Chapter 15 The History of Xiao Shi Jian Village

Then, with the village chief's account, the dark, hopeless history of Xiao Shi Jian Village slowly unfolded.

His voice was hoarse, filled with the air of unveiling a long-sealed history.

Compared to the hearsay of the innkeeper in Anping Town, the village chief's account was more detailed. He could even name some of the tragic women and tell the stories that happened to them.

Although these events had happened a long time ago, listening to them was still jarring. People living in the sunlight of civilized society simply couldn't imagine the torture the women suffered while imprisoned in the dark, hopeless dungeon.

...

"So..." Li Lu carefully opened her mouth, "the women who died full of hatred turned into vengeful ghosts and came back for revenge."

It wasn't a question, it was an obvious conclusion.

The innkeeper also confirmed this.

But unexpectedly, the village chief shook his head with a strange expression. "It's not those women," as if recalling something, his lips trembled violently, "it's her!"

"Who is she?" Chen Xiaomeng asked, leaning forward.

"It's... it's the woman who was beaten to death by the parents of the women who had been abducted!"

As the recollection progressed, Jiang Zhongyi's expression gradually became strange. He stared at the village chief and asked suspiciously, "The mastermind the police caught? The mastermind... was a woman?"

The village chief nodded, his pupils becoming slightly unnatural, but he still said, "The women in the village were all tricked here by her from outside. She looked very young and easily gained the trust of the women she tricked."

"What's her name?"

"Zhao Xiangmei."

"You mean the vengeful ghost is this mastermind, Zhao Xiangmei, and it was also this Zhao Xiangmei who killed so many people in the village?" Yu Man widened her eyes.

The village chief sighed, "That's right."

"But... why do you say it's her?" Yu Man continued to ask, "Couldn't it be those women who died unjustly?"

Not only her, everyone thought this was incomprehensible.

The one who turned into a vengeful ghost to seek revenge wasn't the victim who died full of resentment, but the perpetrator who deserved it. What kind of logic was that?

The village chief naturally saw the confusion in everyone's eyes and explained, "It really isn't those poor women. Although they suffered a lot, none of them... none of them died," he spread his hands, his face bitter. "How could someone who didn't die turn into a ghost?"

Zhou Rong stared at the village chief's profile. After a long while, he cautiously said, "Are you sure none of them died?"

"I'm sure," the village chief nodded fiercely, "The police came to take a count back then. A total of 29 women were abducted, besides the 21 locked up in the village, there were also 6 who were resold to other places, and 2 who were staying at the midwife's house waiting to give birth. Not a single one was missing, they were all alive."

After a while, he explained with a strange expression, "After all, in the eyes of the villagers at the time, they were also a kind of asset. It took a lot of money to..."

After hesitating for a while, Benfu asked, "When... when did that ghost appear?"

The village chief saw what he was thinking at a glance and sighed, "After the villagers realized that people were being killed one after another, they immediately suspected that it was a woman who couldn't bear this painful memory and committed suicide after being rescued, thus turning into a vengeful ghost and returning for revenge."

"But we later confirmed that they were all alive," the village chief looked at everyone and nodded, "All 29 of them."

"So, the ghost can only be that one woman who died, the mastermind Zhao Xiangmei," Zhou Rong said.

The village chief seemed to have thought of something, and his voice gradually lowered, "This has already been confirmed," his eyes flickered constantly, and the occasional sound of wind outside made him nervous.

"We... we found a stone tablet at the place where we finally found Zhao Xiangmei's body, and behind the stone tablet was written a line of bloody words..."

He suddenly stopped talking here. Jiang Cheng tilted his head and glanced at the dark, sturdy man who looked particularly strong, and found that he had also hunched over unconsciously, his expression very frightened.

"Is that a curse?" Jiang Cheng asked with his triangular eyes, smacking his lips, "Something like slaughtering your entire village, leaving no dogs or chickens behind, opening instant noodles with no seasoning packet, giving birth to a son with no little *di*..."

The village chief, who was immersed in fear, didn't catch up with Jiang Cheng's train of thought for a moment, but when he heard the word curse, he began to nod, "That's right, it must be a curse! It must be!"

The others were immune to Jiang Cheng's words, and Benfu even looked forward to the few witty remarks Jiang Cheng made from time to time, which led him to open the door to a new world.

"Where is the stone tablet?"

"By the deep pool in the back mountain," after a pause, the village chief added in a low voice, "Zhao Xiangmei's body was also thrown into the deep pool in the end."

Chen Xiaomeng stared at the village chief and suddenly asked, "I remember you said that Zhao Xiangmei was snatched away by the angry parents of the women and then beaten to death. If that's the case, how could she have had the opportunity to leave a curse on the stone tablet?"

Everyone's eyes gathered on the village chief's face, waiting for his explanation.

The scene suddenly became quiet.

"It's true that Zhao Xiangmei was snatched away," the village chief said, with more inexplicable sorrow in his tone, "But she wasn't beaten to death on the spot, she was just seriously injured and passed out."

"After the angry parents left, she actually struggled to wake up."

"In the evening, some villagers found that she was still alive. She stretched out her broken hand, trembling, and begged the villagers to save her, but no one was willing to get involved with her. Everyone was just watching coldly, even though... even though some people had just bought women from her."

"It is said that her painful wailing lasted all night until she breathed her last the next morning," the village chief pursed his lips. "She died with her eyes open, one eye was blinded, her entire face was scratched with broken tiles, and her limbs were broken by great force."

"No one knows how she wrote that line of bloody words, her arms... her arms were clearly broken, but she did it, and..." the village chief suddenly raised his head, his pupils trembling violently, "The curse came true!"

After listening to the whole story, the ins and outs of the matter were very clear. From Zhao Xiangmei's perspective, the villagers who didn't save her were indeed hateful, and it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that they deserved to die.

The villagers smiled at her when they needed her, but decisively abandoned her in the most critical moment, and even worried that she would implicate them if she lived, so they chose to watch her die in agony.

"Her body..." Li Lu bit her lip.

"Her body was thrown into the deep pool by the villagers the next day," the village chief said, looking at Li Lu who asked the question, "She was completely dead at that time."

"By the way, the deep pool in the back mountain also has a name, which was passed down a long, long time ago, called Hanzhen Pool. Before Liberation, it was the place in the village where women who didn't abide by women's ethics were specifically executed."

"Once such a woman was discovered, she would be stuffed into a pig cage, and then in front of the entire village, she would be tied with stones and sunk to the bottom of the pool."