Yin Shou Shu

Chapter 8 Aunt Six
The sound suddenly sounded behind me, so close.

Ran Qing was so focused that he didn't even notice when someone came up behind him.

He turned around hurriedly and saw a middle-aged woman with dark skin and a headscarf standing beside the bed.

The woman's wrinkled face must have been exposed to the sun for years, and her rough skin was covered with freckles and dark spots. Her eyes were like dead fish, cloudy and dull, without a trace of light in them.

The moment he saw her, Ran Qing subconsciously took a step back and felt a little uneasy.

"You... who are you?" Ran Qing looked at the woman in front of him in surprise and doubt. He had no memory of this person in his mind.

The woman in a headscarf and a dirty batik skirt sat down on the chair next to the bed and said.

"Just call me Aunt Six. I heard your father was in a car accident, so I came to see him."

"You can kind of see the marks on your father's arm...right?"

Aunt Six spoke in a familiar manner, looking Ran Qing up and down with a scrutinizing look.

This aggressive and blunt gaze made Ran Qing take a small step back.

What does it mean to be able to see the mark? Is it possible that other people can't see the blue handprint on my father's arm?
Ran Qing looked at the dirty rural woman in front of him, whose clothes were covered with traces of labor, and didn't know how to respond to her for a moment.

Aunt Liu's loud voice, which was no different from shouting, aroused the dissatisfaction of other patients' families in the ward.

"Can you lower your voice a little?"

"Others need to rest too!"

In the quiet hospital ward, Aunt Liu's loud voice was too harsh.

Ran Qing quickly apologized to everyone else, then begged and persuaded Aunt Liu to leave the ward.

Considering Aunt Liu's shrill voice, and in order not to disturb the patients in other wards, Ran Qing took Aunt Liu to the stairwell, away from the corridor and wards.

The two stood in the stairwell, feeling the cool breeze blowing from outside. Ran Qing looked at the rural woman in front of him.

"Aunt Liu, what did you mean by that? The bruises on my dad's hands...can't others see them?"

At the dim staircase where a cool breeze blew, Aunt Liu reached into her dirty abby and took out a homemade pipe.

This kind of local tobacco, which is the most common in the countryside and is loved by the old people in the village, was taken out by Aunt Liu at this time.

She lit the cigarette with a match, took a deep drag, and then exhaled the smoke while saying, "Of course others can't see the mark. It was made by a dead person."

After burning, the earthen smoke that has only been simply baked brings a strong, pungent smell.

Ran Qing, who couldn't even stand the smell of ordinary cigarettes, was now made extremely uncomfortable by the rising smoke.

But Sixth Aunt's words irritated him more than the smoke.

The dead were caught...

Ran Qing's face froze, and a strong sense of panic gripped him.

He had just encountered something weird last night and called his father for help, and today his father was killed by a dead person... What a coincidence?
Ran Qing's face turned pale. Aunt Six glanced at Ran Qing and said, "You don't seem surprised... What's wrong? What do you know?"

Aunt Liu looked Ran Qing up and down with a scrutinizing look in her eyes.

Ran Qing took a deep breath and then said, "Sixth Aunt, can you deal with ghosts? My dad's car accident might be related to me..."

The Sixth Aunt in front of him was mysterious, but she had a good relationship with my father. My father obviously knew the truth about my mother's body. He was not surprised to hear the ghost came to Ran Qing last night. He even taught Ran Qing how to deal with it in a clear and systematic way.

Now that his father has had an accident, the mysterious Sixth Aunt, who has never been seen before, suddenly appears and is also very knowledgeable about ghosts.

At this moment, Ran Qing felt a little alienated.

The taciturn father in my memory became mysterious at this moment.

The world in his eyes became unfamiliar. Ran Qing carefully recounted what happened last night, including his encounter with a strange creature in a school uniform, and then he called his father, who was on a business trip, for help... As Ran Qing spoke, Aunt Liu's dead eyes gradually began to move.

The wrinkles on her face were tightly knitted together, and her expression became extremely solemn, as if Ran Qing's story had brought her tremendous pressure.

"You saw your mother? Isn't she dead?" Aunt Liu stared at Ran Qing with her dead fish eyes, frowning and asking, "Are you sure that it was really your mother you saw? And not something else?"

But before Ran Qing could answer, Aunt Liu started talking to herself again, muttering to herself with a serious expression.

"After hearing the kid's phone call, Ran Lao San wasn't surprised at all. Instead, he taught the kid how to deal with it... Did he expect this?"

"But did he expect that he would be the first to suffer misfortune?"

"And this is a bit strange, very wrong. If that dead man in school uniform was coming for the Ran family kid, why was the unlucky one the third son of the Ran family?"

"On the contrary, while Ran Lao San was in trouble, this little kid was fine all day long?"

"It was obviously this kid who encountered it first. If something were to happen, it should be this kid who got into trouble... Strange, really strange."

Aunt Liu sat on the stairs, talking to herself, with a pipe in her mouth.

But her dead fish-like eyes were staring straight ahead, as if she was talking to the air in front of her.

Such strange behavior, coupled with what Aunt Six said, made Ran Qing feel creepy.

He looked around uneasily. The stairs were empty. There was no one there except him and Aunt Liu. Even his eyes, which could see dead people, could not see anything.

—What is Sixth Aunt talking to? The air?

A chill ran down Ran Qing's back.

Aunt Liu exhaled pungent smoke and talked to herself for a long time. Finally, her eyes, as cloudy and dim as a dead fish, looked at Ran Qing.

"Little boy, do you want to save your dad?"

Aunt Liu's sudden question made Ran Qing stunned for a moment: "Ah? Save my dad?"

Wasn't the man lying in bed, out of danger? Why did they still need to save him?

Ran Qing looked stunned.

But Aunt Six sneered and said, "Looks like your father won't wake up in this condition."

"I don't know what it caused, but I just checked and besides a broken leg, he didn't suffer any injuries. There's no other reason he hasn't woken up yet. It's simply because his soul has been lost."

"The hospital can heal his leg, but if they don't bring back his soul, your father will never wake up."

"Ran Lao San, who looked down on everyone with his nose in the air, was ultimately harmed by a ghost. How unfortunate!"

Aunt Liu's rude and disdainful ridicule made Ran Qing silent.

The taciturn father really seems to be the legendary extraordinary man... Does that man have such an identity?

Ran Qing was a little at a loss.

Aunt Liu had no time to pay attention to the young man's confusion. She took a deep puff of her cigarette and then urged him on.

"Should you go and rescue him? Think about it quickly."

"Your father isn't completely dead yet. His soul must have escaped and gone into hiding."

"As long as we find the lost soul, everything will be fine."

"It's just something that can scare him into hiding..."

Aunt Six sneered and blew a puff of pungent smoke at Ran Qing, saying, "You two have provoked a weird creature that's hard to mess with."

(End of this chapter)