Chapter 3: Is She Really Dead?
Dong Xie's car was about to drive to the airport when his cell phone rang. So Dong Xie turned on his car's Bluetooth headset and answered the call; the caller was his cousin Yu Li. "Ah Evil, are you …… okay now?" An intersection appeared just ahead, showing a red light. Dong Xie gently stepped on the brakes and said to his cousin, "Well, I'm still fine, I'm going to Japan in the next few days to attend a friend's wedding." "Going to Japan?" "Well, the decision was a bit sudden, I just got my visa not long ago. Cousin, you ……" "Ah Evil, I …… I actually have some things I want to talk to you about. Not long ago, I remember that your friend circle posted a photo that you took in Hawaii ……" Dong Xie's expression was stunned. He really regretted now that he hadn't set the photo to be visible only to the apartment residents, and he didn't know how many people had seen the psychic image before he deleted the photo. "Cousin, that was me photoshopping it!" Dong Xie could only say this, he didn't want to involve his cousin in this. But then he felt strange, how long ago was this, he had deleted the photo long ago, his cousin couldn't have just found it. Or was it that some relative had seen the photo before and was just now telling his cousin about it? "Ah Evil, that, it's like this. When I used to go traveling, I visited a temple that has a very strong incense and is said to be very spiritual as well. Well, I thought, do you want to join me ……" Dong Xie hurriedly replied, "Cousin, you, you're overthinking it, nothing like that." "Ah Evil, listen to me, the abbot over there is said to be an accomplished monk, and to do a puja there, you have to make an appointment a month in advance. And the reason why the incense there is strong is also because the Bodhisattva there is especially spiritual. Well, I think, you still …… still go once. At that time it happened that the abbot had given me a business card, and I contacted there, and the abbot said that he could help you …… to …… put that …… over the top." Dong Qi gripped the steering wheel tightly and pursed his lips. A high priest of the path to enlightenment? Bullshit! Now temples are made like businesses, monks go out and drive luxury cars, earn more than the average wage earner, they have to have any ability to transcend the dead souls, Dong Xie live swallowed the keyboard. "Evil, listen to me, there are some things, not to be trusted, not to be trusted in its entirety, your current situation, some bad. I also thought at first that that photo of you was a PS, but ……" "Ah, cousin, that, my signal here isn't very good, I'll contact you next time." At this time, the red light in front of him turned green, and Dong Xie immediately hung up the phone, continuing to start the engine and stepping on the gas. Dong Ning on the side looked over and said, "Is that Cousin Yu Li?" "Yes, she noticed the friend circle photo from that time, and said that she wanted to find a temple to help me book a puja to transcend my dead soul." Dong Ning nodded and said, "Cousin Yu Li does care about you, but it's been so long before she thought of this matter?" "Maybe it's because this time, Grandmother's death has made her feel very strongly. Cousin is a very emotional person, and she almost fell out with uncle even for the sake of learning Western painting in the first place." And at this moment, Yu Li held a photo and looked at the scene on it carefully. Even though it was now broad daylight, seeing this photo still felt creepy. This photo had a clear shooting year and date on it, and it was an era when color TVs had just started to phase out black and white TVs, and this kind of technology like PS was incredibly high-tech now. Even though it was now broad daylight, holding this photo in her hand, Yu Li still felt a little shaky. She carefully put the photo into her wallet, thought carefully, and then took out her cell phone, and gave the abbot another call over. She remembered that last time, the abbot master said that he could consider selling her some enlightened Buddha beads, and it was free shipping, paypal wechat cloud flash payment can be, as long as the account arrived, it would definitely be shipped within two days. If you spend an extra five hundred, you can carve the name of the giver in front of the Bodhisattva, and you will certainly be blessed by the Bodhisattva and keep away from all evil spirits. On the other hand, Dong Xie and Dong Ning, who entered the airport with their suitcases, took their passports and went to check in, Dong Ning suddenly said to Dong Xie, "But brother, we don't believe in domestic temples, and Japanese Shintoism may not be useful either, right?" "I'm also beating a dead horse." Dong Xie thought carefully, probably because when he was collecting material for his novel, he watched too many Japanese horror movies, and subconsciously always felt that this land of the East might really have some capable people. "Hopefully …… so." Dong Ning's this answer, said breathless, obviously do not hold much hope. Ever since seeing that Hawaiian photo in the first place, Dong Ning had been worried about it and had trouble sleeping and eating. Was that evil spirit still haunting her brother? If it was still there, was it possible to fight with the evil spirit in the word of blood when executing the word of blood and come to an end? Of course, this was a rather ideal idea, and whether it could actually be realized was anyone's guess. Could the family behind Kitayama Jinglong that seemed to have some background in Shintoism be able to help them? "Regarding the North Mountain Family, what exactly did North Mountain Jinglong himself say? Brother?" "That, in fact, he knows only a limited amount about, but it seems that this matriarchal family has left him with some very strong childhood shadows." Dong Xie pondered for a moment and murmured, "Also, it seems that the Kitayama family's shrine cannot be described as a pure Shintoist shrine." "What does that mean?" "There's a Japanese saying of eight million deities, you know that, right? It's a pantheistic claim that even toilets have so-called toilet gods. And Kitayama Keiryu said that even his mother herself was somewhat repulsed by the family. His mother would have been arranged by the family for a set marriage, and after the marriage she would also have become a witch at the family shrine." "Is a witch …… like Kustoma from Inuyasha?" "Probably about the same. However, Kitayama Kageyu's claim is that the family believes in a god not in the conventional sense of the word. Rather, it's some sort of, more sinister existence……. The fact that he's been able to conceive so many horror novels also seems to have something to do with the childhood shadows that the family brought upon themselves. Originally, he didn't really want to go back to Japan to organize another wedding, but the family side was very insistent." "Sounds like it's a bit complicated, it's not a family-run cult group, is it?" "No, that's not true, the family has a large amount of real estate, even a considerable amount of real estate in the Tokyo metropolitan area." "Let's hope it's really something 'capable'." Dong Xie and Dong Ning were both a little apprehensive, having hope, but more afraid of despair. "Brother, I actually read some of the books written by Beishan Jinglong last night." "Then what do you think?" "I always feel that he might have some Oedipal complex. Well, it's my personal guess, but in his novels, the mother of the protagonist is always depicted heavily, sometimes even noisily. I remember in the book Dead Worm, the protagonist's mother was absolutely central to the plot for the entire fifty chapters, and the protagonist didn't have a single scene in those fifty chapters at all. Moreover, the female protagonist is always obsequious and impersonal to the protagonist's mother, portraying far less colorful than the protagonist's mother." "That …… maybe. Maybe he adores his own mother." Dong Xie's character did not like to casually comment on people he did not know behind his back, after all, he had also been endlessly denigrated and vilified behind his back when he was a student. "However, there's a horrible plot, and it's indeed quite brilliantly written. Well, maybe you'll be upset brother, but his horror atmosphere shaping is really better than yours. Maybe it also has something to do with his characterization skills. The female protagonist of Dead Bugs is one of the few characters under his pen that has some independence and individuality." Dong Xie also liked Dead Worm the most within Kitayama Jinglong's books. When Nefly released the 10 episodes of the first season at once, he was the first to download them all. However, Nefly, as an American company, was obviously not very good at filming Eastern-style horror stories, and the only thing that stood out was that the characterization of the male and female protagonists was still basically restored to the original. And at that time, Mother Ziyi also interpreted the female protagonist quite well, and the stylist was especially helpful, becoming a very out-of-the-box role for Mother Ziyi. While waiting to board the plane, Dong Xie sat in the airport terminal, took out his cell phone, connected to the airport WiFi, and opened the Renren Video App, intending to revisit the first season of Dead Bugs. After opening the video, the first image was of a mother, Ziyi, with long hair flowing and a plain white mourning dress, walking on a dark forest. Behind her, is a crowd of people who are sprinkling paper money and carrying coffins. Netflix's photographic power is indeed powerful, the paper money flying sprinkled, the camera gradually cut close to the mother's face, high-definition camera, in the bright moonlight, revealing her incomparably pale, but absolutely beautiful face …… This image later became the avatar, desktop wallpaper and bar signature of countless people. After many years to see again, Dong Xie still feel incomparable stunning, he even dare not imagine, mother purple clothes were once like him, is also the resident of the hell apartment …… Is she now, really dead?