Chapter 465

After Pangzi left, I kept sitting in the room waiting for a long time.

The vengeful spirit we just fought didn't appear again; I don't know if I startled him or if his appearance was merely a coincidence.

In short, after that fleeting encounter, the room no longer had a trace of resentment or killing intent.

The old madman woke up twice midway, but he remained his crazy self; from his expression, he didn't seem genuine. I tried many times, and although I eased some of his wariness, he kept speaking irrelevant words, shouting his grievances, or muttering to himself nonstop.

"Old sir, can you tell me about your father Yuan Zheng's affairs?" I tried making one last effort.

However, this effort earned me even more frenzied punches and kicks from the old madman, so I could only resentfully give up.

In the evening, I sat dazedly on the stone of the old dilapidated house, and Pangzi slowly walked over from the direction of the village's end.

I stood up and urgently asked Pangzi: "How did things go?"

Pangzi gave a wry smile and said: "The Liu Mu plaque has been dug up, and the dwarf ghost has been pacified. Uncle and the opera troupe brothers have also been soothed. But I can't delay much longer."

He paused, then asked: "By the way, you've been here so long—any progress?"

I shook my head and likewise gave a wry smile: "No progress at all—I couldn't get any information, and that vengeful spirit hasn't appeared either. I don't know if he's become wary or if he's really left."

"Sigh," Pangzi sighed: "What should we do now?"

I was likewise dejected, at a loss, and Pangzi and I stood there awkwardly, desperately thinking of a good plan.

"Maybe we have a method we can try!" After a long silence, I hesitantly spoke up.

"What method?"

I didn't answer, just glanced at Pangzi, then countered: "Do you really think Yuan Zheng would be a deserter? If he truly was a deserter, his death would surely be self-inflicted, and after death he couldn't have such great resentment. If not…"

"There must be some grievance there…" Pangzi slapped his palm, then rested his chin in thought: "Actually, I've also considered this question. From the incident on the stage to now, I've noticed a common factor in these events: the victims are invariably those playing Japanese soldiers. Meanwhile, actors playing the Red Army or **, even if they suffer some bumps, sustain hardly any injury."

"If Yuan Zheng really were a deserter, he couldn't be so brave. What is he staying in this mortal world for? What obsession does he refuse to let go of? We can't know any of that."

"Since we can't know, why don't we try to find the cause?"

"What do you mean?"

Under Pangzi's somewhat doubtful gaze, I nodded firmly and said, word by word: "I want to summon a spirit."

The summoning I refer to is not for summoning Yuan Zheng's soul. Although the Daoist Sect's spirit-summoning technique can open the yin-yang pathways and draw ghosts to Yangjian, it has significant limitations. First, one must know the birth date and time of the person whose spirit is to be summoned, and use an item of their clothing to summon the spirit. Second, the person must have died not long ago, and one must know where they died, in order to call back the soul.

But for Yuan Zheng's vengeful spirit, no one knows where he died, let alone find his personal clothing and birth data. Thus this spirit-summoning technique has no applicable medium at all.

The only thing we can do is to lure Yuan Zheng out.

"You mean you want to use the paper-man troop-summoning technique? Summon spirits from the underworld, put on a show, and draw out Yuan Zheng?" Pangzi isn't foolish; he also knows that ordinary spirit-summoning would have no effect on Yuan Zheng. Being familiar with each other, he quickly grasped the meaning.

I nodded in agreement: "Exactly, Yuan Zheng seems highly sensitive to anti-Japanese dramas. Whenever the stage performs a play, he appears promptly. Therefore, this anti-Japanese drama must be related to Yuan Zheng's obsession."

It's like moving into a haunted house. At first everything might be fine, but after a few days ghosts often come out to cause trouble. Or, you might live peacefully, while others who move in end up possessed by ghosts.

The factor could be that you touched some beloved object of his before him, slept in the place where he died before, offending him. Or, you did something reminiscent of his past, triggering his resonance.

Pangzi and I had once encountered such a thing when we first started out.

It was a beautiful female university student who rented a dormitory in Shenzhen University Town. When she first moved in, everything was fine, and she noticed nothing strange.

But when she picked up the comb from the dressing table, washed her hair at night, and combed it while looking in the mirror, the house would inexplicably lose power, and then she would see another herself in the mirror.

A figure with bulging eyes, a pallid and eerie face, dressed in white, sat silently before the mirror combing hair. Every motion of combing hair matched her own exactly.

One evening, the female student's boyfriend suddenly ran over to celebrate her birthday with her. At night, he stood behind the mirror and gently combed her hair.

But in a sudden moment, through the mirror's reflection, she saw standing behind her not her boyfriend, but a strange woman in white with blood flowing from her neck.

That woman's appearance was exactly what she usually saw when combing her hair! As soon as she regained her senses, her neck was violently choked— that hand was her boyfriend's, no mistake. But through the mirror, she saw only that strange woman, the hands choking her neck being that pair of pallid, bloodless hands.

This situation lasted several minutes until the female student struggled hard and broke free of her boyfriend's vein-bulging hand. Afterwards, the boyfriend fainted. However, when he woke up, he completely forgot what had happened.

Pangzi and I once asked the landlord, and discovered that someone had died in the house before—a dance girl who often liked to hold that old wooden comb and sit before the mirror to comb her hair.

That dance girl's identity was a mistress who had fallen for a civil servant with a proper occupation. She always harbored an obsession: she wanted her boyfriend to stand behind her dressing table, apply her eyebrows once, and comb her hair once. But after their affair was exposed, this thought became a fantasy; after her death, the fantasy turned into resentment.

The principle behind this is actually simple. The female college student touched the ghost's posthumous relic, and by doing what the female ghost loved most in life, she triggered a resonance between their hearts. The female ghost's obsession was for her man to give her a makeover and comb her hair. So when the female college student's boyfriend combed her hair, it also stirred the female ghost's deep resentment.

So I speculate that something similar in the anti-Japanese drama triggered the resonance of this wronged soul, Yuan Zheng. Thus Yuan Zheng's ghost appeared and possessed a theater troupe brother, injuring some of the performing brothers.

As for what this obsession is, I have no way of knowing; to clarify the details, I came up with a bold idea in my mind.

Using a soul-summoning method, I would lure the netherworld's yin soldiers to Yangjian, employ the bone-weighing technique to make paper effigies, have these yin soldiers impersonate the living to stage an anti-Japanese drama, and thereby draw out Yuan Zheng's ghost.

I dare not use living people to act, for one thing it would become common knowledge; for another, the risk is too great, and the murderous aura of military spirits is not something everyone can bear.

I slowly explained my idea to Pangzi; after a moment's thought, he also felt this plan was feasible.

"Since that's the case, let's get moving right away—let's hurry to the paper‑stall at the village entrance and buy some paper effigies." Having said that, Pangzi got ready to step out and run toward the village entrance.

"Hold on..." I grabbed him and pulled him back: "Go find Brother Song Lin; I'll go to the paper stall to buy paper effigies. We'll split up and meet at the mid‑slope of the back mountain."

Pangzi looked surprised, scratching his head in confusion as he asked me: "Why are you looking for Song Lin?"

"Stupid, if you don't find him, who's going to teach the ghosts to act? Do you really expect me to summon a few actor ghosts?" Looking at his bewildered, half‑asleep expression, I was furious. Damn it, I don't know what's wrong with your brain. Usually you seem smart, but at crucial moments your brain gets rusty.