Book Synopsis
Book Tags
Donation Rankings
Comment
0 Comments
You May Also Like
墨書 Inktalez
We found a spot to sit down and began flipping through the files that hadn't been touched for who knows how many years. The first page read: "There are many things in this world that cannot be explained, perhaps due to our current scientific limitations. In Our Country, especially here, there are countless phenomena that defy common understanding. This case has been marked as Case Number One, for internal circulation only, strictly prohibited from external dissemination."
I continued reading, spending a full hour to finish the entire case:
The story took place twenty years ago in Baili Village. At that time, the village was far smaller than it is now; it was merely a quaint settlement by the mountains and rivers. The villagers made their living by tea picking and bamboo cultivation, a tradition passed down through generations. Twenty years ago, it was just a village of about two hundred people, but even then, it was considered quite sizable.
In the village lived a relatively wealthy family who had made a fortune in business outside and returned to lease a significant amount of land for tea and bamboo farming. Old Ma's Family had a son who, taking advantage of his family's wealth, spent his days idling around, rarely returning to Baili Village except for occasional visits.
One day, a young girl arrived in Baili Village. According to her, she had fled here from some disaster, but she never revealed the specifics. The villagers were simple folk; one family without children took her in, and she helped them with farm work. The girl was around eighteen years old, pure and lovely, evoking sympathy from those around her.
When Ma Family's Son returned from the city and noticed the beautiful young girl in the village, he stopped going to town altogether. He began to pursue her relentlessly despite her clear statements that she already had a boyfriend and asked him not to bother her. Ma Family's Son became frustrated and declared that he would have her; after all, who didn't love money in this day and age?
But the girl truly wasn't interested in wealth. Months passed with no progress from Ma Family's Son. Finally, one night, spurred on by his reckless friends, he intercepted the girl on her way home during a dark and windy night and demanded she spend the night with him. The girl resisted fiercely, but they forcibly dragged her to the Mountain and assaulted her.
Afterward, Ma Family's Son realized he had gone too far. If the girl reported him, his life would be ruined at such a young age; he didn't want to end up in prison. At that moment, his friends suggested that since the girl wasn't from their village and they didn't know where she came from, they could simply dispose of her—no one would ever find out.
Fueled by anger and malice, Ma Family's Son said that since they were all involved in this incident, they should each take a stone—he would strike first, then it would be their turn; if anything went wrong, they would all share the blame. The others nodded in agreement as they restrained the nearly unconscious girl. Ma Family's Son picked up a stone and brought it down on her head.
The moonlight was hazy; everything around them turned pale as blood splattered across their faces.
"You will not die well! Even as a ghost, I will not let you go!" With that blow, pain jolted the girl awake from her semi-conscious state. Her eyes blazed with fury as blood covered her face; her hair fell loosely around her shoulders like a vengeful spirit from a movie they had seen. Ma Family's Son sneered at her defiance: "You brought this upon yourself; don't blame me! Who's next? Hurry!"
Then came the second blow. The girl remained silent as blood blurred her vision, yet she continued to glare at them fiercely as if memorizing their faces so she could seek revenge from beyond the grave. Just as they prepared for a third strike, distant lights flickered; villagers had come running after realizing she hadn’t returned home late at night.
The villagers stumbled upon this horrific scene of assault and murder. Ma Family's Son and his companions collapsed on the ground in shock, unsure of what to do next.
The Head of the Ma Family was also among the crowd. Seeing the situation, he stepped forward and slapped the four individuals several times, causing them to bleed. He looked down and saw that the girl was still alive, blood flowing from her wounds as she stared at everyone. Taking a deep breath, he surveyed the surroundings and said, "Today, this incident happened due to my poor management. However, she cannot be saved now. We have been neighbors for generations, but she is ultimately an outsider. As long as you all keep this matter to yourselves, I am willing to sell my properties and share the proceeds with everyone. I will then leave this place for good, and we can pretend this never happened."
The girl had lost too much blood to speak, but she could hear everything clearly.
The villagers were in an uproar, unsure of what to do. The Head of the Ma Family continued, "Rest assured, I, Ma Weishan, have always kept my word. You have worked hard all your lives for what? Isn’t it for your next generation to live better lives and escape the fate of previous generations? Now this opportunity is right before you; why not cherish it? Besides, it was not you who killed her, nor was it them; she accidentally fell from the Mountain. What do we have to feel guilty about?"
Seeing that the crowd had quieted down, he knew there was a chance to turn things around. He continued, "This is how it is; I have made myself clear. But if anyone dares to be ungrateful, I will destroy them even if it means my family will perish. It has come to this; my family has been passed down for three generations—what I say goes!"
Everyone fell silent. Two minutes later, someone nodded in agreement.
At that moment, the girl felt faint. She couldn't believe that these villagers were so indifferent. In a hoarse voice, she called out, "Mother..."
This was the family she had been staying with temporarily. Her mother was a simple and kind-hearted person who would feed stray dogs and cats in the village with food from her home. It seemed like she had never encountered such a situation before; she collapsed on the ground, lost in her thoughts. The Head of the Ma Family noticed and said, "Take the old lady back home; leave a few men here while the rest go back and wait for news!"
Before long, only a dozen men remained. They began digging a grave beside the girl. She watched everything unfold before her eyes and said, "I swear by my soul that I curse you all! I curse your village to never know peace! I curse each of you to die a terrible death! I curse you until every last one of you is gone!"
As she spoke, she bit off her own tongue and died.
In the pitch-black night, the moon emerged from behind the clouds and illuminated her body. The girl's eyes remained wide open, refusing to close. The men digging the grave trembled uncontrollably; her final words echoed in their ears like a vengeful spirit whispering in the dead of night, sending chills down their spines.
"Damn it! If you're not afraid of living people, why fear the dead?" shouted the Head of the Ma Family. "Throw her in and bury her!"
Shaking with fear, they tossed her body into the freshly dug hole and began covering it with dirt. Suddenly, her arm shot up from the grave as if trying to rise from the earth to attack them. Terrified, they stumbled back in panic. The Head of the Ma Family yelled, "Hurry!" He lifted a large stone and smashed it down hard into the grave while everyone hastened to fill it with dirt until they finally buried her.
Two weeks later, true to his word, the Head of the Ma Family sold all his properties and distributed them among everyone present at that time before leaving Baili Village for an unknown destination. This incident became a shared secret among all villagers—a secret held by one-third of them—never to be spoken of again.
Seven days later, strange things began to happen. First, a man from a family at the village entrance went insane one night, using a machete to behead his entire family. In the end, he stood in the yard and slit his own throat. After that day, many people in the village suddenly turned to Buddhism, leaving others puzzled.
On the eighth day, another family faced tragedy when the wife added a large amount of pesticide to their dinner. Shortly after eating, all three members of the family perished. Then came the ninth day, when a family was discovered impaled on rapidly growing bamboo shoots. After a rain, the bamboo grew extremely fast, and by the next day, they were several meters off the ground. On the tenth day, a man jumped off Mountain, landing in a bloody mess.
Panic spread throughout the village. Those who knew the secret could not sleep at night, living in fear as they understood that it was the vengeful spirit of a girl seeking retribution. Meanwhile, those unaware of the truth were also anxious, confused about what was happening. The villagers invited a master to perform rituals for seven consecutive days before the situation gradually calmed down.
However, seven days later, chaos erupted again as another family committed suicide, followed by a second and third family. In just a few days, over ten people had died. Many could no longer sit still; numerous families began to leave Baili Village. Eventually, someone could no longer bear the pressure and spoke out about what had happened. From then on, the curse of Baili Village became common knowledge, prompting many families to relocate.
Yet the curse did not end there. Villagers continuously sought help from masters to perform rituals, but each time it only lasted for a short while before more villagers died one after another. Finally, with the help of an enlightened master, things began to ease up. However, by this time, fifty-five people had already died—almost one-third of the village's population. The rest either fled or ran away, turning Baili Village into an Abandoned Village. It wasn't until twenty years later that people gradually returned to the village, unaware of what had transpired two decades prior.
The following pages contained photographs of the deceased. As we flipped through them, we saw each victim's tragic fate with "suicide" written beside them in bold letters. There were fifty-five victims but over a hundred photographs. Despite our extensive experience with such matters, these heart-wrenching images still made us uneasy.
"Can we still find that girl's remains?" Juan Juan asked as he closed the file.
"I'll take you to meet an elder at the police station," said the officer.
Comment 0 Comment Count