When Li Jiapeng heard that, he first stood up and walked in several circles, then sat back at his original place. After he calmed down, he asked the rest of the them who were still thinking deeply about the matter, “so, how did Lin Lin die?”
He Mingde, “domestic violence?”
Song Gui, “suicide?”
Lu Chu, “accident?”
Qi Li, “……”
When faced with four pairs of eyes looking at him, Qi Li opened his mouth, “he killed her.”
Li Jiapeng clapped his hands, “very good, you guys collected all the way a person can die, and now, you can summon the dragon.”1Dragon Ball reference, where you can summon a dragon after collecting all seven dragon balls.
“Song Gui”, Lu Chu thought of something and suddenly asked, “did you find anything else in the storage room?”
“No,” Song Gui leaned back against the bed and sat in a lazy manner, “but before I came out, I locked the door to the storage room again. I only hope there’s only one set of keys in Wei Rong’s hands. When I was looking, I always felt as if I was missing something, so I plan to take advantage of a time when Wei Rong isn’t home, like when she runs over to Granny Wang’s place to act in a crazy manner, then dig up the ground in the storage room once more.”
Lu Chu thought about I then said, “that’s also a good idea. I found ‘it’s smell at Wei Rong’s place, and it seems to be very obvious.”
He Mingde said, “the smell being more obvious…… isn’t that natural? After all, Guo Jianping’s the starting point of the whole thing.”
Lu Chu said, “we always have to take a look before we can come to a conclusion.”
“I think,” Song Gui quickly interrupted, “Lu Chu, do you have some of sort of psychic powers? Others rely on their third eye, while you rely on smell? It seems really high-end.”
Li Jiapeng felt the same way, “I also think so!”
Lu Chu shook his head, “who knows?”
It seemed that after he had left the ‘game’ that he was originally in, his already sensitive hearing, smell, and perception became even more sensitive. What he didn’t say was not only could he smell ‘it’, but when he closed his eyes and carefully thought about it, he could also roughly determine where ‘it’ was.
However, compared to the well-known ‘psychics and ‘third eyes’, there was still a big gap.
“What about Liu Cuihe? Do we need to continue searching for her?” He Mingde asked.
Lu Chu confirmed, “of course.”
Before, when Wei Rong went crazy and couldn’t stop speaking nonsense, majority of what she said was the same as what she said before she went insane. However, at the end, she was saying, “you let me down, you let Lin Lin down.”
This showed that Wei Rong might have learnt about some of the things that had happened, and later, she had been provoked by something and went crazy.
Lu Chu nodded, tapped the table with his fingers, then said, “we better sort out the facts that we figured out about that year.”
Everybody nodded, “okay.”
Thus, Lu Chu took out several stones and placed them on the table. First, he took a stone and placed it in the middle, then said, “Guo Jianping. Came to this village twenty years ago and started the first school in this village. At first, he lived in the school, and is the centre of this whole affair.”
Then, he moved two other stones, “Wei Rong and Lin Lin were amongst the earliest batch of students in this school. Wei Rong liked Guo Jianping, and had helped him before, but later, Guo Jianping married the more beautiful Lin Lin.”
After the last stone was placed on the table, Lu Chu said, “Liu Cuihe had gotten together with Guo Jianping at some point in time, and we can tell from the information that we received earlier, that when Guo Jianping was married with Lin Lin, Liu Cuihe had an improper relationship with Guo Jianping. Afterwards, she moved out of the village, and soon after that, Lin Lin was rumoured to have ‘run away with someone from the outside’, when she actually had died. After that, Guo Jianping married Wei Rong, and some time had passed, and Wei Rong found out that Guo Jianping went out often and didn’t return home. She thought that he went to find ‘Lin Lin who had returned’ – but we found out from the Liu family that he and Liu Cuihe who had moved out from the village started up their complicated relationship again. Later, Wei Rong started to quarrel and fight about it, lost her child, and her mental state started to go off the rails. Guo Jianping died mysteriously, and Wei Rong went completely mad.”
The rest of the nodded thoughtfully.
Next, Lu Chu took out three wooden sticks and placed them on the table, “other than Guo Jianping, three people have already been murdered; Yang Cheng, the village chief, and a villager. Now, I suspect that this villager was one of the men recorded in Lin Lin’s diary; one of the drunkards who wanted to plot against Lin Lin.”
“Now, we’ve already made a tentative decision that Yang Cheng is the ‘ghost’, and amongst the ones mentioned before, the one most likely to become a resentful spirit for revenge is Lin Lin. This also isn’t that different from what we initially thought.” Lu Chu said, “before, we assumed that after lurking for twenty years, that the reason a ghost that became so strong that even Granny Wang couldn’t stop it didn’t just kill the ones it wanted to kill, but killed them one by one like this was because we aren’t the only ones who wanted to know about the truth twenty years ago, but ‘it’ also wants to know.”
Talking till here, Lu Chu placed the stone representing Lin Lin in his hand, tossed it up and caught it, and continued, “the reason ‘it’ kills them one by one, firstly,, is because of revenge, and secondly – to urge us.”
He Mingde suddenly realised, “that’s to say, ‘it’ wants to know, who was the one who cheated with Guo Jianping…… or, whether ‘it’s death had anything to do with this person, with Liu Cuihe?”
“That’s right.” Lu Chu nodded his head, “it could be seen from Lin Lin’s diary, that from the beginning to the end, she didn’t know the person Guo Jianping cheated with was Liu Cuihe. Currently, Lin Lin’s death is a mystery, but I feel that whether it’s those drunkards, or Lin Lin’s death, both of them cannot be separated from Liu Cuihe.”
“So Liu Cuihe had to be found.” Li Jiapeng added.
Song Gui rested his head on his hands and said, “looks like we’ll have to continue asking everybody tomorrow.”
Lu Chu said, “it’s only a street.”
Qi Li added, “so, right now, the few points that we have to clarify is, how did Lin Lin die? What role did Liu Cuihe, Guo Jianping, and those people who had something happen to them play in Lin Lin’s death, and, if ‘it’s resentment would be resolved once we find Liu Cuihe.”
“Then, what if, the resentful energy couldn’t be resolved……” Li Jiapeng gave a bitter smile and asked.
Song Gui laughed, “then we’ll just be out of luck.”
“Perhaps,” Lu Chu said, “we should also find out, how Wei Rong found out about the truth. Or, Wei Rong didn’t understand the whole truth, but she found out about a part of it, and thus she would feel that it was unfair towards Lin Lin, and say that Guo Jianping was a beast.”
“I feel,” He Mingde interrupted, “perhaps Wei Rong also found out about this diary later.”
Li Jiapeng said, “who knows, maybe she became like this after after she saw the diary, found out what kind of person Guo Jianping was, and also found out that he was cheating on her with another person.”
Lu Chu thought for moment, and said, “I think it’s more than just this. This cannot explain how she turned from slightly mentally instable to crazy after seeing Lin Lin’s dairy, and it also cannot explain why after she saw Lin Lin’s photo, she would be scared and frightened, with some pity.”
“I think,” Lu Chu looked at the other four people, “she directly saw a ghost.”