novelden Chapter 847 Diary
Chapter 847 Diary
The last entry was the night before she disappeared: "If I disappear one day, please don't be sad for me. Let the nightingale's song tell me about the injustice of this world." The handwriting was stained with tears, revealing endless despair. Lin Xia closed the diary. The rain outside the window had stopped at some point. The sun shone through the clouds on the land of Jiangzhou, and the echo in the dark alley gradually dissipated. But she knew that in some corner of the city, there might be some unknown secrets waiting to be revealed. And she would continue to pursue the truth and make justice no longer silent.
The Secret Shadow in the Attic: The Blood Contract That Was Sealed for Twenty Years**
Jiangzhou is always shrouded in a layer of wet fog during the rainy season. Lin Xiaoman's hand holding the brass key is sweating. The Xu residence in front of her is a century-old European-style building. The vines are all over the mottled exterior walls. The copper rings on the iron door are covered with thick green rust, like a pair of turbid eyes. She took a deep breath and pushed open the creaking door. A mixture of musty and sandalwood smells hit her face. As a well-known antique restorer, Lin Xiaoman has received all kinds of commissions, but this time is a little different. Three days ago, she received an anonymous letter with only a key and a line of words: "Xu's attic, waiting for you for twenty years." The sender's place was blank, and the edges of the letter paper were slightly yellowed, as if it had been stored in a humid environment for a long time. Passing through the dark entrance, Lin Xiaoman's eyes were attracted by the oil painting on the wall. The woman in the painting is wearing a white dress, holding a black cat, with a faint smile on her lips, but her eyes are indescribably weird. What's even more bizarre is that there is a line of small characters engraved in the corner of the picture frame: "In 1998, the blood contract has been made." This year was the year when the family of Xu Shichang, the owner of Xu's house, disappeared mysteriously. The stairs leading to the attic have been in disrepair for a long time, and every step makes a tooth-grinding creaking sound. The attic door was ajar, and a dark red light seeped out from the crack. Lin Xiaoman held the flashlight tightly and pushed the door open. The beam swept across the room, and the dust danced wildly in the beam of light. On the camphorwood box against the wall, seven ceramic dolls were neatly placed, each wearing a wedding dress from a different era, with a red rope tied around the neck, and the end of the rope tied in a knot. At this moment, there was a sound of heavy objects falling behind him. Lin Xiaoman turned around abruptly, only to see the tail of the black cat flash by. It was the black cat in the arms of the woman in the painting, squatting on the windowsill at this moment, staring at her with green eyes. Her cell phone vibrated at this moment, a text message from an unfamiliar number: "Don't touch those dolls, or you will become the eighth." Cold sweat slid down her back, and Lin Xiaoman forced herself to calm down. She noticed a line of very small words engraved on the edge of the camphorwood box: "On the seventh day of each month, blood is used as a sacrifice." And today is the seventh day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar. She carefully opened the box. In addition to several yellowed diaries, there was also a yellowed contract, which read: "I am willing to exchange my blood for eternal peace." At the end of the signature, seven names were crooked, and the one at the bottom was Xu Shichang. Opening the diary, the date on the first page was January 1998, 1. The recorder was Xu Shichang's wife Zhou Shufen, and there was fear between the lines: "Achang's behavior has been getting more and more strange recently. He said that black cats can see things that we can't see. Those dolls were brought back by him from the antique shop. Every late at night, I can hear the chanting of scriptures coming from the attic..." The more Lin Xiaoman read, the more shaking her hands became. It turned out that in order to make his family prosperous, Xu Shichang listened to the words of the Feng Shui master and signed a blood contract with seven evil spirits, sacrificing living people on the seventh day of every month. Zhou Shufen wanted to call the police after discovering the truth, but she disappeared mysteriously on a rainy night. The last diary entry stopped on July 1, 1998, and the handwriting was so sloppy that it was almost unrecognizable: "Achang is crazy, he said he would complete the last ceremony tonight..." Suddenly there was footsteps downstairs, and Lin Xiaoman hurriedly stuffed the diary back into the box. She hid behind the door and watched a man in a bamboo hat walk into the room. The man walked straight to the camphorwood box, picked up a doll and began to wipe it. Lin Xiaoman's mobile phone suddenly played a recording automatically, a woman screaming: "No! Let my child go!" The man in the bamboo hat turned around suddenly, and Lin Xiaoman could see clearly that the other person's face was wrapped in bandages, revealing only a pair of scarlet eyes. She turned and ran, but was tripped by a black cat at the stairs. The man in the bamboo hat followed slowly, and I don't know when he had a rusty dagger in his hand. At the critical moment, the attic window was suddenly blown open by the wind, and heavy rain poured in, extinguishing the strange red light in the room. Lin Xiaoman took the opportunity to rush to the window and climbed down along the vines. When she landed, she bumped into someone. Looking up, she saw a young man in police uniform, with a police number on his chest showing that his name was Lu Chuan. "Are you okay?" Lu Chuan reached out and pulled her up, "I'm here to investigate the Xu's case. There are some strange clues in the files from 7 years ago." With the help of Lu Chuan, Lin Xiaoman returned to the police station. In the archives room, the dusty case files exuded a pungent smell of camphor. Records on July 7, 1998 showed that when Xu's house was discovered, a female corpse was lying in each of the seven rooms. The cause of death was excessive blood loss, and there were wounds on the neck similar to cat scratches. Xu Shichang and his eight-year-old daughter Xu Youyou are still missing. What's even more creepy is that the forensic report mentioned that an unknown toxin was detected in the body of the deceased, which can cause hallucinations. Lu Chuan turned out a yellowed photo, in which Xu Youyou was holding a black cat with an innocent smile. "The strange thing is," Lu Chuan said, "before Xu Youyou disappeared, she drew a picture with seven women in wedding dresses, exactly the same as the dolls you saw in the attic." When the clue was interrupted again, Lin Xiaoman received another anonymous letter. This time, the envelope contained half an old photo, which showed a group of people in Taoist robes holding a ceremony, with Xu's house in the background. On the back of the photo was written: "The blood contract is not broken, and the reincarnation will not stop." She suddenly remembered the Feng Shui master mentioned in the diary. Perhaps this person is the key to solving the mystery. By visiting the old neighbors of that year, Lin Xiaoman learned that the Feng Shui master was named Xuanyi and lived in a Taoist temple on the outskirts of the city. When she and Lu Chuan arrived, the Taoist temple had already been dilapidated. On the altar in the main hall, there were seven small pottery jars, each of which was pasted with a talisman. Xuanyi's body fell in the corner, with a peach wood sword stuck in his chest and a terrified expression on his face. In Xuanyi's bedroom, Lin Xiaoman found a notebook. It turns out that the so-called blood contract is not a secret technique at all, but a lie made up by Xuanyi to make money. He used poison to control the victims and made them kill each other. But in the last ceremony, Xuanyi suffered a backlash - Xu Youyou scratched him with a black cat in the chaos and fled with his father.