False evidence

Chapter 45 The Substitute (Part 1)

"Boom~"

"Boom~"

The gong rang three times, and the little man in yellow at the bow of the boat shouted three times.

The next second, I was completely stunned.

Then, the reflection in the water suddenly emerged, soaking wet, and stepped onto the boat.

The ship looked magnificent, but it was actually quite small.

The woman was actually a bit taller than the average woman.

I was actually a little worried for the little man in yellow, afraid that their boat would be capsized.

As it turns out, my worries were unnecessary.

The moment the woman stepped onto the bow of the boat, her body shrank rapidly, becoming as big as the little man in yellow.

What astonished me even more was that as the woman boarded the ship, a tiny figure emerged from the cabin, dressed in a bright red wedding gown and wearing a red veil, resembling an ancient bride.

The young bride let out a sharp, eerie laugh, and amidst the laughter, she brushed past the modern beauty and stepped towards the shore.

As soon as they reached the shore, they vanished without a trace.

At the same time, the sound of the suona horn rang out again.

The eerie ship sailed upstream and soon disappeared from my sight.

I was stunned, and felt a chill running down my spine from every pore.

What just happened was clearly a substitution ceremony!

A rustling sound came from the opposite bank.

My heart skipped a beat, and I looked in the direction of the sound. I saw a woman standing up from the knee-high grass.

Wearing a white T-shirt and light blue jeans, she was clearly the beautiful woman I had seen in the dining room, even though her back was to me.

The beautiful woman let out a strange laugh, exactly like the one the young bride had just heard.

Amidst laughter, they slowly walked up the mountain.

"It's like a water ghost looking for a substitute!"

I couldn't help but shudder.

I didn't know that woman at all. Although I didn't know why she was on the other side of the river, I felt a little sorry to see her being replaced.

But I'm not a monk or a Taoist priest; I'm just an ordinary person. I have self-awareness, but I don't have the courage to try to change things.

So, I immediately decided to go back right away!

But just as I was about to turn back, I suddenly discovered something extremely infuriating.

My phone is missing!

"Holy crap! Could it be that that girl stole it?"

Did she come here intending to steal something?
But somehow, whether it was due to being possessed by an evil spirit or drowning, the water ghost happened to take its place...

The more I think about it, the more I believe it to be true.

He thought to himself: If that's really the case, you deserve to die.

"Hey hey hey! You're not being fair, you came out to play and didn't even call me?" Meng Chao staggered over.

I was already feeling resentful, so I said, "You've come at the right time. Come with me to take care of something!"

"Why go?"

My phone was stolen!

Meng Chao was furious: "Who dares to provoke me!"

"Stop talking nonsense and follow me!"

I'm not the kind of person who would risk my life for money, but given the current situation, losing my phone would be like adding insult to injury.

Because the situation just now was so bizarre, even now, it's impossible to tell whether it was a real sighting or a hallucination caused by alcohol.

In short, no matter what, you can't take my things.

The two waded to the other side, and could still vaguely see the woman's back.

Meng Chao, who had been feeling a bit dizzy, suddenly perked up: "Hey, it's that beautiful woman!"

He slapped me hard on the shoulder: "Hey kid, did you really lose your phone, or are you up to no good?" "Don't talk nonsense, do you think I'm that kind of person? My phone is really gone!"

Meng Chao was stunned for a moment, "Are you sure she took it?"

"Besides her, there's no one else around here. Could it be that you took it?"

Meng Chao immediately glared at her and shouted at the top of his lungs, "Beautiful lady! You've been exposed! Leave the stuff behind, and we won't pursue the matter!"

The woman ignored him and continued walking up the mountain at a leisurely pace.

"Hey, you're so clueless! Well then, don't blame us for being impolite!"

When Meng Chao gets stubborn, he takes off chasing after her.

I ran after him for a while, and gradually I felt that something was wrong.

The bamboo forest covering the mountain was soaked by rain all summer, and the ground was extremely slippery. Even though Meng Chao and I had a solid footing, we still fell a few times.

The woman walked uphill as if it were flat ground.

She wasn't moving very fast; she seemed to be strolling leisurely. But no matter how hard Meng Chao and I tried to catch up, we were always about twenty meters away from her.

I couldn't help but pull Meng Chao aside, and after hesitating for a moment, I told him what I had seen earlier.

He paused for a moment after hearing this, then pointed at my nose and laughed, "You must have drunk too much. You've probably lost your phone somewhere. You're just making excuses to do something bad."

"Don't talk nonsense, I'm telling the truth!"

I said that, but in my heart I had already begun to draw the soul.

The other party is just a woman. How could two grown men not be able to catch her when she is walking in the mountains?

Since I couldn't catch up with him no matter what, I simply pulled Meng Chao and slowed down.

As they followed the trail, they found clear footprints on the ground.

This means the other party is a person.

If that's the case, then there's nothing to be afraid of.

Everyone has moments when they need to stop, so why should I be afraid of not being able to catch up with you?
After Meng Chao had probably woken up and the effects of the alcohol wore off, he slowed down and started telling me about a water ghost incident he had 'personally experienced'—a case of a water ghost using a stand-in.

Both being from the north, he was a typical "left-behind child" because his parents worked away from home year-round when he was young, and he lived with his grandmother.

That year, he was in the second year of junior high school. During the summer vacation, he was bored, so he told his grandmother that he wanted to go to his cousin's house in town for two days.

When I arrived, I learned that my cousin had gone out a couple of days ago, leaving only my cousin's wife at home with their five-year-old son.

He's still young, so there's nothing to hide. He can't just come and go on the same day, right? So he decided to stay one night first.

Meng Chao was a wild child; at that age, he was determined not to stay at home.

After lunch, we went straight to a video arcade in town.

In earlier years, video arcades were a common sight in second- and third-tier cities.

Later, it faded away and only became popular in rural towns.

They were playing VCDs, and I won't go into the details of the content. There were dozens of men, young and old, in the room—even someone who'd never been there could imagine what kind of movie they were showing.

Meng Chao came to town specifically for this purpose.

I bought a ticket for two yuan and stayed there for the whole afternoon.

When he came out after dark and the area was cleared, he looked as if he had just been steamed, his whole body radiating heat.

When he got home, his gossipy cousin-in-law scolded him relentlessly.

Meanwhile, he kept glancing at certain parts of his cousin's wife's body with both eyes.

(At this point, Meng Chao repeatedly stated that he had a good relationship with his cousin, but disliked his cousin's wife because she was too gossipy and mercenary. He would never do anything immoral or disgraceful; it was purely a young man's instinctive 'curiosity'.)
After dinner, my cousin's wife asked him to go to the night market with her.

The Mengchao League is always lively, so there's no reason for them not to agree.

The night market was located on a small street along the moat. Although it sold cheap goods, his cousin-in-law, when she arrived, was just like those city women who were obsessed with shopping malls—she let loose and had a great time.

Meng Chao had different interests from her, so he simply took his nephew and they went sightseeing separately.

After we had walked around for a while, we finally found my cousin's wife at a small stall.

At that time, he felt something was wrong the moment he saw his cousin's wife.

Not only was his cousin's wife acting strange, but he himself was acting even more strangely.

Specifically, when he saw his cousin's wife's appearance, his face burned even hotter than when he came out of the video arcade...

(End of this chapter)