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墨書 Inktalez
Chen Mo's fountain pen left a blot of ink beneath the words "Earth God Temple." He recalled that the old site of the Lin Family Old Residence was once the largest Land God Temple in Jiangzhou, located in Wutong Alley.
Suddenly, his phone vibrated. The autopsy report from Forensic Doctor Zhou indicated that Huaihua Powder had been detected at the joint of a severed finger—this was a product of the flowering period of the Centennial Tree in the courtyard of the Lin Family Old Residence.
In the night rain, the Lin Family Old Residence resembled a crouching beast. Chen Mo shone his powerful flashlight towards the door frame. Beneath the faded plaque of "Dun Ben Tang," seven coin-sized indentations were arranged in the shape of the Big Dipper.
As he compared it with a fragment of the Bagua Mirror, a shadow flashed by the second-floor window, adorned with a broken jade Butterfly Hairpin in her hair.
"Qiu Yu!" Chen Mo kicked open the decaying wooden door and rushed up the stairs, but stumbled over something at the corner. In the beam of his flashlight, seven inverted oil lamps surrounded a dusty offering table, their wicks all pointing towards the central Bronze Incense Burner. A thick layer of ash lay inside, with three unburned incense sticks inserted.
Suddenly, the dark red tips of the incense burst into sparks, and blue smoke twisted into a human shape. As Chen Mo stepped back, he knocked over a Bogu Shelf, and the sound of a porcelain jar shattering echoed through the empty house.
He bent down to pick up a shard of Qinghua Porcelain and was surprised to find tiny Cinnabar characters hidden beneath its glaze: "Borrower of longevity must be blood-related."
From upstairs came the rustling sound of paper. Chen Mo tightened his grip on his self-defense baton and smashed open the door to a side room, only to see yellow talismans fluttering on their own against the wall. The Zhenhun incantations written on them were all inscribed in blood.
The copper mirror on the dressing table was covered with a layer of white haze. Reflected in its surface was an intricately carved bed, upon which lay a wedding gown made of Golden Thread Twin Lotus.
"Ding Ling—"
The moment he heard the sound of a copper bell from behind him, Chen Mo spun around and swung his baton but hit nothing.
As his flashlight flickered violently, he caught sight of a paper-made Maiden swiftly moving along the wall's edge, her cheeks unnaturally red.
He chased her to the end of the corridor and discovered a black lacquer coffin placed in the center of a hidden chamber behind a dark door. Strands of familiar chestnut hair hung down from a gap in its lid.
At that moment, his phone received an urgent call from Old Zhang: "The principal wants to cremate Lin Qiuyu's personal belongings left in her dormitory tonight!"
The Principal's Office was filled with the scent of incense. Chen Mo noticed that three sticks of Dragon's Blood Incense were inserted into an incense burner tucked away in a corner of the filing cabinet. This precious incense stood in stark contrast to the cheap incense found at Lin Family Old Residence.
"The matter concerning Qiu Yu is truly heartbreaking," said the principal, twisting his left thumb ring as strange light patterns flickered across its surface. "However, spreading superstitions could harm our school's reputation..."
Suddenly, there was a sharp crack from behind the glass cabinet as Lin Qiuyu's folklore research trophy crashed to the ground.
As Chen Mo bent down to pick it up, he caught sight of a yellowed group photo pressed against the bottom—twenty years ago, an archaeological team stood before Lin Family Old Residence, with a younger version of the principal shaking hands with an elderly man dressed in Dao Pao, who had Five Emperor Coins hanging from his waist.
The principal suddenly broke into a violent cough, dark red stains spreading across his handkerchief. As he hurriedly stuffed it back into his drawer, Chen Mo noticed a red cord peeking out from within a Sandalwood Box—exactly like those adorned with copper bells found on Lin Family Case's corpse wrist!
At that moment, as if on cue with the sudden stop of heavy rain, a mournful cat wail echoed from afar. As Chen Mo stepped out of the administrative building, ashes from unburned paper money floated under the streetlight.
He pulled out some paper ash he had taken from Principal's Office and rubbed it between his fingers to reveal it was a torn fragment of a marriage certificate:
"...Jia Shen Year, Jia Xu Month, on this day Jiazi, Madam Lin Qiu Yu voluntarily pairs with..."
The latter half of the text was stained with a deep brown, exuding a metallic scent under the moonlight.
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