Chapter Sixty-Six: Collective Amnesia

Chapter Sixty-Six

As soon as Zhao Fusheng thought of this, she turned and glanced around. The people nearby seemed unaware of anything unusual. Standing next to her, Zhang Chuan-shi’s face looked dry, and a large patch of scab was peeling off. He absentmindedly picked at the dead skin on his face, muttering quietly, “What is the official doing? We’ve been on the road all day, finally arrived at Doghead Village, haven’t even had a proper meal, and now we’re expected to investigate a ghost case at once. We’re here but not leaving—” he grumbled in a low voice, “The Demon Suppression Bureau used to be so impressive when handling cases; wherever we went, local officials would accompany us, and there’d be good food and drink.” After a pause, he continued to complain, “Risking our lives and still having to endure the cold wind.”

“Enough, don’t say another word!” Zhao Fusheng felt there was something odd, but no matter how carefully she considered, she couldn’t pinpoint it. There seemed to be an inexplicable, formless gloom lingering about, yet she could sense no presence of malevolent spirits. Was she being overly suspicious? Silently, she returned the case file to her sleeve. Though her memory found nothing strange, this file’s sudden appearance was certainly suspect. She would revisit it carefully after examining Wu Liren’s house, once they reached their lodging.

“Let’s go.” At her words, the group lit their torches and headed toward Wu Liren’s home. “Is there anything else you’d like to know, ma’am? Just ask.” “What’s the story with Wu Liren’s mother—does anyone know?” Zhao Fusheng asked after a moment’s thought. Mentioning Wu Liren gave her a sense of discomfort, as if she’d forgotten a crucial clue. As soon as she spoke, the villagers began to chatter:

“No one’s ever really seen Wu Liren’s mother. Wu Datong said he found a young bride in the city.”

At that, someone suddenly seemed to recall something, lowering his voice mysteriously, “Speaking of Wu Datong’s wife, I do know of one thing—”

“What is it?” someone else asked immediately.

He replied, “Forty-one years ago, do you remember, a group of outsiders came to our village, saying they were searching for their missing daughter.”

Doghead Village was remote, a small mountain hollow under Wuan Town’s jurisdiction, rarely seeing strangers. The group that came forty-one years ago searching for someone was well-dressed, clearly not ordinary folk, so as soon as the man mentioned it, an elderly woman’s eyes lit up, “Yes, yes, that did happen!”

“I bet Wu Datong abducted her.”

“What?!” a younger person was incredulous.

The man continued smugly, “That year he never left home, boasting of having found a beautiful sixteen- or seventeen-year-old virgin—”

“My mother overheard a girl crying in his house through the wall,” someone added in a whisper.

Zhao Fusheng committed this vital bit of information to memory. She felt as if she’d heard such news somewhere before, but no matter how she tried, she couldn’t recall it, as if it was just an illusion.

“Let’s go into Wu Liren’s house first.”

The group crossed the field ridge and arrived at Wu Liren’s front gate. Most houses in Doghead Village were built of mud walls with thatched roofs, but Wu Liren’s home was squarely built with stone and clay, the home of the village’s wealthiest family. The paint on the gate was peeling, the door had been forced open, and there were no lights inside, lending the place an eerie air. Eager to make a name for themselves, several torchbearers entered first. The door creaked open, echoing through the darkness.

It had been half a month since Wu Liren’s family disappeared. The courtyard, untended, was already overgrown with weeds, giving the place a sinister and unsettling feel.

“Do you think there are ghosts here?” someone shuddered as soon as they entered, goosebumps rising all over. If Zhao Fusheng hadn’t promised a reduction in the Demon Suppression Bureau’s taxes, the villagers would probably have fled already.

“There are ghosts in the village, but not in this house,” Zhao Fusheng replied solemnly. Yet as soon as she said it, she froze. The words had slipped out as if she’d always been certain, but what grounds did she have for such certainty or suspicion?

“Then where is the ghost?” The questioner, momentarily stunned, asked again.

Zhao Fusheng shook her head, her gaze falling upon the red-lacquered gates.

The paint, aged and weathered, had flaked away in places, exposing the raw wood beneath. The surface bore many messy footprints. There was no bolt on the inside. She crouched down and saw bits of wood pressed into the mud.

“Did you break in that day?” she asked.

The others whispered among themselves, hesitant to speak, until one finally mustered the courage to answer, “It wasn’t us who broke in, it was—it was Uncle Dajing—”

“Uncle Dajing told us to do it.”

“Who is Uncle Dajing?” Zhao Fusheng asked, puzzled. As soon as the words left her lips, her heart tightened, as if she’d lost an important thread. A shadow seemed to have been erased by some mysterious force—no matter how she tried, she couldn’t recall who it was.

“Uncle Dajing—” The man faltered, then turned to call, “Liyou, Liyou, your father—”

Wu Liyou quickly came forward. “Ma’am, Wu Dajing is my father. He’s highly respected in the village, so he’s considered the village elder. We didn’t mean to break in, but that day when Wu Liren’s house was silent, everyone was worried, so they chose my father to make the decision and we broke open the door, only to find the whole family gone.”

Zhao Fusheng nodded. “When you entered, were the doors and windows bolted from the inside? Is there any other exit? Was it ever opened?”

“No,” a young man answered loudly.

Zhao Fusheng turned to look at him. Wu Liyou seemed to recall something and his face changed at once. “Shaochun, did you sneak in and take things from Uncle Liren’s house?”

The Wu family was rich, and after the incident, with the doors left open and no one home, some of the idle, daring young men from the village crept in at night to steal the furnishings. At Wu Liyou’s reprimand, Wu Shaochun looked sullen. “Uncle—”

“Never mind that for now,” Zhao Fusheng said. “Wu Shaochun, you speak.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Wu Shaochun’s eyes brightened and he hurried forward. “There are two back doors to Uncle Liren’s house. After the incident, my brothers and I checked them. They were bolted from the inside, never opened.”

A whole houseful of people, vanished overnight without a trace.

Zhao Fusheng’s gaze settled on the young man. He was in his early twenties; unlike the others, whose faces were numb, his eyes were bright and alert—but what caught Zhao Fusheng’s attention was not his expression, but the several scratch marks on his face. Above the scratches, a layer of flaky skin, broken by fingernails, surrounded the wounds.

She glanced at him, then turned to Zhang Chuan-shi and beckoned. “Old Zhang, come here.”

The mention of a ghostly case already made Zhang Chuan-shi nervous. He had lived near the Demon Suppression Bureau for years and knew all too well their methods—the fatality rate among their agents was alarmingly high, like wheat being cut down and replaced again and again…

“Ma’am—please spare me, ma’am—” he wailed, afraid to approach, worried that Zhao Fusheng would drag him into trouble.

“Come here!” Zhao Fusheng commanded sternly.

He shuffled forward reluctantly. Once he stood before her, Zhao Fusheng suddenly reached out and grabbed at his cheek. Zhang Chuan-shi instinctively tried to dodge but was too slow. Zhao Fusheng pinched a strip of dead skin and tore—“Rip!”

The old man sucked in a breath, clutching his face. “Ma’am, you—”

A large, leaf-shaped patch of skin fell into Zhao Fusheng’s hand, like a snake’s shed skin. Zhang Chuan-shi touched his cheek, feeling a faint, burning pain.

“What is that?” Seeing the dead skin in her hand, he realized he’d misunderstood her. Yet he had no memory of when that skin had formed, nor did he understand why Zhao Fusheng needed to tear it off.

“Skin,” Zhao Fusheng replied.

She felt this patch of skin was very important, but for the moment, she couldn’t connect all the clues—there seemed to be a key piece of information missing, leaving the ghost case still shrouded in fog.

“Keep it for now,” she told Zhang Chuan-shi, feeling the scab was anything but ordinary.

There was something wrong with the feng shui of Doghead Village. Zhao Fusheng noticed that many villagers had scratch marks on their faces, even Zhang Chuan-shi. A strange thought arose—what about herself?

She reached up and touched her cheek, but her skin was smooth and delicate, like that of a newborn, without a trace of flaking or roughness.

Her doubts remained unresolved, and she frowned. “Let’s check inside the house first,” she said, shoving the patch of skin into Zhang Chuan-shi’s hands. “Keep it.”

Zhang Chuan-shi shivered, holding the skin and regarding it with disgust. “Who would keep such a thing?” He rolled his eyes and, making sure no one was watching, tossed it aside and pressed it under the sole of his shoe. When he looked up, Zhao Fusheng was already heading toward Wu Liren’s house surrounded by villagers.

According to the villagers, Wu Liren’s father was considered long-lived in the village, passing away at seventy-one just last month on the twenty-first. Wu Liren had one wife and eight concubines, with twenty-seven sons in total, so his house was the largest and most impressive in the village—a veritable palace in the eyes of the locals.

But as soon as Zhao Fusheng set foot inside, she sensed a strange, deathly stillness. The house was indeed large, built in a simple three-courtyard layout. Each courtyard had side rooms to the left and right. A villager who had once entered the house pointed out enthusiastically, “That should be Wu Shaoguang’s room on the left of the first courtyard.”

“Who is Wu Shaoguang?” Zhao Fusheng, keen but fearless, asked as she pushed open the door. With a creak, the door swung open, dust raining down. A spider, startled from its web in the doorframe, dropped onto Zhao Fusheng’s shoulder by a thread.

She picked up the spider, gazing thoughtfully upward. Wu Shaochun quickly answered, “Wu Shaoguang is Uncle Liren’s seventh son—five years older than me, born to Madam Huang, the third wife.”

Zhao Fusheng nodded and tossed the spider aside, brushing her hand on her waist. “Has Wu Shaoguang been away for long?”

“No,” Wu Shaochun shook his head. “He was just fine before Uncle Liren’s family vanished. Last time, we arranged to run goods to Huanggang Village—”

Before he could finish, a woman behind him cursed viciously and slapped him hard on the back. “You useless wretch, up to no good. If the authorities catch you, it’s off with your head!”

“Mother—” Wu Shaochun, chastised, dared not argue further, but then looked up at Zhao Fusheng, only to find her lost in thought, her mind clearly not on the “running goods.” He breathed a sigh of relief.

“This place doesn’t look like it’s only been vacant for a few days,” Zhao Fusheng mused, paying no attention to the mother and son bickering in low voices as she strode into the room.

A musty and decaying odor filled the air, as if no one had lived there for years. The furniture was sparse, thick with dust, and the table and chairs showed signs of rot and white fungal growth. She walked toward the bed.

The bedding was laid out, with a half-length cabinet by the bedside. On top sat a tea cup, and when Zhao Fusheng lifted the lid, she found the contents half-black, a layer of something like coal ash at the bottom, cracked and yellowed.

She set the lid down and ran her hand over the bedding—the covers were damp, the fabric decent but sticky to the touch, unpleasant with the feel of age and neglect. Turning back the bedding, she found a yellowed fragment by the pillow.

Skin tissue!

The strange thought struck her. She reached for the fragment, but it had already melded with the bedding; as soon as she touched it, it crumbled like burnt ash into the sheet.

“Let’s go and check the other rooms,” Zhao Fusheng called, and the others followed, still perplexed.

Over the next while, Zhao Fusheng inspected most of the rooms in the Wu family house. Many were just like Wu Shaoguang’s—abandoned, desolate, some even worse. In a room belonging to “Wu Shaocai,” she even found a patch of mushrooms growing at the foot of the bed. Yet the villagers insisted that, just half a month ago, the Wu Liren family had been whole, and everyone often saw them out and about.

She checked every room except for the inner chamber where Wu Liren and his principal wife lived. In every room, she found fragments of skin—some very old, some more recent, in various shapes and sizes. Zhao Fusheng collected the newer and larger pieces, amassing a thick stack as she went.

At last, she stood before Wu Liren’s own chamber, a powerful intuition telling her that here, she would find the breakthrough she sought.