Chapter 14

Chapter 14

I helped Uncle Cheng into the car, then called Aunt Wang and asked her if anything strange had happened at home after Big Black died.

Aunt Wang couldn’t remember much, but she did recall that for a while before Big Black died, he kept lying by the door, whimpering.

During that period, Aunt Wang often saw a scrawny man lingering near their front gate.

Later, about a week after Big Black died, that man came to their house.

Uncle Cheng knew him. He called him Xiao Wu.

It hit me at once.

Wu Si!

The hateful look in Wu Si’s eyes before we parted ways all those years ago flashed through my mind again.

I cursed under my breath, furious.

Uncle Cheng’s calamity wasn’t just fate. It was man-made disaster too.

No ghost in this world, no matter how vicious, could be more evil than a twisted human heart!

I contacted Xu Song, Mao Hu, and the driver I’d known back then, asking them to urgently help me track down Wu Si.

Then I drove, taking Uncle Cheng with me, toward the Wild Ditch from my memories.

The original Dong’an Forestry Farm had already been incorporated into the nature reserve, and the road leading there was fairly smooth.

On the way, Uncle Cheng woke up for a while. Maybe it was because we were getting close to the forest, but his spirits seemed much better, and he began telling me how the forest region had changed from the time he was a child until now.

When he was young, the primeval forest had been at its most lush.

Back then, the saying “you could club roe deer with a stick, scoop up fish with a ladle, and pheasants would fly straight into the cookpot” wasn’t just an exaggeration.

When he got a little older, the forest region began logging to support the economy.

Almost overnight, trees fell in great swaths, and every living thing seemed to sink into silence.

But after Uncle Cheng became an adult, the environment changed again. People started protecting the forest, banning indiscriminate logging.

It was also at that time that Uncle Cheng made up his mind to become a forest ranger. He wanted the woods that had raised him since childhood to return to the way they had been at the very beginning.

Because of that conviction, he stayed in the forest region his entire life.

Now, vast stretches of trees had grown back. Even from the highway, we could occasionally see wild rabbits darting past.

I knew Uncle Cheng was telling me he had no regrets.

But I wasn’t willing to accept that. I couldn’t let such a good man be ruined by a scumbag and an evil ghost.

When we were almost at our destination, Xu Song and Mao Hu both called.

They’d found out that Wu Si had indeed come to the Northeast, and that he’d been here for more than two years.

Wu Si hadn’t driven big trucks for a long time. In recent years, he’d been making a living as a rideshare driver.

Everyone who knew him said he’d changed a lot. His temper had gotten much worse, he’d never married, and he was always muttering and acting like something was wrong with him.

What chilled me even more was something a former roommate of his said: Wu Si had been secretly keeping his older brother’s ashes on an altar.

By the time evening was approaching, we finally reached Wild Ditch.

When I got out of the car, I felt a little dazed. Fifteen years had passed, and everything around here had changed so much. Only this desolate Wild Ditch remained the same, still as lifeless as ever.

I told Uncle Cheng to stay in the car, then got out with the Soul-Whip in hand. I could still vaguely remember the place where we’d found Wu Da’s body.

To my surprise, just as I approached that mountain gully, I saw a furtive figure.

“Wu Si!” I shouted.

The figure shuddered, then turned and ran.

It really was him!