Chapter 144
Chapter 144
Guo Zaimin yowled as if someone had stepped on his tail. Slapping his thigh, he cried, “Family scandals shouldn’t be aired in public! My daughter is still young. I was afraid it would ruin her reputation!”
Jin Wuya lost his temper. “At a time like this, what matters more-her reputation or her life?”
Guo Zaimin sagged. With great difficulty, he finally revealed what he had been hiding.
Many years ago, Guo Zaimin and his wife had a son.
When the boy was four, the couple took over an abandoned ceramic Buddha statue factory in the provincial capital.
They had originally planned to clear out the factory and convert it into a food-processing plant.
All the ceramic Buddha statues left behind had been dumped at the foot of a small slope behind the factory. To them, the things weren’t even worth selling as scrap.
If any nearby villagers wanted them, they were free to rummage through the pile and take home anything still in decent condition.
But before the food-processing plant could even be set up, something happened to their son.
The four-year-old had fallen into the pile of shattered ceramic Buddha statues. By the time they found him, he had lost so much blood that his body had already gone stiff.
The couple was devastated. Then rumors began reaching their ears.
Apparently, the ceramic Buddha statue factory had been abandoned because a worker had once fallen into one of the kilns and died. After that, strange incidents kept happening in the factory, and eventually the business could no longer continue.
Guo Zaimin and his wife realized they had gotten themselves mixed up in something sinister. They hadn’t even moved in the production equipment before tragedy struck, and selling the factory under those circumstances would be nearly impossible.
Gritting their teeth, they paid an exorbitant sum to bring in a master from out of town.
After performing a series of rites, the master told them that the worker had been burned to ashes in the kiln. His Souls had been torn apart and fused into the ceramic Buddha statues. The pile they had cleared out had gained sentience, and treating it like rubbish had violated a grave taboo. Their son was only the beginning. If the matter wasn’t handled properly, the couple themselves would never know peace.
The best solution was to bring back a consecrated Buddha statue to suppress whatever was there.
After three to five years of suppression, everything would fade away.
And so, Guo Zaimin spent another small fortune to acquire the Gilded Buddha Head.
The master was very satisfied. Before leaving, he gave Guo Zaimin two instructions.
First, it would be best for the factory to remain in the ceramic Buddha statue business. Since ancient times, evil spirits had been known to bring sudden windfalls, so the business could easily make them rich.
Second, after five years, once the matter had been completely resolved, if they no longer wished to remain in the business or continue worshipping the Buddha Head, they were to wrap the Buddha Head in red cloth and bury it deep in the mountains. Under no circumstances were they to throw it away carelessly or give it to someone else.
Otherwise, the consequences could be even worse.
Guo Zaimin didn’t dare disobey. He kept the Buddha Head enshrined and treated it with the utmost care.
Just as the master had predicted, less than a year after they began worshipping the Buddha Head, business at the ceramic Buddha statue factory exploded. Money poured in faster than they could count it.
Five years passed in the blink of an eye. By then, Guo Zaimin had become a tycoon among the ceramic factories in the area. How could he possibly stop?
And so the business continued for more than twenty years.
During that time, the couple was overwhelmed by both the grief of losing their son and the demands of the business. They never managed to have another child.
It wasn’t until Guo Zaimin was thirty-five that they finally had a daughter. They treasured her more than their own lives.
Their daughter had turned eighteen this year and been accepted into the university of her dreams. She was currently a freshman.
The couple felt that they had made enough money for one lifetime and that their daughter had done them proud. It was time to start planning for retirement, so they sold the ceramic Buddha statue factory.
They had arranged everything perfectly, but in the end, something still went wrong.
At first, the Buddha Head merely kept returning on its own. Then their daughter came home from university for the National Day holiday and suddenly seemed possessed. She spent every waking moment clutching the Buddha Head.
At this point, Guo Zaimin faltered, reluctant to continue.
Everyone in the room stared at him, waiting for the rest.
He had no choice but to stammer, “She said the Buddha Head was her husband and that he would come marry her soon. She refused to go back to school. During the day, she’d hold the Buddha Head and whisper sweet nothings to it, and at night, she’d sleep with it in her arms. One night, her mother got up to use the bathroom and heard… heard those kinds of… those kinds of sounds coming from our daughter’s room…”
Everyone fell silent.
Guo Zaimin lowered his head and even wiped away a few tears.
His son had died a gruesome death, and now this had happened to his daughter. How could Guo Zaimin and his wife possibly bear it?
Their daughter had only just started college. Her bright future had barely begun. This was indeed not the sort of thing they could let spread, so it was no wonder he had tried to hide it before.
Hui Moqiong sucked in a sharp breath. “I don’t see anything wrong with this Buddha Head. Are you sure you aren’t hiding something else you haven’t shown us?”
This time, Guo Zaimin answered with absolute certainty, “I swear I’m not.”
“Go home and search again,” I said. “Search every inch of the house, especially the things your daughter uses regularly. If you find anything that doesn’t belong or seems out of place, take a picture and send it to us first.”
Guo Zaimin repeatedly agreed, then asked, “What about this Buddha Head…?”
“Take it home for now,” I said. “Since you brought it out, your daughter is probably making a scene by now.”
Guo Zaimin looked ready to cry again.
Jin Wuya quickly wrapped up the Buddha Head and accompanied Guo Zaimin home.
Li Qingying saw them out while I leaned back on the sofa, preparing to sort through my thoughts again.
Li Qingying soon returned.
Just as she was about to clear the coffee table, Hui Moqiong spoke again. “Hey, Yingyingzi, are you into old men like that?”
Li Qingying and I both froze.
Li Qingying immediately exploded. “Old Fifth Hui, what nonsense are you spouting?! Who are you calling an old man? And who I like is none of your damn business!”
“I’m only warning you out of the goodness of my heart,” Hui Moqiong replied calmly. “That old man… Oh, sorry. That Jin fellow works in the cursed artifact trade. Someone in that line of work is destined to suffer the Five Disadvantages and Three Deficiencies. He isn’t short on money, nor is he seriously disabled. The only fate left for him is to grow old alone. If you get together with him… Tsk, tsk. It won’t end well for you.”
Li Qingying rushed over and began pinching Hui Moqiong’s arm. The two of them went at each other until the room descended into chaos.
I pressed a hand to my forehead and shrank into the sofa, feeling a headache coming on.
Back when it was only Li Qingying and me at the Pawnshop, she wasn’t the boisterous type, so the place was always quiet.
Ever since Hui Moqiong arrived, however, Li Qingying had spent every day teetering on the brink of an emotional breakdown.
The two of them were like children, fighting the moment they saw each other.
It was as if they were born to clash.
After quite a while, Hui Moqiong finally left for the Main Courtyard. Li Qingying plopped down beside me, her cheeks puffed out as she blinked her large eyes. Even the corners of her eyes had turned red.
The tiny red mole on the tip of her nose looked especially vivid.
She was furious.
Yet she also seemed a little aggrieved.
I scooted closer until I was pressed against her and whispered, “Sister Qingying, be honest with me. Do you really like Boss Jin?”
“Oh, come on, Xiao Jiu! Not you too!” Li Qingying was almost in tears. “I just… I just think he’s a good person. He’s helpful and skilled, and he’s done me a few favors. I want to recruit him to work at our Pawnshop. That’s all.”
“Oh, so that’s what it is.” I thought for a moment, then asked, “What about Hui Moqiong? What do you think of him?”
“Him? Do you even have to ask?!” Li Qingying answered without hesitation. “He’s a pest! An obnoxious jerk!”
I smiled and said nothing more.
Around dusk, I received a call from Jin Wuya. As expected, they had found something in Guo Zaimin’s daughter’s room, and he asked us to come over.
I agreed and ended the call. Soon afterward, Jin Wuya sent me a photo.
In the photo was a sheet of red paper spread flat. Guo Zaimin’s daughter’s Birth Date and Time were written across it, and a piece of Blood Jade was holding the paper down…