American Zombie Detective

Chapter 216 The Word Ghost

The deep black ink stains were scattered across the eroded textured surface, forming patches of varying sizes.

These patches are not meaningless; upon closer inspection, some broken strokes can be vaguely discerned:

A thick, bold dot with a paused stroke;

The end of a stroke that curves like a hook;

There was even a long, horizontal strip of debris with jagged edges—

They overlapped, squeezed, and shattered, together forming a violent and destructive, incomplete corpse of "words".

All the cold, resentful aura vanished abruptly with the "crushing" action, leaving only this shattered ink stain.

Constantine practically pressed his eyes to the glass, his breathing rapid.

Although he couldn't understand it, he knew it wasn't just a bunch of black dots. "What the hell is this? These black dots—these marks—"

He was incoherent; the scene before him was beyond his comprehension. "It's dead? All that's left?"

Qin Jin licked his teeth, his fangs hidden between his upper and lower jaws seeming to stir again. He leaned down and carefully examined the shattered corpse of words on the table, a look of confusion in his eyes.

After several seconds, he slowly spoke, his voice filled with an incredulous solemnity: "—John, look at these remaining strokes—the depth and shape of the black—"

He stretched out his finger and lightly touched the broken strokes, trying to reconstruct them in his mind.

"This feeling—is like a Chinese character written with a brush, possessing an evil life, and then just being completely crushed."

Chinese characters? Characters that were crushed?

Constantine was completely bewildered; the mysterious Eastern system was far too profound and bizarre for him.

Qin Jin stopped talking and immediately took out his phone, aimed it at the broken ink stains on the table, and took several photos in a row. The flash captured every detail of the broken strokes clearly.

"Some strokes overlapped and were compressed together, completely broken, making them difficult to identify —"

He muttered to himself, his eyes fixed on the photo on his phone screen, his fingers zooming in on the details, trying to piece together the fragmented strokes in his mind: "I need to find a professional to break it down and see if they can figure out what character it originally was—"

However, Qin Jin also knew that this was by no means an easy task. If it were printed Chinese characters, he could still piece them together, but what he was looking at was not regular script or Song typeface. If these were characters, they would at least be running script, and it would be much more difficult to piece them together with the strokes and hooks.

Constantine's eyes were fixed on the broken ink stains on the coffee table, his expression a mixture of disbelief and dizziness from having swallowed a whole lemon.

He shook his head violently, as if trying to shake the absurd scene in front of him out of his mind.

"One word —"

He muttered to himself, unconsciously pulling out a cigarette, stuffing it into his mouth, and lighting it: "I've fucking dealt with all sorts of winged, horned, shapeless things—devils, demons, evil spirits, wicked ghosts—I've even seen things woven from resentment! But I've never—never encountered a single word!"

He abruptly raised his head, looking at Qin Jin with eyes filled with urgency and confusion: "Qin! What the hell is this?! A Chinese character? How the hell can a single character kill someone? And even tell stories?! This doesn't make any sense!"

Qin Jin's gaze remained fixed on the ink stain. Hearing Constantine's words, he slowly shook his head, his tone unusually uncertain: "I'm not sure either. This situation—indeed, few people have seen it, and even fewer have mentioned it."

He paused, seemingly frantically searching his mind for relevant fragments of knowledge: "Speaking solely of characters, the closest thing I can think of right now is something called 'Ink Essence.'"

"Ink Essence?" Constantine tried to imitate the Chinese pronunciation, looking completely bewildered. "What the hell is that?"

"The gist of it is that the ink has become a monster."

Qin Jin continued, "There's a Chinese proverb that says, 'In books, you'll find beauty like jade; in books, you'll find houses of gold.' But actually, I know the second part should be, 'In books, you'll find ink and ink.' This saying comes from a story—"

"Legend has it that in ancient times, there was a scholar who was obsessed with an ancient book, reading it day and night. As a result, the ink spirit in the book transformed into a woman who called herself 'Yan Ruyu' and came to accompany him. Later, a Taoist priest who knew the truth revealed the truth, saying, 'You look like a beautiful woman, but in reality, you are just a black ink spirit.'"

"However, as people read it over time, 'the finest ink' became 'a house of gold,' just as 'no merchant is without cunning' became 'no merchant is without treachery,' and 'marry a beggar, follow the beggar; marry an old man, follow the old man' became 'marry a chicken, follow the chicken; marry a dog, follow the dog.' The story has changed."

He glanced at the broken marks on the table: "But that's all I can think of right now. Whether this thing is ink essence, or something else more sinister manifesting through writing, is still hard to say. This is just a speculation based on the phenomenon of this character."

Just then, Aresa, who had been quietly staring at the pile of ink fragments, suddenly raised her head, a knowing glint in her gray-blue eyes.

"Qin, I remember now," she said softly.

Qin Jin immediately looked at her: "What did you remember?"

"The smell." Alessa pointed to the ink stain. "When it appeared just now, it smelled the same as those three people."

Qin Jin immediately recalled the three strange figures that Alessa had broken out of the window to chase after, one or two of them carrying something whose feet were not touching the ground.

"It tastes the same as the one from the grave," Aresa added, her tone certain.

"Grave?" Qin Jin's eyes sharpened. "Which grave?"

"The one by the pond from the hiking club's trip."

Is this the grave by the pond where the Tong family members and the paper bride were buried as funerary offerings? Does it taste the same?

Qin Jin instantly understood what Alessa meant—

She wasn't referring to the actual smell, but rather the same eerie feeling, a feeling that was accompanied by death, burial, sacrifice, and evil magic, or rather, the feeling of the gloom of funerals!

The graves of the paper bride and the Tong family were buried strictly according to traditional Chinese sorcery, filled with various sacrificial items and ritual traces, and carrying an eerie aura. If the three figures on the graves share the same origin and are also related to this particular character—

"I think I understand."

Qin Jin slowly exhaled, his thoughts instantly becoming much clearer: "Those three things are very likely not living beings, nor ordinary ghosts, but rather some kind of medium carrying the power of a ritual, or simply a strange entity generated by the ritual itself. Their origins, and that of this word, probably all point to some kind of evil spirit or Chinese-style ghostly entity, but they have changed."

He glanced at the three still unconscious people on the ground, and at the shaken Constantine, and made his decision.

"Alright, that's enough 'surprises' for today."

Qin Jin's voice returned to its usual relaxed tone, "It should be alright for now. John, you should also take a nap. We have things to do tomorrow. Alessa and I will keep watch and see what other tricks it has up its sleeve."

Qin Jin took out the crystal bottle that had contained the blood of Jesus and put the broken text inside.

Surprisingly, the latter half of the night was peaceful.

The eerie story and the invasion never happened again, and Qin Jin and Alessa relaxed until dawn.

In the early morning, sunlight streamed in through the broken window.

Catherine, Mark, and Emily woke up one after another, rubbing their sore necks (from Qin Jin's chop) and temples (from Constanze's gun butt), their faces full of lingering fear and confusion.

Despite her discomfort, Catherine quickly asked what had happened next.

Qin told them succinctly, "There's no danger for now. But for safety's sake, you should stay here and watch over them—" He pointed to Mark and Emily.

"Today, try to continue searching for those two people you haven't found," he said to Catherine. "Two colleagues sent to help should be arriving soon. Have them go out and take care of anything."

Then, he turned to Constantine, who was smoking a cigarette and drinking coffee: "John, your task remains the same. Continue investigating the source of that story. Use police resources and your connections to find authors or publications that may have written similar stories. This is crucial."

Since the story clearly stated that his name was John Constantine, Qin Jin stopped pretending in front of Catherine. He believed that Constantine would find a good excuse to fool her.

As for Qin Jin himself—

He took out his phone: "Johnny, are you here? That's good! Come see me right away."

The situation is getting a bit out of control, so we can only let Johnny use his lucky charm ability and check on the case to see if he can pull out anything useful.