Chapter 2: 2. A Videotape Filled with Blessings

2. A Videotape Filled with Blessings

The first step in an autopsy is to examine the surface features of the body. The young girl was clearly strangled; the ligature marks on her neck were distinct. Judging by the wounds and the angle of force, the possibility that the girl committed suicide by hanging can be ruled out.

As they removed the red wedding dress from the corpse and photographed her entire body, Yu Lianyun and her father were surprised to discover during the process of handling the remains that this body, which had been dead for quite some time, was unexpectedly soft and elastic, as if she had only just passed away. Yet, her gray, unfocused pupils indicated that the girl had been dead for at least several days.

Consequently, Yu Lianyun and her father began to feel a trace of unease, but they did not intend to dwell on it, choosing instead to continue their work.

According to information sent over by the Enforcer, this female corpse had no fingerprints, nor had her DNA been entered into any database. The Enforcer could not initially identify the corpse within the global population database. To confirm further, Yu Lianyun examined the nameless girl's ten fingers again and discovered that the whorls on all ten fingertips had been severely sliced off while she was still alive.

She went to check the toes, only to be shocked to find that the girl had bound feet, and like the ten fingers, all ten toes had been cruelly shaved away.

From this, it was not difficult to infer that the girl had been subjected to quite backward dogmatic indoctrination from a young age, had suffered cruel abuse shortly before her death, and was finally strangled to death.

As they delved deeper into the dissection of the nameless girl's corpse, Yu Lianyun and her father gradually saw more and more incomprehensible phenomena on the girl.

The girl's gastrointestinal tract was terrifyingly clean, as if she had not eaten for a long time before death and had undergone a thorough gastric lavage. Thus, in the clean stomach, Yu Lianyun found a clean jade pendant and some fragmented pieces of skin and flesh; it was a case of being gutted, clear at a glance.

Upon testing, those skin fragments were nothing other than the whorls sliced from the girl's fingers and toes. They had been strung together by a black strand of hair and then swallowed whole by the girl.

What kind of devils were the people who committed such heinous acts against the girl? Yu Lianyun and her father both thought this to themselves at the time.

Looking closely at the jade pendant, one could see that a certain Strange Array was drawn upon it. The red cord beneath the pendant connected to two wooden plaques; one was inscribed with "Jinxiu," and the other was inscribed with "Wang Zhongming."

After seeing this pair of wooden plaques, Yu Lianyun immediately thought of the location where the girl had appeared, as well as the red wedding dress she wore upon her "first arrival," and she suddenly had a bold hypothesis.

Yin Marriage!

Before she could share this answer with her father, Yu Lianyun noticed that her father had frozen, his gaze fixed rigidly on the corpse.

She looked down, following her father's gaze, and the beautiful scene before her eyes made one's hair stand on end! The nameless girl, whose skin had been laid open by their hands, had somehow put her red wedding dress back on. Furthermore, when Yu Lianyun lifted the hem to check, she discovered that the belly, which should have been sliced open, was now smooth and fair as before, as if she and her father had never performed any autopsy on the female corpse.

At this moment, Yu Lianyun and her father felt their scalps go numb. Without a word, they threw down their autopsy tools and turned to run out of the room.

However, it was too late.

The lights in the autopsy room suddenly flickered. A murmur, sounding like both singing and weeping, appeared out of thin air, echoing through the rafters. The scene in the entire autopsy room would suddenly be normal, clean and spotless, then suddenly abnormal, covered in flesh and blood, with unknown flesh buds crawling out from the cracks in every room, beginning to grow wantonly...

Yu Lianyun and her father struggled to survive in such a bizarre and insane environment for a time, but within less than a minute, Yu Lianyun tripped over a scarlet strip of flesh and passed out completely.

Before her vision went dark, she felt her body become so cold; her field of vision began to freeze and frost over. She was as cold as a corpse in a morgue freezer.

She thought this was a nightmare, and that when she woke up, everything would return to normal.

But when she regained consciousness, Yu Lianyun found herself lying in a hospital bed. She soon learned from her grief-stricken mother that her father had fallen to his death from a stairwell three days prior, while she had been found unconscious in the autopsy room, in close contact with the female corpse. The scene had been clean the entire time, with no traces of any autopsy work having been performed.

Yu Lianyun could not help but grieve, yet she maintained a shred of reason. The chill that would not dissipate from her body told her that everything she remembered was real. She warned her mother not to go near that nameless female corpse and to burn it... no, do not enter the building; it would be best to burn the entire autopsy facility down!

At the time, Yu Lianyun felt she had gone mad, but she knew this was the most rational act of madness.

Whenever the female corpse was mentioned, her mother's complexion would turn strange and ugly. She would stop mid-sentence, but in the end, she did not pursue what had happened that day. She only told Yu Lianyun that the female corpse had already been transferred away and told her not to worry. Then, with shifty eyes, she said that her father had already been cremated while she was in a coma, and that after she was discharged, they would hold his funeral together.

Hearing that the female corpse had been sent away and that her father's remains had been hastily cremated, Yu Lianyun felt no relief; instead, she felt terrified and angry.

How could they have cremated her father so carelessly?

And she should not have been sent away, should not have been transferred out; she had to be burned!

Destroying her was the only correct choice!

That female corpse would be a nightmare for humanity!

Yu Lianyun's frantic state at the time made her mother feel fear. She stayed away from the hospital bed for a while, not daring to speak, and could only watch as the doctors and nurses who rushed in pinned her to the bed together, and then, under the soothing effect of a sedative, she fell into a deep sleep once more...

Ten days later, Yu Lianyun was discharged, but she knew she had not walked out of the shadows of that day. The dark cloud of death still hung over her head, and the cold gloom was still devouring her body and gnawing at her sanity bit by bit.

In order to survive, and for the sake of her father who had died a miserable death, Yu Lianyun, after being discharged, suppressed the fear in her heart. Even though she knew that giving up resistance to the invincible unknown and enjoying her short remaining life was the most correct choice, she still began to track down that nameless female corpse.

Unfortunately, there were far too few clues regarding the nameless female corpse, and the pain of the ice she endured increased day by day. Being alone and weak, her investigation progress was almost at a standstill.

The few things she managed to find out were that the death characteristics of the nameless female corpse matched a local, lost Yin Marriage ritual, and that after the incident, the nameless female corpse had been transferred away by a mysterious force other than the Enforcer.

It was only by relying on her family's limited reputation and achievements among the Enforcer that Yu Lianyun managed to learn from the captain of the Third Enforcer Squad that the mysterious force that had transferred the corpse was named the "Xuanmi Group," an organization that specialized in handling such events. Beyond that, no one in the entire Litaishi Enforcer branch was willing or able to reveal anything else.

Afterward, Yu Lianyun wanted to continue searching for the whereabouts of the "Xuanmi Group," but she found that it was like looking for a needle in a haystack; there was simply no direction.

It was precisely while continuing to investigate the whereabouts of the "Xuanmi Group" that Yu Lianyun learned from the internet about the strange anecdotes of a peculiar little shop in Yonghu Town, Litaishi. Some said that real exorcism Magical Items existed here. "Terminally ill" as she was, she could no longer heal her body through normal channels, so she held onto a glimmer of hope and found this place.

After listening to Yu Lianyun's story, Lin Ling sipped his tea in silence. He showed no sympathy, nor did he appear to be thinking about anything. He was like a rational listener, simply listening to the story, and from beginning to end, he never projected himself into any of the characters in the story.

"Boss, can you help me?" Yu Lianyun asked, clutching a glimmer of hope. "Although there is no evidence, I feel that I won't live for another three days, and I will soon follow in my father's footsteps."

Lin Ling thought for a moment. He neither nodded nor refused. He simply stood up, walked toward a shelf, and took out a videotape from a cabinet on that shelf.

Seeing Lin Ling's actions, Yu Lianyun's heart rate accelerated, and waves surged in her heart. She felt that hope lay in the object in Lin Ling's hand.

Lin Ling smiled and handed the videotape to Yu Lianyun, saying, "Take this back and watch it."

"Watch it?" Yu Lianyun was somewhat puzzled. Holding the plain and unadorned videotape, she examined its appearance; it was pure black, without any packaging, and she could not see any trademarks or engravings.

Yet for some reason, Yu Lianyun felt that another chill was lurking within the videotape. When she took it, her arms broke out in goosebumps. This slight abnormality also made Yu Lianyun believe that a strange and mysterious power was residing within this videotape.

"The rental period is seven days. Please return it to me within seven days," Lin Ling said with a smile. The arc of his upturned lips was sharp, revealing white, neat teeth. "It doesn't matter if you don't return it; the purpose of extending your lifespan will have been achieved anyway."

Yu Lianyun frowned slightly. "What exactly is inside this?"

"It can save your life," Lin Ling said with a warm smile. "Take it back and watch it, and you will know."

"Can I only rent it?"

"Of course not."

"Then I will buy it," Yu Lianyun said after some thought. After the cold in her body receded, her brain became clear again, and her thoughts became lucid. "Is that okay?"

"Of course it is," Lin Ling gave an affirmative answer without hesitation.

"The best way to eliminate difficulties is to face your fears. This is a videotape filled with Blessings," Lin Ling said, handing the black videotape to this customer who suffered from the intrusion of Other-dimensional Power every day, and smiled. "If it works well, don't forget to leave a five-star review."

The transaction was completed on the spot, money and goods exchanged. As Yu Lianyun left the shop, the rosewood door, which had no automatic closing components, closed by itself.

The woman put on her thick cotton coat again, as if she felt the biting chill once more. She walked away hunched over. The two demon masks on the door suddenly glowed slightly, their four eyes blinked, and they stared deeply at that desolate back.

"Will she return it?" Lin Ling sat on the rocking chair, stroking the black cat's fur while asking the black cat, though it was more like he was talking to himself.

The black cat looked up at Lin Ling and let out a lazy meow.

Lin Ling's mouth curled, and he let out a chuckle: "She clearly knew what might be inside that videotape, yet she still bought it."

"I actually should have pressed her further," Lin Ling said with a smile. "Even though that happened while she was unconscious, she didn't seem surprised by her father's death."