right hand.
"Uncle Zhou, does Tie Yi, the Iron Maniac, also use the tactile pathway?"
……
The studio lights stayed on all night, and it was still dark when Zhou Banxian left.
Tong Kexin locked up the stall and followed behind, but after taking three steps, she came back and took the pair of chopsticks from the table.
When her fingers touched the red silk cloth, her fingertips recoiled slightly, but she still wrapped the chopsticks in three layers and stuffed them into the bottom of the spice cabinet, next to the 50,000 yuan in cash.
She wasn't afraid, but she understood what Cheng Xiaojin was going to do, and she was even more afraid that he would touch her with those hands that had just been soaked in water.
Cheng Xiaojin squatted at the entrance of the stall, took the cigarette from behind his ear, but didn't light it.
The phone screen was lit up, and the second text message from the bald owner of the stationery and general store was still displayed in the notification bar.
Cheng Xiaojin tapped his cigarette twice on the edge of the table, looked down at his ten swollen fingers, where scabs and bluish-black blood mingled under his nails.
"Sir, since you read the memories of iron, then I'll let you read some other memories..."
Four o'clock in the morning.
Tieguai Li's workshop is on the basement floor.
Once the door is closed, the wind from the alley outside can't get in. The faucet isn't turned off tightly, and water drips into the basin, the sound of dripping filling the room. After a while, it sounds like someone swallowing saliva in the dark.
Cheng Xiaojin spread the red silk cloth on the table.
Dark red wooden chopsticks were exposed, and the fluorescent light tube above the worktable hummed, casting a bluish light that made the cracks on the chopsticks open and close.
Under the light, the cracks appeared to be shrinking on their own, as fine as blood vessels that had been soaked in water for a long time.
Tieguai Li removed his prosthetic leg from the table leg and placed it on the chair.
He leaned against the worktable with his one leg, the military file in his hand hanging in mid-air, hesitant to fall.
"Are you sure you want to scrape this thing?"
"Sure."
"Do you know what the powder that comes out when you scrape it off is?"
"I know, the old wood dust covered in the resentment of the dead smells like a coffin board that's been soaking in a stinking ditch for three months."
Tieguai Li's file fell down.
The first scrape across the surface of the chopsticks released a dark red powder that spilled out from between the serrations of the file and scattered onto the white paper.
The flavors started to come.
First, it tastes like rotten fruit, sweet to the point of being sour, and then it just tastes fishy, like blood that has been soaking at the bottom of a water tank for a long time.
Tieguai Li turned his head and gagged.
Cheng Xiaojin's stomach churned, and he swallowed back the acid that welled up in his mouth.
"Should we open a window?" Tieguai Li asked.
"It cannot be opened."
Zhou Banxian's voice came from the doorway.
The old man returned sometime later, holding a wine jug and blocking the doorway.
"This stuff dissipates when exposed to fresh air, and once it dissipates, it's useless."
The file continued to move downwards.
More and more dark red powder fell onto the white paper, but instead of spreading out, it gathered into several wet patches.
Tieguai Li stopped after scraping for the third time.
There's something inside.
Cheng Xiaojin leaned over to take a look.
After the chopsticks were scraped off, the inner layer of wood was not the normal wood color, but only a deep red layer upon layer. The red color penetrated into the wood fibers, becoming darker the deeper it went. There was also a bit of dry, hardened dark scab hanging in the hole at the end of the chopsticks.
Zhou Banxian squatted down and took a look.
"The blood... it seeped in from the blood, not from being soaked. It was from when someone was holding these chopsticks in their hand that the blood between their fingers was absorbed into the chopsticks through the pores at the ends of the chopsticks. The tighter the grip, the deeper the blood was absorbed."
Cheng Xiaojin's fingers clenched tightly in his pocket.
The story Tong Kexin told us was about her daughter drowning in her family's water tank. The last meal she ate was made with chopsticks, and the food was cooked by her mother.
Did she know what was happening while she was eating that meal?
She knew... her chopsticks were bleeding from being gripped so tightly.
Did she struggle after eating that meal?
The chopsticks didn't break, and she didn't struggle...
Cheng Xiaojin pulled his hand out of his pocket and pressed his right index finger onto the pile of dark red powder on the white paper.
The moment the bluish-gray fingertips touched the powder, a chill crept into the grooves of their fingerprints.
That coldness evoked images.
water……
The gray water reached the base of my neck.
My head was pressed underwater, water poured into my throat through my nose, my trachea was full of astringent taste, my lungs were swelling, and my chest felt like it was going to burst.
The eyes were open, and there were two faces above the water.
A middle-aged man and woman, whose facial features resembled his own by about 50-60%.
The woman was crying, but her grip didn't loosen.
The man's face remained expressionless, and his hand pressing on the back of his head was very steady...
The image paused on my fingertip for two breaths before cutting off.
The metallic energy shattered the coldness and forced it out through his fingertips, but those two faces were already imprinted in his mind and could not be erased in a short time.
Cheng Xiaojin removed her finger from the powder, and a drop of dark red blood seeped from under her fingernail.
Tieguai Li observed his expression.
"What do you see?"
"Her parents' faces."
The studio fell silent, though the faucet was still dripping.
Tieguai Li placed the file on the table, his hand gripping the handle trembling a few times.
"These two beasts, I never imagined their mother could be so heartless..."
Zhou Banxian unscrewed the wine pot and took a sip. "Nine out of ten ghosts in the world are made by people. Without that couple, there would be no chopsticks."
Cheng Xiaojin gathered the dark red powder onto a piece of bamboo paper, folded it three times, and stuffed it into his inner pocket.
That's enough.
Tieguai Li asked, "How do you use it?"
Cheng Xiaojin laid his hands flat on the table.
The first joint of his ten fingers was bluish-purple, and the blood in the nail crevices had not yet dried.
"The Iron Maniac's Iron Memory travels through the tactile channel. He places his hand on the ironware and reads the information left by the people who handled the iron from the time it was forged until now."
He raised his chin.
"He can tell the year the bottom of the Qing Dynasty iron pot was made, whether the foundry used a southern or northern furnace, and whether the last person who handled the iron was left-handed or right-handed."
Tieguai Li frowned.
"so what?"
"So tomorrow I'll rub this powder into my nail crevices, and when he drives the Iron Memory, I'll touch the edge of the metal object next to him."
Cheng Xiaojin tapped the tabletop lightly with his fingertip.
"Using the metal element as the conductor, resentment as the signal, and the iron maniac's own sensory channels as the door, he wanted to read the iron's memories, so I casually sent him a piece of someone else's memory."
Zhou Banxian stared at him for a long time, holding the wine pot.
"You're using the resentment of the dead to feed the minds of the living; that's even more outrageous than what I do."
Cheng Xiaojin pulled her hand back and wiped the blood from her fingertips with a cloth.
"He himself wants to open the door to read the iron. Once the door is open, what kind of wind blows in from outside depends on how tough his fate is."
Tieguai Li shook his prosthetic leg and stood up.
"You're becoming more and more like your grandfather, all talk and no action."
Cheng Xiaojin picked up the pair of dark red chopsticks that had been filed down from the table.
The chopsticks were still mostly broken, their surfaces uneven and pitted. Wrapped in red silk cloth, a faint damp sound came from inside, as if someone had put their mouth to the cloth and taken a mouthful of water.
Tieguai Li didn't catch it with his hands, but used iron pliers to clamp the edge of the red silk.
Cheng Xiaojin glanced at him.
"Keep it safe, don't let Tong Kexin touch it."