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墨書 Inktalez
Feeling a throbbing headache, I couldn't help but rub my temples. Up until now, the atmosphere had been strange, but I hadn't noticed anything amiss at the time. However, looking back, why had the Village Chronicle of Baili Village ended up in the hands of that Witch?
Twenty years ago, there was no internet, and the household registration system was not very well established. As a result, there aren't many well-preserved records left today. At least the records of Baili Village were not properly kept; otherwise, we wouldn't have been unable to identify who Min You was at the beginning. Some elderly villagers who were unaware couldn't possibly remember all the villagers, so why did the Witch have the Village Chronicle?
The answer likely is that the Witch was also one of the villagers of Baili Village. I pointed to a page with a corner torn off and said, "Look here; I didn't notice this before because it didn't affect reading." The others gathered around to see what I was pointing at—the corner had indeed been ripped away.
"If that corner were still there, it would easily have contained a three-character name!" I continued. "This corner was likely torn off by the Witch. To uncover the truth, we must find that Witch again. Mary, check if there were any missing persons from Baili Village twenty years ago."
We took a night flight back to Nangyun City, but it was already late, so we had to wait until the next day. A night passed without conversation, and as usual, I had a nightmare. In my dreams, a woman's face kept appearing for reasons I couldn't comprehend. Mary set up an automatic search program on her computer, but the database was too small; whether we would find anything remained uncertain.
Early in the morning, Mary went to the Police Department to look for any missing villagers while Xiaocao continued to lead us in search of the Witch. As before, we fought our way through thorns and brambles until we reached the entrance of a cave. Yan Junde and Juan Juan were waiting at the cave's mouth while I eagerly followed Xiaocao inside.
As we ventured deeper into the cave, I sensed something was off. Previously, torches had been inserted into the Cave Wall at regular intervals for illumination, but now all those torches were extinguished; it was pitch black inside. I pulled out my lighter for light only to discover that it wasn't that the torches had gone out—they had completely vanished.
"Dezi, come in," I shouted towards the entrance as unease settled over me. Then I turned to Xiaocao and said, "It's dark in here with countless poisonous insects and snakes inside; you should go outside and stay with Juan Juan, understand?"
Xiaocao softly agreed and then took my hand, placing something small into my palm. With the light from my lighter, I saw it was a tiny pouch. Leaning down to sniff it revealed a faint fragrance. Xiaocao said, "I heard you have nightmares on the plane, so when we returned, I made this for you. Carry it with you; it can relieve fatigue and ward off evil."
During our flight, Xiaocao hadn't said a word but had clearly kept everything in mind. I felt touched but didn't know how to express it; I simply tucked away the sachet. At that moment, Yan Junde rushed in from outside the cave. I gently patted Xiaocao on the shoulder; she nodded and left.
Since Yan Junde had never been in this cave before, he didn't understand what was unusual inside. I said, "Get your weapons ready; something feels off here!" Yan Junde nodded and held his pistol close behind me. With one hand drawing my dagger and using my windproof lighter to illuminate our path with the other, I proceeded cautiously.
I moved carefully; during my last visit to this cave, I had nearly been bitten by a snake resting on the Cave Wall—this time I couldn't afford to be reckless. After about ten minutes of walking through a short passageway, we reached the center of the cave where darkness still enveloped us. As I circled around the Cave Wall, I noticed that all the vessels that had previously been piled high were now completely gone—it seemed someone had taken everything away.
Walking around the Cave Wall, I found that aside from one side covered in unknown plants, the rest of the surroundings were bare, revealing nothing. I shook my head in frustration; it seemed that the Witch had taken something and left. Yan Junde said, "What about the Witch? Has she disappeared?"
I nodded and replied, "It appears that this Witch is indeed problematic; we have been tricked. However, there’s something strange about this situation. If she intended to deceive us, why would she give us the Village Chronicle? That doesn’t make sense. I believe there must be something we don’t know."
"The lighter won’t last much longer. Let’s head out and have the people at the station bring some lighting equipment. When they arrive, we’ll conduct a thorough search to see if anything useful was left behind," I said, glancing at the flickering flame.
We returned to the Police Department and informed Director Wang about the situation. He immediately arranged for personnel to bring large lighting equipment so that even an ant could be found. We nodded in agreement, and at that moment, Mary relayed some news: twenty years ago, a person had indeed gone missing.
The missing person was a Villager from Baili Village. Based on the timeline, she had disappeared shortly before fifty-five people began dying twenty years ago. At that time, her family had reported her missing, which is why it was possible to trace it so quickly now. The police had opened a case back then, but not long after, a murder occurred, and the missing person case was set aside until two decades later when we brought it back to light.
"There was indeed someone missing!" I tapped my fingers on the table as I looked at the photo of the Villager on Mary’s computer. Suddenly, a possibility struck me. "Do you remember how the girl’s body was swapped? Could that body belong to this missing Villager?"
If we analyze it logically, did that girl really die? If she did die, who swapped her body? If she didn’t die, could she be responsible for the suicide case involving fifty-five people? One question after another surfaced in my mind.
It seemed I had grasped another thread of this case; perhaps the key to unraveling this curse lay with the vanished Witch. Everyone was preparing when Little Grass arrived at the Police Department with his grandfather. Little Grass said, "This time my grandfather is coming with us; he hasn’t seen Grandma in nearly twenty years. Maybe he can figure out where she went."
Little Grass's Grandfather nodded and said, "Although I don’t know why she ran away, she shouldn’t be a Killer. I know her; even though she uses sorcery, she has never harmed anyone. There must be some misunderstanding..." As he spoke, he stepped closer to us.
Suddenly, he pointed at the photo on the computer screen and exclaimed, "You even found her young photos? Impressive!"
"You found her young photos?" I asked with confusion. "What do you mean? Do you recognize this person in the picture?"
This time it was Little Grass's Grandfather who looked puzzled at us and replied, "Yes! Aren't you trying to find her? This is what the Witch looked like when she was young! What’s going on? Don’t you know?"
Hearing Grandpa Grass's words felt like a bolt from the blue. The little grass seemed to empathize with me and said, "Grandpa, you must be mistaken. How could she be the grandmother? Even if twenty years have passed, a person's bones don't change. She looks nothing like the grandmother at all."
This Witch was not the same Witch that Grandpa Grass knew; perhaps someone had replaced her as the Witch twenty years ago. Over those two decades, the Witch that Little Grass and Grandpa Grass knew was simply not the same person! So who had taken her place as the Witch? What were her intentions? Why had she stayed in the cave for twenty years?
"Is it really possible for a corpse to crawl out of the ground?" Mary asked tremulously.
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