Chapter 329: Possessed

That smell was exactly the same smell that Pan Ma had smelled from the box later, only the one from the box was even stronger.

For Pan Ma, it was completely the smell of the dead. Those demons, whether human or ghost, the smell on them must have come from the underworld.

"Your friend also has that smell on him. If it weren't masked by the smell of herbs, I would have smelled it the first time I saw him." Old Pan Ma looked at me. "He's the same as them—a monster from the lake!"

What smell does Poker-face have? I'm not very sensitive to smells, and I'm not a hunter with an excellent sense of smell, so I was half skeptical—next time I'd have to sneak a sniff.

If things had stopped there, maybe it would have passed. After a while, people start to doubt their own memories and automatically erase what cannot be explained. But I knew it wasn't over, because just this alone wouldn't have led Old Pan Ma to conclude that Poker-face would harm me.

Sure enough, Pan Ma continued. He said what happened next made him unable to forget that smell for his entire life.

After this strange incident, Pan Ma constantly felt uneasy. Although those people seemed exactly the same as before, Pan Ma always felt that there was something eerie in their eyes and expressions. This feeling had no factual basis; it was entirely psychological. Pan Ma had a premonition that something would happen in the village.

A few days later, something happened in the village that made his hair stand on end.

There were four other people involved in the crime with him. They were all distantly or closely related by blood. One of them, named Pang Ergui, was the most timid and suddenly disappeared. Pan Ma and the others had a secret, and their hearts immediately tensed up, but no one dared to speak. The villagers searched the mountains for two days. Finally, Pan Ma and his group steeled themselves and returned to the lakeside, only to find that Pang Ergui was at the campsite, chatting and laughing with the members of the archaeological team.

Baffled, they brought him back. When Pan Ma grabbed him, he smelled that mysterious odor coming from Pang Ergui's body as well.

Pan Ma got goosebumps looking at Pang Ergui in broad daylight. He immediately felt that Pang Ergui's expression was different from before, as if he had become a different person.

That fear was indescribable. He felt that Pang Ergui must have been possessed by a ghost. Returning to the village, he instructed Pang Ergui's wife to tell him immediately if she noticed her husband acting abnormally.

But his wife didn't get the chance to notice. The next day, she got up and found Pang Ergui hanging dead by the bedside. The whole room was filled with that strange smell.

The villagers thought Pang Ergui had taken his own life or been bewitched by a fox spirit. Pan Ma understood the truth. Frightened and uneasy, he became even more certain that those people were monsters and that Pang Ergui had indeed been possessed.

Pang Ergui's wife was terrified and no longer dared to live in that house. She moved back to her parents' home, and the house became abandoned. The others were scared out of their wits. Two moved out of the village. Pan Ma and another stayed, but they dared not sleep at night and borrowed several dogs for protection, fearing that they would be next.

But the dogs were useless. A week later, the other person who stayed with him also disappeared. Two days after that, a child found him in the abandoned house of Pang Ergui, hanging dead in the exact same spot as Pang Ergui.

Pan Ma was tough by nature, having grown up with the mountains as his companion, so he was very strong. When fear reached its peak, he became reckless. He grabbed his gun and headed to the lakeside, thinking that he would rather die knowing the truth than wait passively. But when he entered the mountains, the archaeological team happened to be packing up and leaving.

Pan Ma encountered the team halfway. It seemed they no longer needed a guide. He had resolved himself earlier, but as soon as he saw them, his courage failed. Trembling with fear, he followed the team out of the mountains. As Pan Ma later said, the archaeological team left the village with the box that emitted that strange odor and never appeared again, up to the present. The two who fled to other villages didn't encounter any trouble. Pan Ma lived in fear for a year before gradually calming down and believing that they had truly gone.

This affair haunted Pan Ma like a nightmare. I could imagine the fear. Half a month after the team left, he went back to the lakeside to figure out what had happened. Walking around the lake, he found a piece of clothing that had somehow been washed ashore. In that clothing, he discovered that strange iron block.

The discovery of this iron block confirmed his belief that these people had definitely climbed out of the lake, because the iron block was inside the clothing and could never have been washed ashore by the lake water. That iron block gave off a smell that made his skin crawl. He knew it was significant, so he kept it on him. In his early days of poverty, he thought about selling it, but as life gradually improved, looking back on those years, he felt a lingering fear and decided to keep the secret and take it to his grave.

After that, we showed up.

That was the end of Pan Ma's secret.

After hearing this, I fell into a long contemplation. For once, I didn't feel even more confused. For the first time, I felt that I had found a chain that could link together all the doubts in my mind.

These mysteries were like rebar pipes with threads on both ends—each connection point was a doubt. But by connecting two doubts, four mysteries would be reduced to two. Connect all the pipes, and so many mysteries might only leave the first and last two. So connecting doubts one by one gave a great sense of satisfaction.

If it had been the old me, I would have gone crazy. But now I've learned not to look at the problem itself. I clearly realized the truth of this matter. This needed verification. If my thinking was correct, then the question that had puzzled Third Uncle, or rather Xie Lianhuan, would have an answer.

And to verify this, I had to go to that lakeside.

Old Pan Ma took out that iron block to show me. It was indeed the same as the one found under Poker-face's bed—the same iron lump with ancient patterns, but Pan Ma's was slightly larger. I deliberately smelled it and indeed caught a strange odor, very faint, almost indistinguishable. Old man said that when it was first discovered, the smell was strong, but gradually it faded away. The iron block was kept at home, and there were no insects in the house.

I temporarily lost interest in this object, my mind full of my speculations.

Pan Ma refused to go to that lakeside again. I thought about having Agui find another guide, gave the money to Pan Ma, and then stood up to take my leave.

When I reached the door, I suddenly thought of something else. I turned around and asked, "By the way, old man, where did you get the tattoo on your body?"

Pan Ma looked at me, a bit surprised that I suddenly asked this. His son explained on his behalf: "This is an anti-worm tattoo. A passing Miao shaman tattooed it on him when he was a child. At that time, my grandfather saved the shaman's life, and he tattooed this in thanks. It's said that with this tattoo, you can pass through Miao villages without hindrance, and no one will trouble you."